Digital Commons Network^™

Adaptive Split-Fusion Transformer, Zixuan Su, Jingjing Chen, Lei Pang, Chong-Wah Ngo, Yu-Gang Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Neural networks for visual content understanding have recently evolved from convolutional ones to transformers. The prior (CNN) relies on small-windowed kernels to capture the regional clues, demonstrating solid local expressiveness. On the contrary, the latter (transformer) establishes long-range global connections between localities for holistic learning. Inspired by this complementary nature, there is a growing interest in designing hybrid models which utilize both techniques. Current hybrids merely replace convolutions as simple approximations of linear projection or juxtapose a convolution branch with attention without considering the importance of local/global modeling. To tackle this, we propose a new hybrid named Adaptive Split-Fusion Transformer …

Take A Break In The Middle: Investigating Subgoals Towards Hierarhical Script Generation, Xinze Li, Yixin Cao, Muhao Chen, Aixin Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Goal-oriented Script Generation is a new task of generating a list of steps that can fulfill the given goal. In this paper, we propose to extend the task from the perspective of cognitive theory. Instead of a simple flat structure, the steps are typically organized hierarchically — Human often decompose a complex task into subgoals, where each subgoal can be further decomposed into steps. To establish the benchmark, we contribute a new dataset, propose several baseline methods, and set up evaluation metrics. Both automatic and human evaluation verify the high-quality of dataset, as well as the effectiveness of incorporating subgoals …

Synthesizing Speech Test Cases With Text-To-Speech? An Empirical Study On The False Alarms In Automated Speech Recognition Testing, Julia Kaiwen Lau, Kelvin Kai Wen Kong, Julian Hao Yong, Per Hoong Tan, Zhou Yang, Zi Qian Yong, Joshua Chern Wey Low, Chun Yong Chong, Mei Kuan Lim, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recent studies have proposed the use of Text-To-Speech (TTS) systems to automatically synthesise speech test cases on a scale and uncover a large number of failures in ASR systems. However, the failures uncovered by synthetic test cases may not reflect the actual performance of an ASR system when it transcribes human audio, which we refer to as false alarms. Given a failed test case synthesised from TTS systems, which consists of TTS-generated audio and the corresponding ground truth text, we feed the human audio stating the same text to an ASR system. If human audio can be correctly transcribed, an …

Mitigating Adversarial Attacks On Data-Driven Invariant Checkers For Cyber-Physical Systems, Rajib Ranjan Maiti, Cheah Huei Yoong, Venkata Reddy Palleti, Arlindo Silva, Christopher M. Poskitt

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The use of invariants in developing security mechanisms has become an attractive research area because of their potential to both prevent attacks and detect attacks in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). In general, an invariant is a property that is expressed using design parameters along with Boolean operators and which always holds in normal operation of a system, in particular, a CPS. Invariants can be derived by analysing operational data of various design parameters in a running CPS, or by analysing the system's requirements/design documents, with both of the approaches demonstrating significant potential to detect and prevent cyber-attacks on a CPS. While …

Transfer-Once-For-All: Ai Model Optimization For Edge, Achintya Kundu, Laura Wynter, Rhui Dih Lee, Luis Angel Bathen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Weight-sharing neural architecture search aims to optimize a configurable neural network model (supernet) for a variety of deployment scenarios across many devices with different resource constraints. Existing approaches use evolutionary search to extract models of different sizes from a supernet trained on a very large data set, and then fine-tune the extracted models on the typically small, real-world data set of interest. The computational cost of training thus grows linearly with the number of different model deployment scenarios. Hence, we propose Transfer-Once-For-All (TOFA) for supernet-style training on small data sets with constant computational training cost over any number of edge …

A Review On The Effects Of Chanting And Solfeggio Frequencies On Well-Being, Xuyu Yang, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Fen Lin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents our literature review on how chanting and solfeggio frequencies affect brain activity, enhance well-being, and inform the design of sound therapy. We call for more scientific research to investigate and better understand the effects of chanting and solfeggio frequencies on well-being.

Norfolk Integrated Waste-Energy Framework, Emma Kurtz, Abigail Schroeder, Jonah Mcdowell

Project Energy Nebraska: Student Projects

Environmental Engagement in the Community projects, spring 2023 A poster titled Norfolk Integrated Waste-Energy Framework for client City of Norfolk, Nebraska and Nebraska Public Power District.

Faculty sponsor: David Gosselin

Automated Fiber Placement Through Thickness Defect Stacking Optimization, Noah Christopher Swingle

Theses and Dissertations

In its 2022 commercial market outlook, Boeing forecasted an 80% increase in the global fleet through 2041 compared to 2019 pre-pandemic levels. This sharp rise in demand will drive pressure onto airframe manufacturers to ramp up production and find more efficient ways to design and manufacture airplanes. Complicating this challenge is the industry’s recent transformation from traditional metal-based airframes towards hybrid composite-metal aircraft. While composites have been used in aviation for decades, aircraft manufacturers are still struggling to design and manufacture quality parts at a high rate. Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) is one of the main manufacturing techniques used to …

Improving Outcomes For Older Struggling Readers In Special Education Resource, Kathryn Stone

Education Theses and Dissertations

This research aimed to increase the reading achievement of sixth-grade special education students receiving interventions in a resource setting. This problem of practice was created in response to the theory of change made by a Network Improvement Community (NIC) rooted in the lack of professional development offered by the school district for special education teachers in teaching students foundational reading skills. The research questions used for this study this evaluation were 1) What percent of students made progress in each reporting category (word study, grammar, and comprehension) in the Lexia PowerUp literacy program? 2) To what extent did the teachers …

To What Extent Do 3- To -6-Year-Olds Demonstrate Connection To Nature At A Montessori School In The Upper Midwest, Natasha Yates

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Yates, N. (2023). To What Extent Do 3- to -6-Year-Olds Demonstrate Connection to Nature at a Montessori School in the Upper Midwest.

Young children are born into a world today with a drastically changing environmental climate. When young people develop an emotional attachment and sense of identity with nature, they may be more likely to behave in less destructive ways towards the planet and possibly live with a sense of responsibility and respect for nature. This mixed method study aimed to measure to what extent 3- to 6-year-olds demonstrated environmental sensitivity, awareness, and preferences at a nature-based Montessori school in …

Density-Mediated Spin Correlations Drive Edge-To-Bulk Flow Transition In Active Chiral Matter, Alexander P. Petroff, Christopher Whittington, Arshad Kudrolli

Physics

We demonstrate that edge currents develop in active chiral matter due to boundary shielding over a wide range of densities corresponding to a gas, fluid, and crystal. The system is composed of spinning disk-shaped grains with chirally arranged tilted legs confined in a circular vibrating chamber. The edge currents are shown to increasingly drive circulating bulk flows with area fraction as percolating clusters develop due to increasing spin-coupling between neighbors mediated by frictional contacts. Edge currents are observed even in the dilute limit. While, at low area fraction, the average flux vanishes except within a distance that is of the …

Accurate Covariance Estimation For Pose Data From Iterative Closest Point Algorithm, Rick H. Yuan, Clark N. Taylor, Scott L. Nykl

Faculty Publications

One of the fundamental problems of robotics and navigation is the estimation of the relative pose of an external object with respect to the observer. A common method for computing the relative pose is the iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm, where a reference point cloud of a known object is registered against a sensed point cloud to determine relative pose. To use this computed pose information in downstream processing algorithms, it is necessary to estimate the uncertainty of the ICP output, typically represented as a covariance matrix. In this paper, a novel method for estimating uncertainty from sensed data is …

Antitrust And Sustainability: A Landscape Analysis, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, Sabin Center For Climate Change Law

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Competition policy and antitrust law are experiencing a global renaissance. New market realities such as digital market gatekeepers, the financialization of firms, highly concentrated markets, a rising labor movement, industrial policy, and trade wars, among others, are radically reshaping how this policy area is understood and applied.

Sustainability concerns have also been a driving force for reconstituting antitrust to meet twenty-first century challenges. It is now widely accepted that competition policy – both its aims and its enforcement – has wider societal impacts beyond competition, including effects on democracy, economic inequality, growth and innovation, racial and gender imbalances, privacy, geopolitical …

An Evolutionary Comparative Study Of Congenital Stationary Night Blindness-Associated Trpm1 Genetic Variants Of Uncertain Significance In Horses And Humans Utilizing Caenorhabditis Elegans, Gabrielle Davis

Theses

Congenital stationary night blindness (CSNB) is a heterogeneous collection of genetic diseases affecting the eyes and vision in horses and humans. Current research has implicated several genetic mutations impacting different genes involved in phototransduction and signal transmission, including TRPM1. In horses, genetic mutations in TRPM1 also result in a leopard spotting pattern or leopard complex. The goal of this study is to examine the potential impact of CSNB associated TRPM1 missense variants of uncertain significance (VUS). Previous research in Caenorhabditis elegans have revealed an orthologous TRPM1 gene known as gon-2 that allows for comparative studies. The evolutionary relationship of …

Enhancing And Securing Wireless Medical Technology For Diagnosis And Treatment Of Lower Urinary Tract Dysfunction, Farhath Zareen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lower urinary tract dysfunction (LUTD) is a debilitating medical condition that affects millions of individuals worldwide. Urodynamics is the current gold standard for diagnosing LUTD but uses non-physiologically fast, retrograde cystometric filling to obtain a brief snapshot of bladder function. Current state-of-the-art research in bladder monitoring includes ambulatory urodynamics using wireless implantable devices to evaluate bladder function during natural filling for long-term monitoring. However, there are various challenges and limitations to this multi-sensor approach. This research focuses on developing frameworks for automated event detection, data analysis, and optimization of long-term bladder recordingsto improve the diagnosis and treatment of LUTD. In …

2022 Survey Of Illinois Law: Family Law, Stephanie L. Tang

Southern Illinois University Law Journal

In 2022, there were significant changes to both family law legislation and case law. Relevant legislative changes include allowing litigants to seek attorney’s fees to retain a lawyer, allowing for temporary relocation, and clarifying when a change in circumstances is “contemplated” for purposes of modifying child support. Illinois courts also adjudicated cases across all areas of family law. These areas ranged from expanding on prior case precedent in areas like property division and allocation of parental responsibilities to establishing new precedent in others, including COVID-19 restrictions and allocation of frozen embryos.

This Article is a continuation of the 2017-2018 and …

Edge Covers Of Joined Cycle And Path Graphs, Rowan Kennedy

Mathematics Undergraduate Research

A graph is a mathematical structure consisting of vertices, representing objects, and edges that connect pairs of vertices, representing relationships between objects. When a specific graph structure can be extended in a consistent pattern we get a graph family, such as the families of path and cycle graphs. An edge cover of a graph is a subset of the graph's edges chosen so that each vertex is an endpoint of at least one edge in this subset. The edge cover counts of certain graph families, such as the path and cycle graphs, correspond to known sequences, the Fibonacci and Lucas …

Hurricane Impacts On Land In The Central And Eastern Caribbean Since 1494 Ce From Written Records, Michael Chenoweth, Ian Howard

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Written accounts of hurricanes and their impacts in the Caribbean region date back to 1494 CE We report a new compilation of hurricanes in the longest settled regions of the central and eastern Caribbean region (CECR) that is the most complete yet produced and present basic statistics. We assess likely undercounts of hurricanes due to incomplete documentary records in the earliest part of the record by using the most complete reporting from Puerto Rico relative to the remainder of the CECR. We compare our results with other documentary and proxy data from the region and demonstrate using wavelet analysis significant …

Forecasting Sea Level Rise-Driven Inundation In Diked And Tidally Restricted Coastal Lowlands, K. M. Befus, A. P.D. Kurnizki, K. D. Kroeger, M. J. Eagle, T. P. Smith

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Diked and drained coastal lowlands rely on hydraulic and protective infrastructure that may not function as designed in areas with relative sea-level rise. The slow and incremental loss of the hydraulic conditions required for a well-drained system make it difficult to identify if and when the flow structures no longer discharge enough water, especially in tidal settings where two-way flows occur through the dike. We developed and applied a hydraulic mass-balance model to quantify how water levels in the diked and tidally restricted coastal wetlands and water bodies dynamically respond to sea-level rise, specifically applied to the Herring River Estuary …

Applying Homomorphic Encryption To A Cross Domain Problem, Cheyenne Dailey

Theses

The Cross Domain Problem (CDP) strives to ensure protected data transference across varying security domains. In order to accomplish this, a Cross Domain Solution (CDS) is needed. A common method to protect data is to focus on risk management between trusted parties; however, untrusted parties pose ongoing concern. The problem is determining a method that transfers classified data through various security domains without exposing any information to intermediary parties. Attempts to mitigate this problem have been made utilizing Homomorphic Encryption (HE), a type of encryption that allows for computations to be executed on encrypted data without needing to decrypt it. …

Diffractive Light And Solar Sails, Prateek Ranjan Srivastava

Theses

In the realm of space exploration, humanity has achieved remarkable feats like landing humans on the moon. However, our progress in venturing beyond our solar system has been limited. Light sails, which utilize photon momentum from laser or solar radiation, o↵er a promising propulsion technology. Unlike traditional rockets, light sails carry no fuel and can achieve high velocities and precise orbital maneuvers. In this research, we propose using an elementary space variant di↵ractive film to design passively stable light sails propelled by laser radiation. We also explore applying this concept to solar sails, enabling spiral trajectories and high orbital inclination …

A Privacy Safeguarding Framework For The Smart Grid, Gaurav Shivaji Wagh

Theses

The smart grid is an outcome of integrating communication technologies with traditional electrical systems. This enables the collection of granular metering data from the customer domain for providing grid and billing functionalities. However, the data collection process exposes the grid to various cyberattacks, posing a significant threat to customer privacy. This is a critical concern for the smart grid community and has hindered the global adoption of the smart grid technology. Although aggregation-based frameworks show promise for sharing metering data with the Electrical Service Provider while maintaining customer privacy, existing aggregation-based frameworks have several limitations. Some of these limitations include …

Engaging Young Female Students In Digital Technology Programs: Part One, Sarah Buckley, Syeda Kashfee Ahmed, Kristy Osborne, Celia Mcneilly, Shani Sniedze, Rachel Felgate

Digital learning research

This report is part of a larger project commissioned by CSIRO and designed to highlight the enablers and barriers to young female students engaging with digital technology. By addressing this function, the report will thereby aid CSIRO to increase the participation of young female students in the digital technology programs offered by CSIRO’s Education and Outreach (CEdO) unit. CSIRO’s Digital Careers team have developed activities and resources to enhance and extend students’ computational thinking skills and to develop other integral skills such as teamwork, critical and creative thinking, and problem solving. In collaboration with industry partners, CEdO are responsible for …

Mentoring Experiences Of Undergraduate Students And Faculty Members In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics, Pamela Martínez Oquendo

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

I present a comprehensive view of mentoring experiences of undergraduate students and faculty members in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In Chapter 1, I describe a brief outline of this dissertation. In Chapter 2, I present an interpretative phenomenological analysis of the lived experiences of former STEM undergraduate mentors of the Nebraska STEM For You (NE STEM 4U) afterschool mentoring program. In Chapter 3, I describe how the ramifications of faculty mentorship influence the science pipeline using a qualitative synthesis. In Chapter 4, I describe how the STEM faculty-student mentoring engagement involves a strong psychological support component using a …

The Effects Of Temperature And Flooding Duration On The Structure And Magnitude Of A Floodplain Prey Subsidy, Ryan J. Rezek, Jordan A. Massie, James A. Nelson, Rolando O. Santos, Natasha M. Viadero, W. Ryan James, Ross E. Boucek, Jennifer S. Rehage

Marine Science

Riverine floodplains serve as an important link between terrestrial and aquatic systems, as the rising and falling of water drive spatial food web subsidies that are critical to the functioning and stability of ecosystems. As these systems are increasingly impacted by hydrological alterations and climate change, it is important to understand how floodplain spatial food web subsidies may respond to changing environmental conditions.

Here, we examine the interannual variation in the structure of a sunfish (Lepomis spp.) prey subsidy from freshwater marshes into the mangrove-lined creeks of Rookery Branch in the Florida Coastal Everglades that occurs during seasonal dry downs. …

On The Variability Of In Situ Surface Layer Refractivity Measurements, Douglas M. Pastore, Ryan T. Yamaguchi, Qing Wang, Erin E. Hackett

Marine Science

Direct measurements of profiles of atmospheric properties near the ocean surface and within the marine atmospheric surface layer often contain a large degree of variability. The variability observed can be explained by numerous technical and natural reasons such as the temporal variability over the time span a profile is measured (unsteadiness in the mean), spatial variations (inhomogeneity), turbulent fluctuations, and measurement uncertainty. In this study, we explored the observed variability in vertical distributions of refractive index measured with a tethered-balloon-based marine atmospheric profiling system (MAPS). MAPS profiled the atmosphere from approximately 0.5 to 50 m, with instantaneous (order 1 s) …

The Finance And Economics Women’S Network (Few): Encouraging And Engaging Women In Undergraduate Programs, Joy Buchanan, Darwyyn Deyo

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

We describe a novel intercollegiate resource for engaging more undergraduate women in finance and economics programs. In response to the gender gap in undergraduate studies, we developed the Finance and Economics Women’s Network (FEW) to support women majoring in finance and economics through FEW clubs. These clubs provide professional skill development and visibility for women in these professions through speaker events. Students run FEW clubs, and faculty advisors and community professionals support them. We also conducted a descriptive survey of students and report the responses. Finally, we provide a constitution template to facilitate the creation of FEW clubs.

Ocean Connectivity And Habitat Characteristics Predict Population Genetic Structure Of Seagrass In An Extreme Tropical Setting, Udhi E. Hernawan, Kor-Jent Van Dijk, Gary A. Kendrick, Ming Feng, Oliver Berry, Christopher Kavazos, Kathryn Mcmahon

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Understanding patterns of gene flow and processes driving genetic differentiation is important for a broad range of conservation practices. In marine organisms, genetic differentiation among populations is influenced by a range of spatial, oceanographic, and environmental factors that are attributed to the seascape. The relative influences of these factors may vary in different locations and can be measured using seascape genetic approaches. Here, we applied a seascape genetic approach to populations of the seagrass, Thalassia hemprichii, at a fine spatial scale (~80 km) in the Kimberley coast, western Australia, a complex seascape with strong, multidirectional currents greatly influenced by extreme …

On Irs-Assisted Covert Communication With A Friendly Uav, Xiaobei Xu, Linzi Hu, Sha Wei, Yuwen Qian, Shihao Yan, Feng Shu, Jun Li

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Driven by the rapidly growing demand for information security, covert wireless communication has become an essential technology and attracted tremendous attention. However, traditional wireless covert communication is continuously exposing the inherent limitations, creating challenges around deployment in environments with a large number of obstacles, such as cities with high-rise buildings. In this paper, we propose an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted covert communication system (CCS) for communicating with a friendly unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in which the UAV generates artificial noise (AN) to interfere with monitoring. Furthermore, we model the power of AN emitted by the UAV using an uncertainty model, …

Spatial Patterns In Host-Associated And Free-Living Bacterial Communities Across Six Temperate Estuaries, Alessandra L. Suzzi, Michael Stat, Troy F. Gaston, Megan J. Huggett

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

A major goal of microbial ecology is to establish the importance of spatial and environmental factors in driving community variation. Their relative importance likely varies across spatial scales, but focus has primarily been on free-living communities within well-connected aquatic environments rather than less connected island-like habitats such as estuaries, and key host-associated communities within these systems. Here we sampled both free-living (seawater and sediment) and host-associated (estuarine fish hindgut microbiome, Pelates sexlineatus) communities across six temperate Australian estuaries spanning ∼500 km. We find that spatial and environmental factors have different influences on these communities, with seawater demonstrating strong distance-decay relationships …