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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Towards Explainable Ai Using Attribution Methods And Image Segmentation, Garrett J. Rocks Jan 2023

Towards Explainable Ai Using Attribution Methods And Image Segmentation, Garrett J. Rocks

Honors Undergraduate Theses

With artificial intelligence (AI) becoming ubiquitous in a broad range of application domains, the opacity of deep learning models remains an obstacle to adaptation within safety-critical systems. Explainable AI (XAI) aims to build trust in AI systems by revealing important inner mechanisms of what has been treated as a black box by human users. This thesis specifically aims to improve the transparency and trustworthiness of deep learning algorithms by combining attribution methods with image segmentation methods. This thesis has the potential to improve the trust and acceptance of AI systems, leading to more responsible and ethical AI applications. An exploratory …


Examining Cooperative System Responses Against Grid Integrity Attacks, Alexander D. Parady Jan 2022

Examining Cooperative System Responses Against Grid Integrity Attacks, Alexander D. Parady

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Smart grid technologies are integral to society’s transition to sustainable energy sources, but they do not come without a cost. As the energy sector shifts away from a century’s reliance on fossil fuels and centralized generation, technology that actively monitors and controls every aspect of the power infrastructure has been widely adopted, resulting in a plethora of new vulnerabilities that have already wreaked havoc on critical infrastructure. Integrity attacks that feedback false data through industrial control systems, which result in possible catastrophic overcorrections and ensuing failures, have plagued grid infrastructure over the past several years. This threat is now at …


Directional Spectral Solar Energy For Building Performance: From Simulation To Cyber-Physical Prototype, Joseph Del Rocco Dec 2021

Directional Spectral Solar Energy For Building Performance: From Simulation To Cyber-Physical Prototype, Joseph Del Rocco

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The original research and development in this dissertation contributes to the field of building performance by actively harnessing a wider spectrum of directional solar radiation for use in buildings. Solar radiation (energy) is often grouped by wavelength measurement into the spectra ultraviolet (UV), visible (light), and short and long-wave infrared (heat) on the electromagnetic spectrum. While some of this energy is directly absorbed or deflected by our atmosphere, most of it passes through, scatters about, and collides with our planet. Modern building performance simulations, tools, and control systems often oversimplify this energy into scalar values for light and heat, when …


Secure And Trustworthy Hardware And Machine Learning Systems For Internet Of Things, Shayan Taheri Jan 2021

Secure And Trustworthy Hardware And Machine Learning Systems For Internet Of Things, Shayan Taheri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The advancements on the Internet have enabled connecting more devices into this technology every day. This great connectivity has led to the introduction of the internet of things (IoTs) that is a great bed for engagement of all new technologies for computing devices and systems. Nowadays, the IoT devices and systems have applications in many sensitive areas including military systems. These challenges target hardware and software elements of IoT devices and systems. Integration of hardware and software elements leads to hardware systems and software systems in the IoT platforms, respectively. A recent trend for the hardware systems is making them …


Fpga-Augmented Secure Crash-Consistent Non-Volatile Memory, Yu Zou Jan 2021

Fpga-Augmented Secure Crash-Consistent Non-Volatile Memory, Yu Zou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Emerging byte-addressable Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) technology, although promising superior memory density and ultra-low energy consumption, poses unique challenges to achieving persistent data privacy and computing security, both of which are critically important to the embedded and IoT applications. Specifically, to successfully restore NVMs to their working states after unexpected system crashes or power failure, maintaining and recovering all the necessary security-related metadata can severely increase memory traffic, degrade runtime performance, exacerbate write endurance problem, and demand costly hardware changes to off-the-shelf processors. In this thesis, we summarize and expand upon two of our innovative works, ARES and HERMES, to design …


Novel Computational Approaches For Multidimensional Brain Image Analysis, Harish Raviprakash Jan 2020

Novel Computational Approaches For Multidimensional Brain Image Analysis, Harish Raviprakash

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The overall goal of this dissertation is focused on addressing challenging problems in 1D, 2D/3D and 4D neuroimaging by developing novel algorithms that combine signal processing and machine learning techniques. One of these challenging tasks is the accurate localization of the eloquent language cortex in brain resection pre-surgery patients. This is especially important since inaccurate localization can lead to diminshed functionalities and thus, a poor quality of life for the patient. The first part of this dissertation addresses this problem in the case of drug-resistant epileptic patients. We propose a novel machine learning based algorithm to establish an alternate electrical …


A Study Of Perceptions On Incident Response Exercises, Information Sharing, Situational Awareness, And Incident Response Planning In Power Grid Utilities, Joseph Garmon Jan 2019

A Study Of Perceptions On Incident Response Exercises, Information Sharing, Situational Awareness, And Incident Response Planning In Power Grid Utilities, Joseph Garmon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The power grid is facing increasing risks from a cybersecurity attack. Attacks that shut off electricity in Ukraine have already occurred, and successful compromises of the power grid that did not shut off electricity to customers have been privately disclosed in North America. The objective of this study is to identify how perceptions of various factors emphasized in the electric sector affect incident response planning. Methods used include a survey of 229 power grid personnel and the use of partial least squares structural equation modeling to identify causal relationships. This study reveals the relationships between perceptions by personnel responsible for …


Transcriptional And Post-Transcriptional Regulation Of Gene Expression, Jun Ding Jan 2016

Transcriptional And Post-Transcriptional Regulation Of Gene Expression, Jun Ding

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Regulation of gene expression includes a variety of mechanisms to increase or decrease specific gene products. Gene expression can be regulated at any stage from transcription to post-transcription and it's essential to almost all living organisms, as it increases the versatility and adaptability by allowing the cell to express the needed proteins. In this dissertation, we comprehensively studied the gene regulation from both transcriptional and post-transcriptional points of view. Transcriptional regulation is by which cells regulate the transcription from DNA to RNA, thereby directing gene activity. Transcriptional factors (TFs) play a very important role in transcriptional regulation and they are …


Techniques For Automated Parameter Estimation In Computational Models Of Probabilistic Systems, Faraz Hussain Jan 2016

Techniques For Automated Parameter Estimation In Computational Models Of Probabilistic Systems, Faraz Hussain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The main contribution of this dissertation is the design of two new algorithms for automatically synthesizing values of numerical parameters of computational models of complex stochastic systems such that the resultant model meets user-specified behavioral specifications. These algorithms are designed to operate on probabilistic systems – systems that, in general, behave differently under identical conditions. The algorithms work using an approach that combines formal verification and mathematical optimization to explore a model's parameter space. The problem of determining whether a model instantiated with a given set of parameter values satisfies the desired specification is first defined using formal verification terminology, …


The Woz Recognizer: A Tool For Understanding User Perceptions Of Sketch-Based Interfaces, Jared Bott Jan 2016

The Woz Recognizer: A Tool For Understanding User Perceptions Of Sketch-Based Interfaces, Jared Bott

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sketch recognition has the potential to be an important input method for computers in the coming years; however, designing and building an accurate and sophisticated sketch recognition system is a time consuming and daunting task. Since sketch recognition is still at a level where mistakes are common, it is important to understand how users perceive and tolerate recognition errors and other user interface elements with these imperfect systems. A problem in performing this type of research is that we cannot easily control aspects of recognition in order to rigorously study the systems. We performed a study examining user perceptions of …


Global Data Association For Multiple Pedestrian Tracking, Afshin Dehghan Jan 2016

Global Data Association For Multiple Pedestrian Tracking, Afshin Dehghan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Multi-object tracking is one of the fundamental problems in computer vision. Almost all multi-object tracking systems consist of two main components; detection and data association. In the detection step, object hypotheses are generated in each frame of a sequence. Later, detections that belong to the same target are linked together to form final trajectories. The latter step is called data association. There are several challenges that render this problem difficult, such as occlusion, background clutter and pose changes. This dissertation aims to address these challenges by tackling the data association component of tracking and contributes three novel methods for solving …


Reasoning Tradeoffs In Implicit Invocation And Aspect Oriented Languages, Jose Sanchez Salazar Jan 2015

Reasoning Tradeoffs In Implicit Invocation And Aspect Oriented Languages, Jose Sanchez Salazar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To reason about a program means to state or conclude, by logical means, some properties the program exhibits; like its correctness according to certain expected behavior. The continuous need for more ambitious, more complex, and more dependable software systems demands for better mechanisms to modularize them and reason about their correctness. The reasoning process is affected by the design decisions made by the developer of the program and by the features supported by the programming language used. Beyond Object Orientation, Implicit Invocation and Aspect Oriented languages pose very hard reasoning challenges. Important tradeoffs must be considered while reasoning about a …


Improving Fairness, Throughput And Blocking Performance For Long Haul And Short Reach Optical Networks, Sana Tariq Jan 2015

Improving Fairness, Throughput And Blocking Performance For Long Haul And Short Reach Optical Networks, Sana Tariq

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Innovations in optical communication are expected to transform the landscape of global communications, internet and datacenter networks. This dissertation investigates several important issues in optical communication such as fairness, throughput, blocking probability and differentiated quality of service (QoS). Novel algorithms and new approaches have been presented to improve the performance of optical circuit switching (OCS) and optical burst switching (OBS) for long haul, and datacenter networks. Extensive simulations tests have been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. These simulation tests were performed over a number of network topologies such as ring, mesh and U.S. Long-Haul, some high …


Computerized Evaluatution Of Microsurgery Skills Training, Payal Jotwani Jan 2015

Computerized Evaluatution Of Microsurgery Skills Training, Payal Jotwani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The style of imparting medical training has evolved, over the years. The traditional methods of teaching and practicing basic surgical skills under apprenticeship model, no longer occupy the first place in modern technically demanding advanced surgical disciplines like neurosurgery. Furthermore, the legal and ethical concerns for patient safety as well as cost-effectiveness have forced neurosurgeons to master the necessary microsurgical techniques to accomplish desired results. This has lead to increased emphasis on assessment of clinical and surgical techniques of the neurosurgeons. However, the subjective assessment of microsurgical techniques like micro-suturing under the apprenticeship model cannot be completely unbiased. A few …


Modeling Social Norms In Real-World Agent-Based Simulations, Rahmatollah Beheshti Jan 2015

Modeling Social Norms In Real-World Agent-Based Simulations, Rahmatollah Beheshti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Studying and simulating social systems including human groups and societies can be a complex problem. In order to build a model that simulates humans' actions, it is necessary to consider the major factors that affect human behavior. Norms are one of these factors: social norms are the customary rules that govern behavior in groups and societies. Norms are everywhere around us, from the way people handshake or bow to the clothes they wear. They play a large role in determining our behaviors. Studies on norms are much older than the age of computer science, since normative studies have been a …


Research On Improving Reliability, Energy Efficiency And Scalability In Distributed And Parallel File Systems, Junyao Zhang Jan 2015

Research On Improving Reliability, Energy Efficiency And Scalability In Distributed And Parallel File Systems, Junyao Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the increasing popularity of cloud computing and "Big data" applications, current data centers are often required to manage petabytes or exabytes of data. To store this huge amount of data, thousands or tens of thousands storage nodes are required at a single site. This imposes three major challenges for storage system designers: (1) Reliability---node failure in these datacenters is a normal occurrence rather than a rare situation. This makes data reliability a great concern. (2) Energy efficiency---a data center can consume up to 100 times more energy than a standard office building. More than 10% of this energy consumption …


An Integrated Framework For Automated Data Collection And Processing For Discrete Event Simulation Models, Carlos Rodriguez Jan 2015

An Integrated Framework For Automated Data Collection And Processing For Discrete Event Simulation Models, Carlos Rodriguez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Discrete Events Simulation (DES) is a powerful tool of modeling and analysis used in different disciplines. DES models require data in order to determine the different parameters that drive the simulations. The literature about DES input data management indicates that the preparation of necessary input data is often a highly manual process, which causes inefficiencies, significant time consumption and a negative user experience. The focus of this research investigation is addressing the manual data collection and processing (MDCAP) problem prevalent in DES projects. This research investigation presents an integrated framework to solve the MDCAP problem by classifying the data needed …


Modeling Crowd Mobility And Communication In Wireless Networks, Gurkan Solmaz Jan 2015

Modeling Crowd Mobility And Communication In Wireless Networks, Gurkan Solmaz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents contributions to the fields of mobility modeling, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with mobile sinks, and opportunistic communication in theme parks. The two main directions of our contributions are human mobility models and strategies for the mobile sink positioning and communication in wireless networks. The first direction of the dissertation is related to human mobility modeling. Modeling the movement of human subjects is important to improve the performance of wireless networks with human participants and the validation of such networks through simulations. The movements in areas such as theme parks follow specific patterns that are not taken into …


Autonomous Quadcopter Videographer, Quiquia Rey Coaguila Jan 2015

Autonomous Quadcopter Videographer, Quiquia Rey Coaguila

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, the interest in quadcopters as a robotics platform for autonomous photography has increased. This is due to their small size and mobility, which allow them to reach places that are difficult or even impossible for humans. This thesis focuses on the design of an autonomous quadcopter videographer, i.e. a quadcopter capable of capturing good footage of a specific subject. In order to obtain this footage, the system needs to choose appropriate vantage points and control the quadcopter. Skilled human videographers can easily spot good filming locations where the subject and its actions can be seen clearly in …


The Design, Implementation, And Refinement Of Wait-Free Algorithms And Containers, Steven Feldman Jan 2015

The Design, Implementation, And Refinement Of Wait-Free Algorithms And Containers, Steven Feldman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My research has been on the development of concurrent algorithms for shared memory systems that provide guarantees of progress. Research into such algorithms is important to developers implementing applications on mission critical and time sensitive systems. These guarantees of progress provide safety properties and freedom from many hazards, such as dead-lock, live-lock, and thread starvation. In addition to the safety concerns, the fine-grained synchronization used in implementing these algorithms promises to provide scalable performance in massively parallel systems. My research has resulted in the development of wait-free versions of the stack, hash map, ring buffer, vector, and a multi-word compare-and-swap …


Providing Context To The Clues: Recovery And Reliability Of Location Data From Android Devices, Connie Bell Jan 2015

Providing Context To The Clues: Recovery And Reliability Of Location Data From Android Devices, Connie Bell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mobile device data continues to increase in significance in both civil and criminal investigations. Location data is often of particular interest. To date, research has established that the devices are location aware, incorporate a variety of resources to obtain location information, and cache the information in various ways. However, a review of the existing research suggests varying degrees of reliability of any such recovered location data. In an effort to clarify the issue, this project offers case studies of multiple Android mobile devices utilized in controlled conditions with known settings and applications in documented locations. The study uses data recovered …


Gauging Training Effectiveness Of Virtual Environment Simulation Based Applications For An Infantry Soldier Training Task, Douglas Maxwell Jan 2015

Gauging Training Effectiveness Of Virtual Environment Simulation Based Applications For An Infantry Soldier Training Task, Douglas Maxwell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command*s Army Learning Concept 2015 and Army Training Concept 2025 are documents that discuss the need for an adaptive soldier learning model with a flexible training delivery methodology. The U.S. Army has been investing in serious gaming technology for the past two decades as a cost effective means to teach tactics and strategy. Today, the U.S. Army is seeking to expand its application of virtual environment training to areas such as cultural awareness and human network analysis for the infantry soldier. These new expanded applications will require a higher level of non-determinant behavior inside …


Resource Management In Large-Scale Systems, Ashkan Paya Jan 2015

Resource Management In Large-Scale Systems, Ashkan Paya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this thesis is resource management in large-scale systems. Our primary concerns are energy management and practical principles for self-organization and self-management. The main contributions of our work are: 1. Models. We proposed several models for different aspects of resource management, e.g., energy-aware load balancing and application scaling for the cloud ecosystem, hierarchical architecture model for self-organizing and self-manageable systems and a new cloud delivery model based on auction-driven self-organization approach. 2. Algorithms. We also proposed several different algorithms for the models described above. Algorithms such as coalition formation, combinatorial auctions and clustering algorithm for scale-free organizations of …


Opportunistic Spectrum Utilization By Cognitive Radio Networks: Challenges And Solutions, Muhammad Faisal Amjad Jan 2015

Opportunistic Spectrum Utilization By Cognitive Radio Networks: Challenges And Solutions, Muhammad Faisal Amjad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cognitive Radio Network (CRN) is an emerging paradigm that makes use of Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) to communicate opportunistically, in the un-licensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical bands or frequency bands otherwise licensed to incumbent users such as TV broadcast. Interest in the development of CRNs is because of severe under-utilization of spectrum bands by the incumbent Primary Users (PUs) that have the license to use them coupled with an ever-increasing demand for unlicensed spectrum for a variety of new mobile and wireless applications. The essence of Cognitive Radio (CR) operation is the cooperative and opportunistic utilization of licensed spectrum bands …


Modeling User Transportation Patterns Using Mobile Devices, Erfan Davami Jan 2015

Modeling User Transportation Patterns Using Mobile Devices, Erfan Davami

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Participatory sensing frameworks use humans and their computing devices as a large mobile sensing network. Dramatic accessibility and affordability have turned mobile devices (smartphone and tablet computers) into the most popular computational machines in the world, exceeding laptops. By the end of 2013, more than 1.5 billion people on earth will have a smartphone. Increased coverage and higher speeds of cellular networks have given these devices the power to constantly stream large amounts of data. Most mobile devices are equipped with advanced sensors such as GPS, cameras, and microphones. This expansion of smartphone numbers and power has created a sensing …


Exploring 3d User Interface Technologies For Improving The Gaming Experience, Arun Kulshreshth Jan 2015

Exploring 3d User Interface Technologies For Improving The Gaming Experience, Arun Kulshreshth

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

3D user interface technologies have the potential to make games more immersive & engaging and thus potentially provide a better user experience to gamers. Although 3D user interface technologies are available for games, it is still unclear how their usage affects game play and if there are any user performance benefits. A systematic study of these technologies in game environments is required to understand how game play is affected and how we can optimize the usage in order to achieve better game play experience. This dissertation seeks to improve the gaming experience by exploring several 3DUI technologies. In this work, …


Complementary Layered Learning, Sean Mondesire Jan 2014

Complementary Layered Learning, Sean Mondesire

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Layered learning is a machine learning paradigm used to develop autonomous robotic-based agents by decomposing a complex task into simpler subtasks and learns each sequentially. Although the paradigm continues to have success in multiple domains, performance can be unexpectedly unsatisfactory. Using Boolean-logic problems and autonomous agent navigation, we show poor performance is due to the learner forgetting how to perform earlier learned subtasks too quickly (favoring plasticity) or having difficulty learning new things (favoring stability). We demonstrate that this imbalance can hinder learning so that task performance is no better than that of a suboptimal learning technique, monolithic learning, which …


Automatic Detection Of Brain Functional Disorder Using Imaging Data, Soumyabrata Dey Jan 2014

Automatic Detection Of Brain Functional Disorder Using Imaging Data, Soumyabrata Dey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recently, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is getting a lot of attention mainly for two reasons. First, it is one of the most commonly found childhood behavioral disorders. Around 5-10% of the children all over the world are diagnosed with ADHD. Second, the root cause of the problem is still unknown and therefore no biological measure exists to diagnose ADHD. Instead, doctors need to diagnose it based on the clinical symptoms, such as inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity, which are all subjective. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data has become a popular tool to understand the functioning of the brain such …


Automatic 3d Human Modeling: An Initial Stage Towards 2-Way Inside Interaction In Mixed Reality, Yiyan Xiong Jan 2014

Automatic 3d Human Modeling: An Initial Stage Towards 2-Way Inside Interaction In Mixed Reality, Yiyan Xiong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

3D human models play an important role in computer graphics applications from a wide range of domains, including education, entertainment, medical care simulation and military training. In many situations, we want the 3D model to have a visual appearance that matches that of a specific living person and to be able to be controlled by that person in a natural manner. Among other uses, this approach supports the notion of human surrogacy, where the virtual counterpart provides a remote presence for the human who controls the virtual character's behavior. In this dissertation, a human modeling pipeline is proposed for the …


Functional Scaffolding For Musical Composition: A New Approach In Computer-Assisted Music Composition, Amy K. Hoover Jan 2014

Functional Scaffolding For Musical Composition: A New Approach In Computer-Assisted Music Composition, Amy K. Hoover

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While it is important for systems intended to enhance musical creativity to define and explore musical ideas conceived by individual users, many limit musical freedom by focusing on maintaining musical structure, thereby impeding the user's freedom to explore his or her individual style. This dissertation presents a comprehensive body of work that introduces a new musical representation that allows users to explore a space of musical rules that are created from their own melodies. This representation, called functional scaffolding for musical composition (FSMC), exploits a simple yet powerful property of multipart compositions: The pattern of notes and rhythms in different …