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Technical Reports |
2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2005 | 2007 | 2008 |
| NMSU-CS-2002-001 |
| A Domain Specific Language for Solving Phylogenetic Inference Problems |
| E. Pontelli, D. Ranjan, B. Milligan, G. Gupta |
| Abstract: Domain experts think and reason at a high level of abstraction when they solve problems in their domain of expertise. We present the design and motivation behind a domain specific language called PhiLOG to enable biologists (domain experts) to program solutions to phylogenetic inference problems at a very high level of abstraction. The implementation infrastructure (interpreter, compiler, debugger) for the DSL is automatically obtained through a software engineering framework based on Denotational Semantics and Logic Programming. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-002 |
| Reasoning About Actions in Prioritized Default Theory |
| T.C. Son and E. Pontelli |
| Abstract: We use prioritized default theory to formalize reasoning about actions and their effects. We show that by viewing dynamic and static causal laws as rules and the inertial rule as default, action theories in the language B can be translated into semantically equivalent prioritized default theories. We extend prioritized default theory with preferences between rules and formula. This feature allows us to elegantly express and compute preferred trajectory using answer set programming. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-003 |
| IMPED (IMP EDitor) A Visual Message Protocol Specification Language |
| Rick L. Vinyard, Jr. and Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr. |
| Abstract: Isaac is a visual programming environment for mobile robots currently under development at New Mexico State University. The goal of the project is to provide a complete environment for the specification, configuration, and programming of mobile robots. In this paper, we discuss Isaac's mechanism for specifying the communications protocols used by the sensors and actuators of a robot. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-004 |
| A Framework for Automatic Debugging |
| Mikhail Auguston, Clinton Jeffery, Scott Underwood |
| Abstract: This paper presents an application framework for the development of automatic debugging tools. Declarative specifications of debugging actions are translated into execution monitors that can automatically detect bugs in programs written in the Unicon programming language. Using the FORMAN assertion language on top of the Unicon virtual machine, automatic debugging tools for assertion checking, profiling, and other debugging queries are implemented in a uniform way. The approach is non-intrusive with respect to program source code and provides a high level of abstraction for debugging activities. The framework supports formalization of typical bug descriptions and debugging rule design. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-005 |
| The limitedness problem on distance automata: Hashiguchi's method revisited |
| Hing Leung and Viktor Podolskiy |
| Abstract: Hashiguchi has studied the limitedness problem of distance automata (DA) in a series of paper. The distance of a DA can be limited or unbounded. Given that the distance of a DA is limited, Hashiguchi has pr oved in that the distance of the automaton is bounded by $2^{4n^3 + n \lg (n+2) +n}$, where $n$ is the numbe r of states. In this paper, we study again Hashiguchi's solution to the limitedness problem. We have made a number of simplification and improvement on Hashiguchi's method. We are able to improve the upper bound to $ 2^{3n^3 + n \lg n + n - 1}$. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-006 |
| Planning with Sensing Actions and Incomplete Information using Logic Programming |
| Tran Cao Son and Chitta Baral |
| Abstract: We present a logic programming based conditional planner that is capable of generating both conditional and sequential conformant plans in the presence of sensing actions and incomplete information. We prove the correctness of our implementation and show that our planner is complete with respect to the 0-approximation of sensing actions and the class of conditional plans considered in this paper which is large enough to cover conditional plans with bounded length and branching factor. Finally, we present some preliminary experimental results and discuss further enhancements to the program. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-007 |
| Domain-Dependent Knowledge in Answer Set Planning |
| Tran Cao Son, Chitta Baral, Tran Hoai Nam, and Sheila McIlraith |
| Abstract: In this paper we consider three different kinds of domain dependent control knowledge (temporal, procedural and HTN-based) that are useful in planning. Our approach is declarative and relies on the language of logic programming with answer set semantics (LPASS). We show that the addition of these three kinds of control knowledge only involves adding a few more rules to a planner written in LPASS that can plan without any control knowledge. Thus domain dependent control knowledge can be modularly added to (or removed from) a planning problem without the need of modifying the planner. We formally prove the correctness of our planner, both in the absence and presence of the control knowledge. Finally, we do some initial experimentation that shows the reduction in planning time when procedural domain knowledge is used and the plan length is big. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-008 |
| Reliable Upgrading of Unix Shared Libraries through Multi-Version Execution |
| Jonathan E. Cook and Navin Vedagiri |
| Abstract: After a system is deployed, fixes, enhancements, and modifications all occur that change the components that make up the system. Unfortunately, new versions of components can introduce new errors and break existing, depended-upon behavior. When this happens, the old component version could have provided the correct behavior, but it is no longer part of the system. We have been experimenting with overlapping the deployment of multiple versions such that they all execute the same requests for a time, until the decision is made that the new version of the component is reliable enough to justify removing earlier versions and thus completing the upgrade. In this paper we describe ideas for doing this on Unix (C/C++) shared libraries. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-009 |
| Supporting Quick and Dirty CORBA Introspection and Manipulation |
| Jonathan E. Cook and Abdulmalik Al-Gahmi |
| Abstract: Large scale system development and maintenance projects often need to build scaffolding---tools that help build the target system---that is customized to the project. For some classes of tools, the cost barrier is too high to consider implementing customized support that might be beneficial to the project, and thus the project makes do with whatever off-the-shelf support is available. Run-time monitoring and manipulation tools are one such category. This paper presents a framework design and protoype implementation of generic support for high-level, flexible, and programmable introspection and manipulation of CORBA-based applications. This type of support can be an effective aid in maintaining existing CORBA components as they evolve throughout the system lifecycle. Introspection allows system engineers to observe the dynamic behavior to better understand how to integrate components together, and manipulation allows them to ``glue'' components together that have slightly different expectations of their interaction. Our framework implementation is being accomplished by tying a new CORBA dynamic access feature known as Portable Interceptors with an existing very high level programming language, Tcl/Tk. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-010 |
| Discovering Models of Behavior for Concurrent Systems |
| Jonathan E. Cook, Zhidian Du, Chongbing Liu, and Alexander L. Wolf |
| Abstract: Understanding the behavior of a system is crucial in being able to modify, maintain, and improve the system. A particularly difficult aspect of some system behaviors is concurrency. While there are many techniques to specify intended concurrent behavior, there are few techniques to capture and model actual concurrent behavior. This paper presents techniques to discover patterns of concurrent behavior from traces of system events. The techniques are based on a probabilistic analysis of the event traces. Using metrics for the number, frequency, and regularity of event occurrences, a determination is made of the likely concurrent behavior being manifested by the system. After a descriptive model of the behavior structure is discovered, further techniques are used to infer areas of mutual exclusion and synchronization. These techniques are useful in a wide variety of software engineering tasks, including architecture discovery, reverse engineering, user interaction modeling, and software process improvement. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-011 |
| A Methodology for the Management of Order-Sensitive Execution of Non-deterministic Languages on Beowulf Platforms |
| K. Villaverde, E. Pontelli, G. Gupta, H. Guo |
| Abstract: This paper proposes an investigation of the problem of supporting the order-sensitive components (e.g., side-effects) of non-deterministic languages - e.g., logic and constraint programming---on Beowulf platforms. We describe a novel methodology that nicely builds on incremental stack splitting - an optimal scheme for the exploitation of search-parallelism from non-deterministic executions in a distributed memory setting. The novel methodology has been validated in the context of the PALS system, the first ever or-parallel implementation of Prolog on Beowulf platforms. The results confirm the ability to sustain computations containing acceptable amounts of side-effects without significant loss in parallel performance. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-012 |
| libpdf: a Libary for PDF File Generation |
| Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr. |
| Abstract: libpdf is a library for the creation of PDF documents from within programs. The library provides support for text, graphics, standard and embedded fonts, images, and interactive form fields. Operators provided by libpdf are at a very similar level of abstraction to those provided by the PDF document model itself. The library is designed to be easily extended. It is most suitable for the generation of fairly small documents, as (1) it does not provide support for Linearized PDF and (2) it doesn't support the document structuring features of PDF (for instance, it uses a single resource dictionary for an entire document rather than a hierarchy of resource dictionaries). It also does not support several PDF features such as encryption, modifiable documents, or thumbnails. Many of these features could be added easily, however. |
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| NMSU-CS-2002-013 |
| Classifying Preposition Semantic Roles using Class-based Lexical Associations |
| T. O'Hara and J. Wiebe |
| Abstract: This paper reports on experiments in classifying the semantic role annotations assigned to prepositional phrases in both the Penn Treebank version II and FrameNet. This task can be viewed as word-sense disambiguation, treating the semantic roles of prepositional phrases as word senses for the associated preposition. Three sets of experiments are done: one set evaluates cross-fold validation over Treebank; another does the same for FrameNet; the final set evaluates the transfer of lexical associations from one dataset to the other. Each set of experiments compares the use of traditional lexical associations (i.e., collocations) versus class-based lexical associations using WordNet synsets. The latter type better facilitates the transfer of associations across datasets. |
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