Computer Engineering Commons^™

Radic Voice Authentication: Replay Attack Detection Using Image Classification For Voice Authentication Systems, Hannah Taylor

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Systems like Google Home, Alexa, and Siri that use voice-based authentication to verify their users’ identities are vulnerable to voice replay attacks. These attacks gain unauthorized access to voice-controlled devices or systems by replaying recordings of passphrases and voice commands. This shows the necessity to develop more resilient voice-based authentication systems that can detect voice replay attacks.

This thesis implements a system that detects voice-based replay attacks by using deep learning and image classification of voice spectrograms to differentiate between live and recorded speech. Tests of this system indicate that the approach represents a promising direction for detecting voice-based replay …

Power Profiling Smart Home Devices, Kailai Cui

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In recent years, the growing market for smart home devices has raised concerns about user privacy and security. Previous works have utilized power auditing measures to infer activity of IoT devices to mitigate security and privacy threats.

In this thesis, we explore the potential of extracting information from the power consumption traces of smart home devices. We present a framework that collects smart home devices’ power traces with current sensors and preprocesses them for effective inference. We collect an extensive dataset of duration > 2h from 6 devices including smart speakers, smart camera and smart display. We perform different classification tasks …

Bias In Artificial Intelligence: The Morality And Motivation Behind The Algorithm, Avery Freeman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

More than 180 cognitive biases have been identified in humans, and these biases relate to feelings towards a person or a group based on perceived group membership (Dilmegani, 2020). The development of artificial intelligence has fallen into the hands of engineers and statisticians, people who work within fields that have well-established race and gender diversity disparities (Panch et al., 2019). Thus, it is no surprise that the aforementioned biases have made their way into the algorithms behind artificial intelligence. The current study explored how participants’ pre-existing biases and level of outgroup contact have the potential to affect their decision-making pertaining …

Translating Video Recordings Of Mobile App Ui Gestures Into Replayable Scenarios For Native And Hybrid Apps, Madeleine Havranek

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Screen recordings of mobile applications are easy to obtain and capture a wealth of information pertinent to software developers (e.g., bugs or feature requests), making them a popular mechanism for crowdsourced app feedback. Thus, these videos are becoming a common artifact that developers must manage. In light of unique mobile development constraints, including swift release cycles and rapidly evolving platforms, automated techniques for analyzing all types of rich software artifacts provide benefit to mobile developers. Unfortunately, automatically analyzing screen recordings presents serious challenges, due to their graphical nature, compared to other types of (textual) artifacts. To address these challenges, this …

Grandparent-Grandchild Virtual Communication Study, Tanya Keval

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The cross generational bond between a grandparent and grandchild is extremely important. The stories, traditions, and beliefs that grandparents share with their grandchildren have the ability to shape their grandchildren’s beliefs. For grandparents, the role of being a grandparent and creating shared memories with their grandchildren leaves a positive impact on their mental health. Although the elderly population prefers to connect with others in-person, including their grandchildren, this face-to-face connection is not always possible due to schedules, distance, or health. Many products have been designed for grandparents and grandchildren to try to fill this communication gap when they are apart. …

Performance Implications Of Memory Affinity On Filesystem Caches In A Non-Uniform Memory Access Environment, Jacob Adams

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Non-Uniform Memory Access imposes unique challenges on every component of an operating system and the applications that run on it. One such component is the filesystem which, while not directly impacted by NUMA in most cases, typically has some form of cache whose performance is constrained by the latency and bandwidth of the memory that it is stored in. One such filesystem is ZFS, which contains its own custom caching system, known as the Adaptive Replacement Cache. This work looks at the impact of NUMA on this cache via sequential read operations, shows how current solutions intended to reduce this …

Appointment Scheduling System, Guzaloi Noori

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Appointment Scheduling System designed for universities so that students can schedule appointments with their university’s faculty and staff regarding academic, employment, immigration, or personal issues. The scheduling system has the ability of being embedded to the Computer Science Capstone project iAcademic, which I took part in as a front-end developer.

Building Data Visualization Applications To Facilitate Vehicular Networking Research, Noah Carter

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A web app was developed which allows any internet-connected device to remotely monitor a roadway intersection’s state over HTTP. A mapping simulation was enhanced to allow researchers to retroactively track the location and the ad-hoc connectivity of vehicle clusters. A performance analysis was conducted on the utilized network partitioning algorithm. This work was completed under and for the utility of ETSU’s Vehicular Networking Lab. It can serve as a basis for further development in the field of wireless automobile connectivity.

Strategic Implications Of Blockchain, William R. Adams

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis introduces blockchain, the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and discusses how best to conceptualize it relative to other technologies. Following an explanation of the fundamentals of blockchain, also known as the distributed ledger, I identify the characteristics of the technology. Building upon blockchain’s inherent strengths and limitations, I explore potential business applications of blockchain. Finally, I recommend that leaders continue to track the development and adoption of blockchain technology, even if they decide that implementing it does not align with their organization’s strategy at present.

Evaluation Of The Efficiency Of An Arm-Based Beowulf Cluster Versus Traditional Desktop Computing For High Performance Computing, Nicholas Addiego

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the realm of scientific computing, it has become increasingly important to focus on results driven growth (Kamil, Shalf and Storhmaier). Doing this enables researchers to continue building the rapidly expanding area of scientific discovery. However, with the growth comes a cost of the amount of resources consumed to accomplish these results. Large supercomputers are consuming power at a rate roughly fourteen thousand times that of a traditional American household (U.S. Energy Information Administration). Parallel to this, public consumers have been driving the mobile industry and the research behind it. The need to have faster and faster mobile devices that …

Automation In Entertainment: Concept, Design, And Application, Ryan Thally

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The focus of this thesis is to explore the automation technology used in the modern entertainment industry. Upon completion of my thesis, I will deliver a working prototype of the chosen technology and present its capabilities in a choreographed show.

The Eco-Smart Can, Darack B. Nanto

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I noticed that maintenance workers had the same itinerary when emptying trashcans, meanwhile some trashcans needed to be emptied urgently. Traditionally, ETSU maintenance operate on daily routes to pick trash on designated time, regardless the level of the containers. The time, resources and labor invested in collecting the trash could be saved. Therefore, I decided to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to create a device that will optimize trash collection, to reduce costs and pollution.

Experimental Boss Design And Testing, Joseph P. Mistretta

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Over the years, gaming has developed rapidly from simple pixel-based experiences to fully blown three-dimensional worlds. As developing technologies improve, so does the complexity and flexibility of what can be created. Encounters, along with all aspects of any gaming experience, have evolved along with the technologies that create them. These intense combat instances, often times referred to as “bosses”, represent a chance for the developer to challenge player skill, cooperation, and coordination. In addition to being major challenges, encounters also allow players to feel a sense of progression as they learn and adapt to mechanics incorporated within an encounter’s design. …