Databases and Information Systems Commons^™

An Immersive Telepresence System Using Rgb-D Sensors And Head-Mounted Display, Xinzhong Lu, Ju Shen, Saverio Perugini, Jianjun Yang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We present a tele-immersive system that enables people to interact with each other in a virtual world using body gestures in addition to verbal communication. Beyond the obvious applications, including general online conversations and gaming, we hypothesize that our proposed system would be particularly beneficial to education by offering rich visual contents and interactivity. One distinct feature is the integration of egocentric pose recognition that allows participants to use their gestures to demonstrate and manipulate virtual objects simultaneously. This functionality enables the instructor to effectively and efficiently explain and illustrate complex concepts or sophisticated problems in an intuitive manner. The …

Leveraging Synergy Between Database And Programming Language Courses, Brian T. Howard

Computer Science Faculty publications

Undergraduate courses in database systems and programming languages are frequently taught without much overlap. This paper argues that there is a substantial benefit to emphasizing some areas of commonality, both old and new, between the two subjects. Examples of cross-fertilization that may be used to enhance one of both of the courses include query language design and implementation, object-relational mapping, transactional memory, and various aspects of the recent "NoSQL" movement.

Neural Modeling Of Sequential Inferences And Learning Over Episodic Memory, Budhitama Subagdja, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Episodic memory is a significant part of cognition for reasoning and decision making. Retrieval in episodic memory depends on the order relationships of memory items which provides flexibility in reasoning and inferences regarding sequential relations for spatio-temporal domain. However, it is still unclear how they are encoded and how they differ from representations in other types of memory like semantic or procedural memory. This paper presents a neural model of sequential representation and inferences on episodic memory. It contrasts with the common views on sequential representation in neural networks that instead of maintaining transitions between events to represent sequences, they …

Memes As Building Blocks: A Case Study On Evolutionary Optimization + Transfer Learning For Routing Problems, Liang Feng, Yew-Soon Ong, Ah-Hwee Tan, Ivor W. Tsang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A significantly under-explored area of evolutionary optimization in the literature is the study of optimization methodologies that can evolve along with the problems solved. Particularly, present evolutionary optimization approaches generally start their search from scratch or the ground-zero state of knowledge, independent of how similar the given new problem of interest is to those optimized previously. There has thus been the apparent lack of automated knowledge transfers and reuse across problems. Taking this cue, this paper presents a Memetic Computational Paradigm based on Evolutionary Optimization + Transfer Learning for search, one that models how human solves problems, and embarks on …

Automatic Video Self Modeling For Voice Disorder, Ju Shen, Changpeng Ti, Anusha Raghunathan, Sen-Ching S. Cheung, Rita Patel

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Video self modeling (VSM) is a behavioral intervention technique in which a learner models a target behavior by watching a video of him- or herself. In the field of speech language pathology, the approach of VSM has been successfully used for treatment of language in children with Autism and in individuals with fluency disorder of stuttering. Technical challenges remain in creating VSM contents that depict previously unseen behaviors. In this paper, we propose a novel system that synthesizes new video sequences for VSM treatment of patients with voice disorders. Starting with a video recording of a voice-disorder patient, the proposed …

Compression Of Video Tracking And Bandwidth Balancing Routing In Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks, Yin Wang, Jianjun Yang, Ju Shen, Bryson Payne, Juan Guo, Kun Hua

Computer Science Faculty Publications

There has been a tremendous growth in multimedia applications over wireless networks. Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks(WMSNs) have become the premier choice in many research communities and industry. Many state-of-art applications, such as surveillance, traffic monitoring, and remote heath care are essentially video tracking and transmission in WMSNs. The transmission speed is constrained by the big file size of video data and fixed bandwidth allocation in constant routing paths. In this paper, we present a CamShift based algorithm to compress the tracking of videos. Then we propose a bandwidth balancing strategy in which each sensor node is able to dynamically select …

Design, Programming, And User-Experience, Kaila G. Manca

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis is a culmination of my individualized major in Human-Computer Interaction. As such, it showcases my knowledge of design, computer engineering, user-experience research, and puts into practice my background in psychology, com- munications, and neuroscience.

I provided full-service design and development for a web application to be used by the Digital Media and Design Department and their students.This process involved several iterations of user-experience research, testing, concepting, branding and strategy, ideation, and design. It lead to two products.

The first product is full-scale development and optimization of the web appli- cation.The web application adheres to best practices. It was …

Leading Undergraduate Students To Big Data Generation, Jianjun Yang, Ju Shen

Computer Science Faculty Publications

People are facing a flood of data today. Data are being collected at unprecedented scale in many areas, such as networking, image processing, virtualization, scientific computation, and algorithms. The huge data nowadays are called Big Data. Big data is an all encompassing term for any collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process them using traditional data processing applications. In this article, the authors present a unique way which uses network simulator and tools of image processing to train students abilities to learn, analyze, manipulate, and apply Big Data. Thus they develop students hands-on …

Hole Detection And Shape-Free Representation And Double Landmarks Based Geographic Routing In Wireless Sensor Networks, Jianjun Yang, Zongming Fei, Ju Shen

Computer Science Faculty Publications

In wireless sensor networks, an important issue of geographic routing is “local minimum” problem, which is caused by a “hole” that blocks the greedy forwarding process. Existing geographic routing algorithms use perimeter routing strategies to find a long detour path when such a situation occurs. To avoid the long detour path, recent research focuses on detecting the hole in advance, then the nodes located on the boundary of the hole advertise the hole information to the nodes near the hole. Hence the long detour path can be avoided in future routing. We propose a heuristic hole detecting algorithm which identifies …

Privacycanary: Privacy-Aware Recommenders With Adaptive Input Obfuscation, Thivya Kandappu, Arik Friedman, Roksan Borelli, Vijay Sivaraman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recommender systems are widely used by online retailers to promote products and content that are most likely to be of interest to a specific customer. In such systems, users often implicitly or explicitly rate products they have consumed, and some form of collaborative filtering is used to find other users with similar tastes to whom the products can be recommended. While users can benefit from more targeted and relevant recommendations, they are also exposed to greater risks of privacy loss, which can lead to undesirable financial and social consequences. The use of obfuscation techniques to preserve the privacy of user …

Metalogic Notes, Saverio Perugini

Computer Science Working Papers

A collection of notes, formulas, theorems, postulates and terminology in symbolic logic, syntactic notions, semantic notions, linkages between syntax and semantics, soundness and completeness, quantified logic, first-order theories, Goedel's First Incompleteness Theorem and more.

Statistics Notes, Saverio Perugini

Computer Science Working Papers

A collection of terms, definitions, formulas and explanations about statistics.

Archive - A Data Management Program, James H. Devilbiss, C. Steven Whisnant, Yasmeen Shorish

Department of Physics and Astronomy - Faculty Scholarship

To meet funding agency requirements, a portable data management solution is presented for small research groups. The database created is simple, searchable, robust, and can reside across multiple hard drives. Employing a standard metadata schema for all data, the database ensures a high level of standardization, findability, and organization. The software is written in Perl, runs on UNIX, and presents a web-based user interface. It uses a fast, portable log-in scheme, making it easy to export to other locations. As research continues to move towards more open data sharing and reproducibility, this database solution is agile enough to accommodate external …

Structure Preserving Large Imagery Reconstruction, Ju Shen, Jianjun Yang, Sami Taha Abu Sneineh, Bryson Payne, Markus Hitz

Computer Science Faculty Publications

With the explosive growth of web-based cameras and mobile devices, billions of photographs are uploaded to the internet. We can trivially collect a huge number of photo streams for various goals, such as image clustering, 3D scene reconstruction, and other big data applications. However, such tasks are not easy due to the fact the retrieved photos can have large variations in their view perspectives, resolutions, lighting, noises, and distortions. Furthermore, with the occlusion of unexpected objects like people, vehicles, it is even more challenging to find feature correspondences and reconstruct realistic scenes. In this paper, we propose a structure-based image …

Automatic Objects Removal For Scene Completion, Jianjun Yang, Yin Wang, Honggang Wang, Kun Hua, Wei Wang, Ju Shen

Computer Science Faculty Publications

With the explosive growth of Web-based cameras and mobile devices, billions of photographs are uploaded to the Internet. We can trivially collect a huge number of photo streams for various goals, such as 3D scene reconstruction and other big data applications. However, this is not an easy task due to the fact the retrieved photos are neither aligned nor calibrated. Furthermore, with the occlusion of unexpected foreground objects like people, vehicles, it is even more challenging to find feature correspondences and reconstruct realistic scenes. In this paper, we propose a structure-based image completion algorithm for object removal that produces visually …

Unstructured P2p Link Lifetimes Redux, Zhongmei Yao, Daren B. H. Cline

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We revisit link lifetimes in random P2P graphs under dynamic node failure and create a unifying stochastic model that generalizes the majority of previous efforts in this direction. We not only allow nonexponential user lifetimes and age-dependent neighbor selection, but also cover both active and passive neighbor-management strategies, model the lifetimes of incoming and outgoing links, derive churn-related message volume of the system, and obtain the distribution of transient in/out degree at each user. We then discuss the impact of design parameters on overhead and resilience of the network.

Assessing Satellite Image Data Fusion With Information Theory Metrics, James Cross

Dissertations and Theses

A common problem in remote sensing is estimating an image with high spatial and high spectral resolution given separate sources of measurements from satellite instruments, one having each of these desirable properties. This thesis presents a survey of seven families of algorithms which have been developed to provide this common pattern of satellite image data fusion. They are all tested on artificially degraded sets of satellite data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (“MODIS”) with known ideal results, and evaluated using the commonly accepted data fusion assessment metrics spectral angle mapper (“SAM”) and Erreur Relative Globale Adimensionelle de Synth`ese (“ERGAS”). …

A Robust Rgbd Slam System For 3d Environment With Planar Surfaces, Po-Chang Su, Ju Shen, Sen-Ching S. Cheung

Computer Science Faculty Publications

With the increasing popularity of RGB-depth (RGB-D) sensors such as the Microsoft Kinect, there have been much research on capturing and reconstructing 3D environments using a movable RGB-D sensor. The key process behind these kinds of simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) systems is the iterative closest point or ICP algorithm, which is an iterative algorithm that can estimate the rigid movement of the camera based on the captured 3D point clouds. While ICP is a well-studied algorithm, it is problematic when it is used in scanning large planar regions such as wall surfaces in a room. The lack of depth …

Reaper – Toward Automating Mobile Cloud Communication, Daniel R. Ward

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Mobile devices connected to cloud based services are becoming a mainstream method of delivery up-to-date and context aware information to users. Connecting mobile applications to cloud service require significant developer effort. Yet this communication code usually follows certain patterns, varying accordingly to the specific type of data sent and received from the server. By analyzing the causes of theses variations, we can create a system that can automate the code creation for communication from a mobile device to a cloud server. To automate code creation, a general pattern must extracted. This general solution can then be applied to any database …

Flitecam Data Process Validation, Jesse K. Tsai, Sachindev S. Shenoy, Brent Cedric Nicklas, Zaheer Ali, William T. Reach

STAR Program Research Presentations

FLITECAM Data Processing Validation

Many of the challenges that come from working with astronomical imaging arise from the reduction of raw data into scientifically meaningful data. First Light Infrared Test CAMera (FLITECAM) is an infrared camera operating in the 1.0–5.5 μm waveband on board SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy). Due to the significant noise from the atmosphere and the camera itself, astronomers have developed many methods to reduce the effects of atmospheric and instrumental emission. The FLITECAM Data Reduction Program (FDRP) is a program, developed at SOFIA Science Center, subtracts darks, removes flats, and dithers images.

This project contains …

Unified Modeling Language: The Teen Years And Growing Pains, J. Erickson, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Unified Modeling Language (UML) is adopted by the Object Management Group as a standardized general-purpose modeling language for object-oriented software engineering. Despite its status as a standard, UML is still in a development stage and many studies have highlighted its weaknesses and challenges - including those related to human factor issues. Further, UML has grown considerably more complex since its inception. This paper traces the history of Unified Modeling Language (UML) from its formation to its current state and discusses the current state of the UML language. The paper first introduces UML and its various diagrams, and discusses its characteristics …

Neural Modeling Of Episodic Memory: Encoding, Retrieval, And Forgetting, Wenwen Wang, Budhitama Subagdja, Ah-Hwee Tan, Janusz A. Starzyk

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents a neural model that learns episodic traces in response to a continuous stream of sensory input and feedback received from the environment. The proposed model, based on fusion Adaptive Resonance Theory (fusion ART) network, extracts key events and encodes spatio-temporal relations between events by creating cognitive nodes dynamically. The model further incorporates a novel memory search procedure, which performs parallel search of stored episodic traces continuously. Combined with a mechanism of gradual forgetting, the model is able to achieve a high level of memory performance and robustness, while controlling memory consumption over time. We present experimental studies, …

Processj: A Process-Oriented Programming Language, Matthew Sowders

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Java is a general purpose object-oriented programming language that has been widely adopted. Because of its high adoption rate and its lineage as a C-style language, its syntax is familiar to many programmers. The downside is that Java is not natively concurrent. Volumes have been written about concurrent programming in Java; however, concurrent programming is difficult to reason about within an object-oriented paradigm and so is difficult to get right.

occam -π is a general purpose process-oriented programming language. Concurrency is part of the theoretical underpinnings of the language. Concurrency is simple to reason about within an occam -π application …

Cooperative Reinforcement Learning In Topology-Based Multi-Agent Systems, Dan Xiao, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Topology-based multi-agent systems (TMAS), wherein agents interact with one another according to their spatial relationship in a network, are well suited for problems with topological constraints. In a TMAS system, however, each agent may have a different state space, which can be rather large. Consequently, traditional approaches to multi-agent cooperative learning may not be able to scale up with the complexity of the network topology. In this paper, we propose a cooperative learning strategy, under which autonomous agents are assembled in a binary tree formation (BTF). By constraining the interaction between agents, we effectively unify the state space of individual …

Automatic Content Generation For Video Self Modeling, Ju Shen, Anusha Raghunathan, Sen-Ching S. Cheung, Ravi R. Patel

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Video self modeling (VSM) is a behavioral intervention technique in which a learner models a target behavior by watching a video of him or herself. Its effectiveness in rehabilitation and education has been repeatedly demonstrated but technical challenges remain in creating video contents that depict previously unseen behaviors. In this paper, we propose a novel system that re-renders new talking-head sequences suitable to be used for VSM treatment of patients with voice disorder. After the raw footage is captured, a new speech track is either synthesized using text-to-speech or selected based on voice similarity from a database of clean speeches. …

Efficient Schema Extraction From A Collection Of Xml Documents, Vijayeandra Parthepan

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) has become the standard format for data exchange on the Internet, providing interoperability between different business applications. Such wide use results in large volumes of heterogeneous XML data, i.e., XML documents conforming to different schemas. Although schemas are important in many business applications, they are often missing in XML documents. In this thesis, we present a suite of algorithms that are effective in extracting schema information from a large collection of XML documents. We propose using the cost of NFA simulation to compute the Minimum Length Description to rank the inferred schema. We also studied …

Creating An Immersive Game World With Evolutionary Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, Yundong Cai, Ah-Hwee Tan, Zhiqi Shen, Boyang Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An increasing number of serious games have been developed to enhance the user experiences in education and training. In order to bridge the gap of game experiences in the virtual environment and in the real life, it is crucial to generate believable characters and contexts in real-time. However, the variables to be simulated for a large-scale serious game are numerous. These variables are involved in complex causal relationships and their values change over time. In view that world modeling has not been well addressed with conventional models, this paper uses a computational model Evolutionary Fuzzy Cognitive Map (EFCM) to model …

A Gis Hub At Pace University, Peggy Minis, Hsui-Lin Winkler

Cornerstone 2 Reports : Community Outreach and Empowerment Through Service Learning and Volunteerism

The Thinkfinity Grant is to use technology to develop a GIS Hub at Pace University. The Hub is intended to show the larger community the work done at Pace and to show that our students and faculty are using GIS to solve geographically-based problems for communities and organizations. It also is intended to serve as a site from which users can download data to make their own maps and as a place where the larger community can find examples of maps and have the ability to manipulate maps.

User Interface Design, Moritz Stefaner, Sebastien Ferre, Saverio Perugini, Jonathan Koren, Yi Zhang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

As detailed in Chap. 1, system implementations for dynamic taxonomies and faceted search allow a wide range of query possibilities on the data. Only when these are made accessible by appropriate user interfaces, the resulting applications can support a variety of search, browsing and analysis tasks. User interface design in this area is confronted with specific challenges. This chapter presents an overview of both established and novel principles and solutions.

A Semiotic Analysis Of Unified Modeling Language Graphical Notations, Keng Siau, Yuhong Tian

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Unified modeling language (UML) is the standard modeling language for object-oriented system development. Despite its status as a standard, UML has a fuzzy formal specification and a weak theoretical foundation. Semiotics, the study of signs, provides a good theoretical foundation for UML research because graphical notations (or visual signs) of UML are subjected to the principles of signs. In our research, we use semiotics to study the effectiveness of graphical notations in UML. We hypothesized that the use of iconic signs as UML graphical notations leads to representation that is more accurately interpreted and that arouses fewer connotations than the …