Air Force Institute of Technology Research Report 2010

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; lists student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedures for contacting the school. Included in the report are: faculty publications, conference presentations, consultations, and funded research projects. Research was conducted in the areas of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electro-Optics, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Systems and Engineering Management, Operational Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering Physic

From Keyword Search to Exploration: How Result Visualization Aids Discovery on the Web

A key to the Web's success is the power of search. The elegant way in which search results are returned is usually remarkably effective. However, for exploratory search in which users need to learn, discover, and understand novel or complex topics, there is substantial room for improvement. Human computer interaction researchers and web browser designers have developed novel strategies to improve Web search by enabling users to conveniently visualize, manipulate, and organize their Web search results. This monograph offers fresh ways to think about search-related cognitive processes and describes innovative design approaches to browsers and related tools. For instance, while key word search presents users with results for specific information (e.g., what is the capitol of Peru), other methods may let users see and explore the contexts of their requests for information (related or previous work, conflicting information), or the properties that associate groups of information assets (group legal decisions by lead attorney). We also consider the both traditional and novel ways in which these strategies have been evaluated. From our review of cognitive processes, browser design, and evaluations, we reflect on the future opportunities and new paradigms for exploring and interacting with Web search results

Proceedings of the F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire and Supercritical Wing First Flight's 20th Anniversary Celebration

A technical symposium, aircraft display dedication, and pilots' panel discussion were held on May 27, 1992. to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first flights of the F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire (DFBW) and Supercritical Wing (SCW) research aircraft. The symposium featured technical presentations by former key government and industry participants in the advocacy, design, aircraft modification, and flight research program activities. The DFBW and SCW technical contributions are cited. A dedication ceremony marked permanent display of both program aircraft. The panel discussion participants included eight of the eighteen research and test pilots who flew these experimental aircraft. Pilots' remarks include descriptions of their most memorable flight experiences. The report also includes a survey of the Gulf Air War, an after-dinner presentation by noted aerospace author and historian Dr. Richard Hallion

A Survey on Continuous Time Computations

We provide an overview of theories of continuous time computation. These theories allow us to understand both the hardness of questions related to continuous time dynamical systems and the computational power of continuous time analog models. We survey the existing models, summarizing results, and point to relevant references in the literature

A Taxonomy of Workflow Management Systems for Grid Computing

With the advent of Grid and application technologies, scientists and engineers are building more and more complex applications to manage and process large data sets, and execute scientific experiments on distributed resources. Such application scenarios require means for composing and executing complex workflows. Therefore, many efforts have been made towards the development of workflow management systems for Grid computing. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy that characterizes and classifies various approaches for building and executing workflows on Grids. We also survey several representative Grid workflow systems developed by various projects world-wide to demonstrate the comprehensiveness of the taxonomy. The taxonomy not only highlights the design and engineering similarities and differences of state-of-the-art in Grid workflow systems, but also identifies the areas that need further research.Comment: 29 pages, 15 figure

Understanding (Un)Written Contracts of NVMe ZNS Devices with zns-tools

Operational and performance characteristics of flash SSDs have long been associated with a set of Unwritten Contracts due to their hidden, complex internals and lack of control from the host software stack. These unwritten contracts govern how data should be stored, accessed, and garbage collected. The emergence of Zoned Namespace (ZNS) flash devices with their open and standardized interface allows us to write these unwritten contracts for the storage stack. However, even with a standardized storage-host interface, due to the lack of appropriate end-to-end operational data collection tools, the quantification and reasoning of such contracts remain a challenge. In this paper, we propose zns.tools, an open-source framework for end-to-end event and metadata collection, analysis, and visualization for the ZNS SSDs contract analysis. We showcase how zns.tools can be used to understand how the combination of RocksDB with the F2FS file system interacts with the underlying storage. Our tools are available openly at \url{https://github.com/stonet-research/zns-tools}

Security and Privacy Issues in Wireless Mesh Networks: A Survey

This book chapter identifies various security threats in wireless mesh network (WMN). Keeping in mind the critical requirement of security and user privacy in WMNs, this chapter provides a comprehensive overview of various possible attacks on different layers of the communication protocol stack for WMNs and their corresponding defense mechanisms. First, it identifies the security vulnerabilities in the physical, link, network, transport, application layers. Furthermore, various possible attacks on the key management protocols, user authentication and access control protocols, and user privacy preservation protocols are presented. After enumerating various possible attacks, the chapter provides a detailed discussion on various existing security mechanisms and protocols to defend against and wherever possible prevent the possible attacks. Comparative analyses are also presented on the security schemes with regards to the cryptographic schemes used, key management strategies deployed, use of any trusted third party, computation and communication overhead involved etc. The chapter then presents a brief discussion on various trust management approaches for WMNs since trust and reputation-based schemes are increasingly becoming popular for enforcing security in wireless networks. A number of open problems in security and privacy issues for WMNs are subsequently discussed before the chapter is finally concluded.Comment: 62 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables. This chapter is an extension of the author's previous submission in arXiv submission: arXiv:1102.1226. There are some text overlaps with the previous submissio

Air Force Institute of Technology Research Report 2011

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; lists student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedures for contacting the school. Included in the report are: faculty publications, conference presentations, consultations, and funded research projects. Research was conducted in the areas of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electro-Optics, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Systems and Engineering Management, Operational Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering Physics