Digital Commons Network^™

Federated Learning And Applications In Cybersecurity, Ani Sreekumar

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence that focuses on making predictions about some outcome based on information from a dataset. In cybersecurity, machine learning is often used to improve intrusion detection systems and identify trends in data that could indicate an oncoming cyber attack. Data privacy is an extremely important aspect of cybersecurity, and there are many industries that have more demanding laws to ensure the security of user data. Due to these regulations, machine learning algorithms can not be widely utilized in these industries to improve outcomes and accuracy of predictions. However, federated learning is a recent …

Difficulties Of Employing Instructional Technology In The Preparatory Stage From The Point Of View Of Geography Teachers, Fadhil Musaed Aged

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

The research aims to identify the difficulties of employing Instructional Technology in the preparatory stage from the point of view of teachers. The research population consists of (63) teachers (male s and females) from the schools of Baghdad, the directorate of education-Rusafa 3, and an exploratory sample consists of (25) teachers out of the research population. The researcher used the analytical descriptive method. The research tool is a questionnaire to the geography teachers consists of (34)items distributed on four fields ( difficulties related to the teacher, difficulties related to the student, difficulties related to the curriculum, and difficulties related to …

Malware Detection And Analysis, Namratha Suraneni

Masters Projects

Malicious software poses a serious threat to the cybersecurity of network infrastructures and is a global pandemic in the form of computer viruses, Trojan horses, and Internet worms. Studies imply that the effects of malware are deteriorating. The main defense against malware is malware detectors. The methods that such a detector employ define its level of quality. Therefore, it is crucial that we research malware detection methods and comprehend their advantages and disadvantages. Attackers are creating malware that is polymorphic and metamorphic and has the capacity to modify their source code as they spread. Furthermore, existing defenses, which often utilize …

Full-Text Search Using Elasticsearch, Akash Shrestha

Masters Projects

Search engines have changed the way we use the internet. They can search or filter out relevant and valuable content of interest to the users. But many of the applications we use today lack search or are just poor. So how can we leverage the same power of search engines in our applications? This project aims to look at “Full-Text Search” which allows us to do a text-based search in text-intensive data. The search will be performed by matching any, or all words of the query exactly or with some relevancy against the indexes created by the searching tool. The …

Docker Container Image – Vulnerability Scanning, Joseph U. Ohaeche

Masters Projects

The technology landscape for container adoption has greatly evolved over the years from the first known Unix U7 container concept introduced in 1979 to the most utilized docker container concept which emerged in 2013. Docker container image is essentially a lightweight, standalone executable software package with capabilities to run an application. It is important to know that container images become containers when deployed, and simultaneously docker container images become docker containers when deployed on Docker Engine. This project paper aims, evaluates, and presents a methodology useful in vulnerability scanning of docker container images and suggests possible fixes based on OWASP …

Scholastic A Cappella And The Construction Of Whiteness, Community, And Power, Daniel Fister

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Vocal-only student ensembles who cover contemporary popular music at most U.S. high schools and universities, known as a cappella groups, mold students as musical listeners and performers. Though predominantly composed of liberal and progressive people who value diversity and inclusion, a cappella communities perpetuate racialized inequities of sound and representation. I analyze how race, particularly whiteness, shapes the intersecting communities of scholastic a cappella through ideologies of sound (i.e. singing and arranging styles), social structures (i.e. audition processes, competition policies, and judging rubrics), and discourses (how a range of a cappella practitioners discuss, or not, social categories such as race …

Topics In International Finance, Jonathan Lennon Hsu

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on two main unanswered questions that lie at the intersection between international financing, international trade, and supply chains. Firstly, to what extent can international trade networks offer borrowing opportunities for firms that face significant barriers in traditional financing markets? Second, what are the potential impacts of financial globalization on firms’ borrowing and extension of trade credit?

The first chapter seeks to answer the first research question listed above: to what extentcan international trade networks offer borrowing opportunities for firms that face significant barriers in traditional financing markets? I show that firms use their trade flows to borrow …

A War Of Compassion: Challenging The Species Barrier In The Works Of Céline And Léautaud, Dawn Mohrmann

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Jacques Derrida, when affirming the undeniability of animal suffering in L’Animal que donc je suis, states that there is “une guerre en cours … entre d’une part, ceux qui violent non seulement la vie animale mais jusqu’à ce sentiment de compassion et d’autre part, ceux qui en appellent au témoignage irrécusable de cette pitié” (50). This study investigates the nature of this ongoing war to which Derrida referred. I investigate both the nature of human cruelty and its counterpoint, empathy, which I propose as the response to the anthropocentrism that allows this struggle to continue. Through investigating theories of empathy, …

Examination Of The Role Of Peer Effect On Board Diversity Among Us-Listed Companies, Liyang Wang

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, government mandates and investor activism influence board diversity in the United States. This study proposes peer effects as a third important determinant of board diversity. The results suggest that companies consider the progress made by their peers when deciding their own diversity. Interestingly, companies only match the performance of their peers and will spend comparable efforts in improving their diversity according to their peer's progress. Meanwhile, the peer effect has grown stronger in recent years, and companies are more likely to track the performance of mid-level peers. The results provide evidence on a new channel that can affect board …

Webinar: Individual Wayfinding In The Context Of Visual Impairment, Blindness, And Deafblindness, Amy Parker, Martin Swobodzinski

TREC Webinar Series

In this presentation we will highlight our past research on human indoor-outdoor wayfinding on an urban college campus. Our work is aimed at facilitating independent travel for people with blindness and low vision. Our research was funded by two successive grants from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities/US Department of Transportation. One of the central research questions sought to capture wayfinding preferences, information needs, and lived experiences of blind and low-vision pedestrian travelers. The projects afforded close collaboration with external partners, and foremost the American Printing House for the Blind. Our focus in the presentation will be on the …

Dealing With Dimensionality: Problems And Techniques In High-Dimensional Statistics, Cezareo Rodriguez

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

In modern data analysis, problems involving high dimensional data with more variables than subjects is increasingly common. Two such cases are mediation analysis and distributed optimization. In Chapter 2 we start with an overview of high dimensional statistics and mediation analysis. In Chapter 3 we motivate and prove properties for a new marginal screening procedure for performing high dimensional mediation analysis. This screening procedure is shown via simulation to perform better than benchmark approaches and is applied to a DNA methylation study. In Chapter 4 we construct a cryptosystem that accurately performs distributed penalized quantile regression in the high-dimensional setting …

Contribution To Data Science: Time Series, Uncertainty Quantification And Applications, Dhrubajyoti Ghosh

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Time series analysis is an essential tool in modern world statistical analysis, with a myriad of real data problems having temporal components that need to be studied to gain a better understanding of the temporal dependence structure in the data. For example, in the stock market, it is of significant importance to identify the ups and downs of the stock prices, for which time series analysis is crucial. Most of the existing literature on time series deals with linear time series, or with Gaussianity assumption. However, there are multiple instances where the time series shows nonlinear trends, or when the …

Perceptual Experience, Representation, And The Environment, James Gulledge

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Recent cognitive science suggests that the system responsible for perceptual experience is flexible, can learn, and is robustly affected by information stored in subjects’ minds. My dissertation is about the account of the mind and subjective awareness that emerges if this picture of perceptual experience is true. Whether perceptual experience is affected by stored information is usually tied to discussions of so-called ‘cognitive penetration’ (what I call cognitive ‘permeation’). I consider the focus on cognitive permeation largely as a red herring, instead holding that we should view the relevant epistemic issue more broadly: as that of whether changing stores of …

Laywoman Of Right Faith: The Religious Writings Of Wang Peihua (1767-1792), Meijie Shen

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATIONLaywoman of Right Faith: The Religious Writings of Wang Peihua (1767-1792) by Meijie Shen Doctor of Philosophy in Chinese Language and Literature Washington University in St. Louis, 2022 Professor Beata Grant, ChairThis dissertation is a case study of an eighteenth-century Buddhist laywoman named Wang Peihua (1767-1792) from the affluent Jiangnan area of imperial China. This period saw the flourishing of women’s education and writings, thanks to which we have collections left behind by them that document their own lives and in their own voice, which enabled us to explore their religious experience. As women started to enter …

The Isotropic And Anisotropic Structure Of Antarctica From Seismic Inversion, Zhengyang Zhou

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation utilizes multiple techniques of earthquake tomography to investigate the seismic structure of the crust and mantle beneath Antarctica. The isotropic structure of the Antarctic crust and upper mantle is now constrained by several seismic studies, but until now few studies have investigated the anisotropic structure. Therefore, in this study, I focus on the anisotropic structure, which is crucial information to understanding current or historic deformation and flow patterns, as well as the organic process of Antarctica. I use the data from the seismic stations deployed on the Antarctica continent during the past 20 years, as well as other …

Politics During And After Democratic Backsliding, Benjamin Rieth Schneider

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Why do voters support backsliding incumbents? Under what conditions are voters more permissive to backsliding? In recent years, scholars have been interested in what leads to voters to support backsliding incumbents where we should expect them to be sanctioned and generally these answers have been focused on partisanship and polarization. I build on this literature by arguing that societal threat reduces the negative evaluation of backsliding actions and highlights the need for competent leaders to protect against future crisis. I develop an original formal model that considers the different strategies available to backsliding incumbents and shows that societal threat benefits …

Worlds Of Their Own: Narrative World-Making In Eighteenth-Century British Women’S Literature, Lisa Renee Brune

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation argues that female writers in the eighteenth century engaged in fictional acts of world-making. Departing from the new modes of realist writing and the established precedents of romance, such female writers as Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Lennox, Sarah Scott, Sarah Fielding, and Jane Collier created a distinctive mode of utopian writing. They believed that fiction was not restricted to the job of representation but could imagine unrealized social possibilities. The strategies of fictional world-making I analyze include the deployment of romance scripts to change given structures of courtship, the repeated use of romance plot devices and character types to …

3d Imaging Analysis On An Organoid-Based Platform Guides Personalized Treatment In Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma, Ya'an Kang, Jenying Deng, Jianhua Ling, Xinqun Li, Yi-Ju Chiang, Eugene J Koay, Huamin Wang, Jared K Burks, Paul J Chiao, Mark W Hurd, Manoop S Bhutani, Jeffrey H Lee, Brian R Weston, Anirban Maitra, Naruhiko Ikoma, Ching-Wei D Tzeng, Jeffrey E Lee, Ronald A Depinho, Robert A Wolff, Shubham Pant, Florencia Mcallister, Matthew Hg Katz, Jason B Fleming, Michael P Kim

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUNDPancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal malignancies, with unpredictable responses to chemotherapy. Approaches to assay patient tumors before treatment and identify effective treatment regimens based on tumor sensitivities are lacking. We developed an organoid-based platform (OBP) to visually quantify patient-derived organoid (PDO) responses to drug treatments and associated tumor-stroma modulation for personalized PDAC therapy.METHODSWe retrospectively quantified apoptotic responses and tumor-stroma cell proportions in PDOs via 3D immunofluorescence imaging through annexin A5, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), and cytokeratin 19 (CK-19) levels. Simultaneously, an ex vivo organoid drug sensitivity assay (ODSA) was used to measure responses to standard-of-care …

Noise And Propulsive Efficiency Interactions For Rotors And Propellers At Constant Thrust, Riccardo Roiati

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

In the emerging market of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), aerospace companies have been designing and prototyping electric and hybrid vehicles to revolutionize travel. These vehicles must have low noise and particulate emissions while also having enough propulsive efficiency to complete the mission. This thesis aims to study the relationship between noise and propulsive efficiency as related to any aircraft equipped with an electric motor and a variable pitch rotor/propeller. The combination of the electric motor with the variable pitch propeller/rotor allows for a decoupled rotational speed and torque generation, meaning that the electric motor can generate the same amount of …

Extensive Behavioral Phenotyping Of Williams Syndrome Locus Relevant Mouse Models To Assess Contributions Of Oxytocin And Gtf2ird1, Kayla Rose Nygaard

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The Williams Syndrome Critical Region (WSCR) at chromosome 7q11.23 provides a unique opportunity to untangle the relationship between genotype and phenotype in complex behaviors, from fear and anxiety to sociability and sensorimotor processing. Copy number variations (CNVs) in this region result in two syndromes, Williams Syndrome (WS) and Duplication 7q11.23 Syndrome (Dup7), which display phenotypes that may align, indicating a common disruption of a system, or diverge, reflecting an underlying gene dosage-dependent effect. While case studies of atypical deletions resulting in WS have implicated telomeric genes Gtf2ird1 and Gtf2i in the cognitive and behavioral profiles of WS, proving causation requires …

Circadian Circuitry And Glioblastoma: Interactions With Behavior, Carcinogenesis, And Clinical Practice., Anna R. Damato

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary adult brain tumor diagnosed, with a 15-month prognosis using current standard of care treatment which includes chemotherapy with temozolomide (Temodar, TMZ). Chronotherapy, the practice of considering time of day in treating a disease, has been shown to improve outcome in several cancers, but had not been applied to GBM. Previous work in the lab on a cultured murine mesenchymal GBM cell line showed a time-of-day dependent maximum in sensitivity to TMZ corresponding with the daily peak of Bmal1 and trough of Per2 expression, two core clock genes. Based on this finding, we sought …

Sik3 & Wnk Signals Through Fray To Regulate Glial K+ Buffering And Seizure Susceptibility In Drosophila Models Of Hyperexcitability, Lorenzo Laronn Lones

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

K+ homeostasis is important for maintaining healthy, physiological levels of neuronal activity. Glial cells play a central role in maintaining homeostatic ion gradients. In previous work from our lab, we unravel a glial K+ buffering program that is centered on a key kinase, salt-inducible kinase 3 (SIK3). SIK3-HDAC4 signaling in glial regulates the transcription of channels and transporters involved in water and ion transport. Defects in this pathway lead to peripheral nerve edema, neuronal hyperactivity, and seizure sensitivity. In an hyperexcitability mutant, eag Shaker, we show this pathway is downregulated and genetic activation suppresses seizure behavior. In this thesis, I …

Study On Nutrition Labeling Optimization Based On Augmented Reality, Huang Ze-Ying, Li Hai-Jun

Food and Machinery

To optimize nutrition labeling in China, this paper tried to overlay virtual information on original information from the nutrition information table by using augmented reality (AR), and then added three new guidance functions of nutrition labeling knowledge popularization, nutritional content auxiliary calculation and precise nutrition guidance through database construction, 3D modeling building and mobile phone application making. For the implementation of AR nutrition labeling, some suggestions were put forward, such as the establishment of national nutrition health database, the forecast of the implementation effect of the labeling and the operation mechanism design.

Phenolic Compounds Profile And Antioxidant Activities Of Different Fractions Of Tartary Buckwheat, Chen Yue, Zhu Yong, Qin Li-Kang

Food and Machinery

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the phenolic compounds profile and antioxidant activities of different fractions of Tartary buckwheat. Methods: Tartary buckwheat was ground and sieved into shell, bran and powder. Phenolic compounds in tartary buckwheat were extracted with 70% ethanol, and phenolic compounds composition and antioxidant activity of the extract were analyzed. Results: In Tartary buckwheat bran, the total phenolics and flavonoids were (3 042±31) mg GAE/100 g·DW and (5 290±233) mg RE/100 g·DW, accounting for 60.8%, 67.7% of the total Tartary buckwheat, respectively. Rutin was the dominant phenolic compounds in bran extract, and the content …

Correlation Analysis Of Taste Intensity Of Tea Flavor Attribute Reference Based On Electronic Tongue And Artificial Senses, Liu Zhong-Ying, Ran Qian-Song, Zhang Tuo, Zheng Wen-Jia, Pan Ke

Food and Machinery

Objective: This study aimed to explore the correlation between electronic tongue and artificial senses on the taste intensity of tea taste attribute reference. Methods: Quinine, alum, sodium glutamate, sucrose and citric acid were used as the reference materials for bitter, astringent, fresh, sweet and sour taste attributes in turn. Based on the perception threshold, the relationship between concentration and taste intensity of each reference material for electronic tongue and artificial senses and its correlation were analyzed. Results: The bitterness perception threshold of quinine was 0.015 mg/mL, and the corresponding electronic tongue response value was 4.91. The detection …

Flavor Analysis Of Passion Beer Based On Gc-Ims Technology, Gong Xiao, Chen Ting-Hui, Hu Xiao-Jun, Fan Wei-Wei, Li Ya-Jun, Zhao Xin-Qiang

Food and Machinery

Objective: This study aimed to fully develop and utilize the resources of passion fruits. Methods: The volatile flavor compounds at different brewing stages were analyzed by GC-IMS technology. Results: A total of 63 kinds of flavor compounds were identified, including 26 kinds of esters, 10 kinds of alcohols, 9 kinds of aldehydes, 7 kinds of ketones, 6 kinds of alkanes, 2 kinds of acids, 2 kinds of furans and 1 kinds of ether. Principal components analysis (PCA) showed that the cumulative difference contribution rate of the first two principal components (PC1 and PC2) was 81.2%, indicating that …

Determination Of Duck Meat Adulteration Ratio In Pork Stuffing, Fei Ying-Min, Pan Lei, Ni Xue, Zhang Gen-Sheng

Food and Machinery

Objective: This study aimed to determine the proportion of duck adulteration in pork stuffing by gas chromatography. Methods: Based on the analysis of characteristic fatty acid types as well as contents in different meats by gas chromatography, the standard fingerprint profiles of pork and duck were established manually, and the chromatograms of duck adulteration samples with 10%, 30%, 50% and 70% adulteration in pork stuffing were analyzed. The characteristic fatty acids of duck-pork were finally selected as lauric acid, stearic acid, trans Behenic acid, and linoleic acid. The adulteration experiment was simulated to establish the prediction regression models …

Study On Optimization Of Motion Parameters Of Catfish Headless Processing Device Based On Fem, Li Chen-Yang, Shan Hui-Yong, Zhang Cheng-Hao, Tian Yun-Chen, Wei Yong

Food and Machinery

Objective: Improve the mechanization and automation of the pretreatment process of China’s freshwater fish processing industry. Methods: The catfish head cutting simulation model is constructed by the numerical analysis software ANSYS/LS-DYNA, and the catfish head removal process is simulated and analyzed and the motion parameters are optimized by FEM. The blade speed and transportation speed are adjusted with the minimum cutting power consumption as the optimization goal, and the accuracy of the simulation results is verified by the prototype test. Results: When the speed of the blade is 850 r/min and the conveying speed is 14 cm/s, …

Online Visual Detection Method Of Defective Baoyu-Flavor-Slices Based On Mechanical Vision, Xiang Yu-Hang, Zhou Cong-Ling, Wang Yong-Qiang

Food and Machinery

Objective: To solve the problem of appearance defects of Baoyu-flavor-slices, such as edge damage, internal porosity and uneven wrapper thickness in the production process. Methods: An on-line detection method based on machine vision was proposed. The Baoyu-Flavor-Slices were arranged into a single layer array by mechanical carding device. After image acquisition, image segmentation, gray value stretching and contour edge extraction were selected for image processing. Edge damage detection was completed by using the feature of outer contour roundness, abnormal wrapper thickness detection was accomplished by measuring wrapper thickness, by calculating the porosity area, the porosity detection was completed. …

Research On Mill Distance Monitoring System Based On Machine Vision, Lu Shao-Jie, Wu Wen-Bin, Zhang Wen-Long, Hou Ning-Pei, Liu Pei-Kang, Zhao Qi-Feng

Food and Machinery

Objective: Real-time monitoring of the grinding roller distance of the pulverizer. Methods: CCD industrial camera was used to collect the rolling distance image, threshold segmentation and morphology were used to preprocess the gray image, and then the edge detection algorithm combined with MATLAB software and mathematical operation were used to eliminate the irrelevant edge points, and finally the rolling distance of the mill was calculated. The feasibility and veracity of the system were verified by comparing the value of gauge and the value of system monitoring. Results: The data fluctuation range of the online monitoring system was …