Digital Commons Network^™

Detection Of Dns Based Covert Channels, Stephen Sheridan, Anthony Keane

Conference Papers

Information theft or data exfiltration, whether personal or corporate, is now a lucrative mainstay of cybercrime activity. Recent security reports have suggested that while information, such as credit card data is still a prime target, other data such as corporate secrets, employee files and intellectual property are increasingly sought after on the black market. Malicious actors that are intent on exfiltrating valuable data, usually employ some form of Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) in order to exfiltrate large amounts of data over a long period of time with a high degree of covertness. Botnets are prime examples of APTs that are …

Recruitment And Selection Strategies In Optometric Education Towards Addressing Human Resource Disparities In Sub-Saharan Africa, Vanessa Moodley, James Loughman, Kovin S. Naidoo

Articles

The dire need for eye care services and a dearth of human resources (HR) in sub-Saharan Africa motivated the setting up of new optometry programmes. However, to make a meaningful impact, geographical, gender, economic and educational disparities must additionally be addressed. A qualitative study utilizing purposive sampling to select academic leadership and students from optometry programmes in sub-Saharan Africa was conducted. Individual and focus group interviews produced data that were coded and analysed using a deductive thematic analysis approach. The themes that emerged as contributing to disparities in access through recruitment and selection were institutional barriers (student intake numbers, programme …

Dual Targeted Immunotherapy Via In Vivo Delivery Of Bio-Hybrid Rnai-Peptide Nanoparticles To Tumour-Associated Macrophages And Cancer Cells, Joao Conde, Chenchen Bao, Yeqi Tan, Daxiang Cui, Elazier Edelman, Helena Azevedo, Hugh Byrne, Natalie Artzi, Furong Tian

Articles

Lung cancer is associated with very poor prognosis and considered one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Here, we present highly potent and selective bio-hybrid RNAi-peptide nanoparticles that can induce specific and long-lasting gene therapy in inflammatory tumour associated macrophages (TAMs), via an immune modulation of the tumour milieu combined with tumour suppressor effects. Our data prove that passive gene silencing can be achieved in cancer cells using regular RNAi NPs. When combined with M2 peptide-based targeted immunotherapy that immuno-modulates TAMs cell-population, a synergistic effect and long-lived tumour eradication can be observed along with increased mice survival. Treatment with …

Exploring Technology Enhanced Instruction And Assessment In The Advanced Physics Laboratory, Aidan Meade, Aaron Mac Raighne, Elizabeth Gregan, Izabela Naydenova, Francis Pedreschi

Teaching Fellowships

The development of a strategic, thoughtful and reflective approach to the undertaking of experimental work is key to the development of physicists and physical scientists. This project undertook to remodel senior physics laboratories to adapt to changing skillsets required in the workplace and to instil the graduate attributes necessary for flexible employment in physics and related disciplines. The objective of this project was to foster an enquiry-based model that has been shown both to help engage the students with their subject and develop habits of experimental approach appropriate to physical scientists. The project used e-assessment methods and electronic documentation of …

An Exploration Of The Effects On Programme Design And Development Effected By Educational Leadership In Reaction To Societal And Economic Factors In Ireland, Roisin Donnelly, Nuala Harding

Journal Articles

It has affected many countries around the world, and Irish higher education has not found itself immune from undergoing a period of significant change, powered by a number of factors: economic, political, and technological. While these trends are global in their scope, and profound in their impact, the pace of change in the Irish economy since 2007-08 in particular has required institutions and their educational leaders to encourage the emergence of programmes which can respond to the current national needs. In periods of rapid change such as this, educational leaders by necessity tend to focus on short-term strategy and transition …

An Intrinsic Case Study Into The Appropriateness Of A Bespoke Training Model As An Approach To Supporting The Postgraduate Demonstrator In Developing Pedagogical Skills Suitable For Undergraduate Scientific Laboratories., Barry Ryan

Theses

Postgraduate demonstrators (PGDs) are crucial to the smooth running of undergraduate teaching laboratories; however, they are oftentimes exiled to superficial duties such as enforcing health and safety and procedural instruction. The aim of this intrinsic case study was to characterise the support required by postgraduate demonstrators (PGDs) to develop the key pedagogical skills that would assist them in effectively demonstrating undergraduate science teaching labs. Through supporting PGD development, it is hoped to centralise the PGD in the undergraduate teaching lab and set in place the foundations for a move towards undergraduate teaching labs that encompass aspects of tailored research in …

Participatory Action Research: Effect Of Emphasising Graduate Attributes On Work-Placement Reflection, Julie Dunne

Theses

This project aimed to investigate what the effect of activities to promote awareness of graduate attributes development introduced during 2014/15 would be on the quality of reflection displayed in student pharmacy technicians’ workplacement blogs. The project was undertaken in response to a deficit in critical reflection shown in earlier years. The work-placement blogs from 2013/14 were used as a comparison for this study. The theoretical perspective included a constructivist ontological position and an interpretivist epistemological position. The methodology was participatory action research involving the Pharmacy Technician students as co-researchers. The cycles of action and research aligned to three research objectives, …

On-Road Remote Sensing Of Automobile Emissions In The Chicago Area: Fall 2014, Gary A. Bishop, Donald H. Stedman

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

No abstract provided.

The Contribution Of Non-Thermal And Advanced Oxidation Technologies Towards Dissipation Of Pesticide Residues, N. Misra

Articles

Background

The use of pesticides has stabilised the food production to a great extent and their usage cannot be avoided anymore. Nevertheless, common food processing operations always allowed dissipating pesticide residues in foods to some extent. Within the food science community and the food processing sector, non-thermal food technologies are being researched and commercialised at a great pace over the past three decades.

Scope and Approach

In this review we provide a critical analysis of the literature pertinent to the fate of pesticide residues during non-thermal processing of solid and liquid foods. We also identify the opportunities for further development …

Computational Development Of Selective Nnos Inhibitors: Binding Modes And Pharmacokinetic Considerations, Adam Curtin, Gemma K. Kinsella, John Stephens

Articles

Abstract: Neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) produces the key signalling mediator nitric oxide, (NO). This gaseous, free radical molecule modulates a vast array of biological processes, from vascular pressure to immune responses and neurological signalling cascades. Overproduction of NO has been implicated in conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia. Inhibition of nNOS therefore offers a potential therapeutic approach for treatment of these conditions. This endeavour is made more complex by the fact that there are two other isoforms of nitric oxide synthase (NOS), endothelial NOS (eNOS) and inducible NOS (iNOS). The selectivity of nNOS inhibitors is therefore a …

A Mathematical Model Of Meat Cooking Based On Polymer-Solvent Analogy, M. Chapwanya, Nissreen Misra

Articles

Mathematical modelling of transport phenomena in food processes is vital to understand the process dynamics. In this work, we study the process of double sided cooking of meat by developing a mathematical model for the simultaneous heat and mass transfer. The constitutive equations for the heat and mass transport are based on Fourier conduction, and the Flory–Huggins theory respectively, formulated for a two-phase transport inside a porous medium. We investigate a reduced one-dimensional case to verify the model, by applying appropriate boundary conditions. The results of the simulation agree well with experimental findings reported in literature. Finally, we comment upon …

On The Dynamics Of Internal Waves Interacting With The Equatorial Undercurrent, Alan Compelli, Rossen Ivanov

Articles

The interaction of the nonlinear internal waves with a nonuniform current with a specific form, characteristic for the equatorial undercurrent, is studied. The current has no vorticity in the layer, where the internal wave motion takes place. We show that the nonzero vorticity that might be occuring in other layers of the current does not affect the wave motion. The equations of motion are formulated as a Hamiltonian system.

Hamiltonian Approach To Internal Wave-Current Interactions In A Two-Media Fluid With A Rigid Lid, Alan Compelli, Rossen Ivanov

Articles

We examine a two-media 2-dimensional fluid system consisting of a lower medium bounded underneath by a flatbed and an upper medium with a free surface with wind generated surface waves but considered bounded above by a lid by an assumption that surface waves have negligible amplitude. An internal wave driven by gravity which propagates in the positive x-direction acts as a free common interface between the media. The current is such that it is zero at the flatbed but a negative constant, due to an assumption that surface winds blow in the negative x-direction, at the lid. We are concerned …

Monitoring Student Engagement And Improving Performance, Brian Keegan, Bianca Schoen-Phelan

Conference papers

No abstract provided.

Designing Medical Interactive Systems Via Assessment Of Human Mental Workload, Luca Longo

Conference papers

In clinical settings, Human-computer systems need to be designed in a way that medical errors are reduced and patient care is enhanced. Inspection methods are usually employed in HCI to assess usability of interactive systems. However, they do not consider the state of the operator while executing a task, the surrounding environment and the task demands. It is argued that assessing performance of operators is fundamental for designing optimal systems with which healthcare can be effectively delivered. The aim of our solution is to assess performance of operators employing the notion of Mental Workload (MWL) this being a construct believed …

On The Relationship Between Perception Of Usability And Subjective Mental Workload Of Web Interfaces, Luca Longo, Pierpaolo Dondio

Conference papers

Inspection methods and cheap self-reporting procedures have been significantly employed in the field of Human- Computer Interaction for assessing the usability of interfaces, systems and technologies. However, there is a tendency to overlook aspects related to the context and features of the users during the usability assessment process. This research introduces the concept of mental workload as an aid to enhance usability measurement. A user-study has been designed and executed in the context of human-web interaction. The aim was to investigate the relationship between the perception of usability of three popular web-sites, and the mental workload imposed by a set …

On Learning Time Delays Between The Spikes From Different Input Neurons In A Biophysical Model Of A Pyramidal Neuron, Achilleas Koutsou, Guido Bugmann, Chris Christodoulou

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Discussion Of “Investigation Of Soil Arching With Centrifuge Tests” By Geraldo R. Iglesia, Herbert H. Einstein, And Robert V. Whitman, E Ellis, Y Zhuang

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Graphene Electrode Modified With Electrochemically Reduced Graphene Oxide For Label-Free Dna Detection, Bing Li, Genhua Pan, Neil D. Avent, Roy B. Lowry, Tracey E. Madgett, Paul L. Waines

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Tsallis Entropy As A Biomarker For Detection Of Alzheimer's Disease, Ali H. Al-Nuaimi, Emmanuel Jammeh, Lingfen Sun, Emmanuel Ifeachor

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Identification Of Key Proteins In Human Epithelial Cells Responding To Bystander Signals From Irradiated Trout Skin, Hayley Furlong, Richard Smith, Jiaxi Wang, Colin Seymour, Carmel Mothersill, Orla L. Howe

Articles

Radiation-induced bystander signaling has been found to occur in live rainbow trout fish (Oncorhynchus mykiss). This article reports identification of key proteomic changes in a bystander reporter cell line (HaCaT) grown in low-dose irradiated tissue-conditioned media (ITCM) from rainbow trout fish. In vitro explant cultures were generated from the skin of fish previously exposed to low doses (0.1 and 0.5 Gy) of X-ray radiation in vivo. The ITCM was harvested from all donor explant cultures and placed on recipient HaCaT cells to observe any change in protein expression caused by the bystander signals. Proteomic methods using 2-dimensional (2D) gel electrophoresis …

Visions For The North Sea: The Societal Dilemma Behind Specifying Good Environmental Status, Alison J. Gilbert, Abigail Mcquatters-Gollop, Olivia Langmead, Laurence Mee, Jan Vermaat

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.

Searching For Stochastic Gravitational Waves Using Data From The Two Colocated Ligo Hanford Detectors, J. Aasi, Marco Cavaglia, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Searches for a stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) using terrestrial detectors typically involve cross-correlating data from pairs of detectors. The sensitivity of such cross-correlation analyses depends, among other things, on the separation between the two detectors: the smaller the separation, the better the sensitivity. Hence, a colocated detector pair is more sensitive to a gravitational-wave background than a noncolocated detector pair. However, colocated detectors are also expected to suffer from correlated noise from instrumental and environmental effects that could contaminate the measurement of the background. Hence, methods to identify and mitigate the effects of correlated noise are necessary to achieve the …

Biblical Literalism And The Acceptance Of Biological Evolution In Christian University Students, Heather N. Chamberlain

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Is it possible to accept biological evolution without rejecting God? Understanding student perspectives about religious belief and biological evolution is important to effectively teach science. There are many factors in this complex relationship and this study explored three: differences in Christian denominations, interpretation of scripture, and perspectives of the relationship between religious belief with acceptance of evolution. The participants were freshman elementary education majors at a Midwest university who completed a questionnaire about religious beliefs and the Inventory of Student Evolution Acceptance (I-SEA).

The results indicated no significant difference between Christian denomination and acceptance of evolution. Participants who took the …

Dispersion Characteristics Analysis Of One Dimensional Multiple Periodic Structures And Their Applications To Antennas, Zi Long Ma, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Shulabh Gupta, Wei E.I. Sha

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper proposes a general characterization of one dimensional multiple periodic (MP) structures for electromagnetic transmission and radiation. Studies are conducted from three aspects: Firstly, the dispersion relations of non-dispersive (conventional) and dispersive (composite right/left-handed (CRLH)) materials are analyzed. Regarding each category of materials, detailed analyses for distributed layered media and lumped circuits are presented. Through studies, we found that the periodicity increase opens up multiple stopbands. According to our physical explanations and numerical results, the relation between stopbands and periodicity is clarified. Additionally, the periodicity increase also reduces the separation distance of space harmonic modes along the phase constant …

Low Complexity Polynomial Expansion Detector For Massive Mimo Uplink With Multiple-Antenna Users, An An Lu, Xiqi Gao, Chengshan Xiao

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a low complexity polynomial expansion (PE) detector for massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) uplink transmissions is proposed. In contrast to most massive MIMO systems in the literature, where single-antenna user equipment's (UEs) are assumed, multiple-antenna UEs are employed in this paper. Furthermore, each link between a user and the base station forms a jointly correlated Rician fading channel. The PE detector reduces the complexity of the minimum mean square error (MMSE) detector by replacing the matrix inversion with an approximate matrix polynomial. In the design of the low complexity PE detector, the approximations of the moments of the …

A Framework To Improve A Nation's Competitiveness Through Quality Awards And Performance Improvement Tools, Amr Alamri

Wayne State University Dissertations

Each country, represented by its government, aims to serve its citizens better. This is achieved by better utilization of resources and higher productivity. The ability to do so will lead to a competitive nation. Recently, countries were able to compare themselves in terms of competitiveness using international indexes and references. These references gave countries a benchmark to know where they exist compared to other nations. They help governments to understand their strengths and weaknesses within the competitiveness components. However, nations differ in the actions which are to be taken in order to improve their competitiveness. Governments establish and regulate many …

Object Tracking: Appearance Modeling And Feature Learning, Raed Almomani

Wayne State University Dissertations

Object tracking in real scenes is an important problem in computer vision due to increasing usage of tracking systems day in and day out in various applications such as surveillance, security, monitoring and robotic vision. Object tracking is the process of locating objects of interest in every frame of video frames. Many systems have been proposed to address the tracking problem where the major challenges come from handling appearance variation during tracking caused by changing scale, pose, rotation, illumination and occlusion.

In this dissertation, we address these challenges by introducing several novel tracking techniques. First, we developed a multiple object …

An Argument For A Neutral Free Logic, Daniel Yeakel

Wayne State University Dissertations

I argue for a neutral free logic is a logic wherein sentences containing non-referring terms do not have truth value. The primary support for this conclusion comes by way of criticism of the alternatives. If every sentence of the form `a = a' is a logical truth and is consequently knowable a priori then it will follow absurdly that `a exists' is knowable a priori. There are several alternatives for avoiding this intolerable conclusion and I argue that, with the exception of neutral free logic which holds that `a = a' can lack truth value, their successes are not sufficient …

A Control-Theoretic Design And Analysis Framework For Resilient Hard Real-Time Systems, Pradeep Mahendra Hettiarachchi

Wayne State University Dissertations

We introduce a new design metric called system-resiliency which characterizes the maximum unpredictable

external stresses that any hard-real-time performance mode can withstand. Our proposed systemresiliency

framework addresses resiliency determination for real-time systems with physical and hardware

limitations. Furthermore, our framework advises the system designer about the feasible trade-offs between

external system resources for the system operating modes on a real-time system that operates in a

multi-parametric resiliency environment.

Modern multi-modal real-time systems degrade the system’s operational modes as a response to unpredictable

external stimuli. During these mode transitions, real-time systems should demonstrate a reliable

and graceful degradation of service. Many …