http://hdl.handle.net/1903/2224 Tue, 21 May 2013 15:52:50 GMT 2013-05-21T15:52:50Z http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13890 Title: Empirical Speedup Study of Truly Parallel Data Compression Authors: Edwards, James A.; Vishkin, Uzi Abstract: We present an empirical study of novel work-optimal parallel algorithms for Burrows-Wheeler compression and decompression of strings over a constant alphabet. To validate these theoretical algorithms, we implement them on the experimental XMT computing platform developed especially for supporting parallel algorithms at the University of Maryland. We show speedups of up to 25x for compression, and 13x for decompression, versus bzip2, the de facto standard implementation of Burrows-Wheeler compression. Unlike existing approaches, which assign an entire (e.g., 900KB) block to a processor that processes the block serially, our approach is “truly parallel” as it processes in parallel the entire input. Besides the theoretical interest in solving the “right” problem, the importance of data compression speed for small inputs even at great expense of quality (compressed size of data) is demonstrated by the introduction of Google’s Snappy for MapReduce. Perhaps surprisingly, we show feasibility of holding on to quality, while even beating Snappy on speed. In turn, this work adds new evidence in support of the XMT/PRAM thesis: that an XMT-like many-core hardware/ software platform may be necessary for enabling general-purpose parallel computing. Comparison of our results to recently published work suggests 70x improvement over what current commercial parallel hardware can achieve. Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13890 2013-04-20T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13864 Title: ONTOLOGY-ENABLED TRACEABILITY MODELS FOR ENGINEERING SYSTEMS DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT Authors: Delgoshaei, Parastoo Abstract: This thesis describes new models and a system for satisfying requirements, and an architectural framework for linking discipline-specific dependencies through inter- action relationships at the ontology (or meta-model) level. In a departure from state-of-the-art traceability mechanisms, we ask the question: What design concept (or family of design concepts) should be applied to satisfy this requirement? Solu- tions to this question establish links between requirements and design concepts. The implementation of these concepts leads to the design itself. These ideas, and support for design-rule checking are prototyped through a series of progressively complicated applications, culminating in a case study for rail transit systems management. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13864 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13862 Title: An Optical Density Detection Platform with Integrated Microfluidics for In Situ Growth, Monitoring, and Treatment of Bacterial Biofilms Authors: Mosteller, Matthew Philip Abstract: Systems engineering strategies utilizing platform-based design methodologies are implemented to achieve the integration of biological and physical system components in a biomedical system. An application of this platform explored, in which an integrated microsystem is developed capable of the on-chip growth, monitoring, and treatment of bacterial biofilms for drug development and fundamental study applications. In this work, the developed systems engineering paradigm is utilized to develop a device system implementing linear array charge-coupled devices to enable real time, non-invasive, label-free monitoring of bacterial biofilms. A novel biofilm treatment method is demonstrated within the developed microsystem showing drastic increases in treatment efficacy by decreasing both bacterial biomass and cell viability within treated biofilms. Demonstration of this treatment at the microscale enables future applications of this method for the in vivo treatment of biofilm-associated infections. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13862 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13818 Title: Crowdsourced Monolingual Translation Authors: Hu, Chang Abstract: An enormous potential exists for solving certain classes of computational problems through rich collaboration among crowds of humans supported by computers. Solutions to these problems used to involve human professionals who are expensive to hire or difficult to find. Despite significant advances, fully automatic systems still have much room for improvement. Recent research has involved recruiting large crowds of skilled humans (``crowdsourcing''), but crowdsourcing solutions are still restricted by the availability of those skilled human participants. With translation, for example, professional translators incur high cost and are not always available; machine translation systems have been greatly improved recently, but still can only provide passable translation, and for only limited language pairs at that; crowdsourced translation is limited by the availability of bilingual humans. This dissertation describes crowdsourced monolingual translation, where monolingual translation is translation performed by monolingual people. Crowdsourced monolingual translation is a collaborative form of translation performed by two crowds of people who speak the source or the target language respectively, with machine translation as the mediating device. A general protocol to handle crowdsourced monolingual translation is introduced along with three systems that implement the protocol. The MonoTrans system initially established the feasibility of the protocol. Then, MonoTrans2 enabled lab experiments with a second implementation of the protocol. MonoTrans2 was also applied to a an emergency-response scenario in a developing country (Haiti). The MonoTrans Widgets system was deployed to a large crowd of casual web users with a third implementation of the protocol. These systems were studied in various settings, and were found to supply improvement in quality over both machine translation and monolingual post-editing. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13818 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z