Scott Starks | University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) (original) (raw)

Papers by Scott Starks

Abstract—Geospatial databases generally consist of measurements related to points (or pixels in t... more Abstract—Geospatial databases generally consist of measurements related to points (or pixels in the case of raster data), lines, and polygons. In recent years, the size and complexity of these databases have increased signi cantly and they often contain duplicate records, i.e., two or more close records representing the same measurement result. In this paper, we address the problem of detecting duplicates in a database consisting of point measurements. As a test case, we use a database of measurements of anomalies in the Earth's gravity eld that we have compiled. In our previous papers [4], [40], we have proposed a new fast (O(n · log(n))) duplication deletion algorithm for the case when closeness of two points (x1, y1) and (x2, y2) is described as closeness of both coordinates. In this paper, we extend this algorithm to the case when closeness is described by an arbitrary metric. Both algorithms have been successfully applied to gravity databases.

As we embark on a new era in engineering education, we must exploit technological advances which ... more As we embark on a new era in engineering education, we must exploit technological advances which offer opportunities for improving the educational process. One area of technology which offers opportunities for enhancing the manner in which research is conducted and ultimately afiects scientific and engineering education is computer networks. As computer hardware has become less expensive, more numerous and more capable, individuals and organizations have developed a keen interest in connecting them together in order to form networks. This in turn has had an impact on the manner in which laboratory research is conducted. This paper addresses a relatively new approach to scientific research, telescience, which is the conduct of scientific operations in locations remote from the site of central experimental activity. A testbed based on the concepts of telescience is being developed to ultimately enable scientific researchers on earth to conduct experiments onboard the Space Station. Th...

Annual Conference of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society - NAFIPS

According to the traditional probability theory, events with a positive but very small probabilit... more According to the traditional probability theory, events with a positive but very small probability can occur (although very rarely). For example, from the purely mathematical viewpoint, it is possible that the thermal motion of all the molecules in a coffee cup goes in the same direction, so this cup will start lifting up. In contrast, physicists believe that events with extremely small probability cannot occur. In this paper, we show that to get a consistent formalization of this belief, we need, in addition to the original probability measure, to also consider a maxitive (possibility) measure.

Proceedings of the 5th Biannual World Automation Congress

NAFIPS 2007 - 2007 Annual Meeting of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society, 2007

With this objective in mind, it is desirable to use it ductile materials, i.e., materials which c... more With this objective in mind, it is desirable to use it ductile materials, i.e., materials which can sustain large deformations without failure. Von Mises criterion enables us to predict the failure of such ductile materials. To apply this criterion, we need to know the exact stresses applied at different directions. In practice, we only know these stresses with interval or fuzzy uncertainty. In this paper, we describe how we can apply this criterion under such uncertainty, and how to make this application computationally ef cient.

An appropriate subdivision of a geophysical area into segments enables us to extrapolate the resu... more An appropriate subdivision of a geophysical area into segments enables us to extrapolate the results obtained in some locations within the segment (where extensive research was done) to other locations within the same segment, and thus, get a good understanding of the locations which weren't thoroughly analyzed. Often, different evidence and different experts' intuition support different subdivisions schemes. For example, in our area -- Rio Grande rift zone -- there is some geochemical evidence that this zone is divided into three segments, but, in the viewpoint of many researchers, this evidence is not yet sufficiently convincing. We show that if we use topographical information (this information, e.g., comes from satellite photos), then interval methods lead to a reliable justification for the tripartite subdivision of the Rio Grande rift zone. 1 Formulation of the Problem In geophysics, appropriate subdivision of an area into segments is extremely important, because it...

Proceedings of 1994 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference - FIE '94

This paper describes an engineering curriculum reform effort being conducted at the University of... more This paper describes an engineering curriculum reform effort being conducted at the University of Texas at El Paso (USA) and supported through the University of Texas System for Minority Participation which addresses the freshman year experience for engineering majors. This effort has resulted in the creation of a new sequence of interdisciplinary introductory courses in engineering which incorporate contemporary pedagogical

2002 Annual Meeting of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society Proceedings. NAFIPS-FLINT 2002 (Cat. No. 02TH8622)

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

2005 Annual Conference Proceedings

The City of El Paso is a rapidly growing community located on the US-Mexico border that has a lar... more The City of El Paso is a rapidly growing community located on the US-Mexico border that has a largely Hispanic population. The region can be categorized as under-educated and socioeconomically disadvantaged. For a number of reasons, most students graduating from El Paso area high schools are under-prepared in mathematics and science and thus are at a disadvantage in pursuing engineering programs at the post secondary level. The Texas PreFreshman Engineering Program (TexPREP) seeks to identify high-achieving middle and high school students with interests in science, engineering and mathematics and to enhance their preparation in these fields and thus increase their likelihood of succeeding in college. TexPREP is an academically intense eight-week summer program, which stresses the development of abstract reasoning, problem solving skills, and their applications. The Pan American Center for Earth and Environmental Studies (PACES) is a NASA University Research Center on the UTEP campus. In addition to its mission to contribute research in support of NASA's Earth Science Strategic Enterprise, PACES seeks to promote science, engineering and mathematics awareness among K-12 students, especially those with minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. In 2001, collaboration between TexPREP and PACES began with the objective of using activities with space-oriented themes as a means to stimulate student interest in science, engineering and mathematics. Over the past two summers, a variety of activities have been conducted. These include (1) Remote sensing and image interpretation, (2) CricketSat electronic telemetry device activity, (3) Protein Crystal Growth experiment, (4) Rover design competition (5) "Mission to Mars" play, and (6) Field trips to NASA facilities. This paper presents a description of these space-oriented program components and some results from the evaluation of the program.

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

IEEE Computer Applications in Power

The short-term objective of the work described is to develop ground and knowledge-based systems i... more The short-term objective of the work described is to develop ground and knowledge-based systems integrated with actual electric power system breadboards and testbeds to demonstrate the viability of advanced automation approaches for spacecraft onboard and ground-support applications. Initially, such systems would be used primarily in advisory capacities. As confidence is gained in their operation, these systems would evolve to allow

International Journal of Computer & Information Sciences

Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics

To check whether a new algorithm is better, researchers use traditional statistical techniques fo... more To check whether a new algorithm is better, researchers use traditional statistical techniques for hypotheses testing. In particular, when the results are inconclusive, they run more and more simulations (n2>n1, n3>n2, ..., nm>nm-1) until the results become conclusive. In this paper, we point out that these results may be misleading. Indeed, in the traditional approach, we select a statistic and then choose a threshold for which the probability of this statistic “accidentally” exceeding this threshold is smaller than, say, 1%. It is very easy to run additional simulations with ever-larger n. The probability of error is still 1% for each ni, but the probability that we reach an erroneous conclusion for at least one of the values ni increases as m increases. In this paper, we design new st...

2001 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics. e-Systems and e-Man for Cybernetics in Cyberspace (Cat.No.01CH37236), 2000

In reasoning about time and duration, researchers often use Allen's Interval Algebra. This algebr... more In reasoning about time and duration, researchers often use Allen's Interval Algebra. This algebra describes possible relations between 1-D intervals. An interval can precede the other one, follow the other one, start the other one, etc. This algebra describes the relationship between different intervals in terms of words from natural language. To give a natural language description of 2D images, it is desirable to develop a similar approach for describing the relationship between 2-D objects in a picture. In their recent papers, Jim Keller and his collaborators proposed a new approach based on a simulation of a "force" between these objects. In this paper, we show that their force formula is theoretically optimal.

In numerical mathematics, one of the most frequently used ways of gauging the quality of differen... more In numerical mathematics, one of the most frequently used ways of gauging the quality of different numerical methods is benchmarking. Specifically, once we have methods that work well on some (but not all) problems from a given problem class, we find the problem that is the toughest for the existing methods. This problem becomes a benchmark for gauging how well different methods solve problems that previous methods could not. Once we have a method that works well in solving this benchmark problem, we repeat the process again-by selecting, as a new benchmark, a problem that is the toughest to solve by the new methods, and by looking for a new method that works the best on this new benchmark. At first glance, this idea sounds like a heuristic, but its success in numerical mathematics indicates that this heuristic is either optimal or at least close to optimality. In this paper, we use the geombinatoric approach to prove that benchmarking is indeed asymptotically optimal. What is benchmarking and how is it usually done. In many areas such as numerical mathematics, computer architecture, Artificial Intelligence, etc., we are interested in solving problems from a certain class. In order to gauge how good is a given method in solving these problems, researchers usually select several benchmark problems on which different methods are tested. We would like to select the benchmark problems in such a way that the method's performance on these problems serves as a good indication of its performance on all other problems. Usually, we start with a problem (or problems) that really need

This paper presents a brief overview of our research in applications of soft computing and interv... more This paper presents a brief overview of our research in applications of soft computing and interval computations to aerospace problems, with a special emphasis on multi-spectral satellite imaging.

Introduction. Traditional oriental medicine incorporates hundreds (maybe even thousands) of years... more Introduction. Traditional oriental medicine incorporates hundreds (maybe even thousands) of years of experience. Some parts of it have already been described in precise terms and used in the West (see, e.g., 1]). However, there are still methods and ideas in Oriental medicine, such as acupuncture, moxibustion, massage, acupression, etc., that seem to work well for various diseases but that are not yet formalized and not yet widely used. It is, therefore, desirable to formalize these methods. So far, the main e orts were in designing computerbased expert system that would incorporate the rules and techniques used by experts (see, e.g., 5] and references therein). In this paper, we show that uncertainty formalisms can be used not only to describe these rules, but also to justify them, i.e., to provide the foundations for traditional oriental medicine. We need a family of sets. In all above-enumerated techniques, to cure a disease or to improve a patient's condition, we apply a certain action (a needle, a massage, etc.) to one of the special points on the patient's body.