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Description
Sparsity has become an important modeling tool in areas such as genetics, signal and audio processing, medical image processing, etc. Via the penalization of l-1 norm based regularization, the structured sparse learning algorithms can produce highly accurate models while imposing various predefined structures on the data, such as feature groups

Sparsity has become an important modeling tool in areas such as genetics, signal and audio processing, medical image processing, etc. Via the penalization of l-1 norm based regularization, the structured sparse learning algorithms can produce highly accurate models while imposing various predefined structures on the data, such as feature groups or graphs. In this thesis, I first propose to solve a sparse learning model with a general group structure, where the predefined groups may overlap with each other. Then, I present three real world applications which can benefit from the group structured sparse learning technique. In the first application, I study the Alzheimer's Disease diagnosis problem using multi-modality neuroimaging data. In this dataset, not every subject has all data sources available, exhibiting an unique and challenging block-wise missing pattern. In the second application, I study the automatic annotation and retrieval of fruit-fly gene expression pattern images. Combined with the spatial information, sparse learning techniques can be used to construct effective representation of the expression images. In the third application, I present a new computational approach to annotate developmental stage for Drosophila embryos in the gene expression images. In addition, it provides a stage score that enables one to more finely annotate each embryo so that they are divided into early and late periods of development within standard stage demarcations. Stage scores help us to illuminate global gene activities and changes much better, and more refined stage annotations improve our ability to better interpret results when expression pattern matches are discovered between genes.
ContributorsYuan, Lei (Author) / Ye, Jieping (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Yalin (Committee member) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Kumar, Sudhir (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
In recent years we have witnessed a shift towards multi-processor system-on-chips (MPSoCs) to address the demands of embedded devices (such as cell phones, GPS devices, luxury car features, etc.). Highly optimized MPSoCs are well-suited to tackle the complex application demands desired by the end user customer. These MPSoCs incorporate a

In recent years we have witnessed a shift towards multi-processor system-on-chips (MPSoCs) to address the demands of embedded devices (such as cell phones, GPS devices, luxury car features, etc.). Highly optimized MPSoCs are well-suited to tackle the complex application demands desired by the end user customer. These MPSoCs incorporate a constellation of heterogeneous processing elements (PEs) (general purpose PEs and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICS)). A typical MPSoC will be composed of a application processor, such as an ARM Coretex-A9 with cache coherent memory hierarchy, and several application sub-systems. Each of these sub-systems are composed of highly optimized instruction processors, graphics/DSP processors, and custom hardware accelerators. Typically, these sub-systems utilize scratchpad memories (SPM) rather than support cache coherency. The overall architecture is an integration of the various sub-systems through a high bandwidth system-level interconnect (such as a Network-on-Chip (NoC)). The shift to MPSoCs has been fueled by three major factors: demand for high performance, the use of component libraries, and short design turn around time. As customers continue to desire more and more complex applications on their embedded devices the performance demand for these devices continues to increase. Designers have turned to using MPSoCs to address this demand. By using pre-made IP libraries designers can quickly piece together a MPSoC that will meet the application demands of the end user with minimal time spent designing new hardware. Additionally, the use of MPSoCs allows designers to generate new devices very quickly and thus reducing the time to market. In this work, a complete MPSoC synthesis design flow is presented. We first present a technique \cite{leary1_intro} to address the synthesis of the interconnect architecture (particularly Network-on-Chip (NoC)). We then address the synthesis of the memory architecture of a MPSoC sub-system \cite{leary2_intro}. Lastly, we present a co-synthesis technique to generate the functional and memory architectures simultaneously. The validity and quality of each synthesis technique is demonstrated through extensive experimentation.
ContributorsLeary, Glenn (Author) / Chatha, Karamvir S (Thesis advisor) / Vrudhula, Sarma (Committee member) / Shrivastava, Aviral (Committee member) / Beraha, Rudy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Communication networks, both wired and wireless, are expected to have a certain level of fault-tolerance capability.These networks are also expected to ensure a graceful degradation in performance when some of the network components fail. Traditional studies on fault tolerance in communication networks, for the most part, make no assumptions regarding

Communication networks, both wired and wireless, are expected to have a certain level of fault-tolerance capability.These networks are also expected to ensure a graceful degradation in performance when some of the network components fail. Traditional studies on fault tolerance in communication networks, for the most part, make no assumptions regarding the location of node/link faults, i.e., the faulty nodes and links may be close to each other or far from each other. However, in many real life scenarios, there exists a strong spatial correlation among the faulty nodes and links. Such failures are often encountered in disaster situations, e.g., natural calamities or enemy attacks. In presence of such region-based faults, many of traditional network analysis and fault-tolerant metrics, that are valid under non-spatially correlated faults, are no longer applicable. To this effect, the main thrust of this research is design and analysis of robust networks in presence of such region-based faults. One important finding of this research is that if some prior knowledge is available on the maximum size of the region that might be affected due to a region-based fault, this piece of knowledge can be effectively utilized for resource efficient design of networks. It has been shown in this dissertation that in some scenarios, effective utilization of this knowledge may result in substantial saving is transmission power in wireless networks. In this dissertation, the impact of region-based faults on the connectivity of wireless networks has been studied and a new metric, region-based connectivity, is proposed to measure the fault-tolerance capability of a network. In addition, novel metrics, such as the region-based component decomposition number(RBCDN) and region-based largest component size(RBLCS) have been proposed to capture the network state, when a region-based fault disconnects the network. Finally, this dissertation presents efficient resource allocation techniques that ensure tolerance against region-based faults, in distributed file storage networks and data center networks.
ContributorsBanerjee, Sujogya (Author) / Sen, Arunabha (Thesis advisor) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Richa, Andrea (Committee member) / Hurlbert, Glenn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
We are expecting hundreds of cores per chip in the near future. However, scaling the memory architecture in manycore architectures becomes a major challenge. Cache coherence provides a single image of memory at any time in execution to all the cores, yet coherent cache architectures are believed will not scale

We are expecting hundreds of cores per chip in the near future. However, scaling the memory architecture in manycore architectures becomes a major challenge. Cache coherence provides a single image of memory at any time in execution to all the cores, yet coherent cache architectures are believed will not scale to hundreds and thousands of cores. In addition, caches and coherence logic already take 20-50% of the total power consumption of the processor and 30-60% of die area. Therefore, a more scalable architecture is needed for manycore architectures. Software Managed Manycore (SMM) architectures emerge as a solution. They have scalable memory design in which each core has direct access to only its local scratchpad memory, and any data transfers to/from other memories must be done explicitly in the application using Direct Memory Access (DMA) commands. Lack of automatic memory management in the hardware makes such architectures extremely power-efficient, but they also become difficult to program. If the code/data of the task mapped onto a core cannot fit in the local scratchpad memory, then DMA calls must be added to bring in the code/data before it is required, and it may need to be evicted after its use. However, doing this adds a lot of complexity to the programmer's job. Now programmers must worry about data management, on top of worrying about the functional correctness of the program - which is already quite complex. This dissertation presents a comprehensive compiler and runtime integration to automatically manage the code and data of each task in the limited local memory of the core. We firstly developed a Complete Circular Stack Management. It manages stack frames between the local memory and the main memory, and addresses the stack pointer problem as well. Though it works, we found we could further optimize the management for most cases. Thus a Smart Stack Data Management (SSDM) is provided. In this work, we formulate the stack data management problem and propose a greedy algorithm for the same. Later on, we propose a general cost estimation algorithm, based on which CMSM heuristic for code mapping problem is developed. Finally, heap data is dynamic in nature and therefore it is hard to manage it. We provide two schemes to manage unlimited amount of heap data in constant sized region in the local memory. In addition to those separate schemes for different kinds of data, we also provide a memory partition methodology.
ContributorsBai, Ke (Author) / Shrivastava, Aviral (Thesis advisor) / Chatha, Karamvir (Committee member) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Chakrabarti, Chaitali (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
The primary function of the medium access control (MAC) protocol is managing access to a shared communication channel. From the viewpoint of transmitters, the MAC protocol determines each transmitter's persistence, the fraction of time it is permitted to spend transmitting. Schedule-based schemes implement stable persistences, achieving low variation in delay

The primary function of the medium access control (MAC) protocol is managing access to a shared communication channel. From the viewpoint of transmitters, the MAC protocol determines each transmitter's persistence, the fraction of time it is permitted to spend transmitting. Schedule-based schemes implement stable persistences, achieving low variation in delay and throughput, and sometimes bounding maximum delay. However, they adapt slowly, if at all, to changes in the network. Contention-based schemes are agile, adapting quickly to changes in perceived contention, but suffer from short-term unfairness, large variations in packet delay, and poor performance at high load. The perfect MAC protocol, it seems, embodies the strengths of both contention- and schedule-based approaches while avoiding their weaknesses. This thesis culminates in the design of a Variable-Weight and Adaptive Topology Transparent (VWATT) MAC protocol. The design of VWATT first required answers for two questions: (1) If a node is equipped with schedules of different weights, which weight should it employ? (2) How is the node to compute the desired weight in a network lacking centralized control? The first question is answered by the Topology- and Load-Aware (TLA) allocation which defines target persistences that conform to both network topology and traffic load. Simulations show the TLA allocation to outperform IEEE 802.11, improving on the expectation and variation of delay, throughput, and drop rate. The second question is answered in the design of an Adaptive Topology- and Load-Aware Scheduled (ATLAS) MAC that computes the TLA allocation in a decentralized and adaptive manner. Simulation results show that ATLAS converges quickly on the TLA allocation, supporting highly dynamic networks. With these questions answered, a construction based on transversal designs is given for a variable-weight topology transparent schedule that allows nodes to dynamically and independently select weights to accommodate local topology and traffic load. The schedule maintains a guarantee on maximum delay when the maximum neighbourhood size is not too large. The schedule is integrated with the distributed computation of ATLAS to create VWATT. Simulations indicate that VWATT offers the stable performance characteristics of a scheduled MAC while adapting quickly to changes in topology and traffic load.
ContributorsLutz, Jonathan (Author) / Colbourn, Charles J (Thesis advisor) / Syrotiuk, Violet R. (Thesis advisor) / Konjevod, Goran (Committee member) / Lloyd, Errol L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
As networks are playing an increasingly prominent role in different aspects of our lives, there is a growing awareness that improving their performance is of significant importance. In order to enhance performance of networks, it is essential that scarce networking resources be allocated smartly to match the continuously changing network

As networks are playing an increasingly prominent role in different aspects of our lives, there is a growing awareness that improving their performance is of significant importance. In order to enhance performance of networks, it is essential that scarce networking resources be allocated smartly to match the continuously changing network environment. This dissertation focuses on two different kinds of networks - communication and social, and studies resource allocation problems in these networks. The study on communication networks is further divided into different networking technologies - wired and wireless, optical and mobile, airborne and terrestrial. Since nodes in an airborne network (AN) are heterogeneous and mobile, the design of a reliable and robust AN is highly complex. The dissertation studies connectivity and fault-tolerance issues in ANs and proposes algorithms to compute the critical transmission range in fault free, faulty and delay tolerant scenarios. Just as in the case of ANs, power optimization and fault tolerance are important issues in wireless sensor networks (WSN). In a WSN, a tree structure is often used to deliver sensor data to a sink node. In a tree, failure of a node may disconnect the tree. The dissertation investigates the problem of enhancing the fault tolerance capability of data gathering trees in WSN. The advent of OFDM technology provides an opportunity for efficient resource utilization in optical networks and also introduces a set of novel problems, such as routing and spectrum allocation (RSA) problem. This dissertation proves that RSA problem is NP-complete even when the network topology is a chain, and proposes approximation algorithms. In the domain of social networks, the focus of this dissertation is study of influence propagation in presence of active adversaries. In a social network multiple vendors may attempt to influence the nodes in a competitive fashion. This dissertation investigates the scenario where the first vendor has already chosen a set of nodes and the second vendor, with the knowledge of the choice of the first, attempts to identify a smallest set of nodes so that after the influence propagation, the second vendor's market share is larger than the first.
ContributorsShirazipourazad, Shahrzad (Author) / Sen, Arunabha (Committee member) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Richa, Andrea (Committee member) / Saripalli, Srikanth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
This thesis addresses the ever increasing threat of botnets in the smartphone domain and focuses on the Android platform and the botnets using Online Social Networks (OSNs) as Command and Control (C&C;) medium. With any botnet, C&C; is one of the components on which the survival of botnet depends. Individual

This thesis addresses the ever increasing threat of botnets in the smartphone domain and focuses on the Android platform and the botnets using Online Social Networks (OSNs) as Command and Control (C&C;) medium. With any botnet, C&C; is one of the components on which the survival of botnet depends. Individual bots use the C&C; channel to receive commands and send the data. This thesis develops active host based approach for identifying the presence of bot based on the anomalies in the usage patterns of the user before and after the bot is installed on the user smartphone and alerting the user to the presence of the bot. A profile is constructed for each user based on the regular web usage patterns (achieved by intercepting the http(s) traffic) and implementing machine learning techniques to continuously learn the user's behavior and changes in the behavior and all the while looking for any anomalies in the user behavior above a threshold which will cause the user to be notified of the anomalous traffic. A prototype bot which uses OSN s as C&C; channel is constructed and used for testing. Users are given smartphones(Nexus 4 and Galaxy Nexus) running Application proxy which intercepts http(s) traffic and relay it to a server which uses the traffic and constructs the model for a particular user and look for any signs of anomalies. This approach lays the groundwork for the future host-based counter measures for smartphone botnets using OSN s as C&C; channel.
ContributorsKilari, Vishnu Teja (Author) / Xue, Guoliang (Thesis advisor) / Ahn, Gail-Joon (Committee member) / Dasgupta, Partha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Security has been one of the top concerns in cloud community while cloud resource abuse and malicious insiders are considered as top threats. Traditionally, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) have been widely deployed to manipulate cloud security, with the latter one providing additional prevention capability. However,

Security has been one of the top concerns in cloud community while cloud resource abuse and malicious insiders are considered as top threats. Traditionally, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) have been widely deployed to manipulate cloud security, with the latter one providing additional prevention capability. However, as one of the most creative networking technologies, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is rarely used to implement IDPS in the cloud computing environment because the lack of comprehensive development framework and processing flow. Simply migration from traditional IDS/IPS systems to SDN environment are not effective enough for detecting and defending malicious attacks. Hence, in this thesis, we present an IPS development framework to help user easily design and implement their defensive systems in cloud system by SDN technology. This framework enables SDN approaches to enhance the system security and performance. A Traffic Information Platform (TIP) is proposed as the cornerstone with several upper layer security modules such as Detection, Analysis and Prevention components. Benefiting from the flexible, compatible and programmable features of SDN, Customized Detection Engine, Network Topology Finder, Source Tracer and further user-developed security appliances are plugged in our framework to construct a SDN-based defensive system. Two main categories Python-based APIs are designed to support developers for further development. This system is designed and implemented based on the POX controller and Open vSwitch in the cloud computing environment. The efficiency of this framework is demonstrated by a sample IPS implementation and the performance of our framework is also evaluated.
ContributorsXiong, Zhengyang (Author) / Huang, Dijiang (Thesis advisor) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Dalvucu, Hasan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
The widespread adoption of mobile devices gives rise to new opportunities and challenges for authentication mechanisms. Many traditional authentication mechanisms become unsuitable for smart devices. For example, while password is widely used on computers as user identity authentication, inputting password on small smartphone screen is error-prone and not convenient. In

The widespread adoption of mobile devices gives rise to new opportunities and challenges for authentication mechanisms. Many traditional authentication mechanisms become unsuitable for smart devices. For example, while password is widely used on computers as user identity authentication, inputting password on small smartphone screen is error-prone and not convenient. In the meantime, there are emerging demands for new types of authentication. Proximity authentication is an example, which is not needed for computers but quite necessary for smart devices. These challenges motivate me to study and develop novel authentication mechanisms specific for smart devices.

In this dissertation, I am interested in the special authentication demands of smart devices and about to satisfy the demands. First, I study how the features of smart devices affect user identity authentications. For identity authentication domain, I aim to design a continuous, forge-resistant authentication mechanism that does not interrupt user-device interactions. I propose a mechanism that authenticates user identity based on the user's finger movement patterns. Next, I study a smart-device-specific authentication, proximity authentication, which authenticates whether two devices are in close proximity. For prox- imity authentication domain, I aim to design a user-friendly authentication mechanism that can defend against relay attacks. In addition, I restrict the authenticated distance to the scale of near field, i.e., a few centimeters. My first design utilizes a user's coherent two-finger movement on smart device screen to restrict the distance. To achieve a fully-automated system, I explore acoustic communications and propose a novel near field authentication system.
ContributorsLi, Lingjun (Author) / Xue, Guoliang (Thesis advisor) / Ahn, Gail-Joon (Committee member) / Ye, Jieping (Committee member) / Zhang, Yanchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
New OpenFlow switches support a wide range of network applications, such as firewalls, load balancers, routers, and traffic monitoring. While ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) allows switches to process packets at high speed based on multiple header fields, today's commodity switches support just thousands to tens of thousands of forwarding

New OpenFlow switches support a wide range of network applications, such as firewalls, load balancers, routers, and traffic monitoring. While ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) allows switches to process packets at high speed based on multiple header fields, today's commodity switches support just thousands to tens of thousands of forwarding rules. To allow for finer-grained policies on this hardware, efficient ways to support the abstraction of a switch are needed with arbitrarily large rule tables. To do so, a hardware-software hybrid switch is designed that relies on rule caching to provide large rule tables at low cost. Unlike traditional caching solutions, neither individual rules are cached (to respect rule dependencies) nor compressed (to preserve the per-rule traffic counts). Instead long dependency chains are ``spliced'' to cache smaller groups of rules while preserving the semantics of the network policy. The proposed hybrid switch design satisfies three criteria: (1) responsiveness, to allow rapid changes to the cache with minimal effect on traffic throughput; (2) transparency, to faithfully support native OpenFlow semantics; (3) correctness, to cache rules while preserving the semantics of the original policy. The evaluation of the hybrid switch on large rule tables suggest that it can effectively expose the benefits of both hardware and software switches to the controller and to applications running on top of it.
ContributorsAlipourfard, Omid (Author) / Syrotiuk, Violet R. (Thesis advisor) / Richa, Andréa W. (Committee member) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014