ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
The use of computer vision algorithms and deformation modeling to improve the endoscopic-video interface
Authors: Yuan-Fang Wang
Venue:  (2006)

This thesis, presents work done in several different areas for the purpose of improving the video-feedback interface used by surgeons in endoscopy. The areas include: (1) computer vision and (2) deformation modeling. Endoscopy is an ever more relevant medical technique, with over one million procedures performed annually. With operating-room costs at 25USD/minute, it makes sense to develop algorithms with the aim of increasing the intuitiveness of an otherwise difficult video interface to work with. The first part of the work presents some of the results of computer vision algorithms, used to eliminate the disorienting effects of on-axis rotation of the endoscope. A constrained workspace involved in endoscopy forces the surgeon to use a very limited set of degrees of freedom to gain a panoramic view of the scene. This creates some disorienting motion of the camera which the algorithms attempt to alleviate. In addition, results of a structure-from-motion method employed to infer depth-maps of the scene are presented. These maps are the main ingredient used in the construction of 3D models. The second part of the thesis focuses on behavior modeling. More specifically, a method for modeling organ deformations (or other deformations) is presented. The envisioned purpose is to be able to predict the effects that external perturbations on the organ have on regions outside the field-of-view. The main emphasis is on the development and testing of the algorithms that eventually might form part of an integrated system. In particular, a methodology, employing (1) a surface representation of the deformation equations and (2) recently developed linear-algebra techniques (known as the "Hierarchical Semi-Separable" matrix representation---or HSS) is described. The details of how the latter can be used to aid an iterative solver in processing the surface equation is also explained. HSS is a matrix computation method that exploits the smoothness of physical interaction laws and uses a hierarchical scheme to model external influences upon a point. The underlying modeling used in the presented work is physically-based and rooted in the field of continuum mechanics.
A novel linear source model and a unified rate control algorithm for H.263/MPEG-2/MPEG-4
Authors: S. K. Mitra
Venue: Proceedings of the Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, 2001. on IEEE International Conference - Volume 03 (2001)

Let /spl rho/ be the percentage of zeros among the quantized transform coefficients. We discover that, in any typical video coding system, there is always a strictly linear relationship between /spl rho/ and the actual coding bit rate R. This linearity leads to a novel and unified source model for different types of source data and different coding systems, such as H.263, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. The proposed linear source model is much simpler, but much more accurate than other source models reported in the literature. Based on this source model, a unified rate control algorithm is proposed for the above three video coding systems. Despite its extreme simplicity, the proposed algorithm outperforms other rate control algorithms by providing more accurate and robust rate control.
A highly scalable electronic mail service using open systems
Authors: Nick Christenson, Tim Bosserman, David Beckemeyer
Venue: Proceedings of the USENIX Symposium on Internet Technologies and Systems on USENIX Symposium on Internet Technologies and Systems (1997)

Email is one of the most important of the Internet services. As a very large, fast growing, Internet Service Provider, EarthLink requires a robust and powerful email architecture that will support rapid expansion. This paper describes such an architecture, its motivations, its future, and the difficulties in implementing a service on this scale.
Why Toys Shouldn't Work "Like Magic": Children's Technology and the Values of Construction and Control
Authors: Mark D. Gross, Michael Eisenberg
Venue: Proceedings of the The First IEEE International Workshop on Digital Game and Intelligent Toy Enhanced Learning (2007)

The design and engineering of children's artifacts-like engineering in general-exhibits a recurring philosophical tension between what might be called an emphasis on "ease of use" on the one hand, and an emphasis on "user empowerment" on the other. This paper argues for a style of technological toy design that emphasizes construction, mastery, and personal expressiveness for children, and that consequently runs counter to the (arguably ascendant) tradition of toys that work "like magic". We describe a series of working prototypes from our laboratories-examples that illustrate new technologies in the service of children's construction and we use these examples to ground a wider-ranging discussion of toy design and potential future work.
On-line assistant for writing course objectives
Authors: S. St. Clair
Venue: Proceedings of the 30th Annual Frontiers in Education - Volume 02 (2000)

The Instructional Objective Writing Assistant (IOWA) is a simple online knowledge based system that serves to help instructors write good course objectives. Instructional objectives are important for a number of different reasons and yet objectives are often not written, are written incorrectly, or are incompletely written. Instructors can use IOWA to solve the problems of absent incorrect and incomplete objectives. Most objectives are incorrect in that they are usually written in a form that cannot be observed or measured, thus making it impossible to determine whether or not the objectives have been met. The IOWA Web site contains instructions and suggestions on how to write objectives that are observable and measurable. A set of objectives is incomplete if it doesn't include objectives for all levels of thinking or if the objectives are focused on levels of thinking that are not appropriate for the course. The knowledge based system, which is written in Java and posted as an applet on the IOWA Web site, can help to correct this problem. The program asks the instructor questions about the course for which objectives are to be written and then returns a graph, based on the input of the instructor, that shows which levels of cognition should be focused on when writing objectives. The instructor then uses this graph, along with the suggestions, instructions, hints and examples provided on the rest of the Web site, to write objectives that are correct and complete. The paper presents the motivation for creating IOWA, the knowledge upon which IOWA is based, how IOWA works, and initial results from the use of IOWA.
The development of a complete computer design laboratory
Authors: C. Katsinis
Venue: Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education Conference on 1995. Proceedings., 1995 vol 1. - Volume 01 (1995)

Describes a computer design laboratory which was created to provides a very sophisticated and realistic environment. Students use the extensive facilities in this laboratory to undertake the design and integration of a CPU-based system that may be stand-alone or a part of another system. The design effort is as complete as possible, starting with a development proposal, including the hardware design and construction and the development of all necessary software in the C language, and concluding with extensive documentation. Students use a considerable amount of knowledge acquired in previous courses including computer architecture and interfacing, algorithms, languages and operating systems. They become members of groups that design components with complexity approaching levels found in commercial products. Thus, students that successfully complete the courses associated with the laboratory are very well prepared to become computer engineers and enter the increasingly demanding world of computer design. This paper describes the academic environment in which the laboratory operates, the purpose and function of the laboratory, the available equipment and the accomplishments of the student projects during the two academic years from September 1992 to May 1994.
SiTProS: Fast and Real-Time Simulation of Tsunami Propagation
Authors: Somporn Chuai-Aree, Wattana Kanbua
Venue: Proceedings of the First Asia International Conference on Modelling & Simulation (2007)

This paper proposes a new mathematical model for tsunami generation, propagation in real-time simulation and visualization. The model is so called SiTProS (Siam Tsunami Propagation Simulator). We deduce the shallow water wave equation, nonlinear wave equation and the continuity equation that must be satisfied when a wave encounters a discontinuity in the sea depth by selecting a computation grid from the Etopo2. A tsunami struck the shores of southern Thailand and along the Andaman coast on the December 26, 2004. The hardest-hit area of affected provinces is given based on the shoaling, refraction, diffraction and reflection phenomenon. The SiTProS can run for any given regional or global grid with a prescribed topographic dataset as Etopo2. The finite difference method is used to solve the equation. The SiTProS provides five different computing regions, which are Asia, Europe, Arab (Iran-Kenya), Africa, and Andaman. The SiTProS is designed for interactive simulation and user friendly.
TLS parameter estimation for filtering chaotic time series
Authors: S. M. Schweizer
Venue: Proceedings of the Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, 1996. on Conference Proceedings., 1996 IEEE International Conference - Volume 03 (1996)

We present a new algorithm for simultaneous filtering and parameter estimation of chaotic time series corrupted by additive measurement noise. This method is based on iteratively minimizing the total least squares (TLS) error in the phase-space using steepest descent. In contrast to prior work, we assume that the dynamic equations modeling the nonlinear time series are known, but the corresponding parameters are not. Specifically, the data is assumed to be generated from time series satisfying a set of coupled logistics equations corrupted by additive white Gaussian noise. This work is motivated in part by language modeling, where the dynamics of a conversation are argued to satisfy the coupled logistics equations and the time series data represents noisy measurements taken from protocols. Accurate estimation of the process parameters is critical, e.g., in diagnosing and treating different types of language disorders and also may prove valuable for testing and improving language understanding systems.
SISO Based Turbo Equalization and Decoding for ISI Corrupted Wireless Channels
Authors: A. Tripathy, S. S. Pathak, S. Chakrabarti
Venue: Proceedings of the International Conference on Computing: Theory and Applications (2007)

The Maximum a Posteriori (MAP) probability algorithm and the Soft Output Viterbi Algorithm (SOVA), usually known as soft in soft out (SISO)algorithms are used for data detection in non minimum phase channels representative of an outdoor cellular wireless environment. The performance of combinations of MAP and SOVA based equalizer and decoder is evaluated by simulation experiment. The performance does not improve much for more than five iterations in a severe ISI channel. The results obtained for 1 dB to 4 dB bit energy to noise power show that almost identical results are obtained for two other combinations of the SOVA and MAP in a serial concatenated scheme to take care of ISI. Theoretical analysis seems to support the viewpoint that all 4 possible combinations of MAP and SOVA algorithms result in an almost identical performance towards higher iteration numbers. Hence, SOVA-SOVA combination may be more suitable from implementation point of view than the other 3 combinations.
Integrating Architecture-Centric Methods into Object-Oriented Analysis and Design
Authors: Raghvinder Sangwan, Zakaria El Houda
Venue: Proceedings of the Sixth Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (2007)

Architecture has been established as a key to developing software systems that meet quality expectations of their stakeholders. Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD) methodologies, however, treat architecture only indirectly or implicitly. The quality of systems developed using such methodologies, thus, depends largely on the skill level and experience of its architect. It has been suggested, therefore, that augmenting these methodologies with software architecture-centric methods such as the Quality Attribute Workshop (QAW) and Attribute Driven Design (ADD) can provide explicit and methodical guidance to an architect in creating systems with desirable qualities.
A new approach to hybrid probabilistic logic programs
Authors: Emad Saad, Enrico Pontelli
Venue: Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence (2006)

This paper presents a novel revision of the framework of Hybrid Probabilistic Logic Programming, along with a complete semantics characterization, to enable the encoding of and reasoning about real-world applications. The language of Hybrid Probabilistic Logic Programs framework is extended to allow the use of non-monotonic negation, and two alternative semantical characterizations are defined: stable probabilistic model semantics and probabilistic well-founded semantics. These semantics generalize the stable model semantics and well-founded semantics of traditional normal logic programs, and they reduce to the semantics of Hybrid Probabilistic Logic programs for programs without negation. It is the first time that two different semantics for Hybrid Probabilistic Programs with non-monotonic negation as well as their relationships are described. This proposal provides the foundational grounds for developing computational methods for implementing the proposed semantics. Furthermore, it makes it clearer how to characterize non-monotonic negation in probabilistic logic programming frameworks for commonsense reasoning.
Teaming in technical courses
Authors: D. Cordes, J. Parker, D. Nikles, A. Hopenwasser, C. Laurie, J. Izatt
Venue: Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education Conference, on 1995. Proceedings., 1995 - Volume 02 (1995)

As a result of the University of Alabama participating in the Foundation Coalition, the 1994-1995 academic year saw a completely new curriculum being prototyped for a class of 36 volunteer students within the college. The curriculum in question provides an integrated 13-hour sequence of calculus, physics, chemistry and engineering design for the students. One of the central themes to this sequence is the concept of teams and teaming. Students work in teams of four students throughout this course sequence. These teams operate as a unit for all classes, mathematics recitations, physics and chemistry laboratories, and all engineering design projects. A number of strategies for how to proceed were identified. Concern was placed on ensuring that students gain both the ability to function effectively within a team environment and also demonstrate their own individual ability to perform the task in question. This paper examines the processes by which teaming is performed within the integrated freshman year of the Foundation Coalition. It looks at successes that have been realized and also point out techniques that should not be repeated. The authors summarize their opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of the process, as well as identifying the principal lessons learned for both future semesters of this curriculum and other individuals interested in incorporating teaming into their own courses. In addition, the authors comment on the similarities and differences between freshmen students and upper-level engineering students with respect to teams and teaming.
A localization-error-based method for microphone-array design
Authors: M. S. Brandstein
Venue: Proceedings of the Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, 1996. on Conference Proceedings., 1996 IEEE International Conference - Volume 02 (1996)

This paper presents a means for predicting the error region associated with a speech-source location estimate obtained from a set of microphones in a room environment. The error predictor presented is derived assuming a specific source-sensor geometry consisting of pairs of closely-spaced sensors for which a delay estimate associated with the potential source has been evaluated. The accuracy of the predictor is evaluated through a set of Monte Carlo simulations and an application of the predictor to microphone-array design in the context of a video-teleconferencing scenario is presented.
Distributed computing: moving from CGI to CORBA
Authors: James FitzGibbon, Tim Strike
Venue: Proceedings of the annual conference on USENIX Annual Technical Conference (2000)

In this paper, we document the evolution of a banner and delivery system from a simple CGI script written in Perl running on a single host into a distributed computing application using CORBA. While CORBA has an established history in the enterprise-computing world, it is only recently that the Open-Source ® community has begun to embrace it. Starting without any RPC programming experience, it took TargetNet a little less than half a year to integrate CORBA into the Apache web server and convert all their CGI programs into CORBA servers. Performance of the system increased from 50 transactions per second to over 400 per second. Thanks to the cross-platform capabilities of CORBA, future components can be developed on virtually any operating system and programming language. By adding inexpensive servers, the capacity of the system scales in a near-linear fashion. Most importantly, the switch to CORBA didn't require a change of operating system or development environment - everything runs on a free operating system using OpenSource components.
Implementing signatures for C++
Authors: Gerald Baumgartner, Vincent F. Russo
Venue: Proceedings of the 6th conference on USENIX Sixth C++ Technical Conference - Volume 6 (1994)

In this paper we overview the design and implementation of a language extension to C++ for abstracting types and for decoupling subtyping and inheritance. This extension gives the user more of the flexibility of dynamic typing while retaining the efficiency and security of static typing. We discuss the syntax and semantics of this language extension, show examples of its use, and present and analyze the cost of three different implementation techniques: a preprocessor to a C++ compiler, an implementation in the front end of a C++ compiler, and a low-level back-end based implementation.
Dynamic Adaptation of Policies in Data Center Management
Authors: Wael Hosny Fouad Aly, Hanan Lutfiyya
Venue: Proceedings of the Eighth IEEE International Workshop on Policies for Distributed Systems and Networks (2007)

This paper applies the use of control-theoretic techniques and feedback consisting of current system behaviour to implement policies such that threshold values specified in the policies are optimized. The proposed approach in this paper is compared to other dynamic feedback control approaches. Results show that the proposed approach outperforms the other dynamic feedback control approaches. It managed to increase the number of processed requests and reduce the number of violations experienced.
Multichannel wireless networks: capacity and protocols
Authors: Nitin H. Vaidya
Venue:  (2006)

Recent years have seen significant interest in using the multihop wireless networking paradigm for building mesh networks, ad hoc networks, and sensor networks. A key challenge in multihop wireless networks is to provision for sufficient network capacity to meet user requirements. Several approaches have been proposed to improve the network capacity in multihop networks, ranging from approaches that improve the efficiency of existing protocols, to approaches that use additional resources. In this dissertation, we propose to use additional frequency spectrum, as well as improve the efficiency of using existing frequency spectrum, for improving network capacity. Widely used wireless technologies, such as IEEE 802.11, provision for multiple frequency-separated channels in the available frequency spectrum. Commercially available wireless network interfaces can typically operate over only one channel at a time. Due to cost and complexity constraints, the total number of interfaces at each node is expected to be fewer than the total number of channels available in the network. Under this scenario with fewer interfaces per node than channels, several challenges have to be addressed before all the channels can be utilized. In this dissertation, we have established the asymptotic capacity of multichannel wireless networks with varying number of channels and interfaces. Capacity analysis has shown that it is feasible to effectively use a large number of channels even with only a few interfaces per node. Based on insights from the capacity analysis, we have developed a new interface management protocol and a new routing protocol to exploit multiple channels. Detailed simulation-based evaluations of the protocols have shown that multiple channels can be used to significantly enhance network capacity, even if only a few interfaces per node are available. We have implemented the protocols in a testbed to demonstrate the feasibility of using the protocols in practice. As part of the implementation, we have developed generic architectural support for using multiple channels, which may be of use in implementing other multichannel protocols as well.
Two examples of asynchronous learning programs for professional development
Authors: A. D. Stuart
Venue: Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education Conference,1997. on 27th Annual Conference. Teaching and Learning in an Era of Change. - Volume 01 (1997)

The Pennsylvania State University has designed, developed, and delivered two Asynchronous Learning Network (ALN) projects to address the educational needs of geographically dispersed engineers. The first project is a Fundamentals of Engineering Review Course for home-based learners. This course is intended to prepare engineers to pass the Fundamentals of Engineering (EIT) Examination, which is the first of two exams required to become a Registered Professional Engineer. This course was designed around two user-familiar technologies: videotape and the touch-tone telephone. Each student receives thirty (60-minute) videotapes, covering nine topics. These videotapes review basic engineering principles and set up and solve illustrative problems. The touch-tone telephone allows the distant learner to communicate asynchronously with the course instructor and to check solutions to practice homework as well as take timed practice exams. The second project is a five-course collaborative-learning program leading to a Certificate Program in Noise Control Engineering. Intended for engineers working or seeking a career in the field of noise control engineering, this program enables geographically dispersed learners to participate in a variety of collaborative and individual experiential learning activities focused upon problem solving. The learning environment is enriched through a mixture of CD-ROM-based instruction, text materials, and asynchronous computer conferencing. This paper presents an overview of these two programs and discuss how both create new and unique kinds of learning communities.