With the advent of virtualization and artificial intelligence, research on networked systems has progressed substantially. As the technology progresses, we expect a boom in not only the systems research but also in the network of systems domain. It is paramount that we understand and develop methodologies to connect and communicate among the plethora of devices and systems that exist today. One such area is mobile ad-hoc and space communication, which further complicates the task of networking due to myriad of environmental and physical conditions. Developing and testing such systems is an important step considering the large investment required to build such gigantic communication arrangements. We address two important aspects of network emulation in this work. We propose a network emulation framework, which emulates the functioning of a hierarchical software defined network. One such use-case is described using a mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) topology within a single system by leveraging contemporary network virtualization technologies. We present various aspects of the network, such as the dynamic communication in the software domain and provide a novel approach to build upon existing emulation techniques. The second part of the thesis presents a dynamic network link emulator. This emulator enables suitable link property re-configurations such as bandwidth, delay and packet loss for networked systems using simulation software. We characterize the results of tests for the link emulation using a hardware and software testbed. Through this thesis, we aim to make a small yet crucial contribution to the niche area of software defined networks.

Connected systems are becoming more ingrained in our daily lives with the advent of cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence. As technology progresses, we expect the number of networked systems to rise along with their complexity. As these systems become abstruse, it becomes paramount to understand their interactions and nuances. In particular, Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) and swarm communication systems exhibit added complexity due to a multitude of environmental and physical conditions. Testing these types of systems is challenging and incurs high engineering and deployment costs. In this work, we propose a scalable MANET emulation framework using virtualized internet infrastructures that generalizes an assortment of application spaces with diverse attributes. We then quantify the architecture using various evaluation techniques to determine both feasibility and scalability. Finally, we developed a hardware offload engine for virtualized network systems that builds upon recent work in the field.

Data quantity, speed requirements, reliability constraints, and other factors encourage industry developers to build distributed systems and use distributed services. Software engineers are therefore exposed to distributed systems and services daily in the workplace. However, distributed computing is hard to teach in Computer Science courses due to the complexity distribution brings to all problem spaces. This presents a gap in education where students may not fully understand the challenges introduced with distributed systems. Teaching students distributed concepts would help better prepare them for industry development work. DecaFS, Distributed Educational Component Adaptable File System, is a modular distributed file system designed for educational use. The goal of the system is to teach distributed computing concepts to undergraduate and graduate level students by allowing them to develop small, digestible portions of the system. The system is broken up into layers, and each layer is broken up into modules so that students can build or modify different components in small, assignment- sized portions. Students can replace modules or entire layers by following the DecaFS APIs and recompiling the system. This allows the behavior of the DFS (Distributed File System) to change based on student implementation, while providing base functionality for students to work from. Our implementation includes a code base of core DecaFS Modules that students can work from and basic implementations of non-core DecaFS Modules. Our basic non-core modules can be modified to implement more complex distribution techniques without modifying core modules. We have shown the feasibility of developing a modular DFS, while adhering to requirements such as configurable sizes (file, stripe, chunk) and support of multiple data replication strategies.

Monocular vision robots use a single camera to process information about its environment. By analyzing this scene, the robot can determine the best navigation direction. Many modern approaches to robot hallway navigation involve using a plethora of sensors to detect certain features in the environment. This can be laser range finders, inertial measurement units, motor encoders, and cameras. By combining all these sensors, there is unused data which could be useful for navigation. To draw back and develop a baseline approach, this thesis explores the reliability and capability of solely using a camera for navigation. The basic navigation structure begins by taking frames from the camera and breaking them down to find the most prominent lines. The location where these lines intersect determine the forward direction to drive the robot. To improve the accuracy of navigation, algorithm improvements and additional features from the camera frames are used. This includes line intersection weighting to reduce noise from extraneous lines, floor segmentation to improve rotational stability, and person detection.

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) are a prominent genre in today's video game industry with the most popular MMORPGs generating billions of dollars in revenue and attracting millions of players. As they have grown, they have become a major target for both technological research and sociological research. In such research, it is nearly impossible to reach the same player scale from any self-made technology or sociological experiments. This greatly limits the amount of control and topics that can be explored. In an effort to make up a lacking or non-existent player-base for custom-made MMORPG research scenarios A.I. agents, impersonating human players, can be used to "bootstrap" the research scenario to reach the necessary massive number of players that define the game genre. This thesis presents a system that makes its human players and A.I. players indistinguishable while preserving the basic characteristics of a typical MMORPG. To better achieve identical perception of human and A.I. players, our system centers around the collection, sharing, and exchange of information while limiting the means of expression and actions of players. A gameplay scenario built on the Panoptyk engine was constructed to imitate gameplay experienced in major MMORPGs. We conducted a user-study where subjects play through the scenario with a varying number of A.I. players unknown to them. Three versions of the scenario were created to assess how indistinguishable human and A.I. players were and vice versa. We found, across 24 participants, there were 32% correct identifications, 30% incorrect identifications, and 38% answers of "I don't know". This was broken down into 20% correct identifications, 42% incorrect identifications, and 38% answers of "I don't know" for bot characters and 46% correct identifications, 16% incorrect identifications, and 38% answers of ``I don't know'' for human characters.

Increasingly System-On-A-Chip platforms which incorporate both micropro- cessors and re-programmable logic are being utilized across several fields ranging from the automotive industry to network infrastructure. Unfortunately, the de- velopment tools accompanying these products leave much to be desired, requiring knowledge of both traditional embedded systems languages like C and hardware description languages like Verilog. We propose to bridge this gap with Twill, a truly automatic hybrid compiler that can take advantage of the parallelism inherent in these platforms. Twill can extract long-running threads from single threaded C code and distribute these threads across the hardware and software domains to more fully utilize the asymmetric characteristics between processors and the embedded reconfigurable logic fabric. We show that Twill provides a sig- nificant performance increase on the CHStone benchmarks with an average 1.63 times increase over the pure hardware approach and an increase of 22.2 times on average over the pure software approach while reducing the area required by the reconfigurable logic by on average 1.73 times compared to the pure hardware approach.

Current assessments for evaluating the progression of Parkinson’s Disease are largely qualitative and based on small sets of data obtained from occasional doctor-patient interactions. There is a clinical need to improve the techniques used for mitigating common Parkinson’s Disease symptoms. Available data sets for researching the disease are minimal, hindering advancement toward understanding the underlying causes and effectiveness of treatment and therapies. Mobile devices present an opportunity to continuously monitor Parkinson’s Disease patients and collect important information regarding the severity of symptoms. The evolution of digital technology has opened doors for clinical research to extend beyond the clinic by incorporating complex sensors in commonly used devices. Leveraging these sensors to quantify characteristic Parkinson’s Disease symptoms may drastically improve patient care and the reliability of symptom assessment. The goal of this project is to design and develop a system for measuring and analyzing the cardinal symptoms of Parkinson’s using mobile devices. An application for the iPhone and Apple Watch is developed, utilizing the sensors on the devices to collect data during the performance of motor tasks. Assessments for tremor, bradykinesia, and postural instability are implemented to mimic UPDRS evaluations normally performed by a neurologist. The application connects to a cloud-based server to transfer the collected data for remote access and analysis. Example MatLab analysis demonstrates potential approaches for extracting meaningful data to be used for monitoring the progression of Parkinson’s Disease and the effectiveness of treatment and therapies. High-level verification testing is performed to show general efficacy of the assessment tasks. The system design successfully lays the groundwork for a mobile device-based assessment tool to objectively measure Parkinson’s Disease symptoms

The problem of calculating the reliability of a complex system of interacting elements is delineated to a linear system, no element of the system having a reliability distribution in terms of any other e1ement of the system, where only one path is taken through the system at a time. A precise definition is then developed to specify the reliability of the linear, single path at a time, system. A precise and concise generating function is found that effortlessly produces the reliability of the linear, single path at a time, system directly from the reliability flew graph of the system.

In order to overcome the difficulties encountered in closed form solutions, moment-curvature-thrust relationships are developed for hybrid and nonhybrid cross sections utilizing an open form method. The use of horizontal sectors permits the inclusion of residual stresses and/or nonbilinear stress-strain relationships, if desired. Theoretical and experimental data are compared. Applications to circular tubes and other cross sections are discussed. Results indicate that open form solutions are feasible for calculating moment-curvature-thrust data. Hybrid cross sections are easily treated by open form solutions.

It is known that the entropy of English text can be reduced by arranging the text into groups of two or more letters each. The higher the order of the grouping the greater is the entropy reduction. Using this principle in a computer text compressing system brings about difficulties, however, because the number of entries required in the translation table increases exponentially with group size. This experiment examined the possibility of using a translation table containing only selected entries of all group sizes with the expectation of obtaining a substantial entropy reduction with a relatively small table. An expression was derived that showed that the groups which should be included in the table are not necessarily those that occur frequently but rather occur more frequently than would be expected due to random occurrence. This was complicated by the fact that any grouping affects the frequency of occurrence of many other related groups. An algorithm was developed in which the table originally starts with the regular 26 letters of the alphabet and the space. Entries, which consist of letter groups, complete words, and word groups, are then added one by one based on the selection criterion. After each entry is added adjustments are made to account for the interaction of the groups. This algorithm was programmed on a computer and was run using a text sample of about 7000 words. The results showed that the entropy could easily be reduced down to 3 bits per letter with a table of less than 200 entries. With about 500 entries the entropy could be reduced to about 2.5 bits per letter. About 60% of the table was composed of letter groups, 42% of single words and 8% of word groups and indicated that the extra complications involved in handling word groups may not be worthwhile. A visual examination of the table showed that many entries were very much oriented to the particular sample. This may or may not be desirable depending on the intended use of the translating system.