CS-98-31 | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Quickly Excluding K(2,r) from Planar Graphs | ||||||||
Authors | D.M. Thilikos | ||||||||
Abstract | We prove that any planar graph that does not contain $K_{2,r}$ as a minor has treewidth $\leq r+2$. | ||||||||
Date | December 1998 | ||||||||
Comments | Submitted to: Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series B. | ||||||||
Report | Quickly Excluding K(2,r) from Planar Graphs (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Quickly Excluding K(2,r) from Planar Graphs (PS.Z) |
CS-98-30 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Convergence of Lattice and PDE Methods for Pricing Asian Options | |||
Authors | P.A. Forsyth, K.R. Vetzal and R. Zvan | |||
Abstract | In a recent article, the authors stated that the lattice based Forward Shooting Grid (FSG) method was convergent for Asian options even if nearest lattice point interpolation is used, and independent of any relationship between the grid quantization parameter (for the spacing of the nodal averages), and the timestep size. However, a more detailed analysis of the propagation of interpolation error reveals a problem. A worst case error analysis shows that the error may be large as the number of timesteps becomes large. We demonstrate that the worst case error is indeed attained in some numerical examples. In contrast, the Hull and White method is convergent provided that the node spacing in the average direction is selected appropriately as $\Delta t \rightarrow 0$. It is a also a straightforward matter to show that partial differential equation (PDE) based methods are also convergent. Numerical examples comparing convergence for all three techniques are presented. | |||
Date | December 1998 | |||
Comments | This paper has been submitted to mathematical finance. | |||
Report | CS-98-30 (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: CS-98-30 (PS.Z) |
CS-98-29 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | On the Scalability of Monitoring and Debugging Distributed Computations: Vector-Clock Size | |||
Authors | P.A.S. Ward | |||
Abstract | The vector-clock size necessary to characterize causality in an arbitrary distributed computation is equal to the number of processes in that computation. However, in practice the vector-clock size necessary may be much smaller. The vector-clock size is not strictly bounded by the number of processes, but rather by the dimension of the partial order induced by the computation. While the dimension theoretically can be as large as the number of processes, in practice we have found it to be much smaller. In this paper we quantify exactly how small the dimension, and hence the vector-clock size required, is over a range of typical distributed computations. We have found that typical distributed computations, with as many as 300 processes, have dimension less than 10. In order to achieve this quantification we developed several novel theorems and algorithms which we also describe. | |||
Date | December 1998 | |||
Comments |
Published
in
ICPP'99
under
the
title:
An Offline Algorithm for Dimension-Bound Analysis | |||
Report | On the Scalability of Monitoring and Debugging Distributed Computations: Vector-Clock Size (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: On the Scalability of Monitoring and Debugging Distributed Computations: Vector-Clock Size (PS.Z) |
CS-98-28 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Stratified Wavelength Clusters for Efficient Spectral | |||
Authors | G.F. Evans and M.D. McCool | |||
Abstract |
Wavelength
dependent
Monte
Carlo
rendering
can
correctly
and
generally
capture
effects
such
as
spectral
caustics
(rainbows)
and
chromatic
abberation.
It
also
improves
the
colour
accuracy
of
reflectance
models
and
of
illumination
effects
such
as
colour
bleeding
and
metamerism. The stratified wavelength clustering (SWC) strategy carries several wavelength stratified radiance samples along each light transport path. The cluster is split only if a specular refraction at the surface of a dispersive material is encountered along the path. The overall efficiency of this strategy is high since the fraction of clusters that need to be split in a typical scene is low, and also because specular dispersion tends to decrease the source colour variance, offseting the increased amortized cost of generating each path. | |||
Date | November 1998 | |||
Comments |
This
report
was
typeset
in
LaTeX,
but
has
been
converted
to
PostScript
at
600dpi.
It
contains
colour
images,
but
can
be
printed
on
a
high-resolution
black
and
white
laser
printer
with
halftoning.
Obviously
colour
is
important
in
this
work,
but
only
the
last
page
need
be
printed
in
colour. There is a website at http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/Projects/rendering/ which contains more information on this and other rendering projects in CGL. This report has been submitted to Graphics Interface '99. | |||
Report | Stratified Wavelength Clusters for Efficient Spectral (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Stratified Wavelength Clusters for Efficient Spectral (GZIP) |
CS-98-27 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Two-Phase Clustering of Large Datasets | |||
Authors | N.J.-K. Khazjvi and K. Salem | |||
Abstract |
This
paper
addresses
the
problem
of
single-pass
clustering
of
large,
multi-dimensional
datasets.
A
general
two-phase
approach
to
this
problem
is
defined.
In
the
first
phase,
an
in-memory
summary
of
the
data
set
is
constructed
using
a
single
pass
through
the
data.
The
second
phase
then
uses
any
clustering
algorithm
to
cluster
the
summary
data.
Most
clustering
algorithms
for
large
datasets
are
two-phase. Two techniques for producing in-memory summaries are compared. The first is based on a previously-proposed data structure called a cluster-feature tree, or CF-tree. The second, simpler technique uses random sampling. Experiments with skewed artificial data sets are used to show that sampling produces clusters that are at least as accurate as those produced with CF-trees, and that sampling is much faster. An important issue when sampling is the sample size, which determines the amount of memory required during the first phase of two-phase clustering. It also controls a trade-off between clustering time and and clustering accuracy. This tradeoff is quantified, and guidelines for sample size selection are suggested. | |||
Date | November 1998 | |||
Report | Two-Phase Clustering of Large Datasets (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Two-Phase Clustering of Large Datasets (PS.Z) |
CS-98-26 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | A Computational Model of lexical cohesion analysis and its application to the evaluation of text coherence | |||
Authors | Marzena H. Makuta | |||
Abstract |
In this thesis, we discuss how to apply the analysis of lexical cohesion in texts to the problem of evaluating text coherence. We have two objectives. The first one is to create a computational model to represent the lexical cohesion of a given text. In order to store this information we design a new data structure — the lexical graph — with lexical items as nodes and lexical relations between those items, such as synonymy, represented as arcs. This structure is particularly suitable for short texts. For longer texts, we propose a different but related data structure, the collapsed lexical graph, with paragraphs as nodes and lexical bonds as arcs. In addition, we discuss the role of a domain-specific thesaurus as a resource for determining the lexical relations for the representation. Next, we show how to apply our model for the representation of cohesion to the problem of evaluating text coherence, for texts of arbitrary length. We present hypotheses on how to detect the sites of possible coherence problems based on the cohesion information supplied by our model. We also describe an experiment which we conducted to confirm the validity of our model, comparing the predictions of the model with text evaluations performed by human judges. In addition, we discuss the areas of application for the model, commenting on how detecting sites of possible incoherence can be of value to problems such as text critiquing and second language learning and proposing new improvements to automated procedures such as natural language generation and machine translation. The thesis therefore provides important new research within the field of computational linguistics on how a representation of the cohesion of a text provides an understanding of the coherence of that text. | |||
Report | A Computational Model of lexical cohesion analysis and its application to the evaluation of text coherence (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: A Computational Model of lexical cohesion analysis and its application to the evaluation of text coherence (PS.Z) |
CS-98-25 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | A Computational Model of Turn-taking in Discourse | |||
Authors | T. Donaldson | |||
Abstract | This thesis presents a computational model for turn-taking applicable to dialog-based interactive systems. A general, three-part model of the internal architecture of a turn-taking agent is presented, accounting for why an agent should take a turn, what it should contribute, and when it should act. For deciding what to say, the next-action constraint optimization problem is developed, which allows an agent to order multiple goals using an interruptible local search algorithm sensitive to the time-constraints imposed by dynamic dialog environments. For deciding when to speak, a formal account of turn-taking is given, based on the situation calculus, and accompanied by a state-based algorithm that tells an agent when it should take a turn based in part on the status of its processing. Two prototype implementations of course-advising systems are presented, to illustrate how interactive systems can be analyzed using a checklist for system designers derived from the turn-taking model. In developing a computational model for turn-taking, this thesis shows how to bring models for written discourse one step closer to spoken dialog, and thus advances the state of the art in natural language discourse theory and in natural language generation. | |||
Date | December 1998 | |||
Comments | PhD thesis on computational discourse, turn-taking in particular | |||
Report | A Computational Model of Turn-taking in Discourse (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: A Computational Model of Turn-taking in Discourse (PS.Z) |
CS-98-24 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Multi-Agent Systems for Internet Information Retrieval using Natural Language Processing | |||
Authors | V. Keselj | |||
Abstract |
In
the
context
of
the
vast
and
still
rapidly
expanding
Internet,
the
problem
of
Internet
information
retrieval
becomes
more
and
more
important.
Although
the
most
popular
at
the
moment,
the
keyword-based
search
engine
is
just
one
component
in
a
complex
software
mosaic
that
needs
to
be
further
developed
in
order
to
provide
a
more
efficient
and
scalable
solution. This report will argue that the multi-agent approach is a viable methodology for this task. The main issue is how the natural language processing could be used in it, as well as why it should be used. Two implementations and their theoretical foundations are presented: One is the natural language parser generator NL PAGE, which produces parsers in C or Java; and, the other one is the communication part of the multi-agent framework MIN. The higher levels of the framework are also discussed and a simple implementation of a multi-agent system is presented. | |||
Date | September 1998 | |||
Comments | This technical report is a reprint of my MMath thesis, finished in September 1997. | |||
Report | Multi-Agent Systems for Internet Information Retrieval using Natural Language Processing (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Multi-Agent Systems for Internet Information Retrieval using Natural Language Processing (PS.Z) |
CS-98-23 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | User's Manual Elem2 Rule Induction System | |||
Authors | A. An and N. Cercone | |||
Date | September 1998 | |||
Report | User's Manual Elem2 Rule Induction System (DOC) |
CS-98-22 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | The Role of Morphology in Machine Translation | |||
Authors | B. Hui | |||
Abstract | Although the study of machine translation has been around for a long time, it has not always taken advantage of the existing linguistic knowledge. This observation leads to the objective of this paper: to apply various aspects of morphology to machine translation (MT). We first review basic approaches in MT and common phenomena in morphological theory. Then we turn to a discussion on four major problems of MT and how morphological analysis can result in more accurate solutions. The problems we study in this paper are the applicability of stemming in MT, the effects of lexical ambiguity, the structure of the lexicon, and the process of lexical choice in generation. A new proposal using cross-language word hierarchies was made to tackle the problem of translational ambiguity in MT. We sampled data from Japanese and Cantonese and illustrated how our approach can be used in understanding and generation. Since the analysis was based on limited data, the results are preliminary and need to be fine tuned before a sound theory can be integrated into an MT system. | |||
Date | July 1998 | |||
Report | The Role of Morphology in Machine Translation (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: The Role of Morphology in Machine Translation (PS.Z) |
CS-98-21 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | An efficient algorithm for computing the i'th letter of Phi^n(a) | |||
Authors | J. Shallit and D. Swart | |||
Abstract | Let Sigma be a finite alphabet, and let $Phi:Sigma* ->Sigma* be a homomorphism, i.e., a mapping satisfying Phi(xy) = Phi(x)Phi(y) for all x and y in Sigma*. Let a be a letter in Sigma, and let i <= 1, n <= 0 be integers. We give the first efficient algorithm for computing the i'th letter of Phi^n(a). Our algorithm runs in time polynomial in the size of the input, i.e., polynomial in log n, log i, and the description size of Phi. Our algorithm can be easily modified to give the distribution of letters in the prefix of length i of Phi^n(a). There are applications of our algorithm to computer graphics and biological modelling. | |||
Date | July 1998 | |||
Comments | Submitted to: Symposium On Discrete Algorithms (SODA) 1998 | |||
Report | An efficient algorithm for computing the i'th letter of Phi^n(a) (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: An efficient algorithm for computing the i'th letter of Phi^n(a) (GZIP) |
CS-98-19 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Animated Surface Pasting | |||
Authors | C. Tsang | |||
Abstract | Surface pasting is a composition method in which a feature surface is attached to a base surface to provide details on the underlying surface. In computer animation, a lot of time is spent modelling and surface pasting is a modelling method that can quickly and easily model faces and other objects with small details. Thus, surface pasting may be a useful animation technique because it reduces the modelling time. However, it is unclear whether pasted surfaces will have problems such as distortion in animation. In this thesis, surface pasting was combined into the animation process to see how pasted surfaces behave in animation. In general, while surface pasting behaved as desired in animation, there are some situations where it behaves poorly. Most of these bad situations can be avoided or corrected by the animator. | |||
Date | July 1998 | |||
Report | Animated Surface Pasting (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Animated Surface Pasting (PS.Z) |
CS-98-17 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Planar Drawings of Origami Polyhedra | |||
Authors | E.D. Demaine and M.L. Demaine | |||
Abstract | We present a new infinite class of polyhedra based on a class of origami bases that we have developed. To understand these polyhedra and their underlying bases, we examine drawings of their graphs. We present an elegant linear-time algorithm to find a straight-line planar drawing. It displays a recursive structure in the polyhedra that may lead to interesting fractals. We introduce a ``zoom'' feature that allows one to interactively explore the details of the graph while displaying this recursive structure. | |||
Date | August 1998 | |||
Comments |
A
two-page
abstract
of
this
paper
appeared
in
the
Proceedings
of
the
6th
Symposium
on
Graph
Drawing,
Lecture
Notes
in
Computer
Science,
volume
1547,
Montreal,
Quebec,
Canada,
August
13-15,
1998,
pages
438-440. Feel free to contact us. | |||
Report | Planar Drawings of Origami Polyhedra (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Planar Drawings of Origami Polyhedra (PS.Z) |
CS-98-15 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Cubic precision Clough-Tocher interpolation | |||
Authors | S. Mann | |||
Abstract | The standard Clough-Tocher split-domain scheme constructs a surface element with quadratic precision. In this paper, I will look at methods for improving the degrees of freedom in Clough-Tocher schemes. In particular, I will discuss modifications to the cross-boundary construction that improve the interpolant from quadratic precision to cubic precision. | |||
Date | July 1998 | |||
Report | Cubic precision Clough-Tocher interpolation (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Cubic precision Clough-Tocher interpolation (PS.Z) |
CS-98-14 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Multiresolution Curve and Surface Representation by Reversing and Subdivision Rules | |||
Authors | F.F. Samavati and R.H. Bartels | |||
Date | June 1998 | |||
Report | Multiresolution Curve and Surface Representation by Reversing and Subdivision Rules (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Multiresolution Curve and Surface Representation by Reversing and Subdivision Rules (GZIP) |
CS-98-13 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Reasoning about Non-Key Uniqueness Constraints on Object Schema | |||
Authors | V.L. Khizder and G. Weddell | |||
Abstract |
Uniqueness
constraints
such
as
keys
and
functional
dependencies
in
the
relational
model
are
a
core
concept
in
information
systems
technology.
In
this
technical
report,
we
identify
a
boundary
between
efficient
and
intractable
kinds
of
uniqueness
constraints
suitable
for
object
relational
data
models.
The
efficient
subclass
of
the
constraints
is
a
strict
generalization
of
both
keys
and
relational
functional
dependencies.
We
present
a
complete
and
efficient
procedure
that
solves
the
membership
problem
for
this
subclass.
To
motivate
our
results,
we
review
some
applications
of
our
procedure
in
query
optimization
and
schema
evaluation. In addition, we formulate the problem in terms of a description logic (DL). DLs are a family of languages for knowledge representation that have many applications in information systems technology. Thus, in addition to enhancing earlier work on uniqueness constraints, we integrate the results in the larger body of work on DLs. | |||
Date | June 1998 | |||
Report | Reasoning about Non-Key Uniqueness Constraints on Object Schema (DOC) | Reasoning about Non-Key Uniqueness Constraints on Object Schema (ZIP) |
CS-98-11 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Symmetries and First Order ODE Patterns | |||
Authors | E.S. Cheb-Terrab, and A.D. Roche | |||
Abstract | A scheme for determining symmetries for certain families of first order ODEs, without solving any differential equations, and based mainly in matching an ODE to patterns of invariant ODE families, is presented. The scheme was implemented in Maple, in the framework of the {\it ODEtools} package and its ODE-solver. A statistics of the performance of this approach in solving the first order ODE examples of Kamke's book is shown. | |||
Date | April 1998 | |||
Comments | Submitted to: Computer Physics Communications | |||
Report | Symmetries and First Order ODE Patterns (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Symmetries and First Order ODE Patterns (PS.Z) |
CS-98-10 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Integrating Factors and ODE Patterns | |||
Authors | E.S. Cheb-Terrab and A.D. Roche | |||
Abstract | A systematic algorithm for building integrating factors of the form mu(x,y') or mu(y,y') for non-linear second order ODEs is presented. When such an integrating factor exists, the scheme returns the integrating factor itself, without solving any differential equations. The scheme was implemented in Maple, in the framework of the ODEtools package and its ODE-solver. A comparison between this implementation and other computer algebra ODE-solvers in solving non-linear examples from Kamke's book is shown. | |||
Date | April 1998 | |||
Comments | Submitted to: Journal of Symbolic Computation | |||
Report | Integrating Factors and ODE Patterns (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Integrating Factors and ODE Patterns (PS.Z) |
CS-98-06 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Shadow Volume Reconstruction | |||
Authors | M.D. McCool | |||
Abstract |
Current
graphics
hardware
can
be
used
to
generate
shadows
using
either
shadow
volumes
or
shadow
maps.
However,
the
shadow
volume
technique
requires
access
to
a
represention
of
the
scene
as
a
polygonal
model,
and
shadow
maps
currently
require
extensions
to
(and
interfere
with
the
use
of)
texture
mapping. We present a hybrid of the shadow map and shadow volume approaches which does not have these difficulties. The scene is rendered from the point of view of the light source and a sampled depth map is recovered. Computer vision techniques are used to reconstruct a minimal shadow volume boundary, after which the shadows can be rendered using only a one bit stencil buffer. | |||
Comments |
This report was typeset in LaTeX, but has been converted to PostScript. It contains colour images, but can be printed on a high-resolution black and white laser printer with halftoning. This report has been submitted to the ACM Transactions on Graphics. There is a web site which contains more information on this and other rendering projects in CGL. The pages for this algorithm include slides from a talk and colour images. | |||
Report | No report |
CS-98-05 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Discrete Parisian and Delayed Barrier Options: A General Numerical Approach | |||
Authors | K.R. Vetzal and P.A. Forsyth | |||
Abstract | In this paper we present a numerical method for the valuation of derivative securities which have a payoff dependent upon the amount of time during the life of the contract that some underlying variable lies within a specified range. We concentrate in particular on the examples of Parisian options and delayed barrier options, but our approach is easily adapted to other cases such as switch options and step options. Available analytic pricing formula are based on the assumption that the underlying variable is monitored continuously. In contrast, we consider discrete (e.g.\ daily or weekly) sampling. Given that path-dependent option values are known to be generally very sensitive to sampling frequency, this is an important advantage of our numerical approach. | |||
Date | March 1998 | |||
Report | Discrete Parisian and Delayed Barrier Options: A General Numerical Approach (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Discrete Parisian and Delayed Barrier Options: A General Numerical Approach (PS.Z) |
CS-98-04 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Lock-Free Distributed Objects: A Shared Spreadsheet | |||
Authors | C.R. Palmer and G.V. Cormack | |||
Abstract | A Lock-Free Distributed System is a purely-replicated environment (replication with no central authority) in which updates are performed with no inter-object communication. All replicated copies of an object take on a common state when there are no messages in transit. Such a system is often used for groupware applications and operation transformations are a popular technique in this field. We broaden the scope of operation transformations by using a lock-free concurrency system to specify a distributed spreadsheet. The resulting spreadsheet is highly fault tolerant and the interactive performance is independent of the speed and the quality of the underlying network. To specify the concurrent semantics of the spreadsheet, an abstract data type is defined and a general model of a subset of the operations is proposed. | |||
Date | February 1998 | |||
Report | Lock-Free Distributed Objects: A Shared Spreadsheet (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Lock-Free Distributed Objects: A Shared Spreadsheet (PS.Z) |
CS-98-03 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | A Formalization of Shestakov's Decomposition | |||
Authors | J.J. Lou and J.A. Brzozowski | |||
Abstract | We consider two methods for the decomposition of Boolean and multi-valued functions into functions with fewer arguments. Shestakov's method (which we call double decomposition) expresses a function f(x_1,... ,x_n) as a composite function h(g_1(u_1,...,u_r),g(v_1,...,v_s)), where the union of U={u_1,...,u_r} and V={v_1,...,v_s} is the set X={x_1,...,x_n}. The independently developed method of Luba and Selvaraj (which we call single decomposition expresses a function f(x_1,...,x_n) as a composite function h(u_1,...,u_r,g(v_1,...,v_s)). The latter method has been formalized by Brzozowski and Luba using "blankets", which are generalizations of set systems. In this paper, we use the same blanket approach to formalize Shestakov's decomposition method. We compare the two methods, and verify that double decomposition is equivalent to two steps of single decomposition. Recently, Brzozowski and Lou extended the single decomposition methods to multi-valued functions. Using the same approach, we also extend Shestakov's method to the multi-valued case. | |||
Date | February 1998 | |||
Report | A Formalization of Shestakov's Decomposition (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: A Formalization of Shestakov's Decomposition (PS.Z) |
CS-98-02 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Title | Testing for Input Stuck-at Faults in Content-Addressable Memories | |||
Authors | P.R. Sidorowicz and J.A. Brzozowski | |||
Abstract |
Results
pertaining
to
testing
for
input
stuck-at
faults
in
a
n-word
by
l-bit
static
CMOS
content-addressable
memory
(CAM)
array
are
presented.
First,
a
formal
approach
to
modelling
CAM
cells
is
developed.
The
basis
of
this
approach
is
the
mathematical
framework
proposed
by
Brzozowski
and
Jurgensen
for
testing
and
diagnosis
of
sequential
machines.
Next,
an
input
stuck-at
fault
model
for
a
CAM
is
defined
and
a
test
of
length
7n+2l+5
with
100%
fault
coverage
with
respect
to
this
fault
model
is
constructed.
This
test
also
detects
all
the
usual
cell
stuck-at
and
transition
faults.
Some
design-for-testability
(DFT)
modifications
facilitating
a
further
reduction
of
this
test's
length
are
also
proposed.
Finally,
two
other
CAM
tests
are
verified
with
respect
to
our
fault
model. Keywords:CMOS, content-addressable, design for testability, fault modelling, stuck-at faults, testing. | |||
Date | April 1998 | |||
Comments | This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada under grant No. OGP0000871. | |||
Report | Testing for Input Stuck-at Faults in Content-Addressable Memories (PDF) |
Compressed
PostScript: Testing for Input Stuck-at Faults in Content-Addressable Memories (PS.Z) |