Digital Commons Network^™

Development And Characterization Of Rice Genotypes For Water Use Efficiency And Drought Resistance, Anuj Kumar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rice, the second largest staple food crop, uses 30% of global fresh water to complete its life cycle worldwide. Water deficits worldwide have become a serious problem affecting rice growth and ultimately grain yield. To solve the water problem globally, improvement of water use efficiency (WUE) and other drought resistance (DR) traits in rice genotypes would be a useful strategy using advanced genomics tools. In this study, our objectives were to 1) analyze phenotypes of the USDA rice mini-core collection (URMC) for WUE and DR related traits, 2) correlate drought response phenes for physiological traits and grain yield in the …

A Novel Linear Diophantine Equation-Baesd Low Diameter Structured Peer-To-Peer Network, Shahriar Rahimi

Dissertations

This research focuses on introducing a novel concept to design a scalable, hierarchical interest-based overlay Peer-to-Peer (P2P) system. We have used Linear Diophantine Equation (LDE) as the mathematical base to realize the architecture. Note that all existing structured approaches use Distributed Hash Tables (DHT) and Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) to realize their architectures. Use of LDE in designing P2P architecture is a completely new idea; it does not exist in the literature to the best of our knowledge. We have shown how the proposed LDE-based architecture outperforms some of the most well established existing architecture. We have proposed multiple effective …

An Experimental Study Of The Effects Of Substrate Porosity, Morphology, And Flexibility On The Equilibrium Thermodynamics And Kinetics Of Adsorption For Atomic And Molecular Adsorbates, Brice Adam Russell

Dissertations

Five systems consisting of different sorbate-sorbent combinations were studied using experimental volumetric adsorption techniques. Multiple adsorption isotherms were measured at low temperatures and low pressures for all of the systems studied which included CO2 adsorption on single walled carbon nanotubes (CO2 – SWCNT), Ethane adsorption on closed carbon nanohorns (Ethane-cNH), Ar adsorption on open carbon nanohorns (Ar – oNH), CO2 adsorption on zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (CO2 – ZIF-8), and O2 adsorption on ZIF-8 (O2 – ZIF-8). Each of these systems offers a unique study of the relationship between the physical properties of the adsorbate and substrate and the effects of …

Generalized Ellipsometry On Complex Nanostructures And Low-Symmetry Materials, Alyssa Mock

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this thesis, complex anisotropic materials are investigated and characterized by generalized ellipsometry. In recent years, anisotropic materials have gained considerable interest for novel applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices, mostly due to unique properties that originate from reduced crystal symmetry. Examples include white solid-state lighting devices which have become ubiquitous just recently, and the emergence of high-power, high-voltage electronic transistors and switches in all-electric vehicles. The incorporation of single crystalline material with low crystal symmetry into novel device structures requires reconsideration of existing optical characterization approaches. Here, the generalized ellipsometry concept is extended to include applications for materials with …

Neutrosophic Hough Transform, Florentin Smarandache, Umit Budak, Yanhui Guo, Abdulkadir Sengur

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Hough transform (HT) is a useful tool for both pattern recognition and image processing communities. In the view of pattern recognition, it can extract unique features for description of various shapes, such as lines, circles, ellipses, and etc. In the view of image processing, a dozen of applications can be handled with HT, such as lane detection for autonomous cars, blood cell detection in microscope images, and so on. As HT is a straight forward shape detector in a given image, its shape detection ability is low in noisy images. To alleviate its weakness on noisy images and improve its …

On Modeling Sense Relatedness In Multi-Prototype Word Embedding, Yixin Cao, Juanzi Li, Jiaxin Shi, Zhiyuan Liu, Chengjiang Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To enhance the expression ability of distributional word representation learning model, many researchers tend to induce word senses through clustering, and learn multiple embedding vectors for each word, namely multi-prototype word embedding model. However, most related work ignores the relatedness among word senses which actually plays an important role. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to capture word sense relatedness in multi-prototype word embedding model. Particularly, we differentiate the original sense and extended senses of a word by introducing their global occurrence information and model their relatedness through the local textual context information. Based on the idea of …

Analyzing The E-Learning Video Environment Requirements Of Generation Z Students Using Echo360 Platform, Swapna Gottipati, Venky Shankararaman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As with any other generational cohort,Generation Z students have their own unique characteristics that influencetheir approach to learning process. They are the future workforce and severalefforts are undertaken by Government and education institutes to consider thecharacteristics of Gen-Z in developing the curriculum and teaching environmentsuitable for these students. E-learning plays a key role in students learningprocess and has been widely adopted by many education institutions. Inparticular, videos play a major role in the learning process of Gen-Zstudents. The purpose of this paper isto focus the on requirements of Gen-Z students and to provide suggestions forhow to create a e-learning video …

Vkse-Mo: Verifiable Keyword Search Over Encrypted Data In Multi-Owner Settings, Yinbin Miao, Jianfeng Ma, Ximeng Liu, Junwei Zhang, Zhiquan Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Searchable encryption (SE) techniques allow cloud clients to easily store data and search encrypted data in a privacy-preserving manner, where most of SE schemes treat the cloud server as honest-but-curious. However, in practice, the cloud server is a semi-honest-but-curious third-party, which only executes a fraction of search operations and returns a fraction of false search results to save its computational and bandwidth resources. Thus, it is important to provide a results verification method to guarantee the correctness of the search results. Existing SE schemes allow multiple data owners to upload different records to the cloud server, but these schemes have …

Extracting Implicit Suggestions From Students’ Comments: A Text Analytics Approach, Venky Shankararaman, Swapna Gottipati, Jeff Rongsheng Lin, Sandy Gan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

At the end of each course, students are required to give feedback on the course and instructor. This feedback includes quantitative rating using Likert scale and qualitative feedback as comments. Such qualitative feedback can provide valuable insights in helping the instructor enhance the course content and teaching delivery. However, the main challenge in analysing the qualitative feedback is the perceived increase in time and effort needed to manually process the textual comments. In this paper, we provide an automated solution for analysing comments, specifically extracting implicit suggestions from the students’ qualitative feedback comments. The implemented solution leverages existing text mining …

Using Data Analytics For Discovering Library Resource Insights: Case From Singapore Management University, Ning Lu, Rui Song, Dina Li Gwek Heng, Swapna Gottipati, Aaron Tay

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Library resources are critical in supporting teaching, research and learning processes. Several universities have employed online platforms and infrastructure for enabling the online services to students, faculty and staff. To provide efficient services by understanding and predicting user needs libraries are looking into the area of data analytics. Library analytics in Singapore Management University is the project committed to provide an interface for data-intensive project collaboration, while supporting one of the library’s key pillars on its commitment to collaborate on initiatives with SMU Communities and external groups. In this paper, we study the transaction logs for user behavior analysis that …

Efficient Gate System Operations For A Multipurpose Port Using Simulation Optimization, Ketki Kulkarni, Trong Khiem Tran, Hai Wang, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Port capacity is determined by three major infrastructural resources namely, berths, yards and gates. Theadvertised capacity is constrained by the least of the capacities of the three resources. While a lot ofattention has been paid to optimizing berth and yard capacities, not much attention has been given toanalyzing the gate capacity. The gates are a key node between the land-side and sea-side operations in anocean-to-cities value chain. The gate system under consideration, located at an important port in an Asiancity, is a multi-class parallel queuing system with non-homogeneous Poisson arrivals. It is hard to obtaina closed form analytic approach for …

Multilingual Sentiment Analysis : From Formal To Informal And Scarce Resource Languages, Siaw Ling Lo, Erik Cambria, Raymond Chiong, David Cornforth

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The ability to analyse online user-generated content related to sentiments (e.g., thoughts and opinions) on products or policies has become a de-facto skillset for many companies and organisations. Besides the challenge of understanding formal textual content, it is also necessary to take into consideration the informal and mixed linguistic nature of online social media languages, which are often coupled with localised slang as a way to express ‘true’ feelings. Due to the multilingual nature of social media data, analysis based on a single official language may carry the risk of not capturing the overall sentiment of online content. While efforts …

A Novel Density Peak Clustering Algorithm Based On Squared Residual Error, Milan Parmar, Di Wang, Ah-Hwee Tan, Chunyan Miao, Jianhua Jiang, You Zhou

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The density peak clustering (DPC) algorithm is designed to quickly identify intricate-shaped clusters with high dimensionality by finding high-density peaks in a non-iterative manner and using only one threshold parameter. However, DPC has certain limitations in processing low-density data points because it only takes the global data density distribution into account. As such, DPC may confine in forming low-density data clusters, or in other words, DPC may fail in detecting anomalies and borderline points. In this paper, we analyze the limitations of DPC and propose a novel density peak clustering algorithm to better handle low-density clustering tasks. Specifically, our algorithm …

Compact Hierarchical Ibe From Lattices In The Standard Model, Daode Zhang, Fuyang Fang, Bao Li, Haiyang Xue, Bei Liang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

At Crypto’10, Agrawal et al. proposed a lattice-based selectively secure Hierarchical Identity-based Encryption (HIBE) scheme (ABB10b) with small ciphertext on the condition that (the length of identity at each level) is small in the standard model. In this paper, we present another lattice-based selectively secure HIBE scheme with depth d, using a gadget matrix with enough large to replace the matrix in the HIBE scheme proposed by Agrawal et al. at Eurocrypt’10. In our HIBE scheme, not only the size of ciphertext at level is larger than the size in ABB10b and at least smaller than the sizes in the …

Towards Tightly Secure Deterministic Public Key Encryption, Daode Zhang, Bao Li, Yamin Liu, Haiyang Xue, Xianhui Lu, Dingding Jia

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we formally consider the construction of tightly secure deterministic public key encryption (D-PKE). Initially, we compare the security loss amongst the D-PKE schemes under the concrete assumptions and also analyze the tightness of generic D-PKE constructions. Furthermore, we prove that the CPA secure D-PKE scheme of Boldyreva et al. (Crypto’08) is tightly PRIV-IND-CPA secure for block-sources. Our security reduction improves the security loss of their scheme from O(nc∗) to O(1). Additionally, by upgrading the all-but-one trapdoor function (TDF) in the construction of Boldyreva et al. to all-but-n TDF defined by Hemenway et al. (Asiacrypt’11), we give general …

Linear Elastic Mesh Deformation Via Localized Orthotropic Material Properties Optimized By The Adjoint Method, William L. Shoemake

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The finite element method has been shown to be a powerful tool in computational engineering with recent application to electromagnetics and fluid dynamics. However, achieving the high orders of accuracy easily available to the finite element method has proven difficult due to conforming higher-order meshes to curved geometries. If higher-order nodes are not placed on the surface of the geometry error is introduced into the simulated solution. This barrier is largely a non-issue for inviscid meshes where a mid-edge node can be projected onto the nearest geometry surface with minimal detrimental side effects. Viscous meshes however have to deform most …

Identifying Users On Social Networking Using Pattern Recognition In Messages, Justin Joshuva

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Online social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, have become a huge part of many people's lives, often as their main means of communication with other people. Because of frequency of use and the apparent security measures of these sites, users often falsely believe the proffered identity of the person they are talking to. This blind belief sometimes results in security threats due to the passing of private or confidential information to the wrong user. This may lead to malicious readers getting a user's private information and using it illegally. This work proposes a mathematical model for identifying security threats …

Meaningful Access And Disability Discrimination: The Role Of Social Science And Other Empirical Evidence, Mark C. Weber

Cardozo Law Review

In cases alleging disability discrimination in the provision of state and local government services, courts frequently hold that plaintiffs' claims depend on the question whether, despite the disadvantage that government actions impose, the plaintiffs nevertheless receive meaningful access to the government services. Whether people with disabilities actually have meaningful access is in reality a factual question, one on which social science and other empirically supported facts should matter. But courts frequently ignore evidence about the nature and level of access that people with disabilities have to government programs when decisions regarding those programs are being challenged. This Article catalogues judicial …

An Americans With Disabilities Act For Everyone, And For The Ages As Well, Anita Silvers, Leslie P. Francis

Cardozo Law Review

The article argues that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was originally intended to universally protect individuals from disability-based discrimination, rather than focusing on categorizing who is disabled. The authors contend that the ADA should be interpreted to prevent discrimination based on disability for everyone, regardless of specific eligibility criteria, and that the statute's effectiveness has been undermined by court decisions that emphasize categorical limitations. They advocate for a broader, more inclusive understanding of the ADA, aligned with its original purpose of combating discrimination.

Design And Analysis Of A Mechanical Driveline With Generator For An Atmospheric Energy Harvester, Sneha Ganesh

All Theses

The advent of renewable energy as a primary power source for microelectronic devices has motivated research within the energy harvesting community over the past decade. Compact, self-contained, portable energy harvesters can be applied to wireless sensor networks, Internet of Things (IoT) smart appliances, and a multitude of standalone equipment; replacing batteries and improving the operational life of such systems. Atmospheric changes influenced by cyclical temporal variations offer an abundance of harvestable thermal energy. However, the low conversion efficiency of a common thermoelectric device does not tend to be practical for microcircuit operations. One solution may lie in a novel electromechanical …

Apan Production Through Photooxidation Of Isoprene In The Presence Of NoX, Timothy Glidewell

Masters Theses

Peroxyacyl nitrates (PANs, RC(O)OONO₂) are of great importance in atmospheric chemistry. They act as transporters of reactive nitrogen, and radical delivery agents. There are no known natural emission sources of PANs; they are produced through reaction of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NO_x) in the atmosphere.

VOCs can enter the atmosphere through biogenic and anthropogenic pathways. It has been estimated that isoprene makes up 70% of the biogenic VOCs (BVOCs) emitted annually. Isoprene has been shown to impact ozone levels in both rural and urban areas by sequestering and transporting NO_x in the form …

Gradus Ad Parnassum: A Reader's Edition And Commentary, Sara Miller Schulte

Masters Theses

The seminal eighteenth-century counterpoint treatise Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux exists in Latin, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and a host of other languages in its entirely, but in English only the second book of two has been translated, and even that is available only in a collection of partial translations. While a complete English translation is well beyond the scope of this project, toward that end, this research makes a case for its completion and provides a modernized edition and commentary of the as-yet-untranslated first book.

Provenance Analysis Of The Grover Gravel Using Detrital Zircon Geochronology, Petrology And Heavy Mineral Analysis, Grant Spoering

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The Grover Gravel in the St. Louis, Missouri area contains a mix of chert, quartzite, jasper, and ironstone in clast sizes ranging up to 60 cm. The gravel varies in thickness from a veneer to over 30 feet and rests on upland surfaces at elevations sometimes exceeding 300 feet above the floors of major valleys. A pre-Pleistocene age generally has been proposed or assumed for the gravel, which classically has been interpreted to be a meandering-stream deposit atop an extensive flat upland surface, which was subsequently eroded and dissected by rejuvenated streams. However, large quartzite boulders in the gravel also …

Reconstructing Time-To-Event Data From Published Kaplan–Meier Curves, Yinghui Wei, Patrick Royston

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

A Shift In Malware Protection, I Baptista, S Shiaeles

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Irina Baptista and Dr Stavros Shiaeles, both from Plymouth University, discuss why there’s a need for a shift in the way we go about preventing malware.

Automating Active Stereo Vision Calibration Process With Cobots, A Mohamed, Pf Culverhouse, R De Azambuja, A Cangelosi, C Yang

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Collaborative robots help the academia and industry to accelerate the work by introducing a new concept of cooperation between human and robot. In this paper, a calibration process for an active stereo vision rig has been automated to accelerate the task and improve the quality of the calibration. As illustrated in this paper by using Baxter Robot, the calibration process has been done faster by three times in comparison to the manual calibration that depends on the human. The quality of the calibration was improved by 120% when the Baxter robot was used.

A Cluster Analysis Of Challenging Behaviors In Autism Spectrum Disorder, Elizabeth Stevens, Abigail Atchison, Laura Stevens, Esther Hong, Doreen Granpeesheh, Dennis Dixon, Erik J. Linstead

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We apply cluster analysis to a sample of 2,116 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in order to identify patterns of challenging behaviors observed in home and centerbased clinical settings. The largest study of this type to date, and the first to employ machine learning, our results indicate that while the presence of multiple challenging behaviors is common, in most cases a dominant behavior emerges. Furthermore, the trend is also observed when we train our cluster models on the male and female samples separately. This work provides a basis for future studies to understand the relationship of challenging behavior profiles to …

Trading Off Sound Pressure Level And Average Power Production For Wind Farm Layout Optimization, Eric Tingey, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

This research explores the trade-offs between a wind farm’s average power production and noise impact on nearby observers. Two specific wind farm designs were studied and optimized using the FLORIS wake model and an acoustic model based on semi-empirical turbine noise calculations. It was found in the two wind farms that the average power production could be increased, up to 8.01% in one and 3.63% in the other, ignoring sound level considerations. Including a noise restriction in the optimization had a minimal impact on the optimal average power production within about a five-decibel range. Past this range, sound limitations decreased …

Knowledge And Understanding Of Health Insurance: Challenges And Remedies, Aj Barnes, Y Hanoch

School of Psychology

As coverage is expanded in health systems that rely on consumers to choose health insurance plans that best meet their needs, interest in whether consumers possess sufficient understanding of health insurance to make good coverage decisions is growing. The recent IJHPR article by Green and colleagues—examining understanding of supplementary health insurance (SHI) among Israeli consumers—provides an important and timely answer to the above question. Indeed, their study addresses similar problems to the ones identified in the US health care market, with two notable findings. First, they show that overall—regardless of demographic variables—there are low levels of knowledge about SHI, which …

Studies On Stable Crack Growth, Mohammed Juma Humaid Al-Ghafri

Theses

The goal of this work is to experimentally investigate the stable crack growth (SCG) fracture behavior of AISI 4340 alloy steel. A series of mode I and mixed mode SCG fracture tests were carried out on 8 mm thick compact tension (CT) specimens subjected to quasistatic loading. The wire cutting technique was used to introduce a pre-notch/ pre-crack of 0.05 mm root radius to the specimen. Five different loading angles Ψ between the loading axis and the crack surface were employed; 90° (mode I), 75°, 65°, 60° and 50°. Five different ratios of original crack length to specimen width a …