Digital Commons Network^™

User Habitation In Keystroke Dynamics Based Authentication, Qi Cheng

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Most computer systems use usernames and passwords for authentication and access control. For long, password security has been framed as a tradeoff between user experience and password security. Trading off one for the other appears to be an inevitable dilemma for single password based security applications. As a new biometric for authenticating access, keystroke dynamics offers great promises in hardening the password mechanism. Our research first investigate the keystroke dynamics based password security by conducting an incremental study on user's habituation process for keystroke dynamics analysis using two distinct types of passwords. The study shows that (1) long and complex …

Comparative Study In Stereographic Reading, Alberto E. Santiago

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Viewing a Single Image Random Dot Stereogram (SIRDS) or autostereogram picture requires careful concentration from the viewer. The concentration necessary to perceive depth may affect the performance of the reading process. We are studying if information perceived by way of a stereogram is better retained in memory compared to normal reading without stereo vision. To measure subject's memory performance we administered a questionnaire after a stereographic experience containing a readable story. We discovered that exposing subjects to stereographic information has a slight advantage on the ability to remember precise details of the information read.

Parsimony-Based Genetic Algorithm For Haplotype Resolution And Block Partitioning, Nadezhda A. Sazonova

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation proposes a new algorithm for performing simultaneous haplotype resolution and block partitioning. The algorithm is based on genetic algorithm approach and the parsimonious principle. The multiloculs LD measure (Normalized Entropy Difference) is used as a block identification criterion. The proposed algorithm incorporates missing data is a part of the model and allows blocks of arbitrary length. In addition, the algorithm provides scores for the block boundaries which represent measures of strength of the boundaries at specific positions. The performance of the proposed algorithm was validated by running it on several publicly available data sets including the HapMap data …

A Direct Algorithm For The K-Nearest-Neighbor Classifier Via Local Warping Of The Distance Metric, Tohkoon Neo

Theses and Dissertations

The k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) pattern classifier is a simple yet effective learner. However, it has a few drawbacks, one of which is the large model size. There are a number of algorithms that are able to condense the model size of the k-NN classifier at the expense of accuracy. Boosting is therefore desirable for increasing the accuracy of these condensed models. Unfortunately, there does not exist a boosting algorithm that works well with k-NN directly. We present a direct boosting algorithm for the k-NN classifier that creates an ensemble of models with locally modified distance weighting. An empirical study conducted …

Some Necessary Conditions Of Boolean Functions To Resist Algebraic Attacks., Deepak Dalai Dr.

Doctoral Theses

No abstract provided.

Construction Of (Hierarchical) Identity-Based Encryption Protocols Using Bilinear Pairing., Sanjit Chatterjee Dr.

Doctoral Theses

Science, it is argued [65], advances through paradigm shifts. Concepts emerge that open-up new vistas of research, fundamentally changing the way we are used to looking at things. Between these paradigm shifts remain the periods of consolidation. Periods when human mind explores the newly found territory, shedding light on hitherto unknown dimensions. If radical changes are the hallmarks of paradigm shifts, the period within witnesses small but continuous developments, occasionally marked by its own milestones. It is in these periods that human faculty tries to grasp the full significance of the new concepts, consolidates its gains and thereby pushes the …

Critical Thinking Traits Of Top-Tier Experts And Implications For Computer Science Education, Dean Bushey

All Dissertations

A documented shortage of technical leadership and top-tier performers in
computer science jeopardizes the technological edge, security, and economic well-being of the nation. The 2005 President's Information and Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) Report on competitiveness in computational sciences highlights the major impact of science, technology, and innovation in keeping America competitive in the global marketplace. It stresses the fact that the supply of science, technology, and engineering experts is at the core
of America's technological edge, national competitiveness and security. However, recent data shows that both undergraduate and postgraduate production of computer scientists is falling.

Past research on expert performance …

Basic Building Blocks Of Real-Time Data Analysis As Applied To Smart Oil Fields, Daniel G. Gonzalez

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The process of continuously monitoring and analyzing data in real time as well as reacting to events in an effective and more efficient manner represents one of the challenges in the oil and gas industry today. The existence of a computer model that is capable of evaluating data that enters a computer database in real time, performs different kinds of production analysis, and predicts reservoir performance opens new possibilities for field optimization. Having a model that alerts the engineers of abnormal situations during production operations will help to decrease the time of reaction to such events and as a result …

Combining Complementary Formal Verification Strategies To Improve Performance And Accuracy, David R. Owen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Software is increasingly complex and is used in increasingly critical applications. Sophisticated techniques are available for verifying that software systems work correctly, but these techniques can be very difficult and expensive to use. Researchers have developed tools to automatically verify software models, but using these tools can still be very costly, in terms of manual effort and expertise required to build accurate models and to formally specify required properties, and also in terms of the time and memory required to run these tools. Much work has been done to simplify the process of building software models and to improve the …

Segmentation Of Images With Low-Contrast Edges, Matthew J. Madden

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

A vast amount of the current research in medical image analysis has aimed to develop improved techniques of image segmentation. Of the existing approaches, active contour methods have proven effective by incorporating edge or region information from the image into a level set formulation. However, complications arise in images containing regions of low-contrast due to noise, occlusions, or partial volume effects, which are often unavoidable in practical applications. Incorporating prior shape information into the segmentation framework provides a more accurate and robust solution by constraining the evolving contour to resemble a target shape. Two methods are presented to incorporate a …

Error Resilient Image Transmission Using T-Codes And Edge-Embedding, Premchander Reddy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Current image communication applications involve image transmission over noisy channels, where the image gets damaged. The loss of synchronization at the decoder due to these errors increases the damage in the reconstructed image. Our main goal in this research is to develop an algorithm that has the capability to detect errors, achieve synchronization and conceal errors.;In this thesis we studied the performance of T-codes in comparison with Huffman codes. We develop an algorithm for the selection of best T-code set. We have shown that T-codes exhibit better synchronization properties when compared to Huffman Codes. In this work we developed an …

State Minimization Problems In Finite State Automata, Chris Tauras

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In this thesis, we analyze the problem of state minimization in 2-MDFAs. The class of 2-MDFAs is an extension of the class of DFAs, allowing a small amount of nondeterminism; specifically two start states. Since nondeterminism allows finite automata to be more succinct, it is worthwhile to investigate the problem of minimizing such finite automata. In the case of unbounded non-determinism, i.e., NFAs, such automata can be exponentially more succinct than DFAs [1], but the corresponding minimization problem is PSPACE-complete [2]. Even in the case of 2-MDFAs, which are only polynomially more succinct than DFAs, the minimization problem remains non-trivial; …

Obstacle Avoidance And Path Traversal Using Interactive Machine Learning, Jonathan M. Turner

Theses and Dissertations

Recently there has been a growing interest in using robots in activities that are dangerous or cost prohibitive for humans to do. Such activities include military uses and space exploration. While robotic hardware is often capable of being used in these types of situations, the ability of human operators to control robots in an effective manner is often limited. This deficiency is often related to the control interface of the robot and the level of autonomy that control system affords the human operator. This thesis describes a robot control system, called the safe/unsafe system, which gives a human operator the …

Architecture For An Automated Irc Investigation Tool, Dugald A. Brown

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Chat rooms provide a safe haven to discuss and at some times perform some types of crimes involving the internet. The anonymity provided by chat rooms combined with a general lack of records for most chat servers creates an environment where those who would perpetrate a crime may flourish. Current forms of investigation such as manually monitoring rooms or analyzing logs post-mortem require many man-hours with little to show or provide results too late to gather additional information.;In this thesis some methodologies are discussed in the design of a tool to automate the task of monitoring, logging, analyzing, locating users …

Web-Based Inventory Management System For The West Virginia State Police, Robert M. Horwatt

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This thesis describes the conversion of a DOS-based database system to meet very specific web-based database requirements of the West Virginia State Police. The need for conversion was proposed by the West Virginia State Police in January of 2007. The conversion process given here: allows for normalization of all data; to make the process of inventory management easier for employees of the West Virginia State Police (WVSP); enumerates inventory management problems currently being faced by the WVSP; presents a brief explanation of databases and the database model being used; and provides the initial requirements, specifications for this system These requirements …

Specifying Security Requirements Improvement For Ieee Standard 830, Jacob D. Mccarty

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This paper presents a concept on how the software requirements specifications template provided by IEEE Standard 830 could be updated to ensure that security is analyzed during the early stages of the software development lifecycle. This improved security requirement in the software requirements specifications will ensure that software developers will have a more clear understanding of how to protect digital information.

A Grounded Theory Of Software Process Improvement Model Adoption, W. Grant Norman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This study, using a grounded theory methodology, analyzed data collected from software developers and IT professionals on software process improvement (SPI) adoption. The study is presented within a backdrop of organizational change steps described by John P. Kotter in his 1996 book, Leading Change. Software quality problems and failures have caused many financial losses, injuries, and even deaths. In the mid 1980s, as a means of mitigating these problems, the Department of Defense (DoD) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) began work on the Capability Maturity Model (CMMRTM) In 2001, the model was superseded by a more robust model, the Capability …

A Study On Time/Memory Trade-Off Cryptanalysis., Sourav Mukhopadhyay Dr.

Doctoral Theses

At the beginning of 2003, I was searching for a suitable area to do my PhD. My respected guide Prof. Palash Sarkar assigned me to do a survey work on block cipher cryptanalysis. I found myself very interested in this area. I am very lucky that I joined into a golden group – Cryptology Research Group of India formed by our beloved teacher Prof. Bimal Roy and had the opportunity to work with Prof. Palash Sarkar, Dr. Subhomoy Maitra, Prof. Rana Barua and many others. I have been inspired by many persons during my PhD work.I would like to begin …

On-The-Fly Dynamic Dead Variable Analysis, Joel P. Self

Theses and Dissertations

State explosion in model checking continues to be the primary obstacle to widespread use of software model checking. The large input ranges of variables used in software is the main cause of state explosion. As software grows in size and complexity the problem only becomes worse. As such, model checking research into data abstraction as a way of mitigating state explosion has become more and more important. Data abstractions aim to reduce the effect of large input ranges. This work focuses on a static program analysis technique called dead variable analysis. The goal of dead variable analysis is to discover …

On Edge Detection And Object Recognition In Color Images., Sarif Kumar Naik Dr.

Doctoral Theses

No abstract provided.

Concatenative Text-To-Speech Synthesis: A Study On Standard Colloquial Bengali., Soumen Chowdhury Dr.

Doctoral Theses

The primary communication process between human beings is Speech. Speech synthesis is the automatic and artificial generation of the speech signal by a machine. A TTS (Text-To-Speech) synthesis system is one which can generate speech signal from a string of text in a given language. The development in the speech synthesis systems in various languages has been going on for several decades. With the unprecedented expansion of IT (Information Technology) invading the life of the common man it is highly desirable that at least the information dissemination be made via the speech mode which is the most natural mode of …

Some Geometrical Aspects Of The Cone Linear Complementarity Problem., Madhur Malik Dr.

Doctoral Theses

Cone Linear Complementarity ProblemLet V be a finite dimensional real inner product space and K be a closed convex cone in V. Given a linear transformation L : V → V and a vector q ∈ V the cone linear complementarity problem or linear complementarity problem over K, denoted as LCP(K, L, q), is to find a vector x ∈ K such thatL(x) + q ∈ K+ and hx, L(x) + qi = 0,where h., .i denotes an inner product on V and K is the dual cone of K defined as:K∗ := {y ∈ V : hx, yi ≥ …

System For Collision Detection Between Deformable Models Built On Axis Aligned Bounding Boxes And Gpu Based Culling, David Owen Tuft

Theses and Dissertations

Collision detection between deforming models is a difficult problem for collision detection systems to handle. This problem is even more difficult when deformations are unconstrained, objects are in close proximity to one another, and when the entity count is high. We propose a method to perform collision detection between multiple deforming objects with unconstrained deformations that will give good results in close proximities. Currently no systems exist that achieve good performance on both unconstrained triangle level deformations and deformations that preserve edge connectivity. We propose a new system built as a combination of Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) based culling and …

Implicit Affinity Networks, Matthew Scott Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Although they clearly exist, affinities among individuals are not all easily identified. Yet, they offer unique opportunities to discover new social networks, strengthen ties among individuals, and provide recommendations. We propose the idea of Implicit Affinity Networks (IANs) to build, visualize, and track affinities among groups of individuals. IANs are simple, interactive graphical representations that users may navigate to uncover interesting patterns. This thesis describes a system supporting the construction of IANs and evaluates it in the context of family history and online communities.

Comparisons Of Attitudes Toward Computer Use And Computer Technology Based On Gender And Race/Ethnicity Among Eighth Graders, Kitty J. Boitnott

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not having a laptop computer for individual use 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week lessens differences between how eighth grade girls and eighth grade boys in 10 middle schools in HenricoCounty, Virginia perceive computer use and computer technology. Having a laptop computer to use at any time of the day or night eliminates the issue of competition between boys and girls for computer use. It also eliminates the need for either girls or boys to perform in front of other students while learning, thus lessening to some degree, feelings of computer anxiety. Competition for …

Classification Of Software Components Based On Clustering, Swetha Reddy Konda

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This thesis demonstrates how in different phases of the software life cycle, software components that have similar software metrics can be grouped into homogeneous clusters. We use multi-variate analysis techniques to group similar software components. The results were applied on several real case studies from NASA and open source software. We obtained process and product related metrics during the requirements specification, product related metrics at the architectural level and code metrics from operational stage for several case studies. We implemented clustering analysis using these metrics and validated the results. This analysis makes it possible to rank the clusters and assign …

Natural Language Processing Framework To Assist In The Evaluation Of Adherence To Clinical Guidelines, Sushmitha Regulapati

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is one of the leading causes associated with mortality and morbidity amongst the hospitalized patients and accounts to a major portion of health care costs in USA. Milliman Care Guidelines for CHF is used as a basis to develop a flowchart for representing the guidelines. Using Natural Language Processing techniques, a collection of sample discharge summaries from WVU university hospital are verified against the flowchart to check if they followed the Clinical Guidelines for CHF. The results suggest that it is feasible to evaluate clinical records against the clinical guidelines by representing the guidelines as a …

Evaluation Of An Adult Education Technology Program, Iwasan D. Kejawa

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the adult education technology program at a chartered alternative adult education center in Florida. The adult education center had a low rate of students passing the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). This study examined the impact of the use of computer technology in an effort to improve student learning in mathematics, reading, and science. Computers at the institution were used by all students for tutorials to prepare them for the FCAT and to obtain a high school diploma. The research questions for this study were as follows:

1. Is the education technology program …