We present a novel method, called the transform likelihood ratio (TLR) method, for estimation of rare event probabilities with heavy-tailed distributions. Via a simple transformation ( change of variables) technique the TLR method reduces the original rare event probability estimation with heavy...

Originally, the Internet was a technological playground, a collaborative endeavor among researchers who shared the common goal of achieving communication. Self-interest used not to be a concern, but the motivations of the Internet's participants have broadened. Today, the Internet consists of...

The ability to model, forecast, and analyze the behaviors of otheragents has applications in many diverse contexts. For example, behavioral models can be used in multi-player games to forecast an opponent's next move, in economics to forecast a merger decision by a CEO, or in international...

Speculation plays an ever-increasing role in optimizing the execution of programs in computer architecture. Speculative decision-makers are typically required to have high speed and small size, thus limiting their complexity and capability. Because of these restrictions, predictors often...

For the past three decades, a wide variety of cryptographic protocols have been proposed to solve secure communication problems even in the presence of adversaries. The range of this work varies from developing basic security primitives providing confidentiality and authenticity to solving more...

Probabilistic graphical models, by making conditional independence assumptions, can represent complex joint distributions in a factorized form. However, in large problems graphical models often run into two issues. First, in non-treelike graphs, computational issues frustrate exact inference....

Even simple, deterministic rules can generate interesting behavior in dynamical systems. This dissertation examines some real world systems for which fairly simple, locally defined rules yield useful or interesting properties in the system as a whole. In particular, we study routing in...

Software testing is an indispensable activity in quality assurance andan enduring topic of research. For decades, researchers have beeninventing new and better techniques to test software. However, notesting technique will ever be a panacea for all softwaredefects. Therefore, while researchers...

The advancement in networking technologies creates new opportunities for computer users to communicate and interact with one another. Very often, these interacting parties are strangers. A relevant concern for a user is whether to trust the other party in an interaction, especially if there are...

This dissertation presents an empirical approach for building and storing knowledge about software engineering through human-subject research. It is based on running empirical studies in stages, where previously held hypotheses are supported or refuted in different contexts, and new hypotheses...