Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Estimating Effectiveness Of Twitter Messages With A Personalized Machine Learning Approach, Xunhu Sun

Theses and Dissertations

In Twitter, many aspects of retweeting behavior, which is the most effective indicator of spreading effectiveness of the tweet, have been researched, such as whether a reader will retweet a certain tweet or not. However, the total number of retweets of the tweet, which is the quantitative measure of quality, has not been well addressed by existing work. To estimate the number of retweets and associated factors, this paper proposes a procedure to develop a personalized model for one author. The training data comes from the author’s past tweets. We propose 3 types of new features based on the contents …

Nat Traversal Techniques And Udp Keep-Alive Interval Optimization, Christopher Daniel Widmer

Theses and Dissertations

NAT traversal presents a challenge to Peer to Peer (P2P) applications, as in many instances a third party is needed to help initiate communication between two hosts when one is behind one or more NAT devices. Much work has gone into facilitating communication across NATs using various protocols, and several standards have been developed to this end. This thesis explores the advantages and disadvantages of several of these standards, including protocols for interacting with the NAT device itself (NAT Port Mapping Protocol (NATPMP), Port Control Protocol (PCP), and Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)), and those using an external server to …

An Improved Classifier Chain Ensemble For Multi-Dimensionalclassification With Conditional Dependence, Joseph Ethan Heydorn

Theses and Dissertations

We focus on multi-dimensional classification (MDC) problems with conditional dependence, which we call multiple output dependence (MOD) problems. MDC is the task of predicting a vector of categorical outputs for each input. Conditional dependence in MDC means that the choice for one output value affects the choice for others, so it is not desirable to predict outputs independently. We show that conditional dependence in MDC implies that a single input can map to multiple correct output vectors. This means it is desirable to find multiple correct output vectors per input. Current solutions for MOD problems are not sufficient because they …

Technical Communication As Teaching: A Grounded Theory Study Of Cognitive Empathy And Audience Engagement Among Computer Science Majors In A Technical Communication Classroom, Robert Michael Rowan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a grounded theory study of empathy, ethical awareness, and audience engagement activities in students in a technical writing service course. The course was designed around an empathy-oriented approach to teaching technical writing and writing research. The students are primarily computer science majors, and the teaching methods include a genre and writing research approach as well as the use of an extended metaphor of technical communication as a form of teaching. Findings indicate that students respond to the metaphor by drawing upon positive and empathetically-informed models of teachers and teaching to guide how they would work with and …

Using Omaha System Documentation To Understand Physical Activity Among Rural Women, Jeanette Melissa Olsen

Theses and Dissertations

Rural women are more inactive and have different barriers to physical activity than those who live in more urban settings, yet few studies have specifically examined physical activity and associated factors in this population. Clinical data documented with standardized terminology by nurses caring for rural women may provide an opportunity to generate evidence that informs and improves nursing care. However, the knowledge to be gained and utility of nurses' clinical documentation in regard to physical activity have not been explored. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to increase understanding of physical activity and associated factors among rural women by …

Edukimi I Punonjësve Për Mbrojtje Nga Spyware – Rasti I Studimit Nëkompanitë E Sigurimit, Gentian Qorraj

Theses and Dissertations

Spyware është një softuer i instaluar në një sistem kompjuterik. Programet Spyware tentojnë të instalohen në kompjutëret e punonjësve për të monitoruar veprimet e tyre duke mbledhur informacione private të cilat janë në rëndësi për palen e tretë. Spyware është një kërcënim në rritje duke përfshire kompanitë në përgjithësi poashtu edhe mjedise tjera të punës.Spyware-i është një kategori e gjerë e softuerit me qëllim të keq. Ai është zhvilluar nga individët të cilët kanë krijuar këtë lloj programi me qëllim që të ndërpres ose të marrë kontrollin e pjesshëm të funksionit të kompjuterit në mesin e aktivitetetve tjera të dyshimta …

A Foundation For Cyber Experimentation, Evan Lawrence Stoner

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the variety of environments and tools available to computer scientists performing cyber experimentation, the community lacks a single cohesive platform that is capable of unifying these tools across environments and research domains. In pursuit of this unifying platform, we introduce a new framework that is agnostic to the underlying environment, tools, and domain. We show the effectiveness of this framework by (1) demonstrating how an example experiment can be described within the framework and what benefits this offers, (2) presenting a prototype implementation of the framework, and (3) offering a collection of approaches to automated experimentation that the framework …

Scattering Correction Methods Of Infrared Spectra Using Graphics Processing Units, Asher Imtiaz

Theses and Dissertations

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy has been used for many years as a technique that provides distinctive structure-specific infrared spectra for a wide range of materials (e.g., biological (tissues, cells, bacteria, viruses), polymers, energy related, composites, minerals). The mid-infrared radiation can strongly scatter from distinct particles, with diameters ranging between 2-20 micrometer. Transmission measurements of samples (approximately 100 micrometers x 100 micrometers x 10 micrometers) with distinct particles. will be dominated by this scattering (Mie scattering). The scattering distorts the measured spectra, and the absorption spectra appear different from pure absorbance spectra. This thesis presents development and implementation of two …

Version Control Integration Of Build Maintenance Tools With Formiga, Reed Alexander Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The task of build maintenance consists of creating, configuring, and updating the build system of a software engineering project. A project of sufficient size and scope is likely to have some sort of build system due to the complexity and time required to create a finished product. Build maintenance has been shown to greatly increase the cost of developing software due to the common need to modify a build system at the same time as the source code. Unfortunately, there is little in the way of tool support to assist developers with build maintenance.

Formiga is a build maintenance and …

Towards A Usable-Security Engineering Framework For Enhancing Software Development, Yasser M. Hausawi

Theses and Dissertations

Computer systems are fundamental tools for almost every single process in life. People from all over the globe use computer systems for an unlimited number of purposes. Consequently, a close relationship between people and computer systems exists. Current research investigates how people and such systems to interact with each other in a proper manner. The research work on this matter is being conducted in different directions; one direction is investigating people’s behaviors toward computer systems, such as the cognitive and mental state of humans when interacting with computer systems; another direction studies the computer system’s behaviors toward people, such as …

A Multi-Level Analysis Of Collaborations In Computer Science, Pramod Divakarmurthy

Theses and Dissertations

Working in collaboration is common in today’s highly connected scientific community. By collaborating, researchers can solve challenging multi-disciplinary problems, increase knowledge dissemination as well as productivity. These and other advantages motivate the study of the collaboration patterns of researchers. Such patterns can be observed directly in networks of manuscript co-authorship. In such a network, nodes represent authors and the links between them indicate that they have co-authored a paper. Several researchers constructed and studied large-scale networks representing collaborations in Mathematics, Biology, Physics, and Neuroscience. Most studies have performed bibliometric analysis of scientific publications, evaluated and ranked scholars on their research …

Framework For Open-Source Software Update Mechanism: Resistance To Stacking The Deck Attack, Khalid Alhamed

Theses and Dissertations

Currently many users trust open-source binaries downloaded from repositories such as sourceforge.net,github.com, and gitorious.org. As with any system connected to the Internet, such repositories can be subject to attacks tampering with the distributed binaries (inserting malicious code, changing behavior). Developers can change their vision and abandon features that are essential for certain users. Moreover, well-funded attackers can effectively take control of a project by orchestrating the transfer of the leadership of the developers to people whom they control. We propose a framework to reduce the level of trust that users are required to have into updates for open-source software that …

Informational Power On Twitter: A Mixed-Methods Exploration Of User Knowledge And Technological Discourse About Information Flows, Nicholas John Proferes

Theses and Dissertations

Following a number of recent examples where social media users have been confronted by information flows that did not match their understandings of the platforms, there is a pressing need to examine public knowledge of information flows on these systems, to map how this knowledge lines up against the extant flows of these systems, and to explore the factors that contribute to the construction of knowledge about these systems. There is an immediacy to this issue because as social media sites become further entrenched as dominant vehicles for communication, knowledge about these technologies will play an ever increasing role in …

Feature Identification And Reduction For Improved Generalization Accuracy In Secondary-Structure Prediction Using Temporal Context Inputs In Machine-Learning Models, Matthew Benjamin Seeley

Theses and Dissertations

A protein's properties are influenced by both its amino-acid sequence and its three-dimensional conformation. Ascertaining a protein's sequence is relatively easy using modern techniques, but determining its conformation requires much more expensive and time-consuming techniques. Consequently, it would be useful to identify a method that can accurately predict a protein's secondary-structure conformation using only the protein's sequence data. This problem is not trivial, however, because identical amino-acid subsequences in different contexts sometimes have disparate secondary structures, while highly dissimilar amino-acid subsequences sometimes have identical secondary structures. We propose (1) to develop a set of metrics that facilitates better comparisons between …

Gaseous Particulate Interaction In A 3-Phase Granular Simulation, Kevin W. Munns

Theses and Dissertations

As computer generated special effects play an increasingly integral role in the development of films and other media, simulating granular material continues to be a challenging and resource intensive process. Solutions tend to be pieced together in order to address the complex and different behaviors of granular flow. As such, these solutions tend to be brittle, overly specific, and unnatural. With the introduction of a holistic 3-phase granular simulation, we can now create a reliable and adaptable granular simulation.Our solution improves upon this hybrid solution by addressing the issue of particle flow and correcting interpenetration amongst particles while maintaining the …

Windows Authentication, Rfid Security, Shkëlqim Rexhepi

Theses and Dissertations

Identifikimi Radio Frekuencor (Radio Frequency Identification - RFID) është teknologji identifikimi automatik që duke përdorur radio valët transmeton informata shumë fleksibile në lidhje me një objekt të caktuar, person apo gjësend. Me ndihmën e sistemeve RFID dhe sidomos me zhvillimin e atyre NFC (NearFieldCommunication) kjo lloj teknologjie ka tërhek interes dhe ka gjetur zbatim shumë të madh në mbarë botën në shumë fusha të ndryshme. Në këtë punim është bërë një studim dhe shtjellim i temave të ndryshme lidhur me teknologjinë RFID duke filluar prej koncepteve bazë si verifikimi, identifikimi dhe performaca e ketyre llojeve të teknologjisë, është bërë shtjellim …

Authentication Melee: A Usability Analysis Of Seven Web Authentication Systems, Scott Ruoti

Theses and Dissertations

Passwords continue to dominate the authentication landscape in spite of numerous proposals to replace them. Even though usability is a key factor in replacing passwords, very few alternatives have been subjected to formal usability studies and even fewer have been analyzed using a standard metric. We report the results of four within-subjects usability studies for seven web authentication systems. These systems span federated, smartphone, paper tokens, and email-based approaches. Our results indicate that participants prefer single sign-on systems. We utilize the Systems Usability Scale (SUS) as a standard metric for empirical analysis and find that it produces reliable, replicable results. …

Using Instance-Level Meta-Information To Facilitate A More Principled Approach To Machine Learning, Michael Reed Smith

Theses and Dissertations

As the capability for capturing and storing data increases and becomes more ubiquitous, an increasing number of organizations are looking to use machine learning techniques as a means of understanding and leveraging their data. However, the success of applying machine learning techniques depends on which learning algorithm is selected, the hyperparameters that are provided to the selected learning algorithm, and the data that is supplied to the learning algorithm. Even among machine learning experts, selecting an appropriate learning algorithm, setting its associated hyperparameters, and preprocessing the data can be a challenging task and is generally left to the expertise of …

Color Relationship Transfer For Digital Painting, Gregory Eric Philbrick

Theses and Dissertations

A digital painter uses reference photography to add realism to a scene. This involves making n colors in a painting relate to each other more like n corresponding colors in a photograph, in terms of value and temperature. Doing this manually requires either experience or tedious experimentation. Color relationship transfer performs the task automatically, recoloring n regions of a painting so they relate in value and temperature more like n corresponding regions of a photograph. Relationship transfer also has applications in computational photography. In fact, it introduces a new paradigm for image editing in general, based on treating an image's …

An Extensible Technology Framework For Cyber Security Education, Frank Jordan Sheen

Theses and Dissertations

Cyber security education has evolved over the last decade to include new methods of teaching and technology to prepare students. Instructors in this field of study often deal with a subject matter that has rigid principles, but changing ways of applying those principles. This makes maintaining courses difficult. This case study explored the kind of teaching methods, technology, and means used to explain these concepts. This study shows that generally, cyber security courses require more time to keep up to date. It also evaluates one effort, the NxSecLab, on how it attempted to relieve the administrative issues in teaching these …

Tactical Ai In Real Time Strategy Games, Donald A. Gruber

Theses and Dissertations

The real time strategy (RTS) tactical decision making problem is a difficult problem. It is generally more complex due to its high degree of time sensitivity. This research effort presents a novel approach to this problem within an educational, teaching objective. Particular decision focus is target selection for a artificial intelligence (AI) RTS game model. The use of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) in this tactical decision making problem allows an AI agent to make fast, effective solutions that do not require modification to the current environment. This approach allows for the creation of a generic solution building tool that is …

Unified Behavior Framework For Discrete Event Simulation Systems, Alexander J. Kamrud

Theses and Dissertations

Intelligent agents provide simulations a means to add lifelike behavior in place of manned entities. Generally when developed, a single intelligent agent model is chosen, such as rule based, behavior trees, etc. This choice introduces restrictions into what behaviors agents can manifest, and can require significant testing in edge cases. This thesis presents the use of the UBF in the AFSIM environment. The UBF provides the flexibility to implement any and all intelligent agent models, allowing the developer to choose the model he/she feels best fits the experiment at hand. Furthermore, the UBF demonstrates several key software engineering principles through …

Evaluating Machine Learning Classifiers For Hybrid Network Intrusion Detection Systems, Michael D. Rich

Theses and Dissertations

Existing classifier evaluation methods do not fully capture the intended use of classifiers in hybrid intrusion detection systems (IDS), systems that employ machine learning alongside a signature-based IDS. This research challenges traditional classifier evaluation methods in favor of a value-focused evaluation method that incorporates evaluator-specific weights for classifier and prediction threshold selection. By allowing the evaluator to weight known and unknown threat detection by alert classification, classifier selection is optimized to evaluator values for this application. The proposed evaluation methods are applied to a Cyber Defense Exercise (CDX) dataset. Network data is processed to produce connection-level features, then labeled using …

The Unified Behavior Framework For The Simulation Of Autonomous Agents, Daniel M. Roberson

Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1980s, researchers have designed a variety of robot control architectures intending to imbue robots with some degree of autonomy. A recently developed architecture, the UBF, implements a variation of the three-layer architecture with a reactive controller to rapidly make behavior decisions. Additionally, the UBF utilizes software design patterns that promote the reuse of code and free designers to dynamically switch between behavior paradigms. This paper explores the application of the UBF to the simulation domain. By employing software engineering principles to implement the UBF architecture within an open-source simulation framework, we have extended the versatility of both. The …

Constructing Cost-Effective And Targetable Ics Honeypots Suited For Production Networks, Michael M. Winn

Theses and Dissertations

Honeypots are a technique that can mitigate the risk of cyber threats. Effective honeypots are authentic and targetable, and their design and implementation must accommodate risk tolerance and financial constraints. The proprietary, and often expensive, hardware and software used by Industrial Control System (ICS) devices creates the challenging problem of building a flexible, economical, and scalable honeypot. This research extends Honeyd into Honeyd+, making it possible to use the proxy feature to create multiple high interaction honeypots with a single Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). Honeyd+ is tested with a network of 75 decoy PLCs, and the interactions with the decoys …

Modeling And Simulation Of Evacuation Plan For Hancock Stadium, Nirmal Neranjan Weerasekara

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study is to use Modeling and Simulation of Evacuation Plan (MSEP) to support management to execute proper evacuation plan in case of emergency at Hancock Stadium in Illinois State University. Analyses of the research literature and evacuation scenarios are used to build a simulation system that will connect a description of emergency and evacuation situation with its context. It shows how an evacuation plan actually functions. The results of the study will help safety managers to understand the current situations of evacuation according to the specific simulation scenarios. The evacuation simulation is categorized according to the …

Using Software Defined Networking To Solve Missed Firewall Architecture In Legacy Networks, Jared Dean Vogel

Theses and Dissertations

This study is concerned with migrating traditional networks and their inherent firewall architecture to Software Defined Networking (SDN) architecture to provide an initial attempt at preventing application downtime due to hidden firewall domain rules. In legacy organization environments the networking engineers, firewall teams, and application analysts are often silo groups, but Software Defined Networking (SDN) can blur the lines between these group silos.

This thesis first outlines the interworking of SDN, traditional firewall architecture and how it interacts with SDN, an experiment of implementation, and the resulting conclusions.

Testing with SDN shows we are approaching new environments where the edges …

Unknown Threat Detection With Honeypot Ensemble Analsyis Using Big Datasecurity Architecture, Michael Eugene Sanders

Theses and Dissertations

The amount of data that is being generated continues to rapidly grow in size and complexity. Frameworks such as Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark are evolving at a rapid rate as organizations are building data driven applications to gain competitive advantages. Data analytics frameworks decomposes our problems to build applications that are more than just inference and can help make predictions as well as prescriptions to problems in real time instead of batch processes.

Information Security is becoming more important to organizations as the Internet and cloud technologies become more integrated with their internal processes. The number of attacks and …

Sensitivity Analysis For The Winning Algorithm In Knowledge Discovery And Data Mining ( Kdd ) Cup Competition 2014, Fakhri Ghassan Abbas

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies multi-way sensitivity analysis for the winning algorithm in the Knowledge Discovery in Data Mining (KDD) cup competition 2014 -`Predicting Excitement at Donors.org'. Because of the highly advanced nature of this competition, analyzing the winning solution under a variety of different conditions provides insight about each of the models the winning team has used in the competition. The study follows Cross Industry Standard Process (CRISP) for data mining to study the steps taken to prepare, model and evaluate the model. The thesis focuses on a gradient boosting model. After careful examination of the models created by the researchers …

Judicious Use Of Communication For Inherently Parallel Optimization, Andrew W. Mcnabb

Theses and Dissertations

Function optimization---finding the minimum or maximum of a given function---is an extremely challenging problem with applications in physics, economics, machine learning, engineering, and many other fields. While optimization is an active area of research, only a portion of this work acknowledges parallel computation, which is now widely available. Today, anyone with a modest budget can buy a cluster with hundreds of cores, pay for access to a supercomputer with thousands of processors, or at least purchase a laptop with 8 cores. Thus, an algorithm that works well in serial but cannot be parallelized is needlessly inefficient in real-life computationalenvironments.We address …