Theses & Reports

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Instructions for submitting a technical report or thesis.

You can find technical reports published prior to 1990 archived here.

• TR2018-990 2018 Platform Migrator Contractor, Munir; Pradal, Christophe; Shasha, Dennis Abstract | PDF

  Title: Platform Migrator

  Author(s): Contractor, Munir; Pradal, Christophe; Shasha, Dennis

  Abstract:

  Currently, one of the major problems in software development and maintenance, specially in academia, is managing packages across time and systems. An application developed under a particular package manager using a certain set of packages does not always work reliably when ported to a different system or when abandoned for a period of time and picked up again with newer versions of the packages. In this report, we provide and describe Platform Migrator, a software that makes it easy to test applications across systems by identifying various packages in the base system, figuring out their corresponding equivalents in the new system and testing whether the software works as expected on the new system. Platform migrator can migrate software written and set up inside a conda environment to any Linux based system with conda or some other package manager. The philosophy of platform migrator is to identify a closure of the required dependencies for the software being migrated using the conda environment metadata and then use that closure to install the various dependencies on the target system. This documentation provides comprehensive details on how to use platform migrator and what it does internally to migrate software from one system to another. It also contains tutorials and case studies that can be replicated for better understanding of the process.

• TR2018-989 2018 On the Solution of Elliptic Partial Differential Equations on Regions with Corners III: Curved Boundaries Serkh, Kirill Abstract | PDF

  Title: On the Solution of Elliptic Partial Differential Equations on Regions with Corners III: Curved Boundaries

  Author(s): Serkh, Kirill

  Abstract:

  In this report we investigate the solution of boundary value problems for elliptic partial differential equations on domains with corners. Previously, we observed that when, in the case of polygonal domains, the boundary value problems are formulated as boundary integral equations of classical potential theory, the solutions are representable by series of certain elementary functions. Here, we extend this observation to the general case of regions with boundaries consisting of analytic curves meeting at corners. We show that the solutions near the corners have the same leading terms as in the polygonal case, plus a series of corrections involving products of the leading terms with integer powers and powers of logarithms. Furthermore, we show that if the curve in the vicinity of a corner approximates a polygon to order \(k\), then the correction added to the leading terms will vanish like \(O(t^k)\), where \(t\) is the distance from the corner.

• TR2018-991 2018 Robotic Room Traversal using Optical Range Finding Smith, Cole; Lin, Eric; Shasha, Dennis Abstract | PDF

  Title: Robotic Room Traversal using Optical Range Finding

  Author(s): Smith, Cole; Lin, Eric; Shasha, Dennis

  Abstract:

  Consider the goal of visiting every part of a room that is not blocked by obstacles. Doing so efficiently requires both sensors and planning. Our findings suggest a method of inexpensive optical range finding for robotic room traversal. Our room traversal algorithm relies upon the approximate distance from the robot to the nearest obstacle in 360 degrees. We then choose the path with the furthest approximate distance. Since millimeter-precision is not required for our problem, we have opted to develop our own laser range finding solution, in lieu of using more common, but also expensive solutions like light detection and ranging (LIDAR). Rather, our solution uses a laser that casts a visible dot on the target and a common camera (an iPhone, for example). Based upon where in the camera frame the laser dot is detected, we may calculate an angle between our target and the laser aperture. Using this angle and the known distance between the camera eye and the laser aperture, we may solve all sides of a trigonometric model which provides the distance between the robot and the target.