Computer Engineering Commons^™

Privacy And The Information Age: A Longitudinal View, Charles E. Downing

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

As information systems and data storage capacity become increasingly sophisticated, an important ethical question for organizations is “What can/will/should be done with the personal information that has been and can be collected?” Individuals’ privacy is certainly important, but so is less costly and more targeted business processes. As this conflict intensifies, consumers, managers and policy makers are left wondering: What privacy principles are important to guide organizations in self-regulation? For example, do consumers view the five rights originally stated in the European Data Protection Directive as important? Comprehensive? Is there a product discount point where consumers would forsake these principles? …

An Empirical Investigation On Ceo Turnover In It Firms And Firm Performance, Peiqin Zhang, David Wierschem, Francis A. Mendez Mediavilla, Keejae P. Hong

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Drawn upon upper echelon theory and organizational theory, this research proposes to examine the impact of CEO turnover in IT firms on firm performance in terms of both sustainable accounting performance and market performance. We find that CEO turnover is a significant determinant of firm performance, especially in IT firms. This paper contributes to the IS literature by investigating the CEO turnover impact in IT firms compared to other industries. This study also has practical implications by providing the guideline for IT firms on the CEO turnover policy. Such firms should place additional emphasis on their succession planning efforts.

Facebook Use Among African American And Hispanic Students: An Exploratory Investigation Of Perceived Academic Impact, Sathasivam Mathiyalakan, Sharon D. White, Jorge O. Brusa

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Facebook is one of the world’s leading social networking sites. It is pervasive in students’ lives and can impact their academic careers in a variety of ways. However, little research exists evaluating the use of Facebook in minority academic settings. An early step in this direction is to gain an understanding of how different student demographic groups use Facebook. An interest in further assessment of Facebook’s role in diverse segments of academia motivates the collection and analysis of Facebook-related data from minority serving institutions such as Historically Black Colleges or Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). This study presents …

On Optimizations Of Virtual Machine Live Storage Migration For The Cloud, Yaodong Yang

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Virtual Machine (VM) live storage migration is widely performed in the data cen- ters of the Cloud, for the purposes of load balance, reliability, availability, hardware maintenance and system upgrade. It entails moving all the state information of the VM being migrated, including memory state, network state and storage state, from one physical server to another within the same data center or across different data centers. To minimize its performance impact, this migration process is required to be transparent to applications running within the migrating VM, meaning that ap- plications will keep running inside the VM as if there were …

Significant Permission Identification For Android Malware Detection, Lichao Sun

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A recent report indicates that a newly developed malicious app for Android is introduced every 11 seconds. To combat this alarming rate of malware creation, we need a scalable malware detection approach that is effective and efficient. In this thesis, we introduce SigPID, a malware detection system based on permission analysis to cope with the rapid increase in the number of Android malware. Instead of analyzing all 135 Android permissions, our approach applies 3-level pruning by mining the permission data to identify only significant permissions that can be effective in distinguishing benign and malicious apps. Based on the identified significant …

Mercator (Mapping Enumerator For Cuda) User's Manual, Stephen V. Cole, Jeremy Buhler

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Welcome to the MERCATOR user's manual! MERCATOR is a CUDA/C++ system designed to assist you in writing efficient CUDA applications by automatically generating significant portions of the GPU-side application code. We hope you find it helpful; please feel free to contact the authors with any questions or feedback.

In-Network Retransmissions In Named Data Networking, Hila Ben Abraham, Patrick Crowley

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

The strategy layer is an important architectural component in both Content-Centric Networking (CCN) and Named Data Networking (NDN). This component introduces a new forwarding model that allows an application to configure its namespace with a forwarding strategy. A core mechanism in every forwarding strategy is the decision of whether to retransmit an unsatisfied Interest or to wait for an application retransmission. While some applications request control of all retransmissions, others rely on the assumption that the strategy will retransmit an Interest when it is not satisfied. Although an application can select the forwarding strategy used in the local host, it …

The Fcc And The “Pre-Internet”, John Blevins

Indiana Law Journal

Network neutrality has dominated broadband policy debates for the past decade. While important, network neutrality overshadows other policy levers that are equally important to the goals of better, cheaper, and more open broadband service. This lack of perspective has historical precedent—and understanding this history can help refocus today’s policy debate. In the 1960s and 1970s, telephone companies threatened the growth of the nascent data industry. The FCC responded with a series of rulemakings known as the “Computer Inquiries” proceedings. In the literature, Computer Inquiries enjoys hallowed status as a key foundation of the Internet’s rise.

This Article, however, argues that …

Secure And Lightweight Hardware Authentication Using Isolated Physical Unclonable Function, Mehrdad Zaker Shahrak

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

As embedded computers become ubiquitous, mobile and more integrated in connectivity, user dependence on integrated circuits (ICs) increases massively for handling security sensitive tasks as well as processing sensitive information. During this process, hardware authentication is important to prevent unauthorized users or devices from gaining access to secret information. An effective method for hardware authentication is by using physical unclonable function (PUF), which is a hardware design that leverages intrinsic unique physical characteristics of an IC, such as propagation delay, for security authentication in real time. However, PUF is vulnerable to modeling attacks, as one can design an algorithm to …

Mims: Mobile Interruption Management System, Mohammad Kayes Kaykobad

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Mobile devices are increasing in an astronomical rate throughout the world. While it is bringing a lot of comfort to the users it is not coming without any hazards. Now a user is susceptible to mobile call interruptions wherever he is, whether he is in the middle of a very important discussion or in a very important task like performing a complicated emergency operation in a hospital. As a result researchers have been studying to find ways to minimize cost of mobile interruptions. In this thesis we have proposed a mobile interruption management system in which callers have been grouped …

A Simulation-Based Layered Framework Framework For The Development Of Collaborative Autonomous Systems, Ioannis Sakiotis

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to introduce a simulation-based software framework that facilitates the development of collaborative autonomous systems. Significant commonalities exist in the design approaches of both collaborative and autonomous systems, mirroring the sense, plan, act paradigm, and mostly adopting layered architectures. Unfortunately, the development of such systems is intricate and requires low-level interfacing which significantly detracts from development time. Frameworks for the development of collaborative and autonomous systems have been developed but are not flexible and center on narrow ranges of applications and platforms. The proposed framework utilizes an expandable layered structure that allows developers to define …

Computational Modeling Of Facial Response For Detecting Differential Traits In Autism Spectrum Disorders, Manar D. Samad

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation proposes novel computational modeling and computer vision methods for the analysis and discovery of differential traits in subjects with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) using video and three-dimensional (3D) images of face and facial expressions. ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that impairs an individual’s nonverbal communication skills. This work studies ASD from the pathophysiology of facial expressions which may manifest atypical responses in the face. State-of-the-art psychophysical studies mostly employ na¨ıve human raters to visually score atypical facial responses of individuals with ASD, which may be subjective, tedious, and error prone. A few quantitative studies use intrusive sensors on …

An Adaptability-Driven Model And Tool For Analysis Of Service Profitability, Eng Lieh Ouh, Jarzabek Stan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Profitability of adopting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions forexisting applications is currently analyzed mostly in informal way. Informalanalysis is unreliable because of the many conflicting factors that affect costs andbenefits of offering applications on the cloud. We propose a quantitative economicmodel for evaluating profitability of migrating to SaaS that enables potentialservice providers to evaluate costs and benefits of various migration strategiesand choices of target service architectures. In previous work, we presented arudimentary conceptual SaaS economic model enumerating factors that have todo with service profitability, and defining qualitative relations among them. Aquantitative economic model presented in this paper extends the conceptualmodel with equations …

Crowdsourcing Management Education Assessment, Owen P. Hall Jr, Charla Griffy-Brown

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Assessment is now at the center of the new business education zeitgeist. This focus is the direct result of feedback from the business community regarding the growing gap between their needs and graduates from many business schools. Recently this divide has fallen under even closer scrutiny because of increasing student debt and the growing controversy over return-on- investment. Today business leaders are looking for web-savvy, problem-solving graduates. To this end, AACSB and regional accrediting bodies are calling for the adoption of comprehensive collaborative learning strategies to better align graduates’ skill sets with the real needs of business. Crowdsourcing, which is …

Towards A Taxonomy Of Challenges In An Integrated It Governance Framework Implementation, Mathew Nicho, Suadad Muamaar

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The rapid adoption of IT governance (ITG) frameworks in organizations worldwide, along with the subsequent need to select and integrate overlapping ITG frameworks has presented practitioners with challenges in choice and integration of frameworks. In this respect, the purpose of this study was to explore the ITG frameworks integration (ITGFI) challenges faced by organizations worldwide; develop and test a theory-based integrated ITG challenges (IIC) taxonomy model created from extant literature; and validate and compare these with those empirically extracted from three case studies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The results present the audience with a taxonomy of a prioritized …

Comparative Empirical Analysis On Computer Software Piracy Behaviors Between China And The United States: An Exploratory Study, Xiang Fang, Sooun Lee

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Using the data collected from several universities in China and the United States, which have drastically different piracy rates, economic development stages, income levels, and national cultures, this study aims to identify which demographic factors affect software piracy significantly. Totally, the dataset includes 600 valid responses. Multivariate data analysis, supported by Multivariate Analysis of Variance and Turkey’s test, reveals that among various factors, country difference and gender most significantly influence software piracy. In addition, this study offers recommendations on how to curb software piracy effectively.

Pythagorean Combinations For Lego Robot Building., Ronald I. Greenberg

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper provides tips for LEGO robot construction involving bracing or gear meshing along a diagonal using standard Botball kits.

Predicting Multiple Target Tracking Performance For Applications On Video Sequences, Juan Esteban Tapiero Bernal

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation presents a framework to predict the performance of multiple target tracking (MTT) techniques. The framework is based on the mathematical descriptors of point processes, the probability generating functional (p.g.fl). It is shown that conceptually the p.g.fls of MTT techniques can be interpreted as a transform that can be marginalized to an expression that encodes all the information regarding the likelihood model as well as the underlying assumptions present in a given tracking technique. In order to use this approach for tracker performance prediction in video sequences, a framework that combines video quality assessment concepts and the marginalized transform …

Outlier Detection In Complex Categorical Data By Modeling The Feature Value Couplings, Guansong Pang, Longbing Cao, Ling Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper introduces a novel unsupervised outlier detection method, namely Coupled Biased Random Walks (CBRW), for identifying outliers in categorical data with diversified frequency distributions and many noisy features. Existing pattern-based outlier detection methods are ineffective in handling such complex scenarios, as they misfit such data. CBRW estimates outlier scores of feature values by modelling feature value level couplings, which carry intrinsic data characteristics, via biased random walks to handle this complex data. The outlier scores of feature values can either measure the outlierness of an object or facilitate the existing methods as a feature weighting and selection indicator. Substantial …

Stpp: Spatial-Temporal Phase Profiling Based Method For Relative Rfid Tag Localization, Longfei Shangguan, Zheng Yang, Alex X. Liu, Zimu Zhou, Yunhao Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Many object localization applications need the relative locations of a set of objects as oppose to their absolute locations. Although many schemes for object localization using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags have been proposed, they mostly focus on absolute object localization and are not suitable for relative object localization because of large error margins and the special hardware that they require. In this paper, we propose an approach called spatial-temporal phase profiling (STPP) to RFID-based relative object localization. The basic idea of STPP is that by moving a reader over a set of tags during which the reader continuously interrogating …

Linear Encryption With Keyword Search, Shiwei Zhang, Guomin Yang, Yi Mu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Nowadays an increasing amount of data stored in the public cloud need to be searched remotely for fast accessing. For the sake of privacy, the remote files are usually encrypted, which makes them difficult to be searched by remote servers. It is also harder to efficiently share encrypted data in the cloud than those in plaintext. In this paper, we develop a searchable encryption framework called Linear Encryption with Keyword Search (LEKS) that can semi-generically convert some existing encryption schemes meeting our Linear Encryption Template (LET) to be searchable without re-encrypting all the data. For allowing easy data sharing, we …

Passively Testing Routing Protocols In Wireless Sensor Networks, Xiaoping Che, Stephane Maag, Hwee-Xian Tan, Hwee-Pink Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Smart systems are today increasingly developed with the number of wireless sensor devices that drastically increases. They are implemented within several contexts through our environment. Thus, sensed data transported in ubiquitous systems are important and the way to carry them must be efficient and reliable. For that purpose, several routing protocols have been proposed to wireless sensor networks (WSN). However, one stage that is often neglected before their deployment, is the conformance testing process, a crucial and challenging step. Active testing techniques commonly used in wired networks are not suitable to WSN and passive approaches are needed. While some works …

Practitioners' Expectations On Automated Fault Localization, Pavneet Singh Kochhar, Xin Xia, David Lo, Shanping Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Software engineering practitioners often spend significant amount of time and effort to debug. To help practitioners perform this crucial task, hundreds of papers have proposed various fault localization techniques. Fault localization helps practitioners to find the location of a defect given its symptoms (e.g., program failures). These localization techniques have pinpointed the locations of bugs of various systems of diverse sizes, with varying degrees of success, and for various usage scenarios. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether practitioners appreciate this line of research. To fill this gap, we performed an empirical study by surveying 386 practitioners from more than 30 countries …

Cascading Failures In Interdependent Infrastructures: An Interdependent Markov-Chain Approach, Mahshid Rahnamay-Naeini, Majeed M. Hayat

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Many critical infrastructures are interdependent networks in which the behavior of one network impacts those of the others. Despite the fact that interdependencies are essential for the operation of critical infrastructures, such interdependencies can negatively affect the reliability and fuel the cascade of failures within and across the networks. In this paper, a novel interdependent Markov-chain framework is proposed that enables capturing interdependencies between two critical infrastructures with the ultimate goal of predicting their resilience to cascading failures and characterizing the effects of interdependencies on system reliability. The framework is sufficiently general to model cascading failures in any interdependent networks; …

Probabilistic Anomaly Detection In Natural Gas Time Series Data, Hermine Nathalie Akouemo Kengmo Kenfack, Richard J. Povinelli

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

This paper introduces a probabilistic approach to anomaly detection, specifically in natural gas time series data. In the natural gas field, there are various types of anomalies, each of which is induced by a range of causes and sources. The causes of a set of anomalies are examined and categorized, and a Bayesian maximum likelihood classifier learns the temporal structures of known anomalies. Given previously unseen time series data, the system detects anomalies using a linear regression model with weather inputs, after which the anomalies are tested for false positives and classified using a Bayesian classifier. The method can also …

Optimal Design Of Ipm Motors With Different Cooling Systems And Winding Configurations, Alireza Fatemi, Dan M. Ionel, Nabeel Demerdash, Thomas W. Nehl

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Performance improvement of permanent magnet (PM) motors through optimization techniques has been widely investigated in the literature. Oftentimes the practice of design optimization leads to derivation/interpretation of optimal scaling rules of PM motors for a particular loading condition. This paper demonstrates how these derivations vary with respect to the machine ampere loading and ferrous core saturation level. A parallel sensitivity analysis using a second-order response surface methodology followed by a large-scale design optimization based on evolutionary algorithms are pursued in order to establish the variation of the relationships between the main design parameters and the performance characteristics with respect to …

Fast Multi-Objective Cmode-Type Optimization Of Pm Machines Using Multicore Desktop Computers, Alireza Fatemi, Dan M. Ionel, Nabeel Demerdash, Thomas W. Nehl

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Large-scale design optimization of electric machines is oftentimes practiced to achieve a set of objectives, such as the minimization of cost and power loss, under a set of constraints, such as maximum permissible torque ripple. Accordingly, the design optimization of electric machines can be regarded as a constrained optimization problem (COP). Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) used in the design optimization of electric machines including differential evolution (DE), which has received considerable attention during recent years, are unconstrained optimization methods that need additional mechanisms to handle COPs. In this paper, a new optimization algorithm that features combined multi-objective optimization with differential evolution …

Visibility-Based Pursuit-Evasion In The Plane, Nicholas Michael Stiffler

Theses and Dissertations

As technological advances further increase the amount of memory and computing power available to mobile robots, we are seeing an unprecedented explosion in the utilization of deployable robots for various tasks. The speed at which robots begin to enter various domains is largely dependent on the availability of robust and efficient algorithms that are capable of solving the complex planning problems inherent to the given domain. One such domain which is experiencing unprecedented growth in recent years requires a robot to detect and/or track a mobile agent or group of agents.

In these scenarios, there are typically two players with …

3 E’S Enterprise Architecture Framework (That Encompasses Business Process, Information Systems, And Information Technology), Nicholas C. Bucciarelli Mr.

Articles

No abstract provided.

Enforcing Security Policies On Gpu Computing Through The Use Of Aspect-Oriented Programming Techniques, Bader Albassam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a new security policy enforcer designed for securing parallel computation on CUDA GPUs. We show how the very features that make a GPGPU desirable have already been utilized in existing exploits, fortifying the need for security protections on a GPGPU. An aspect weaver was designed for CUDA with the goal of utilizing aspect-oriented programming for security policy enforcement. Empirical testing verified the ability of our aspect weaver to enforce various policies. Furthermore, a performance analysis was performed to demonstrate that using this policy enforcer provides no significant performance impact over manual insertion of policy code. Finally, future …