Other Computer Sciences Commons^™

Towards Internet Of Underground Things In Smart Lighting: A Statistical Model Of Wireless Underground Channel, Abdul Salam, Mehmet C. Vuran, Suat Irmak

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

The Internet of Underground Things (IOUT) has many applications in the area of smart lighting. IOUT enables communications in smart lighting through underground (UG) and aboveground (AG) communication channels. In IOUT communications, an in-depth analysis of the wireless underground channel is important to design smart lighting solutions. In this paper, based on the empirical and the statistical analysis, a statistical channel model for the UG channel has been developed. The parameters for the statistical tapped-delay-line model are extracted from the measured power delay profiles (PDP). The PDP of the UG channel is represented by the exponential decay of the lateral, …

Smart Underground Antenna Arrays: A Soil Moisture Adaptive Beamforming Approach, Abdul Salam, Mehmet C. Vuran

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Current wireless underground (UG) communication techniques are limited by their achievable distance. In this paper, a novel framework for underground beamforming using adaptive antenna arrays is presented to extend communication distances for practical applications. Based on the analysis of propagation in wireless underground channel, a theoretical model is developed which uses soil moisture information to improve wireless underground communications performance. Array element in soil is analyzed empirically and impacts of soil type and soil moisture on return loss (RL) and resonant frequency are investigated. Accordingly, beam patterns are analyzed to communicate with underground and above ground devices. Depending on the …

Biosimp: Using Software Testing Techniques For Sampling And Inference In Biological Organisms, Mikaela Cashman, Jennie L. Catlett, Myra B. Cohen, Nicole R. Buan, Zahmeeth Sakkaff, Massimiliano Pierobon, Christine A. Kelley

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Years of research in software engineering have given us novel ways to reason about, test, and predict the behavior of complex software systems that contain hundreds of thousands of lines of code. Many of these techniques have been inspired by nature such as genetic algorithms, swarm intelligence, and ant colony optimization. In this paper we reverse the direction and present BioSIMP, a process that models and predicts the behavior of biological organisms to aid in the emerging field of systems biology. It utilizes techniques from testing and modeling of highly-configurable software systems. Using both experimental and simulation data we show …

Musictrakr, Benjamin Lin

Computer Engineering

MusicTrackr is an IoT device that musicians attach to their instruments. The device has a start and stop button that allows users to record their playing sessions. Each recorded session is sent wirelessly to a cloud database. An accompanying website displays all of the recorded sessions, organized by date. After picking a specific date, the user can view graphs showing total practice time and average session length as well play back any recordings during that date. In addition, the user may add comments to any specific date or recording. Lastly, the user may tag a specific date with a color …

Impacts Of Soil Type And Moisture On The Capacity Of Multi-Carrier Modulation In Internet Of Underground Things, Abdul Salam, Mehmet C. Vuran

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Unique interactions between soil and communication components in wireless underground communications necessitate revisiting fundamental communication concepts from a different perspective. In this paper, capacity profile of wireless underground (UG) channel for multi-carrier transmission techniques is analyzed based on empirical antenna return loss and channel frequency response models in different soil types and moisture values. It is shown that data rates in excess of 124 Mbps are possible for distances up to 12 m. For shorter distances and lower soil moisture conditions, data rates of 362 Mbps can be achieved. It is also shown that due to soil moisture variations, UG …

Learning Hierarchically Decomposable Concepts With Active Over-Labeling, Yuji Mo, Stephen Scott, Doug Downey

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Many classification tasks target high-level concepts that can be decomposed into a hierarchy of finer-grained subconcepts. For example, some string entities that are Locations are also Attractions, some Attractions are Museums, etc. Such hierarchies are common in named entity recognition (NER), document classification, and biological sequence analysis. We present a new approach for learning hierarchically decomposable concepts. The approach learns a high-level classifier (e.g., location vs. non-location) by seperately learning multiple finer-grained classifiers (e.g., museum vs. non-museum), and then combining the results. Soliciting labels at a finer level of granularity than that of the target concept is a new approach …

Table Headers: An Entrance To The Data Mine, George Nagy, Sharad C. Seth

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Algorithmic methods are demonstrated for information extraction from table header elements, including data categories and data hierarchies. The table headers are found with the Minimum Index Point Search algorithm. The header-path alignment and header completion algorithms yield database-ready table content and configuration statistics on a random sample of 400 diverse tables with ground truth and 1120 tables without ground truth from international statistical data sites.

A Computational Translation Of The Phaistos Disk, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

For over a century the text of the Phaistos Disk remained an enigma without a convincing translation. This paper presents a novel semi-automatic translation method that uses for the first time a recently discovered connection between the Phaistos Disk symbols and other ancient scripts, including the Old Hungarian alphabet. The connection between the Phaistos Disk script and the Old Hungarian alphabet suggested the possibility that the Phaistos Disk language may be related to Proto-Finno-Ugric, Proto-Ugric, or Proto-Hungarian. Using words and suffixes from those languages, it is possible to translate the Phaistos Disk text as an ancient sun hymn, possibly connected …

A Computational Model Of The Spread Of Ancient Human Populations Based On Mitochondrial Dna Samples, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

The extraction of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from ancient human population samples provides important data for the reconstruction of population influences, spread and evolution from the Neolithic to the present. This paper presents a mtDNA-based similarity measure between pairs of human populations and a computational model for the evolution of human populations. In a computational experiment, the paper studies the mtDNA information from five Neolithic and Bronze Age populations, namely the Andronovo, the Bell Beaker, the Minoan, the Rössen and the Únětice populations. In the past these populations were identified as separate cultural groups based on geographic location, age and the …

A Computational Study Of The Evolution Of Cretan And Related Scripts, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Crete was the birthplace of several ancient writings, including the Cretan Hieroglyphs, the Linear A and the Linear B scripts. Out of these three only Linear B is deciphered. The sound values of the Cretan Hieroglyph and the Linear A symbols are unknown and attempts to reconstruct them based on Linear B have not been fruitful. In this paper, we compare the ancient Cretan scripts with four other Mediterranean and Black Sea scripts, namely Phoenician, South Arabic, Greek and Old Hungarian. We provide a computational study of the evolution of the three Cretan and four other scripts. This study encompasses …

Mutations Of Adjacent Amino Acid Pairs Are Not Always Independent, Jyotsna Ramanan, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Evolutionary studies usually assume that the genetic mutations are independent of each other. This paper tests the independence hypothesis for genetic mutations with regard to protein coding regions. According to the new experimental results the independence assumption generally holds, but there are certain exceptions. In particular, the coding regions that represent two adjacent amino acids seem to change in ways that sometimes deviate significantly from the expected theoretical probability under the independence assumption.

A-Maze-D: Advanced Maze Development Kit Using Constraint Databases, Shruti Daggumarti, Peter Revesz, Corey Svehla

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

In this paper, we describe the A-Maze-D system which shows that constraint databases can be applied conveniently and efficiently to the design of maze games. A-Maze-D provides a versatile set of features by a combination of a MATLAB library and the MLPQ constraint database system. A-Maze-D is the first system that uses constraint databases to build maze games and opens new ideas in video game development.

Robust And Real-Time Stereo Matching On Parallel Graphics Hardware Using Gradient-Based Disparity Refinement, Jedrzej Kowalczuk

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Computer vision attempts to provide camera-equipped machines with visual perception, i.e., the capability to comprehend their surroundings through the analysis and understanding of images. The ability to perceive depth is a vital component of visual perception that enables machines to interpret the three-dimensional structure of their surroundings and allows them to navigate through the environment. In computer vision, depth perception is achieved via stereo matching, a process that identifies correspondences between pixels in images acquired using a pair of horizontally offset cameras. It is possible to calculate depths from correspondences or, more specifically, the positional offsets (disparities) between pixels in …

Simple Secrecy: Analog Stream Cipher For Secure Voice Communication, John M. Campbell

Senior Honors Theses

Voice signals are inherently analog, and some voice communication systems still utilize analog signals. Existing analog cryptographic methods do not satisfactorily provide cryptosecurity for communication systems due to several limitations. This paper proposes a novel means of provided cryptosecurity for analog signals without digitization; thereby avoiding the latency which results from ADC/DAC conversions. This method utilizes the principles of the digital stream cipher, generating instead a continuous pseudorandom analog key stream signal which is transformed with the original analog signal to create an encrypted ciphertext signal which is statistically independent of the original signal and the key stream signal. The …

Clustering Header Categories Extracted From Web Tables, George Nagy, David W. Embley, Mukkai Krishnamoorthy, Sharad C. Seth

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Revealing related content among heterogeneous web tables is part of our long term objective of formulating queries over multiple sources of information. Two hundred HTML tables from institutional web sites are segmented and each table cell is classified according to the fundamental indexing property of row and column headers. The categories that correspond to the multi-dimensional data cube view of a table are extracted by factoring the (often multi-row/column) headers. To reveal commonalities between tables from diverse sources, the Jaccard distances between pairs of category headers (and also table titles) are computed. We show how about one third of our …

A Generalized Service Replication Process In Distributed Environments, Hany F. Elyamany, Marwa F. Mohamed, Katarina Grolinger, Miriam Am Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Replication is one of the main techniques aiming to improve Web services’ (WS) quality of service (QoS) in distributed environments, including clouds and mobile devices. Service replication is a way of improving WS performance and availability by creating several copies or replicas of Web services which work in parallel or sequentially under defined circumstances. In this paper, a generalized replication process for distributed environments is discussed based on established replication studies. The generalized replication process consists of three main steps: sensing the environment characteristics, determining the replication strategy, and implementing the selected replication strategy. To demonstrate application of the generalized …

Synthesis Of Irreversible Incompletely Specified Multi-Output Functions To Reversible Eosops Circuits With Pse Gates, Robert Adrian Fiszer

Dissertations and Theses

As quantum computers edge closer to viability, it becomes necessary to create logic synthesis and minimization algorithms that take into account the particular aspects of quantum computers that differentiate them from classical computers. Since quantum computers can be functionally described as reversible computers with superposition and entanglement, both advances in reversible synthesis and increased utilization of superposition and entanglement in quantum algorithms will increase the power of quantum computing.

One necessary component of any practical quantum computer is the computation of irreversible functions. However, very little work has been done on algorithms that synthesize and minimize irreversible functions into a …

Cubic Spline Interpolation By Solving A Recurrence Equation Instead Of A Tridiagonal Matrix, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

The cubic spline interpolation method is proba- bly the most widely-used polynomial interpolation method for functions of one variable. However, the cubic spline method requires solving a tridiagonal matrix-vector equation with an O(n) computational time complexity where n is the number of data measurements. Even an O(n) time complexity may be too much in some time-ciritical applications, such as continuously estimating and updating the flight paths of moving objects. This paper shows that under certain boundary conditions the tridiagonal matrix solving step of the cubic spline method could be entirely eliminated and instead the coefficients of the unknown cubic polynomials …

A Game-Theoretic Analysis Of The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Although nuclear non-proliferation is an almost universal human desire, in practice, the negotiated treaties appear unable to prevent the steady growth of the number of states that have nuclear weapons. We propose a computational model for understanding the complex issues behind nuclear arms negotiations, the motivations of various states to enter a nuclear weapons program and the ways to diffuse crisis situations.

Designing A Bayer Filter With Smooth Hue Transition Interpolation Using The Xilinx System Generator, Zhiqiang Li, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

This paper describes the design of a Bayer filter with smooth hue transition using the System Generator for DSP. We describe and compare experimentally two different designs, one based on a MATLAB implementation and the other based on a modification of the Bayer filter using bilinear interpolation.

Estimating The Flight Path Of Moving Objects Based On Acceleration Data, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Inertial navigation is the problem of estimating the flight path of a moving object based on only acceleration measurements. This paper describes and compares two approaches for inertial navigation. Both approaches estimate the flight path of the moving object using cubic spline interpolation, but they find the coefficients of the cubic spline pieces by different methods. The first approach uses a tridiagonal matrix, while the second approach uses recurrence equations. They also require different boundary conditions. While both approaches work in O(n) time where n is the number of given acceleration measurements, the recurrence equation-based method can be easier updated …

A Knowledge Discovery Approach For The Detection Of Power Grid State Variable Attacks, Nathan Wallace

Doctoral Dissertations

As the level of sophistication in power system technologies increases, the amount of system state parameters being recorded also increases. This data not only provides an opportunity for monitoring and diagnostics of a power system, but it also creates an environment wherein security can be maintained. Being able to extract relevant information from this pool of data is one of the key challenges still yet to be obtained in the smart grid. The potential exists for the creation of innovative power grid cybersecurity applications, which harness the information gained from advanced analytics. Such analytics can be based on the extraction …

A Comparison Of Image Processing Techniques For Bird Detection, Elsa Reyes

Master's Theses

Orchard fruits and vegetable crops are vulnerable to wild birds and animals. These wild birds and animals can cause critical damage to the produce. Traditional methods of scaring away birds such as scarecrows are not long-term solutions but short-term solutions. This is a huge problem especially near areas like San Luis Obispo where there are vineyards. Bird damage can be as high as 50% for grapes being grown in vineyards. The total estimated revenue lost annually in the 10 counties in California due to bird and rodent damage to 22 selected crops ranged from $168 million to $504 million (in …

Mobile Indoor Positioning For Augmented Reality Systems, Robert B. Glass

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the creation and setup of a prototype that allows users of the device to interact within an indoor real world environment and a virtual environment simultaneously using high-tech common technology. The prototype is comprised of a small mobile device such as a cellular mobile phone, Raspberry Pi computer, a battery powered handheld Pico projector, and software developed for the Android OS. The software can easily be ported to other mobile and non-mobile operating systems. The mobile device must contain accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope embedded sensors as well as 802.11 wireless network chip. The prototype software implements an …

Yeast Pheromone Pathway Modeling Using Petri Nets, Stephen D. Scott, Abhishek Majumdar, Jitender S. Deogun, Steven D. Harris

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Background: Our environment is composed of biological components of varying magnitude. The relationships between the different biological elements can be represented as a biological network. The process of mating in S. cerevisiae is initiated by secretion of pheromone by one of the cells. Our interest lies in one particular question: how does a cell dynamically adapt the pathway to continue mating under severe environmental changes or under mutation (which might result in the loss of functionality of some proteins known to participate in the pheromone pathway). Our work attempts to answer this question. To achieve this, we first propose a …

A Comparison Of A Campus Cluster And Open Science Grid Platforms For Protein- Guided Assembly Using Pegasus Workflow Management System, Natasha Pavlovikj, Kevin Begcy, Sairam Behera, Malachy Campbell, Harkamal Walia, Jitender S. Deogun

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Scientific workflows are a useful tool for managing large and complex computational tasks. Due to its intensive resource requirements, the scientific workflows are often executed on distributed platforms, including campus clusters, grids and clouds. In this paper we build a scientific workflow for blast2cap3, the protein-guided assembly, using the Pegasus Workflow Management System (Pegasus WMS). The modularity of blast2cap3 allows us to decompose the existing serial approach on multiple tasks, some of which can be run in parallel. Afterwards, this workflow is deployed on two distributed execution platforms: Sandhills, the University of Nebraska Campus Cluster, and the Open Science …

Transforming Web Tables To A Relational Database, David W. Embley, George Nagy, Sharad C. Seth

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

HTML tables represent a significant fraction of web data. The often complex headers of such tables are determined accurately using their indexing property. Isolated headers are factored to extract category hierarchies. Web tables are then transformed into a canonical form and imported into a relational database. The proposed processing allows for the formulation of arbitrary SQL queries over the collection of induced relational tables.

Stochastic Modeling And Time-To-Event Analysis Of Voip Traffic, Imad Al Ajarmeh

College of Computing and Digital Media Dissertations

Voice over IP (VoIP) systems are gaining increased popularity due to the cost effectiveness, ease of management, and enhanced features and capabilities. Both enterprises and carriers are deploying VoIP systems to replace their TDM-based legacy voice networks. However, the lack of engineering models for VoIP systems has been realized by many researchers, especially for large-scale networks. The purpose of traffic engineering is to minimize call blocking probability and maximize resource utilization. The current traffic engineering models are inherited from the legacy PSTN world, and these models fall short from capturing the characteristics of new traffic patterns. The objective of this …

Just-In-Time Power Gating Of Gasp Circuits, Prachi Gulab Padwal

Dissertations and Theses

In modern integrated circuits, one way to reduce power consumption is to turn off power to parts of the circuit when those are idle. This method is called power gating. This thesis presents a state-preserving technique to achieve power savings in GasP family of asynchronous circuits by turning off the power when the circuit is idle. The power control logic turns on the power in anticipation of the receiving data. The power control logic turns off the power when the stage is idle either because it is empty or because the pipeline is clogged. The low logical effort of GasP …

Human Performance Regression Testing, Amanda Swearngin, Myra B. Cohen, Bonnie E. John, Rachel K. E. Bellamy

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

As software systems evolve, new interface features such as keyboard shortcuts and toolbars are introduced. While it is common to regression test the new features for functional correctness, there has been less focus on systematic regression testing for usability, due to the effort and time involved in human studies. Cognitive modeling tools such as CogTool provide some help by computing predictions of user performance, but they still require manual effort to describe the user interface and tasks, limiting regression testing efforts. In recent work, we developed CogTool-Helper to reduce the effort required to generate human performance models of existing systems. …