Computer Engineering Commons^™

An Investigation Into The Effectiveness Of Hedonic Features In Regression Models For Domestic Rental Prices, Peter Prunty

Dissertations

Housing is a fundamental human right. Increasing rents and rising unemployment contribute to increased rates of homelessness. Traditionally housing prices are determined by supply and demand. This project will investigate the relationship between hedonic features and domestic rental prices in California and New York, using multivariate regression models. The literature outlines a number of approaches taken to model real estate pricing using hedonic regression.

Two models were created to analyse the difference between California and New York. Features were selected using correlation analysis. Some features were derived using logarithmic and dummy feature transformations. The models themselves were evaluated by assessing …

Investigation Into The Predictive Capability Of Macro-Economic Features In Modelling Credit Risk For Small Medium Enterprises, Kevin Mctiernan

Dissertations

This research project investigates the predictive capability of macro-economic features in modelling credit risk for small medium enterprises (SME/SMEs). There have been indications that there is strong correlation between economic growth and the size of the SME sector in an economy. However, since the financial crisis and consequent policies and regulations, SMEs have been hampered in attempts to access credit. It has also been noted that while there is a substantial amount of credit risk literature, there is little research on how macro-economic factors affect credit risk. Being able to improve credit scoring by even a small amount can have …

Using A Knowledge Management Approach To Support Effective Succession Planning In The Civil Service, Mary O’Donohue

Dissertations

The modern workforce is highly mobile. The challenge facing organisations is how to safeguard key expertise and knowledge in the face of staff mobility and turnover. The Irish Civil Service is still recovering from the impacts of significant loss of staff, and their knowledge and expertise, as a result of cutbacks over recent years. This project will establish the potential of using a Knowledge Management approach to support effective succession planning in the Civil Service. The literature review charts the evolution of Knowledge Management from when the phrase was first coined in 1986 through to what is considered to be …

An Exploration Of The Relationship Between The Partisan-Business Cycle And Economic Inequality Within Developed Economies, Richard O'Doherty

Dissertations

Recent contributions to the study of inequality have provided strong evidence towards the presence of an established trend, over several decades, of growing economic inequality (with a particular focus on distribution within their tails; i.e. top 10%, 1%) across countries with developed economies and indications of similar trends across developing economies. While the causality and influencing factors to these trends has widely been discussed, and has range from declining domestic growth rates as economies move towards high mass consumption states to globalisation, political decision making and policy application been referred to as both contributory or an instrument for dampening such …

Source Separation Approach To Video Quality Prediction In Computer Networks, Ruairí De Fréin

Articles

Time-varying loads introduce errors in the estimated model parameters of service-level predictors in Computer Networks. A load-adjusted modification of a traditional unadjusted service-level predictor is contributed, based on Source Separation (SS). It mitigates these errors and improves service-quality predictions for Video-on-Demand (VoD) by :6 to 2dB.

Measuring The Effectiveness Of Software-Based Training To Improve The Spatial Visualization Skills Of Students In Stem Disciplines In Higher Education Institutions, Peter Cole

Dissertations

This research investigates how software can be used to teach spatial skills leading to greater success in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematical (STEM) fields. Existing research indicates that spatial skills can be taught and that good spatial skills are common to people who succeed in STEM fields. In this work, a software-only testing system with a direct targeted, training intervention module was implemented to measure and teach spatial skills using mental rotations, which are believed to be one of the most significant indicators of success in STEM fields. Spatial skills were tested using a standardized and validated test that measures …

Forecasting Bike Rental Demand Using New York Citi Bike Data, Wen Wang

Dissertations

The idea of this project is from a Kaggle competition “Bike Sharing Demand”① which provides dataset of Capital Bikeshare in Washington D.C. and asked to combine historical usage patterns with weather data in order to forecast bike rental demand. This dissertation will extend this work, working with a broader range of project not only just focusing on the phrase of model building but all phases of KDD (Knowledge Discovery in Databases). This dissertation focuses on Citi Bike which is one of the biggest bike share projects in the world, collects Citi Bike data, weather data and holiday data from three …

An Evaluation Of Gamification To Assess Students’ Learning On Their Understanding Of First Year Computer Science Programming Module, Daniel Gebremichael

Dissertations

This research examines the use of gamification to develop an assessment tool, to assess students’ learning of a first year computer science module. The students’ undertaking of the first semester Programming and Algorithms module in 2015 were assessed on their knowledge of the programming language Python. The incorporation of gamification when assessing students can have various potential benefits. The research aims to identify these benefits and issues. Assessments and games have almost opposite effects on opinions on people, as games are usually expected to have an entertainment value but this is not the case for assessments. The research examines if …

How Do Teachers And Students Perceive The Utility Of Blackboard As A Distance Learning Platform? (Case Study From Taibah University, Saudi Arabia), Suad Alaofi

Dissertations

This research explores the role of Knowledge Management within the education field with a specific focus on the use of Learning Management Systems in the Distance Learning (e-learning) process. The aim of this study is to thoroughly examine how teachers and students perceive the utility of the Blackboard system as a distance learning platform. To achieve this, the study conducted qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaire surveys with the teachers and students of Taibah University, Saudi Arabia. Questions in both data collection tools were geared towards gaining insight about how these two groups of Blackboard users view its usefulness as a …

Identifying Market Indicators And Content Quality From A Financial Micro-Blog Platform, Siobhán Mcnamara

Dissertations

Investment platforms and discussion platforms have come to change the face of finance. The stock market is open to both professional and non-professional investors via online financial channels. Information too comes via a shared domain as both professionals and non-professionals log onto online communication platforms to share, search and discuss market trends. Due to their growing role in finance, understanding online communities has become the focus of much stock market research. Determining who is influential in a network, how information spreads and what translates to buy or sell decision is potentially very lucrative. In this research paper a dataset from …

Predicting Intake Of Applications For First Registration In The Property Registration Authority, Orlaith Mernagh

Dissertations

The motivation for this dissertation is rooted in a real business need. The Property Registration Authority is the state organisation tasked with maintaining a register of land ownership on the island of Ireland. The PRA currently faces a series of challenges; a high level of staff retiring and the inherent loss of knowledge associated with this trend, a lack of recruitment in recent years and a large increase in lodgement of applications for first registration as a result of legislation. The organisation therefore requires a reliable system for predicting future intake. Prior to this project, there has also been a …

Monitoring Voip Speech Quality For Chopped And Clipped Speech, Andrew Hines, Jan Skoglund, Anil C. Kokaram, Naomi Harte

Articles

No abstract provided.

A New Educational Mobile Devices Platform For Social Inclusion In Tanzania, Fredrick Mtenzi

Articles

Abstract— It is evident that advances in technology has led to improvement in societal wellbeing. In this paper we demonstrate how mobile phones are used in providing reliable and quality education to students in disadvantaged areas of Tanzania. The main contribution is on leveraging on the success that Tanzania has had on using mobile banking to the un-banked population. These lessons are adapted to the education sector, where clever/smart integration of existing disruptive technologies such as mobile phones and social networks are be used to provide access to high quality educational contents. Further, the paper shows how educational content can …

Modeling Mental Workload Via Rule-Based Expert System: A Comparison With Nasa-Tlx & Workload Profile, Lucas Rizzo, Sarah Jane Delany, Pierpaolo Dondio, Luca Longo

Conference papers

In the last few decades several fields have made use of the construct of human mental workload (MWL) for system and task design as well as for assessing human performance. Despite this interest, MWL remains a nebulous concept with multiple definitions and measurement techniques. State-of-the-art models of MWL are usually ad-hoc, considering different pools of pieces of evidence aggregated with different inference strategies. In this paper the aim is to deploy a rule-based expert system as a more structured approach to model and infer MWL. This expert system is built upon a knowledge-base of an expert and transates into computable …

Kicm: A Knowledge-Intensive Context Model, Fredrick Mtenzi, Denis Lupiana

Conference papers

A context model plays a significant role in developing context-aware architectures and consequently on realizing context-awareness, which is important in today's dynamic computing environments. These architectures monitor and analyse their environments to enable context-aware applications to effortlessly and appropriately respond to users' computing needs. These applications make the use of computing devices intuitive and less intrusive. A context model is an abstract and simplified representation of the real world, where the users and their computing devices interact. It is through a context model that knowledge about the real world can be represented in and reasoned by a context-aware architecture. This …

Towards A Framework For Modelling Multimedia Conferencing Calls In The Next Generation Network, Gavin Byrne, Declan Barber

The ITB Journal

This paper is concerned with the creation of a multiparty multimedia conferencing application which can be used in Next Generation Networks. It begins by suggesting ways in which conferencing can be modeled with a focus on separating signaling and media transfer functionality. Enabling technologies which could support the modeling framework derived and which are compatible with Next Generation Network (NGN) principles are reviewed. Finally, a design and implementation for a simple multimedia conferencing application are described.

Embedded Systems In A Mobile Distributed Ip Network, Conor Gildea, Declan Barber

The ITB Journal

This paper describes an approach to the internetworking of mobile IP sensor nodes in a converged network environment. This preliminary investigation of sensory network models is driven by a joint applied research project between ITB and Teagasc (Grange) which seeks to establish the feasibility of the real-time remote monitoring of animal welfare while in transit between Ireland, Europe and the Middle East. The paper examines traditional system architectures, messaging paradigms and protocols with a view to establishing how the trend towards convergence in telecommunications and the emergence of new Internet Protocols could support the creation of new modes of operation …

Pathfinding In Computer Games, Ross Graham, Hugh Mccabe, Stephen Sheridan

The ITB Journal

One of the greatest challenges in the design of realistic Artificial Intelligence (AI) in computer games is agent movement. Pathfinding strategies are usually employed as the core of any AI movement system. This report will highlight pathfinding algorithms used presently in games and their shortcomings especially when dealing with real-time pathfinding. With the advances being made in other components, such as physics engines, it is AI that is impeding the next generation of computer games. This report will focus on how machine learning techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms can be used to enhance an agents ability …

Integration Of A Stereo Vision System And Gps Data For Recording The Position Of Feature Points In A Fixed World Coordinate System, S.D. Mcloughlin, C. O’Rourke, J. Mcdonald, C.E. Markham

The ITB Journal

This paper describes a laboratory system for recovering the global coordinates of feature points obtained from a moving camera. The prototype includes a stereo vision system combined with an overhead camera, which mimics a GPS receiver. The stereo vision system provides three dimensional feature point coordinates relative to the position of the cameras and the overhead camera provides three-dimensional coordinates of the camera in a “global” coordinate system. The fusion of these data provides three-dimensional feature point coordinates in a fixed origin global coordinate system.

Hardware/Software Codesign, Richard Gallery

The ITB Journal

The current state of the art technology in integrated circuits allows the incorporation of multiple processor cores and memory arrays, in addition to application specific hardware, on a single substrate. As silicon technology has become more advanced, allowing the implementation of more complex designs, systems have begun to incorporate considerable amounts of embedded software [3]. Thus it becomes increasingly necessary for the system designers to have knowledge on both hardware and software to make efficient design tradeoffs. This is where hardware/software codesign comes into existence.

Unified Messaging Systems: An Evolutionary Overview, Declan Barber

The ITB Journal

Over the last decade, the widespread demand and use of the internet has changed the direction of the telecommunications industry as it was recognised that the internet could be used as an inexpensive way to handle not only data but also voice communications. This convergence of traditional voice and data technologies towards an IP-based open architecture has been paralleled by a convergence of the internet and mobile communications. As a result of these convergences, unified messaging has emerged as a technically viable service. Integrated messaging services that offer partial unification of different message types are already in the marketplace. This …

Hardware And Software Codesign For Multimedia Capable Portable Devices Using Systemc, Richard Gallery, Deepesh Shakya

The ITB Journal

Multimedia capable portable devices such as 3G phones will host a variety of new applications. Although the underlying push for new applications in such devices is driven by the increase in bandwidth offered by 3G, it is clear that many of the “new” applications will require the provision of new and powerful graphics/video technology within the mobile device itself. Within a computing device, high bandwidth and computational cost are associated with anything but the simplest of graphics, and as a result the graphics subsystem is generally one of the most critical elements of a system, requiring particular attention in the …

Non Deterministic Processing In Neural Networks : An Introduction To Multi-Threaded Neural Networks, Stephen Sheridan

The ITB Journal

Since McCullough and Pitts first published their work on the Binary Decision Neuron much research has been accumulated in the area of neural networks. This work has for the most part centred on network topologies and learning algorithms. The neural networks that have found their way into devices such as handheld PC’s are the fruit of NN research that has spanned 57 years. There is a simplistic beauty in the way that artificial neural networks model the biological foundations of the human thought process, but one piece of the jigsaw puzzle is still missing. We have so far been unable …

Web Services Technology Infrastructure, Geraldine Gray, Kieran O’Connor

The ITB Journal

Web Services using eXtensible Markup Language (XML) based standards are becoming the new archetype for enabling business to business collaborations. This paper describes the conceptual architecture and semantics of constructing and consuming Web Services. It describes how Web Services fit into the enterprise application environment. It discusses Web Services security. Finally, it outlines the flaws of Web Services in their current state.

An Xml Framework For The Structured Data Exchange Between Medical Devices, Ulrich Neuhaus, Paul Walsh

The ITB Journal

This paper describes an XML framework for the exchange of data between medical devices and software systems. XML technologies offer an extensible data format, which is easy to both create and process and simplifies the exchange of data. Different XML standards are defined within the framework in order to provide a practical solution for both device manufacturers and software developers. The structure and benefits of XML documents are discussed and an XML framework for ophthalmology is described.

Longer Than A Telephone Wire - Voice Firewalls To Counter Ubiquitous Lie Detection, Carl Reynolds, Matt Smith, Mark Woodman

The ITB Journal

Mobile computing and communication devices are open to surreptitious privacy attacks using emotion detection techniques; largely utilising work carried out in the area of voice stress analysis (VSA). This paper extends some work in the area of removing emotion cues in the voice, specifically focusing on lie detection and presents the results of a pilot study indicating that the use of mobile phones in situations of stress is common and that awareness of VSA is low. Existing strategies for the removal or modification of emotion cues, based on models of synthesis are considered and weaknesses are identified.

A Java Framework For Computer Vision, Stephen Sheridan

The ITB Journal

This paper outlines a framework implemented entirely in Java that attempts to give students exposure to computer vision systems from a practical standpoint. Various tools and technologies are introduced that will allow a student to acquire an input image through a WebCam, extract useful information from that input image and finally, attempt to make sense of the input.

Globalcom, Declan Barber, Conor Gildea, Gavin Byrne

The ITB Journal

The objective of this developed application is to provide a company with a means of communicating with its employees no matter where they are physically located and what communication resources they may have at any particular time. The core focus of this application is to provide a Unified Messaging System using synchronous and asynchronous forms.

Identification Protocols In Cryptography, Michael O’Donnell

The ITB Journal

In this paper we examine the role of Identification Protocols in the field of Cryptography. Firstly, the rationale behind the need for Identification Protocols is discussed. Secondly, we examine, in detail, challenge-response protocols, based upon zero-knowledge proofs, that form a subset of Identification Protocols in general. Thirdly, the mathematical tools necessary for the understanding of how these protocols work is given. Finally, we discuss four main Identification Protocols: Fiat-Shamir, Feige-Fiat-Shamir, Schnorr and Guillou- Quisquater. This discussion includes the theory, practical examples and the security aspects of each protocol.

Internet Applications Development Issues And Strategic Considerations, Róisín Faherty

The ITB Journal

This paper examines the development issues and strategic considerations involved in Internet Applications Development. The prevalent development environments are discussed highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. Issues regarding the development of Internet applications are viewed under the headings of human resource, organizational, technological, investment and Legal Issues. Lastly the paper gives an overview of the strategic implications for an organization considering the development of Internet Applications. These include security, quality and the look & feel of the application. This paper is not intended as a definitive resource on the area of Internet Applications Development, its aim is to highlight the areas …