Computer Sciences Commons^™

Scaling Ant Colony Optimization With Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning Partitioning, Erik J. Dries, Gilbert L. Peterson

Faculty Publications

This paper merges hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) with ant colony optimization (ACO) to produce a HRL ACO algorithm capable of generating solutions for large domains. This paper describes two specific implementations of the new algorithm: the first a modification to Dietterich’s MAXQ-Q HRL algorithm, the second a hierarchical ant colony system algorithm. These implementations generate faster results, with little to no significant change in the quality of solutions for the tested problem domains. The application of ACO to the MAXQ-Q algorithm replaces the reinforcement learning, Q-learning, with the modified ant colony optimization method, Ant-Q. This algorithm, MAXQ-AntQ, converges to solutions …

Using Live Sequence Chart Specifications For Formal Verification, Rahul Kumar

Theses and Dissertations

Formal methods play an important part in the development as well as testing stages of software and hardware systems. A significant and often overlooked part of the process is the development of specifications and correctness requirements for the system under test. Traditionally, English has been used as the specification language, which has resulted in verbose and difficult to use specification documents that are usually abandoned during product development. This research focuses on investigating the use of Live Sequence Charts (LSCs), a graphical and intuitive language directly suited for expressing communication behaviors of a system as the specification language for a …

Unraveling Protein Networks With Power Graph Analysis, Loïc Royer, Matthias Reimann, Bill Andreopoulos, Michael Schroeder

Faculty Publications, Computer Science

Networks play a crucial role in computational biology, yet their analysis and representation is still an open problem. Power Graph Analysis is a lossless transformation of biological networks into a compact, less redundant representation, exploiting the abundance of cliques and bicliques as elementary topological motifs. We demonstrate with five examples the advantages of Power Graph Analysis. Investigating protein-protein interaction networks, we show how the catalytic subunits of the casein kinase II complex are distinguishable from the regulatory subunits, how interaction profiles and sequence phylogeny of SH3 domains correlate, and how false positive interactions among high-throughput interactions are spotted. Additionally, we …

Adapting Adtrees For Improved Performance On Large Datasets With High Arity Features, Robert D. Van Dam

Theses and Dissertations

The ADtree, a data structure useful for caching sufficient statistics, has been successfully adapted to grow lazily when memory is limited and to update sequentially with an incrementally updated dataset. However, even these modified forms of the ADtree still exhibit inefficiencies in terms of both space usage and query time, particularly on datasets with very high dimensionality and with high arity features. We propose five modifications to the ADtree, each of which can be used to improve size and query time under specific types of datasets and features. These modifications also provide an increased ability to precisely control how an …

Tools For A Preservation-Ready Web, Joan A. Smith, Michael L. Nelson

Computer Science Presentations

PDF of a powerpoint presentation from the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) Partners Meeting, Washington D.C., July 9, 2008. Also available on Slideshare.

Arbitrary Degree T-Splines, Gordon Thomas Finnigan

Theses and Dissertations

T-Splines is a freeform surface type similar to NURBS, that allows partial rows of control points. Up until now, T-Splines have only been formally defined for the degree three case. This paper extends the definition to support all odd, even, and mixed degree T-Spline surfaces, making T-Splines a proper superset of all standard NURBS surfaces.

Securing Network Data, Robert E. Holtfreter

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

The purpose of this article is to present the major issues regarding threats to the security of network data, define internal/external intrusion and provide a list of the common methods of detection and significant established intrusion preventive practices for maximizing Internet network data security.

Joxm: Java Object —Xml Mapping, Adam Dukovich, Jimmy Hua, Jong Seo Lee, Michael Huffman, Alex Dekhtyar

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Java object XML mapping (JOXM) is a library that supports the automated persistence and querying of Java objects in a native XML database. The goal of this library is to provide a suitable alternative to standard object-relational mapping (ORM) tools, most notably Hibernate. Unlike techniques such as XML-relational persistence, the storage mechanism provided by JOXM is transparent, allowing the developer to store, retrieve, and query typed Java objects as opposed to plain XML data.

Security Property Violation In Cps Through Timing, Han Tang, Bruce M. Mcmillin

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Security in a cyber-physical system (CPS) is not well understood. Interactions between components in the cyber and physical domains lead to unintended information flow. This paper makes use of formal information flow models to describe leakage in a model CPS, the Cooperating FACTS Power System. Results show that while a casual observer cannot ascertain confidential internal information, when application semantics, including timing, are considered, this confidentiality is lost. Model checking is used to verify the result. The significance of the paper is in showing an example of the complex interactions that occur between the Cyber and Physical domains and their …

A Simplex Model For Layered Niche Networks, Philip Fraundorf

Physics Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Developing A Coherent Cyberinfrastructure From Local Campus To National Facilities: Challenges And Strategies, Amy Apon, Patrick Dreher, Vijay Agarwala, Stan Ahalt, Guy Almes, Sue Fratkin, Thomas Hauser, Jan Odegard, Jim Pepin, Craig Stewart

Publications

A fundamental goal of cyberinfrastructure (CI) is the integration of computing hardware, software, and network technology, along with data, information management, and human resources to advance scholarship and research. Such integration creates opportunities for researchers, educators, and learners to share ideas, expertise, tools, and facilities in new and powerful ways that cannot be realized if each of these components is applied independently. Bridging the gap between the reality of CI today and its potential in the immediate future is critical to building a balanced CI ecosystem that can support future scholarship and research. This report summarizes the observations and recommendations …

A Model Of Open Source Software-Based Product Line Development, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Faheem Ahmed, Mohammad Ali Babar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Software Product Line (SPL) and Open Source Software (OSS) have emerged as successful modes of developing software. There is an increased interest in developing suitable approaches for combining the promised advantages of SPL andOSS. Researchers and practitioners have been emphasizing the need of exploiting the ever growing repositories ofOSScomponents for developing SPLs. However, there is no conceptual model for guiding the process of developing OSS-based SPLs. In this paper, we propose a model for developing software product line using open source software. This paper identifies and elaborates the essential phases and activities of the proposed model of developing OSS-based SPLs. …

Fuzzy Inference System For Software Product Family Process Evaluation, Faheem Ahmed, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Jagath Samarabandu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

When developing multiple products within a common application domain, systematic use of a software product family process can yield increased productivity in cost, quality, effort and schedule. Such a process provides the means for the reuse of software assets which can considerably reduce the development time and the cost of software products. A comprehensive strategy for the evaluating the maturity of a software product family process is needed due to growing popularity of this concept in the software industry. In this paper, we propose a five-level maturity scale for software product family process. We also present a fuzzy inference system …

Transactional Agents For Pervasive Computing, Machigar Ongtang, A. R. Hurson, Yu Jiao

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Pervasive computing enables seamless integration of computing technology into everyday life to make upto- date information and services proactively available to the users based on their needs and behaviors. We aim to develop a transaction management scheme as a pertinent component for such environment supported by either structured or ad hoc networks. We propose Transactional Agents for Pervasive COmputing (TAPCO), which utilizes a dynamic hierarchical meta data structure that captures the semantic contents of the underlying heterogeneous data sources. Mobile agents process the transactions collaboratively, to preserve ACID properties without violating local autonomy of the data sources. TAPCO is simulated …

Matlab Report, Nancy Hale

Cornerstone 3 Reports : Interdisciplinary Informatics

The objective of this effort is to create a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving using technology. Through Thinkfinity, the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems is collaborating with the science and quantitative faculty to create lessons that can be used by high school and first -year college students to work interactively with data to solve problems. MatLab is the tool of choice. It gives the user the ability to create visual models of large data sets and is used in the science and finance areas.

The key features of MatLab:

• Interactive tools for iterative exploration, design, and …

Eukasimbiosys: A Stochastic Discrete Event-Based Simulation Software For In-Silico Study Of Insulin Signaling And Metabolism In Cardiac Myocytes, Amin Reza Mazloom

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The advent of human genome annotation in the early years of third millennium has enabled the scientist to interlink the processes of life at the molecular level. The coincidence of this breakthrough along with advances in computational technology and high-throughput experimental techniques has promoted the emergence of numerous -omics data resources. Although for years before such discovery, scientist believed that cellular processes are the product of interaction between genes and gene products; However, any effort to exploit a comprehensive picture of cellular processes had been obscured due to the knowledge gap that avoided to correlate the cellular processes at the …

Architectures And Methods For Energy-Efficient Querying And Indexing In Wireless Sensor Networks, Kyungseo Park

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Wireless sensor networks have been an active research area for about a decade due to their adaptability to applications involving long-term environmental monitoring. Recent technologies make it possible that a small device equipped with multi-purposed sensors, small CPU and memory, wireless transmitter and receiver, and software can form a network, measure some quantitative phenomena and communicate with each other seamlessly. In wireless sensor networks, one of the basic applications is to monitor events and measure values at places that people cannot reach easily or where a long term sensing task is required. In this case, we need to know the …

Using Metaphors In Dynamic Social Stratification Visualizations, Michael B. Gousie, John Grady, Ben Burrage, Robbie Grossman, David Machado, Sarah Milewski, Christopher S. Stuetzle

Computer and Data Science Faculty Publications

We present three information visualizations for studying social stratification. Each Web-based applet uses a different metaphor to display U.S. Census income data along with the categories of race, marital status, and profession. Each system is completely dynamic, affording the user the choice of categorical variable to compare, as well as the choice of categories within each visualization. Two different user interfaces have also been implemented. The systems are described, compared, and their respective merits and deficiencies discussed.

Cap: A Context-Aware Privacy Protection System For Location-Based Services, Aniket Pingley

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Location Based Services (LBS) are information services that provide users with customized contents, such as the nearest restaurants/hotels/clinics, retrieved from a dedicated spatial database. They make use of technologies such as Global Positioning System (GPS), triangulation/triliteration etc. to get the geographical position of the user. Since the queries on spatial database include the user's current location, LBS may raise serious concerns on the user's location privacy. If disclosed, a user's location information may be misused in many ways by a malicious adversary who has access to the LBS server or even by the LBS provider. Therefore, our aim in this …

High-Level Constraint Support For Combinatorial Testing, Anthony C. Opara

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Combinatorial testing constructs test cases by combining different input parameter values based on some effective combinatorial strategy. This software testing approach has displayed very promising attributes and is rapidly gaining popularity in recent years. However, existing work does not provide adequate support for constraint handling. Constraints are often specified as part of an input parameter model and they may be due to several reasons such as incompatibility between certain hardware and software components. A test generation algorithm needs to take these constraints into account during the test generation process to exclude combinations that are invalid from the domain semantics. In …

Stepping-Stone Network Attack Kit (Sneak) For Evading Timing-Based Detection Methods Under The Cloak Of Constant Rate Multimedia Streams, Jaideep D. Padhye

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

With the advent of the Internet, network-based security threats have been constantly on the rise. The source of an attack could be traced by studying the system logs and the source IP address of the attack can be used to identify and prosecute the attacker. To avoid getting traced and to mislead the forensic investigators, attackers usually compromise weaker nodes on less secure networks and use them as stepping stones to attack the victim. This technique makes it difficult for the investigators to trace the real source of attack. Hence, it is important to research the stepping stone detection techniques …

Efficient Processing Of Set Queries Using Bitmap Index, Muhammad Assad Safiullah

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Growing complexity of enterprise-wide data and business processes necessitates the efficiency of complex decision support set queries. However, contemporary DBMS remain unsuccessful in handling set queries efficiently. In this thesis we propose efficient set query processing methods using bitmap index. The methods use bitmap vectors to represent attributes values in binary format. The methods test groups within a schema in a hierarchical fashion. Satisfying groups are bisected further and checked recursively while non-satisfying groups are pruned resulting in significant reduction in response times. In addition, our iterative implementation avoids the inefficiency that can be introduced by recursive implementation by reading …

A Context-Aware Learning, Prediction And Mediation Framework For Resource Management In Smart Pervasive Environments, Nirmalya Roy

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Advances in smart devices, mobile wireless communications, sensor networks, pervasive computing, machine learning, middleware and agent technologies, and human computer interfaces have made the dream of smart environments a reality. An important characteristic of such an intelligent, ubiquitous computing and communication paradigm lies in the autonomous and pro-active interaction of smart devices used for determining inhabitants' important contexts such as current and near-future locations, activities or vital signs. `Context Awareness' is perhaps the most salient feature of such an intelligent computing environment. An inhabitant's mobility and activities play a significant role in defining his contexts in and around the home. …

Mass Spectrometry Based Proteomic Biomarker Selection And Sample Prediction, Jung Hun Oh

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

High-resolution MALDI-TOF (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight) mass spectrometry has recently shown promise as a screening tool for detecting discriminatory peptide/protein patterns. The major computational obstacle in finding such patterns is the large number of mass/charge peaks (features, biomarkers, data points) in a spectrum. To tackle this problem, we have developed methods for data preprocessing and biomarker selection. The preprocessing consists of binning, baseline correction, and normalization. An algorithm, Extended Markov Blanket (EMB), is developed for biomarker detection, which combines redundant feature removal and discriminant feature selection. The biomarker selection couples with support vector machine (SVM) to achieve sample prediction from …

Dependence Of Binary Associations On Co-Occurrence Granularity In News Documents, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Trivikram Immaneni, Mastan Vali Shaik

Kno.e.sis Publications

We describe and formalize an approach to correlate binary associations (such as between entities and events, between persons and events, etc.) implied by News documents on the co-occurrence granularity (such as document-level, paragraph-level, sentence-level, etc.) of the corresponding text phrases in the documents. Specifically, we present both qualitative and quantitative characterization of searching News documents: former in terms of the nature of the content and the queries, and latter in terms of a metric obtained by adapting the notions of precision and recall. Specifically, the approach tries to reduce the manual effort required to analyze the News documents to compare …

Semantic Web: Promising Technologies, Current Applications & Future Directions, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

Comprehensive Data Analysis For Biomarker Pattern Discovery Using Dna/Protein Microarrays, Young Bun Kim

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

During the last decade, the advent of microarray technology has stimulated rapid research advances in bioinformatics. Microarray data pose great challenges for computational data analysis, because of their large dimensionality (up to several tens of thousands of genes) and their small sample sizes. In order to deal with these particular characteristics of microarray data, the need and importance for feature selection techniques were realized. While a lot of research deals with classification methods and their application to microarray data, only a few approaches are explicitly designed to consider interaction among the investigated features. It is well known that the interactions …

Damping Inter-Area Oscillations By Upfcs Based On Selected Global Measurements, Mahyar Zarghami, Yilu Liu, Jagannathan Sarangapani, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper introduces a method of using a selected set of the global data for controlling inter-area oscillations of the power network using unified power flow controllers. This novel algorithm utilizes reduced order observers for estimating the missing data the purpose of control when all the data is unavailable through frequency measurements in a wide area control approach. The paper will also address the problem of time-delay in data acquisition through examples.

Medical Image Modeling And Processing, Ramu Pedada

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

During the last few decades of the twentieth century, medical imaging has been playing a prominent role in many fields of biomedical research and clinical practice. Image modalities such as x-rays, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance images (MRI) have all been valuable additions to the radiologist's arsenal of imaging tools. Medical images assure quality diagnosis and patient safety by gathering valuable information without invading the human body. Apart from clinical diagnosis, medical images are used as tools for education where they are used for training individuals before operating on a patient. Many medical educators tum to simulation based training …

Image Pre-Processing Techniques For Hazard Detection In Poor Visibility Conditions, Girish Singh Rajput

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Runway incursion is a persistent problem that has resulted in some of the most devastating accidents in aviation history. With ever increasing air traffic and more passengers, runway safety is of utmost priority to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other agencies concerned with aviation. As the issue of aviation safety becomes increasingly important, developing a consistent application that detects runway incursions in various visibility conditions is crucial for the aviation industry. This thesis presents a novel method for detecting runway hazards in poor visibility conditions using image processing techniques. The first step is to obtain images of a runway …