SketchSeeker : Finding Similar Sketches

Searching is an important tool for managing and navigating the massive amounts of data available in today’s information age. While new searching methods have be-come increasingly popular and reliable in recent years, such as image-based searching, these methods are more limited than text-based means in that they don’t allow generic user input. Sketch-based searching is a method that allows users to draw generic search queries and return similar drawn images, giving more user control over their search content. In this thesis, we present Sketchseeker, a system for indexing and searching across a large number of sketches quickly based on their similarity. The system includes several stages. First, sketches are indexed according to efficient and compact sketch descriptors. Second, the query retrieval subsystem considers sketches based on shape and structure similarity. Finally, a trained support vector machine classifier provides semantic filtering, which is then combined with median filtering to return the ranked results. SketchSeeker was tested on a large set of sketches against existing sketch similarity metrics, and it shows significant improvements in both speed and accuracy when compared to existing known techniques. The focus of this thesis is to outline the general components of a sketch retrieval system to find near similar sketches in real time

Shock interactions with heavy gaseous elliptic cylinders: Two leeward-side shock competition modes and a heuristic model for interfacial circulation deposition at early times

We identify two different modes, types I and II, of the interaction for planar shocks accelerating heavy prolate gaseous ellipses. These modes arise from different interactions of the incident shock (IS) and transmitted shock (TS) on the leeward side of the ellipse. A time ratio t_T/t_I(M,η,λ,γ_0,γ_b), which characterizes the mode of interaction, is derived heuristically. Here, the principal parameters governing the interaction are the Mach number of the shock (M), the ratio of the density of the ellipse to the ambient gas density, (η>1), γ_0, γ_b (the ratios of specific heats of the two gases), λ (the aspect ratio). Salient events in shock–ellipse interactions are identified and correlated with their signatures in circulation budgets and on-axis space–time pressure diagrams. The two modes yield different mechanisms of the baroclinic vorticity generation. We present a heuristic model for the net baroclinic circulation generated on the interface at the end of the early-time phase by both the IS and TS and validate the model via numerical simulations of the Euler equations. In the range 1.2⩽M⩽3.5, 1.54⩽η⩽5.04, and λ=1.5 and 3.0, our model predicts the baroclinic circulation on the interface within a band of ±10% in comparison to converged numerical simulations

A partitioner-centric model for SAMR partitioning trade-off optimization : Part II.

Optimal partitioning of structured adaptive mesh applications necessitates dynamically determining and optimizing for the most time-inhibiting factor, such as data migration and communication volume. However, a trivial monitoring of an application evaluates the current partitioning rather than the inherent properties of the grid hierarchy. We present a model that given a structured adaptive grid, determines ab initio to what extent the partitioner should focus on reducing the amount of data migration to reduce execution time. This model contributes to the meta-partitioner, our ultimate aim of being able to select and configure the optimal partitioner based on the dynamic properties of the grid hierarchy and the computer. We validate the predictions of this model by comparing them with actual measurements (via traces) from four different adaptive simulations. The results show that the proposed model generally captures the inherent optimization-need in SAMR applications. We conclude that our model is a useful contribution, since tracking and adapting to the dynamic behavior of such applications lead to potentially large decreases in execution times

A heuristic re-mapping algorithm reducing inter-level communication in SAMR applications.

This paper aims at decreasing execution time for large-scale structured adaptive mesh refinement (SAMR) applications by proposing a new heuristic re-mapping algorithm and experimentally showing its effectiveness in reducing inter-level communication. Tests were done for five different SAMR applications. The overall goal is to engineer a dynamically adaptive meta-partitioner capable of selecting and configuring the most appropriate partitioning strategy at run-time based on current system and application state. Such a metapartitioner can significantly reduce execution times for general SAMR applications. Computer simulations of physical phenomena are becoming increasingly popular as they constitute an important complement to real-life testing. In many cases, such simulations are based on solving partial differential equations by numerical methods. Adaptive methods are crucial to efficiently utilize computer resources such as memory and CPU. But even with adaption, the simulations are computationally demanding and yield huge data sets. Thus parallelization and the efficient partitioning of data become issues of utmost importance. Adaption causes the workload to change dynamically, calling for dynamic (re-) partitioning to maintain efficient resource utilization. The proposed heuristic algorithm reduced inter-level communication substantially. Since the complexity of the proposed algorithm is low, this decrease comes at a relatively low cost. As a consequence, we draw the conclusion that the proposed re-mapping algorithm would be useful to lower overall execution times for many large SAMR applications. Due to its usefulness and its parameterization, the proposed algorithm would constitute a natural and important component of the meta-partitioner

Nowcasting influenza outbreaks using open-source media report.

We construct and verify a statistical method to nowcast influenza activity from a time-series of the frequency of reports concerning influenza related topics. Such reports are published electronically by both public health organizations as well as newspapers/media sources, and thus can be harvested easily via web crawlers. Since media reports are timely, whereas reports from public health organization are delayed by at least two weeks, using timely, open-source data to compensate for the lag in %E2%80%9Cofficial%E2%80%9D reports can be useful. We use morbidity data from networks of sentinel physicians (both the Center of Disease Control's ILINet and France's Sentinelles network) as the gold standard of influenza-like illness (ILI) activity. The time-series of media reports is obtained from HealthMap (http://healthmap.org). We find that the time-series of media reports shows some correlation ( 0.5) with ILI activity; further, this can be leveraged into an autoregressive moving average model with exogenous inputs (ARMAX model) to nowcast ILI activity. We find that the ARMAX models have more predictive skill compared to autoregressive (AR) models fitted to ILI data i.e., it is possible to exploit the information content in the open-source data. We also find that when the open-source data are non-informative, the ARMAX models reproduce the performance of AR models. The statistical models are tested on data from the 2009 swine-flu outbreak as well as the mild 2011-2012 influenza season in the U.S.A

Cvode component user guidelines.

This report describes the wrapping of cvode, a serial library of BDF-based solvers for stiff ODE systems, into a CCA component. It also gives examples of how one loads In the Cvode Component into the CCA framework, (Sandia's dccafe) as well as how the interface to the component (called CvodePort) is used. The report concludes with some timing results whereby we empirically show that componentization results in a maximum 2% performance degradation on a single CPU. The component can be obtained from Jaideep Ray ([email protected], 925-294-3638

Tuning a RANS k-e model for jet-in-crossflow simulations.

We develop a novel calibration approach to address the problem of predictive ke RANS simulations of jet-incrossflow. Our approach is based on the hypothesis that predictive ke parameters can be obtained by estimating them from a strongly vortical flow, specifically, flow over a square cylinder. In this study, we estimate three ke parameters, C%CE%BC, Ce2 and Ce1 by fitting 2D RANS simulations to experimental data. We use polynomial surrogates of 2D RANS for this purpose. We conduct an ensemble of 2D RANS runs using samples of (C%CE%BC;Ce2;Ce1) and regress Reynolds stresses to the samples using a simple polynomial. We then use this surrogate of the 2D RANS model to infer a joint distribution for the ke parameters by solving a Bayesian inverse problem, conditioned on the experimental data. The calibrated (C%CE%BC;Ce2;Ce1) distribution is used to seed an ensemble of 3D jet-in-crossflow simulations. We compare the ensemble's predictions of the flowfield, at two planes, to PIV measurements and estimate the predictive skill of the calibrated 3D RANS model. We also compare it against 3D RANS predictions using the nominal (uncalibrated) values of (C%CE%BC;Ce2;Ce1), and find that calibration delivers a significant improvement to the predictive skill of the 3D RANS model. We repeat the calibration using surrogate models based on kriging and find that the calibration, based on these more accurate models, is not much better that those obtained with simple polynomial surrogates. We discuss the reasons for this rather surprising outcome