Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Ph.D. Dissertation Defense

DiffServ Assured Forwarded and Robust
Header Compression: Performance Analysis

Houcheng Lee

12:30pm Monday, 23 April 2012, ITE 201b

Performance analysis of network architecture and protocols can be done by using modeling and simulation or using emulation techniques. Modeling and simulation can be used to obtain qualitative results about a network protocol through building models of protocols under drastic abstractions. One major concern of the modeling approach is the fidelity of the results from a model simulation.

This dissertation presents detailed performance analyses of two major Internet standards using emulation techniques. The standards investigated are Differentiated Services (DiffServ) architecture and Robust Compression (ROHC) standard.

The DiffServ architecture was proposed to support quality of services (QoS) implementation in TCP/IP networks. In the first part of dissertation, a new and scalable approach to performance analysis of DiffServ architecture, based on fluid flow modeling approximation to TCP/UDP based traffic flows, is used to emulate millions of competing TCP and UDP flows across networks of various sizes, complexities and link speeds. The emulation involved real-world network constraints, including traffic prioritizations, limited buffers in routers, link congestion, active queue management (AQM) and packet drop policies on congested links. The results provided first quantitative understanding of the interactions of traffic with different drop precedencies in AF1 class traffic in a congested network.

The Robust Header Compression (ROHC) is proposed to implement efficient IP header compression on bandwidth constrained links in TCP/IP networks. In the second part of dissertation, an emulation tool, called CORE, developed at NRL is used to analyze the performance of ROHC. ROHC compresses packet headers at a sender side, and decompresses them at the receiver side to increase efficiency of a communication link. The results provided quantitative understanding of compression gains from using ROHC standard for compressing IPv4/UDP and IPv6/UDP traffic on links.

Committee:

• Dr. Deepinder Sidhu
• Dr. Yelena Yesha
• Dr. Konstantinos Kalpakis
• Dr. Ted M. Foster
• Dr. Edward Zieglar

Masters Thesis Defense

Heart Disease Prediction: A Data Mining Approach

Soma Das

2:00pm Monday, 23 April 2012, ITE 201B

Data mining is a field of computer science that combines statistical analysis and machine learning to detect hard-to-discern patterns from large amounts of data. It employs different algorithms to learn different patterns from training or experience and apply it to classify, predict or identify patterns. The healthcare environment is very information rich. There is a wealth of clinical data available within the healthcare systems. Also due to recent advancement of genomic research vast amount of genetic data are also available. Effective analysis tools are needed to discover hidden relationships and trends in these data. These tools are necessary to correctly diagnose people at risk of disease based on the derived knowledge from the data.

We used data mining techniques to evaluate the interaction between traditional risk factors and gene variants such as Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) towards Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) susceptibility in a prospective study of older population aged 65 and older. In our thesis we asked two questions whether we can predict CHD at birth or adding genetic information to traditional risk factors predict CHD better than traditional risk factors alone.We also analyzed two popular machine learning algorithms to determine the most efficient method on medical datasets mining. The evaluation is based on a set of performance metrics. We also applied a clustering method to identify different subgroups present in the selected datasets.

We chose eight traditional risk factors of CHD and 23 SNPs that had previously been reported to be associated with CHD. We then tested the association of these SNPs with CHD in cardiovascular Health Study (CHS). Based on previous studies, we pre specified a risk allele for each of 23 SNPs. We assigned coding values for homozygote, heterozygote, and the no risk homozygote SNPs and then combined these with traditional risk factors for each individual before feeding it to machine learning algorithms. We evaluated different classification algorithms using 10 fold cross validation test.

Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves (ROC) were plotted separately based on traditional risk factors alone and traditional risk factors plus SNPs. The increase in the Area Under Curve (AUC) was statistically significant for Whites and suggestive of improved CHD prediction for African American. We also found out that using only SNPs predicts CHD a little bit better than random guessing for only whites. The results gained from analysis suggest Naïve Bayes to be the best classifier for the given domain.

This study demonstrates the concept of using multiple SNPs as independent risk factors and indicates that it can improve prediction of incident CHD. Adding SNPs to traditional risk factors did not improve the prediction model dramatically as we expected but it was statistically significant.

Committee:

• Dr. Michael Grasso (co-chair)
• Dr. Anupam Joshi
• Dr. Yelena Yesha

EE Graduate Seminar

From Proton to Image: A Signal Processing Aspect of MRI

Albert Kir
PhD (EE) Student, CSEE Dept/UMBC

11:30am-12:45pm Friday, 20 April 2012, ITE 237

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is routinely used in clinical setting for its great diagnosis and prognosis ability, and is a heavily studied research area across multiple disciplines. MRI has its tie with signal and imaging processing community since it stemmed from the study of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The technique of Fourier imaging makes MRI possible through manipulation of the NMR signals. The issue of imaging speed has always been at the heart of functional MRI (fMRI) and interventional imaging, where a high image frame rate is required or preferable. In the past decade, partly owing to the advance in imaging hardware, a wide range of image reconstruction algorithms have been developed to accelerate the image acquisition process. There has been SENSE, SMASH, GRAPPA, and many of their variations in the parallel imaging category from the early days to the current K-T techniques based on compressive sensing (CS). In this talk, the basic imaging principle for MRI will first be presented, and then a discussion of the first parallel imaging technique, SENSE, will be given. Lastly, the use of K-T FOCUSS on fMRI will be demonstrated.

Albert Kir received the BS degree in Computer Engineering n 2005 and the MSEE degree in 2009 from UMBC. He is currently a PhD (EE) student at UMBC. Mr. Kirs current research interest includes optimization of rapid imaging techniques for structural and functional images for MRI.

Host: Prof. Joel M. Morris

On Monday, April 16, a panel discussion, colloquium, and lecture make up this year's three-part CRA-W Distinguished Lecture Series. Sponsored by the Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W), UMBC’s Center for Women in Technology (CWIT), UMBC’s Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (CSEE) Department, UMBC’s Information Systems (IS) Department, the Graduate School at UMBC, and WISE and ADVANCE at UMBC,  the lecture series approaches topics ranging from how to succeed in graduate school to computing challenges.

10:00 A.M., Room 310, University Center

The Panel Discussion, entitled "Graduate School: Before, During, and After" features a panel of UMBC graduate students and academic professionals who will talk about common issues facing prospective graduate students. Questions like "Should I go to graduate school?" "Should I choose an M.S. or Ph.D.?" and "What jobs will be open to me after graduate school?" will be tackled.

Dr. Ellen Zegura, Professor and Chair of the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech and Dr. Jeffrey Forbes, a Duke University professor of Computer Science currently on leave with the National Science Foundation as a Program Director for the Education and Workforce Program in the Division of Computer and Network Systems, Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, will be part of the panel. Mr. James MacGlashan, a Ph.D. candidate within the CSEE Department and Ms. Alyson Young, a Human-Centered Computing (HCC) Ph.D. Student will join them for the discussion.

1:00 – 2:00 P.M., Information Technology/Engineering (ITE) Building 325B

The Computer Science and Information Systems Joint Colloquium will feature a talk by Dr. Ellen Zegura entitled "Computing in Cirrus Clouds: The Challenge of Intermittent Connectivity."

Abstract
Mobile devices are increasingly relied on for services that go beyond simple connectivity and require more complex processing. Improved connectivity options for mobile devices have enabled applications that transcend an individual device's capabilities by making use of remote processing and storage.

The primary approach in wide use today to enable such remote processing makes use of cloud computing resources to offload the "heavy lifting" that may be required in some mobile applications to specially designated servers or server clusters. In reality, a mobile device often encounters, albeit intermittently, many entities capable of lending computational resources. We call these alternative settings "cirrus clouds". In this talk I will discuss the unique challenges posed by intermittent connectivity and describe some early progress on managing such a setting.

4:00 – 5:00 P.M., Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

The CRA-W Distinguished Lecture will feature a talk by Dr. Ellen Zegura entitled "Computing for Good: Experiences in Humanitarian Computing."

Abstract
Almost four years ago, I was involved in the creation of Computing for Good (C4G), a Georgia Tech College of Computing initiative centered around using computing to help solve pressing societal problems. The primary activity of C4G has been a project-based course taught once per year and taken by seniors (satisfying the capstone requirement) and masters-level graduate students.  Projects with life beyond one semester are frequently taken up by master's students as MS projects.

Over the last year, I have had the opportunity to work closely with the Carter Center and their Mental Health Program in Liberia. With students in the C4G fall 2010 course, my experiences have included technology consulting, technology training, technology integration, and technology invention. I have also had the chance to observe first hand a set of additional country-wide challenges where computing might play a role.  In this talk, I will describe my experiences and highlight additional opportunities for computationalists.

Dr. Ellen Zegura
Professor and Chair School of Computer Science
College of Computing, Georgia Tech
 

Light refreshments will follow both the Panel Discussion and the Computer Science and Information Systems Joint Colloquium. A reception will follow the CRA-W Distinguished Lecture.

Click HERE to download the event flyer.
 

The CSEE Department will hold its annual CSEE Research Review day from 9:00am to 4:00pm on Friday, May 4, 2012. Faculty, research staff and students from the Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering programs will present and discuss their latest research results via short oral presentations and a poster session.

The event is open to the public and is a good way for prospective collaborators and students to find out about the research our department is doing and meet and network with current faculty and students. See pictures from CRR-06, CRR-08, CRR-09, CRR-10 and CRR-11 to get an idea of what goes on at this event.

The 2012 CSEE Research Review (CRR-12) will take place in the large conference room of the UMBC Technology Center's business Incubator and Accelerator building on South Campus. There is ample free parking and refreshments and a free buffet lunch will be provided.

CSEE faculty, staff and students are encouraged to submit papers and posters for possible presentation by the April 12 deadline. See the CRR-12 Call for Submissions for details on how to submit research work. Awards with cash prizes will be given for the best research paper submitted by a undergraduate, M.S. and Ph.D. student and for the best three posters.

For more information, contact the CRR-11 General Chair, Professor Alan Sherman, .

EE Graduate Seminar

On Far-End Crosstalk Mitigation in VDSL Systems

Dr. Amitkumar Mahadevan
Ikanos Communications Inc., Red Bank, NJ

11:30am-12:45pm, Friday 13 April 2012, ITE 237, UMBC

Very-high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) is a last mile communications access solution that exploits the existing copper infrastructure to deliver high-speed internet access to homes and businesses. Far-end crosstalk (FEXT), i.e., interference seen at a VDSL receiver due to leakage from extraneous transmitters located at the other end (far end) of the line, is by far the most dominant impairment in VDSL. Left untreated, FEXT results in a considerable reduction in the service rates than can be delivered to users, or equivalently, a considerable reduction in the range over which a given service rate can be guaranteed. In this presentation, we will discuss the characteristics of FEXT in DSL systems and techniques employed in the industry to mitigate the impact of FEXT. Substantial attention will be devoted to 'vectoring': a per-frequency active FEXT mitigation scheme involving signal cooperation across different users at the central-office end of the system.

By design, vectoring necessitates the use of a pre-coder for downstream FEXT mitigation and a post-canceller for upstream FEXT mitigation. Low-complexity adaptive schemes for estimating the off-diagonal downstream FEXT pre-coder and the upstream FEXT canceller based on independent minimization of the per-frequency user error variances will be presented. These schemes do not involve any matrix inversion and are shown to achieve almost FEXT-free performance. We will also discuss key features of the recently published G.vector (G.993.5) ITU standard that allows for rapid and non-disruptive estimation of new elements of the pre-coder and canceller matrices when users join the vectored system.

Short Bio: Amitkumar Mahadevan was born in Mumbai, India. He received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering in 1998 from Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Mumbai University, India, and the MSEE degree in 2002 and the Ph.D. (EE) degree in 2005 from UMBC. In 2005, he joined Conexant Systems Inc., Red Bank, NJ, (now Ikanos Communications, Inc.) as a firmware engineer and has worked on advanced technology development for various flavors of DSL communication systems. More recently, he has been working on algorithm development and implementation for active crosstalk cancellation or 'vectoring' in VDSL systems. His research interests include discrete multi-tone and orthogonal frequency-division-multiplexing based communication systems, error correction codes, importance sampling techniques, and quantum information theory.

Host: Prof. Joel M. Morris

More infoformation

The Virtual Human Simulator:
Computer-aided Exploration of Human Biology

Professor Andreas Linninger
Laboratory for Product and Process Design
University of Illinois at Chicago

1:00pm Friday, 13 April 2012, 227 ITE, UMBC

Engineering has substantially impacted the world by creating material wealth through design of chemical production plants, synthesis of specialty chemicals and pharmaceuticals and sustainable processes for energy and the environment. Systematic engineering methods are also driving a transformation in biomedicine. We will present developments in advanced scientific computing for discovering the fundamental transport and reaction mechanisms in biological systems.

Novel medical imaging modalities open unprecedented views into organ function and cellular chemistry of whole organisms in vivo. The quantitative investigation of spatio-temporal reaction and transport phenomena opens a path for the rational design of drug delivery therapies to specific target areas of the human central nervous system. Image-based computational fluid dynamics (iCFD) will be introduced as a new methodology integrating medical imaging modalities with rigorous transport principles. System dynamics and control theory are centerpieces in the prediction of cerebral hemodynamics towards better treatment options for stroke. Non-linear mathematical programming techniques developed by chemical engineers for large scale process optimization are key to parameter estimation in pharmacokinetic and toxicity studies as well as novel techniques for design optimization of gene therapies. The integration of transport and reaction phenomena with anatomical and physiologically consistent computer models spanning the molecular, cellular through the macroscopic length scales lead us to progressively accurate predictions of metabolic functions in the normal and pathological conditions. Prototype developments of the virtual human simulator to engineer design solution in-silico will be demonstrated. Case studies will illustrate the state-of-the-art in computing cerebral blood flow patterns, computer-aided design of drug administration therapies and physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modeling for new drug leads.

Dr. Andreas A. Linninger is Professor of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering and Director of the Laboratory for Product and Process Design at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He received Diploma and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from the Vienna University of Technology. He received postgraduate training at the Rijksuniversiteit Gent, the University of California at Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests in process system engineering include computer-aided process synthesis, mathematical modeling of complex systems and design under uncertainty. He has published more than 100 papers on parameter estimation in distributed systems, synthesis of distillative separation networks, integrated design and control, process design for the environment and computational fluid mechanics methods in biological systems.

Host: Yelena Yesha

Cyber-Physical Social Systems: Research Challenges

Ram D. Sriram
Chief, Software and Systems Division
Information Technology Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology

1:00pm 6 April 2012, ITE 325 227 UMBC

We are witnessing a new revolution in computing and communication. The Internet, which has spanned several networks in a wide variety of domains, is having a significant impact on every aspect of our lives. The next generation of networks will utilize a wide variety of resources with significant sensing capabilities. Such networks will extend beyond physically linked computers to include multimodal information from biological, cognitive, semantic, and social networks. This paradigm shift will involve symbiotic networks of people (social networks), intelligent devices, and mobile personal computing and communication devices (mPCDs), that will form net-centric societies (NCS) or cyber-physical social systems (CPSS). mPCDs are already equipped with myriad sensors, with regular updates of additional sensing capabilities. Additionally, we are witnessing the emergence of “intelligent devices,” such as smart meters, smart cars, etc., with considerable sensing and networking capabilities. Hence, these devices – and the network — will be constantly sensing, monitoring, and interpreting the environment; this is sometimes referred to as the Internet of Things (IOT). The symbiosis of IOT and social networks will have significant implications for both the market for advanced computing and communication infrastructure and the future markets – for nearly 4.5 billion people — that CPSS will create. In this seminar, I will provide an overview of the Software and Systems Division at NIST, followed by a discussion of research challenges for CPSS with a specific focus on smart healthcare.

Dr. Ram D. Sriram is currently the chief of the Software and Systems Division, Information Technology Laboratory, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Before joining the Software and Systems Division, Sriram was the leader of the Design and Process group in the Manufacturing Systems Integration Division, Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, where he conducted research on standards for interoperability of computer-aided design systems. He was also the manager of the Sustainable Manufacturing Program. Prior to joining NIST, he was on the engineering faculty (1986-1994) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was instrumental in setting up the Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory. Sriram has co-authored or authored nearly 250 publications, including several books. Sriram was a founding co-editor of the International Journal for AI in Engineering. In 1989, he was awarded a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. In 2011, Sriram received the ASME Design Automation Award for his work on computer-supported collaborative design. Sriram is a Fellow of ASME and AAAS, a member (life) of ACM, a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a member (life) of AAAI. Sriram has a B.Tech. from IIT, Madras, India, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.

Host: Yelena Yesha

CRA-W Distinguished Lecture Series
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

Panel Discussion: Graduate School: Before, During, and After

10:00-11:00am Monday 16 April, 2012, UC 310, UMBC

Panelists

Dr. Ellen Zegura, Georgia Tech
Dr. Jeffrey Forbes, National Science Foundation
Mr. James MacGlashan (UMBC CSEE Ph.D. Candidate)
Ms. Alyson Young (UMBC HCC Ph.D. student)

As part of CRA-W's Distinguished Lecture event on Monday, April 16, we will be holding a panel about grad school and beyond.  The panelists are our two Distinguished Lecture visitors and two UMBC Ph.D. students. Topics will include why going to grad school, deciding between an M.S. and a Ph.D., how to succeed during grad school, and career possibilities after grad school. The panel is targeted at undergraduates who are considering applying to grad school, as well as graduate students in their early years.

Light refreshments will be served

SHORT BIOs

PROFESSOR ELLEN ZEGURA received the BS degree in Computer Science, the BS degree in Electrical Engineering, the MS degree in Computer Science and the DSc degree in Computer Science from Washington University, St. Louis. Since 1993, she has been on the faculty in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. She currently serves as Professor and Chair of Computer Science. She received an NSF CAREER Award in 1995, a Washington University distinguished Alumni Award in 2008, and was selected as an IEEE Fellow in 2010. She was elected to the CRA Board of Directors in 2011.

Professor Zegura has conducted research and taught in computer networking for over 20 years. Her research interests include the Internet, with a focus on its topological structure and services, as well as mobile wireless networking. In network topology, she is the co-creator of the GT-ITM suite of Internet topology modeling tools, which remains in use 15 years after its original release. In mobile wireless networking, she and her colleagues invented the concept of message ferries to facilitate communications in environments where network connectivity is unreliable and/or sparse. Almost four years ago, she helped create the Computing for Good initiative in the College of Computing, a project-based teaching and research activity that focuses on the use of computing to solve pressing societal problems.

PROFESSOR JEFFREY FORBES is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Computer Science at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He is currently on leave with the National Science Foundation as a Program Director for the Education and Workforce Program in the Division of Computer and Network Systems, Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. Degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively. His research interests include computer science education, intelligent agents,and social information processing.

Host: Professor Marie desJardins

CRA-W Distinguished Lecture Series
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

Computing in Cirrus Clouds: The Challenge of Intermittent Connectivity

Ellen Zegura
Professor and Chair School of Computer Science
College of Computing, Georgia Tech

Computer Science and Information Systems Joint Colloquium
1:00 – 2:00 PM, Monday, April 16, 2012
ITE 325B

Mobile devices are increasingly relied on for services that go beyond simple connectivity and require more complex processing. Improved connectivity options for mobile devices have enabled applications that transcend an individual device's capabilities by making use of remote processing and storage.

The primary approach in wide use today to enable such remote processing makes use of cloud computing resources to offload the "heavy lifting" that may be required in some mobile applications to specially designated servers or server clusters. In reality, a mobile device often encounters, albeit intermittently, many entities capable of lending computational resources. We call these alternative settings "cirrus clouds". In this talk I will discuss the unique challenges posed by intermittent connectivity and describe some early progress on managing such a setting.

This is a joint work with Mostafa Ammar, Mayur Naik and Cong Shi.

SHORT BIO: Professor Ellen W. Zegura received the BS degree in Computer Science, the BS degree in Electrical Engineering, the MS degree in Computer Science and the DSc degree in Computer Science from Washington University, St. Louis. Since 1993, she has been on the faculty in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. She currently serves as Professor and Chair of Computer Science. She received an NSF CAREER Award in 1995, a Washington University distinguished Alumni Award in 2008, and was selected as an IEEE Fellow in 2010. She was elected to the CRA Board of Directors in 2011.

Professor Zegura has conducted research and taught in computer networking for over 20 years. Her research interests include the Internet, with a focus on its topological structure and services, as well as mobile wireless networking. In network topology, she is the co-creator of the GT-ITM suite of Internet topology modeling tools, which remains in use 15 years after its original release. In mobile wireless networking, she and her colleagues invented the concept of message ferries to facilitate communications in environments where network connectivity is unreliable and/or sparse. Almost four years ago, she helped create the Computing for Good initiative in the College of Computing, a project-based teaching and research activity that focuses on the use of computing to solve pressing societal problems.

Host: Professor Marie desJardins