"Towards Performance and Cost-efficiency for Data-intensive Applications in Distributed Data Processing Systems" Abstract: Data-intensive science (DIS) has experienced a significant boom in the past decade. The emerging technologies of data-intensive services and infrastructures contribute to DIS's development and raise challenges. An ecosystem has been constructed considering performance, scalability, sustainability, and reliability to provide a high-quality […]

"All-optical Control of Magnetization in Nanostructures" Committee: Prof. Yongmin Liu (Advisor) Prof. Don Heiman Prof. Nian X. Sun Abstract: The switching of magnetization by a femtosecond laser within several picoseconds has recently gained substantial attention, because it promises next-generation, energy-efficient, and high-rate data storage technology. One of the most intriguing demonstrations is the helicity-dependent switching […]

"Factorization guided Lightweight Neural Networks for Visual Analysis" Committee: Prof. Yun Fu (Advisor) Prof. Ming Shao Prof. Lili Su Abstract: Deep learning has become popular in recent years primarily due to powerful computing devices such as GPUs. However, many applications such as face alignment, image classification, and gesture recognition need to be deployed to multimedia […]

"Composition of UML Class Diagrams Using Category Theory and External Constraints" Abstract: In large software development projects there is always a need for refactoring and optimization of the design. Usually software designs are represented using UML diagrams (e.g class diagrams). A software engineering team may create multiple versions of class diagrams satisfying some external constraints. […]

"Real-Time Spectrum Sensing for Inference and Control" Abstract: Spectrum sensing can enable the next generation of wireless applications ranging from opportunistic spectrum access to cognitive radio networks. The key unaddressed challenges of spectrum sensing are that (i) it has to be performed with extremely low latency over varying bandwidths and must guarantee strict real-time processing […]

"Securing FPGA as a Shared Cloud-Computing Resource: Threats and Mitigations" Abstract: With the widespread adoption of cloud computing, the demand for programmable hardware acceleration devices, such as field-programmable gate array (FPGA), has increased. To further improve the performance of FPGA-enabled cloud computing, one promising technology is to virtualize the hardware resources of an FPGA device, […]

"Advancing Passive Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing for Detection of Fish Sounds, Seismo-Acoustic Airgun Signals, and Marine Mammal Vocalizations including Instrumentation Enhancements" Committee: Prof Purnima Ratilal Makris (Advisor) Prof Josep M Jornet Dr Nils Olav Handegard Abstract: Underwater passive acoustic monitoring is important for understanding the marine environment, since many ocean entities produce sound that […]

"Channel-and-Adversary-Resilient Radio Fingerprinting through Data-Driven Approaches at Scale" Committee: Prof. Tommaso Melodia (Advisor) Prof. Kaushik Chowdhury Prof. Francesco Restuccia Abstract: Radio fingerprinting authenticates wireless devices by leveraging tiny hardware-level imperfections inevitably present in the radio circuitry. This way, devices can be directly identified at the physical layer– thus avoiding energy-expensive upper-layer cryptography that resource-limited embedded […]

"Decoupling Efficiency-Performance Optimization for Modern Neural Networks" Committee: Prof. Yanzhi Wang (Advisor) Prof. David R. Kaeli Prof. Sunil Mittal Prof. Jennifer Dy Abstract: Deep learning has achieved remarkable success in a variety of modern applications, but this success is often accompanied by inefficiency in terms of storage and inference speed, which can hinder their practical […]

"Overcoming and Engineering Wireless Signals for Communication and Computation" Abstract: The phenomenal growth of connected devices, especially rapid expansion of IoT networks and the increasing demand for wireless services are the main driving forces for the evolution of wireless technologies. However, the realization of such technologies requires a radical transformation of existing infrastructures to satisfy […]