Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Comparison Of Leading Database Storage Engines In Support Of Online Analytical Processing In An Open Source Environment, Gabriel Tocci

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) has become the de facto data analysis technology used in modern decision support systems. It has experienced tremendous growth, and is among the top priorities for enterprises. Open source systems have become an effective alternative to proprietary systems in terms of cost and function. The purpose of the study was to investigate the performance of two leading database storage engines in an open source OLAP environment. Despite recent upgrades in performance features for the InnoDB database engine, the MyISAM database engine is shown to outperform the InnoDB database engine under a standard benchmark. This result was …

Connotational Subtyping And Runtime Class Mutability In Ruby, Ian S. Dillon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Connotational subtyping is an approach to typing that allows an object's type to change dynamically, following changes to the object's internal state. This allows for a more precise representation of a problem domain with logical objects that have variable behavior. Two approaches to supporting connotational subtyping in the Ruby programming language were implemented: a language-level implementation using pure Ruby and a modification to the Ruby 1.8.7 interpreter. While neither implementation was wholly successful the language level implementation created complications with reflective language features like self and super and, while Ruby 1.8.7 has been obsoleted by Ruby 1.9 (YARV), the results …

Implementation Of A New Sigmoid Function In Backpropagation Neural Networks., Jeffrey A. Bonnell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the use of a new sigmoid activation function in backpropagation artificial neural networks (ANNs). ANNs using conventional activation functions may generalize poorly when trained on a set which includes quirky, mislabeled, unbalanced, or otherwise complicated data. This new activation function is an attempt to improve generalization and reduce overtraining on mislabeled or irrelevant data by restricting training when inputs to the hidden neurons are sufficiently small. This activation function includes a flattened, low-training region which grows or shrinks during back-propagation to ensure a desired proportion of inputs inside the low-training region. With a desired low-training proportion of …

Improving Brain-Computer Interface Performance: Giving The P300 Speller Some Color., David B. Ryan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individuals who suffer from severe motor disabilities face the possibility of the loss of speech. A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) can provide a means for communication through non-muscular control. Current BCI systems use characters that flash from gray to white (GW), making adjacent character difficult to distinguish from the target. The current study implements two types of color stimulus (grey to color [GC] and color intensification [CI]) and I hypotheses that color stimuli will; (1) reduce distraction of nontargets (2) enhance target response (3) reduce eye strain. Online results (n=21) show that GC has increased information transfer rate over CI. Mean …

A Case Study Of The Effects Of A Web Interface Redesign Based On Usability Guidelines., Paromita Bhattacharya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Usability guidelines for user interface (UI) design formulated by Nielsen and other authorities were used to redesign the web interface for a web based distance education course. The website's original UI, as judged by a group of web design professionals, violated standard guidelines for usability, readability, learnability, consistency, efficiency of use and flexibility. The original and redesigned UIs were tested using thinking aloud testing, a user satisfaction survey, and usability inspection. The results of user testing and heuristic evaluation suggest that the use of these guidelines in website redesign had a positive impact on user performance. A more conclusive result …

Social Media In Higher Education: Building Mutually Beneficial Student And Institutional Relationships Through Social Media., Megan L. Fuller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Social applications such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have driven the public growth of Web 2.0. Universities and colleges are using social media to reach student prospects, keep contact with current students and alumni, and provide a mechanism for group collaboration and interaction in the classroom. Higher education institutions are influenced by current social media trends, and figuring out how to effectively interact with various constituencies within the social media environment can be challenging.

In this study, a group of higher education students were surveyed about their social media practices and preferences with a focus on education-related activities. The goal …

P300-Based Bci Performance Prediction Through Examination Of Paradigm Manipulations And Principal Components Analysis., Nicholas Edward Schwartz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Severe neuromuscular disorders can produce locked-in syndrome (LIS), a loss of nearly all voluntary muscle control. A brain-computer interface (BCI) using the P300 event-related potential provides communication that does not depend on neuromuscular activity and can be useful for those with LIS. Currently, there is no way of determining the effectiveness of P300-based BCIs without testing a person's performance multiple times. Additionally, P300 responses in BCI tasks may not resemble the typical P300 response. I sought to clarify the relationship between the P300 response and BCI task parameters and examine the possibility of a predictive relationship between traditional oddball tasks …

A Study Of Improving The Parallel Performance Of Vasp., Matthew Brandon Baker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis involves a case study in the use of parallelism to improve the performance of an application for computational research on molecules. The application, VASP, was migrated from a machine with 4 nodes and 16 single-threaded processors to a machine with 60 nodes and 120 dual-threaded processors. When initially migrated, VASP's performance deteriorated after about 17 processing elements (PEs), due to network contention. Subsequent modifications that restrict communication amongst VASP processes, together with additional support for threading, allowed VASP to scale up to 112 PEs, the maximum number that was tested. Other performance-enhancing optimizations that were attempted included replacing …

Early Stopping Of A Neural Network Via The Receiver Operating Curve., Daoping Yu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the area under the ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristics) curve, or abbreviated AUC, as an alternate measure for evaluating the predictive performance of ANNs (Artificial Neural Networks) classifiers. Conventionally, neural networks are trained to have total error converge to zero which may give rise to over-fitting problems. To ensure that they do not over fit the training data and then fail to generalize well in new data, it appears effective to stop training as early as possible once getting AUC sufficiently large via integrating ROC/AUC analysis into the training process. In order to reduce learning costs involving the …

Generating Compact Wasp Nest Structures Via Minimal Complexity Algorithms., Fadel Ewusi Kofi Adoe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many models have been developed to explain the process of self organization-the emergence of seemingly purposeful behaviors from groups of entities with limited individual intelligence. However, the underlying behavior that facilitates the emergence of this global pattern is not generally well understood. Our study focuses on different low complexity building algorithms and characterizes how nests are built using these algorithms. Three rules postulated to be functions of wasps' building behavior were developed. First is the random rule, in which there is no constraint per the choice of site to be initiated. The second is the 2-cell rule where only sites …

Predicting Flavonoid Ugt Regioselectivity With Graphical Residue Models And Machine Learning., Arthur Rhydon Jackson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Machine learning is applied to a challenging and biologically significant protein classification problem: the prediction of flavonoid UGT acceptor regioselectivity from primary protein sequence. Novel indices characterizing graphical models of protein residues are introduced. The indices are compared with existing amino acid indices and found to cluster residues appropriately. A variety of models employing the indices are then investigated by examining their performance when analyzed using nearest neighbor, support vector machine, and Bayesian neural network classifiers. Improvements over nearest neighbor classifications relying on standard alignment similarity scores are reported.

A Computational Chemistry Study Of Spin Traps., Jacob Fosso-Tande

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many defects in physiological processes are due to free radical damage: reactive oxygen species, nitric oxide, and hydroxyl radicals have been implicated in the parthenogenesis of cancer, diabetes mellitus, and rheumatoid arthritis. We herein characterize the phenyl-N-ter-butyl nitrone (PBN) type spin traps in conjunction with the most studied dimethyl-1-pyrroline-N-oxide (DMPO) type spin traps using the hydroxyl radical. In this study, theoretical calculations are carried out on the two main types of spin traps (DMPO and PBN) at the density functional theory level (DFT). The energies of the optimized structures, hyperfine calculations in gaseous and aqueous phases of the spin traps …

Strategies For Encoding Xml Documents In Relational Databases: Comparisons And Contrasts., Jonathan Lee Leonard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rise of XML as a de facto standard for document and data exchange has created a need to store and query XML documents in relational databases, today's de facto standard for data storage. Two common strategies for storing XML documents in relational databases, a process known as document shredding, are Interval encoding and ORDPATH Encoding. Interval encoding, which uses a fixed mapping for shredding XML documents, tends to favor selection queries, at a potential cost of O(N) for supporting insertion queries. ORDPATH Encoding, which uses a looser mapping for shredding XML, supports fixed-cost insertions, at a potential cost of …

Monitoring Pc Hardware Sounds In Linux Systems Using The Daubechies D4 Wavelet., Robert Karns Henry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Users of high availability (HA) computing require systems that run continuously, with little or no downtime. Modern PCs address HA needs by monitoring operating system parameters such as voltage, temperature, and hard drive status in order to anticipate possible system failure. However, one modality for PC monitoring that has been underutilized is sound. The application described here uses wavelet theory to analyze sounds produced by PC hard drives during standard operation. When twenty-nine hard drives were tested with the application and the results compared with the drives' Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) data, the binomial distribution's low p-value of …

The Challenges Of Network Security Remediation At A Regional University., William R. Simons

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes challenges encountered during a year-long effort to improve the security of the 3,300 node administrative computer network at East Tennessee State University. The key remediation strategies used included employing the vulnerability scanner Nessus to profile the network, analyzing the scan results, and attempting to remove the most critical vulnerabilities found. The project succeeded in decreasing known “high” criticality vulnerabilities on campus by 26.1%, and confirmed four standard observations about the challenges of network administration:

• Vulnerability scanning is a lengthy task best performed in parallel and supported by automated data analysis.
• Securing a network is like trying to …

Extending The Abstract Data Model., Matthew Bryston Winegar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Abstract Data Model (ADM) was developed by Sanderson [19] to model and predict semantic loss in data translation between computer languages. In this work, the ADM was applied to eight languages that were not considered as part of the original work. Some of the languages were found to support semantic features, such as the restriction semantics for inheritance found in languages like XML Schemas and Java, which could not be represented in the ADM. A proposal was made to extend the ADM to support these semantic features, and the requirements and implications of implementing that proposal were considered.

Requirement Elicitation Of Large Web Projects., David E. Frazier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most important aspects of developing a large Web-based project is getting the correct requirements from the client. Time and money can be lost if the requirements are incomplete or inaccurate. Traditional Web design sources tend to gloss over this important activity.

Software engineering is a mature field that can help in the quest for more complete and accurate requirement gathering. This paper explores the ways that traditional software engineering techniques can be applied to Web projects. A methodology is presented based on both existing and new techniques. Several experiments are conducted to determine the usefulness of each …

A Vulnerability Assessment Of The East Tennessee State University Administrative Computer Network., James Patrick Ashe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A three phase audit of East Tennessee State University's administrative computer network was conducted during Fall 2001, Spring 2002, and January 2004. Nmap and Nessus were used to collect the vulnerability data. Analysis discovered an average of 3.065 critical vulnerabilities per host with a low of 2.377 in Spring 2001 to a high of 3.694 in Fall 2001. The number of unpatched Windows operating system vulnerabilities, which accounted for over 75% of these critical vulnerabilities, strongly argues for the need of an automated patch deployment system for the approximately 3,000 Windows-based systems at ETSU.

Interworking Methodologies For Dcom And Corba., Edwin Kraus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The DCOM and CORBA standards provide location-transparent access to network-resident software through language independent object interfaces. Although the two standards address similar problems, they do so in incompatible ways: DCOM clients cannot use CORBA objects, and CORBA clients cannot utilize DCOM objects, due to incompatible object system infrastructures.

This thesis investigates the performance of bridging tools to resolve the incompatibilities between DCOM and CORBA, in ways that allow clients to cross object system boundaries. Two kinds of tools were constructed and studied: tools that bind clients to services at compile time, and tools that support dynamic client-server bindings. Data developed …

Towards A Taxonomy Of Aspect-Oriented Programming., Mario Bernard Hankerson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As programs continue to increase in size, it has become increasingly difficult to separate concerns into well localized modules, which leads to code tangling- crosscutting code spread throughout several modules. Thus, Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) offers a solution to creating modules with little or no crosscutting concerns. AOP presents the notion of aspects, and demonstrates how crosscutting concerns can be taken out of modules and placed into a centralized location.

In this paper, a taxonomy of aspect-oriented programming, as well as a basic overview and introduction of AOP, will be presented in order to assist future researchers in getting started on …

Application Adaptive Bandwidth Management Using Real-Time Network Monitoring., Amit Grover

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Application adaptive bandwidth management is a strategy for ensuring secure and reliable network operation in the presence of undesirable applications competing for a network’s crucial bandwidth, covert channels of communication via non-standard traffic on well-known ports, and coordinated Denial of Service attacks. The study undertaken here explored the classification, analysis and management of the network traffic on the basis of ports and protocols used, type of applications, traffic direction and flow rates on the East Tennessee State University’s campus-wide network. Bandwidth measurements over a nine-month period indicated bandwidth abuse of less than 0.0001% of total network bandwidth. The conclusion suggests …

Categorizing Non-Functional Requirements Using A Hierarchy In Uml., James David Moody

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Non-functional requirements (NFRs) are a subset of requirements, the means by which software system developers and clients communicate about the functionality of the system to be built. This paper has three main parts: first, an overview of how non-functional requirements relate to software engineering is given, along with a survey of NFRs in the software engineering literature. Second, a collection of 161 NFRs is diagrammed using the Unified Modelling Language, forming a tool with which developers may more easily identify and write additional NFRs. Third, a lesson plan is presented, a learning module intended for an undergraduate software engineering curriculum. …

Factors In The Design And Development Of A Data Warehouse For Academic Data., Margaret C. Lester

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Data warehousing is a relatively new field in the realm of information technology, and current research centers primarily around data warehousing in business environments. As new as the field is in these environments, only recently have educational institutions begun to embark on data warehousing projects, and little research has been done regarding the special considerations and characteristics of academic data, and the complexity of analyzing such data. Educational institutions measure success very differently from business-oriented organizations, and the analyses that are meaningful in such environments pose very unique and intricate problems in data warehousing. This research describes the process of …

Extensions To Opengl For Cagd., Chunyan Ye

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many computer graphic API’s, including OpenGL, emphasize modeling with rectangular patches, which are especially useful in Computer Aided Geomeric Design (CAGD). However, not all shapes are rectangular; some are triangular or more complex. This paper extends the OpenGL library to support the modeling of triangular patches, Coons patches, and Box-splines patches. Compared with the triangular patch created from degenerate rectangular Bezier patch with the existing functions provided by OpenGL, the triangular Bezier patches can be used in certain design situations and allow designers to achieve high-quality results that are less CPU intense and require less storage space. The addition of …

Data Mining With Newton's Method., James Dale Cloyd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Capable and well-organized data mining algorithms are essential and fundamental to helpful, useful, and successful knowledge discovery in databases. We discuss several data mining algorithms including genetic algorithms (GAs). In addition, we propose a modified multivariate Newton's method (NM) approach to data mining of technical data. Several strategies are employed to stabilize Newton's method to pathological function behavior. NM is compared to GAs and to the simplex evolutionary operation algorithm (EVOP). We find that GAs, NM, and EVOP all perform efficiently for well-behaved global optimization functions with NM providing an exponential improvement in convergence rate. For local optimization problems, we …

Scalable And Reliable File Transfer For Clusters Using Multicast., Hardik Dikpal Shukla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A cluster is a group of computing resources that are connected by a single computer network and are managed as a single system. Clusters potentially have three key advantages over workstations operated in isolation—fault tolerance, load balancing and support for distributed computing.

Information sharing among the cluster’s resources affects all phases of cluster administration. The thesis describes a new tool for distributing files within clusters. This tool, the Scalable and Reliable File Transfer Tool (SRFTT), uses Forward Error Correction (FEC) and multiple multicast channels to achieve an efficient reliable file transfer, relative to heterogeneous clusters. SRFTT achieves scalability …

Integrated Software System For The Collection And Evaluation Of Wellness Information., Rebecca Elizabeth Sweeney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is an absence of a complete, easy to use, software system that can evaluate all areas of wellness. Although there are software programs and equipment available to examine certain aspects of wellness, they are incomplete. The solution to the difficulties of assessing wellness is the design and development of a software system that can be used to collect and evaluate wellness information. The system allows for complete reporting as it entails the six major components to wellness: demographics, body composition, lab work, nutritional intake, physical activity, and body measures. The system allows for ease of use by providing a …

Comparison Of Inheritance Evaluation Algorithms For Express Edition 3., Judy Dawn Greer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Information exchanged between computer applications is difficult, thus the need for data exchange standards. The ISO STEP project defines data exchange standards using the EXPRESS language, which supports inheritance. Currently there are two algorithms used to evaluate an inheritance hierarchy: the Test and Generate algorithms. In this thesis, enhancements are made to both algorithms to support the Total Over Constraint, which is proposed for the third edition of EXPRESS. A formal algorithm is derived for the Test algorithm. The two enhanced algorithms are compared and shown to be result equivalent. However, it is shown that the Test algorithm is the …

Image Compression By Wavelet Transform., Panrong Xiao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Digital images are widely used in computer applications. Uncompressed digital images require considerable storage capacity and transmission bandwidth. Efficient image compression solutions are becoming more critical with the recent growth of data intensive, multimedia-based web applications.

This thesis studies image compression with wavelet transforms. As a necessary background, the basic concepts of graphical image storage and currently used compression algorithms are discussed. The mathematical properties of several types of wavelets, including Haar, Daubechies, and biorthogonal spline wavelets are covered and the Enbedded Zerotree Wavelet (EZW) coding algorithm is introduced. The last part of the thesis analyzes the compression results to …

Using Software Engineering Metrics In Ap Modularization., Kwaku Owusu-Tieku

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Significant amount of work has been done in software engineering in terms of reuse. With the use of object-orientation and design patterns that support the development of reusable modules, it appears that the development and reuse of software modules in creating new systems is becoming more and more common. The software engineering world, however has taken reuse more seriously than database; more research and improvement in reuse has been made in software engineering than in database. This paper investigates how software engineering metrics can be applied in the development of reusable database modules. This research provides a model for predicting …