Computer Sciences Commons^™

Mba: A Market-Based Approach To Data Allocation And Migration For Cloud Database, Tengjiao Wang, Ziyu Lin, Bishan Yang, Allen Huang, Dongqing Yang, Qi Zhang, Shiwei Tang, Jinzhong Niu

Publications and Research

With the coming shift to cloud computing, cloud database is emerging to provide database service over the Internet. In the cloud-based environment, data are distributed at internet scale and the system needs to handle a huge number of user queries simultaneously without delay. How data are distributed among the servers has a crucial impact on the query load distribution and the system response time. In this paper, we propose a market-based control method, called MBA, to achieve query load balance via reasonable data distribution. In MBA, database nodes are treated as traders in a market, and certain market rules are …

A Grey-Box Approach To Automated Mechanism Design, Jinzhong Niu, Kai Cai, Simon Parsons, Xin Yao, Maria Fasli

Publications and Research

This paper presents an approach to automated mechanism design in the domain of double auctions. We describe a novel parameterized space of double auctions, and then introduce an evolutionary search method that searches this space of parameters. The approach evaluates auction mechanisms using the framework of the TAC Market Design Game and relates the performance of the markets in that game to their constituent parts using reinforcement learning. Experiments show that the strongest mechanisms we found using this approach not only win the Market Design Game against known, strong opponents, but also exhibit desirable economic properties when they run in …

Simulated Associating Polymer Networks, Joris Billen

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Telechelic associating polymer networks consist of polymer chains terminated by endgroups that have a different chemical composition than the polymer backbone. When dissolved in a solution, the endgroups cluster together to form aggregates. At low temperature, a strongly connected reversible network is formed and the system behaves like a gel. Telechelic networks are of interest since they are representative for biopolymer networks (e.g. F-actin) and are widely used in medical applications (e.g. hydrogels for tissue engineering, wound dressings) and consumer products (e.g. contact lenses, paint thickeners).

In this thesis such systems are studied by means of a molecular dynamics/Monte Carlo …

Forensic Analysis Of Social Networking Applications On Mobile Devices, Noora Al Mutawa, Ibrahim Baggili, Andrew Marrington

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The increased use of social networking applications on smartphones makes these devices a goldmine for forensic investigators. Potential evidence can be held on these devices and recovered with the right tools and examination methods. This paper focuses on conducting forensic analyses on three widely used social networking applications on smartphones: Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. The tests were conducted on three popular smartphones: BlackBerrys, iPhones, and Android phones. The tests consisted of installing the social networking applications on each device, conducting common user activities through each application, acquiring a forensically sound logical image of each device, and performing manual forensic analysis …

Patterns As Objects In Grace, Andrew P. Black, Michael Homer, James Noble, David J. Pearce, Kim B. Bruce

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Object orientation and pattern matching are often seen as conflicting approaches to program design. Object oriented programs place type-dependent behaviour inside objects and invoke it via dynamic dispatch, while pattern matching programs place type-dependent behaviour outside data structures and invoke it via multiway conditionals (case statements). Grace is a new, dynamic, object-oriented language designed to support teaching: to this end, Grace needs to support both styles. In this paper we explain how this conflict can be resolved gracefully: by modelling patterns and cases as partial functions, reifying those functions as first-class objects, and then building up complex patterns from simpler …

Parallel Sorting On A Spatial Computer, Max Orhai, Andrew P. Black

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

We describe a parallel sort for a spatial computer that requires minimal communication. We show simulations of the sort in 1 and 2 dimensions.

Presentation slides are located below in the Additional Files

A Framework For Personalized Dynamic Cross-Selling In E-Commerce Retailing, Arun K. Timalsina

Wayne State University Dissertations

Cross-selling and product bundling are prevalent strategies in the retail sector. Instead of static bundling offers, i.e. giving the same offer to everyone, personalized dynamic cross-selling generates targeted bundle offers and can help maximize revenues and profits. In resolving the two basic problems of dynamic cross-selling, which involves selecting the right complementary products and optimizing the discount, the issue of computational complexity becomes central as the customer base and length of the product list grows. Traditional recommender systems are built upon simple collaborative filtering techniques, which exploit the informational cues gained from users in the form of product ratings and …

Hierarchical Multi-Label Classification For Protein Function Prediction Going Beyond Traditional Approaches, Noor Al Aydie

Wayne State University Dissertations

Hierarchical multi-label classification is a variant of traditional classification in which the

instances can belong to several labels, that are in turn organized in a hierarchy. Functional classification of genes is a challenging problem in functional genomics due to several reasons. First, each gene participates in multiple biological activities. Hence, prediction models should support multi-label classification. Second, the genes are organized and classified according to a hierarchical classification scheme that represents the relationships between the functions of the genes. These relationships should be maintained by the prediction models. In addition, various bimolecular data sources, such as gene expression data and …

Complex Data Analytics Via Sparse, Low-Rank Matrix Approximation, Lijun Wang

Wayne State University Dissertations

Today, digital data is accumulated at a faster than ever speed in science, engineering, biomedicine, and real-world sensing. Data mining provides us an effective way for the exploration and analysis of hidden patterns from these data for a broad spectrum of applications. Usually, these datasets share one prominent characteristic: tremendous in size with tens of thousands of objects and features. In addition, data is not only collected over a period of time, but the relationship between data points can change over that period too. Besides, knowledge is very sparsely encoded because the patterns are usually active only in a local …

Effective And Secure Use Of Human Relation Networks, Na Li

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

With the advent of Web 2.0 and advanced techniques of wireless devices (e.g., smart phones or iPhones), Online Social Networks (OSNs) and Mobile Social Networks (MSNs) are becoming integral part of our lives as two main digital social communities. Data collected from people's communication on OSNs and MSNs contains valuable information which makes human relationships more visible as compared to their existence in our physical world. For instance, the friend list on a user's profile page on Facebook clearly tells us the user's friendships with other users. Moreover, the short-range wireless communication techniques (e.g., Bluetooth) also enable us to “sense” …

Type-Elimination-Based Reasoning For The Description Logic Shiqbs Using Decision Diagrams And Disjunctive Datalog, Sebastian Rudolph, Markus Krotzsch, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

We propose a novel, type-elimination-based method for standard reasoning in the description logic SHIQbs extended by DL-safe rules. To this end, we first establish a knowledge compilation method converting the terminological part of an ALCIb knowledge base into an ordered binary decision diagram (OBDD) that represents a canonical model. This OBDD can in turn be transformed into disjunctive Datalog and merged with the assertional part of the knowledge base in order to perform combined reasoning. In order to leverage our technique for full SHIQbs , we provide a stepwise reduction from SHIQbs to ALCIb that preserves satisfiability and entailment of …

Open And Transparent: The Review Process Of The Semantic Web Journal, Krzysztof Janowicz, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

While open access is established in the world of academic publishing, open reviews are rare. The Semantic Web journal goes further than just open review by implementing an open and transparent review process in which reviews are publicly available, and the assigned editors and reviewers are known by name, and are published together with accepted manuscripts. In this article we introduce the steps to realize such a process from the conceptual design, over the implementation, a overview of the results so far, and up to lessons learned.

Submarine Landslides On The Upper Southeast Australian Passive Continental Margin – Preliminary Findings, S L. Clarke, T Hubble, D Airey, Phyllis Yu, R Boyd, J Keene, N Exon, James V. Gardner

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

The southeast Australian passive continental margin is narrow, steep and sediment-deficient, and characterized by relatively low rates of modern sedimentation. Upper slope (<1200m) sediments comprise mixtures of calcareous and terrigenous sand and mud. Three of twelve sediment cores recovered from geologically-recent, submarine landslides located offshore New South Wales/Queensland (NSW/QLD) are interpreted to have sampled failure surfaces at depths of between 85 cm and 220 cm below the present-day seabed. Differences in sediment physical properties are recorded above and below the three slide-plane boundaries. Sediment taken directly above the inferred submarine landslide failure surfaces and presumed to be post-landslide, returned radiocarbon ages of 15.8 ka, 20.7 ka and 20.1 ka. The last two ages correspond to adjacent slide features, which are inferred to be consistent with their being triggered by a single event such as an earthquake. Slope stability models based on classical soil mechanics and measured sediment shearstrengths indicate that the upper slope sediments should be stable. However, multibeam sonar data reveal that many upper slope landslides occur across the margin and that submarine landsliding is a common process. We infer from these results that: a) an unidentified mechanism regularly acts to reduce the shear resistance of these sediments to the very low values required to enable slope failure, and/or b) the margin experiences seismic events that act to destabilise the slope sediments.

A Game Theoretic Framework For Communication Decisions In Multi Agent Systems, Tummalapalli Sudhamsh Reddy

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Communication is the process of transferring information between multiple entities. We study the communication process between different entities that are modeled as multiple agents. To study the interactions between these entities we use Game theory, which is a mathematical tool that is used to model the interactions and decision process of these multiple players/agents. In the presence of multiple players their interactions are generally modelled as a stochastic game.Here we assume that the communication medium, protocols and language are already present in this multiagent system. We address the question of information selection in the communication process.In this thesis, we develop …

A Fitness Function Elimination Theory For Blackbox Optimization And Problem Class Learning, Gautham Anil

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The modern view of optimization is that optimization algorithms are not designed in a vacuum, but can make use of information regarding the broad class of objective functions from which a problem instance is drawn. Using this knowledge, we want to design optimization algorithms that execute quickly (efficiency), solve the objective function with minimal samples (performance), and are applicable over a wide range of problems (abstraction). However, we present a new theory for blackbox optimization from which, we conclude that of these three desired characteristics, only two can be maximized by any algorithm. We put forward an alternate view of …

Gradient Based Mrf Learning For Image Restoration And Segmentation, Kegan Samuel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The undirected graphical model or Markov Random Field (MRF) is one of the more popular models used in computer vision and is the type of model with which this work is concerned. Models based on these methods have proven to be particularly useful in low-level vision systems and have led to state-of-the-art results for MRF-based systems. The research presented will describe a new discriminative training algorithm and its implementation. The MRF model will be trained by optimizing its parameters so that the minimum energy solution of the model is as similar as possible to the ground-truth. While previous work has …

Algorithms For Community Identification In Complex Networks, Mahadevan Vasudevan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

First and foremost, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Professor Narsingh Deo, for his excellent guidance and encouragement, and also for introducing me to this wonderful science of complex networks. Without his support this dissertation would not have been possible. I would also like to thank the members of my research committee, professors Charles Hughes, Ratan Guha, Mainak Chatterjee and Yue Zhao for their advice and guidance during the entire process. I am indebted to the faculty and the staff of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science for providing me the resources and …

Hfs Plus File System Exposition And Forensics, Scott Ware

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Macintosh Hierarchical File System Plus, HFS +, or as it is commonly referred to as the Mac Operating System, OS, Extended, was introduced in 1998 with Mac OS X 8.1. HFS+ is an update to HFS, Mac OS Standard format that offers more efficient use of disk space, implements international friendly file names, future support for named forks, and facilitates booting on non-Mac OS operating systems through different partition schemes. The HFS+ file system is efficient, yet, complex. It makes use of B-trees to implement key data structures for maintaining meta-data about folders, files, and data. The implementation of …

Evolution Through The Search For Novelty, Joel Lehman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I present a new approach to evolutionary search called novelty search, wherein only behavioral novelty is rewarded, thereby abstracting evolution as a search for novel forms. This new approach contrasts with the traditional approach of rewarding progress towards the objective through an objective function. Although they are designed to light a path to the objective, objective functions can instead deceive search into converging to dead ends called local optima. As a significant problem in evolutionary computation, deception has inspired many techniques designed to mitigate it. However, nearly all such methods are still ultimately susceptible to deceptive local optima because they …

Leveraging Help Requests In Pomdp Intelligent Tutors, Jeremiah Folsom-Kovarik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) are computer programs that model individual learners and adapt instruction to help each learner differently. One way ITSs differ from human tutors is that few ITSs give learners a way to ask questions. When learners can ask for help, their questions have the potential to improve learning directly and also act as a new source of model data to help the ITS personalize instruction. Inquiry modeling gives ITSs the ability to answer learner questions and refine their learner models with an inexpensive new input channel. In order to support inquiry modeling, an advanced planning formalism is …

Online Path Planning And Control Solution For A Coordinated Attack Of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles In A Dynamic Environment, Juan Vega-Nevarez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The role of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has significantly expanded in the military sector during the last decades mainly due to their cost effectiveness and their ability to eliminate the human life risk. Current UAV technology supports a variety of missions and extensive research and development is being performed to further expand its capabilities. One particular field of interest is the area of the low cost expendable UAV since its small price tag makes it an attractive solution for target suppression. A swarm of these low cost UAVs can be utilized as guided munitions or kamikaze UAVs to attack …

4d-Ct Lung Registration And Its Application For Lung Radiation Therapy, Yugang Min

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Radiation therapy has been successful in treating lung cancer patients, but its efficacy is limited by the inability to account for the respiratory motion during treatment planning and radiation dose delivery. Physics-based lung deformation models facilitate the motion computation of both tumor and local lung tissue during radiation therapy. In this dissertation, a novel method is discussed to accurately register 3D lungs across the respiratory phases from 4D-CT datasets, which facilitates the estimation of the volumetric lung deformation models. This method uses multi-level and multi-resolution optical flow registration coupled with thin plate splines (TPS), to address registration issue of inconsistent …

Mobile Technology And Sustainability, Meghan Kenny, Christelle Scharff

Student-Faculty Research Projects

65 million years ago, the dinosaurs were exterminated. Today more than 6 billion people depend primarily on non-renewable resources for survival. What many fail to recognize is that burning fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, is reaching a dead end and also has debilitating immediate effects on our surroundings. The “environment” is no longer limited to species’ natural habitat, where one solely imagines the seven biomes. Instead it encompasses human interaction within the biotic, abiotic, cultural, and social worlds. Dirty energy sources are a major example of how humans drastically alter not only the physical environment, but …

Competencies Of Expert Web-Based Instruction Designers, Yonghui Chen

Wayne State University Dissertations

Web-based instruction has been increasingly accepted in education, business and industry, military and government, healthcare and other sectors as a dominant means to deliver instruction beyond time and geographical constraints. However, the overall quality of WBI courses or programs remains a concern. The reasons for the ineffectiveness can be many, of which is the lack of sufficient competencies and skills in existing professionals. This study attempts to identify the domains, competencies, performance statement for instructional designers in WBI at the expert level. IBSTPI competency model has been used as the conceptual framework, utilizing mixed methods.

As a result, 91 performance …

System Support For Robust Data Collection In Wireless Sensing Systems, Guoxing Zhan

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation studied how to provide system support for robust data collection in wireless sensing systems through addressing a few urgent design issues in the existing systems. A wireless sensing system may suffer issues arising at the sensors, during the data transmission, and during the data access by applications. Due to the unique characteristics of wireless sensing systems, certain conventional solutions for networked systems may not work well with these issues. We developed approaches to resolve these urgent problems in the design of wireless sensing systems. Specially, we have achieved the following: (1) we developed a resilient trust model to …

An Approach To The Virtual Flora Of Mongolia – From A Data Repository To An Expert System, Http://Greif.Uni-Greifswald.De/Floragreif/, Jörg Hartleib, Martin Schnittler, Sabrina Rilke, Anne Zemmrich, Bernd Bobertz, Ulrike Najmi, Reinhard Zölitz, Susanne Starke

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

FloraGREIF is an internet accessible information system providing taxonomic, phytogeographic and ecological information on Mongolia’s flora in terms of descriptions, high-resolution plant images and an interactive WebGIS application. Organised along an updated checklist of the approx. 3000 Mongolian vascular plants that serves as a taxonomic backbone, information is split into the taxon level, referring to plant species, and the record level, referring to record or a collected plant specimen. At the latter level, images of living plants, scans of herbarium sheets, habitat photos and further notes can be found. Both data levels are linked by the name of the respective …

Analysis And Synthesis Of Metadata Goals For Scientific Data, Craig Willis, Jane Greenberg, Hollie C. White

Faculty Scholarship

The proliferation of discipline-specific metadata schemes contributes to artificial barriers that can impede interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. The authors considered this problem by examining the domains, objectives, and architectures of nine metadata schemes used to document scientific data in the physical, life, and social sciences. They used a mixed-methods content analysis and Greenberg’s (2005) metadata objectives, principles, domains, and architectural layout (MODAL) framework, and derived 22 metadata-related goals from textual content describing each metadata scheme. Relationships are identified between the domains (e.g., scientific discipline and type of data) and the categories of scheme objectives. For each strong correlation …

Comparing Android Applications To Find Copying, Larry Melling, Bob Zeidman

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The Android smartphone operating system includes a Java virtual machine that enables rapid development and deployment of a wide variety of applications. The open nature of the platform means that reverse engineering of applications is relatively easy, and many developers are concerned as applications similar to their own show up in the Android marketplace and want to know if these applications are pirated. Fortunately, the same characteristics that make an Android application easy to reverse engineer and copy also provide opportunities for Android developers to compare downloaded applications to their own. This paper describes the process for comparing a developer’s …

Forensic Evidence Identification And Modeling For Attacks Against A Simulated Online Business Information System, Manghui Tu, Dianxiang Xu, Eugene Butler, Amanda Schwartz

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Forensic readiness of business information systems can support future forensics investigation or auditing on external/internal attacks, internal sabotage and espionage, and business fraud. To establish forensics readiness, it is essential for an organization to identify which fingerprints are relevant and where they can be located, to determine whether they are logged in a forensically sound way and whether all the needed fingerprints are available to reconstruct the events successfully. Also, a fingerprint identification and locating mechanism should be provided to guide potential forensics investigation in the future. Furthermore, mechanisms should be established to automate the security incident tracking and reconstruction …

To License Or Not To License Updated: An Examination Of State Statutes Regarding Private Investigators And Digital Examiners, Thomas Lonardo, Doug White, Alan Rea

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this update to the 2009 year's study, the authors examine statutes that regulate, license, and enforce investigative functions in each US state. After identification and review of Private Investigator licensing requirements, the authors find that very few state statutes explicitly differentiate between Private Investigators and Digital Examiners, but do see a trend of more states making some distinction. The authors contacted all state regulatory agencies where statutory language was not explicit, and as a result, set forth the various state approaches to professional Digital Examiner licensing. As was the case in the previous two iterations of this research, the …