Computer Sciences Commons^™

The Mathematics And Applications Behind Image Warping And Morphing, Tanvir Prince, Maria Malik, Ildefonso Salva, Ariel Mazor, Sakhr Aldaylam

Publications and Research

This research is conducted in the summer of 2015 and is possible by the support of various agency, in particular, by the grant of Prof. Angulo Nieves and the New York City Research Initiative.

The purpose of this research is to reveal the mathematics and applications of the computer animation techniques of warping and morphing. A warp is a twist or distortion in the form of an object in an image while a morph is the smooth and gradual transformation of an object in one image into the object in another image. Linear algebra makes these computer animation techniques possible; …

Detecting Broken Pointcuts Using Structural Commonality And Degree Of Interest, Raffi Khatchadourian, Awais Rashd, Hidehiko Masuhara, Takuya Watanabe

Publications and Research

Pointcut fragility is a well-documented problem in Aspect-Oriented Programming; changes to the base code can lead to join points incorrectly falling in or out of the scope of pointcuts. Deciding which pointcuts have broken due to base-code changes is daunting, especially in large and complex systems. We present an automated approach that recommends pointcuts that are likely to require modification due to a certain base-code change and ones that do not. Our hypothesis is that join points selected by a pointcut exhibit common structural characteristics. Patterns describing such commonalities recommend pointcuts that have potentially broken to the developer. The approach …

Porting The Netbeans Java 8 Enhanced For Loop Lambda Expression Refactoring To Eclipse, Md Arefin, Raffi Khatchadourian

Publications and Research

Java 8 is one of the largest upgrades to the popular language and framework in over a decade. However, the Eclipse IDE is missing several key refactorings that could help developers take advantage of new features in Java 8 more easily. In this paper, we discuss our ongoing work in porting the enhanced for loop to lambda expression refactoring from the NetBeans IDE to Eclipse. We also discuss future plans for new Java 8 refactorings not found in any current IDE.

Porting The Netbeans Java 8 Enhanced For Loop Lambda Expression Refactoring To Eclipse, Md Arefin, Raffi Khatchadourian

Publications and Research

Java 8 is one of the largest upgrades to the popular language and framework in over a decade. However, the Eclipse IDE is missing several key refactorings that could help developers take advantage of new features in Java 8 more easily. In this paper, we discuss our ongoing work in porting the enhanced for loop to lambda expression refactoring from the NetBeans IDE to Eclipse. We also discuss future plans for new Java 8 refactorings not found in any current IDE.

Fraglight: Shedding Light On Broken Pointcuts In Evolving Aspect-Oriented Software, Raffi Khatchadourian, Awais Rashid, Hidehiko Masuhara, Takuya Watanabe

Publications and Research

Pointcut fragility is a well-documented problem in Aspect-Oriented Programming; changes to the base code can lead to join points incorrectly falling in or out of the scope of pointcuts. Deciding which pointcuts have broken due to base-code changes is daunting, especially in large and complex systems. We demonstrate an automated tool called FRAGLIGHT that recommends a set of pointcuts that are likely to require modification due to a certain base-code change. The underlying approach is rooted in harnessing unique and arbitrarily deep structural commonality between program elements corresponding to join points selected by a pointcut in a particular software version. …

Inferring Interaction Type In Gene Regulatory Networks Using Co-Expression Data, Pegah Khosravi, Vahid H. Gazestani, Leila Pirhaji, Brian Law, Mehdi Sadeghi, Bahram Goliaei, Gary D. Bader

Publications and Research

Background

Knowledge of interaction types in biological networks is important for understanding the functional organization of the cell. Currently information-based approaches are widely used for inferring gene regulatory interactions from genomics data, such as gene expression profiles; however, these approaches do not provide evidence about the regulation type (positive or negative sign) of the interaction.

Results

This paper describes a novel algorithm, “Signing of Regulatory Networks” (SIREN), which can infer the regulatory type of interactions in a known gene regulatory network (GRN) given corresponding genome-wide gene expression data. To assess our new approach, we applied it to three different benchmark …

Low-Rank Based Algorithms For Rectification, Repetition Detection And De-Noising In Urban Images, Juan Liu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, we aim to solve the problem of automatic image rectification and repeated patterns detection on 2D urban images, using novel low-rank based techniques. Repeated patterns (such as windows, tiles, balconies and doors) are prominent and significant features in urban scenes.

Detection of the periodic structures is useful in many applications such as photorealistic 3D reconstruction, 2D-to-3D alignment, facade parsing, city modeling, classification, navigation, visualization in 3D map environments, shape completion, cinematography and 3D games. However both of the image rectification and repeated patterns detection problems are challenging due to scene occlusions, varying illumination, pose variation and sensor …

Theory And Applications Of Outsider Anonymity In Broadcast Encryption, Irippuge Deshan Milinda Perera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Broadcast Encryption (BE) allows efficient one-to-many secret communication of data over a broadcast channel. In the standard setting of BE, information about receivers is transmitted in the clear together with ciphertexts. This could be a serious violation of recipient privacy since the identities of the users authorized to access the secret content in certain broadcast scenarios are as sensitive as the content itself. Anonymous Broadcast Encryption (AnoBe) prevents this leakage of recipient identities from ciphertexts but at a cost of a linear lower bound (in the number of receivers) on the length of ciphertexts. A linear ciphertext length is a …

Using Python To Solve The Navier-Stokes Equations - Applications In The Preconditioned Iterative Methods, Jia Liu, Lina Wu, Xingang Fang

Publications and Research

This article describes a new numerical solver for the Navier-Stokes equations. The proposed solver is written in Python which is a newly developed language. The Python packages are built to solve the Navier-Stokes equations with existing libraries. We have created discretized coefficient matrices from systems of the Navier-Stokes equations by the finite difference method. In addition we focus on the preconditioned Krylov subspace iterative methods in the linearized systems. Numerical results of performances for the Preconditioned iterative methods are demonstrated. The comparison between Python and Matlab is discussed at the end of the paper.

Random Multipliers Numerically Stabilize Gaussian And Block Gaussian Elimination: Proofs And An Extension To Low-Rank Approximation, Victor Pan, Xiaodong Yan

Publications and Research

We study two applications of standard Gaussian random multipliers. At first we prove that with a probability close to 1 such a multiplier is expected to numerically stabilize Gaussian elimination with no pivoting as well as block Gaussian elimination. Then, by extending our analysis, we prove that such a multiplier is also expected to support low-rank approximation of a matrix without customary oversampling. Our test results are in good accordance with this formal study. The results remain similar when we replace Gaussian multipliers with random circulant or Toeplitz multipliers, which involve fewer random parameters and enable faster multiplication. We formally …

The Hosoya Entropy Of A Graph, Abbe Mowshowitz, Matthias Dehmer

Publications and Research

This paper demonstrates properties of Hosoya entropy, a quantitative measure of graph complexity based on a decomposition of the vertices linked to partial Hosoya polynomials. Connections between the information content of a graph and Hosoya entropy are established, and the special case of Hosoya entropy of trees is investigated.

Identifying And Analyzing Rna Pseudoknots Based On Graph-Theoretical Properties Of Dual Graphs: A Partitioning Approach, Louis Petingi

Publications and Research

In this paper we propose the study of properties of RNA secondary structures modeled as dual graphs, by partitioning these graphs into topological components denominated blocks. We give a full characterization of possible topological configurations of these blocks, and, in particular we show that an RNA secondary structure contains a pseudoknot if and only if its corresponding dual graph contains a block having a vertex of degree at least 3. Once a dual graph has been partitioned via computationally-efficient well-known graph-theoretical algorithms, this characterization allow us to identify these sub-topologies and physically isolate pseudoknots from RNA secondary structures and analyze …

Theory Development And Pilot Testing Of A New Survey Instrument On Usability By Older Adults, Meriam Caboral-Stevens

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An aging population and the use of technology are two pervasive phenomena that are burgeoning simultaneously. The confluence of these phenomena may present challenges for the older adults that could prevent a successful interface. Barriers and challenges can be addressed by examining the interface between older adults and technology. Usability is described as how well and how easily a user without formal training can interact effectively with the system. A review of the literature shows paucity in nursing theories on usability and the use of technology among older adults. This paper describes the development of a conceptual model - Use …

Quadratic Discriminant Analysis Revisited, Wenbo Cao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, we revisit quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA), a standard classification method. Specifically, we investigate the parameter estimation and dimension reduction problems for QDA.

Traditionally, the parameters of QDA are estimated generatively; that is the parameters are estimated by maximizing the joint likelihood of observations and their labels. In practice, classical QDA, though computationally efficient, often underperforms discriminative classifiers, such as SVM, Boosting methods, and logistic regression. Motivated by recent research on hybrid generative/discriminative learning, we propose to estimate the parameters of QDA by minimizing a convex combination of negative joint log-likelihood and negative conditional log-likelihood of observations and …

It-Enabled Coordination In Electronic Markets: An Experimental Investigation Of The Effects Of Social Communication On Group Buyers, Alexander Pelaez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Coordination, and the mechanisms by which coordination occurs, represents a significant area of study for economic research, and information technology. Technology enhances communication in both speed and quantity of information and when aligned with appropriate tasks can improve decision-making and task performance. Examining the effect of technology based coordination mechanisms on market platforms provides insight into outcomes as represented by buyer surplus and task completion as well as behaviors, such as network structure and emotional attitudes in economic experiments. Drawing on theory from economics and information systems, larger buyer groups should be able to obtain better prices and extract higher …

Preconditioning For Matrix Computation, Xiaodong Yan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Preconditioning is a classical subject of numerical solution of linear systems of equations. The goal is to turn a linear system into another one which is easier to solve. The two central subjects of numerical matrix computations are LIN-SOLVE, that is, the solution of linear systems of equations and EIGEN-SOLVE, that is, the approximation of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a matrix. We focus on the former subject of LIN-SOLVE and show an application to EIGEN-SOLVE. We achieve our goal by applying randomized additive and multiplicative preconditioning. We facilitate the numerical solution by decreasing the condition of the coefficient matrix …

Tr-2015001: A Survey And Critique Of Facial Expression Synthesis In Sign Language Animation, Hernisa Kacorri

Computer Science Technical Reports

Sign language animations can lead to better accessibility of information and services for people who are deaf and have low literacy skills in spoken/written languages. Due to the distinct word-order, syntax, and lexicon of the sign language from the spoken/written language, many deaf people find it difficult to comprehend the text on a computer screen or captions on a television. Animated characters performing sign language in a comprehensible way could make this information accessible. Facial expressions and other non-manual components play an important role in the naturalness and understandability of these animations. Their coordination to the manual signs is crucial …

Object Oriented Programming, Praveen Khethavath

Open Educational Resources

Students write a program that reads data based on a provided banking scenario, work on inputs, and generate a report after the data is processed.

Framing The Question, "Who Governs The Internet?", Robert J. Domanski

Publications and Research

There remains a widespread perception among both the public and elements of academia that the Internet is “ungovernable”. However, this idea, as well as the notion that the Internet has become some type of cyber-libertarian utopia, is wholly inaccurate. Governments may certainly encounter tremendous difficulty in attempting to regulate the Internet, but numerous types of authority have nevertheless become pervasive. So who, then, governs the Internet? This book will contend that the Internet is, in fact, being governed, that it is being governed by specific and identifiable networks of policy actors, and that an argument can be made as to …

Proceedings Of The 2nd Annual Cuny Games Festival, Robert O. Duncan, Joe Bisz, Francesco Crocco, Carlos Hernandez, Kathleen Offenholley, Maura A. Smale, Deborah Sturm, Cuny Games Network

Publications and Research

Proceedings of the CUNY Games Conference, held from January 16-17, 2015, at the CUNY Graduate Center and Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Health Games - Language and Composition - Design: Classroom Considerations - Games in the Physical Environment - Games and Behavioral Science - Play, Politics & Economics - Gaming Curricula, Disciplines & Programs - Gaming and History - Institutional Programming with Games - Philosophy and Roleplaying - Ed. Game Design: Strategy & Tactics - Repurposing Game Genres - Narrative, Storytelling & Games - Community & Social Justice - Extemporaneity - Personal & Social Transformation - Cognition, Design & Play …

Dynamics Of Propagation Of Premature Impulses In Structurally Remodeled Infarcted Myocardium: A Computational Analysis, Candido Cabo

Publications and Research

Initiation of cardiac arrhythmias typically follows one or more premature impulses either occurring spontaneously or applied externally. In this study, we characterize the dynamics of propagation of single (S2) and double premature impulses (S3), and the mechanisms of block of premature impulses at structural heterogeneities caused by remodeling of gap junctional conductance (Gj) in infarcted myocardium. Using a sub-cellular computer model of infarcted tissue, we found that |INa,max|, prematurity (coupling interval with the previous impulse), and conduction velocity (CV) of premature impulses change dynamically as they propagate away from the site of initiation. There are fundamental differences between the dynamics …

A Partner-Matching Framework For Social Activity Communities, Chunyu Ai, Wei Zhong, Mingyuan Yan, Feng Gu

Publications and Research

A lot of daily activities require more than one person to participate and collaborate with each other; however, for many people, it is not easy to find good partners to engage in activities with one another. With the rapid growth of social network applications, more and more people get used to creating connections with people on the social network. Therefore, designing social network framework for partner-matching is significant in helping people to easily find good partners. In this paper, we proposed a framework which can match partners for an active community. In order to improve the matching performance, all users …

Postmodern Fuzzy System Theory: A Deconstruction Approach Based On Kabbalah, Gabriel Burstein, Constantin Virgil Negoita, Menachem Kranz

Publications and Research

Modern general system theory proposed a holistic integrative approach based on input-state-output dynamics as opposed to the traditional reductionist detail based approach. Information complexity and uncertainty required a fuzzy system theory, based on fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic. While successful in dealing with analysis, synthesis and control of technical engineering systems, general system theory and fuzzy system theory could not fully deal with humanistic and human-like intelligent systems which combine technical engineering components with human or human-like components characterized by their cognitive, emotional/motivational and behavioral/action levels of operation. Such humanistic systems are essential in artificial intelligence, cognitive and behavioral science …

Canvas: A Fast And Accurate Geometric Sentence Alignment System Using Lexical Cues Within Complex Misalignment Settings, Hussein M. Ghaly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this paper, we present a new sentence alignment system (Canvas), which is a Python implementation of a geometric approach to sentence alignment, based on lexical cues. Canvas system is designed mainly to handle parallel texts exhibiting complex misalignment patterns, namely within English-Arabic pairs for United Nations documents. The system relies heavily on pre-indexing words/tokens in the source and target texts, and it creates correspondences between the token indexes. From this point onward, the alignment problem is reduced to a geometric problem of finding the path that runs through the True Correspondence Points (TCPs). The likelihood of a point being …

The Computational Complexity Of Some Games And Puzzles With Theoretical Applications, Vasiliki Despoina Mitsou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The subject of this thesis is the algorithmic properties of one- and two-player

games people enjoy playing, such as Sudoku or Chess. Questions asked about puzzles

and games in this context are of the following type: can we design efficient computer

programs that play optimally given any opponent (for a two-player game), or solve

any instance of the puzzle in question?

We examine four games and puzzles and show algorithmic as well as intractability

results. First, we study the wolf-goat-cabbage puzzle, where a man wants to transport

a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage across a river by using a …

Text Extraction From Natural Scene: Methodology And Application, Chucai Yi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With the popularity of the Internet and the smart mobile device, there is an increasing demand for the techniques and applications of image/video-based analytics and information retrieval. Most of these applications can benefit from text information extraction in natural scene. However, scene text extraction is a challenging problem to be solved, due to cluttered background of natural scene and multiple patterns of scene text itself. To solve these problems, this dissertation proposes a framework of scene text extraction.

Scene text extraction in our framework is divided into two components, detection and recognition. Scene text detection is to find out the …

Systematic Comparison Of Cross-Lingual Projection Techniques For Low-Density Nlp Under Strict Resource Constraints, Joshua Waxman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The field of low-density NLP is often approached from an engineering perspective, and evaluations are typically haphazard - considering different architectures, given different languages, and different available resources - without a systematic comparison. The resulting architectures are then tested on the unique corpus and language for which this approach has been designed. This makes it difficult to truly evaluate which approach is truly the "best," or which approaches are best for a given language.

In this dissertation, several state-of-the-art architectures and approaches to low-density language Part-Of-Speech Tagging are reimplemented; all of these techniques exploit a relationship between a high-density (HD) …

Randomized Search Of Graphs In Log Space And Probabilistic Computation, Wen-Ju Cheng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Reingold has shown that L = SL, that s-t connectivity in a poly-mixing digraph is complete for promise-RL, and that s-t connectivity for a poly-mixing out-regular digraph with known stationary distribution is in L. Several properties that bound the mixing times of random walks on digraphs have been identified, including the digraph conductance and the digraph spectral expansion. However, rapidly mixing digraphs can still have exponential cover time, thus it is important to specifically identify structural properties of digraphs that effect cover times. We examine the complexity of random walks on a basic parameterized family of unbalanced digraphs called Strong …

Quantum Crystallography Of Hydronium Cations, Sonjae Sycoria Wallace

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cationic hydronium clusters of the form [HaOb]^c,(c>0), have been investigated. After investigating over 2000 crystal structures containing hydronium cations found in the Cambridge Structural Database. The hydronium cationic compounds that were most unusual, mischaracterized, or those of apparent aggregates, were investigated further by geometry optimization and in some cases with the Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules (QTAIM). The results of our investigations yielded the first reports of stable conformations of cyclic dihydronium cationic clusters. In a second investigation we reported the first theoretically confirmed transition state of a H7O3+conformer captured within a crystal. A third product from our …

Self-Referentiality In Constructive Semantics Of Intuitionistic And Modal Logics, Junhua Yu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores self-referentiality in the framework of justification logic. In this framework initialed by Artemov, the language has formulas of the form t:F, which means "the term t is a justification of the formula F." Moreover, terms can occur inside formulas and hence it is legal to have t:F(t), which means "the term t is a justification of the formula F about t itself." Expressions like this is not only interesting in the semantics of justification logic, but also, as we will see, necessary in applications of justification logic in formalizing constructive contents implicitly carried by modal and intuitionistic …