Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Addressing Social Inequalities Using Ai, Big Data, And Machine Learning, Erica L. Jensen, Lakell Archer, Sumaya Ali

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

No abstract provided.

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Specialization: Do Your Job Well Helping Students Who Are Considering A Career In Programming Know How To Invest Their Time., Scott Pulley

Marriott Student Review

The article examines the effects of specialization on the hiring process for undergraduates studying programming whether in information systems or computer science.

Inclusion Of Women In Computer Science, Naomi Johnson, Dr. Kevin Seppi

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Since the 1980’s, the percentage of computer science degrees awarded to women in the United States has fallen dramatically. There are growing numbers of men earning bachelor’s degrees in CS, and the numbers of women are increasing very slowly. For decades, researchers have been studying recruitment and retention of women and other minorities in CS, yet it is still not apparent what departments, professors, or students can do in order to get the numbers of women earning degrees in CS up again.

Blockchain: Technical Review, Evan D. Poff

Marriott Student Review

This review of blockchain technology accompanies the article "Strategic Implications of Blockchain."

Buzzwords, Evan D. Poff

Marriott Student Review

This feature will explain the following buzzwords:

• Blockchain
• Cryptocurrency
• Work-Life Integration
• Passive Equities
• Risk-Adjusted Returns

A Novel Approach To A Big Simulation Problem: Creating Efficient Dry Granular Material Simulations With Accurate Visual Detail And Behavior, Seth Holladay

Journal of Undergraduate Research

We received a MEG grant for researching the simulation of granular materials for computer graphics and animation. Materials such as sand and snow simulation is very expensive but necessary for productions, as well as hard to control the look, so I have been mentoring undergraduate and graduate students researching how to make sand simulations both efficient and art directable.

Calculating Music Similarity With Mobile Device Playlists, Jacob O'Bryant, Dennis Ng

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Music recommendation systems, such as Pandora and Spotify, help listeners to discover new music. The similarity of different songs is an important measure used in music recommendation. We have studied manually-created playlists on mobile devices to see if they can be used to accurately calculate song similarity. We collected playlists from 41 research subjects and used a co-occurrence model to calculate similarity between songs in the collection.

Utilizing The Power Of Graphical Processing For Dna Mapping: A Comparison Of Gnumap And Barracuda, Cole Lyman, Mark Clement

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Recent advances in genome sequencing technologies have resulted in a large increase in the amount of genetic data available. Large Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) have the potential to identify the causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, heart failure and many other diseases if the large quantities of data that are becoming available can be analyzed effectively. Next-generation read mapping software, a crucial step in analyzing genetic data, is slow while trying to achieve high mapping accuracy. One approach to speeding up next-generation read mapping focuses on using Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). This project compared the effectiveness of two genome mappers, …

Right Now Is The Wrong Time: And Other Considerations When Presenting Security Warnings, Brock Johanson, Bonnie Anderson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Neuro Information Security (NeuroIS) focuses on the use of neurological measurements to improve the security of information systems. The BYU NeuroIS lab uses neurological tools and measurements to examine factors that affect security outcomes. Previous work has focused on various factors such as dual task interference (DTI), threat assessment, as well as factors such as habituation and generalization, which have become focus streams of research. The primary point of failure in most security related incidents tends to be users themselves. As such, anything that can be used to overcome neurobiological phenomenon such as those listed above can ultimately lead in …

Mobile Hands: What Your Phone Use Says About You, Parker Williams, Jeff Jenkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The percentage of individuals using mobile phones to respond to online applications, forms, and surveys is predicted to rapidly increase in the future. As of June 2, 2015, there were an estimated 2.6 billion smartphones in use in the world; by 2020 there will be 6.1 billion smartphones in use. Smartphones will account for roughly 80% of all mobile driven data traffic by 2020 (Lunden, 2015). With the proliferation of smartphones, measuring the fidelity of information gathered from and about the user becomes extremely important. Smartphones are a rich source of behavioral and biometric information, gathering data about how the …

Intelligent Stitching: Transforming Offline Stroke Extraction For Online Handwriting Recognition, Curtis Wigington, William Barrett

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Images of historical documents are being collected and archived much faster than volunteers can possibly index them alone. Improvements in offline handwriting recognition could greatly accelerate the work of indexing by FamilySearch. Offline handwriting recognition has already been shown to be effective in assisting indexers and automating the transcription of historical documents into searchable texts. As documents are collected from all around the world, generalized techniques that are robust to damage and noise are needed. Effective stroke extraction and processing is an important tool in improving current recognition techniques.

Examining The Longitudinal Nature Of Information Privacy Perceptions And Behaviors

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project was to develop and execute improved research methodology for studying how consumer information privacy perceptions and behaviors change over time. This project is unique because most of the behavioral research regarding information privacy (and with mobile devices in particular) had previously been based entirely on surveys and laboratory experiments with low external validity. Therefore, to accomplish our objective, several mobile applications were developed or improved with built-in capabilities for experimental manipulations which were tested in real-life field studies. We found several interesting new findings which have resulted in published conference paper proceedings with student authors …

Handwriting Recognition Through Distance-Based Morphing And Energy Minimization, Dr. William Barrett

Journal of Undergraduate Research

During the past year, I have had the opportunity to mentor two undergraduate students as we performed research for improving technologies used for family history. The specific projects each student worked on, the outcomes of the projects, and the mentoring are described below.

Resolving “Mixed” Privacy Signals Untangling The Anchoring And Adjustment In The Presence Of Multiple Signals, Thong Pham, Mark Keith

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As the technologies enabling mobile and ubiquitous information rapidly evolve, so do the information privacy risks to consumers (Belanger and Crossler 2011; Pavlou 2011; Smith et al. 2011). Perceived privacy risk has been demonstrated to be a critical factor in both information disclosure intentions (Dinev and Hart 2006; Lowry et al. 2011; Xu et al. 2010) and behaviors (Keith et al. 2013; Lowry et al. 2011; Posey et al. 2010).

Changing The World Of Research As We Know It, Aaron Sainsbury, Thomas Meservy

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Research plays a vital role in the advancement of knowledge. In conjunction, feedback through idea exchange, peer reviews, and formal reviews play a vital role in every research project. With the current academic organizations in place, the impact of feedback is not fully realized because of the structure of how and when feedback is received. While collaborative communication among researchers is increasingly more reliant upon technology, there is little focus on the development and implementation of a technologybased collaboration scheme to support and sustain scientific idea exchanges among researchers.

Real-Time Webpage Adaptation For Improved User Accessibility, Parker Williams, Jeff Jenkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Hand tremors are experienced by millions of individuals on a daily basis, the main cause being neurological disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. Essential Tremor, “a progressive neurologic condition that causes involuntary rhythmic trembling of the hands,” affects 10 million Americans of all ages¹. It is estimated that 87% of individuals ages 18-29, 86% of individuals ages 30-49, 76% of individuals ages 50-64, and 70% of individuals ages 65 and older go online daily². With an increasing number of individuals who have access to and use of the internet, creating a real-time adaptable webpage environment for those with …

Packet Inspection And Modification For Mobile Devices: Trustbase, Scott Heidbrink, Daniel Zappala

Journal of Undergraduate Research

While there is a long tradition of providing protection against attackers for desktop and laptop devices, there has been less work in the mobile space. A common tool used by antivirus software is to inspect all packets entering or leaving a computer, to check for viruses or other malware. There are currently no generalpurpose tools for Android devices that provide for packet inspection and modification. There are a few tools that allow for packet capturing on mobile devices, but they can only function on “rooted” devices and do not allow modification. Since most users do not “root” their devices, these …

Epigenetic Cost Matrix, Spring Cullen, Dr. Mark Clement

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Epigenetics is of vital importance, comparable to genetics, in predicting the outcome of illnesses. Bisulfite sequencing (BS) provides short DNA fragments that must be mapped in order to discover epigenetic markers. The purpose of this project is to find an optimal cost matrix to map sequences from BS DNA to a reference genome to determine patterns of methylation. A more efficient BS cost matrix will contribute to the ongoing effort to understand the epigenome and analyze data collected.

Messageguard: A Secure Webmail System Coupling Security With Usability, Joshua Lowe, Kent Seamons

Journal of Undergraduate Research

While working on my undergraduate degree, I developed an interest for computer security and started working in the Internet Security Research Lab on campus. A PhD student who I had worked with before previously, had proposed a webmail system called MessageGuard as an ubiquitous web encryption extension. The idea behind the system is to be fully open sourced, very easy to use, and extremely secure. Not only was I able to help work on several aspects of this project with PHD, Master’s, and undergraduate students alike, but I was able to put in practice what I was learning in my …

Streamlining The 3d Animation Process, Dylan Hoffman, Kelly Loosli

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I knew from the beginning that this project – centered around improving the collaborative process of making a 3D animated film across several “stages” and made by several artists of different specialties, temperaments, and backgrounds – would be two-fold. The first phase was learning more about the process itself, and how each phase related to another. The second, zoning in on an area that has been a weakness for BYU Animated Films in the past – character effects and cloth simulation. The project evolved much over the course of the year, with far more time and value being placed in …

Girl’S Cybersecurity Camp, Sarah Cunha, Dale Rowe

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In 2015, the BYU Cybersecurity Research Lab (CSRL) held its first annual summer camp for Girls aged 14-18. A total of 38 girls attended the week’s activities and workshops. While over 75% of girls indicated they had taken a computing-related class, only 40% reported any significant interest in cybersecurity prior to the summercamp with 10% believing they had some experience in the field. At the conclusion of the camp, 80% of attendees reported a significant interest in the field with 100% of attendees interested in attending a similar event again.

Amiens Cathedral: City Of God, Dennis West, Dr. Seth Holladay

Journal of Undergraduate Research

What was it like to visit a gothic cathedral in the thirteenth century? That is the question that is explored in Amiens Cathedral: City of God. The purpose of this project was to illustrate the experience a medieval citizen of Amiens would have had upon visiting the Cathedral of Amiens. This was accomplished through researching dimensions and original construction of the cathedral, and illustrating how the stained glass and other art accentuates the sermons presented.

Look Sharp! How Eye Tracking And Memory Explain Susceptibility To Phishing, Ian Jones, Anthony Vance

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Warning messages are one of the last lines of defense in computer security and are fundamental to users’ security interactions with technology. Consequently, researchers have actively sought to understand how users interact with security warnings and why warnings are so pervasively ignored. A key contributor to the disregard of security warnings is habituation—i.e., the diminishing of attention because of frequent exposure to warning. Although habituation has been inferred as a factor in many security-warning studies, little research has examined habituation in the context of security directly because habituation as a mental state is difficult to observe using conventional methods. …

Exploring How Dual-Task Interference Influences End-User Secure Behavior, K Shane Reeves, Jeffrey Jenkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Finding ways to help people behave securely is of great value and importance to companies worldwide. Policies are often created to help enforce secure behavior; however, policies are not always followed, even if they seem simple and clear.

Validation Of Quantitative Regional Atrophy Dementia Classification In A Large Clinical Mri Sample, Samantha Sanders, Christophe Girdaud-Carrier

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Introduction Psychiatrists at the University of Utah developed a regional quantitative brain atrophy map that they hoped to be able to use to find biomarkers for diagnosis of probable Alzheimer’s disease (AD) versus frontotemporal dementia (FTD). This brain atrophy map divides the brain into 20 regions and when a brain scan is taken, they measure the brain density, or atrophy, of each of the 20 regions. We used machine learning techniques with a set of mapped fMRI brain scans to find biomarkers corresponding to the map as well as developing a predictive model for the diagnosis of AD and FTD.

Differences In Cognitive Processing Between Deaf And Hearing Individuals When Presented With Linguistic Stimuli, Aubrey Hatch, Michael Jones

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My project was designed to increase our understanding of the neurological processes of deaf individuals to shape future adaptive technologies to facilitate better education for the deaf community. More specifically, my goal was to focus on the cognitive differences between deaf and hearing individuals when presented with different types of linguistic stimuli such as: a spoken word, a written word, a signed video of a word, or a picture that represents a specific word. By increasing our understanding of these cognitive differences, I hoped to help increase the capabilities of future adaptive technological devices that would be beneficial for those …

Neurological Research To Supplement Hmd Technology Development For The Benefit Of Deaf And Hard-Of-Hearing Students, Tyler Foulger, Michael Jones

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Introduction: The purpose of this MRI study was an attempt to discover and understand how communication is processed via the neural pathways of children ages 8-10. Analysis of the data we obtained would possibly help us in better adapting our head-mounted display (HMD) technology for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in educational settings where communication is common. Since HMDs utilize a sign language interpreter within a screen on the glasses, this technology would eliminate the need for deaf/hard-of-hearing users to constantly alternate their attention back and forth between a live interpreter in the room and the presentation by the teacher. Having …

Multilingual Extraction Ontologies, David W. Embley, Stephen W. Liddle, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Yuri Tijerino

Journal of Undergraduate Research

On December 29, 2009 we were informed that our application for a 2010 MEG grant was approved. This final report sketches the accomplishments attained during the project’s timeframe since then.

Psycholinguistic Study: Deaf Children Vs. Codas And Language Comprehension, Amber Smith, Michael Jones

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project will use an EEG to differentiate brain response to given stimuli between deaf and CODA (children of deaf adults) participants. This project is simple in nature, we will administer two tests: one in ASL and one in English, while the participant is wearing the EEG. We will then analyze and compare the data between the two groups.