"Collaborative filtering algorithms’ performances have been evaluated using a variety of metrics.
These metrics, such as Mean Absolute Error and Precision, have often ignored recommendations for
which they do not have data. Ignoring these recommendations has provided numbers which do not
accurately represent the user experience. Qualitatively we have seen...
Functional programming is concerned with referential transparency, that is, given a certain function and its parameter, that the result will always be the same. However, it seems that this is violated in applications involving uncertainty, such as rolling a dice. This thesis defines the background of probabilistic programming and domain-specific...
The Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) is a public key cryptosystem used for creation and verification of digital signatures in electronic documents. In this thesis, we created a Java applet that provides the functionality of the ECDSA using all of the NIST elliptic curves over GF(p). This applet was...
Active contour models have been widely applied to image segmentation and
analysis. It has been successfully used in contour detection for object recognition,
computer vision, computer graphics, and biomedical image processing such as X-ray,
MRI and Ultrasound images.
The energy-minimizing active contour models or snakes were developed by Kass,
Witkin...
The appropriate separation of concerns is a fundamental engineering principle. A concern, for software developers, is that which must be represented by code in a program; by extension, separation of concerns is the ability to represent a single concern in a single appropriate programming language construct. Advanced separation of concerns...
Machine learning encompasses probabilistic and statistical techniques that can build models from large quantities of extensional information (examples) with minimal dependence on intensional information (domain knowledge). This focus of machine learning is reflected in the never-ending quest for "off-the-shelf" classifiers. To generalize to unseen data, however, we must make use...
Digital libraries are digitally accessible, organized collections of knowledge. Although under this broad definition any digitally accessible data set might be considered a digital library, the term is generally reserved for collections whose structures are carefully documented and made available in the form of so-called metadata. There is no specific...
Professional software developers do not test code adequately, even though testing tools are widely available. Until developers realize the deficiencies in their tests, inadequate testing of software seems likely to remain a major problem. To support developers writing tests, industry and researchers have proposed systems that visualize “testedness” for end-user...
Graph-based approaches for sequencing motion capture data have produced some of the most realistic and controllable character motion to date. Most previous graph-based approaches have employed a run-time global search to find paths through the motion graph that meet user-defined constraints such as a desired locomotion path. Such searches do...
"SAML Edit® is a PC-based tool for creation and manipulation of SAML Assertion text files (as defined by OASIS). The tool allows its user to modify the data/information contained in the underlying file. As security information between entities is exchanged using such SAML Assertion text files, the ability to manipulate...
"‘Biometrics is at the forefront in our agenda for homeland security,’ declared Asa Hutchinson, the Department of Homeland Security's undersecretary for border and transportation security, at the 2004 Biometric Consortium Conference” [11].
Flashy retinal scanning and voice activated computers were once considered technologies for science fiction movies and novels. Nowadays,...
Successful software systems evolve over their lifetimes through the cumulative changes made by software maintainers. As software evolves, the problems resulting from software change worsen, exacerbated by increased system size and complexity, lack of program understanding, amount of effort required to make changes, and number of personnel involved. Experience shows...
Current database systems apply access control mostly on tables and columns.
However, many applications require access control on individual rows in database
tables. Therefore, we have implemented a row-based access control mechanism. In
our model for access control, object groups, in addition to user groups, are used to
reduce the...
In some practical systems, most of the errors are of 1 → 0 type and 0 → 1
errors occur very rarely. In this thesis, first, the capacity of the asymmetric
channel is derived. The capacity of the binary symmetric channel (BSC) and the
Z-channel can be derived from this...
Spatial Supervised Learning seeks to learn how to assign a label to each pixel in a spatial grid
such as the pixels of remote-sensed images. The standard approach is to treat each grid cell
separately and to use only the measured features of the grid cell to determine the assigned...
Controlling a virtual character with a pen input device is difficult. Pen input
devices require freeform gestures and users are not confined to particular mapping of a
key or a button that is exactly repeatable. This is a problem since an intuitive motion
gesture for one user might not be...
We have developed a framework for Web-based GIS/database (WebGD) applications
that allow users to insert, query, and delete data with map interfaces displayed by Web
browsers. The framework uses such open source software packages as Minnesota
MapServer, PostGIS, and PostgreSQL. With this framework, we can create the map
interface of...