Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing Commons^™

Empathetic Computing For Inclusive Application Design, Kenny Choo Tsu Wei

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The explosive growth of the ecosystem of personal and ambient computing de- vices coupled with the proliferation of high-speed connectivity has enabled ex- tremely powerful and varied mobile computing applications that are used every- where. While such applications have tremendous potential to improve the lives of impaired users, most mobile applications have impoverished designs to be inclusive– lacking support for users with specific disabilities. Mobile app designers today haveinadequate support to design existing classes of apps to support users with specific disabilities, and more so, lack the support to design apps that specifically target these users. One way to resolve …

Adaptive Parallelism For Coupled, Multithreaded Message-Passing Programs, Samuel K. Gutiérrez

Computer Science ETDs

Hybrid parallel programming models that combine message passing (MP) and shared- memory multithreading (MT) are becoming more popular, especially with applications requiring higher degrees of parallelism and scalability. Consequently, coupled parallel programs, those built via the integration of independently developed and optimized software libraries linked into a single application, increasingly comprise message-passing libraries with differing preferred degrees of threading, resulting in thread-level heterogeneity. Retroactively matching threading levels between independently developed and maintained libraries is difficult, and the challenge is exacerbated because contemporary middleware services provide only static scheduling policies over entire program executions, necessitating suboptimal, over-subscribed or under-subscribed, configurations. In …

Developing A Cyberterrorism Policy: Incorporating Individual Values, Osama Bassam J. Rabie

Theses and Dissertations

Preventing cyberterrorism is becoming a necessity for individuals, organizations, and governments. However, current policies focus on technical and managerial aspects without asking for experts and non-experts values and preferences for preventing cyberterrorism. This study employs value focused thinking and public value forum to bare strategic measures and alternatives for complex policy decisions for preventing cyberterrorism. The strategic measures and alternatives are per socio-technical process.

Design And Implementation Of A Stand-Alone Tool For Metabolic Simulations, Milad Ghiasi Rad

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this thesis, we present the design and implementation of a stand-alone tool for metabolic simulations. This system is able to integrate custom-built SBML models along with external user’s input information and produces the estimation of any reactants participating in the chain of the reactions in the provided model, e.g., ATP, Glucose, Insulin, for the given duration using numerical analysis and simulations. This tool offers the food intake arguments in the calculations to consider the personalized metabolic characteristics in the simulations. The tool has also been generalized to take into consideration of temporal genomic information and be flexible for simulation …

Ancr—An Adaptive Network Coding Routing Scheme For Wsns With Different-Success-Rate Links †, Xiang Ji, Anwen Wang, Chunyu Li, Chun Ma, Yao Peng, Dajin Wang, Qingyi Hua, Feng Chen, Dingyi Fang

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As the underlying infrastructure of the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been widely used in many applications. Network coding is a technique in WSNs to combine multiple channels of data in one transmission, wherever possible, to save node’s energy as well as increase the network throughput. So far most works on network coding are based on two assumptions to determine coding opportunities: (1) All the links in the network have the same transmission success rate; (2) Each link is bidirectional, and has the same transmission success rate on both ways. However, these assumptions may not be …

Hpc Made Easy: Using Docker To Distribute And Test Trilinos, Sean J. Deal

All College Thesis Program, 2016-2019

Virtualization is an enticing option for computer science research given its ability to provide repeatable, standardized environments, but traditional virtual machines have too much overhead cost to be practical. Docker, a Linux-based tool for operating-system level virtualization, has been quickly gaining popularity throughout the computer science field by touting a virtualization solution that is easily distributable and more lightweight than virtual machines. This thesis aims to explore if Docker is a viable option for conducting virtualized research by evaluating the results of parallel performance tests using the Trilinos project.

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 …

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 …

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 …

Boscor: Extending R From The Desktop To The Grid, Derek J. Weitzel, Jaime Frey, Marco Mambelli, Dan Fraser, Miha Ahronovitz, David Swanson

Holland Computing Center: Faculty Publications

In this paper, we describe a framework to execute R functions on remote resources from the desktop using Bosco. The R language is attractive to researchers because of its high level programming constructs which lower the barrier of entry for use. As the use of the R programming language in HPC and High Throughput Computing (HTC) has grown, so too has the need for parallel libraries in order to utilize computing resources.

Bosco is middleware that uses common protocols to manage job submissions to a variety of remote computational platforms and resources. The researcher is able to control and monitor …

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 …

Proton Computed Tomography: Matrix Data Generation Through General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit Reconstruction, Micah Witt

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Proton computed tomography (pCT) is an image modality that will improve treatment planning for patients receiving proton radiation therapy compared with the current techniques, which are based on X-ray CT. Images are reconstructed in pCT by solving a large and sparse system of linear equations. The size of the system necessitates matrix-partitioning and parallel reconstruction algorithms to be implemented across some sort of cluster computing architecture. The prototypical algorithm to solve the pCT system is the algebraic reconstruction technique (ART) that has been modified into parallel versions called block-iterative-projection (BIP) methods and string-averaging-projection (SAP) methods. General purpose graphics processing units …

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 …

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. …

Using Service Responsibility Tables To Supplement Uml In Analyzing E-Service Systems, Xin Tan, Steven Alter, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper proposes using Service Responsibility Tables (SRTs) as a tool in analyzing e-service systems. First it discusses difficulties and deficiencies of using formal modeling languages such as UML in analyzing e-service systems. It proposes using SRTs as an informal language and lightweight analytical tool to be used by business professionals in analyzing e-service systems. SRTs are based on a service value chain framework but do not rely on abstract concepts and constructs, and therefore can be used by business professionals to supplement UML. We suggest a set of heuristics for transforming SRTs into two key UML diagrams, thereby illustrating …

Program Transformations For Information Personalization, Saverio Perugini, Naren Ramakrishnan

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Personalization constitutes the mechanisms necessary to automatically customize information content, structure, and presentation to the end user to reduce information overload. Unlike traditional approaches to personalization, the central theme of our approach is to model a website as a program and conduct website transformation for personalization by program transformation (e.g., partial evaluation, program slicing). The goal of this paper is study personalization through a program transformation lens and develop a formal model, based on program transformations, for personalized interaction with hierarchical hypermedia. The specific research issues addressed involve identifying and developing program representations and transformations suitable for classes of hierarchical …

Node Isolation Model And Age-Based Neighbor Selection In Unstructured P2p Networks, Zhongmei Yao, Derek Leonard, Dmitri Loguinov

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Previous analytical studies of unstructured P2P resilience have assumed exponential user lifetimes and only considered age-independent neighbor replacement. In this paper, we overcome these limitations by introducing a general node-isolation model for heavy-tailed user lifetimes and arbitrary neighbor-selection algorithms. Using this model, we analyze two age-biased neighbor-selection strategies and show that they significantly improve the residual lifetimes of chosen users, which dramatically reduces the probability of user isolation and graph partitioning compared with uniform selection of neighbors. In fact, the second strategy based on random walks on age-proportional graphs demonstrates that, for lifetimes with infinite variance, the system monotonically increases …

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.

Symbolic Links In The Open Directory Project, Saverio Perugini

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We present a study to develop an improved understanding of symbolic links in web directories. A symbolic link is a hyperlink that makes a directed connection from a web page along one path through a directory to a page along another path. While symbolic links are ubiquitous in web directories such as Yahoo!, they are under-studied, and as a result, their uses are poorly understood. A cursory analysis of symbolic links reveals multiple uses: to provide navigational shortcuts deeper into a directory, backlinks to more general categories, and multiclassification. We investigated these uses in the Open Directory Project (ODP), the …

Mining Web-Functional Dependencies For Flexible Information Access, Saverio Perugini, Naren Ramakrishnan

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We present an approach to enhancing information access through Web structure mining in contrast to traditional approaches involving usage mining. Specifically, we mine the hardwired hierarchical hyperlink structure of Web sites to identify patterns of term-term co-occurrences we call Web functional dependencies (FDs). Intuitively, a Web FD ‘x y’ declares that all paths through a site involving a hyperlink labeled x also contain a hyperlink labeled y. The complete set of FDs satisfied by a site help characterize (flexible and expressive) interaction paradigms supported by a site, where a paradigm is the set of explorable sequences therein. …

A Study Of Out-Of-Turn Interaction In Menu-Based, Ivr, Voicemail Systems, Saverio Perugini, Taylor J. Anderson, William F. Moroney

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We present the first user study of out-of-turn interaction in menu-based, interactive voice-response systems. Out-ofturn interaction is a technique which empowers the user (unable to respond to the current prompt) to take the conversational initiative by supplying information that is currently unsolicited, but expected later in the dialog. The technique permits the user to circumvent any flows of navigation hardwired into the design and navigate the menus in a manner which reflects their model of the task. We conducted a laboratory experiment to measure the effect of the use of outof- turn interaction on user performance and preference in a …

Modeling Heterogeneous User Churn And Local Resilience Of Unstructured P2p Networks, Zhongmei Yao, Derek Leonard, Dmitri Loguinov, Xiaoming Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Previous analytical results on the resilience of unstructured P2P systems have not explicitly modeled heterogeneity of user churn (i.e., difference in online behavior) or the impact of in-degree on system resilience. To overcome these limitations, we introduce a generic model of heterogeneous user churn, derive the distribution of the various metrics observed in prior experimental studies (e.g., lifetime distribution of joining users, joint distribution of session time of alive peers, and residual lifetime of a randomly selected user), derive several closed-form results on the transient behavior of in-degree, and eventually obtain the joint in/out degree isolation probability as a simple …

Interacting With Web Hierarchies, Saverio Perugini, Naren Ramakrishnan

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Web site interfaces are a particularly good fit for hierarchies in the broadest sense of that idea, i.e. a classification with multiple attributes, not necessarily a tree structure. Several adaptive interface designs are emerging that support flexible navigation orders, exposing and exploring dependencies, and procedural information-seeking tasks. This paper provides a context and vocabulary for thinking about hierarchical Web sites and their design. The paper identifies three features that interface to information hierarchies. These are flexible navigation orders, the ability to expose and explore dependencies, and support for procedural tasks. A few examples of these features are also provided

Automatically Discovering The Number Of Clusters In Web Page Datasets, Zhongmei Yao

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Clustering is well-suited for Web mining by automatically organizing Web pages into categories, each of which contains Web pages having similar contents. However, one problem in clustering is the lack of general methods to automatically determine the number of categories or clusters. For the Web domain in particular, currently there is no such method suitable for Web page clustering. In an attempt to address this problem, we discover a constant factor that characterizes the Web domain, based on which we propose a new method for automatically determining the number of clusters in Web page data sets. We discover that the …

Automatically Generating Interfaces For Personalized Interaction With Digital Libraries, Saverio Perugini, Naren Ramakrishnan, Edward A. Fox

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We present an approach to automatically generate interfaces supporting personalized interaction with digital libraries; these interfaces augment the user-DL dialog by empowering the user to (optionally) supply out-of-turn information during an interaction, flatten or restructure the dialog, and inquire about dialog options. Interfaces generated using this approach for CITIDEL are described.

Development Of A Systems Engineering Model For Chemical Separation Process, Lijian Sun

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis is concerned with the efforts to develop a general-purpose systems engineering model software TRPSEMPro1 that can be used to improve productivity in the design process. Different features of TRPSEMPro will be presented in this thesis. First, Systems Engineering technology is presented, followed by the exposition of different numerical optimization technologies and DOE (Design of Experiments) study technologies. Second, the detailed software process, Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOA&D) for the TRPSEMPro is presented. All the design data models are expressed by using Unified Modeling Language (UML).

AMUSESimulator is another software package which has been designed and implemented in order …

The Staging Transformation Approach To Mixing Initiative, Robert Capra, Michael Narayan, Saverio Perugini, Naren Ramakrishnan, Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Mixed-initiative interaction is an important facet of many conversational interfaces, flexible planning architectures, intelligent tutoring systems, and interactive information retrieval systems. Software systems for mixed-initiative interaction must enable us to both operationalize the mixing of initiative (i.e., support the creation of practical dialogs) and to reason in real-time about how a flexible mode of interaction can be supported (e.g., from a meta-dialog standpoint). In this paper, we present the staging transformation approach to mixing initiative, where a dialog script captures the structure of the dialog and dialog control processes are realized through generous use of program transformation techniques (e.g., partial …