Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Part of Periodical (38)
- Doctoral Thesis (33)
- Diploma Thesis (24)
- Study Thesis (19)
- Bachelor Thesis (14)
- Master's Thesis (14)
- Report (1)
Keywords
- Routing (5)
- Bluetooth (4)
- Knowledge Compilation (4)
- Netzwerk (4)
- Semantic Web (4)
- Software Engineering (4)
- VNUML (4)
- E-KRHyper (3)
- Netzwerksimulation (3)
- RIP-MTI (3)
Institute
- Institut für Informatik (143) (remove)
This volume contains those research papers presented at the Second International Conference on Tests and Proofs (TAP 2008) that were not included in the main conference proceedings. TAP was the second conference devoted to the convergence of proofs and tests. It combines ideas from both areas for the advancement of software quality. To prove the correctness of a program is to demonstrate, through impeccable mathematical techniques, that it has no bugs; to test a program is to run it with the expectation of discovering bugs. On the surface, the two techniques seem contradictory: if you have proved your program, it is fruitless to comb it for bugs; and if you are testing it, that is surely a sign that you have given up on any hope of proving its correctness. Accordingly, proofs and tests have, since the onset of software engineering research, been pursued by distinct communities using rather different techniques and tools. And yet the development of both approaches leads to the discovery of common issues and to the realization that each may need the other. The emergence of model checking has been one of the first signs that contradiction may yield to complementarity, but in the past few years an increasing number of research efforts have encountered the need for combining proofs and tests, dropping earlier dogmatic views of their incompatibility and taking instead the best of what each of these software engineering domains has to offer. The first TAP conference (held at ETH Zurich in February 2007) was an attempt to provide a forum for the cross-fertilization of ideas and approaches from the testing and proving communities. For the 2008 edition we found the Monash University Prato Centre near Florence to be an ideal place providing a stimulating environment. We wish to sincerely thank all the authors who submitted their work for consideration. And we would like to thank the Program Committee members as well as additional referees for their great effort and professional work in the review and selection process. Their names are listed on the following pages. In addition to the contributed papers, the program included three excellent keynote talks. We are grateful to Michael Hennell (LDRA Ltd., Cheshire, UK), Orna Kupferman (Hebrew University, Israel), and Elaine Weyuker (AT&T Labs Inc., USA) for accepting the invitation to address the conference. Two very interesting tutorials were part of TAP 2008: "Parameterized Unit Testing with Pex" (J. de Halleux, N. Tillmann) and "Integrating Verification and Testing of Object-Oriented Software" (C. Engel, C. Gladisch, V. Klebanov, and P. Rümmer). We would like to express our thanks to the tutorial presenters for their contribution. It was a team effort that made the conference so successful. We are grateful to the Conference Chair and the Steering Committee members for their support. And we particularly thank Christoph Gladisch, Beate Körner, and Philipp Rümmer for their hard work and help in making the conference a success. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the generous support of Microsoft Research Redmond, who financed an invited speaker.
Folksonomies are Web 2.0 platforms where users share resources with each other. Furthermore, they can assign keywords (called tags) to the resources for categorizing and organizing the resources. Numerous types of resources like websites (Delicious), images (Flickr), and videos (YouTube) are supported by different folksonomies. The folksonomies are easy to use and thus attract the attention of millions of users. Together with the ease they offer, there are also some problems. This thesis addresses different problems of folksonomies and proposes solutions for these problems. The first problem occurs when users search for relevant resources in folksonomies. Often, the users are not able to find all relevant resources because they don't know which tags are relevant. The second problem is assigning tags to resources. Although many folksonomies (like Delicious) recommend tags for the resources, other folksonomies (like Flickr) do not recommend any tags. Tag recommendation helps the users to easily tag their resources. The third problem is that tags and resources are lacking semantics. This leads for example to ambiguous tags. The tags are lacking semantics because they are freely chosen keywords. The automatic identification of the semantics of tags and resources helps in reducing problems that arise from this freedom of the users in choosing the tags. This thesis proposes methods which exploit semantics to address the problems of search, tag recommendation, and the identification of tag semantics. The semantics are discovered from a variety of sources. In this thesis, we exploit web search engines, online social communities and the co-occurrences of tags as sources of semantics. Using different sources for discovering semantics reduces the efforts to build systems which solve the problems mentioned earlier. This thesis evaluates the proposed methods on a large scale data set. The evaluation results suggest that it is possible to exploit the semantics for improving search, recommendation of tags, and automatic identification of the semantics of tags and resources.
One task of executives and project managers in IT companies or departments is to hire suitable developers and to assign them to suitable problems. In this paper, we propose a new technique that directly leverages previous work experience of developers in a systematic manner. Existing evidence for developer expertise based on the version history of existing projects is analyzed. More specifically, we analyze the commits to a repository in terms of affected API usage. On these grounds, we associate APIs with developers and thus we assess API experience of developers. In transitive closure, we also assess programming domain experience.
Social media provides a powerful way for people to share opinions and sentiments about a specific topic, allowing others to benefit from these thoughts and feelings. This procedure generates a huge amount of unstructured data, such as texts, images, and references that are constantly increasing through daily comments to related discussions. However, the vast amount of unstructured data presents risks to the information-extraction process, and so decision making becomes highly challenging. This is because data overload may cause the loss of useful data due to its inappropriate presentation and its accumulation. To this extent, this thesis contributed to the field of analyzing and detecting feelings in images and texts. And that by extracting the feelings and opinions hidden in a huge collection of image data and texts on social networks After that, these feelings are classified into positive, negative, or neutral, according to the features of the classified data. The process of extracting these feelings greatly helps in decision-making processes on various topics as will be explained in the first chapter of the thesis. A system has been built that can classify the feelings inherent in the images and texts on social media sites, such as people’s opinions about products and companies, personal posts, and general messages. This thesis begins by introducing a new method of reducing the dimension of text data based on data-mining approaches and then examines the sentiment based on neural and deep neural network classification algorithms. Subsequently, in contrast to sentiment analysis research in text datasets, we examine sentiment expression and polarity classification within and across image datasets by building deep neural networks based on the attention mechanism.
Ein Switch (engl. Schalter; auch Weiche) ist eine Netzwerk-Komponente zur Verbindung mehrerer Computer bzw. Netz-Segmente in einem lokalen Netzwerk (LAN). Da Switches den Netzwerkverkehr analysieren und logische Entscheidungen treffen, werden sie auch als intelligente Hubs bezeichnet. Die Funktionsweise eines Switches ist der einer Bridge sehr ähnlich, daher wurde anfangs auch der Begriff Multi-Port-Bridge genutzt 1. Ziel der Diplomarbeit ist es, eine Dokumentation auf die Beine zu stellen, der interessierten Studenten der Informationstechnologie die Möglichkeit bietet, einerseits anhand von physikalischen Switches Administrationsaufgaben nachzuempfinden und andererseits anhand von virtuellen Switches größere Netzwerktopologien aufzubauen. Diese Virtualisierung wird durch das von Virtual Square entwickelte Tool VDE erreicht. Die physikalischen Switches bestehen aus vier Catalyst 3500 XL. Im Laufe dieser Arbeit wird sowohl die Bedienung der einzelnen Systeme untereinander, wie auch die Vernetzung der virtuellen Switches mit den physikalischen Switches erläutert. In diesem Zusammenhang wird auch auf Protokolle und Methoden wie das Spanning Tree Protokoll oder die Virtualisierung eines Netzes durch VLANs eingegangen. Zum Schluss kann der Leser das gelernte in einigen praktischen Aufgaben anwenden.
Rechnernetze gehört zu den Fächern, die ein breites Spektrum an Anwendungsgebieten abdecken. Die vielen unterschiedlichen Protokolle sind Belege dafür. Jedes Protokoll hat sozusagen ein eigenes Anwendungsbereich und doch sind deren Aufgaben unter dem Nenner gleich. Miteinander zu Kommunizieren, Informationen auszutauschen und das möglichst auf eine sichere und schnelle Art und Weise. Als Beispiel denke man an Autos, Handys, Lokale Netze in einem kleinen Betrieb, Intranet in einer größeren Organisation oder in Netze die über Länder hinweggehen. Ein modernes Auto an sich hat schon eine Vielzahl an Bussystemen in sich integriert. CAN, LIN, FlexRay oder MOST Bus sind ein paar Stichworte dazu. Wenn man jetzt von der Autoindustrie weggeht und an die Autonomen Systeme kommt, gibt es dort ein Routing Information Protokoll, das innerhalb von Autonomen Systemen verwendet wird. Routing Information Protokoll ist eines der meist verwendeten Protokolle innerhalb von Autonomen Systemen. Das Routing Information Protokoll ist einer der zentralen Bestandteile des Forschungsbereiches der AG Steigner. Die Arbeit widmet sich unter Anderem dieser Forschungsunterstützung.Diese Studienarbeit hat das Ziel die Testumgebung XTPeer auf die VNUML Version 1.8 zu integrieren.
Semantic descriptions of non-textual media available on the web can be used to facilitate retrieval and presentation of media assets and documents containing them. While technologies for multimedia semantic descriptions already exist, there is as yet no formal description of a high quality multimedia ontology that is compatible with existing (semantic) web technologies. We explain the complexity of the problem using an annotation scenario. We then derive a number of requirements for specifying a formal multimedia ontology, including: compatibility with MPEG-7, embedding in foundational ontologies, and modularisation including separation of document structure from domain knowledge. We then present the developed ontology and discuss it with respect to our requirements.
We aim to demonstrate that automated deduction techniques, in particular those following the model computation paradigm, are very well suited for database schema/query reasoning. Specifically, we present an approach to compute completed paths for database or XPath queries. The database schema and a query are transformed to disjunctive logic programs with default negation, using a description logic as an intermediate language. Our underlying deduction system, KRHyper, then detects if a query is satisfiable or not. In case of a satisfiable query, all completed paths -- those that fulfill all given constraints -- are returned as part of the computed models. The purpose of our approach is to dramatically reduce the workload on the query processor. Without the path completion, a usual XML query processor would search the database for solutions to the query. In the paper we describe the transformation in detail and explain how to extract the solution to the original task from the computed models. We understand this paper as a first step, that covers a basic schema/query reaÂsoning task by model-based deduction. Due to the underlying expressive logic formalism we expect our approach to easily adapt to more sophisticated problem settings, like type hierarchies as they evolve within the XML world.
Hyper tableaux with equality
(2007)
In most theorem proving applications, a proper treatment of equational theories or equality is mandatory. In this paper we show how to integrate a modern treatment of equality in the hyper tableau calculus. It is based on splitting of positive clauses and an adapted version of the superposition inference rule, where equations used for paramodulation are drawn (only) from a set of positive unit clauses, the candidate model. The calculus also features a generic, semantically justified simplification rule which covers many redundancy elimination techniques known from superposition theorem proving. Our main results are soundness and completeness, but we briefly describe the implementation, too.
The Living Book is a system for the management of personalized and scenario specific teaching material. The main goal of the system is to support the active, explorative and selfdetermined learning in lectures, tutorials and self study. The Living Book includes a course on 'logic for computer scientists' with a uniform access to various tools like theorem provers and an interactive tableau editor. It is routinely used within teaching undergraduate courses at our university. This paper describes the Living Book and the use of theorem proving technology as a core component in the knowledge management system (KMS) of the Living Book. The KMS provides a scenario management component where teachers may describe those parts of given documents that are relevant in order to achieve a certain learning goal. The task of the KMS is to assemble new documents from a database of elementary units called 'slices' (definitions, theorems, and so on) in a scenario-based way (like 'I want to prepare for an exam and need to learn about resolution'). The computation of such assemblies is carried out by a model-generating theorem prover for first-order logic with a default negation principle. Its input consists of meta data that describe the dependencies between different slices, and logic-programming style rules that describe the scenario-specific composition of slices. Additionally, a user model is taken into account that contains information about topics and slices that are known or unknown to a student. A model computed by the system for such input then directly specifies the document to be assembled. This paper introduces the elearning context we are faced with, motivates our choice of logic and presents the newly developed calculus used in the KMS.
The model evolution calculus
(2004)
The DPLL procedure is the basis of some of the most successful propositional satisfiability solvers to date. Although originally devised as a proof procedure for first-order logic, it has been used almost exclusively for propositional logic so far because of its highly inefficient treatment of quantifiers, based on instantiation into ground formulas. The recent FDPLL calculus by Baumgartner was the first successful attempt to lift the procedure to the first-order level without resorting to ground instantiations. FDPLL lifts to the first-order case the core of the DPLL procedure, the splitting rule, but ignores other aspects of the procedure that, although not necessary for completeness, are crucial for its effectiveness in practice. In this paper, we present a new calculus loosely based on FDPLL that lifts these aspects as well. In addition to being a more faithful litfing of the DPLL procedure, the new calculus contains a more systematic treatment of universal literals, one of FDPLL's optimizations, and so has the potential of leading to much faster implementations.
Cheops für VNUML - Erstellen und beobachten einer VNUML-Simulation per MausklickrnEs wird untersucht, wie Virtual Network User Mode Linux (VNUML), eine Software zur Simulation von Rechnernetzen, die aus virtualisierten Linux Instanzen aufgebaut werden, für den Benutzer besser handhabbar gemacht werden kann. Mit dem Linux-Paket VNUML, welches die dateigesteuerte Konfiguration virtueller Betriebssysteminstanzen ermöglicht, erhält der Anwender die Möglichkeit, komplexe Netzwerktopologien zu simulieren. Verschiedene Netzwerküberwachungsprogramme werden auf ihre Fähigkeit hin untersucht, eine laufende VNUML-Simulation zu erfassen und sinnvoll abzubilden. Dabei soll der Benutzer einen schnellen Überblick über die Funktion der simulierten Netzwerkumgebung, sowie nach Möglichkeit auch über deren Topologie erhalten können. Das Programm Cheops, welches der Netzwerküberwachung dient, wird erweitert, um nicht nur eine laufende Simulation abbilden und beobachten zu können, sondern darüber hinaus in der Lage zu sein, in jedem Schritt der Arbeit mit VNUML eingesetzt zu werden.
Das erweiterte Programm gestattet sowohl die Erstellung der VNUML-Topologiedatei, als auch das Starten und Steuern der Simulation. Damit werden der lange Kommandozeilenaufruf, sowie das Editieren der Konfigurationsdatei, durch einfach zu benutzende Funktionen in einer grafischen Oberfläche (GUI) ersetzt. Zur schnellen Kontrolle der vollen Funktionsfähigkeit der gestarteten Simulation sind keine weiteren Eingaben oder Konfigurationen nötig. Ebenso kann eine differenzierte Beobachtung verschiedener Netzwerkdienste während der Laufzeit der Simulation erfolgen. Die hierzu nötigen Werkzeuge sind im Paket Cheops für VNUML ebenfalls enthalten und speziell zur Anwendung mit VNUML-Simulationen vorkonfiguriert.
This minor thesis shows a way to optimise a generated oracle to achieve shorter runtimes. Shorter runtimes of test cases allows the execution of more test cases in the same time. The execution of more test cases leads to a higher confidence in the software-quality. Oracles can be derived from specifications. However specifications are used for different purposes and therefore are not necessarily executable. Even if the are executable it might be with only a high runtime. Those two facts come mostly from the use of quantifiers in the logic. If the quantifier-range is not bounded, respectively if the bounds are outside the target language-datatype-limits, the specification is too expressive to be exported into a program. Even if the bounds inside the used datatype-limits, the quantification is represented as a loop which leads to a runtime blowup, especially if quantifiers are nested. This work explains four different possibilities to reduce the execution time of the oracle by manipulating the quantified formular whereas this approach is only applicable if the quantified variables are of type Integer.
E-KRHyper is a versatile theorem prover and model generator for firstorder logic that natively supports equality. Inequality of constants, however, has to be given by explicitly adding facts. As the amount of these facts grows quadratically in the number of these distinct constants, the knowledge base is blown up. This makes it harder for a human reader to focus on the actual problem, and impairs the reasoning process. We extend E-Hyper- underlying E-KRhyper tableau calculus to avoid this blow-up by implementing a native handling for inequality of constants. This is done by introducing the unique name assumption for a subset of the constants (the so called distinct object identifiers). The obtained calculus is shown to be sound and complete and is implemented into the E-KRHyper system. Synthetic benchmarks, situated in the theory of arrays, are used to back up the benefits of the new calculus.
This dissertation introduces a methodology for formal specification and verification of user interfaces under security aspects. The methodology allows to use formal methods pervasively in the specification and verification of human-computer interaction. This work consists of three parts. In the first part, a formal methodology for the description of human-computer interaction is developed. In the second part, existing definitions of computer security are adapted for human-computer interaction and formalized. A generic formal model of human-computer interaction is developed. In the third part, the methodology is applied to the specification and verification of a secure email client.
Das Routing Information Protocol (RIP) ist ein Internet-Standard-Routing-Protokoll, das einst mit zu den am meisten eingesetzten Routing-Protokollen in IP-Netzwerken gehörte. Es basiert auf dem sogenannten Distanzvektoralgorithmus und ist in seiner Funktion und seinem Aufbau sehr einfach ausgelegt. Seit jeher leidet es allerdings unter dem sogenannten Counting-to-Infinity (CTI) Problem, bei dem die Erreichbarkeit einer eigentlich ausgefallenen Verbindung zu einem Ziel scheinbar aufrechterhalten wird. Die Distanz zu diesem Ziel wird aufgrund des fortwährenden Austauschs von nicht mehr gültigen Verbindungsinformationen zwischen in einem Ring geschalteten RIP-Routern hochgezählt, theoretisch bis ins Unendliche. Dabei entstehen Routingschleifen, die den Netzwerkbetrieb erheblich stören können, da die gesendeten Netzwerkpakete aufgrund der Schleife die selben Router immer wieder passieren und weder an ihr eigentliches Ziel gelangen noch verworfen werden können. Die Gefahr des Auftretens des CTI-Problems schränkt die Einsetzbarkeit von RIP enorm ein. Die Netzwerke, in denen RIP eingesetzt wird, können nicht beliebig wachsen, da die maximale Größe des Netzwerks auf eine relativ kleine Distanz zwischen den Routern begrenzt ist, um die Dauer und die Folgen des CTI-Problems im Falle des Auftretens gering zu halten. Je stärker auch die Topologie eines Netzwerks vermascht ist, um mit zusätzlichen, alternativen Verbindungen Ausfällen entgegenzuwirken, umso stärker steigt auch die Gefahr des Auftretens des CTI-Problems nach einem Ausfall. Bislang existierten für RIP lediglich Mechanismen, die das Risiko des Auftretens und die Auswirkungen des CTI-Problems verringern, das Problem selbst aber nicht beheben können. Mit "RIP with minimal topology information" (RIP-MTI) wurde in der AG Rechnernetze an der Universität Koblenz-Landau eine abwärtskompatible Erweiterung zu RIP geschaffen, die das CTI-Problem zu beheben verspricht. Der RIP-MTI-Algorithmus sammelt zusätzliche Informationen über die Topologie des Netzwerks und nutzt diese, um nach dem Ausfall einer Verbindung richtige Informationen über die Erreichbarkeit von Zielen von falschen Informationen unterscheiden zu können. In dieser Diplomarbeit wird die Implementierung des RIP-MTI-Algorithmus behandelt. Mit Hilfe der speziell entwickelten RIP-Netzwerk-Testumgebung XTPeer, in der das CTI-Problem kontrolliert provoziert werden kann, wird die Wirksamkeit der Implementierung eines Quagga RIP-MTI-Routers überprüft und entsprechend weiterentwickelt. Dafür wird der RIP-MTI-Algorithmus an die Implementierung des Quagga RIP-Routing-Software sowie an die der Netzwerk-Testumgebung XTPeer angepasst. Diese Diplomarbeit wird vom Autor selbst als fortgeschrittene Zwischenstation eingestuft, vor der Herstellung und Herausgabe der Implementierung einer RIP-MTI-Routing-Software, die auch in produktiven Netzwerken eingesetzt werden könnte.
SNMP in VNUML Simulationen
(2007)
Das Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) gilt als die Universalsprache des Netzwerkmanagements. Bereits Anfang der 90er Jahre wurde die erste Version von SNMP durch die Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) zum Standard-Internet Management Protocol erklärt und Teil der TCP/IP Protocol-Suite. Für die meisten Betriebssystemplattformen sind SNMP Implementierungen verfügbar und viele netzwerkfähige Geräte und Netzwerkmanagement-Programme unterstützen SNMP, das sich vor allem für die Verwaltung plattformübergreifender und herstellerunabhängiger Netzwerke bewährt. Virtual Network User Mode Linux (VNUML) ist ein mächtiges Netzwerk-Simulationsprogramm für Linux mit dem virtuelle Linux-Rechnernetze aufgebaut werden können, um darin Programmabläufe zu simulieren. Die VNUML Netzwerk-Simulationen sind in erster Linie für das Entwickeln, Analysieren und Testen von Linux Netzwerk-Software, wie zum Beispiel Netzwerk-Protokollen, geeignet. Das Simulationsprogramm entstand im Rahmen des Euro6IX-Projektes, zur Einführung des IPv6 Standards in Europa, am Telematics Engineering Department der Technischen Universität Madrid. Die Rechner der virtuellen Netze, die VNUML aufbaut, basieren auf User Mode Linux (UML), einer in breitem Spektrum eingesetzten Virtualisierung des Linux-Kernels. Diese Studienarbeit beschäftigt sich mit den Möglichkeiten und der Funktionsweise des Netzwerkmanagements mit SNMP. Dafür wird die SNMP-Software Net-SNMP in VNUML Simulationen eingesetzt, um die Möglichkeiten der Konfiguration und des Umgangs mit SNMP in einer praxisnahen Umgebung zu untersuchen. Der Einsatz von Net-SNMP in VNUML Simulationen kann dazu dienen, die Integration von Netzwerkmanagement mit SNMP für relevante Rechnernetze vorzubereiten und Möglichkeiten der Konfiguration und der Verwendung auszuloten oder VNUML Simulationen im Allgemeinen mit diesem bewährten Netzwerkmanagement-System zur Unterstützung auszustatten.
Avoidance of routing loops
(2009)
We introduce a new routing algorithm which can detect routing loops by evaluating routing updates more thoroughly. Our new algorithm is called Routing with Metric based Topology Investigation (RMTI), which is based on the simple Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and is compatible to all RIP versions. In case of a link failure, a network can reorganize itself if there are redundant links available. Redundant links are only available in a network system like the internet if the topology contains loops. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize and to prevent routing loops. A routing loop can be seen as a circular trace of a routing update information which returns to the same router, either directly from the neighbor router or via a loop topology. Routing loops could consume a large amount of network bandwidth and could impact the endtoend performance of the network. Our RMTI approach is capable to improve the efficiency of Distance Vector Routing.
The University of Koblenz-Landau would like to apply for participation in the RoboCup Mixed Reality League in Suzhou, China 2008. Our team is composed of ten team members and two supervisors. All members are graduate students of Computational Visualistics. Our supervisors are Ph.D. candidates currently researching in the working groups of artificial intelligence and computer graphics.
This thesis proposes the use of MSR (Mining Software Repositories) techniques to identify software developers with exclusive expertise about specific APIs and programming domains in software repositories. A pilot Tool for finding such
“Islands of Knowledge” in Node.js projects is presented and applied in a case study to the 180 most popular npm packages. It is found that on average each package has 2.3 Islands of Knowledge, which is possibly explained by the finding that npm packages tend to have only one main contributor. In a survey, the maintainers of 50 packages are contacted and asked for opinions on the results produced by the Tool. Together with their responses, this thesis reports on experiences made with the pilot Tool and how future iterations could produce even more accurate statements about programming expertise distribution in developer teams.
Die Arbeitsgruppe Echtzeitsysteme an der Universität Koblenz beschäftigt sich seit mehreren Jahren mit der Thematik autonomes und assistiertes Fahren. Eine große Herausforderung stellen in diesem Zusammenhang mehrgliedrige Fahrzeuge dar, deren Steuerung für den Fahrer während der Rückwärtsfahrt sehr anspruchsvoll ist. Um präzise Manöver zu ermöglichen, können elektronische Fahrerassistenzsysteme zum Einsatz kommen. Im Rahmen vorhergehender Arbeiten sind bereits einige Prototypen entstanden, von denen jedoch keiner eine geeignete Lösung für moderne, zweiachsige Anhänger darstellt. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurde ein prototypisches Fahrerassistenzsystem entwickelt, wobei es noch weiterer Forschungs- und Entwicklungsarbeit bedarf, um das System straßentauglich zu machen.
Skalierbarkeit und garantierte Ausliererung sind essentielle Eigenschaften eines jeden Routingalgorithmus. Beides bietet bei drahtlosen Ad-hoc Netzwerken die Kombination aus Greedy- und Face- Routing, sofern ein planarer Graph zur Verfügung steht. Doch gerade die fehlerfreie Planarisierung bereitet bei realistischen Netzwerken Schwierigkeiten. Daher soll mit dieser Arbeit die Frage beantwortet werden, zu welcher Fehlerrate es führt, wenn der Graph lediglich mit lokalen Methoden teilplanarisiert wird. Dazu wurde eine Simulationsumgebung geschaffen, um unter Anwendung des Log-Normal-Shadowing-Modells zufällige Konnektivitätsgraphen zu generieren. Diese wurden anschließend durch zwei unterschiedliche, lokale Strategien teilplanarisiert. Es wurden neun verschiedene Settings definiert, die sich aus drei unterschiedlichen Graphendichten und drei unterschiedlichen Werten für den Sigmaparameter des Log-Normal-Shadowing-Modells ergeben. Für jedes Setting wurde in 2000 Simulationsdurchläufen das Verhalten von Greedy-, Face- und kombiniertem Greedy-Face-Routing untersucht und ausgewertet. Zum Abschluss wurden die Ergebnisse dieser Simulation bewertet und diskutiert.
Motion capture refers to the process of capturing, processing and trans- lating real motions onto a 3D model. Not only in the movie and gaming industries, motion capture creates an indispensable realism of human and animal movement. Also in the context of robotics, medical movement therapy, as well as in AR and VR, motion capture is used extensively. In addition to the well established optical processes, especially in the last three areas, alternative systems based on inertial navigation (IMUs) are being used in-creasingly, because they do not rely on external cameras and thus limit the area of movement considerably less.
Fast evolving technical progress in the manufacturing of such IMUs allows building small sensors, wearable on the body which can transfer movements to a computer. The development of applying inertial systems to a motion capture context, however, is still at an early state. Problems like drift can currently only be minimized by adding additional hardware for correcting the read data.
In the following master thesis an IMU based motion capture system is designed and constructed. This contains the assembly of the hardware components as well as processing of the received movement data on the software side and their application to a 3D model.
Im Rahmen von Projekten haben die Mitarbeiter in einem Unternehmen oft komplexe Problemstellungen zu bearbeiten, für die es keine objektiv richtigen oder falschen Lösungen gibt. Stattdessen werden im Rahmen der Entwurfs- und Entscheidungsprozesse mehrere Lösungsvorschläge erarbeitet um dann unter Abwägung von Pro- und Contra-Argumenten eine möglichst optimale Lösung zu finden.
This Work analyzes if a hardware prototype on an Arduino basis for an Adhoc Network can be created. The objective of the prototype development is, the creation of a sensor node with a modular design, where components can be easily changed. Furthermore the application area has requirements, which the node must fulfill. These requirements are derived from the Tmote Sky sensor node, therefore the new created sensor node must be a possible alternative for it and fulfill the same functions. For that purpose this study reviews some available Arduino microprocessors on their suitability for a sensor node. Later in the work the composition of the sensor node is documented. For this, the hardware and their costs are illustrated. The created hardware prototype allows, through easily changed radio modules, the covering of 433 MHz, 866 MHz and 2,40 GHz radio frequencies. At the end of the work, the sensor node prototype is used in an experiment to check for the suitability for water monitoring. For this, an experiment was performed on land and on water and the results evaluated. In the end the prototype fulfilled most of the requirements, but the cost was a little too high.
The term "Augmented Reality (AR)" denotes the superposition of additional virtual objects and supplementary information over real images. The joint project Enhanced Reality (ER)1 aims at a generic AR-system. The ER-project is a cooperation of six different research groups of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Koblenz-Landau. According to Ronald Azuma an AR-system combines real and virtual environments, where the real and virtual objects are registered in 3-D, and it provides interactivity in real time [Azu97]. Enhanced Reality extends Augmented Reality by requiring the virtual objects to be seamlessly embedded into the real world as photo-realistic objects according to the exact lighting conditions. Furthermore, additional information supplying value-added services may be displayed and interaction of the user may even be immersive. The short-term goal of the ER-project is the exploration of ER-fundamentals using some specific research scenarios; the long-term goal is the development of a component-based ER-framework for the creation of ER-applications for arbitrary application areas. ER-applications are developed as single-user applications for users who are moving in a real environment and are wearing some kind of visual output device like see-through glasses and some mobile end device. By these devices the user is able to see reality as it is, but he can also see the virtual objects and the additional information about some value-added service. Furthermore he might have additional devices whereby he can interact with the available virtual objects. The development of a generic framework for ER-applications requires the definition of generic components which are customizable and composable to build concrete applications and it requires a homogeneous data model which supports all components equally well. The workgroup "Software Technology"2 is responsible for this subproject. This report gives some preliminary results concerning the derivation of a component-based view of ER. There are several augmented reality frameworks like ARVIKA, AMIRE, DWARF, MORGAN, Studierstube and others which offer some support for the development of AR-applications. All of them ease the use of existing subsystems like AR-Toolkit, OpenGL and others and leverage the generation process for realistic systems by making efficient use of those subsystems. Consequently, they highly rely on them.
Diese Arbeit behandelt verschiedene Ansätze zur Ermittlung einer Heuristik, welche zur Bestimmung einer optimalen Konfiguration des Theorembeweisers E-KRHyper eingesetzt werden soll. Es wird erläutert, wie der Beweiser durch eine angepasste Voreinstellung optimiert werden kann und die erarbeiteten Ansätze zur Ermittlung dieser Voreinstellung werden vorgestellt. Anhand der erzielten Ergebnisse werden die Ansätze anschließend bewertet und für eines der vorgestellten Verfahren wird außerdem eine Idee zur Implementierung vorgestellt.
Diese Studienarbeit soll eine Einführung in die Arbeit mit virtual network user mode linux (VNUML) geben. Mit Hilfe dieser Arbeit möchte ich speziell die Version VNUML 1.6 näher bringen und die wesentlichen Unterschiede, Vor- und Nachteile zur Version 1.5 zeigen. In den nächsten zwei Kapiteln wird auf das Thema VNUML und UML oberflächlich eingegangen. Das darauffolgende Kapitel befasst sich mit der Installation von VNUML 1.6, der Vorraussetzung und den möglichen Fehlermeldungen. Wenn dies abgeschlossen ist, wird VNUML 1.6 mit eigenen Beispielen ausfürlich, praktisch und theoretisch vorgestellt. Danach werden die wesentlichen Unterschiede von VNUML 1.5 zu VNUML 1.6 beschrieben. Zum Abschluss sind noch ein Kapitel mit kurzen Begriffsdefinitionen und der Anhang mit allen XML-Dateien zu finden. Auf den Aufbau einer XML-Datei möchte ich in meiner Arbeit nicht weiter eingehen. Dazu verweise ich auf die Arbeit von Thomas Chmielowiec und Tim Keupen. In diesen Arbeiten sind die XML-Syntax und Semantik ausfürlich beschrieben.
This thesis introduces fnnlib, a C++ library for recurrent neural network simulations that I developed between October 2009 and March 2010 at Osaka University's Graduate School of Engineering. After covering the theory behind recurrent neural networks, backpropagation through time, recurrent neural networks with parametric bias, continuous-time recurrent neural networks, and echo state networks, the design of the library is explained. All of the classes as well as their interrelationships are presented along with reasons as to why certain design decisions were made. Towards the end of the thesis, a small practical example is shown. Also, fnnlib is compared to other neural network libraries.
Semantic desktop environments aim at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of users carrying out daily tasks within their personal information management infrastructure (PIM). They support the user by transferring and exploiting the explicit semantics of data items across different PIM applications. Whether such an approach does indeed reach its aim of facilitating users" life and—if so—to which extent, however, remains an open question that we address in this paper with the first summative evaluation of a semantic desktop approach. We approach the research question exploiting our own semantic desktop infrastructure, X-COSIM. As data corpus, we have used over 100 emails and 50 documents extracted from the organizers of a conference-like event at our university. The evaluation has been carried out with 18 subjects. We have developed a test environment to evaluate COSIMail and COSIFile, two semantic PIM applications based on X-COSIM. As result, we have found a significant improvement for typical PIM tasks compared to a standard desktop environment.
In this paper we describe a series of projects on location based and personalised information systems. We start wit a basic research project and we show how we came with the help of two other more application oriented project to a product. This is developed by a consortium of enterprises and it already is in use in the city of Koblenz.
In this paper we describe a network for distributing personalized information within a pervasive university. We discuss the system architecture of our Bluetooth-based CampusNews-system, both, from the administrator and the user viewpoint. We furthermore present first statistical data about the usage of the partial installation at the Koblenz campus together with an outlook to future work.
In this paper we describe a network for distributing personalized Information in a metropolitan area. We discuss the system architecture of our Bluetooth-based information system as well as the reasoning process that fits users" needs with potential messages. We furthermore present our findings on parallelizing Bluetooth connection setup and performance.
This paper shows how multiagent systems can be modeled by a combination of UML statecharts and hybrid automata. This allows formal system specification on different levels of abstraction on the one hand, and expressing real-time system behavior with continuous variables on the other hand. It is not only shown how multi-robot systems can be modeled by a combination of hybrid automata and hierarchical state machines, but also how model checking techniques for hybrid automata can be applied. An enhanced synchronization concept is introduced that allows synchronization taking time and avoids state explosion to a certain extent.
Knowledge compilation is a common technique for propositional logic knowledge bases. The idea is to transform a given knowledge base into a special normal form ([MR03],[DH05]), for which queries can be answered efficiently. This precompilation step is very expensive but it only has to be performed once. We propose to apply this technique to knowledge bases defined in Description Logics. For this, we introduce a normal form, called linkless concept descriptions, for ALC concepts. Further we present an algorithm, based on path dissolution, which can be used to transform a given concept description into an equivalent linkless concept description. Finally we discuss a linear satisfiability test as well as a subsumption test for linkless concept descriptions.
This paper offers an informal overview and discussion on first order predicate logic reasoning systems together with a description of applications which are carried out in the Artificial Intelligence Research Group of the University in Koblenz. Furthermore the technique of knowledge compilation is shortly introduced.
So far VNUML (Virtual Network User Mode Linux) has been used by the group for Computer Networks at the University of Koblenz in such a way as to test its own protocol enhancement for RIP (Routing Information Protocol) on strengths and weaknesses. The modified version of RIP is called RMTI (RIP with minimal topology information). In particular, special test scenarios have been used to investigate wether a Count-to-Infinity (CTI) problem can be completely avoided and how quickly the network converges after the failure or breakdown of a router. Tius thesis investigates whether the MTI enhancement also provides for better performance in larger networks. Furthermore, it will be investigated if it is worth using the script tool EDIV ((spanish: Escenarios DIstribuidos con VNUML, english: Distributed Scenarios using VNUML) due to its enhanced scalability and whether the distribution of an XML scenario on several computers has a significant impact on the convergence time. Apart from simulations, test scenarios will be developed and tested in order to generate results about the efficiency and scalability of the Distance Vector Routing Protocol.
Connected vehicles will have a tremendous impact on tomorrow’s mobility solutions. Such systems will heavily rely on information delivery in time to ensure the functional reliability, security and safety. However, the host-centric communication model of today’s networks questions efficient data dissemination in a scale, especially in networks characterized by a high degree of mobility. The Information-Centric Networking (ICN) paradigm has evolved as a promising candidate for the next generation of network architectures. Based on a loosely coupled communication model, the in-network processing and caching capabilities of ICNs are promising to solve the challenges set by connected vehicular systems. In such networks, a special class of caching strategies which take action by placing a consumer’s anticipated content actively at the right network nodes in time are promising to reduce the data delivery time. This thesis contributes to the research in active placement strategies in information-centric and computation-centric vehicle networks for providing dynamic access to content and computation results. By analyzing different vehicular applications and their requirements, novel caching strategies are developed in order to reduce the time of content retrieval. The caching strategies are compared and evaluated against the state-of-the-art in both extensive simulations as well as real world deployments. The results are showing performance improvements by increasing the content retrieval (availability of specific data increased up to 35% compared to state-of-the-art caching strategies), and reducing the delivery times (roughly double the number of data retrieval from neighboring nodes). However, storing content actively in connected vehicle networks raises questions regarding security and privacy. In the second part of the thesis, an access control framework for information-centric connected vehicles is presented. Finally, open security issues and research directions in executing computations at the edge of connected vehicle networks are presented.
Education and training of the workforce have become an important competitive factor for companies because of the rapid technological changes in the economy and the corresponding ever shorter innovation cycles. Traditional training methods, however, are limited in terms of meeting the resulting demand for education and training in a company, which continues to grow and become faster all the time. Therefore, the use of technology-based training programs (that is, courseware) is increasing because courseware enables self-organized and self-paced learning and, through integration into daily work routines, allows optimal transfer of knowledge and skills, resulting in high learning outcome. To achieve these prospects, high-quality courseware is required, with quality being defined as supporting learners optimally in achieving their learning goals. Developing high-quality courseware, however, usually requires more effort and takes longer than developing other programs, which limits the availability of this courseware in time and with the required quality.
This dissertation therefore deals with the research question of how courseware has to be developed in order to produce high-quality courseware with less development effort and shorter project duration. In addition to its high quality, this courseware should be optimally aligned to the characteristics and learning goals of the learners as well as to the planned usage scenarios for the knowledge and skills being trained. The IntView Method for the systematic and efficient development of high-quality courseware was defined to answer the research question of this dissertation. It aims at increasing the probability of producing courseware in time without exceeding project schedules and budgets while developing a high-quality product optimally focused on the target groups and usage scenarios.
The IntView Methods integrates those execution variants of all activities and activity steps required to develop high-quality courseware, which were identified in a detailed analysis of existing courseware development approaches as well as production approaches from related fields, such as multimedia, web, or software engineering, into a systematic process that in their interaction constitute the most efficient way to develop courseware. The main part of the proposed method is therefore a systematic process for engineering courseware that encompasses all courseware lifecycle phases and integrates the activities and methods of all disciplines involved in courseware engineering, including a lifecycle encompassing quality assurance, into a consolidated process. This process is defined as a lifecycle model as well as a derived process model in the form of a dependency model in order to optimally support courseware project teams in coordinating and synchronizing their project work. In addition to the models, comprehensive, ready-to-apply enactment support materials are provided, consisting of work sheets and document templates that include detailed activity descriptions and examples.
The evaluation of the IntView Method proved that the method together with the enactment support materials enables efficient as well as effective courseware development. The projects and case studies conducted in the context of this evaluation demonstrate that, on the one hand, the method is easily adaptable to the production of different kinds of courseware or to different project contexts, and, on the other hand, that it can be used efficiently and effectively.
The publication of freely available and machine-readable information has increased significantly in the last years. Especially the Linked Data initiative has been receiving a lot of attention. Linked Data is based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and anybody can simply publish their data in RDF and link it to other datasets. The structure is similar to the World Wide Web where individual HTML documents are connected with links. Linked Data entities are identified by URIs which are dereferenceable to retrieve information describing the entity. Additionally, so called SPARQL endpoints can be used to access the data with an algebraic query language (SPARQL) similar to SQL. By integrating multiple SPARQL endpoints it is possible to create a federation of distributed RDF data sources which acts like one big data store.
In contrast to the federation of classical relational database systems there are some differences for federated RDF data. RDF stores are accessed either via SPARQL endpoints or by resolving URIs. There is no coordination between RDF data sources and machine-readable meta data about a source- data is commonly limited or not available at all. Moreover, there is no common directory which can be used to discover RDF data sources or ask for sources which offer specific data. The federation of distributed and linked RDF data sources has to deal with various challenges. In order to distribute queries automatically, suitable data sources have to be selected based on query details and information that is available about the data sources. Furthermore, the minimization of query execution time requires optimization techniques that take into account the execution cost for query operators and the network communication overhead for contacting individual data sources. In this thesis, solutions for these problems are discussed. Moreover, SPLENDID is presented, a new federation infrastructure for distributed RDF data sources which uses optimization techniques based on statistical information.
Using semantic data from general-purpose programming languages does not provide the unified experience one would want for such an application. Static error checking is lacking, especially with regards to static typing of the data. Based on the previous work of λ-DL, which integrates semantic queries and concepts as types into a typed λ-calculus, this work takes its ideas a step further to meld them into a real-world programming language. This thesis explores how λ-DL's features can be extended and integrated into an existing language, researches an appropriate extension mechanism and produces Semantics4J, a JastAdd-based Java language semantic data extension for type-safe OWL programming, together with examples of its usage.
Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit soll eine Methodik erarbeitet werden, die englische, keyword-basierte Anfragen in SPARQL übersetzt und bewertet. Aus allen generierten SPARQL-Queries sollen die relevantesten ermittelt und ein Favorit bestimmt werden. Das Ergebnis soll in einer Nutzerevaluation bewertet werden.
Location Provider
(2011)
In dieser Arbeit wurde gemäß den in Kapitel 1.3 definierten Anforderungen ein System entwickelt, um mobile und in der Rechenleistung beschränkte Geräte wie Mobiltelefone und PDAs sowohl im Freien als auch in geschlossenen Räumen verorten zu können. Der eingeschränkten Leistungsfähigkeit der Geräte wird durch die Umsetzung einer Client-Server Lösung Rechnung getragen, bei der der Client als Sensorträger dient, der Daten aus seiner Umgebung registriert und über ein Kommunikationsnetz zur weiteren Berechnung an einen Server überträgt. Die Datenübertragung ist als Webservice realisiert, der auf offenen Standards wie XML und SOAP basiert und leicht um weitere Funktionen erweitert werden kann.
For software engineers, conceptually understanding the tools they are using in the context of their projects is a daily challenge and a prerequisite for complex tasks. Textual explanations and code examples serve as knowledge resources for understanding software languages and software technologies. This thesis describes research on integrating and interconnecting
existing knowledge resources, which can then be used to assist with understanding and comparing software languages and software technologies on a conceptual level. We consider the following broad research questions that we later refine: What knowledge resources can be systematically reused for recovering structured knowledge and how? What vocabulary already exists in literature that is used to express conceptual knowledge? How can we reuse the
online encyclopedia Wikipedia? How can we detect and report on instances of technology usage? How can we assure reproducibility as the central quality factor of any construction process for knowledge artifacts? As qualitative research, we describe methodologies to recover knowledge resources by i.) systematically studying literature, ii.) mining Wikipedia, iii.) mining available textual explanations and code examples of technology usage. The theoretical findings are backed by case studies. As research contributions, we have recovered i.) a reference semantics of vocabulary for describing software technology usage with an emphasis on software languages, ii.) an annotated corpus of Wikipedia articles on software languages, iii.) insights into technology usage on GitHub with regard to a catalog of pattern and iv.) megamodels of technology usage that are interconnected with existing textual explanations and code examples.
This paper documents the development of an abstract physics layer (APL) for Simspark. After short introductions to physics engines and Simspark, reasons why an APL was developed are explained. The biggest part of this paper describes the new design and why certain design choices were made based on requirements that arose during developement. It concludes by explaining how the new design was eventually implemented and what future possibilities the new design holds.
In unserer heutigen Welt spielen soziale Netzwerke eine immer größere werdende Rolle. Im Internet entsteht fast täglich eine neue Anwendung in der Kategorie Web 2.0. Aufgrund dieser Tatsache wird es immer wichtiger die Abläufe in sozialen Netzwerken zu verstehen und diese für Forschungszwecke auch simulieren zu können. Da alle gängigen sozialen Netzwerke heute nur im eindimensionalen Bereich arbeiten, beschäftigt sich diese Diplomarbeit mit mehrdimensionalen sozialen Netzwerken. Mehrdimensionale soziale Netzwerke bieten die Möglichkeit verschiedene Beziehungsarten zu definieren. Beispielsweise können zwei Akteure nicht nur in einer "kennt"-Beziehung stehen, sondern diese Beziehungsart könnte auch in diverse Unterbeziehungsarten, wie z.B. Akteur A "ist Arbeitskollege von" Akteur B oder Akteur C "ist Ehepartner von" Akteur D, unterteilt werden. Auf diese Art und Weise können beliebig viele, völlig verschiedene Beziehungsarten nebeneinander existieren. Die Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, in welchem Grad die Eigenschaften von eindimensionalen auch bei mehrdimensionalen sozialen Netzwerken gelten. Um das herauszufinden werden bereits bestehende Metriken weiterentwickelt. Diese Metriken wurden für eindimensionale soziale Netzwerke entwickelt und können nun auch für die Bewertung mehrdimensionaler sozialer Netzwerke benutzt werden. Eine zentrale Fragestellung ist hierbei wie gut sich Menschen finden, die sich etwas zu sagen haben. Um möglichst exakte Ergebnisse zu erhalten, ist es notwendig reale Daten zu verwenden. Diese werden aus einem Web 2.0-Projekt, in das Benutzer Links zu verschiedenen Themen einstellen, gewonnen (siehe Kapitel 4). Der erste praktische Schritte dieser Arbeit besteht daher darin, das soziale Netzwerk einzulesen und auf diesem Netzwerk eine Kommunikation, zwischen zwei Personen mit ähnlichen Themengebieten, zu simulieren. Die Ergebnisse der Simulation werden dann mit Hilfe der zuvor entwicklelten Metriken ausgewertet.
The amount of information on the Web is constantly increasing and also there is a wide variety of information available such as news, encyclopedia articles, statistics, survey data, stock information, events, bibliographies etc. The information is characterized by heterogeneity in aspects such as information type, modality, structure, granularity, quality and by its distributed nature. The two primary techniques by which users on the Web are looking for information are (1) using Web search engines and (2) browsing the links between information. The dominant mode of information presentation is mainly static in the form of text, images and graphics. Interactive visualizations offer a number of advantages for the presentation and exploration of heterogeneous information on the Web: (1) They provide different representations for different, very large and complex types of information and (2) large amounts of data can be explored interactively using their attributes and thus can support and expand the cognition process of the user. So far, interactive visualizations are still not an integral part in the search process of the Web. The technical standards and interaction paradigms to make interactive visualization usable by the mass are introduced only slowly through standardatization organizations. This work examines how interactive visualizations can be used for the linking and search process of heterogeneous information on the Web. Based on principles in the areas of information retrieval (IR), information visualization and information processing, a model is created, which extends the existing structural models of information visualization with two new processes: (1) linking of information in visualizations and (2) searching, browsing and filtering based on glyphs. The Vizgr toolkit implements the developed model in a web application. In four different application scenarios, aspects of the model will be instantiated and are evaluated in user tests or examined by examples.
Interactive video retrieval
(2006)
The goal of this thesis is to develop a video retrieval system that supports relevance feedback. One research approach of the thesis is to find out if a combination of implicit and explicit relevance feedback returns better retrieval results than a system using explicit feedback only. Another approach is to identify a model to weight existing feature categories. For this purpose, a state-of-the-art analysis is presented and two systems implemented, which run under the conditions of the international TRECVID workshop. It will be a basis system for further research approaches in the field of interactive video retrieval. Amongst others, it shall participate in the 2006 search task of the mentioned workshop.
Empirical studies in software engineering use software repositories as data sources to understand software development. Repository data is either used to answer questions that guide the decision-making in the software development, or to provide tools that help with practical aspects of developers’ everyday work. Studies are classified into the field of Empirical Software Engineering (ESE), and more specifically into Mining Software Repositories (MSR). Studies working with repository data often focus on their results. Results are statements or tools, derived from the data, that help with practical aspects of software development. This thesis focuses on the methods and high order methods used to produce such results. In particular, we focus on incremental methods to scale the processing of repositories, declarative methods to compose a heterogeneous analysis, and high order methods used to reason about threats to methods operating on repositories. We summarize this as technical and methodological improvements. We contribute the improvements to methods and high-order methods in the context of MSR/ESE to produce future empirical results more effectively. We contribute the following improvements. We propose a method to improve the scalability of functions that abstract over repositories with high revision count in a theoretically founded way. We use insights on abstract algebra and program incrementalization to define a core interface of highorder functions that compute scalable static abstractions of a repository with many revisions. We evaluate the scalability of our method by benchmarks, comparing a prototype with available competitors in MSR/ESE. We propose a method to improve the definition of functions that abstract over a repository with a heterogeneous technology stack, by using concepts from declarative logic programming and combining them with ideas on megamodeling and linguistic architecture. We reproduce existing ideas on declarative logic programming with languages close to Datalog, coming from architecture recovery, source code querying, and static program analysis, and transfer them from the analysis of a homogeneous to a heterogeneous technology stack. We provide a prove-of-concept of such method in a case study. We propose a high-order method to improve the disambiguation of threats to methods used in MSR/ESE. We focus on a better disambiguation of threats, operationalizing reasoning about them, and making the implications to a valid data analysis methodology explicit, by using simulations. We encourage researchers to accomplish their work by implementing ‘fake’ simulations of their MSR/ESE scenarios, to operationalize relevant insights about alternative plausible results, negative results, potential threats and the used data analysis methodologies. We prove that such way of simulation based testing contributes to the disambiguation of threats in published MSR/ESE research.
This thesis addresses the problem of terrain classification in unstructured outdoor environments. Terrain classification includes the detection of obstacles and passable areas as well as the analysis of ground surfaces. A 3D laser range finder is used as primary sensor for perceiving the surroundings of the robot. First of all, a grid structure is introduced for data reduction. The chosen data representation allows for multi-sensor integration, e.g., cameras for color and texture information or further laser range finders for improved data density. Subsequently, features are computed for each terrain cell within the grid. Classification is performedrnwith a Markov random field for context-sensitivity and to compensate for sensor noise and varying data density within the grid. A Gibbs sampler is used for optimization and is parallelized on the CPU and GPU in order to achieve real-time performance. Dynamic obstacles are detected and tracked using different state-of-the-art approaches. The resulting information - where other traffic participants move and are going to move to - is used to perform inference in regions where the terrain surface is partially or completely invisible for the sensors. Algorithms are tested and validated on different autonomous robot platforms and the evaluation is carried out with human-annotated ground truth maps of millions of measurements. The terrain classification approach of this thesis proved reliable in all real-time scenarios and domains and yielded new insights. Furthermore, if combined with a path planning algorithm, it enables full autonomy for all kinds of wheeled outdoor robots in natural outdoor environments.
In the last decade, policy-makers around the world have turned their attention toward the creative industry as the economic engine and significant driver of employments. Yet, the literature suggests that creative workers are one of the most vulnerable work-forces of today’s economy. Because of the highly deregulated and highly individuated environment, failure or success are believed to be the byproduct of individual ability and commitment, rather than a structural or collective issue. This thesis taps into the temporal, spatial, and social resolution of digital behavioural data to show that there are indeed structural and historical issues that impact individuals’ and
groups’ careers. To this end, this thesis offers a computational social science research framework that brings together the decades-long theoretical and empirical knowledge of inequality studies, and computational methods that deal with the complexity and scale of digital data. By taking music industry and science as use cases, this thesis starts off by proposing a novel gender detection method that exploits image search and face-detection methods.
By analysing the collaboration patterns and citation networks of male and female computer scientists, it sheds lights on some of the historical biases and disadvantages that women face in their scientific career. In particular, the relation of scientific success and gender-specific collaboration patterns is assessed. To elaborate further on the temporal aspect of inequalities in scientific careers, this thesis compares the degree of vertical and horizontal inequalities among the cohorts of scientists that started their career at different point in time. Furthermore, the structural inequality in music industry is assessed by analyzing the social and cultural relations that breed from live performances and musics releases. The findings hint toward the importance of community belonging at different stages of artists’ careers. This thesis also quantifies some of the underlying mechanisms and processes of inequality, such as the Matthew Effect and the Hipster Paradox, in creative careers. Finally, this thesis argues that online platforms such as Wikipedia could reflect and amplify the existing biases.
A network like the internet is a set of subnets that are connected to each other by a router. A router is a computer, containing multiple network devices to be connected to multiple subnets. So, it is able to forward packages from one subnet to another. A network can be represented as a graph with its routers as vertices and subnets as edges. This graph is called the topology of the network. A packet send to a host outside the own subnet usually will be send first to the so-called default router. This router (like any router) contains a table (the so-called forwarding table) with every subnet. Additionally for each net, the table contains the router through which the subnet can be reached best. So, the packet will be forwarded from router to router until it reaches the destination subnet. On this way every router looks up in its forwarding table for the best next router. A routing protocol takes care of the automatic exchange of informations between the routers to build the forwarding tables and keep them up to date. If the forwarding tables of all routers are up to date the network is called convergent. The time needed to build or update the routing tables is called the convergence time The RIP routing protocol is a well known and well explored distance vector protocol. But there are only few examinations about the convergence properties (e.g. the time needed to converge or the traffic volume produced by the routing messages). This work tries to examine a relationship between the topology properties of a network and the convergence properties of the rip routing protocol. Therefore, over 5000 single measurements were performed and statistically analyzed. Mathematical formulas have been derived from the results that are able to approximate the convergence properties of a network from its topology properties.
In this thesis a Java program is developed that can be used to visualize networks previously described in configuration files. These networks must consist of layer 2 switches and hosts only. After loading such a configuration file, the program will visualize the network, and the spanning tree algorithm IEEE 802.1D may be started. The program allows the user to modify specific attributes of switches and hosts. The hosts will be able to exchange messages. The switches are realized as threads so that they can run independently and parallel to each other. The absence of central coordination and control prevents the switches from sharing global knowledge. This characteristic renders the implementation closer to the way an actual network functions.
This work is about three subjects: Virtualisation, real-time computing and parallel computing. Taken by itself, each of these subjects has already been wellresearched, however, when considering all three together, as is necessary when looking at embedded systems, numerous questions as well as new possibilities arise. In this work we develop models describing the behaviour and requirements of real-time applications which execute in a hierarchy of processes as they do when running in a virtual machine. Also, the real-time capabilities of existing virtual machines are evaluated and new interfaces for virtualisation of multiprocessor machines which take into account the characteristics of embedded systems"specifically real-time computing" are defined, implemented and tested. This enables safe, secure and efficient coexistence of programs with largely differing time constraints within separate virtual machines on a single, common multiprocessor computer.
Confidentiality, integrity, and availability are often listed as the three major requirements for achieving data security and are collectively referred to as the C-I-A triad. Confidentiality of data restricts the data access to authorized parties only, integrity means that the data can only be modified by authorized parties, and availability states that the data must always be accessible when requested. Although these requirements are relevant for any computer system, they are especially important in open and distributed networks. Such networks are able to store large amounts of data without having a single entity in control of ensuring the data's security. The Semantic Web applies to these characteristics as well as it aims at creating a global and decentralized network of machine-readable data. Ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of this data is therefore also important and must be achieved by corresponding security mechanisms. However, the current reference architecture of the Semantic Web does not define any particular security mechanism yet which implements these requirements. Instead, it only contains a rather abstract representation of security.
This thesis fills this gap by introducing three different security mechanisms for each of the identified security requirements confidentiality, integrity, and availability of Semantic Web data. The mechanisms are not restricted to the very basics of implementing each of the requirements and provide additional features as well. Confidentiality is usually achieved with data encryption. This thesis not only provides an approach for encrypting Semantic Web data, it also allows to search in the resulting ciphertext data without decrypting it first. Integrity of data is typically implemented with digital signatures. Instead of defining a single signature algorithm, this thesis defines a formal framework for signing arbitrary Semantic Web graphs which can be configured with various algorithms to achieve different features. Availability is generally supported by redundant data storage. This thesis expands the classical definition of availability to compliant availability which means that data must only be available as long as the access request complies with a set of predefined policies. This requirement is implemented with a modular and extensible policy language for regulating information flow control. This thesis presents each of these three security mechanisms in detail, evaluates them against a set of requirements, and compares them with the state of the art and related work.
Diese Arbeit stellt ein Werkzeug zur Verfügung, das strukturierte Tests des RIP-MTI Algorithmus vereinfachen, beschleunigen und automatisieren kann. Die vormals zwei Dimensionen Topologie und Updatekonstellation, auf die die MTI-Erweiterung getestet werden musste, konnten auf den variablen Anteil der Topologie vereinfacht werden. Die zeitliche Reihenfolge des Auftretens der Updates kann zentral gesteuert werden. Bisher mussten Tests händisch und sehr aufwändig über Skripte auf der Konsole gesteuert werden. Die entwickelte Testumgebung "XTPeer" ermöglicht es, die gleichen und viele weitere Tests mit kleinem Aufwand durchzuführen.
Die Entwicklung von Algorithmen im Sinne des Algorithm Engineering geschieht zyklisch. Der entworfene Algorithmus wird theoretisch analysiert und anschließend implementiert. Nach der praktischen Evaluierung wird der Entwurf anhand der gewonnenen Kenntnisse weiter entwickelt. Formale Verifffizierung der Implementation neben der praktischen Evaluierung kann den Entwicklungsprozess verbessern. Mit der Java Modeling Language (JML) und dem KeY tool stehen eine einfache Spezififfkationssprache und ein benutzerfreundliches, automatisiertes Verififfkationstool zur Verfügung. Diese Arbeit untersucht, inwieweit das KeY tool für die Verifffizierung von komplexeren Algorithmen geeignet ist und welche Rückmeldungen für Algorithmiker aus der Verififfkation gewonnen werden können.Die Untersuchung geschieht anhand von Dijkstras Algorithmus zur Berechnung von kürzesten Wegen in einem Graphen. Es sollen eine konkrete Implementation des Standard-Algorithmus und anschließend Implementationen weiterer Varianten verifffiziert werden. Dies ahmt den Entwicklungsprozess des Algorithmus nach, um in jeder Iteration nach möglichen Rückmeldungen zu suchen. Bei der Verifffizierung der konkreten Implementation merken wir, dass es nötig ist, zuerst eine abstraktere Implementation mit einfacheren Datenstrukturen zu verififfzieren. Mit den dort gewonnenen Kenntnissen können wir dann die Verifikation der konkreten Implementation fortführen. Auch die Varianten des Algorithmus können dank der vorangehenden Verififfkationen verifiziert werden. Die Komplexität von Dijkstras Algorithmus bereitet dem KeY tool einige Schwierigkeiten bezüglich der Performanz, weswegen wir während der Verifizierung die Automatisierung etwas reduzieren müssen. Auf der anderenrn Seite zeigt sich, dass sich aus der Verifffikation einige Rückmeldungen ableiten lassen.
Software is vital for modern society. The efficient development of correct and reliable software is of ever-growing importance. An important technique to achieve this goal is deductive program verification: the construction of logical proofs that programs are correct. In this thesis, we address three important challenges for deductive verification on its way to a wider deployment in the industry: 1. verification of thread-based concurrent programs 2. correctness management of verification systems 3. change management in the verification process. These are consistently brought up by practitioners when applying otherwise mature verification systems. The three challenges correspond to the three parts of this thesis (not counting the introductory first part, providing technical background on the KeY verification approach). In the first part, we define a novel program logic for specifying correctness properties of object-oriented programs with unbounded thread-based concurrency. We also present a calculus for the above logic, which allows verifying actual Java programs. The calculus is based on symbolic execution resulting in its good understandability for the user. We describe the implementation of the calculus in the KeY verification system and present a case study. In the second part, we provide a first systematic survey and appraisal of factors involved in reliability of formal reasoning. We elucidate the potential and limitations of self-application of formal methods in this area and give recommendations based on our experience in design and operation of verification systems. In the third part, we show how the technique of similarity-based proof reuse can be applied to the problems of industrial verification life cycle. We address issues (e.g., coping with changes in the proof system) that are important in verification practice, but have been neglected by research so far.
This dissertation investigates the emergence of dialects in a model of a multi-agent simulation based on neural networks that is developed within this thesis. First the linguistic foundation of language is illustrated. Besides discussing some important definitions of language, this is achieved by giving a summary of the evolutionary steps in language evolution followed by an overview of the elements of human modern languages including the ways of language change. Subsequently some examples of socially learned animals" communicative behaviour and its formations of dialects are shown.
In the following the computational and mathematical basis are to be explained. Besides the expressions model and simulation, these comprehend the setup of multi-agent simulations and the functionality of artificial neural networks. Based on the abovementioned basics the model of this dissertation is derived and described in a detailed way. Results drawn out of several hundreds of simulation runs are explicated thereafter. Each destructive factor defined in the model is examined separately and its domain is divided into intervals with different effects on the outcome of the simulation.
Furthermore, existing interdependences between the single factors and the process of language merging after a prior dialect divide are shown. Results and outlook are followed by specification, draft, architecture, a detailed illustration of the implementation and a user guide of the tool named DiaLex. DiaLex is a java based tool providing users the opportunity to simulate and analyse the influence of different destructive factors on dialect formation within a commonly used language of one or multiple communities of agents.
Der RIPMTI-Algorithmus wurde entwickelt um die Schleifenerkennung in Rechnernetzen zu verbessern. Das Count-To-Infinity-Problem (kurz: CTI) führt dazu, dass ein Netzwerk nur sehr langsam in einen konvergenten Zustand gelangt. Der Hopcount-Wert 16, der als künstliche Beschränkung des CTI eingeführt wurde, beschränkt leider auch die maximale Topologietiefe eines Netzwerkes. Diese Arbeit soll zeigen wie sich eine schrittweise Erhöhung des Hopcount-Wertes und darüber hinaus die Änderung der Updatezeiten jedes Routers auf die Konvergenzzeiten unterschiedlicher Netzwerk-Szenarios auswirkt.
E-Learning Anwendungen sind heutzutage im Trend. Jedoch nicht nur aus diesem Grund sind sie vom großen Interesse. Im Vordergrund steht ihr didaktisches Konzept. Heutzutage ist es technisch möglich, die Teilnehmer interaktiv in einen
E- Learning Kurs einzubinden. Die Lernschritte können durch die Anwendung kontrolliert werden. Im Gegensatz zu einer Vorlesung, kann die Theorie direkt mit der Praxis verknüpft werden. Das Ziel der Arbeit ist die Erstellung eines Konzeptes und die Entwicklung eines Prototypen einer interaktiven Entwicklungsumgebung von Java für Programmieranfänger. In dieser Arbeit wurden aktuelle E-Learning Plattformen zu Java analysiert. Aus den gewonnen Erkenntnissen wurde ein Konzept für eine E-Learningplattform entwickelt. Dieses Konzept wurde erfolgreich als Prototyp implementiert. Für die Implementation wurden bewährte Technologien, wie das Django-Framework und das Javascript-Framework Vue.js eingesetzt. Der Kurs wurde von neun Teilnehmern getestet. Zusätzlich wurde eine Umfrage zu der Kursanwendung durchgeführt. Das Testergebnis bestätigt, dass die Teilnehmer den Kurs bestanden haben.
Der an der Universität Koblenz-Landau entwickelte RIP-MTI-Algorithmus stellt eine Modifikation des Routingalgorithmus RIP dar, die es dem RIP-Algorithmus ermöglichen soll, die Häufigkeit des Auftretens des Counting-to-infinity-Problems (CTI) zu reduzieren. Um die Korrektheit und Zuverlässigkeit dieses Algorithmus nachweisen, aber auch Schwächen aufdecken zu können, bedarf es der Möglichkeit, das Verhalten des Algorithmus zu testen. Ziel der Arbeit ist die Nutzbarmachung der von unter VNUML laufenden RIP-Routern dezentral verwalteten Routing-Informationen, um die Entstehung von CTIs zentral protokollieren und analysieren zu können. Zu diesem Zweck wird eine Software entwickelt, die Informationen zur Netzkonfiguration, zu Erreichbarkeiten und Update-Aufkommen sammelt, verwaltet und analysiert. So können neben den bereits bekannten problematischen Netztopologien weitere für die einzelnen RIP-Ausprägungen problematische Topologien ermittelt werden.
Dualizing marked Petri nets results in tokens for transitions (t-tokens). A marked transition can strictly not be enabled, even if there are sufficient "enabling" tokens (p-tokens) on its input places. On the other hand, t-tokens can be moved by the firing of places. This permits flows of t-tokens which describe sequences of non-events. Their benefiit to simulation is the possibility to model (and observe) causes and effects of non-events, e.g. if something is broken down.
Probability propagation nets
(2007)
A class of high level Petri nets, called "probability propagation nets", is introduced which is particularly useful for modeling probability and evidence propagation. These nets themselves are well suited to represent the probabilistic Horn abduction, whereas specific foldings of them will be used for representing the flows of probabilities and likelihoods in Bayesian networks.
The paper deals with a specific introduction into probability propagation nets. Starting from dependency nets (which in a way can be considered the maximum information which follows from the directed graph structure of Bayesian networks), the probability propagation nets are constructed by joining a dependency net and (a slightly adapted version of) its dual net. Probability propagation nets are the Petri net version of Bayesian networks. In contrast to Bayesian networks, Petri nets are transparent and easy to operate. The high degree of transparency is due to the fact that every state in a process is visible as a marking of the Petri net. The convenient operability consists in the fact that there is no algorithm apart from the firing rule of Petri net transitions. Besides the structural importance of the Petri net duality there is a semantic matter; common sense in the form of probabilities and evidencebased likelihoods are dual to each other.
In this paper, we demonstrate by means of two examples how to work with probability propagation nets (PPNs). The fiirst, which comes from the book by Peng and Reggia [1], is a small example of medical diagnosis. The second one comes from [2]. It is an example of operational risk and is to show how the evidence flow in PPNs gives hints to reduce high losses. In terms of Bayesian networks, both examples contain cycles which are resolved by the conditioning technique [3].
Virtual reality is a growing field of interest as it provides a particular intuitive way of user-interaction. However, there are still open technical issues regarding latency — the delay between interaction and display reaction — and the trade-off between visual quality and frame-rate of real-time graphics, especially when taking visual effects like specular and semi-transparent surfaces and volumes into account. One solution, a distributed rendering setup, is presented in this thesis, in which the image synthesis is divided into an accurate but costly physically based rendering thread with a low refresh rate and a fast reprojection thread to remain a responsive interactivity with a high frame-rate. Two novel reprojection techniques are proposed that cover reflections and refractions produced by surface ray-tracing as well as volumetric light transport generated by volume ray-marching. The introduced setup can enhance the VR experience within several domains. In this thesis, three innovative training applications have been realized to investigate the added value of virtual reality to the three learning stages of observation, interaction and collaboration. For each stage an interdisciplinary curriculum, currently taught with traditional media, was transferred to a VR setting in order to investigate how virtual reality is capable of providing a natural, flexible and efficient learning environment
The trends of industry 4.0 and the further enhancements toward an ever changing factory lead to more mobility and flexibility on the factory floor. With that higher need of mobility and flexibility the requirements on wireless communication rise. A key requirement in that setting is the demand for wireless Ultra-Reliability and Low Latency Communication (URLLC). Example use cases therefore are cooperative Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and mobile robotics in general. Working along that setting this thesis provides insights regarding the whole network stack. Thereby, the focus is always on industrial applications. Starting on the physical layer, extensive measurements from 2 GHz to 6 GHz on the factory floor are performed. The raw data is published and analyzed. Based on that data an improved Saleh-Valenzuela (SV) model is provided. As ad-hoc networks are highly depended onnode mobility, the mobility of AGVs is modeled. Additionally, Nodal Encounter Patterns (NEPs) are recorded and analyzed. A method to record NEP is illustrated. The performance by means of latency and reliability are key parameters from an application perspective. Thus, measurements of those two parameters in factory environments are performed using Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) (IEEE 802.11n), private Long Term Evolution (pLTE) and 5G. This showed auto-correlated latency values. Hence, a method to construct confidence intervals based on auto-correlated data containing rare events is developed. Subsequently, four performance improvements for wireless networks on the factory floor are proposed. Of those optimization three cover ad-hoc networks, two deal with safety relevant communication, one orchestrates the usage of two orthogonal networks and lastly one optimizes the usage of information within cellular networks.
Finally, this thesis is concluded by an outlook toward open research questions. This includes open questions remaining in the context of industry 4.0 and further the ones around 6G. Along the research topics of 6G the two most relevant topics concern the ideas of a network of networks and overcoming best-effort IP.
Dieses Dokument schlägt ein Konzept für eine Personal Key Infrastruktur in iCity vor. Über ein Trust Center (TC) ausgestellte Zertiffkate gewährleisten einen sicheren Schlüsselaustausch mit nachweisbarer Authentisierung des Kommunikationspartners, Abhörsicherheit sowie Unverf älschtheit und Nachweisbarkeit der Nachrichten. Das gemeinsam vertrauensw ürdige TC muss während der Kommunikation nicht erreichbar sein. Es erhält lediglich öffentliche Informationen. Das Konzept stellt mehrere Sicherheitsstufen vor, die sichere Identiffkation und Anonymität unterschiedlich gewichten.
Conventional security infrastructures in the Internet cannot be directly adopted to ambient systems, especially if based on short-range communication channels: Personal, mobile devices are used and the participants are present during communication, so privacy protection is a crucial issue. As ambient systems cannot rely on an uninterrupted connection to a Trust Center, certiffed data has to be veriffed locally. Security techniques have to be adjusted to the special environment. This paper introduces a public key infrastructure (PKI) to provide secure communication channels with respect to privacy, confidentiality, data integrity, non-repudiability, and user or device authentication. It supports three certiffcate levels with a different balance between authenticity and anonymity. This PKI is currently under implementation as part of the iCity project.
An empirical study to evaluate the location of advertisement panels by using a mobile marketing tool
(2009)
The efficiency of marketing campaigns is a precondition for business success. This paper discusses a technique to transfer advertisement content vie Bluetooth technology and collects market research information at the same time. Conventional advertisement media were enhanced by devices to automatically measure the number, distance, frequency and exposure time of passersby, making information available to evaluate both the wireless media as well as the location in general. This paper presents a study analyzing these data. A cryptographic one-way function protects privacy during data acquisition.
CAMPUS NEWS - artificial intelligence methods combined for an intelligent information network
(2008)
In this paper we describe a network for distributing personalised information with the usage of artificial intelligence methods. Reception of this information should be possible with everyday mobile equipment. Intelligent filtering and spam protection aim at integrating this technology into our environment. Information on the system architecture and usage of the installation are also presented.
RMTI (RIP with Metric based Topology Investigation) wurde in der AG Rechnernetze an der Universität Koblenz-Landau entwickelt. RMTI stellt eine Erweiterung zum RIP (Routing Information Protocol) dar, die das Konvergenzverhalten bei Netzwerkveränderungen, insb. bei Routingschleifen, verbessern soll. Dies geschieht durch Erkennen von Routingschleifen und Reduzieren des Count-to-infinity Problems. Um dieses gewünschte Verhalten nachweisen zu können, bedarf eine reichhaltige Evaluierung des RMTI- Algorithmus. Hierzu wurde in der gleichen Arbeitsgruppe die Client-/Server-Applikation XTPeer entwickelt. In Kombination mit anderen Software wie VNUML und Quagga Routing Suite lässt sich per XT-Peer der Algorithmus evaluieren. Die Applikation XTPeer generiert durch die Simulationen Daten. Diese können in Form von XML konforme SDF-Dateien exportiert werden. Diese können ohne weitere Auswertungen wieder in die XTPeer Applikation importiert werden. Die Evaluierung der Simulationen findet automatisiert nur an der aktuellen Simulation statt. Evaluierung über mehrere Simulationen muss der Benutzer manuell berechnen. Um diese Evaluierungsarbeiten für den Benutzer zu vereinfachen, verfolgt die vorliegende Diplomarbeit daher das Ziel, die XTPeer Applikation mit einem Auswertungsmodul zu erweitern. Die Auswertungen soll sich über alle gespeicherten Simulationsdaten und nicht wie bisher nur über die aktuell laufende Simulation erstrecken. Dies ermöglicht bessere statistisch verwertbare Aussagen. Zusätzlich können diese Auswertungsergebnisse grafisch unterstrichen werden.
Specifying behaviors of multi-agent systems (MASs) is a demanding task, especially when applied in safety-critical systems. In the latter systems, the specification of behaviors has to be carried out carefully in order to avoid side effects that might cause unwanted or even disastrous behaviors. Thus, formal methods based on mathematical models of the system under design are helpful. They not only allow us to formally specify the system at different levels of abstraction, but also to verify the consistency of the specified systems before implementing them. The formal specification aims a precise and unambiguous description of the behavior of MASs, whereas the verification aims at proving the satisfaction of specified requirements. A behavior of an agent can be described as discrete changes of its states with respect to external or internal actions. Whenever an action occurs, the agent moves from one state to another one. Therefore, an efficient way to model this type of discrete behaviors is to use a kind of state transition diagrams such as finite automata. One remarkable advantage of such transition diagrams is that they lend themselves formal analysis techniques using model checking. The latter is an automatic verification technique which determines whether given properties are satisfied within a model underlying a particular system. In realistic physical environments, however, it is necessary to consider continuous behaviors in addition to discrete behaviors of MASs. Examples of those type of behaviors include the movement of a soccer agent to kick off or to go to the ball, the process of putting out the fire by a fire brigade agent in a rescue scenario, or any other behaviors that depend on any timed physical law. The traditional state transition diagrams are not sufficient to combine these types of behaviors. Hybrid automata offer an elegant method to capture such types of behaviors. Hybrid automata extend regular state transition diagrams with methods that deal with those continuous actions such that the state transition diagrams are used to model the discrete changes of behaviors, while differential equations are used to model the continuous changes. The semantics of hybrid automata make them accessible to formal verification by means of model checking. The main goal of this thesis is to approach hybrid automata for specifying and verifying behaviors of MASs. However, specifying and and verifying behaviors of MASs by means of hybrid automata raises several issues that should be considered. These issues include the complexity, modularity, and the expressiveness of MASs' models. This thesis addresses these issues and provides possible solutions to tackle them.
Hybrid automata are used as standard means for the specification and analysis of dynamical systems. Several researches have approached them to formally specify reactive Multi-agent systems situated in a physical environment, where the agents react continuously to their environment. The specified systems, in turn, are formally checked with the help of existing hybrid automata verification tools. However, when dealing with multi-agent systems, two problems may be raised. The first problem is a state space problem raised due to the composition process, where the agents have to be parallel composed into an agent capturing all possible behaviors of the multi-agent system prior to the verification phase. The second problem concerns the expressiveness of verification tools when modeling and verifying certain behaviors. Therefore, this paper tackles these problems by showing how multi-agent systems, specified as hybrid automata, can be modeled and verified using constraint logic programming(CLP). In particular, a CLP framework is presented to show how the composition of multi-agent behaviors can be captured dynamically during the verification phase. This can relieve the state space complexity that may occur as a result of the composition process. Additionally, the expressiveness of the CLP model flexibly allows not only to model multi-agent systems, but also to check various properties by means of the reachability analysis. Experiments are promising to show the feasibility of our approach.
Hybrid systems are the result of merging the two most commonly used models for dynamical systems, namely continuous dynamical systems defined by differential equations and discrete-event systems defined by automata. One can view hybrid systems as constrained systems, where the constraints describe the possible process flows, invariants within states, and transitions on the one hand, and to characterize certain parts of the state space (e.g. the set of initial states, or the set of unsafe states) on the other hand. Therefore, it is advantageous to use constraint logic programming (CLP) as an approach to model hybrid systems. In this paper, we provide CLP implementations, that model hybrid systems comprising several concurrent hybrid automata, whose size is only straight proportional to the size of the given system description. Furthermore, we allow different levels of abstraction by making use of hierarchies as in UML statecharts. In consequence, the CLP model can be used for analyzing and testing the absence or existence of (un)wanted behaviors in hybrid systems. Thus in summary, we get a procedure for the formal verification of hybrid systems by model checking, employing logic programming with constraints.
Improvements to the RMTI network routing daemon implementation and preparation of a public release
(2011)
Routing with Metric based Topology Investigation (RMTI) is an algorithm meant to extend distance-vector routing protocols. It is under research and development at the University of Koblenz-Landau since 1999 and currently implemented on top of the well-known Routing Information Protocol (RIP). Around midyear 2009, the latest implementation of RMTI included a lot of deprecated functionality. Because of this, the first goal of this thesis was the reduction of the codebase to a minimum. Beside a lot of reorganization and a general cleanup, this mainly involved the removal of some no longer needed modes as well as the separation of the formerly mandatory XTPeer test environment. During the second part, many test series were carried out in order to ensure the correctness of the latest RMTI implementation. A replacement for XTPeer was needed and several new ways of testing were explored. In conjunction with this thesis, the RMTI source code was finally released to the public under a free software license.
Simulation mit VNUML
(2008)
Diese Studienarbeit soll als Einführung in das Thema Netzwerksimulation dienen und unter anderem auch als Einstiegs-Referenz für zukünftige Besucher der Rechnernetze-Veranstaltungen an der Universität Koblenz nutzbar sein. Die Ausarbeitung beginnt mit den Grundlagen zu UML und VNUML und beschreibt dann die Installation, Konfiguration und das Arbeiten mit dem Netzwerksimulator sowie oft genutzter Tools. Im Anschluss daran werden konkrete Anwendungsfelder vorgestellt: der simulierte Einsatz des Paketfilter iptables zur Realisierung von Firewalls und NAT, verschiedene Netzwerkdienste und zuguterletzt simuliertes Routing mit der quagga-Suite.
Im Rahmen dieser Diplomarbeit wird ein Transaktionskonzept für die aktuelle Implementationsversion der TGraphenbibliothek JGraLab Carnotaurus umgesetzt. Nach einer grundlegenden Einführung in das Konzept der TGraphen werden die relevanten Implementationsdetails der TGraphenbibliothek erläutert. Anschließend erfolgt ein konzeptueller Entwurf, in dem die formalen Grundlagen des Transaktionskonzepts beschrieben werden. Das aus der Datenbankwelt bekannte ACID-Paradigma für Transaktionen dient dabei als wissenschaftliche Grundlage. In einem nächsten Schritt erfolgt der objektorientierte Feinentwurf der Integration des zu entwickelnden Transaktionskonzepts in das vorhandene Gesamtsystem, anhand dessen die Implementation durchgeführt wird. Eine Analyse und Bewertung des umgesetzten Transaktionskonzepts (vor allem im Hinblick auf den Speicherverbrauch und das Laufzeitverhalten) schließen die Arbeit ab.
Web 2.0 provides technologies for online collaboration of users as well as the creation, publication and sharing of user-generated contents in an interactive way. Twitter, CNET, CiteSeerX, etc. are examples of Web 2.0 platforms which facilitate users in these activities and are viewed as rich sources of information. In the platforms mentioned as examples, users can participate in discussions, comment others, provide feedback on various issues, publish articles and write blogs, thereby producing a high volume of unstructured data which at the same time leads to an information overload. To satisfy various types of human information needs arising from the purpose and nature of the platforms requires methods for appropriate aggregation and automatic analysis of this unstructured data. In this thesis, we propose methods which attempt to overcome the problem of information overload and help in satisfying user information needs in three scenarios.
To this end, first we look at two of the main challenges of sparsity and content quality in Twitter and how these challenges can influence standard retrieval models. We analyze and identify Twitter content features that reflect high quality information. Based on this analysis we introduce the concept of "interestingness" as a static quality measure. We empirically show that our proposed measure helps in retrieving and filtering high quality information in Twitter. Our second contribution relates to the content diversification problem in a collaborative social environment, where the motive of the end user is to gain a comprehensive overview of the pros and cons of a discussion track which results from social collaboration of the people. For this purpose, we develop the FREuD approach which aims at solving the content diversification problem by combining latent semantic analysis with sentiment estimation approaches. Our evaluation results show that the FREuD approach provides a representative overview of sub-topics and aspects of discussions, characteristic user sentiments under different aspects, and reasons expressed by different opponents. Our third contribution presents a novel probabilistic Author-Topic-Time model, which aims at mining topical trends and user interests from social media. Our approach solves this problem by means of Bayesian modeling of relations between authors, latent topics and temporal information. We present results of application of the model to the scientific publication datasets from CiteSeerX showing improved semantically cohesive topic detection and capturing shifts in authors" interest in relation to topic evolution.
Reactive local algorithms are distributed algorithms which suit the needs of battery-powered, large-scale wireless ad hoc and sensor networks particularly well. By avoiding both unnecessary wireless transmissions and proactive maintenance of neighborhood tables (i.e., beaconing), such algorithms minimize communication load and overhead, and scale well with increasing network size. This way, resources such as bandwidth and energy are saved, and the probability of message collisions is reduced, which leads to an increase in the packet reception ratio and a decrease of latencies.
Currently, the two main application areas of this algorithm type are geographic routing and topology control, in particular the construction of a node's adjacency in a connected, planar representation of the network graph. Geographic routing enables wireless multi-hop communication in the absence of any network infrastructure, based on geographic node positions. The construction of planar topologies is a requirement for efficient, local solutions for a variety of algorithmic problems.
This thesis contributes to reactive algorithm research in two ways, on an abstract level, as well as by the introduction of novel algorithms:
For the very first time, reactive algorithms are considered as a whole and as an individual research area. A comprehensive survey of the literature is given which lists and classifies known algorithms, techniques, and application domains. Moreover, the mathematical concept of O- and Omega-reactive local topology control is introduced. This concept unambiguously distinguishes reactive from conventional, beacon-based, topology control algorithms, serves as a taxonomy for existing and prospective algorithms of this kind, and facilitates in-depth investigations of the principal power of the reactive approach, beyond analysis of concrete algorithms.
Novel reactive local topology control and geographic routing algorithms are introduced under both the unit disk and quasi unit disk graph model. These algorithms compute a node's local view on connected, planar, constant stretch Euclidean and topological spanners of the underlying network graph and route messages reactively on these spanners while guaranteeing the messages' delivery. All previously known algorithms are either not reactive, or do not provide constant Euclidean and topological stretch properties. A particularly important partial result of this work is that the partial Delaunay triangulation (PDT) is a constant stretch Euclidean spanner for the unit disk graph.
To conclude, this thesis provides a basis for structured and substantial research in this field and shows the reactive approach to be a powerful tool for algorithm design in wireless ad hoc and sensor networking.
Cicero ist eine asynchrone Diskussionsplattform, die im Rahmen der Arbeitsgruppe Informationssysteme und Semantic Web (ISWeb) der Universität Koblenz-Landau entwickelt wurde. Die webbasierte Anwendung folgt dem Gedanken eines semantischen Wikis und soll insbesondere beim Arbeitsablauf von Entwurfsprozessen eingesetzt werden. Dabei verwendet Cicero ein restriktives Argumentationsmodell, das einerseits strukturierte Diskussionen von schwierigen Prozessen fördert und andererseits den Entscheidungsfindungsprozess unterstützt. Im Zentrum der Arbeit steht die Evaluation von Cicero, wobei im vorhergehenden theoretischen Teil die Hintergründe und Funktionsweisen vorgestellt werden und im nachfolgenden praktischen Teil die Anwendung anhand einer Fallstudie evaluiert wird. Die Studie wurde im Rahmen der Übungsveranstaltung zu Grundlagen der Datenbanken der Universität Koblenz im Wintersemester 2008/2009 durchgeführt , und die Studenten hatten die Aufgabe, einen Entwurfsprozess mit Hilfe von Cicero zu diskutieren. Über die erhobenen Daten der Fallstudie wird ein Akzeptanztest durchgeführt. Hierbei wird überprüft, ob die Benutzer Cicero positiv annehmen und die Methodik richtig anwenden. Denn aufgrund des vorgegebenen Argumentationsmodells müssen die Benutzer ihr Kommunikationsverhalten ändern und ihren herkömmlichen Diskussionsstil der Anwendung anpassen. Ziel der Evaluation ist es, kritische Erfolgsfaktoren im Umgang mit Cicero ausfindig zu machen. Anhand der identifizierten Schwachstellen werden abschließend gezielte Maßnahmen vorgeschlagen, die die Akzeptanz der Benutzer gegenüber Cicero erhöhen könnten.
Viele Probleme in der Aussagenlogik sind nur sehr aufwändig lösbar. Ist beispielsweise eine Wissensbasis gegeben, an die wir Anfragen stellen, wollen, so kann dies mitunter sehr mühsam sein. Um trotzdem effizient Anfragen beantworten zu können, hat sich die Vorgehensweise der Wissenskompilation entwickelt. Dabei wird die Lösung der Aufgabe in eine Offline- und eine Online-Phase aufgeteilt. In der Offline-Phase wird die Wissensbasis präkompiliert. Dabei wird sie in eine bestimmte Form umgewandelt, auf der sich die erwarteten Anfragen effizient beantworten lassen. Diese Transformation der Wissensbasis ist meist sehr aufwändig, muss jedoch nur einmalig durchgeführt werden. In der darauffolgenden Online-Phase können nun effizient Anfragen beantwortet werden. In dieser Diplomarbeit wird eine spezielle Normalform, die sich als Zielsprache der Präkompilation anbietet, untersucht. Außerdem wird die Präkompilation so in einzelne Schritte unterteilt, dass möglicherweise bereits nach einigen Teilschritten Anfragen beantwortet werden können.
Die folgende Arbeit zeigt eine Möglichkeit auf, Lokalisierung eines Objektes mittels Ultraschall zu realisieren. Dazu werden drei bis fünf im Raum verteilte Sensoren genutzt, um anhand von Distanzinformationen die Position eines Objekts relativ zu den Positionen der Sensoren zu bestimmen. Eine Besonderheit besteht dabei darin, dass die Sensoren nahezu beliebig in der Ebene verteilt sein können. Ihre Anordnung wird vom System in der Kalibrierungsphase mit Unterstützung des Anwenders ermittelt. Dabei dürften ein gleichseitiges Dreieck, ein Quadrat oder Pentagramm je nach Sensoranzahl die besten Ergebnisse liefern. Um die relative Bewegung in eine Absolute zu übertragen, findet eine Umrechnung in Meter anhand der Taktung der Mikrocontroller, des Prescalers des verwendeten Timers und der Schallgeschwindigkeit statt.
The semantic web and model-driven engineering are changing the enterprise computing paradigm. By introducing technologies like ontologies, metadata and logic, the semantic web improves drastically how companies manage knowledge. In counterpart, model-driven engineering relies on the principle of using models to provide abstraction, enabling developers to concentrate on the system functionality rather than on technical platforms. The next enterprise computing era will rely on the synergy between both technologies. On the one side, ontology technologies organize system knowledge in conceptual domains according to its meaning. It addresses enterprise computing needs by identifying, abstracting and rationalizing commonalities, and checking for inconsistencies across system specifications. On the other side, model-driven engineering is closing the gap among business requirements, designs and executables by using domain-specific languages with custom-built syntax and semantics. In this scenario, the research question that arises is: What are the scientific and technical results around ontology technologies that can be used in model-driven engineering and vice versa? The objective is to analyze approaches available in the literature that involve both ontologies and model-driven engineering. Therefore, we conduct a literature review that resulted in a feature model for classifying state-of-the-art approaches. The results show that the usage of ontologies and model-driven engineering together have multiple purposes: validation, visual notation, expressiveness and interoperability. While approaches involving both paradigms exist, an integrated approach for UML class-based modeling and ontology modeling is lacking so far. Therefore, we investigate the techniques and languages for designing integrated models. The objective is to provide an approach to support the design of integrated solutions. Thus, we develop a conceptual framework involving the structure and the notations of a solution to represent and query software artifacts using a combination of ontologies and class-based modeling. As proof of concept, we have implemented our approach as a set of open source plug-ins -- the TwoUse Toolkit. The hypothesis is that a combination of both paradigms yields improvements in both fields, ontology engineering and model-driven engineering. For MDE, we investigate the impact of using features of the Web Ontology Language in software modeling. The results are patterns and guidelines for designing ontology-based information systems and for supporting software engineers in modeling software. The results include alternative ways of describing classes and objects and querying software models and metamodels. Applications show improvements on changeability and extensibility. In the ontology engineering domain, we investigate the application of techniques used in model-driven engineering to fill the abstraction gap between ontology specification languages and programming languages. The objective is to provide a model-driven platform for supporting activities in the ontology engineering life cycle. Therefore, we study the development of core ontologies in our department, namely the core ontology for multimedia (COMM) and the multimedia metadata ontology. The results are domain-specific languages that allow ontology engineers to abstract from implementation issues and concentrate on the ontology engineering task. It results in increasing productivity by filling the gap between domain models and source code.
UML models and OWL ontologies constitute modeling approaches with different strength and weaknesses that make them appropriate for use of specifying different aspects of software systems. In particular, OWL ontologies are well suited to specify classes using an expressive logical language with highly flexible, dynamic and polymorphic class membership, while UML diagrams are much more suitable for specifying not only static models including classes and associations, but also dynamic behavior. Though MOF based metamodels and UML profiles for OWL have been proposed in the past, an integrated use of both modeling approaches in a coherent framework has been lacking so far. We present such a framework, TwoUse, for developing integrated models, comprising the benefits of UML models and OWL ontologies
In the recent years, Software Engineering research has shown the rise of interest in the empirical studies. Such studies are often based on empirical evidence derived from corpora - collections of software artifacts. While there are established forms of carrying out empirical research (experiments, case studies, surveys, etc.), the common task of preparing the underlying collection of software artifacts is typically addressed in ad hoc manner.
In this thesis, by means of a literature survey we show how frequently software engineering research employs software corpora and using a developed classification scheme we discuss their characteristics. Addressing the lack of methodology, we suggest a method of corpus (re-)engineering and apply it to an existing collection of Java projects.
We report two extensive empirical studies, where we perform a broad and diverse range of analyses on the language for privacy preferences (P3P) and on object-oriented application programming interfaces (APIs). In both cases, we are driven by the data at hand, by the corpus itself, discovering the actual usage of the languages.
This dissertation investigates the usage of theorem provers in automated question answering (QA). QA systems attempt to compute correct answers for questions phrased in a natural language. Commonly they utilize a multitude of methods from computational linguistics and knowledge representation to process the questions and to obtain the answers from extensive knowledge bases. These methods are often syntax-based, and they cannot derive implicit knowledge. Automated theorem provers (ATP) on the other hand can compute logical derivations with millions of inference steps. By integrating a prover into a QA system this reasoning strength could be harnessed to deduce new knowledge from the facts in the knowledge base and thereby improve the QA capabilities. This involves challenges in that the contrary approaches of QA and automated reasoning must be combined: QA methods normally aim for speed and robustness to obtain useful results even from incomplete of faulty data, whereas ATP systems employ logical calculi to derive unambiguous and rigorous proofs. The latter approach is difficult to reconcile with the quantity and the quality of the knowledge bases in QA. The dissertation describes modifications to ATP systems in order to overcome these obstacles. The central example is the theorem prover E-KRHyper which was developed by the author at the Universität Koblenz-Landau. As part of the research work for this dissertation E-KRHyper was embedded into a framework of components for natural language processing, information retrieval and knowledge representation, together forming the QA system LogAnswer.
Also presented are additional extensions to the prover implementation and the underlying calculi which go beyond enhancing the reasoning strength of QA systems by giving access to external knowledge sources like web services. These allow the prover to fill gaps in the knowledge during the derivation, or to use external ontologies in other ways, for example for abductive reasoning. While the modifications and extensions detailed in the dissertation are a direct result of adapting an ATP system to QA, some of them can be useful for automated reasoning in general. Evaluation results from experiments and competition participations demonstrate the effectiveness of the methods under discussion.
The E-KRHyper system is a model generator and theorem prover for first-order logic with equality. It implements the new E-hyper tableau calculus, which integrates a superposition-based handling of equality into the hyper tableau calculus. E-KRHyper extends our previous KRHyper system, which has been used in a number of applications in the field of knowledge representation. In contrast to most first order theorem provers, it supports features important for such applications, for example queries with predicate extensions as answers, handling of large sets of uniformly structured input facts, arithmetic evaluation and stratified negation as failure. It is our goal to extend the range of application possibilities of KRHyper by adding equality reasoning.
An der Universität Koblenz wurde mit dem RMTI (RIP with Metric based Topology Investigation) eine Erweiterung zu RIP entwickelt, die das Counting-to-Infinity Problem beheben soll. Eine lauffähige Implementierung des RMTI Algorithmus, auf Basis des RIP Daemons der Quagga Software Routing Suite, liegt vor. Openwrt ist ein, auf Linux basierendes, quelloffenes Betriebssystem für Router, wie z.B. den WRT54G der Firma Linksys. Die Möglichkeiten der Konfiguration der Router mit Openwrt gehen weit über die der original Firmware hinaus. So können die Router mit Software aus dem Linux-Bereich erweitert werden. Ziel dieser Studienarbeit ist die Installation des RMTI Daemons in Openwrt auf den Linksys WRT54G Routern der AG Rechnernetze. Anschließend sollen typische Netzwerksituationen aufgebaut und das Verhalten der Router untersucht werden.
The aim of this thesis was to develop and to evaluate a method, which enables the utilization of traditional dialog marketing tools through the web. For this purpose, a prototype of a website with "extended real-time interaction (eEI)" capabilities has been implemented and tested. The prototype was evaluated by a methodology based on the five-dimensional "e-service quality" measure after Gwo-Guang Lee und Hsiu-Fen Lin. The Foundation of the "e-service quality" measure is the SERVQUAL-Model. A statistical analysis of the user study results showed a significant correlation between eEI and user satisfaction. Before the actual realization of eEI, the "Technology Acceptance Model" after Fred D. Davis was used to investigate currently used real-time interaction systems.
The high cost of routing infrastructure makes checking theories about larger nets a very difficult and expensive task. One possible approach to fight this problem is the use of virtual instead of physical infrastructure. OPNet- IT Guru software is a suite designed to simulate large nets and present relevant information. This allows validating extensive changes before actually implementing them on a productive network or testing theories without the overhead of a physical infrastructure.
Modern Internet and Intranet techniques, such as Web services and virtualization, facilitate the distributed processing of data providing improved flexibility. The gain in flexibility also incurs disadvantages. Integrated workflows forward and distribute data between departments and across organizations. The data may be affected by privacy laws, contracts, or intellectual property rights. Under such circumstances of flexible cooperations between organizations, accounting for the processing of data and restricting actions performed on the data may be legally and contractually required. In the Internet and Intranet, monitoring mechanisms provide means for observing and auditing the processing of data, while policy languages constitute a mechanism for specifying restrictions and obligations.
In this thesis, we present our contributions to these fields by providing improvements for auditing and restricting the data processing in distributed environments. We define formal qualities of auditing methods used in distributed environments. Based on these qualities, we provide a novel monitoring solution supporting a data-centric view on the distributed data processing. We present a solution for provenance-aware policies and a formal specification of obligations offering a procedure to decide whether obligatory processing steps can be met in the future.
The processing of data is often restricted by contractual and legal requirements for protecting privacy and IPRs. Policies provide means to control how and by whom data is processed. Conditions of policies may depend on the previous processing of the data. However, existing policy languages do not provide means to express such conditions. In this work we present a formal model and language allowing for specifying conditions based on the history of data processing. We base the model and language on XACML.
Nagios unter VNUML
(2011)
Diffusion imaging captures the movement of water molecules in tissue by applying varying gradient fields in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based setting. It poses a crucial contribution to in vivo examinations of neuronal connections: The local diffusion profile enables inference of the position and orientation of fiber pathways. Diffusion imaging is a significant technique for fundamental neuroscience, in which pathways connecting cortical activation zones are examined, and for neurosurgical planning, where fiber reconstructions are considered as intervention related risk structures.
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is currently applied in clinical environments in order to model the MRI signal due to its fast acquisition and reconstruction time. However, the inability of DTI to model complex intra-voxel diffusion distributions gave rise to an advanced reconstruction scheme which is known as high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI). HARDI received increasing interest in neuroscience due to its potential to provide a more accurate view of pathway configurations in the human brain.
In order to fully exploit the advantages of HARDI over DTI, advanced fiber reconstructions and visualizations are required. This work presents novel approaches contributing to current research in the field of diffusion image processing and visualization. Diffusion classification, tractography, and visualizations approaches were designed to enable a meaningful exploration of neuronal connections as well as their constitution. Furthermore, an interactive neurosurgical planning tool with consideration of neuronal pathways was developed.
The research results in this work provide an enhanced and task-related insight into neuronal connections for neuroscientists as well as neurosurgeons and contribute to the implementation of HARDI in clinical environments.
The identification of experts for a specific technology or framework produces a large benefit for collaborative software projects. Hence it reduces the communication overhead that is required to identify an expert on the fly. Therefore this thesis describes a tool and approach that can be used to identify an expert that has a specific skill-set. It will mainly focus on the skills and expertise of developers that use the Django framework. By adding more rules to our framework that approach could easily be extended for different technologies or frameworks. The paper will close with a case study on an open source project.