Engineering Commons^™

Stacked Generalization For Early Diagnosis Of Alzheimer's Disease, Hardik P. Gandhi

Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurological disorder characterized by nerve degeneration and neuronal death. The diagnosis of AD at an early stage is a major concern due to growing number of elderly people affected by the disease, as well as the lack of a standard diagnosis procedure available to community clinics. A biomarker that will allow early diagnosis of the disease would be beneficial. Such biomarker should be noninvasive, simple to obtain, safe, inexpensive, accurate, and most importantly, must be made available to local health clinics for maximum effectiveness.

Recent studies have used wavelets and other signal processing methods to …

Functional Dissociation In Frontal And Striatal Areas For Processing Of Positive And Negative Reward Information, Xun Liu, David K. Powell, Hongbin Wang, Brian T. Gold, Christine R. Corbly, Jane E. Joseph

Neuroscience Faculty Publications

Reward-seeking behavior depends critically on processing of positive and negative information at various stages such as reward anticipation, outcome monitoring, and choice evaluation. Behavioral and neuropsychological evidence suggests that processing of positive (e.g., gain) and negative (e.g., loss) reward information may be dissociable and individually disrupted. However, it remains uncertain whether different stages of reward processing share certain neural circuitry in frontal and striatal areas, and whether distinct but interactive systems in these areas are recruited for positive and negative reward processing. To explore these issues, we used a monetary decision-making task to investigate the roles of frontal and striatal …

Combined Use Of Oscillating Means And Ellipsometry To Determine Uncorrelated Effective Thickness And Optical Constants Of Material Deposited From A Fluid, John A. Woollam, James D. Welch

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

A combined ellipsometer and oscillator system applied to a chamber for containing fluid, and method of decorrelated determination of thickness and optical constants of depostable materials present in a fluid. In use the ellipsometer determines the product of thickness and optical constant, and the oscillator system changes frequency of oscillation proportional to the thickness of material deposited upon a surface of an element therein.

Recent Developments In Smart Adaptive Structures For Solar Sailcraft, Mark Whorton, Young Kim, Jerry Oakley, Olawale Adetona, Lee Keel

Information Systems and Engineering Management Research Publications

The "Smart Adaptive Structures for Solar Sailcraft" development activity at MSFC has investigated issues associated with understanding how to model and scale the subsystem and multi-body system dynamics of a gossamer solar sailcraft with the objective of designing sailcraft attitude control systems. This research and development activity addressed three key tasks that leveraged existing facilities and core competencies of MSFC to investigate dynamics and control issues of solar sails. Key aspects of this effort included modeling and testing of a 30 m deployable boom; modeling of the multi-body system dynamics of a gossamer sailcraft; investigation of control-structures interaction for gossamer …

2007 - The Twelfth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Twelfth Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 23, 2007. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

Nesting System With Quantization And Knowledge Base Applied, Leszek Koszalka, Grzegorz Chmaj

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

Nesting algorithms deal with placing two dimensional shapes on the given canvas. In this paper a binary way of solving the nesting problem is proposed. Geometric shapes are quantized into binary form, which is used to operate on them. After finishing nesting they are converted back into original geometrical form. Investigations showed, that there is a big influence of quantization accuracy for the nesting effect. However, greater accuracy results with longer time of computation. The proposed knowledge base system is able to strongly reduce the computational time.

Towards Redaction Of Digital Information From Electronic Devices, Gavin W. Manes, Lance Watson, David Greer, Alex Barclay, John Hale

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In the discovery portion of court proceedings, it is necessary to produce information to opposing counsel. Traditionally, this information is in paper form with all privileged information removed. Increasingly, the information requested during discovery exists in digital form and savvy counsel is requesting direct access to the original digital source: a broad spectrum of additional digital information can be often be extracted using digital forensics. This paper describes the major problems which must be solved to redact digital information from electronic devices. The primary hurdle facing digital redaction is the lack of a rational process for systematically handling encoded, encrypted, …

Do Current Erasure Programs Remove Evidence Of Bittorrent Activity?, Andrew Woodward, Craig Valli

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This research in progress aims to evaluate the effectiveness of commercial programs to erase traces of the use of BitTorrent software. The erasure programs MaxErase, P2PDoctor, Privacy Suite, Window Washer and R-Clean and Wipe were used on a machine that had used the BitTorrent client Azureus to download two torrent files. The drive was imaged and then searched for torrent files. The registry was also examined on the source machine. The program R-Clean and Wipe left evidence in both the registry and the image of the name and type of files that had been downloaded with this software. Of greater …

The Case For Teaching Network Protocols To Computer Forensics Examiners, Gary C. Kessler, Matt Fasulo

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Most computer forensics experts are well-versed in basic computer hardware technology, operating systems, common software applications, and computer forensics tools. And while many have rudimentary knowledge about the Internet and simple network-lookup tools, they are not trained in the analysis of network communication protocols and the use of packet sniffers. This paper describes digital forensics applications for network analysis and includes four case studies.

Keywords: computer forensics education, network forensics, protocol analysis

Textbooks For Computer Forensic Courses: A Preliminary Study, Jigang Liu, Larry Gottschalk, Kuodi Jian

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As computer forensics develops into one of the fastest-growing areas in the computer related fields, many universities and colleges are offering or are planning to offer a course in computer forensics. When instructors begin to develop a new course in the area, one of critical questions they would ask is what textbook should be used. To better answer the question, we conducted a study in which we tried to find which textbooks are being used in computer forensic courses. We believe that the results and analysis of our study will help instructors in choosing adequate textbooks for their new course …

Interface Proximity Effects In Current-Perpendicular-To-Plane Magnetoresistance, R.J. Baxter, David G. Pettifor, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal

Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience: Faculty Publications

Using a tight-binding model that takes into account a realistic electronic band structure and includes defect scattering we investigate spin-dependent transport in Co/Cu/Co trilayers when current flows perpendicular to the plane. We show that resistance of the Co/Cu interface depends on the proximity of another interface, which makes the parameters characterizing the spin-dependent interface resistance AR_F/N^* and γ_F/N, to be dependent on the layer thickness separating the two interfaces. This leads to a decrease in the measurable quantity SR=√(AR_AP)(AR_AP-AR_P) with the Cu layer thickness and, therefore, …

Elasticity Of Planar Fiber Networks, X.-F. Wu, Yuris A. Dzenis

Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience: Faculty Publications

A micromechanics model is proposed for the elasticity of planar fiber networks (FNs). The FN is created by random deposition of linearly elastic straight rods within a region. The rods are bonded rigidly at contacts. Under external in-plane loading, the FN deformation consists of fiber bending, elongation, and contraction. An effective constitutive relation for fiber network is developed by averaging the strain energy dissipated by all possible fiber deformations in all directions. Numerical calculations are performed to analyze the effects of fiber aspect ratio and fiber concentration on the effective stiffness of the planar random FN. Finite element analysis (FEA) …

Guided Self-Assembly Of Diblock Copolymer Thin Films On Chemically Patterned Substrates, Xiang-Fa Wu, Yuris A. Dzenis

Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience: Faculty Publications

We study the guided self-assembly of symmetric/asymmetric diblock copolymer (BCP) films on heterogeneous substrates with chemically patterned surface by using a coarse-grained phase-separation model. During the procedure, the free energy employed for the BCP films was modeled by the Ginzburg-Landau free energy with nonlocal interaction, and the flat, chemically patterned surface was considered as a heterogeneous surface with short-range interaction with the BCP molecules. The resulting Cahn-Hilliard equation was solved by means of an efficient semi-implicit Fourier-spectral algorithm. Effects of pattern scale, surface chemical potential, and BCP asymmetry on the self-assembly process were explored in detail and compared with those …

Education For Cyber Crime Investigators, David Greer, Joe Mulenex, John Hale, Gavin W. Manes

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital forensics and cyber crime investigations are continually growing, rapidly changing fields requiring law enforcement agencies to meet very rigorous training requirements. New opportunities for committing criminal activity against persons, organization or property are presented every day with the proliferation of personal digital devices, computers, the internet, computer networks, and automated data systems. Whether the crime involves attacks against computer systems, electronic information, or more traditional crimes such as murder, money laundering or fraud, electronic evidence is becoming more prevalent. It is no surprise that law enforcement and criminal justice officials are being overwhelmed by the volume of investigations and …

Computer Geolocation Using Extracted Features, Chad M.S. Steel

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper compares the extracted feature data from a sample set of hard drive images in an effort to relate the features to the physical location of the drive. A list of probable zip codes, phone numbers, place names, and IP addresses are extracted from raw drive images and compared to manually identified geolocation data. The results of the individual extractions are then analyzed to determine the feasibility in using automated extraction and analysis techniques for geolocating hard drives.

Keywords: hard disk forensics, geocoding, geolocation

Defending Against Insider Use Of Digital Steganography, James E. Wingate, Glenn D. Watt, Marc Kurtz, Chad W. Davis, Robert Lipscomb

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The trusted insider is among the most harmful and difficult to detect threats to information security, according to the Federal Plan for Information Assurance and Cyber Security Research and Development released in April 2006. By default, employees become trusted insiders when granted the set of privileges needed to do their jobs, which typically includes access to the Internet. It is generally presumed the insiders are loyally working to achieve the organization’s goals and objectives and would not abuse the privileges given to them. However, some insiders will inevitably abuse some of their privileges. For example, a trusted insider might abuse …

Investigating Information Structure Of Phishing Emails Based On Persuasive Communication Perspective, Ki Jung Lee, Il-Yeol Song

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Current approaches of phishing filters depend on classifying messages based on textually discernable features such as IP-based URLs or domain names as those features that can be easily extracted from a given phishing message. However, in the same sense, those easily perceptible features can be easily manipulated by sophisticated phishers. Therefore, it is important that universal patterns of phishing messages should be identified for feature extraction to serve as a basis for text classification. In this paper, we demonstrate that user perception regarding phishing message can be identified in central and peripheral routes of information processing. We also present a …

Biomass And Coal Fly Ash In Concrete: Strength, Durability, Microstructure, Quantitative Kinetics Of Pozzolanic Reaction And Alkali Silica Reaction Investigations., Shuangzhen Wang

Theses and Dissertations

Biomass represents an important sustainable energy resource, with biomass-coal cofiring representing among the most effective and cost efficient CO2 reduction strategies. Fly ash generated during coal combustion represents a technically advantageous, inexpensive, and environmentally beneficial admixture in concrete production, partially replacing cement. However, strict interpretation of American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) and American Concrete Institute (ACI) standards prohibits use of fly ashes from any source other than coal in concrete production; therefore, fly ash from biomass coal cofiring is excluded from use in concrete. This dissertation discusses biomass impacts on concrete properties through experiments conducted on several combinations …

Monitoring And Surveillance In The Workplace: Lessons Learnt? – Investigating The International Legal Position, Verine Etsebeth

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

When considering the legal implications of monitoring and surveillance in the workplace, the question may be asked why companies deploy computer surveillance and monitoring in the first place. Several reasons may be put forward to justify why more than 80% of all major American firms monitor employee e-mails and Internet usage. However, what most companies forget is the fact that the absence or presence of monitoring and surveillance activities in a company holds serious legal consequences for companies. From the discussion in this paper it will become apparent that there is a vast difference in how most countries approach this …

The Gap Between Theory And Practice In Digital Forensics, Joseph C. Sremack

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital forensics is a young field that is being defined by the reactive nature of its development – in terms of both research and practice. As technology develops, digital forensics is forced to react and adapt. The rapid development of technology and the lack of an established theoretical foundation has led to a disconnect between the theory and practice of digital forensics. While the base theoretical issues are being worked on by researchers, practitioners are dealing with entirely new sets of issues. The complexity of investigations is increasing, and anti-forensics techniques are advancing as well. The disconnect will be resolved …

Launch And Field Operations Without Leaving Your Office And Cubesat Test Opportunities, Robert J. Twiggs

Robert "Bob" Twiggs STEM Education Collection

A PowerPoint presentation created by Professor Bob Twiggs titled "Launch and Field Operations without leaving your Office and CubeSat Test Opportunities" from April 19, 2007.

An Exploratory Analysis Of Computer Mediated Communications On Cyberstalking Severity, Stephen D. Barnes, David P. Biros

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The interaction between disjunctive interpersonal relationships, those where the parties to the relationship disagree on the goals of the relationship, and the use of computer mediated communications channels is a relatively unexplored domain. Bargh (2002) suggests that CMC channels can amplify the development of interpersonal relationships, and notes that the effect is not constant across communications activities. This proposal suggests a line of research that explores the interaction between computer mediated communications (CMC) and stalking, which is a common form of disjunctive relationships. Field data from cyberstalking cases will be used to look at the effects of CMC channels on …

Guideline Model For Digital Forensic Investigation, Salma Abdalla, Sherif Hazem, Sherif Hashem

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper proposes a detailed guideline model for digital forensics; the proposed model consists of five main phases, Preparation phase, Physical Forensics and Investigation Phase, Digital Forensics Phase, Reporting and Presentation Phase, and Closure Phase.

Most of the existing models in this field do not cover all aspects of digital forensic investigations, as they focus mainly on the processing of digital evidence or on the legal points. Although they gave good information to base on it a guide, but they are not detailed enough to describe fully the investigative process in a way that can be used by investigators during …

New Federal Rules And Digital Evidence, Gavin W. Manes, Elizabeth Downing, Lance Watson, Christopher Thrutchley

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The newly revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and developments under the Federal Rules of Evidence have a significant impact on the use, collection, and treatment of digital evidence for legal proceedings. The Rules now formally grant electronic documents and digital evidence the same status as paper and other forms of tangible evidence. As a result, the availability and proper preservation of potentially relevant electronic evidence must be considered, at the very latest, in the preliminary stages of litigation and, at the earliest, as soon as litigation is reasonably anticipated. It is important for professionals to be familiar with the …

The General Digital Forensics Model, Steven Rigby, Marcus K. Rogers

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The lack of a graphical representation of all of the principles, processes, and phases necessary to carry out an digital forensic investigation is a key inhibitor to effective education in this newly emerging field of study. Many digital forensic models have been suggested for this purpose but they lack explanatory power as they are merely a collection of lists or one-dimensional figures. This paper presents a new multi-dimensional model, the General Digital Forensics Model (GDFM), that shows the relationships and inter-connectedness of the principles and processes needed within the domain of digital forensics.

Keywords: process model, computer forensics, expert learning, …

Teams Responsibilities For Digital Forensic Process, Salma Abdalla, Sherif Hazem, Sherif Hashem

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper presents a detailed digital forensics process model and the responsible teams to perform it. The discussed model presents three teams and a forensic leader who coordinate between the three teams; these teams are physical crime scene team, laboratory examination team and courtroom team. These teams are responsible of achieving the digital forensic model by applying five main phases which are preparation phase, physical forensics and investigation phase, digital forensics phase, reporting and presentation phase and closure phase.

Most of the existing models in this field are either theoretical that deals with data processing or based on a legal …

The Evolution Of Internet Legal Regulation In Addressing Crime And Terrorism, Murdoch Watney

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Internet regulation has evolved from self-regulation to the criminalization of conduct to state control of information available, accessed and submitted. Criticism has been leveled at the different forms of state control and the methods employed to enforce state control. After the terrorist attack on the USA on 11 September 2001, governments justify Internet state control as a law enforcement and national security tool against the abuse and misuse of the Internet for the commission of serious crimes, such as phishing, child pornography; terrorism and copyright infringement. Some Internet users and civil rights groups perceive state control as an abomination which …

Phobias: The Evolutionary Trend, Grant Brown

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

40th Conference On Senior Engineering Design Projects, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

Senior Engineering Design Conference

The 40th Conference on Senior Engineering Design Projects was held on April 17, 2007 at the College of Engineering and applied Sciences on the Parkview Campus of Western Michigan University. The college sponsors the conference to showcase the work of its graduating seniors, who are required to complete a capstone project that puts into practice what they have learned. Many of the projects are sponsored by business and industry.

Ceas E-News 04.17.2007, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

PCI opens plant, labs, and programs to high school students