Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Automatic Classification Of Epilepsy Lesions, Junwei Sun

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Epilepsy is a common and diverse set of chronic neurological disorders characterized by seizures. Epileptic seizures result from abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Seizure types are organized firstly according to whether the source of the seizure within the brain is localized or distributed. In this work, our objective is to validate the use of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) for localizing seizure focus for improved surgical planning. We apply computer vision and machine learning techniques to tackle the problem of epilepsy lesion classification. First datasets of digitized histology images from brain cortexes of different patients are obtained …

An Outcome-Based Approach For Ensuring Regulatory Compliance Of Business Processes, Quanjun Yin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In service industries, such as healthcare, catering, tourism, etc., there exist regulations that require organisations’ service comply with the regulations. More and more regulations in the service sector are, or are aimed to be, outcome-focused regulations. An outcome prescribed in the regulation is what users should experience or achieve when the regulated business processes are compliant. Service providers need to proactively ensure that the outcomes specified in the regulations have been achieved prior to conducting the relevant part of the business or prior to inspectors discovering noncompliance. Current approaches check system requirements or business processes, not outcomes, against regulations and …

Automatic Foreground Initialization For Binary Image Segmentation, Wei Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Foreground segmentation is a fundamental problem in computer vision. A popular approach for foreground extraction is through graph cuts in energy minimization framework. Most existing graph cuts based image segmentation algorithms rely on user’s initialization. In this work, we aim to find an automatic initialization for graph cuts. Unlike many previous methods, no additional training dataset is needed. Collecting a training set is not only expensive and time consuming, but it also may bias the algorithm to the particular data distribution of the collected dataset. We assume that the foreground differs significantly from the background in some unknown feature space …

Charateristics And Impact Of Interpersonal Conflicts On Requirements Risks, Avinder Walia

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Interpersonal conflicts in software projects have an impact on project’s success, product’s quality, team’s performance, etc. However, in Requirements Engineering (RE), there is dearth of research on this topic; previous research has focused largely on conflicts among requirements. We conducted a case study of an industrial project to determine the characteristics (e.g., type, severity, conflict management styles, etc.) and impact of interpersonal conflicts rooted in RE (RE-Conflicts), on project risks associated with requirements (e..g., inadequately identified requirements, incorrect requirements, etc). The findings show that the conflicts over administrative procedures (47%) had the highest frequency count. The highest number of …

Improvements On Seeding Based Protein Sequence Similarity Search, Weiming Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The primary goal of bioinformatics is to increase an understanding in the biology of organisms. Computational, statistical, and mathematical theories and techniques have been developed on formal and practical problems that assist to achieve this primary goal. For the past three decades, the primary application of bioinformatics has been biological data analysis. The DNA or protein sequence similarity search is perhaps the most common, yet vitally important task for analyzing biological data.

The sequence similarity search is a process of finding optimal sequence alignments. On the theoretical level, the problem of sequence similarity search is complex. On the applicational level, …

Error Correction In Next Generation Dna Sequencing Data, Michael Z. Molnar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Motivation: High throughput Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies can sequence the genome of a species quickly and cheaply. Errors that are introduced by NGS technologies limit the full potential of the applications that rely on their data. Current techniques used to correct these errors are not sufficient, and a more efficient and accurate program is needed to correct errors.

Results: We have designed and implemented RACER (Rapid Accurate Correction of Errors in Reads), an error correction program that targets the Illumina genome sequencer, which is currently the dominant NGS technology. RACER combines advanced data structures with an intricate analysis of …

A New Algorithm For De Novo Genome Assembly, Md. Bahlul Haider

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The enormous amount of short reads produced by next generation sequencing (NGS) techniques such as Roche/454, Illumina/Solexa and SOLiD sequencing opened the possibility of de novo genome assembly. Some of the de novo genome assemblers (e.g., Edena, SGA) use an overlap graph approach to assemble a genome, while others (e.g., ABySS and SOAPdenovo) use a de Bruijn graph approach. Currently, the approaches based on the de Bruijn graph are the most successful, yet their performance is far from being able to assemble entire genomic sequences. We developed a new overlap graph based genome assembler called Paired-End Genome ASsembly Using Short-sequences …

A Treeboost Model For Software Effort Estimation Based On Use Case Points, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Ali Bou Nassif

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Software effort prediction is an important task in the software development life cycle. Many models including regression models, machine learning models, algorithmic models, expert judgment and estimation by analogy have been widely used to estimate software effort and cost. In this work, a Treeboost (Stochastic Gradient Boosting) model is put forward to predict software effort based on the Use Case Point method. The inputs of the model include software size in use case points, productivity and complexity. A multiple linear regression model was created and the Treeboost model was evaluated against the multiple linear regression model, as well as the …

Fuzzy-Excom Software Project Risk Assessment, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Ekananta Manalif, Ali Bou Nassif, Danny Ho

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

A software development project can be considered to be risky project due to the uncertainty of the information (customer requirements), the complexity of the process, and the intangible nature of the product. Under these conditions, risk management in software development projects is mandatory, but often it is difficult and expensive to implement.

Expert COCOMO is an efficient approach to software project risk management, which leverages existing knowledge and expertise from previous effort estimation activities to assess the risk in a new software project. However, the original method has a limitation because it cannot effectively deal with imprecise and uncertain inputs …

Estimating Software Effort Using An Ann Model Based On Use Case Points, Ali Bou Nassif, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Danny Ho

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

In this paper, we propose a novel Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to predict software effort from use case diagrams based on the Use Case Point (UCP) model. The inputs of this model are software size, productivity and complexity, while the output is the predicted software effort. A multiple linear regression model with three independent variables (same inputs of the ANN) and one dependent variable (effort) is also introduced. Our data repository contains 240 data points in which, 214 are industrial and 26 are educational projects. Both the regression and ANN models were trained using 168 data points and tested using …

A Conceptual Framework For Measuring The Quality Aspect Of Mobile Learning, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Abdalha Ali, Abdelkader Ouda

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

With the continuing growth of mobile phones outpacing that of desktops and laptops, mobile phones are the new personal computer. These devices started becoming increasingly sophisticated and extremely powerful. In addition to making phone calls it have the capabilities to perform variety functions, one of the most important functions using it as a classroom tool. However, mobile phone applications must be designed and developed with respect to different technologies skills, learning capabilities and language proficiency in order to be accepted by wide audiences (e.g., students, instructors). However, there is much work that has been done to measure the quality of …

Interactive Augmented Reality As A Support Tool For Parkinson’S Disease Rehabilitation Programs, Andrés Ayala García

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, an augmented reality system is proposed as an alternative to create multiple interactive virtual environments that might later be used in Parkinson’s Disease rehabilitation programs. The main objective of this thesis is to develop a Wearable Tangible Augmented Reality Environment focused on providing the sense of presence required to effectively immerse patients so that they are able to perform different tasks in context–specific scenarios. By using our system, patients are able to freely navigate different virtual environments. Moreover, by segmenting and then overlaying users’ hands and objects of interest above the 3D environment, patients have the ability …

Preoperative Planning Of Robotics-Assisted Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery Under Uncertainty, Hamidreza Azimian

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, a computational framework for patient-specific preoperative planning of Robotics-Assisted Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery (RAMICS) is developed. It is expected that preoperative planning of RAMICS will improve the rate of success by considering robot kinematics, patient-specific thoracic anatomy, and procedure-specific intraoperative conditions. Given the significant anatomical features localized in the preoperative computed tomography images of a patient's thorax, port locations and robot orientations (with respect to the patient's body coordinate frame) are determined to optimize characteristics such as dexterity, reachability, tool approach angles and maneuverability. In this thesis, two approaches for preoperative planning of RAMICS are proposed that …

Generating Log File Analyzers, Ilse Leal Aulenbacher

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Software testing is a crucial part of the software development process, because it helps developers ensure that the software works correctly and according to stakehold- ers’ requirements and specifications. Faulty or problematic software can cause huge financial losses. Automation of testing tasks can have a positive impact on software development, by reducing costs and minimizing human error. Software testing can be divided into three tasks: choosing test cases, running test cases on the software under test (SUT) and evaluating the test results. To evaluate test results, testers need to examine the output of the SUT to determine if it performed …

A New Web Search Engine With Learning Hierarchy, Da Kuang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Most of the existing web search engines (such as Google and Bing) are in the form of keyword-based search. Typically, after the user issues a query with the keywords, the search engine will return a flat list of results. When the query issued by the user is related to a topic, only the keyword matching may not accurately retrieve the whole set of webpages in that topic. On the other hand, there exists another type of search system, particularly in e-Commerce web- sites, where the user can search in the categories of different faceted hierarchies (e.g., product types and price …

Security On Medical Wireless Sensor Networks, Eric D. Southern

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Wireless technology is fast becoming a very important tool for all aspects of communication. An area that lacks a strong implementation for wireless communication is the medical field. Wireless systems could be used by clinicians to be better able to diagnose and monitor patients. The reason behind the lack of adoption in healthcare is due to the need to meet the legislated and perceived requirements of security and privacy when dealing with clinical information. The current methods of wireless authentication are investigated and an existing issue in mobile networks is described and solved with two novel solutions; one solution within …

Evaluation And Assessment Of Recommenders Using Monte Carlo Simulation, Renato Costa, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

There have been various definitions, representations and derivations of trust in the context of recommender systems. This article presents a recommender predictive model based on collaborative filtering techniques that incorporate a fuzzy-driven quantifier, which includes two upmost relevant social phenomena parameters to address the vagueness inherent in the assessment of trust in social networks relationships. An experimental evaluation procedure utilizing a case study is conducted to analyze the overall predictive accuracy. These results show that the proposed methodology improves the performance of classical recommender approaches. Possible extensions are then outlined.

A Fuzzy-Based Inference Mechanism Of Trust For Improved Social Recommenders, Renato Costa, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

This paper presents a stochastic model based on Monte Carlo simulation techniques for measuring the performance of recommenders. A general procedure to assess the accuracy of recommendation predictions is presented and implemented in a typical case study where input parameters are treated as random values and recommender errors are estimated using sensitive analysis. The results obtained are presented and a new perspective to the evaluation and assessment of recommender systems is discussed.

Usability Bugs In Open Source Software And Online Forums, Arif Raza, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Faheem Ahmed

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

No abstract provided.

3d Velocity Retrieval And Storm Tracking Using Multiple Radars, Yong Zhang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Severe weather forecasting is one of the most important and urgent tasks in the meteorology field. This thesis builds on previous work by Barron and Mercer and their graduate students, concerning the use of 3D optical flow to retrieve 3D wind velocity from 3D Doppler radial velocity datasets and tracking 3D severe weather storms using fuzzy points realized as ellipsoids to represent storms and a fuzzy algebra machinery in a relaxation labeling framework to track storms in Doppler precipitation datasets.

We first extend the original 3D optical flow (both least squares and regularization methods) for recovering 3D wind velocity from …

Game Challenge: A Factorial Analysis Approach, Ian J. Fraser

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Video games that customize to a player's experience level and abilities have the potential to allow a broader range of players to become engaged and maintain interest as they progress in experience level. A game that uniquely customizes the player's experience could attract additional demographics to gaming, which will result in a distinct edge in marketability and potential revenue. This thesis examines a subsection of adaptive gaming systems from the perspective of identifying game factors that alter the level of difficulty. Our focus is to provide a solution useful to both research and commercial gaming communities by developing a system …

Automation Of The Registration Of Range Plant Images Using Geomagic Studio, Quazi M. Akter

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As plant science advances, the quantitative measurement of 3D plant growth has become an essential tool to evaluate the growth performance of genetically modified seeds or plants. In the past, “wet volumes” had been used to quantitatively measure plant growth which result in the destruction of the plants. Other traditional methods like interferometry methods or mechanical methods are also inefficient because they are either invasive or unable to provide sufficient growth information of the plant body. On the other hand, computer vision methods, especially optical and range flow techniques, are non-contact, more accurate, and relatively less expensive. But they require …

Hearts And Minds: Examining The Evolution Of The Egyptian Excerebration And Evisceration Traditions Through The Impact Mummy Database, Andrew D. Wade

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Egyptian mummification and funerary rituals were a transformative process, making the deceased a pure being; free of disease, injury, and disfigurements, as well as ethical and moral impurities. Consequently, the features of mummification available to specific categories of individuals hold social and ideological significance. This study refutes long-held classical stereotypes, particularly dogmatic class associations; demonstrates the apocryphal nature of universal heart retention; and expands on the purposes of excerebration and evisceration implied by synthetic and radiological analyses.

Features of the embalming traditions, specifically the variable excerebration and evisceration traditions, represented the Egyptian view of death. Fine-grain analyses, through primary imaging …

The Research On The L(2,1)-Labeling Problem From Graph Theoretic And Graph Algorithmic Approaches, Zhendong Shao

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The L(2,1) -labeling problem has been extensively researched on many graph classes. In this thesis, we have also studied the problem on some particular classes of graphs.

In Chapter 2 we present a new general approach to derive upper bounds for L(2,1)-labeling numbers and applied that approach to derive bounds for the four standard graph products.

In Chapter 3 we study the L(2,1)-labeling number of the composition of n graphs.

In Chapter 4 we consider the Cartesian sum of graphs and derive, both, lower and upper bounds for their L(2,1)-labeling number. We use two different approaches to derive the upper …

Multi-Core Unit Propagation In Functional Languages, Jonathan Alexander Leaver

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Answer Set Programming is a declarative modeling paradigm enabling specialists in diverse disciplines to describe and solve complicated problems. Growth in high performance computing is driving ever smarter and more scalable parallel answer set solvers. To improve on today's cutting-edge, researchers need to develop increasingly intelligent methods for analysis of a solver's runtime information. Reflecting on the solver's search state typically pauses its progress until the analysis is complete. This work introduces methods from the domain of parallel functional programming and immutable type theory to construct a representation of the search state that is both amenable to introspection and efficiently …

An Open Source Usability Maturity Model (Os-Umm), Luiz Fernando Capretz, Arif Raza, Faheem Ahmed

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

User satisfaction has always been a major factor in the success of software, regardless of whether it is closed proprietary or open source software (OSS). In open source projects, usability aspects cannot be improved unless there are ways to test and measure them. Hence, the increasing popularity of open source projects among novice and non-technical users necessitates a usability evaluation methodology. Consequently, this paper presents a usability maturity model specifically aimed at usability-related issues for open source projects. In particular, the model examines the degree of coordination between open source projects and their usability aspects. The measuring instrument of the …

Users’ Perception Of Open Source Usability: An Empirical Study, Arif Raza, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Faheem Ahmed

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

The number of open source software (OSS) users has increased in recent years. No longer are they limited to technically adept software developers. Many believe that the OSS market share could increase tremendously provided OSS had systems that were easier to use. Although examples of good usable open source software exist, it is agreed that OSS can be made more usable. This study presents an empirical investigation to study the impact of some key factors on OSS usability from the end users’ point of view. The research model studies and establishes the relationship between the key usability factors from the …

Soft Skills Requirements In Software Development Jobs: A Cross-Cultural Empirical Study, Faheem Amed, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Salah Bouktif, Piers Campbell

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Purpose: Most of the studies carried out on human factor in software development concentrate primarily on personality traits. However, soft skills which largely help in determining personality traits have been given comparatively little attention by researchers. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether employers’ soft skills requirements, as advertised in job postings, within different roles of software development, are similar across different cultures.

Design/methodology/approach: The authors review the literature relating to soft skills before describing a study based on 500 job advertisements posted on well-known recruitment sites from a range of geographical locations, including North America, Europe, …

Evolution Of Software Engineers’ Personality Profile, Daniel Varona, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Arif Raza

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has been applied to several studies that explore various dimensions of human factors in software engineering. Accordingly, this work reviews the results of these studies to explore existing trends. In order to attain a greater understanding of human resources in the software industry, we have reviewed sixteen studies that had been performed between 1985 and 2011. This review concludes that the changes in the complexity of software processes and products have created new roles and demanded new skills for software engineers.

Ontology–Based Representation Of Simulation Models, Katarina Grolinger, Miriam A.M. Capretz, José R. Marti, Krishan D. Srivastava

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Ontologies have been used in a variety of domains for multiple purposes such as establishing common terminology, organizing domain knowledge and describing domain in a machine-readable form. Moreover, ontologies are the foundation of the Semantic Web and often semantic integration is achieved using ontology. Even though simulation demonstrates a number of similar characteristics to Semantic Web or semantic integration, including heterogeneity in the simulation domain, representation and semantics, the application of ontology in the simulation domain is still in its infancy. This paper proposes an ontology-based representation of simulation models. The goal of this research is to facilitate comparison among …