Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Factors Influencing Performance Of Students In Software Automated Test Tools Course, Susmita Haldar, Mary Pierce, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Formal software testing education is important for building efficient QA professionals. Various aspects of quality assurance approaches are usually covered in courses for training software testing students. Automated Test Tools is one of the core courses in the software testing post-graduate curriculum due to the high demand for automated testers in the workforce. It is important to understand which factors are affecting student performance in the automated testing course to be able to assist the students early on based on their needs. Various metrics that are considered for predicting student performance in this testing course are student engagement, grades on …

Attribution Robustness Of Neural Networks, Sunanda Gamage

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

While deep neural networks have demonstrated excellent learning capabilities, explainability of model predictions remains a challenge due to their black box nature. Attributions or feature significance methods are tools for explaining model predictions, facilitating model debugging, human-machine collaborative decision making, and establishing trust and compliance in critical applications. Recent work has shown that attributions of neural networks can be distorted by imperceptible adversarial input perturbations, which makes attributions unreliable as an explainability method. This thesis addresses the research problem of attribution robustness of neural networks and introduces novel techniques that enable robust training at scale.

Firstly, a novel generic framework …

A Target-Based And A Targetless Extrinsic Calibration Methods For Thermal Camera And 3d Lidar, Farhad Dalirani

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis introduces two novel methods for the extrinsic calibration of a thermal camera and a 3D LiDAR sensor, which are crucial for seamless data integration. The first method employs a distinctive calibration target, leveraging lines and plane equations correspondence in both modalities for a single pose, and incorporating more poses by matching the target's edges. It achieves reliable results, even with just one pose yielding 10.82% translation and 0.51-degree rotation errors. This outperforms alternative methods, which require eight pairs for similar results. The second method eliminates the need for a dedicated target. Instead, by collecting data during the sensor …

Enhancing Urban Life: A Policy-Based Autonomic Smart City Management System For Efficient, Sustainable, And Self-Adaptive Urban Environments, Elham Okhovat

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis proposes the concept of the Policy-based Autonomic Smart City Management System, an innovative framework designed to comprehensively manage diverse aspects of urban environments, ranging from environmental conditions such as temperature and air quality to the infrastructure which comprises multiple layers of infrastructure, from sensors and devices to advanced IoT platforms and applications. Efficient management requires continuous monitoring of devices and infrastructure, data analysis, and real-time resource assessment to ensure seamless city operations and improve residents' quality of life. Automating data monitoring is essential due to the vast array of hardware and data exchanges, and round-the-clock monitoring is critical. …

Learning Mortality Risk For Covid-19 Using Machine Learning And Statistical Methods, Shaoshi Zhang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research investigates the mortality risk of COVID-19 patients across different variant waves, using the data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) websites. By analyzing the available data, including patient medical records, vaccination rates, and hospital capacities, we aim to discern patterns and factors associated with COVID-19-related deaths.

To explore features linked to COVID-19 mortality, we employ different techniques such as Filter, Wrapper, and Embedded methods for feature selection. Furthermore, we apply various machine learning methods, including support vector machines, decision trees, random forests, logistic regression, K-nearest neighbours, na¨ıve Bayes methods, and artificial neural networks, to uncover underlying …

High-Performance Computing In Covariant Loop Quantum Gravity, Pietropaolo Frisoni

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This Ph.D. thesis presents a compilation of the scientific papers I published over the last three years during my Ph.D. in loop quantum gravity (LQG). First, we comprehensively introduce spinfoam calculations with a practical pedagogical paper. We highlight LQG's unique features and mathematical formalism and emphasize the computational complexities associated with its calculations. The subsequent articles delve into specific aspects of employing high-performance computing (HPC) in LQG research. We discuss the results obtained by applying numerical methods to studying spinfoams' infrared divergences, or ``bubbles''. This research direction is crucial to define the continuum limit of LQG properly. We investigate the …

Vertical Free-Swinging Photovoltaic Racking Energy Modeling: A Novel Approach To Agrivoltaics, Koami Soulemane Hayibo, Joshua M. Pearce

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

To enable lower-cost building materials, a free-swinging bifacial vertical solar photovoltaic (PV) rack has been proposed, which complies with Canadian building codes and is the lowest capital-cost agrivoltaics rack. The wind force applied to the free-swinging PV, however, causes it to have varying tilt angles depending on the wind speed and direction. No energy performance model accurately describes such a system. To provide a simulation model for the free-swinging PV, where wind speed and direction govern the array tilt angle, this study builds upon the open-source System Advisor Model (SAM) using Python. After the SAM python model is validated, a …

Data-Driven Decision Support Tool Co-Development With A Primary Health Care Practice Based Learning Network, Jacqueline K. Kueper, Jennifer Rayner, Sara Bhatti, Kelly Angevaare, Sandra Fitzpatrick, Paulino Lucamba, Eric Sutherland, Daniel J. Lizotte

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

Background: The Alliance for Healthier Communities is a learning health system that supports Community Health Centres (CHCs) across Ontario, Canada to provide team-based primary health care to people who otherwise experience barriers to care. This case study describes the ongoing process and lessons learned from the first Alliance for Healthier Communities’ Practice Based Learning Network (PBLN) data-driven decision support tool co-development project.

Methods: We employ an iterative approach to problem identification and methods development for the decision support tool, moving between discussion sessions and case studies with CHC electronic health record (EHR) data. We summarize our work to date in …

A Novel Multidimensional Reference Model For Heterogeneous Textual Datasets Using Context, Semantic And Syntactic Clues, Ganesh Kumar, Shuib Basri, Abdullahi Abubakar Imam, Abdullateef Abdullateef Oluwagbemiga Balogun, Hussaini Mamman, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

With the advent of technology and use of latest devices, they produces voluminous data. Out of it, 80% of the data are unstructured and remaining 20% are structured and semi-structured. The produced data are in heterogeneous format and without following any standards. Among heterogeneous (structured, semi-structured and unstructured) data, textual data are nowadays used by industries for prediction and visualization of future challenges. Extracting useful information from it is really challenging for stakeholders due to lexical and semantic matching. Few studies have been solving this issue by using ontologies and semantic tools, but the main limitations of proposed work were …

Search-Based Fairness Testing: An Overview, Hussaini Mamman, Shuib Basri, Abdullateef Balogun, Abdullahi Abubakar Imam, Ganesh Kumar, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has demonstrated remarkable capabilities in domains such as recruitment, finance, healthcare, and the judiciary. However, biases in AI systems raise ethical and societal concerns, emphasizing the need for effective fairness testing methods. This paper reviews current research on fairness testing, particularly its application through search-based testing. Our analysis highlights progress and identifies areas of improvement in addressing AI systems’ biases. Future research should focus on leveraging established search-based testing methodologies for fairness testing.

Local Model Agnostic Xai Methodologies Applied To Breast Cancer Malignancy Predictions, Heather Hartley

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines current state-of-the-art Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) methodologies applicable to breast cancer diagnostics, as well as local model-agnostic XAI methodologies more broadly. It is well known that AI is underutilized in healthcare due to the fact that black box AI methods are largely uninterpretable. The potential for AI to positively affect health care outcomes is massive, and AI adoption by medical practitioners and the community at large will translate to more desirable patient outcomes. The development of XAI is crucial to furthering the integration of AI within healthcare, as it will allow medical practitioners and regulatory bodies to …

Investigating Continual Learning Strategies In Neural Networks, Christopher Tam, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

This paper explores the role of continual learning strategies when neural networks are confronted with learning tasks sequentially. We analyze the stability-plasticity dilemma with three factors in mind: the type of network architecture used, the continual learning scenario defined and the continual learning strategy implemented. Our results show that complementary learning systems and neural volume significantly contribute towards memory retrieval and consolidation in neural networks. Finally, we demonstrate how regularization strategies such as elastic weight consolidation are more well-suited for larger neural networks whereas rehearsal strategies such as gradient episodic memory are better suited for smaller neural networks.

Software Testing And Code Refactoring: A Survey With Practitioners, Danilo Leandro Lima, Ronnie Souza Santos, Guilherme Pires Garcia, Sildemir S. Silva, Cesar Franca, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Nowadays, software testing professionals are commonly required to develop coding skills to work on test automation. One essential skill required from those who code is the ability to implement code refactoring, a valued quality aspect of software development; however, software developers usually encounter obstacles in successfully applying this practice. In this scenario, the present study aims to explore how software testing professionals (e.g., software testers, test engineers, test analysts, and software QAs) deal with code refactoring to understand the benefits and limitations of this practice in the context of software testing. We followed the guidelines to conduct surveys in software …

Integrating Traditional Cs Class Activities With Computing For Social Good, Ethics, And Communications And Leadership Skills, Renato Cortinovis, Devender Goyal, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Software and information technologies are becoming increasingly integrated and pervasive in human society and range from automated decision making and social media and entertainment, to running critical social and physical infrastructures like government programs, utilities, and financial institutions. As a result, there is a growing awareness of the need to develop professionals who will harness these technologies in fair and inclusive ways and use them to address global issues like health, water management, poverty, and human rights. In this regard, many academic researchers have expressed the need to complement traditional teaching of CS technical skills with computer and information ethics …

Smartphone Loss Prevention System Using Ble And Gps Technology, Noshin Tasnim

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Being an all-in-one gadget, smartphones play a vital role in our everyday lives. However, millions of people suffer every year by losing their phones. A lost phone creates a huge security threat and data loss possibility to the users. Some preventive measures are available to protect from unauthorized access. Moreover, there are some post-loss solutions to track down, retrieve data from a lost locked phone, and protect the privacy and security of lost phone data, but those have some drawbacks as well. Considering the situation, our proposed system offers a preventive solution which will protect the smartphones from getting lost. …

Global Cyber Attack Forecast Using Ai Techniques, Nusrat Kabir Samia

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The advancement of internet technology and growing involvement in the cyber world have made us prone to cyber-attacks inducing severe damage to individuals and organizations, including financial loss, identity theft, and reputational damage. The rapid emergence and evolution of new networks and new opportunities for businesses and technologies are increasing threats to security vulnerabilities. Hence cyber-crime analysis is one of the wide range applications of Data Mining that can be eventually used to predict and detect crime. However, there are several constraints while analyzing cyber-attacks, which are yet to be resolved for more accurate cyber security inspection.

Although there are …

Connectome-Constrained Artificial Neural Networks, Jacob Morra

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In biological neural networks (BNNs), structure provides a set of guard rails by which function is constrained to solve tasks effectively, handle multiple stimuli simultaneously, adapt to noise and input variations, and preserve energy expenditure. Such features are desirable for artificial neural networks (ANNs), which are, unlike their organic counterparts, practically unbounded, and in many cases, initialized with random weights or arbitrary structural elements. In this dissertation, we consider an inductive base case for imposing BNN constraints onto ANNs. We select explicit connectome topologies from the fruit fly (one of the smallest BNNs) and impose these onto a multilayer perceptron …

Predicting Network Failures With Ai Techniques, Chandrika Saha

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Network failure is the unintentional interruption of internet services, resulting in widespread client frustration. It is especially true for time-sensitive services in the healthcare industry, smart grid control, and mobility control, among others. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has compelled many businesses to operate remotely, making uninterrupted internet access essential. Moreover, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) lose millions of dollars annually due to network failure, which has a negative impact on their businesses. Currently, redundant network equipment is used as a restoration technique to resolve this issue of network failure. This technique requires a strategy for failure identification and prediction to …

Data-Driven Exploration Of Coarse-Grained Equations: Harnessing Machine Learning, Elham Kianiharchegani

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In scientific research, understanding and modeling physical systems often involves working with complex equations called Partial Differential Equations (PDEs). These equations are essential for describing the relationships between variables and their derivatives, allowing us to analyze a wide range of phenomena, from fluid dynamics to quantum mechanics. Traditionally, the discovery of PDEs relied on mathematical derivations and expert knowledge. However, the advent of data-driven approaches and machine learning (ML) techniques has transformed this process. By harnessing ML techniques and data analysis methods, data-driven approaches have revolutionized the task of uncovering complex equations that describe physical systems. The primary goal in …

Data Heterogeneity And Its Implications For Fairness, Ghazaleh Noroozi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Data heterogeneity, referring to the differences in underlying generative processes that produce the data, presents challenges in analyzing and utilizing datasets for decision-making tasks. This thesis examines the impact of data heterogeneity on biases and fairness in predictive models. The research investigates the correlation between heterogeneity and protected attributes, such as race and gender, and explores the implications of such heterogeneity on biases that may arise in downstream applications.

The contributions of this thesis are fourfold. Firstly, a comprehensive definition of data heterogeneity based on differences in underlying generative processes is provided, establishing a conceptual framework for understanding and quantifying …

On Computing Optimal Repairs For Conditional Independence, Alireza Pirhadi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis focuses on the concept of Conditional Independence (CI) and its testing, which holds immense significance across various fields, including economics, social sciences, and biomedical research. Notably, within computer science, CI has become an integral part of building probabilistic and causal models. It aids efficient inference and plays a key role in uncovering causal relationships.

The primary aim of this thesis is to broaden the scope of CI beyond its testing aspect. We introduce the pioneering problem of data repair, designed to adhere to particular CI constraints. The value and pertinence of this problem are highlighted through two contrasting …

Weakly-Supervised Anomaly Detection In Surveillance Videos Based On Two-Stream I3d Convolution Network, Sareh Soltani Nejad

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The widespread adoption of city surveillance systems has led to an increase in the use of surveillance videos for maintaining public safety and security. This thesis tackles the problem of detecting anomalous events in surveillance videos. The goal is to automatically identify abnormal events by learning from both normal and abnormal videos. Most of previous works consider any deviation from learned normal patterns as an anomaly, which may not always be valid since the same activity could be normal or abnormal under different circumstances. To address this issue, the thesis utilizes the Two-Stream Inflated 3D (I3D) Convolutional Networks to extract …

Towards Automated Mineral Identification In Martian Rocks From X-Ray Diffraction Patterns, Luke Tambakis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) instrument on the Curiosity rover has provided a rich set of X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns from Martian rocks and regolith. These XRD patterns have allowed geologists to make exciting new discoveries about the mineralogy and the geological history of Mars. These discoveries pave the way for further Martian exploration and provide a deeper understanding of Martian geology. The Curiosity rover is very slow by design, travelling at about 4 cm/s. New, faster rovers are being developed to increase scientific throughput and exploration. XRD is valuable for future missions as it can produce new discov- eries …

Decoy-Target Database Strategy And False Discovery Rate Analysis For Glycan Identification, Xiaoou Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In recent years, the technology of glycopeptide sequencing through MS/MS mass spectrometry data has achieved remarkable progress. Various software tools have been developed and widely used for protein identification. Estimation of false discovery rate (FDR) has become an essential method for evaluating the performance of glycopeptide scoring algorithms. The target-decoy strategy, which involves constructing decoy databases, is currently the most popular utilized method for FDR calculation. In this study, we applied various decoy construction algorithms to generate decoy glycan databases and proposed a novel approach to calculate the FDR by using the EM algorithm and mixture model.

Framework For Assessing Information System Security Posture Risks, Syed Waqas Hamdani

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In today’s data-driven world, Information Systems, particularly the ones operating in regulated industries, require comprehensive security frameworks to protect against loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability of data, whether due to malice, accident or otherwise. Once such a security framework is in place, an organization must constantly monitor and assess the overall compliance of its systems to detect and rectify any issues found. This thesis presents a technique and a supporting toolkit to first model dependencies between security policies (referred to as controls) and, second, devise models that associate risk with policy violations. Third, devise algorithms that propagate risk when …

Evaluating The Likelihood Of Bug Inducing Commits Using Metrics Trend Analysis, Parul Parul

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Continuous software engineering principles advocate a release-small, release-often process model, where new functionality is added to a system, in small increments and very frequently. In such a process model, every time a change is introduced it is important to identify as early as possible, whether the system has entered a state where faults are more likely to occur. In this paper, we present a method that is based on process, quality, and source code metrics to evaluate the likelihood that an imminent bug-inducing commit is highly probable. More specifically, the method analyzes the correlations and the rate of change of …

Explainable Software Defect Prediction From Cross Company Project Metrics Using Machine Learning, Susmita Haldar, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Predicting the number of defects in a project is critical for project test managers to allocate budget, resources, and schedule for testing, support and maintenance efforts. Software Defect Prediction models predict the number of defects in given projects after training the model with historical defect related information. The majority of defect prediction studies focused on predicting defect-prone modules from methods, and class-level static information, whereas this study predicts defects from project-level information based on a cross-company project dataset. This study utilizes software sizing metrics, effort metrics, and defect density information, and focuses on developing defect prediction models that apply various …

Inaugural Artificial Intelligence For Public Health Practice (Ai4php) Retreat: Ontario, Canada, Jacqueline K. Kueper, Laura C. Rosella, Richard G. Booth, Brent D. Davis, Sarah Nayani, Maxwell J. Smith, Dan Lizotte

Computer Science Publications

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Public Health Practice Retreat was a hybrid event held in October 2022 in London, Ontario to achieve three main goals: 1) Identify both the goals of public health practitioners and the tasks that they undertake as part of their practice to achieve those goals that could be supported by AI, 2) Learn from existing examples and the experience of others about facilitators and barriers to AI for public health, and 3) Support new and strengthen existing connections between public health practitioners and AI researchers. The retreat included a keynote presentation, group brainstorming exercises, breakout group …

An Approach To Lunar Regolith Particle Detection And Classification Using Deep Learning, Hira Nadeem

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Lunar regolith, unconsolidated rock on the lunar surface, is made up of various particles. Understanding the quantities and locations of these particles on the lunar surface is of particular interest to planetary scientists for mission planning and science objectives. There is a limited supply of lunar regolith samples available on Earth for planetary scientists to characterize. Lunar rover missions over the next decade are expected to provide high-resolution images of the lunar surface. Deep learning can be leveraged to analyze lunar regolith from image data. An object detection model using transfer learning was developed to identify and classify particles of …

Dynamically Finding Optimal Kernel Launch Parameters For Cuda Programs, Taabish Jeshani

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, we present KLARAPTOR (Kernel LAunch parameters RAtional Program estimaTOR), a freely available tool to dynamically determine the values of kernel launch parameters of a CUDA kernel. We describe a technique for building a helper program, at the compile-time of a CUDA program, that is used at run-time to determine near-optimal kernel launch parameters for the kernels of that CUDA program. This technique leverages the MWP-CWP performance prediction model, runtime data parameters, and runtime hardware parameters to dynamically determine the launch parameters for each kernel invocation. This technique is implemented within the KLARAPTOR tool, utilizing the LLVM Pass …