Network traces are a useful tool in understanding how users navigate the web. Knowing the sequence of pages that led a user to arrive at a malicious website can help researchers develop techniques to prevent users from reaching such sites. Nevertheless, inferring sound causation between HTTP requests is a challenging task. We present here methods for and considerations when inferring causation relationships betweenHTTP requests. We also introduce causation trees and terminology needed to model causal relationships between HTTP requests. Finally, we describe Gretel, our system that infers causation relationships, how we calibrated it, and our results on a sample control data set where ground truth was available.

关键词：网络跟踪；HTTP请求；控制数据样本

查看摘要 索取原文[19页]

Levels of literacy and the variance in them, continue to be a problem in the world. These problems are ubiquitous in the sense that they change form from developing to developed regions, but do not seize to exist. For example, while teacher absenteeism is a fairly large problem in the developing world, student motivation can pose challenges in the developed world. Prior research has demonstrated that games can serve as an efficient medium in bridging these literacy gaps, generating student motivation (or engagement) not just in short term but also in the long term. This dissertation is dedicated to the investigation and application of spoken language technology to language acquisition contexts in the developed world. We explore the broader research question in two major contexts.

关键词：语言技术；语言环境；语音激活系统

查看摘要 索取原文[123页]

The thesis explores efficient learning algorithms in settings which are more restrictive thanthe PAC model of learning in one of the following two senses: (i) The learning algorithmhas a very weak access to the unknown function, as in, it does not get labeled samples for theunknown function (ii) The error guarantee required from the hypothesis is more stringent than the PAC model.

关键词：PAC学习模型；CNFs；参数f

查看摘要 索取原文[170页]

In spite of the significance of time in the dynamicsof the physical world, real-time embedded software today is commonly built using programming abstractions with little or no temporal semantics. PTIDES (Programming Temporally Integrated Distributed Embedded Systems) is a programming model whose goal is to addressthis problem.It proposes a model-based design approach for the programming of distributed real-time embedded systems, in which the timing of real-time operations is specified as part of the model.

关键词：实时离散事件系统；实时操作；实时嵌入式软件

查看摘要 索取原文[114页]

The electric power system is undergoing dramatic transformations due to the emergence of renewable resources. However, integrating these resources into the electric grid has proven to be difficult for two main reasons: these resources are uncertain and distributed. This thesis discusses how uncertainty and distributedness of the new resources are manifested as challenges in time and spatial scales, and how we can optimally control the power grid to overcome these challenges.

关键词：电力系统；可再生资源；分布性

查看摘要 索取原文[106页]

This paper presents the concept of adaptive programs, whose computation and communication structures can morph to adapt to environmental and demand changes to save energy and computing resources.In this approach, programmers write one single program using a language at a higher level of abstraction.The compiler will exploit the properties of the abstractions to generate an adaptive program that is able to adjust computation and communication structures to environmental and demand changes.

关键词：自适应程序；编译器；计算和通信结构

查看摘要 索取原文[11页]

There is a growing research tradition in the interface between Economics and Computer Science: Economic insights and questions about incentives inform the design of systems, while concepts from the theory of computation help illuminate classical Economics problems. This dissertation presents results in both directions of the intellectual exchange. Originally designed by industry engineers, the sponsored search auction has raised many interesting questions and spurred much research in auction design. For example, early auctions were based on a rst-price payment model and proved to be highly unstable | this dissertation explores how improvements in the bidding language could restore stability. We also show that a rst-price auction oers substantially better performance guarantees when a single advertiser may benet from multiple ads. Another interesting problem arises because sponsored search auctions must operate with limited information about a user's behavior | we show how sampling can maintain incentive compatibility even when the auctioneer incorrectly predicts the user's behavior.

关键词：经济学；计算机科学；广告；拍卖；支付

查看摘要 索取原文[165页]

Relational data has become so widespread that even end-users such as secretaries and teachers frequently interact with them. However, finding the right query to retrieve the necessary data from complex databases can be very difficult for end-users. Many of these users can be seen voicing their confusion on several Excel help forums, receiving little help and waiting days for responses from experts. In this paper, we present Quicksilver, a programming-by-demonstration solution that derives queries from user inputs. It is designed to be easy and intuitive for users who are not familiar with database theory. We present Quicksilver’s interface designs and synthesis algorithms. We conclude with a user study designed to evaluate Quicksilver’s performance.

关键词：关系型数据；数据库；Quicksilver

查看摘要 索取原文[24页]

We study the connection between pebble games and complexity. First, we derive complexity results using pebble games. Second, the pebble costs are applied to proof complexity. Finally, we study the space complexity of computing the pebble costs and of computing the minimum depth of resolution refutations.

关键词：卵石游戏；复杂性；联系

查看摘要 索取原文[75页]

Recovering these same properties from a singleimage seems almost impossible in comparison——there are an infinite number of shapes, paint, and lights that exactly reproduce a single image. However, certain explanations are morelikely than others: surfaces tend to be smooth, paint tends to be uniform, and illumination tends to be natural. We therefore pose this problem as one of statistical inference, and define an optimization problem that searches for the most likely explanation of a single image.Ourmodel, which we call "SIRFS", can be viewed as a superset of several classic computer vision problems (shape-from-shading, intrinsic images, color constancy, illumination estimation, etc) and outperforms all previous solutions to those constituent problems. Recovering these same properties from a singleimage seems almost impossible in comparison——there are an infinite number of shapes, paint, and lights that exactly reproduce a single image. However, certain explanations are morelikely than others: surfaces tend to be smooth, paint tends to be uniform, and illumination tends to be natural. We therefore pose this problem as one of statistical inference, and define an optimization problem that searches for the most likely explanation of a single image.Ourmodel, which we call "SIRFS", can be viewed as a superset of several classic computer vision problems (shape-from-shading, intrinsic images, color constancy, illumination estimation, etc) and outperforms all previous solutions to those constituent problems.

关键词：计算机视觉问题；三维结构；二维结构

查看摘要 索取原文[99页]