Digital Commons Network^™

Pivot Points In Bivariate Linear Regression, David L. Farnsworth, Carl V. Lutzer

Articles

There are little-noticed points in the plane, which are artifacts of linear regression. The points, which are called pivot points, are the intersections of sets of regression lines. We derive the coordinates of the pivot point and explain its sources. We show how a pivot point arises in a certain notable data set, which has been analyzed often for points of high leverage. We obtain the application of pivot points that shortens calculations when updating a set of bivariate observations by adding a new point.

A Geometric Approach To Conditioning And The Search For Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimators, David L. Farnsworth, James E. Marengo

Articles

Our purpose is twofold: to present a prototypical example of the conditioning technique to obtain the best estimator of a parameter and to show that this technique resides in the structure of an inner product space. The technique uses conditioning of an unbiased estimator on a sufficient statistic. This procedure is founded upon the conditional variance formula, which leads to an inner product space and a geometric interpretation. The example clearly illustrates the dependence on the sampling methodology. These advantages show the power and centrality of this process.

Securing In-Memory Processors Against Row Hammering Attacks, Sahil K. Gogna

Theses

Modern applications on general purpose processors require both rapid and power-efficient computing and memory components. As applications continue to improve, the demand for high speed computation, fast-access memory, and a secure platform increases. Traditional Von Neumann Architectures split the computing and memory units, causing both latency and high power-consumption issues; henceforth, a hybrid memory processing system is proposed, known as in-memory processing. In-memory processing alleviates the delay of computation and minimizes power-consumption; such improvements saw a 14x speedup improvement, 87\% fewer power consumption, and appropriate linear scalability versus performance. Several applications of in-memory processing include data-driven applications such as Artificial …

The State Of Practice For Security Unit Testing: Towards Data Driven Strategies To Shift Security Into Developer's Automated Testing Workflows, Danielle Nicole Gonzalez

Theses

The pressing need to “shift security left” in the software development lifecycle has motivated efforts to adapt the iterative and continuous process models used in practice today. Security unit testing is praised by practitioners and recommended by expert groups, usually in the context of DevSecOps and achieving “continuous security”. In addition to vulnerability testing and standards adherence, this technique can help developers verify that security controls are implemented correctly, i.e. functional security testing. Further, the means by which security unit testing can be integrated into developer workflows is unique from other standalone tools as it is an adaptation of practices …

Experimental Analysis Of Using Radar As An Extrinsic Sensor For Human-Robot Collaboration, Shravan Bhoopasamudram Krishna

Theses

Collaborative robots are expected to be an integral part of driving the fourth industrial revolution that is soon expected to happen. In human-robot collaboration, the robot and a human share a common workspace and work on a common task. Here the safety of a human working with the robot is of utmost importance. A collaborative robot usually consists of various sensors to ensure the safety of a human working with the robot. This research mainly focuses on establishing a safe environment for a human working alongside a robot by mounting an FMCW radar as an extrinsic sensor, through which the …

Understanding And Identifying Vulnerabilities Related To Architectural Security Tactics, Joanna Cecilia Da Silva Santos

Theses

To engineer secure software systems, software architects elicit the system's security requirements to adopt suitable architectural solutions. They often make use of architectural security tactics when designing the system's security architecture. Security tactics are reusable solutions to detect, resist, recover from, and react to attacks. Since security tactics are the building blocks of a security architecture, flaws in the adoption of these tactics, their incorrect implementation, or their deterioration during software maintenance activities can lead to vulnerabilities, which we refer to as "tactical vulnerabilities". Although security tactics and their correct adoption/implementation are crucial elements to achieve security, prior works have …

Optimization Of Standard Buildings, Ahmed Alkaabi, Saleh Albreiki, Sultan Alawadhi, Yahya Alzarooni

Theses

Different utility sectors in the GCC prefer to adhere to a strict structural structure in order to make their offerings more efficient and satisfy specific customer needs. These layouts often include at least a few facilities, including the facility's security office, fire pump system and operation specifications, and the main facility support house. The challenges in designing these facility structural layouts appear to result in enormous expense requirements, which will be discussed in this article. Multiple buildings on a single plot result in multiple distinct "rafts," each with its own set of access conditions. Getting multiple foundations/buildings, on the other …

Limitations Of Artificial Intelligence, Sahar Sultan

Theses

Artificial Intelligence is a groundbreaking technology that is now an established field. It is being used to mimic human capabilities such as speaking, listening, learning, and planning by using different algorithms to process data and produce results depending on the information provided by the user. Artificial Intelligence has been used in several industries when it comes to data processing and decision making. Artificial Intelligence has been invented to help decision and solutionmaking processes using a problem-solving approach. The development of Artificial Intelligence software provides efficiency and acceleration on different kinds of workflows, which will help organizations increase their profit and …

Centering Black Trans Lives: Social Network Exploration Of #Blacktranslivesmatter Content On Twitter, Jordan Brooks

Theses

May 27, 2020 saw the fatal shooting of Tony McDade, a Black transgender man. McDade is one of many lives underlying the Black Lives Matter movement which, in 2020, became the largest movement in United States’ history. Although the Black Lives Matter movement has successfully brought the reality of systemic racism in the United States to the forefront of media, there remains a lack of visibility for and conversation surrounding the most vulnerable members: the Black transgender community. Through an intersectional lens, this thesis broadly examines the sentiment surrounding tweets utilizing the #blacktranslivesmatter hashtag, and how the intersection of race …

Cost Saving Proposal For Dubai Main Wastewater Pumping Stations, Mohammad Mansoor, Khaled Alhosani

Theses

A city that is free of hazardous chemical and pollution is a city with safe and healthy population. Keeping a city such as Dubai safe and healthy is a never ending task with too many stakeholders and too many variables. Examples are reducing carbon footprint, timely trash disposal, wastewater management, and the list goes on. Wastewater management is one of the most important and essential requirement for keeping the city and its people safe and healthy. There is an existing sewerage system that the emirate of Dubai continues to heavily rely on. The network includes the pipelines, the wastewater pump …

Intelligent Statcom Voltage Regulation Using Fuzzy Logic Control, Saleh Hussein

Theses

Reactive power compensation is a very important and challenging task in electrical power systems today. Future trends foreseen in power systems such as high interconnectivity and the integration of renewable energy resources produce even more issues related to power system control and stability. Flexible AC transmission systems are vastly used in power systems in order to mitigate several performance aspects found in typical power systems. One shunt connected device in particular, STATCOM, is very powerful and commonly used in voltage regulation at the power transmission level. STATCOM uses voltage sourced converters to inject or absorb reactive power from the power …

Demonstration Of Automated Dna Assembly On A Digital Microfluidic Device, Hee Tae An

Theses

The rapid manufacturing of highly accurate synthetic DNA is crucial for its use as a molecular tool, the understanding and engineering of regulatory elements, protein engineering, genetic refactoring, engineered genetic networks and metabolic pathways, and whole-genome syntheses [1,2]. Recent efforts in the development of enzyme mediated oligonucleotide synthesis have shown much potential to benefit conventional DNA synthesis [3–5]. With its success in applications as chemical microreactors [6–10], biological assays [8–14], and clinical diagnostic tools [10,15–19], digital microfluidic (DMF) devices are an attractive platform to apply the promising benefits of enzymatic oligonucleotide synthesis to the manufacturing of synthetic DNA. This thesis …

Settling For Efficiency: Power And The People Left In Its Wake, Theodore D. Forsyth

Theses

This study examines claims data, prepared by an insurance carrier and obtained through an open records request, of police-involved incidents in Rochester, New York from 2001-2012. The dataset includes information about the incidents and financial outcomes accepted by claimants. Eighteen independent variables are broken up into three categories: claimant characteristics, claim characteristics, and situational characteristics. The research question guiding this study is: What, if any, claimant, claim, or situational characteristics impact final settlement amounts for claims stemming from police-involved incidents? Four theories are utilized to explain the phenomenon examined in this study: social capital, power differentials using Donald Black’s behavior …

Robust Multiple Object Tracking Using Reid Features And Graph Convolutional Networks, Christian Lusardi

Theses

Deep Learning allows for great advancements in computer vision research and development. An area that is garnering attention is single object tracking and multi-object tracking. Object tracking continues to progress vastly in terms of detection and building re-identification features, but more effort needs to be dedicated to data association. In this thesis, the goal is to use a graph neural network to combine the information from both the bounding box interaction as well as the appearance feature information in a single association chain. This work is designed to explore the usage of graph neural networks and their message passing abilities …

Development Of A Monolithically Integrated Gan Nanowire Memory Device, Vijay Gopal Thirupakuzi Vangipuram

Theses

Gallium nitride (GaN) devices are of particular interest for a variety of fields and application spaces. The materials properties of GaN make it an ideal semiconductor for electronics and optoelectronics. Within electronics, GaN is of great interest for high-power and high-frequency electronics. Within optoelectronics, GaN has enabled efficient lighting and continues to be scaled for augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) application spaces through the realization of micro-LEDs. In scaling such devices for incorporation into larger systems that span multiple fields, monolithically integrating other devices and components would provide greater flexibility and improve system-level performance. One such avenue for explored …

A Mobile App That Helps Asthmatic Patients Monitor Air Quality In Real Time, Jiani Su

Theses

Asthma is a chronic disease that cannot be cured. Every attack of asthma is a physical and mental destruction to patients, bringing pain and economic burden to patients, and seriously affecting the quality of life and happiness index of patients. But the vast majority of asthma cases can be completely controlled with appropriate treatment and intervention. Investigations at home and abroad have found that the self-health management level of asthma patients is still at a relatively low level, and more than half of asthma patients are in a state of out-of-control.

Currently, there is no online software that can effectively …

Facilitating Serendipitous Communication, Interaction And Collaborative Flow In Mixed Realities While Working Remote., George Deacon Theodore Harvey

Theses

Working remotely can often lead to fatigue and stress which in turn reduces productivity. The author will explore the concept that with proper communication, environments that promote serendipitous meeting and effective collaboration, can result in happier workers. The author will also explore how speculative design can improve remote work and provide vision for future work scenarios. This concept will focus on the development of interaction design for use with mixed realities, 3D capture systems and mid-air haptic technology to create a seamless and engaging remote working environment.

This paper will show how work culture and communication can affect mental health …

A Comprehensive Feasibility Study For A Wooden Plastic Composite Project, Rami Kamal Ibrahim Elgharouri

Theses

Millions of tons of wastage are produced every year ending up in landfills or burn and causing an environmental problem as they threaten the health of creatures and cause resources depletion. 44% of wastage is organic waste, which is biodegradable. However, 17% and 12% of wastage are paper and plastic respectively, and both are non-degradable. Thus, the comprehensive solution is to recycle them. A suggested solution is to recycle them into wood plastic composite. Up to 90% of WPC raw material is a recycled material, and the final product is 100% recyclable. WPC is comparatively less energy-consuming than other substitute …

Human Augmentation: A System Engineering Conceptual Framework, Hazel Colleen R. Gamboa

Theses

In today’s literature, there is not one clear definition for ‘Human Augmentation’ and quite often, it is used interchangeably with the term ‘Human Enhancement’. Human enhancement is a field that has relatively more research and has a broader definition that encompasses both invasive and non-invasive procedures aimed at restoring or enhancing the capabilities of the human body. Medicine, implants, genetic engineering – there are some examples of procedures attributed to human enhancement. On the other hand, the word ‘augment’ is defined as the addition or making something better; this research will focus and narrow down the definition of Human Augmentation …

Oit: A Ux Design Project For Better Decision Making In Generative Design, Yunsheng Zhou

Theses

New technology, such as AI and Machine learning, grows fast and plays a crucial role in improving efficiency and reducing the repeated working load in our daily lives. In the Architecture and Engineering area, AI is widely used in generative design. Generative design is a design exploration process. The software explores all the possible permutations of a solution, quickly generating design alternatives. However, the problem is that the intelligence systems can generate thousands of solutions that difficult for users to distill. This situation even reduces the efficiency of the working flow. The project's approach is to help users make better …

Augmented Reality Application ‘Finder’, Yiran Li

Theses

Children are always curious and excited about the world, but there are often accidents around them. According to some previous studies, each year in the United States, more than 2,200 children – or six kids a day – die from an injury at home. To deal with this situation, parents usually set simple life safety rules for their children and be consistent about enforcing them in a reasonable manner. At the same time, they try to reduce the possibility of psychological harm to children when correcting errors. As a result, parents desperately need a way to watch and improve their …

Data Analytics Methods In Preventing Smuggling Drugs, Hessa Abdulla Almarri

Theses

For the final requirements of (MS) of Data Analytics, we have to work on a capstone project as a graduate student. In the capstone project, we have to implement the data mining techniques we have learned during the program. This capstone project focuses on illicit drugs smuggling, where drugs have a massive negative effect on the countries and individuals. Data mining techniques have been applied to the drug smuggling dataset that has been captured worldwide. The data mining approach used in this capstone project is an unsupervised approach focusing on clustering. Three types of clustering models have been used: k-means, …

Business Data Analytics Dashboard Development For Performance Improvement Of Uae Government Service Centers, Laith Iyad Alawaysheh

Theses

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, The Vice President of UAE, The Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, once said that “Focusing on the happiness of various customers and enabling them to achieve an outstanding service experience, is a fundamental pillar for government development” and this quote was one of the main triggers for this project, which has a clear purpose to “enhance and improve the customer experience (CX) and service centers performance by implementing data analytics concept along with forecasting future demand of customers and benefit from it in the capacity planning of service centers’ resources”. Through …

Translating Macroscale Concepts To Microfluidic Devices, Nicole Hill

Theses

Electrokinetics represents an extremely versatile family of techniques that can be used to manipulate particles and fluid in microfluidic devices. This dissertation focused on taking techniques commonly used on a macroscale and developing microscale equivalents utilizing electrokinetics to effectively manipulate and separate microparticles. This analysis focuses on chromatography and separation trains as macroscale techniques translated to microfluidic insulator-based electrokinetic devices. The geometries of insulating post arrays embedded in microchannels were optimized using a combination of mathematical simulations and experimentally derived correction factors. Two particle separations were experimentally demonstrated: a separation based on differences in particle size and a separation based …

Quantifying The Risk Of Hospital Readmissions: A Data Analysis And Predictive Modeling Approach, Jigar Adhiya

Theses

Despite several improvements in various domains of healthcare systems, the inability to reduce patients’ readmission rates is still a major problem faced by healthcare providers. It is extremely important to reduce the probability of readmissions because these not only increase the burden of healthcare costs on the patient but also expose them to prolonged psychological stress (e.g., trauma, pain, and discomfort due to altered physical functions) and healthcare-associated infections. Readmissions basically lead to the use of healthcare resources by the same person twice instead of being utilized by another patient. Furthermore, the readmission rate is used as a potential measure …

Automation And Advancement Of Non-Invasive Continuous Blood Glucose Measurements, Andrew Devries

Theses

Researching the RF application of noninvasive continuous, real time, blood glucose monitoring has been a persistent topic of interest for the research group at the electromagnetic theory and application (ETA) lab at RIT. The technique is based on the effects of glucose on the dielectric properties of blood. When the dielectric permittivity of the tissue changes due to glucose, the resonant frequency and input impedance of an antenna sensor can be related to the change in glucose level, as shown in [1] and [2]. The feasibility of this technique has been demonstrated successfully with one diabetic and one non-diabetic patient …

Mining And Managing Big Data Refactoring For Design Improvement: Are We There Yet?, Eman Abdullah Alomar, Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer, Ali Ouni

Articles

Refactoring is a set of code changes applied to improve the internal structure of a program, without altering its external behavior. With the rise of continuous integration and the awareness of the necessity of managing technical debt, refactoring has become even more popular in recent software builds. Recent studies indicate that developers often perform refactorings. If we consider all refactorings performed across all projects, this consists of the refactoring knowledge that represents a rich source of information that can be useful for both developers and practitioners to better understand how refactoring is being applied in practice. However, mining, processing, and …

Refactoring Practices In The Context Of Modern Code Review: An Industrial Case Study At Xerox, Eman Abdullah Alomar, Hussein Alrubaye, Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer, Ali Ouni, Marouane Kessentini

Articles

Modern code review is a common and essential 2 practice employed in both industrial and open-source projects 3 to improve software quality, share knowledge, and ensure con4 formance with coding standards. During code review, developers 5 may inspect and discuss various changes including refactoring 6 activities before merging code changes in the code base. To date, 7 code review has been extensively studied to explore its general 8 challenges, best practices and outcomes, and socio-technical 9 aspects. However, little is known about how refactoring activities 10 are being reviewed, perceived, and practiced. 11 This study aims to reveal insights into …

Finding The Needle In A Haystack: On The Automatic Identification Of Accessibility User Reviews, Eman Abdullah Alomar, Wajdi Aljedaani, Murtaza Tamjeed, Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer, Yasime Elglaly

Articles

In recent years, mobile accessibility has become an important trend with the goal of allowing all users the possibility of using any app without many limitations. User reviews include insights that are useful for app evolution. However, with the increase in the amount of received reviews, manually analyzing them is tedious and time-consuming, especially when searching for accessibility reviews. The goal of this paper is to support the automated identification of accessibility in user reviews, to help technology professionals in prioritizing their handling, and thus, creating more inclusive apps. Particularly, we design a model that takes as input accessibility user …

Dc Microgrid Modeling And Control In Islanded Mode, Zeina Bahij

Theses

Microgrid is new emerging power distribution infrastructures, in smart grid architectures that has the potential to solve major problems arising from distributed generation. Microgrid is defined as the cluster of multiple distributed generators (DGs) that supply electrical energy to consumers with lower power loss. The realization of demand response, efficient energy management, high capability of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), and high-reliability of electricity delivery leads to a successful Microgrid. In this thesis, DC Microgrid in islanded mode was modelled and controlled and its performance is tested for 24 hours period. The different distributed energy generation systems used are photovoltaic (PV) …