Digital Commons Network^™

Creating A Virtual Reality Experience In Service To A Non-Profit Agency, Frank Deese, Susan Lakin, Isabelle Anderson

Frameless

In the summer of 2018, RIT Professors Susan Lakin and Frank Deese discussed with the principal officers of the Society for the Protection and Care of Children (SPCC) in Rochester how the new technology of Virtual Reality might be used to not only impart information to viewers, but generate empathy for those receiving services from the organization as well as those performing those services. Their ultimate goal was to create an experience that could be viewed with VR headsets at fundraising events and on a website using low-cost Google Cardboard.

A Review Of Xr Classrooms In Institutions Of Higher Education, Brandon Patterson, Tallie Casucci

Frameless

This talk will review the literature and examine existing physical spaces using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), often referred together as extended reality (XR), to teach learners in an academic setting. Attendees will better understand best practices and ways of addressing potential challenges when designing a physical XR classroom space for higher education. A physical XR classroom provides institutions with a dedicated space for educational courses and workshops, which utilize XR for both one- off sessions and an entire semester (Pirker, Holly, and Gütl 2020). The talk will help answer the question, why a dedicated XR classroom?

Exploring The Psychological Consequences Of Distances In Virtual Reality, Gary D. Jacobs

Frameless

This presentation will examine common concepts of traveling between formalized spaces inside virtual reality (VR) experiences.

The common method for traveling in virtual reality is to click on an area or trigger and be transported to that location. These “teleportations”, however, remove the notion of distances from our virtual worlds. This is akin to a magic wand that eliminates the consequences of travel in VR. Often heralded as a boon for the virtual worlds we can create, wherein we can travel to far away lands without lag in time and without effort on the part of the participant. We posit …

Vr Sound Mapping: Make Sound Accessible For Dhh People In Virtual Reality Environments, Ziming Li, Roshan Peiris

Frameless

In-game audio plays an important role in enhancing the sense of reality and immersion in the gaming experience. In many games, sounds are also used to provide notifications and clues which are essential to the gameplay. However, in this case, the DHH (deaf and hard of hearing) players may fail to access the information conveyed by sounds, which degrades their gaming experience (Jain et al. 2021).

Point And Listen: Bringing A 3d Map To Life With Audio-Based Ar, James M. Coughlan, Brandon Biggs, Huiying Shen

Frameless

We describe an inexpensive and versatile approach that uses audio-based AR to turn a standard 3D map, such as a relief map or 3D printed map, into an interactive one. Audio-based AR enables the creation of audio labels: when the user points at a specific location on the map, information about it is read aloud. In our application, which is a 3D map of a playground, such information might include the name and description of a play structure on the map.

Virtual Visits To Places Of Pain: The Digital Kormantin Project, Michael J. Jarvis

Frameless

No abstract provided.

A Real-Time Gaze Estimation Framework For Mobile Devices, Yu Feng, Nathan Goulding-Hotta, Asif Khan, Hans Reyserhove, Yuhao Zhu

Frameless

Tracking eyes becomes an important component to unleash new ways of human-machine interactions in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR). To make the eye tracking system responsible, eye tracking systems need to operate at a real-time rate (> 30Hz). However, from our experiments, modern gaze tracking algorithms operate at most 5 Hz on mobile processors. In this talk, we present a real-time eye tracking algorithm that operates at 30 Hz on a mobile processor. Our algorithm achieves sub-0.5° gaze accuracy, while requiring only 30K parameters, which is one to two orders of magnitude smaller than state-of-the-art algorithms.

Extended Reality And The Graphic Design Curriculum, Tina Korani, Meghan Saas, Samantha Tan

Frameless

As we rapidly move toward a fully virtual world, commercial industries and organizations are becoming increasingly competitive with their communications strategies so that they can continue to attract audiences’ attention and break through industry noise. As a result, the notion of “immersive experiences” is becoming more popular. XR technology is at the forefront of delivering unique, immersive and interactive experiences — and it has seen significant growth in recent years across all commercial industries and is poised to continue that trend.

A Depth-Based Computer Vision Approach To Unmanned Aircraft System Landing With Optimal Positioning, Nicholas Quattrociocchi

Theses

High traffic congestion in cities can lead to difficulties in delivering appropriate aid to people in need of emergency services. Developing an autonomous aerial medical evacuation system with the required size to facilitate the need can allow for the mitigation of the constraint. The aerial system must be capable of vertical takeoff and landing to reach highly conjected areas and areas where traditional aircraft cannot access. In general, the most challenging limitation within any proposed solution is the landing sequence. There have been several techniques developed over the years to land aircraft autonomously; however, very little attention has been scoped …

From The Editors..., Todd Pagano

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

Machine Learning Based Characterization Of Preictal Eeg, Andrew C. Allard

Theses

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) that incorporate Long Short-term Memory (LSTM) have shown a great deal of success in recognizing preictal activity in electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis. It is postulated that the convolutional portion of the neural network (NN) is using some particular feature or set of features to determine this preictal state. In an attempt to gain a better understanding of these features, Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) and augmented Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (augmented Grad-CAM) are applied to the convolutional portion of patient specific neural networks trained to recognize preictal activity. While no particular set of features were consistently highlighted …

Deep Into The Eyes: Applying Machine Learning To Improve Eye-Tracking, Aayush Kumar Chaudhary

Theses

Eye-tracking has been an active research area with applications in personal and behav- ioral studies, medical diagnosis, virtual reality, and mixed reality applications. Improving the robustness, generalizability, accuracy, and precision of eye-trackers while maintaining privacy is crucial. Unfortunately, many existing low-cost portable commercial eye trackers suffer from signal artifacts and a low signal-to-noise ratio. These trackers are highly depen- dent on low-level features such as pupil edges or diffused bright spots in order to precisely localize the pupil and corneal reflection. As a result, they are not reliable for studying eye movements that require high precision, such as microsaccades, smooth …

Modeling Users Feedback Using Bayesian Methods For Data-Driven Requirements Engineering, Moayad M. Alshangiti

Theses

Data-driven requirements engineering represents a vision for a shift from the static traditional methods of doing requirements engineering to dynamic data-driven user-centered methods. App developers now receive abundant user feedback from user comments in app stores and social media, i.e., explicit feedback, to feedback from usage data and system logs, i.e, implicit feedback. In this dissertation, we describe two novel Bayesian approaches that utilize the available user's to support requirements decisions and activities in the context of applications delivered through software marketplaces (web and mobile). In the first part, we propose to exploit implicit user feedback in the form of …

Pt Symmetry, Induced Mechanical Lasing, And Tunable Force Sensing In A Coupled-Mode Optically Levitated Nanoparticle, Sandeep Sharma, A. Kani, Mishkatul Bhattacharya

Articles

We theoretically investigate PT symmetry, induced mechanical lasing, and force sensing in an optically levitated nanoparticle with coupled oscillation modes. The coupling in the levitated system is created by the modulation of an asymmetric optical potential in the plane transverse to the beam trapping the nanoparticle. We show that such a coupling can lead to PT -symmetric mechanical behavior for experimentally realistic parameters. Further, by examining the phonon dynamics and the second-order coherence of the nanoparticle modes, we determine that induced mechanical lasing is also possible. Finally, we demonstrate that tunable ultrasensitive force sensing (∼zN/ √H z) can be engineered …

Pt Symmetry, Induced Mechanical Lasing, And Tunable Force Sensing In A Coupled-Mode Optically Levitated Nanoparticle, Sandeep Sharma, A. Kani, Mishkat Bhattacharya

Articles

We theoretically investigate PT symmetry, induced mechanical lasing, and force sensing in an optically levitated nanoparticle with coupled oscillation modes. The coupling in the levitated system is created by the modulation of an asymmetric optical potential in the plane transverse to the beam trapping the nanoparticle. We show that such a coupling can lead to PT-symmetric mechanical behavior for experimentally realistic parameters. Further, by examining the phonon dynamics and the second-order coherence of the nanoparticle modes, we determine that induced mechanical lasing is also possible. Finally, we demonstrate that tunable ultrasensitive force sensing (∼zN/√Hz) can be engineered in the system. …

Performance Evaluation Of Minimum Quantity Lubrication (Mql) When Machining High-Performance Materials, Shafahat Ali

Theses

The manufacturing sector is among the fastest-growing in today's industrialized world. Manufacturers are concerned about increasing their competitiveness and profitability. Increasing the efficiency and sustainability of manufacturing processes is one way to improve productivity and improve profit margins. Learning about cutting conditions and how they affect machined surfaces and tool life can help improve productivity. Nowadays, the goal is not just to increase productivity but also to make processes more environmentally friendly and cleaner. This research aims to analyze the machinability of difficult-to-cut magnesium alloys through different cooling and lubrication strategies and their impact on the environment. This study conducted …

Text Analysis Of Airline Tweets, Essa Altamimi

Theses

By acting as a succinct summary, keywords and key phrases can be a useful tool for swiftly assessing enormous amounts of textual material. A "keyword" is defined as a "word that briefly and accurately characterises the subject, or an aspect of the subject, presented in a text," according to the International Encyclopaedia of Information and Library Science (Bolger et al., 1989) (Feather et al., 1996). People are more likely to complain when they are anxious, according to research (Bolger et al., 1989)(Meier et al., 2013), and moods are affected by time (Ryan et al., 2010). Due to this study, airlines …

Living, Breathing Data: Sharing And Interpreting Green Infrastructure Data To Promote Behavioral Change, Nick Stanek

Theses

Green infrastructure is a sustainable and climate resilient approach to urbanization that reduces the impact that we as humans have on our environment. Traditional impermeable infrastructure causes excessive stormwater runoff, which disrupts the nutrient balance and water properties of the surrounding watershed. Green infrastructure installments such as porous pavement, rain barrels, and green roofs provide various ecosystem services, and restore urban water quality. As communities shift to being more climate resilient, the responsibility to develop green infrastructure rests on individuals as well as institutions. The Rochester Museum & Science Center in Rochester, New York, has constructed a Green Infrastructure Showcase …

Unveiling Buried Agn In Oh Megamaser Galaxies, Liza Maria Matrecito Salcedo

Theses

Ultra-luminous/Luminous Infrared Galaxies, (U)LIRGS, dominate the bright end of the galaxy luminosity function in the nearby universe. They are preferentially found in gas-rich mergers and are known for hosting starbursts (SBs) and active galactic nuclei (AGN), frequently in the same system. Approximately 20\% of (U)LIRGS contain highly luminous hydroxyl masers (OHMs). This OHM emission can be used to trace galaxy merger rates and associated processes of the system. OHMs are produced by the amplification of a background radio continuum source and require high column densities of molecular gas and a source of IR pumping radiation. Both SBs and AGN contain …

Single-Input Signature Register-Based Time Delay Reservoir, David Pastuch

Theses

Machine learning continues to play a critical role in our society. The ability to automatically identify intricate relationships in large volumes of data has proven incredibly useful for problems such as automatic speech recognition and image processing. In particular, neural networks have become increasingly popular in a wide set of application domains, given their ability to solve complex problems and process high-dimensional data. However, the impressive performance of state-of-the-art neural networks comes at the cost of large area and power consumption for the computation resources used in training and inference. As a result, a growing area of research concerns hardware …

Robust L1-Norm Singular-Value Decomposition And Estimation, Duc H. Le

Theses

Singular-Value Decomposition (SVD) is a ubiquitous data analysis method in engineering, science, and statistics. Singular-value estimation, in particular, is of critical importance in an array of engineering applications, such as channel estimation in communication systems, EMG signal analysis, and image compression, to name just a few. Conventional SVD of a data matrix coincides with standard Principal-Component Analysis (PCA). The L2-norm (sum of squared values) formulation of PCA promotes peripheral data points and, thus, makes PCA sensitive against outliers. Naturally, SVD inherits this outlier sensitivity. In this work, we present a novel robust method for SVD based on a L1-norm (sum …

Impact Of Noise In Automatic Speech Recognition For Low-Resourced Languages, Vigneshwar Lakshminarayanan

Theses

The usage of deep learning algorithms has resulted in significant progress in auto- matic speech recognition (ASR). The ASR models may require over a thousand hours of speech data to accurately recognize the speech. There have been case studies that have indicated that there are certain factors like noise, acoustic distorting conditions, and voice quality that has affected the performance of speech recognition. In this research, we investigate the impact of noise on Automatic Speech Recognition and explore novel methods for developing noise-robust ASR models using the Tamil lan- guage dataset with limited resources. We are using the speech dataset …

Semi-Supervised Video And Image In-Painting, Rajiv Mandya Nagaraju

Theses

Human brain is inherently good at pattern recognition. AI researchers have always struggled to emulate such levels of performance in machine vision algorithms. Building as an extension of the pattern recognition, humans are also exceptional in selectively learning and bridging the gap when there is missing data. Even when the missing data is in complex images and videos formats. Human brain is able to surmise and comprehend the scene with reasonable certainty given enough contextual information. We believe that selective learning aids in selectively filling the missing data. To this end we experiment with partial convolutions, and the networks can …

Air-Deflected Microfluidic Chip For Characterization Of Fluid-Structure Interactions, Chad Ten Pas

Theses

Millions of people suffer from dentinal pain each year caused by a pressure change and fluid shear in the dentin tubule and nerve pulp system. Dentin is made up of mostly hydroxyapatite, a hard and opaque material. In-situ characterization is extremely challenging because of the tubules that run through are high-aspect ratio micropores with a feature size of 1-2 µm. Current studies have proven that various methods can be deployed to fabricate microscale geometry using PDMS. The most used methods are three-dimensional stereolithography, fused deposited material (FDM), 3D printed sacrificial mold, FDM 3D printed molds and soft lithography molding from …

Deep Feature Learning And Adaptation For Computer Vision, Abu Md Niamul Taufique

Theses

We are living in times when a revolution of deep learning is taking place. In general, deep learning models have a backbone that extracts features from the input data followed by task-specific layers, e.g. for classification. This dissertation proposes various deep feature extraction and adaptation methods to improve task-specific learning, such as visual re-identification, tracking, and domain adaptation. The vehicle re-identification (VRID) task requires identifying a given vehicle among a set of vehicles under variations in viewpoint, illumination, partial occlusion, and background clutter. We propose a novel local graph aggregation module for feature extraction to improve VRID performance. We also …

Learning Multi-Step Robotic Manipulation Tasks Through Visual Planning, Sulabh Kumra

Theses

Multi-step manipulation tasks in unstructured environments are extremely challenging for a robot to learn. Such tasks interlace high-level reasoning that consists of the expected states that can be attained to achieve an overall task and low-level reasoning that decides what actions will yield these states. A model-free deep reinforcement learning method is proposed to learn multi-step manipulation tasks. This work introduces a novel Generative Residual Convolutional Neural Network (GR-ConvNet) model that can generate robust antipodal grasps from n-channel image input at real-time speeds (20ms). The proposed model architecture achieved a state-of-the-art accuracy on three standard grasping datasets. The adaptability of …

Numerical And Experimental Investigation Of Aerosol Jet Printing, Srikanthan Ramesh

Theses

Bacterial contamination of medical devices remains a threat to the success of many medical interventions. Oral administration of antibiotics is a convenient, non-invasive way to treat infections. Most orally administered drugs, however, encounter biochemical and biological barriers that reduce their bioavailability at the target site. Therefore, prophylactic physico- chemical changes of biomaterial surfaces are considered alternatives to inhibit bacterial aggregation and subsequent biofilm formation. Millions of years of evolution have enabled nature to develop micro-topographical surface features specifically designed to avoid bacterial attachment and colonization. Examples of such topographies can be seen on insect cuticles, plant leaves, and the feet …

Effects Of Dc Electric Field On Particle Transportation And Deposition In Evaporating Droplets, Akshay Pratap Singh

Theses

Microfluidics(uF) is the science of manipulating and controlling the fluids usually in the range of microliters (10-6L) to picolitres (10-12L). Physical parameters, such as surface tension and contact angle do not play a significant effect on macro scale but play a crucial role at the microscopic level. Microfluidics is viewed as an essential tool for life science research and flexible electronics. A deeper understanding of physical parameters of microfluidics would result in more efficient and lower cost devices (‘Lab-on-a-Chip’ devices) and foldable electronics. In short, the concepts of microfluidics can be used to reduce the cost, size, and ease of …

Chromium Modified Crystallization Of Silicon Thin Films Crystallized By Flash Lamp Annealing, Matthew Hum

Theses

Flash lamp annealing (FLA) is a method of quickly crystallizing large areas of amorphous silicon, which is a promising alternative to existing low-throughput laser annealing in the fabrication of low temperature polycrystalline silicon for thin film transistors in display applications [1]. However, FLA tends to promote dewetting of silicon and randomized void formation during melt-phase crystallization [2]. Chromium underlayers have been successfully used [3] to promote silicon adhesion in thicker films, but there are many potential interactions between Cr and Si, such as the formation of silicides and generation of electrical trap states, that may inhibit future transistor performance. The …

Vacuum Uv (Vuv) Photo-Oxidation Of Polyethersulfone (Pes), Sarah Oakes, Ryan Keeley, Hunter Heineman, Tom Allston, Joel Shertok, Michael Mehan, Gregory K. Thompson, Gerald A. Takacs

Articles

International need for water quality is placing a high demand on separation technology to develop advanced oxidative processes for polyethersulfone (PES) membranes to help improve water purification. Therefore, VUV photo-oxidation with a low pressure Ar plasma was studied to improve the hydrophilicity of PES by flowing oxygen over the surface during treatment. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) detected a decrease in the C at% (4.4 ± 1.7 at%), increase in O at% (3.7 ± 1.0 at%), and a constant S at% (5.4 ± 0.2 at%). Curve fitting of the XPS spectra showed a decrease in sp2 C-C aromatic group bonding, and …