Digital Commons Network^™

Spectrum 2014, Saint Mary's College Of California

The Undergraduate Spectrum

No abstract provided.

Comparing Skew Schur Functions: A Quasisymmetric Perspective, Peter R. W. Mcnamara

Faculty Journal Articles

Reiner, Shaw and van Willigenburg showed that if two skew Schur functions s_A and s_B are equal, then the skew shapes $A$ and $B$ must have the same "row overlap partitions." Here we show that these row overlap equalities are also implied by a much weaker condition than Schur equality: that s_A and s_B have the same support when expanded in the fundamental quasisymmetric basis F. Surprisingly, there is significant evidence supporting a conjecture that the converse is also true.

In fact, we work in terms of inequalities, showing that if the F-support of s_{A …}

On Groups With A Class-Preserving Outer Automorphism, Peter A. Brooksbank

Faculty Journal Articles

Four infinite families of 2-groups are presented, all of whose members possess an outer automorphism that preserves conjugacy classes. The groups in these families are central extensions of their predecessors by a cyclic group of order 2. For each integer r>1, there is precisely one 2-group of nilpotency class r in each of the four families. All other known families of 2-groups possessing a class-preserving outer automorphism consist entirely of groups of nilpotency class 2.

Groups Acting On Tensor Products, Peter A. Brooksbank

Faculty Journal Articles

Groups preserving a distributive product are encountered often in mathematics. Examples include automorphism groups of associative and non associative rings, classical groups, and automorphisms of p-groups. While the great variety of such products precludes any realistic hope of describing the general structure of the groups that preserve them, it is reasonable to expect that insight may be gained from an examination of the universal distributive products: tensor products. We give a detailed description of the groups preserving such tensor products over semisimple and semi primary rings, and present effective algorithms to construct generators for these groups. We also discuss …

Outsourcing Management Of Engineering Work In Petroleum Exploration And Production, Panunee Thongprasom

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Since there is no official outsourcing management system in the studied Petroleum Exploration and Production company, many outsourcing projects under the studied company have been facing with a lot of schedule delays. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to find an appropriate and efficient outsourcing management system which consists of workflow and procedure including supporting tools and techniques for using with outsourcing engineering work in the studied company to minimize the delays. The approach is to review outsourcing management practices and recommended tools from literatures and gather information from the studied company’s outsourcing experiences including best practices to develop …

Mitigating Man-In-The-Middle Attacks On Smartphones – A Discussion Of Ssl Pinning And Dnssec, Veelasha Moonsamy, Lynn Batten

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Since their introduction, smartphones remain one of the most used handheld devices and this trend is predicted to continue in the coming years. Consequently, the number of attacks on smartphones is increasing exponentially; current market research shows that data traffic generated by smartphones will escalate by tenfold in 2019. Such an increase in traffic indicates that the smartphone industry will remain an attractive target for attackers. Whilst smartphone users are aware of the benefits of installing antivirus applications for malware evasion, they have limited knowledge on how to mitigate MiTM attacks. Furthermore, application developers do not always consider implementing appropriate …

Cache-Timing Attack Against Aes Crypto System - Countermeasures Review, Yaseen H. Taha, Settana M. Abdulh, Naila A. Sadalla, Huwaida Elshoush

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Side channel attacks are based on side channel information, which is information that is leaked from encryption systems. Implementing side channel attacks is possible if and only if an attacker has access to a cryptosystem (victim) or can interact with cryptosystem remotely to compute time statistics of information that collected from targeted system. Cache timing attack is a special type of side channel attack. Here, timing information caused by cache effect is collected and analyzed by an attacker to guess sensitive information such as encryption key or plaintext. Cache timing attack against AES was known theoretically until Bernstein carry out …

The Impact Of Social Constructivism On Erp Systems Security: A Critical Social Review, Kennedy Njenga

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Little is understood about the effects of social constructivism that shapes conflicting concerns regarding Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) security and usability during implementation. This work looks at social constructivism as produced and reproduced by stakeholders in the ERP systems implementation phase. Social constructivism is characterised by the embedded trade-off for usability, espoused by end-user and security, espoused by developers. Social constructivism was conceptualised qualitatively from a selected case study. Critical Social Theory (CST) was used as the theoretical lens. Stakeholders concerned with ERP security aspects in the implementation phase were interviewed and data transcribed and interpreted. Hermeneutical interpretation was applied …

12th Australian Information Security Management Conference, 2014, Edith Cowan University: Conference Details, Security Research Institute, Edith Cowan University

Australian Information Security Management Conference

No abstract provided.

The Application Of An Agile Approach To It Security Risk Management For Smes, Damien Hutchinson, Chris Armitt, Dean Edwards-Lear

Australian Information Security Management Conference

This paper demonstrates the application of an agile risk management approach to perform asset-based risk analysis to meet the information security requirements of SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises). This approach is proposed as an alternative to traditional methods that are cumbersome, resource intensive and costly, often hindering their value and use by SMEs. The organisation being studied is an Aged Care Facility (ACF) with legal and ethical responsibilities. Within the business there is little knowledge regarding potential information technology threats that could impact on these responsibilities. The ACF maintains a system containing client personal and medical records, network communications, as …

15th Australian Information Warfare Conference, 2014, Edith Cowan University - Conference Details, Security Research Institute, Edith Cowan University

Australian Information Warfare and Security Conference

No abstract provided.

Detecting Covert Communication Channels In Raster Images, Brian Cusack, Jarrett Chambers

Australian Information Warfare and Security Conference

Digital image steganography is a method for hiding secret messages within everyday Internet communication channels. Such covert communications provide protection for communications and exploit the opportunities available in digital media. Digital image steganography makes the nature and content of a message invisible to other users by taking ordinary internet artefacts and using them as cover objects for the messages. In this paper we demonstrate the capability with raster image files and discuss the challenges of detecting such covert communications. The contribution of the research is community awareness of covert communication capability in digital media and the motivation for including such …

Assessing Visual Perception Using Letters And Numbers, Janet Richmond

ECU Posters

To create a new visual perceptual test using letters and numbers in isolation and in context. Producing a linear scale to measure the ability of primary school children to visually discriminate upper and lower case letters in readiness for learning to read and perform mathematical calculations.

Using Acl2 To Verify Loop Pipelining In Behavioral Synthesis, Disha Puri, Sandip Ray, Kecheng Hao, Fei Xie

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Behavioral synthesis involves compiling an Electronic System-Level (ESL) design into its RegisterTransfer Level (RTL) implementation. Loop pipelining is one of the most critical and complex transformations employed in behavioral synthesis. Certifying the loop pipelining algorithm is challenging because there is a huge semantic gap between the input sequential design and the output pipelined implementation making it infeasible to verify their equivalence with automated sequential equivalence checking techniques. We discuss our ongoing effort using ACL2 to certify loop pipelining transformation. The completion of the proof is work in progress. However, some of the insights developed so far may already be of …

Martingales In Floating Asean+3 Currencies*, Cesar C. Rufino

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The martingale properties of the floating exchange rates of the ASEAN+3 region are analyzed in this study using contemporary (2000 to 2012) weekly data of inter-bank call rates. The main goal of the analysis is to see if informational efficiency is a feature floating (managed or independently floating) currencies in this coalition of countries still possess despite the current credit crisis and other economic shocks during the period. Employing relevant state-of-the-art econometric techniques, the study sets to empirically determine the presence of two important ingredients of informationally efficient market—the existence of the unit root component and the presence of uncorrelated …

Estimating The Efficiency Of Philippine Public High Schools Using Spatio-Temporal Stochastic Frontier Analysis, Michael Ralph M. Abrigo, Rouselle F. Lavado, Erniel B. Barrios, Brian C. Gozun

DLSU Business & Economics Review

This paper proposes a method for modeling production function of education using a stochastic frontier model with spatial temporal terms. Using a unique dataset that combines school achievement scores with school characteristics from 2005-2008, the efficiency of 4,900 public high schools in the Philippines in converting school inputs into test scores was estimated. Results show that the average inefficiency is at 41% and that there is a significant positive spatial externality in efficiency, which means that efficiency in one school can spill over to its neighbors. The model was found to be robust to various environmental variables included in the …

An Approximation Of The Internal Rate Of Return Of Investment In Selected Undergraduate Degree Programs, Editha A. Lupdag–Padama, John Paolo R. Rivera, Rhory C. Fernandez–Go, Krista Danielle S. Yu, Francesca Dianne B. Solis, Rosanina A. Sayoc

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The situation of a typical Filipino household, overseas employment, and the culture of migration are deemed as determinants for investing in higher education such as in the specialized fields of accountancy, education science and teacher training, engineering, and nursing. We examine both local and international labor demand for accountants, teachers, engineers, and nurses as well as its underlying implications on the exodus of professionals. As such, the determination of the internal rate of return to investment is of crucial importance to households to fully maximize educational opportunities and for the government and other institutions to confront this globally-changing situation. Using …

The Strategy Dilemma: Why Big Business Moves Seldom Pan Out As Planned, Niceto S. Poblador

DLSU Business & Economics Review

This article looks at the complex dynamics that underlie organizational change and attempts to explain why, under present uncertain environmental conditions, it is not possible to determine in advance the results of strategic moves made by businesses and other types of organizations. It discusses an alternative approach to strategy in today’s world of business and explores the practical applications of experimental methods to the management of change in today’s highly complex, extensively interconnected, and knowledge-driven world.

Estimating The Incidence Of Japanese Encephalitis In Divisions Of Bangladesh, Craig Michael Rothenberg

Public Health Theses

Japanese Encephalitis (JE) is a mosquito-borne viral disease responsible for 30,000 to 50,000 reported cases and up to 15,000 reported deaths every year. The disease is a significant public health concern in Bangladesh, but there is no regular surveillance or immunization for JE in the country. The objective of this study is to determine whether a practical model to estimate the incidence of JE in Bangladesh can be developed using data on population, environmental characteristics, and/or vector distribution for JE-endemic countries in Asia and the Western Pacific. Information on JE incidence, area, land cover, climate, population characteristics, land elevation, and …

Modeling The Zoonotic Transmission Dynamics Of Nipah Virus: Implications For Outbreak Control And Model-Guided Fieldwork, Natasha Wenzel

Public Health Theses

Introduction: Nipah virus is considered a biosafety level-4 pathogen that is endemic to bats of the genus Pteropus. Infection in humans presents clinically as febrile encephalitis with an extremely high case-fatality rate (78.2%). Outbreaks of Nipah virus infection have occurred in Bangladesh and India almost annually since 2001, most recently in January 2013.

Methods: To elucidate Nipah virus persistence at the endemic host and human population level we developed a Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered dynamic model and parameterized it from published epidemiological case data and serological bats surveys on the Nipah Virus-Bangladesh variant. We conducted a Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation to estimate …

Would Utility Models Improve American Innovation? Evidence From Brazil, Germany, And The United States, Tyler J. Boschert

Colorado Technology Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Dragnet Nation: A Quest For Privacy, Security, And Freedom In A World Of Relentless Surveillance Chapter 1: Hacked, Julia Angwin

Colorado Technology Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Muddied Waters: Exploring Iowa's Water Policy And Practices, Jorgen D. Rose

Honors Program Theses

Clean, usable fresh water is a precious and valuable resource, but it is one that we often mistreat and misuse. Surface water in particular is extremely vulnerable to human actions and influences; nowhere is this more apparent than in agricultural states like Iowa, where nonpoint-source pollution (runoff) has a dramatic effect on our rivers, lakes, and streams. However, despite this continuing decline in the quality of Iowa’s water, there exists very little public policy aimed at dealing with the problems of nutrient contamination and other forms of nonpoint-source pollution. Furthermore, what policy does exist is either ineffective or insufficient. The …

Sustainability Of Sustainability: Exploring Alternatives In Alternative Energy, Corey C. Cooling

Honors Program Theses

In light of a gap in the literature of what makes or breaks student biodiesel conversion programs, this thesis will give a review and analysis of select existing biodiesel conversion programs and suggest a model reflecting the characteristics of successful student programs.

The study’s research questions are:

1. What are the common themes or factors successful programs exhibit?

2. What institutional factors create a productive environment for biodiesel programs?

3. Can the tactics of successful programs be generalized?

Firstly, I define successful programs as programs that are financially feasible, develop student skills, lower the environmental impact of universities and foster …

Association Between Parenting Processes And Child Behavior Outcomes: The Moderating And Mediating Role Of Child Characteristics, Taylor Elizabeth Ann Goetzinger

Honors Program Theses

Past research demonstrates the importance parents have in determining the outcomes in their children’s lives. Of these outcomes, child academic achievement is extremely important. In investigating past research on parenting practices and styles, factors such as parental monitoring and involvement as well as styles of authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting were examined to determine an association with academic achievement in middle school children. Learning disabilities, mental disorders, child personality characteristics and child academic characteristics were other measures explored as buffers in the parenting to academic achievement relationship. Mediating effects were also examined. The current study sampled 179 middle school students …

Dengue Epidemiology In An Urban Slum Community In Salvador, Brazil, Kristine Gauthier

Public Health Theses

Brazil has experienced a major increase in the incidence of dengue fever and severe dengue since the mid-1990s. Due to incomplete vector-control and transmission prevention efforts, all four serotypes of the dengue virus now circulate in Brazil. Communities such as Pau da Lima, an urban slum in the city of Salvador, Brazil, face a high burden of disease. Beginning in 2009 enhanced surveillance for dengue fever and other acute febrile illnesses has been conducted at the São Marcos Emergency Center (CESM), the only public urgent care health center in Pau da Lima. This sentinel surveillance site serves as a model …

Cost Effectiveness Of Non-Laboratory Cvd Screening In Uzbekistan, Shefali Kumar

Public Health Theses

Background-- Cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk scores that require laboratory testing (e.g., cholesterol testing) are often used to identify high- and low-risk individuals for primary CVD prevention interventions, such as statin treatment. However, laboratory testing can be expensive and difficult to conduct in resource-limited settings. The aim of this study was to compare CVD risk characterization and evaluate the cost-effectiveness of non-laboratory based and laboratory-based CVD risk scores for adults in Tashkent City, Uzbekistan.

Methods--CVD risk for 853 adults (376 men, 477 women) from Tashkent City, Uzbekistan was assessed using laboratory-based and non-laboratory-based scores calculated from 2002 Uzbekistan Health Examination Survey …

Fluid Flow Shear Stress Over Podocytes Is Increased In The Solitary Kidney., Tarak Srivastava, Gianni E. Celsi, Mukut Sharma, Hongying Dai, Ellen T. Mccarthy, Melanie Ruiz, Patricia A. Cudmore, Uri S. Alon, Ram Sharma, Virginia A. Savin

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Glomerular hyperfiltration is emerging as the key risk factor for progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Podocytes are exposed to fluid flow shear stress (FFSS) caused by the flow of ultrafiltrate within Bowman's space. The mechanism of hyperfiltration-induced podocyte injury is not clear. We postulated that glomerular hyperfiltration in solitary kidney increases FFSS over podocytes.

METHODS: Infant Sprague-Dawley rats at 5 days of age and C57BL/6J 14-week-old adult mice underwent unilateral nephrectomy. Micropuncture and morphological studies were then performed on 20- and 60-day-old rats. FFSS over podocytes in uninephrectomized rats and mice was calculated using the recently published equation …

Landscape, Demographic And Climatic Associations With Human West Nile Virus Occurrence Regionally In 2012 In The United States Of America, John P. Degroote, Ramanathan Sugumaran, Mark Ecker

Faculty Work

After several years of low West Nile virus (WNV) occurrence in the United States of America (USA), 2012 witnessed large outbreaks in several parts of the country. In order to understand the outbreak dynamics, spatial clustering and landscape, demographic and climatic associations with WNV occurrence were investigated at a regional level in the USA. Previous research has demonstrated that there are a handful of prominent WNV mosquito vectors with varying ecological requirements responsible for WNV transmission in the USA. Published range maps of these important vectors were georeferenced and used to define eight functional ecological regions in the coterminous USA. …

Switched-Capacitor Voltage Doubler Design Using 0.5 Μm Technology, Hanfeng Wang

Theses

While integrated circuit (IC) power management has been an eternal topic for chip designers, inductor based DC-DC converters have been dominant in the field for years. However, because of the natures of inductors: large electro-magnetic interference, high coupling noise, and difficult silicon fabrication process, they are not favorable to on-chip solutions. Switched-capacitor (SC) DC-DC converters, which adopt capacitors for their energy storage components, have become increasingly popular among both the academia and the industry, because, apparently, they avoid the drawbacks of the inductor counterparts, and can be directly implemented on-chip without additional fabrication process.

In this paper, we will investigate …