Digital Commons Network^™

Mobitop: Accessing Hierarchically Organized Georeferenced Multimedia Annotations, Thi Nhu Quynh Kim, Khasfariyati Razikin, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Quang Minh Nguyen, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We introduce MobiTOP, a map-based interface for accessing hierarchically organized georeferenced annotations. Each annotation contains multimedia content associated with a location, and users are able to annotate existing annotations, in effect creating a hierarchy.

Simulation Of Nanostructured Electrodes For Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells, Sanjeev M. Rao, Yangchuan Xing

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with Pt uniformly deposited on them are being considered in fabricating the catalyst layer of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell electrodes. When coated with a proton conducting polymer (e.g., Nafion) on the Pt/CNTs, each Pt/CNT acts as a nanoelectrode and a collection of such nanoelectrodes constitutes the proposed nanostructured electrodes. Computer modeling was performed for the cathode side, in which both multicomponent and Knudsen diffusion were taken into account. the effect of the nanoelectrode lengths was also studied with catalyst layer thicknesses of 2, 4, 6, and 10 μm. It was observed that shorter lengths …

Pas: Predicate-Based Authentication Services Against Powerful Passive Adversaries, Sriram Chellappan, Xiaole Bai, Wenjun Gu, Xun Wang, Dong Xuan, Bin Ma

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Securely authenticating a human user without assistance from any auxiliary device in the presence of powerful passive adversaries is an important and challenging problem. Passive adversaries are those that can passively monitor, intercept, and analyze every part of the authentication procedure, except for an initial secret shared between the user and the server. In this paper, we propose a new secure authentication scheme called predicate-based authentication service (PAS). In this scheme, for the first time, the concept of a predicate is introduced for authentication. We conduct analysis on the proposed scheme and implement its prototype system. Our analytical data and …

Piles Under Earthquake Loads, Shamsher Prakash, Vijay K. Puri

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Piles are preferred type of foundation for supporting structures in seismic areas. their performance is affected by soil, pile and earthquake related parameters. in non-liquefying soils, the shear modulus may degrade, and material damping may increase with increasing strain/displacement. in liquefying soils, the lateral ground displacement may lead to increased lateral loads and moments on the pile leading to pile failure in bending. the loss of lateral support can also lead to buckling type failure. These issues for pile design in seismic areas are examined. © 2008 ASCE.

Neural-Network-Based State Feedback Control Of A Nonlinear Discrete-Time System In Nonstrict Feedback Form, Pingan He, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a suite of adaptive neural network (NN) controllers is designed to deliver a desired tracking performance for the control of an unknown, second-order, nonlinear discrete-time system expressed in nonstrict feedback form. In the first approach, two feedforward NNs are employed in the controller with tracking error as the feedback variable whereas in the adaptive critic NN architecture, three feedforward NNs are used. In the adaptive critic architecture, two action NNs produce virtual and actual control inputs, respectively, whereas the third critic NN approximates certain strategic utility function and its output is employed for tuning action NN weights …

Pmu Placement For Power System Observability Using Binary Particle Swarm Optimization, S. Chakrabarti, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, E. Kyriakides

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO) based methodology for the optimal placement of phasor measurement units (PMUs) for complete observability of a power system is presented in this paper. The objectives of the optimization problem are to minimize the total number of PMUs required, and to maximize the measurement redundancy at the power system buses. Simulation results on the IEEE 14-bus and 30-bus test systems are presented in this paper.

Liquefaction Behavior Of Mississippi River Silts, Ali M. Izadi, Ronaldo Luna, Richard Wesley Stephenson

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Civil Infrastructure Built on Alluviums and Recent Deposits, Such as Dams, Contain Significant Amount of Silts. the Static and Dynamic Behavior of These Fine-Grained Soils Has Been Investigated Less Than the Clay-Like or Sand-Like Soils. Low Plasticity Silts (PI = 6) Obtained East of St. Louis in Illinois Are Known as Loess that Has Been Re-Deposited by Water in the Floodplains of the Mississippi River. These Silts Were Reconstituted in the Laboratory by Slurry at Water Content above the Liquid Limit and Then Consolidated to an Initial Effective Stress. the Initial Laboratory Characterization under Monotonic Loading Included a Series of …

Link Rate Allocation Under Bandwidth And Energy Constraints In Sensor Networks, Maggie Cheng, Xuan Gong, Lin Cai

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

In sensor networks, both energy and band width are scarce resources. in the past, the energy efficient routing problem has been vastly studied in order to maximize network lifetime, but link bandwidth has been optimistically assumed to be abundant. as energy con straint affects how data should be routed, link bandwidth also affects not just the routing topology but also the allowed data rate on each link, which in turn affects lifetime. Previous works that focus on energy efficient operations in sensor networks with the sole objective of maximizing network lifetime only consider the energy constraint and ignore the bandwidth …

Energy Efficiency In Steel Casting Production, Raymond Monroe, Kent D. Peaslee, R. Eppich

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Antibacterial Coatings For Medical Devices Based On Glass Polyalkenoate Cement Chemistry, A. Coughlan, D. Boyd, C. W.I. Douglas, Mark R. Towler

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A biofilm is an accumulation of micro-organisms and their extracellular products forming a structured community on a surface. Biofilm formation on medical devices has severe health consequences as bacteria growing in this lifestyle are tolerant to both host defense mechanisms and antibiotic therapies. However, silver and zinc ions inhibit the attachment and proliferation of immature biofilms. The objective of this study is to evaluate whether it is possible to produce silver and zinc-containing glass polyalkenoate cement (GPC) coatings for medical devices that have antibacterial activity and which may therefore inhibit biofilm formation on a material surface. Two silver and zinc-containing …

The Wagner-Peyser Act And U.S. Employment Service: Seventy-Five Years Of Matching Job Seekers And Employers, Christopher J. O'Leary, Randall W. Eberts

Reports

This paper provides an overview of the public labor exchange system in the United States, how it came to be, and where it is going. The paper begins by offering a brief history of the development of the U.S. Employment Service, emphasizing the federal-state partnership that has evolved over time and highlighting the differing priorities Congress has placed on the services funded under Wagner-Peyser Act. It then examines the ways workers search for jobs and employers recruit employees. It also shows the role the ES plays in this job matching process. The complementarity between ES services and the broader workforce …

Improvements In Steel Melting Efficiency -- Industrial Trials, Kent D. Peaslee, Semen Naumovich Lekakh, Edith Martinez

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Industrial trials were completed to improve energy efficiency in steel melting. First, the benefits of increased chemical energy from an oxyfuel burner and a Co-Jet system in a basic 20 ton electric arc furnace (EAF) were studied. Observations and measurements were made during production before and after the installation of the two systems. The additional chemical energy improved energy efficiency and resulted in increased production. In addition, production using a basic EAF practice was compared to the traditional acid EAF practice. Second, an industrial trial using a 750 lb ladle with a combination of a lightweight alumina castable refractory and …

Maximum Likelihood And Gaussian Estimation Of Continuous Time Models In Finance, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper overviews maximum likelihood and Gaussian methods of estimating continuous time models used in finance. Since the exact likelihood can be constructed only in special cases, much attention has been devoted to the development of methods designed to approximate the likelihood. These approaches range from crude Euler-type approximations and higher order stochastic Taylor series expansions to more complex polynomial-based expansions and infill approximations to the likelihood based on a continuous time data record. The methods are discussed, their properties are outlined and their relative finite sample performance compared in a simulation experiment with the nonlinear CIR diffusion model, which …

Reasonable Suspicion Or Real Likelihood: A Question Of Semantics? Re Shankar Alan S/O Anant Kulkarni, Lionel Leo, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The law on apparent bias has been mired in some controversy following the High Court decision of Re Shankar Alan s/o Anant Kulkarni, where Sundaresh Menon J.C. seemingly departed from the tentative views of Andrew Phang J.C. (as he then was) in Tang Kin Hwa v. Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners Board on the issue of whether there were any material differences between the “reasonable suspicion of bias” test and the “real likelihood of bias” test, the two formulations of the test for apparent bias that have been variously adopted by different jurisdictions in the common law world. In Tang Kin …

Global Analysis Of An Expectations Augmented Evolutionary Dynamics, Angelo Antoci, Antonio Gay, Massimiliano Landi, Pier Luigi Sacco

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a deterministic evolutionary model where players form expectations about future play. Players are not fully rational and have expectations that change over time in response to current payoffs and feedback from the past. We provide a complete characterization of the qualitative dynamics so induced for a two strategy population game, and relate our findings to standard evolutionary dynamics and equilibrium selection when agents have rational forward looking expectations.

Jewish Museums - A Multi-Cultural Destination Sharing Jewish Art And Traditions With A Diverse Audience, Jennifer B. Markovitz

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

As American society becomes more diverse, issues of ethnic self· consciousness are increasingly prevalent. This can be witnessed by the national expansion and development of ethnic museums. At least twenty-five museums representing different ethnicities are located in New York City alone. These museums reach out to their own constituency as a celebration of heritage and culture. In an effort to educate others and foster a greater understanding and appreciation of their culture, they also reach out to a diverse multi-cultural audience. Following suit, Jewish museums attract a diverse audience representing a variety of religions and ethnicities. Jewish Museums - A …

Planning With Ifalcon: Towards A Neural-Network-Based Bdi Agent Architecture, Budhitama Subagdja, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents iFALCON, a model of BDI (beliefdesire-intention) agents that is fully realized as a selforganizing neural network architecture. Based on multichannel network model called fusion ART, iFALCON is developed to bridge the gap between a self-organizing neural network that autonomously adapts its knowledge and the BDI agent model that follows explicit descriptions. Novel techniques called gradient encoding are introduced for representing sequences and hierarchical structures to realize plans and the intention structure. This paper shows that a simplified plan representation can be encoded as weighted connections in the neural network through a process of supervised learning. A case …

Cognitive Agents Integrating Rules And Reinforcement Learning For Context-Aware Decision Support, Teck-Hou Teng, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While context-awareness has been found to be effective for decision support in complex domains, most of such decision support systems are hard-coded, incurring significant development efforts. To ease the knowledge acquisition bottleneck, this paper presents a class of cognitive agents based on self-organizing neural model known as TD-FALCON that integrates rules and learning for supporting context-aware decision making. Besides the ability to incorporate a priori knowledge in the form of symbolic propositional rules, TD-FALCON performs reinforcement learning (RL), enabling knowledge refinement and expansion through the interaction with its environment. The efficacy of the developed Context-Aware Decision Support (CaDS) system is …

Scaling Up Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning In Complex Domains, Dan Xiao, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

TD-FALCON (Temporal Difference - Fusion Architecture for Learning, COgnition, and Navigation) is a class of self-organizing neural networks that incorporates Temporal Difference (TD) methods for real-time reinforcement learning. In this paper, we present two strategies, i.e. policy sharing and neighboring-agent mechanism, to further improve the learning efficiency of TD-FALCON in complex multi-agent domains. Through experiments on a traffic control problem domain and the herding task, we demonstrate that those strategies enable TD-FALCON to remain functional and adaptable in complex multi-agent domains

A Fast Pruned‐Extreme Learning Machine For Classification Problem, Hai-Jun Rong, Yew-Soon Ong, Ah-Hwee Tan, Zexuan Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Extreme learning machine (ELM) represents one of the recent successful approaches in machine learning, particularly for performing pattern classification. One key strength of ELM is the significantly low computational time required for training new classifiers since the weights of the hidden and output nodes are randomly chosen and analytically determined, respectively. In this paper, we address the architectural design of the ELM classifier network, since too few/many hidden nodes employed would lead to underfitting/overfitting issues in pattern classification. In particular, we describe the proposed pruned-ELM (P-ELM) algorithm as a systematic and automated approach for designing ELM classifier network. P-ELM uses …

Adoption Of 3-D Virtual Worlds For Education, X. Chen, Keng Siau, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As an emerging phenomenon, virtual world education is rarely researched in MIS literature. With stiff competition among institutions using virtual worlds for education, a legitimate research question is: What factors influence students’ intention to adopt 3-D virtual world environment for their education needs? Drawing on existing technology acceptance models and studies in other IS contexts, we developed a model to predict students’ acceptance of a 3-D virtual world education environment and plan to empirically test the model using survey data collected from college students. From the academic research perspective, studies on the use of the new technology for education will …

Chosen-Ciphertext Secure Proxy Re-Encryption Without Pairing, Robert H. Deng, Jian Weng, Shengli Liu, Kefei Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In a proxy re-encryption system, a semi-trusted proxy can convert a ciphertext originally intended for Alice into a ciphertext intended for Bob, without learning the underlying plaintext. Proxy re-encryption has found many practical applications, such as encrypted email forwarding, secure distributed file systems, and outsourced filtering of encrypted spam. In ACM CCS'07, Canetti and Hohenberger presented a proxy re-encryption scheme with chosen-ciphertext security, and left an important open problem to construct a chosen-ciphertext secure proxy re-encryption scheme without pairings. In this paper, we solve this open problem by proposing a new proxy re-encryption scheme without resort to bilinear pairings. Based …

Privacy Engine For Context-Aware Enterprise Application Services, Marion Blount, John Davis, Maria Ebling, William Jerome, Barry Leiba, Xuan Liu, Archan Misra

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Satisfying the varied privacy preferences of individuals, while exposing context data to authorized applications and individuals, remains a major challenge for context-aware computing. This paper describes our experiences in building a middleware component, the context privacy engine (CPE), that enforces a role-based, context-dependent privacy model for enterprise domains. While fundamentally an ACL-based access control scheme, CPE extends the traditional ACL mechanism with usage control and context constraints. This paper focuses on discussing issues related to managing and evaluating context-dependent privacy policies. Extensive experimental studies with a production-grade implementation and real-life context sources demonstrate that the CPE can support a large …

Innovation In The Programmable Web: Characterizing The Mashup Ecosystem, C. Jason Woodard, Shuli Yu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper investigates the structure and dynamics of the Web 2.0 software ecosystem by analyzing empirical data on web service APIs and mashups. Using network analysis tools to visualize the growth of the ecosystem from December 2005 to 2007, we find that the APIs are organized into three tiers, and that mashups are often formed by combining APIs across tiers. Plotting the cumulative distribution of mashups to APIs reveals a power-law relationship, although the tail is short compared to previously reported distributions of book and movie sales. While this finding highlights the dominant role played by the most popular APIs …

Making Sense Of Technology Trends In The Information Technology Landscape, Gediminas Adomavicius, Jesse C. Bockstedt, Alok Gupta, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A major problem for firms making information technology investment decisions is predicting and understanding the effects of future technological developments on the value of present technologies. Failure to adequately address this problem can result in wasted organization resources in acquiring, developing, managing, and training employees in the use of technologies that are short-lived and fail to produce adequate return on investment. The sheer number of available technologies and the complex set of relationships among them make IT landscape analysis extremely challenging. Most IT-consuming firms rely on third parties and suppliers for strategic recommendations on IT investments, which can lead to …

On Visualizing Heterogeneous Semantic Networks From Multiple Data Sources, Maureen Maureen, Aixin Sun, Ee Peng Lim, Anwitaman Datta, Kuiyu Chang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we focus on the visualization of heterogeneous semantic networks obtained from multiple data sources. A semantic network comprising a set of entities and relationships is often used for representing knowledge derived from textual data or database records. Although the semantic networks created for the same domain at different data sources may cover a similar set of entities, these networks could also be very different because of naming conventions, coverage, view points, and other reasons. Since digital libraries often contain data from multiple sources, we propose a visualization tool to integrate and analyze the differences among multiple social …

Bienvenidos, Amigos! : The Tapestry Magazine, Liz Rog

Postville Project Documents

Article on the arrival of 10 men in Decorah after their incarceration from the Postville raid.

Constituent Order And Participant Reference In Dolnia Hani Narrative Discourse, Karen L. Gainer

Theses and Dissertations

Hani is a language in the Loloish family, spoken primarily in Yunnan Province of southwest China. This thesis presents a description of constituent order and participant reference in written Hani narrative discourse. The primary data source for this thesis consists of three narratives, which are included in the appendices.

Constituent order in Hani is largely constrained by the principle of natural information flow. In order to conform to this principle, some constituents may appear in two or more different positions in the clause, depending on the information structure of the assertion being made. Information structure also influences the use and …

Subordination, Grounding And The Packaging Of Information In Gojri, Kara Suzanne Fast

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is based on a collection of narratives told by Gujar women in northern Pakistan. It majors on the structure of subordinate clauses, the discourse functions of relative clauses and conjunctive participial clauses, and the function of the most common connectives: tɛ, fir, bas and ǰī.

The position of the relative pronoun indicates whether a relative clause is referring to an activated or a new participant. Relative clauses that appear superfluous indicate that the referent has a significant role to play in the subsequent discourse.

Conjunctive participial clauses may convey information of the same storyline status …

The Professional Development Of Teachers For International Contexts: A Case Study Of Concordia Language Villages' Study Abroad Programs, Michelle L. Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

In the face of globalization, educational institutions the world over have developed institutional learning outcomes that seek to graduate students who are culturally competent. To accomplish this goal, colleges and schools must have a faculty who is prepared to facilitate student growth in this regard or provide the faculty with professional development opportunities to achieve that end.

Concordia Language Villages, an intensive language and culture education program sponsored by Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, is intentional in its mission to prepare young people for responsible citizenship and has professional development opportunities available to personnel in their programs and educators; however, …