Academic publications centre

About

On this page, you can find a list of all academic documents I've written over the years, often in collaboration with other people. You're free to use these under the accompanying license.

Not all publications are necessarily (partly) authored by myself. If an aquintance of mine wishes to publish something of perself, I will gladly do so. Feel free to contact me if you would like that.

One thing you can be certain of: Everything here is top-notch academic quality, personally vetted by yours truly.

⭐ Featured publications

front page of Track trespasser detection from a moving train with a multimodal camera setup

Track trespasser detection from a moving train with a multimodal camera setup
Master's dissertation

Authored by drs. Maarten Vangeneugden.

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This work researches the possibility of a viable safety system for trains, specifically: a system that’s able to detect track trespassers in a timely manner, to allow the train driver to take adequate action. In order to accomplish this, a multimodal camera setup was used in an attempt to combine the properties of different camera types. In collaboration with the NMBS/SNCB/NGBE, the footage required for testing the written software could be obtained, resulting in an hour of footage of a normal RGB camera, an RGB camera with telescopic lens, and a short-wave infrared camera. The footage of the telescopic camera was a bit vague and using the full potential of optical zooming was not possible, but the quality was sufficient to demonstrate the feasability of the proposed system. To extract the region of the recorded footage on which to perform motion analysis, four different rail detection algorithms were programmed and evaluated, both in terms of accuracy and efficiency. One of these (rail contour matching) delivered very good results. Information from this was used to apply motion detection on the relevant region in the recorded footage. When this region falls outside of the area covered by the telescopic camera, super-resolution was used to mitigate the loss in detail as much as possible. Different models were compared for this purpose, of which the Lanczos technique gave the best results in terms of quality and required time. The available time did not allow for a lot of detailed improvements or expansions to the created software, but various possibilities have been listed that would solve the main problems present in the current implementation.

Language
English
Status
In progress
Published
Aug. 19, 2021
Institute
Ghent University
License
Some rights reserved
front page of Abstract state machines

Abstract state machines
Baccalaureaatsthesis

Authored by drs. Maarten Vangeneugden.

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Computers kent iedereen al lang. Wat minder gekend is, is het proces dat vooraf gaat aan het nuttig maken van deze toestellen. Welnu, het is geen geheim dat dat laatste al meerdere decennia wordt beschouwd als een enorm ingewikkeld proces. Informatica is een (bijna hilarisch) jonge discipline, en informatici zijn nog altijd op zoek naar prangende antwoorden. Eén van die mogelijke antwoorden heeft sinds de bedenking ervan opvallend weinig aandacht gekregen, ook al is het misschien dé oplossing voor enkele problemen die zeer dringend zijn. Dit artikel handelt over abstract state machines.

Language
Dutch
Status
Finished
Published
Jan. 11, 2019
Institute
Hasselt University
License
CC-BY-SA v4+
front page of Merge Those Metrics

Merge Those Metrics
Towards Holistic (Protocol) Logging

Authored by drs. Joris Herbots, dr. Robin Marx.

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In this position paper for the IAB workshop on “Measuring Network Quality for End-Users”, we observe that there is an apparent threefold split in how we currently log and analyze metrics for different protocol layers and the business logic running on top. We opine that this split makes it more challenging to answer some of the questions the workshop posited, as it makes metrics and behaviours at lower layers harder to correlate with higher layer Quality of Experience indicators. We motivate that a possible solution to this issue is to move towards a consolidated cross-layer and cross-vantage point logging approach that can provide a more holistic view of a system’s behaviour that can then be analyzed with specialized tools. To kickstart discussion, we debate recent efforts in this direction and highlight several ensuing opportunities and potential practical challenges.

Language
English
Status
Finished
Published
Sept. 15, 2021
Institute
Hasselt University
License
No license
front page of Real-life Artifact Traceability in Augmented Reality

Real-life Artifact Traceability in Augmented Reality
Master Thesis

Authored by drs. Jeroen Ceyssens.

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We established a system that provides artifact traceability information for real objects, using the technique of Augmented Reality to display information on objects in a real environment. Using this system, stakeholders can discover information related to the components and designs of different artifacts. We test the system for the two sectors informatics and architecture, where the evaluated artifact types are adjusted to the use case being presented. For informatics this includes the evaluation of application view designs and for architecture this includes tracing the design changes of a real maquette and understanding the full structure of a project.

Language
English
Status
Finished
Published
June 4, 2019
Institute
Hasselt University
License
No license
front page of Web election system

Web election system

Authored by Michiel Van Gendt, Julien Marbaix, Jens-Joris Decorte, Xavier Claerhoudt, drs. Maarten Vangeneugden.

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This small report was produced as part of an assignment for the course of Information Security at Ghent University. It describes the issues that we attribute to creating a web election system. In the end, we make a conclusion that the whole idea is bad to begin with, citing trustworthy sources that agree with that statement. Use this report as a warning and argument against voting over the web, because this just happens to be a thing where informatics can't really help right now.

Language
English
Status
Finished
Published
May 10, 2019
Institute
Ghent University
License
CC-BY-SA v4+
front page of Inleiding tot GNU/Linux

Inleiding tot GNU/Linux

Authored by prof. dr. Kris Luyten.

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Dit is een omvangrijke inleiding voor beginnende informatici om hen volledig in te wijden in het gebruik van een van 's werelds beste besturingssystemen: GNU/Linux. Het is een allesomvattend werk over de tools, de interne structuur, tot en met hoe drivers in Linux (de kernel) werken.
Het toffe aan dit document is dat het een van de weinige Nederlandstalige inleidingen is over dit onderwerp, en dat de auteur het onder een vrije licentie heeft gepubliceerd. De tekst is ook van zeer hoge kwaliteit, en daarom vind ik het te kostbaar om verloren te laten gaan op mijn harde schijf. Een absolute aanrader als je wilt binnentreden in de wereld van vrije software!
(Het document gebruikt soms foutief "Linux" als eigenlijk "GNU" bedoeld wordt. Raadpleeg de GNU-website voor meer info hieromtrent.)

Language
Dutch
Status
Finished
Published
Jan. 1, 2004
Institute
Hasselt University
License
GNU FDL v1.1+
front page of BleiD: A platform for controlling IoT

BleiD: A platform for controlling IoT
Bachelor thesis

Authored by drs. Jeroen Ceyssens.

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BleiD staat voor „Bluetooth Low Energy Interaction Device”, wat ook uitlegt wat ik in mijn bachelorscriptie heb gecreëerd. Het bestond uit een Raspberry Pi die apparaten in het gebied scande met behulp van Bluetooth Low Energy, informatie over deze apparaten verzamelt en apparaten detecteert die worden ondersteund voor interactie. Een zo’n voorbeeldapparaat was een Bluetooth Low Energy hub voor Philips Hue Light die ik heb gemaakt om het systeem mee te testen. Een Android-applicatie werd ook gebouwd om te communiceren met, en het beheren van de apparaten via BleiD. De applicatie hoort rechtstreeks verbinding te maken met de BleiD met behulp van het IP-adres of de domeinnaam, dus het zou nog steeds mogelijk zijn om verbinding te maken en te communiceren met thuisapparaten, zelfs als men weg is.

Language
Dutch
Status
Finished
Published
May 31, 2017
Institute
Hasselt University
License
No license
front page of Same Standards, Different Decisions: A Study of QUIC and HTTP/3 Implementation Diversity

Same Standards, Different Decisions: A Study of QUIC and HTTP/3 Implementation Diversity

Authored by drs. Joris Herbots, prof. dr. Wim Lamotte, dr. Peter Quax, dr. Robin Marx.

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The QUIC and HTTP/3 protocols are quickly maturing together with their implementations, though many of their low-level behaviours are not yet well-understood. To help improve this, we empirically compare 15 IETF QUIC+HTTP/3 implementations for advanced features like Flow and Congestion Control, 0-RTT, Multiplexing, and Packetization. We find a large heterogeneity between stacks, discuss uncovered bugs and conclude that most implementations are not fully optimized or validated yet. We argue that future work must prioritize rigorous root-cause analysis of observed behaviours, and show this is possible by employing our qlog and qvis tools.

Language
English
Status
Finished
Published
Aug. 10, 2020
Institute
Hasselt University
License
No license
front page of Bendwit

Bendwit
Platform for preparing content for adaptive streaming

Authored by drs. Joris Herbots.

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Media sharing, in particular video and audio, is becoming more and more popular these days and forms the bulk of all Internet traffic. People share their personal video recordings on social media like Facebook, amateur creators share their works on Youtube and Vimeo, professional media content providers like Netflix stream movies and series, . . . All this media is then watched by millions of people all using different playback devices. Because of the heterogeneous group of playback devices, all with their own respective capabilities, it is not easy to create a piece of media which fits all these devices’ playback capabilities. This is where adaptive streaming comes into play, adaptive streaming makes it possible to stream media to a wide range of playback devices over a variety of different connection speeds. The media itself is made available in different qualities which the client playback devices gets to choose from. Depending on the current environment, the client playback device will pick the best possible quality and continue switching between qualities if the environment changes during playback.

Language
English
Status
Finished
Published
June 30, 2017
Institute
Hasselt University
License
No license
front page of Improving DASH Streaming with Server and Network assistance

Improving DASH Streaming with Server and Network assistance

Authored by drs. Joris Herbots.

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Video streaming over the Internet has increasingly become more popular in the last decade due to advancements in technology and hardware. We have seen a shift towards the adaptive streaming paradigm, with implementations such as Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) becoming the defacto standard. DASH introduces an effective and scalable way for major content providers to deliver media streaming services over the Internet. Media origin servers host media segments which are compatible with CDNs and firewalls, clients proceed by streaming each segment individually and in an adaptive way based on, for example, network conditions. MPEG-DASH’s adaptation behaviour, nevertheless, suffers from performance problems when a large number of clients are deployed on a shared network connection. This shared network connection, known as the last mile, typically forms a bottleneck when a large number of clients compete for bandwidth, in turn leading to many video quality changes and stalling behaviour both of which are detrimental to the Quality of Experience (QoE) of a user. In 2017, the Moving Picture Expert Group (MPEG) released its Server and Network Assisted DASH (SAND) specification, which defines a protocol for exchanging realtime operational characteristics in the form of messages between entities involved in the DASH streaming process. This enables servers and middleboxes who understand DASH content passing through them, to provide more accurate information such that clients can make better informed choices concerning their adaptation logic. In this thesis, the SAND specification in a shared network connection use case is explored.

Language
English
Status
Finished
Published
June 30, 2019
Institute
Hasselt University
License
No license
front page of Cross-layer information sharing for QUICker video streaming

Cross-layer information sharing for QUICker video streaming

Authored by drs. Joris Herbots, prof. dr. Wim Lamotte, dr. Peter Quax, dr. Maarten Wijnants.

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QUIC is marketed to hold many advantages over TCP. However, preliminary experimentation has shown that simply running contemporary HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) implementations over QUIC does not improve but actually hurts streaming performance compared to a traditional TCP deployment. We argue that this behavior can be attributed to the amount of TCP specialization that HAS Adaptive BitRate (ABR) algorithms have received over the years. In contrast to TCP (which can be regarded as a "black box"), QUIC actually encompasses all the necessary tools to empower streaming performance optimization (e.g., definition of custom congestion control algorithms, access to transport-layer metrics in the application layer). This however comes at the expense of added complexity which in turn could lead to misinterpretations of the root causes of suboptimal streaming performance. To facilitate research on HTTP adaptive bitrate streaming over QUIC, in this paper we propose a solution towards jointly visualizing transport- and application-layer metrics to allow for a better understanding of HAS streaming performance over various types of transport protocols (i.e., TCP versus QUIC). We see the work presented in this paper as an important stepping stone towards cross-layer optimization of HAS ABR performance to achieve a better overall Quality of Experience (QoE) for streaming users.

Language
English
Status
Finished
Published
Nov. 24, 2020
Institute
Hasselt University
License
No license