Engineering Commons^™

A Multiagent Energy Management Control System For Commercial & Industrial Applications, Tyler Wayne Price

Theses and Dissertations

Commercial and industrial customers have increasingly adopted fully-automated demand response (auto-DR) as part of their energy management control strategy to mitigate the effects of rising electricity costs. Some of these customers have also contracted with their power provider to permit voluntary curtailment of power consumption to be negotiated by a human operator. Even still, at the customer-side there are needs to maximize cost savings and automate decision making, and at the provider-side there are needs to reduce peaking demand and demand volatility. This thesis describes a centralized multiagent approach that automatically negotiates demand curtailment with a power provider while making …

Optimizing Reservoir-Stream-Aquifer Interactions For Conjunctive Use And Hydropower Production, Hala Fayad, Richard C. Peralta, Ali Forghani

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Conjunctive management of water resources involves coordinating use of surface water and groundwater resources. Very few simulation/optimization (S-O) models for stream-aquifer system management have included detailed interactions between groundwater, streams, and reservoir storage. This paper presents an S-O model doing that via artificial neural network simulators and genetic algorithm optimizer for multiobjective conjunctive water use problems. The model simultaneously addresses all significant flows including reservoir-stream-diversion-aquifer interactions in a more detailed manner than previous models. The model simultaneously maximizes total water provided and hydropower production. A penalty function implicitly poses constraints on state variables. The model effectively finds feasible optimal solutions …

Column: Factors Affecting Data Decay, Kevin Fairbanks, Simson Garfinkel

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In nuclear physics, the phrase decay rate is used to denote the rate that atoms and other particles spontaneously decompose. Uranium-235 famously decays into a variety of daughter isotopes including Thorium and Neptunium, which themselves decay to others. Decay rates are widely observed and wildly different depending on many factors, both internal and external. U-235 has a half-life of 703,800,000 years, for example, while free neutrons have a half-life of 611 seconds and neutrons in an atomic nucleus are stable.

Technology Corner Automated Data Extraction Using Facebook, Nick V. Flor

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Because of Facebook’s popularity, law enforcement agents often use it as a key source of evidence. But like many user digital trails, there can be a large amount of data to extract for analysis. In this paper, we explore the basics of extracting data programmatically from a user’s Facebook via a Web app. A data extraction app requests data using the Facebook Graph API, and Facebook returns a JSON object containing the data. Before an app can access a user’s Facebook data, the user must log into Facebook and give permission. Thus, this approach is limited to situations where users …

Book Review: Mastering Windows Network Forensics And Investigation, 2/E, John C. Ebert

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The book is available as a paperback and e-book. The e-book versions allow you to preview several chapters at any of a number of online vendors. The e-book prices vary from the same as the soft cover version ($59.99) to about $38.99. Some of the vendor's e-books retain the color illustrations found in the print version, but others produce them in grey scale, so you might want to look out for that. The book is divided into four parts (17 chapters) plus two appendices.

I am compelled to give the book illustrations a highly unfavorable assessment regarding their readability qualities. …

Column: Analysis Of Digital Traces, Fred Cohen

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In part 1 of this series (Cohen, 2011a), Analysis of digital traces is a foundational process by which the examiner, typically using computer software tools, comes to understand and answer basic questions regarding digital traces.

An Australian Perspective On The Challenges For Computer And Network Security For Novice Endusers, Patryk Szewczyk

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

It is common for end-users to have difficulty in using computer or network security appropriately and thus have often been ridiculed when misinterpreting instructions or procedures. This discussion paper details the outcomes of research undertaken over the past six years on why security is overly complex for endusers. The results indicate that multiple issues may render end-users vulnerable to security threats and that there is no single solution to address these problems. Studies on a small group of senior citizens has shown that educational seminars can be beneficial in ensuring that simple security aspects are understood and used appropriately.

Automated Identification And Reconstruction Of Youtube Video Access, Jonathan Patterson, Christopher Hargreaves

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

YouTube is one of the most popular video-sharing websites on the Internet, allowing users to upload, view and share videos with other users all over the world. YouTube contains many different types of videos, from homemade sketches to instructional and educational tutorials, and therefore attracts a wide variety of users with different interests. The majority of YouTube visits are perfectly innocent, but there may be circumstances where YouTube video access is related to a digital investigation, e.g. viewing instructional videos on how to perform potentially unlawful actions or how to make unlawful articles. When a user accesses a YouTube video …

Book Review: System Forensics, Investigation, And Response, Nate Keith

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

I recently expressed an interest to a respected colleague in finding a way to “give back” to the forensic community. He suggested writing a review for a text he recently received and provide feedback to the community. It is my intent to present an objective analysis of System Forensics, Investigation, and Response.

Identifying Trace Evidence From Target-Specific Data Wiping Application Software, Gregory H. Carlton, Gary C. Kessler

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

One area of particular concern for computer forensics examiners involves situations in which someone utilized software applications to destroy evidence. There are products available in the marketplace that are relatively inexpensive and advertised as being able to destroy targeted portions of data stored within a computer system. This study was undertaken to analyze a subset of these tools in order to identify trace evidence, if any, left behind on disk media after executing these applications. We evaluated five Windows 7 compatible software products whose advertised features include the ability for users to wipe targeted files, folders, or evidence of selected …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Technology Corner: A Regular Expression Training App, Nick V. Flor

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Regular expressions enable digital forensic analysts to find information in files. The best way for an analyst to become proficient in writing regular expressions is to practice. This paper presents the code for an app that allows an analyst to practice writing regular expressions.

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Extraction Of Electronic Evidence From Voip: Identification & Analysis Of Digital Speech, David Irwin, Arek Dadej, Jill Slay

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is increasing in popularity as a cost effective and efficient means of making telephone calls via the Internet. However, VoIP may also be an attractive method of communication to criminals as their true identity may be hidden and voice and video communications are encrypted as they are deployed across the Internet. This produces a new set of challenges for forensic analysts compared with traditional wire-tapping of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) infrastructure, which is not applicable to VoIP. Therefore, other methods of recovering electronic evidence from VoIP are required. This research investigates the …

Book Review: Dispute Resolution And E-Discovery, Milton Luoma

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As is apparent from its title, this book tackles two very current and difficult legal issues – electronic discovery and dispute resolution. The authors tie the two legal concepts together in an effort to provide litigants and practitioners a less expensive and less time consuming alternative than is typically the case with traditional litigation and court proceedings. By including electronic discovery in the discussions, the authors recognize the importance and significance of electronic discovery in mediation and arbitration as it is in traditional litigation.

On The Development Of A Digital Forensics Curriculum, Manghui Tu, Dianxiang Xu, Samsuddin Wira, Cristian Balan, Kyle Cronin

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Computer Crime and computer related incidents continue their prevalence and frequency, resulting in losses approaching billions of dollars. To fight against these crimes and frauds, it is urgent to develop digital forensics education programs to train a suitable workforce that can effectively investigate computer crimes and incidents. There is presently no standard to guide the design of digital forensics curriculum for an academic program. In this research, previous work on digital forensics curriculum design and existing education programs are thoroughly investigated. Both digital forensics educators and practitioners were surveyed and results were analyzed to determine the industry and law enforcement …

The Science Of Digital Forensics: Recovery Of Data From Overwritten Areas Of Magnetic Media, Fred Cohen

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The first time I encountered data loss and recovery effects of magnetic memory was as a night and weekend computer operator for the computer science department of Carnegie-Mellon University in the 1973-1974 time frame. Part of my job involved dealing directly with outages and failures associated with magnetic memory components used in what, at the time, were large computer systems. On occasions, portions of magnetic core memory or disk drives would encounter various failure modes and the systems using these devices would have to be reconfigured to operate without the failed components until repair personnel could come in to repair …

Automatic Crash Recovery: Internet Explorer's Black Box, John Moran, Douglas Orr

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

A good portion of today's investigations include, at least in part, an examination of the user's web history. Although it has lost ground over the past several years, Microsoft's Internet Explorer still accounts for a large portion of the web browser market share. Most users are now aware that Internet Explorer will save browsing history, user names, passwords and form history. Consequently some users seek to eliminate these artifacts, leaving behind less evidence for examiners to discover during investigations. However, most users, and probably a good portion of examiners are unaware Automatic Crash Recovery can leave a gold mine of …

Book Review: The Software Ip Detective's Handbook: Measurement, Comparison, And Infringement Detections, Diane Barrett

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Do not the book title fool you into thinking that the book is only for those looking to detect software infringement detection. It is a comprehensive look at software intellectual property. The book covers a wide range of topics and has something to offer for just about everyone from lawyers to programmers.

“Preemptive Suppression” – Judges Claim The Right To Find Digital Evidence Inadmissible Before It Is Even Discovered, Bob Simpson

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Vermont state prosecutors have asked the Vermont Supreme Court to end a state trial judge’s practice of attaching conditions to computer warrants. The Vermont judge’s conditions are drawn from five conditions established in the 2009 decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc. case (CDT II). This is the first time the validity of the “CDT conditions” will be decided by a state court of final jurisdiction in the United States

Modeling Collective Dynamics Of Social Systems: Incorporating Various Social Mechanisms Into Agent-Based Models, Dene L. Farrell

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

I present three original papers demonstrating complex behavior arising from collective dynamics in agent-based models (ABM) focusing on evolutionary and cognitive mechanisms. The first report demonstrates the coupled emergence of cooperation and selfish punishment behavior in groups of individuals playing an iterated public goods game. The second report demonstrates the effects of mental modeling within groups of decision makers. The third report demonstrates a synthesis of evolutionary and cognitive mechanisms.

A Systematic Approach For Real-Time Operator Functional State Assessment, Guangfan Zhang, Wei Wang, Aaron Pepe, Roger Xu, Tom Schnell, Nick Anderson, Dean Heitkamp, Jiang Li, Feng Li, Frederick Mckenzie

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A task overload condition often leads to high stress for an operator, causing performance degradation and possibly disastrous consequences. Just as dangerous, with automated flight systems, an operator may experience a task underload condition (during the en-route flight phase, for example), becoming easily bored and finding it difficult to maintain sustained attention. When an unexpected event occurs, either internal or external to the automated system, the disengaged operator may neglect, misunderstand, or respond slowly/inappropriately to the situation. In this paper, we discuss an approach for Operator Functional State (OFS) monitoring in a typical aviation environment. A systematic ground truth finding …

Real-Time Anomaly Detection In Full Motion Video, Glenn Konowicz,, Jiang Li, Donnie Self (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Improvement in sensor technology such as charge-coupled devices (CCD) as well as constant incremental improvements in storage space has enabled the recording and storage of video more prevalent and lower cost than ever before. However, the improvements in the ability to capture and store a wide array of video have required additional manpower to translate these raw data sources into useful information. We propose an algorithm for automatically detecting anomalous movement patterns within full motion video thus reducing the amount of human intervention required to make use of these new data sources. The proposed algorithm tracks all of the objects …

Mathematical Model Development Of Super-Resolution Image Wiener Restoration, Amr H. Yousef, Jiang Li, Mohammad A. Karim

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In super-resolution (SR), a set of degraded low-resolution (LR) images are used to reconstruct a higher-resolution image that suffers from acquisition degradations. One way to boost SR images visual quality is to use restoration filters to remove reconstructed images artifacts. We propose an efficient method to optimally allocate the LR pixels on the high-resolution grid and introduce a mathematical derivation of a stochastic Wiener filter. It relies on the continuous-discrete-continuous model and is constrained by the periodic and nonperiodic interrelationships between the different frequency components of the proposed SR system. We analyze an end-to-end model and formulate the Wiener filter …

Fast Stochastic Wiener Filter For Super-Resolution Image Restoration With Information Theoretic Visual Quality Assessment, Amr Hussein Yousef, Jiang Li, Mohammad Karim, Mark Allen Neifeld (Ed.), Amit Ashok (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Super-resolution (SR) refers to reconstructing a single high resolution (HR) image from a set of subsampled, blurred and noisy low resolution (LR) images. The reconstructed image suffers from degradations such as blur, aliasing, photo-detector noise and registration and fusion error. Wiener filter can be used to remove artifacts and enhance the visual quality of the reconstructed images. In this paper, we introduce a new fast stochastic Wiener filter for SR reconstruction and restoration that can be implemented efficiently in the frequency domain. Our derivation depends on the continuous-discrete-continuous (CDC) model that represents most of the degradations encountered during the image-gathering …

Toward Automatic Subpixel Registration Of Unmanned Airborne Vehicle Images, Amr Hussein Yousef, Jiang Li, Mohammad Karim, Mark Allen Neifeld (Ed.), Amit Ashok (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Many applications require to register images within subpixel accuracy like computer vision especially super-resolution (SR) where the estimated subpixel shifts are very crucial in the reconstruction and restoration of SR images. In our work we have an optical sensor that is mounted on an unmanned airborne vehicle (UAV) and captures a set of images that contain sufficient overlapped area required to reconstruct a SR image. Due to the wind, The UAV may encounter rotational effects such as yaw, pitch and roll which can distort the acquired as well as processed images with shear, tilt or perspective distortions. In this paper …

Using Virtual Reality Modelling To Enhance Electrical Safety And Design In The Built Environment., Martin Barrett

Doctoral

This thesis presents a prototype desktop virtual reality model entitled ‘Virtual Electrical Services’, to enhance electrical safety and design in the built environment. The model presented has the potential to be used as an educational tool for third level students, a design tool for industry, or as a virtual electrical safety manual for the general public. A description of the development of the virtual reality model is presented along with the applications that were developed within the model. As part of the VR development process, this research investigates the cause and effects of electrical accidents in domestic properties. This highlights …

On The Radius Of Convergence Of Interconnected Analytic Nonlinear Input-Output Systems, Makhin Thitsa, W. Steven Gray

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A complete analysis is presented of the radii of convergence of the parallel, product, cascade and feedback interconnections of analytic nonlinear input-output systems represented as Fliess operators. Such operators are described by convergent functional series, which are indexed by words over a noncommutative alphabet. Their generating series are therefore specified in terms of noncommutative formal power series. Given growth conditions for the coefficients of the generating series for the subsystems, the radius of convergence of each interconnected system is computed assuming the subsystems are either all locally convergent or all globally convergent. In the process of deriving the radius of …

Zno Nanostructures: Growth, Characterization And Applications, Mikhail Ladanov

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ZnO nanostructures have been investigated for quite a long time. However, only recently they triggered much interest due to advances in materials synthesis and characterization, as well as emerging demand for new nanostructured materials in novel device implementations.

A large part of the work was devoted to exploring new methodology for patterning growth sites and controlling nanowires morphology using the deposition methods that are compatible with integrated circuits (IC) processing. Microcontact printing was used to pattern the seeding layer, and, subsequently, ZnO nanowires through a resistless soft lithography process.

When considering hydrothermal growth of ZnO nanowires in the framework of …

Development Of A Reliable Metal-Insulator-Metal Bilayer Tunnel Junction For Wideband Detectors, Rudraskandan Ratnadurai

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Detectors and sensors are an integral part of modern electronics and are crucial to highly sensitive applications. Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) tunnel junctions have been explored for the past five decades and are still being investigated due to its wide use of applications such as mixers, capacitors, detectors, rectifiers and energy conversion devices. In this research, various designs of thin film based tunnel junctions have been investigated and the optimum one picked for the purpose of a wide band detector up to 10GHz based on their sensitivities. A modified design with an isolation layer incorporating a self-aligning method to increase fabrication throughput …