Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Automatic Content Generation For Video Self Modeling, Ju Shen, Anusha Raghunathan, Sen-Ching S. Cheung, Ravi R. Patel

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Video self modeling (VSM) is a behavioral intervention technique in which a learner models a target behavior by watching a video of him or herself. Its effectiveness in rehabilitation and education has been repeatedly demonstrated but technical challenges remain in creating video contents that depict previously unseen behaviors. In this paper, we propose a novel system that re-renders new talking-head sequences suitable to be used for VSM treatment of patients with voice disorder. After the raw footage is captured, a new speech track is either synthesized using text-to-speech or selected based on voice similarity from a database of clean speeches. …

A Theoretical Model Of Multi-Agent Quantum Computing, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

The best design for practical quantum computing is one that emulates the multi-agent quantum logic function of natural biological systems. Such systems are theorized to be based upon a quantum gate formed by a nucleic acid Szilard engine (NASE) that converts Shannon entropy of encountered molecules into useful work of nucleic acid geometric reconfiguration. This theoretical mechanism is logically and thermodynamically reversible in this special case because it is literally constructed out of the (nucleic acid) information necessary for its function, thereby allowing the nucleic acid Szilard engine to function reversibly because, since the information by which it functions exists …

Disability And The Web: Why Website Accessibility Matters, Vivienne Conway

InfoSci@ECU Seminars

With Australia now transitioning to WCAG 2.0, accessibility has become a critical area requiring a far greater emphasis in the next couple of years. The Australian Human Rights Commission has argued that all Australian websites should meet WCAG 2.0 AA by December 2014. In this presentation, Vivienne will discuss important findings from her study of public library web site accessibility. She will also provide insights into her current PhD investigation and give a first hand account of the Hyderabad conference and global efforts on web site accessibility.

Roundtable On Australian National Data Service, Mathew Wyatt, Julia Gross, Toby Burrows, Salim Taleb

InfoSci@ECU Seminars

The Australian National Data Service (ANDS) (http://ands.org.au/index.html) provides funding to foster partnerships and build infrastructure to enable better local data management in Australian universities and research institutions. Begun in 2008, ANDS has received $72 million of Commonwealth funding. ANDS aims to establish infrastructure and services for an Australian research data commons in which research data with enduring value and the potential for reuse, is preserved and managed for continuing accessibility.

Determining The Effects Of Technology On Children, Kristina E. Hatch

Senior Honors Projects

Determining the Effects of Technology on Children

Kristina Hatch

Faculty Sponser: Timothy Henry, Computer Science and Statistics

Technology has become an essential part of Americans’ daily lives, affecting our communications, mail, relationships, the management of our bills and finances. As we have become more immersed in the benefits and capabilities of these constantly developing technologies, children as well as adults have become avid users. Laptops and cell phones are specially developed for preteens. Software and game companies have been targeting children in their game development. Video games have become common entertainment for children as young as four. Children today can …

A Cost-Benefit Analysis Of A Campus Computing Grid, Preston M. Smith

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

Any major research institution has a substantial number of computer systems on its campus, often in the scale of tens of thousands. Given that a large amount of scientific computing is appropriate for execution in an opportunistic environment, a campus grid is an inexpensive way to build a powerful computational resource. What is missing, though, is a model for making an informed decision on the cost-effectives of a campus grid. In this thesis, the author describes a model for measuring the costs and benefits of building a campus computing resource based on the institution’s existing investment in computing hardware.

For …

Collaborative Strategic Board Games As A Site For Distributed Computational Thinking, Matthew Berland, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper examines the idea that contemporary strategic board games represent an informal, interactional context in which complex computational thinking takes place. When games are collaborative – that is, a game requires that players work in joint pursuit of a shared goal – the computational thinking is easily observed as distributed across several participants. This raises the possibility that a focus on such board games are profitable for those who wish to understand computational thinking and learning in situ. This paper introduces a coding scheme, applies it to the recorded discourse of three groups of game players, and provides qualitative …

Intelligent Buildings: An Investigation Into Current And Emerging Security Vulnerabilities In Automated Building Systems Using An Applied Defeat Methodology, David J. Brooks

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

Intelligent Buildings (IB) have become increasing popular during the past decade, driven through the need to reduce energy, have more reactive and safer buildings, and increase productivity. IB integrate many systems that were in the past isolated from each other, including fire and life safety, HVAC, lighting, security, etc. Facilities contain commercial-in-confidence material and other valued assets; however, IB are integrated through open and common data communication protocols and hardware, leaving facilities exposed to external and internal threats. The study presents an investigation into IB, based on a defeat evaluation methdology. IB vulnerabilities considered two areas, namely physical and software …

Avrf: A Framework To Enable Distributed Computing Using Volunteered Mobile Resources, Evan Arnold

Summer Research

The goal of this project was to create a framework to enable Android mobile devices to act as volunteer workers for distributed computing tasks. The use of volunteered resources has enabled projects with high computational requirements to gain access to significant computational power using the idle time of personal computers volunteered by their owners, such as in SETI@home or similar. The Android Volunteered Resource Framework (AVRF) attempts to implement a similar system, albeit with Android powered devices as the volunteered workers. The framework downloads a set of components which define how to get, process, and return data, and runs them …

Security Risk Management In The Asia Pacific Region: What Are Security Professional Using?, David J. Brooks, Hamish Cotton

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

The Asia Pacific (APAC) region encompasses a heterogeneous group of nation-states. Like the APAC region, the security industry operates within a diverse and multi-disciplined knowledge base, with risk management being a fundamental knowledge domain within security. Nevertheless, there has been limited understanding of what security professionals use when applying security risk management. The study was designed to gain a better understanding of risk management practice in place throughout APAC. Questions were generated to gauge an understanding of current practice and levels of implementation of standards and frameworks. Participants were drawn from many industries, using non-probabilistic sampling methods in a “snowball” …

A Strategy To Articulate The Facility Management Knowledge Categories Within The Built Environment, Robert Doleman, David J. Brooks

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

Security is applied in the built environment and this requires a close relationship with facility managers. Therefore, this study puts forward an approach to establish the facility management knowledge categories within the built environment. In part, the significance of the study stemmed from research undertaken into the compliance to Australian fire door maintenance within nursing homes, which demonstrated 87 percent noncompliance. This high level of non-compliance appeared to identify a lack of facility management knowledge, among other issues (Doleman & Brooks, 2011). The article uses a method to test the supposition of facility management knowledge construct in a three-phase Grounded …

Individualised Responses To Vigilance Demands And Their Management, Fiona M. Donald, Craig Hm Donald

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

This research uses a task disengagement framework to examine how CCTV surveillance operators and novices respond to the vigilance demands of the detection process. Vigilance tasks are acknowledged as being high in mental workload, yet little is known about how operators deal with these demands in jobs where successful performance is reliant upon sustaining attention on a daily basis. Much vigilance research makes an implicit assumption that people perform tasks that require sustained attention in a passive manner. By contrast, this study examines how operators manage their levels of task engagement and attention resources. The sample consisted of 73 participants …

Diagnosis Of Multiple Scan-Chain Faults In The Presence Of System Logic Defects, Zhen Chen, Sharad C. Seth, Dong Xiang, Bhargab B. Bhattacharya

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

We present a combined hardware-software based approach to scan-chain diagnosis, when the outcome of a test may be affected by system faults occurring in the logic outside of the scan chain. For the hardware component we adopt the double-tree scan (DTS) chain architecture, which has previously been shown to be effective in reducing power, volume, and application time of tests for stuck-at and delay faults. We develop a version of flush test which can resolve a multiple fault in a DTS chain to a small number of suspect candidates. Further resolution to a unique multiple fault is enabled by the …

A Break In The Clouds: Towards A Cloud Definition, Chris Rose

Walden Faculty and Staff Publications

This paper discusses the concept of Cloud Computing to achieve a complete definition of what a Cloud is, using the main characteristics typically associated with this paradigm in the literature. More than 20 definitions have been studied allowing for the extraction of a consensus definition as well as a minimum definition containing the essential characteris- tics. This paper pays much attention to the Grid paradigm, as it is often confused with Cloud technologies. We also de- scribe the relationships and distinctions between the Grid and Cloud approaches.

In-Degree Dynamics Of Large-Scale P2p Systems, Zhongmei Yao, Daren B. H. Cline, Dmitri Loguinov

Computer Science Faculty Publications

This paper builds a complete modeling framework for understanding user churn and in-degree dynamics in unstructured P2P systems in which each user can be viewed as a stationary alternating renewal process. While the classical Poisson result on the superposition of n stationary renewal processes for n→∞ requires that each point process become sparser as n increases, it is often difficult to rigorously show this condition in practice. In this paper, we first prove that despite user heterogeneity and non-Poisson arrival dynamics, a superposition of edge-arrival processes to a live user under uniform selection converges to a Poisson process when …

Development Of Visualization Facility At The Gis And Remote Sensing Core Lab, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas, Haroon Stephen, William J. Smith, Zhongwei Liu

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Presentations

Visualization using advanced computational and graphic equipment has become a standard way of present day research. Availability of low cost and fast processing units, high resolution displays with graphic processing units, and specialized software has brought complex visualization capabilities to an office desktop. Nevertheless, when dealing with large datasets such as, global climate, geospatial, and social data the office desktop falls short and calls for a centralized visualization facility with high end computing and graphics equipment.

Visualization Facility at GIS and Remote Sensing Core Lab would be a useful and important addition to the UNLV IT infrastructure. It would provide …

Tracking And Recognizing Multiple Faces Using Kalman Filter And Modularpca, Jacob Foytik, Praveen Sankaran, Vijayan Asari

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Real-time tracking and recognizing multiple faces in complex environments has the ability to provide efficient security automation to large areas. Previous research has shown that Kalman filter techniques paired with the traditional face detection methods can be used to track one or more faces in a viewing region, but prove unreliable under variant conditions due to the inability to reliably distinguish between multiple trackers. A real-time face tracking and recognition system is presented that is capable of processing multiple faces simultaneously. The proposed system utilizes the Kalman filter for tracking and uses a low-level recognition system to properly distinguish between …

How Cios Overcome The Competing Values Challenge: Irish Cios’ Perspectives, Harvey Enns, Dean B. Mcfarlin, Paul B. Sweeney

MIS/OM/DS Faculty Publications

Competing values are a fact of organizational life. However, there are gaps in our understanding about how these opposing beliefs hinder influence processes. This article draws on interview data to demonstrate how Irish Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are able to convince their colleagues to support new projects within their firms in the face of competing values. Focused interviews were used to explore the influence process and the competing values phenomenon, since this type of research is at an early stage and qualitative methods and analysis serve as a rich source of theory development.

The data showed that the CIOs who …

Locating Mineral Exploration Targets Using A Geographical Information System, Finnian O'Connor

Conference papers

This paper outlines the research and development of a complete open source geographic information system (GIS) that offers real-time geoprocessing over the Internet. The premise of the geoprocessing is to locate mineral exploration targets that have high potential for success based on parameters chosen by the end-user of the system.

Components integrated in the system include a spatial database PostGIS, a GIS processing engine GRASS, a GIS server GeoServer, a web server Apache, and front-end technologies OpenLayers and GeoExt. Appropriate data was sourced from the Geological Survey of Ireland to be used for the geoprocessing.

With all the components of …

Relation Liftings On Preorders And Posets, Marta Bílková, Alexander Kurz, Daniela Petrişan, Jiří Velebil

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

The category Rel(Set) of sets and relations can be described as a category of spans and as the Kleisli category for the powerset monad. A set-functor can be lifted to a functor on Rel(Set) iff it preserves weak pullbacks. We show that these results extend to the enriched setting, if we replace sets by posets or preorders. Preservation of weak pullbacks becomes preservation of exact lax squares. As an application we present Moss’s coalgebraic over posets.

Towards Nominal Formal Languages, Alexander Kurz, Tomoyuki Suzuki, Emilio Tuosto

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

We introduce formal languages over infinite alphabets where words may contain binders.We define the notions of nominal language, nominal monoid, and nominal regular expressions. Moreover, we extend history-dependent automata (HD-automata) by adding stack, and study the recognisability of nominal languages.

Generic Trace Logics, Christian Kissig, Alexander Kurz

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

We combine previous work on coalgebraic logic with the coalgebraic traces semantics of Hasuo, Jacobs, and Sokolova.

Federated Critical Infrastructure Simulators: Towards Ontologies For Support Of Collaboration, Katarina Grolinger, Miriam Am Capretz, Adam Shypanski, Gagandeep S. Gill

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Our society relies greatly on a variety of critical infrastructures (CI), such as power system networks, water distribution, oil and natural gas systems, telecommunication networks and others. Interdependency between those systems is high and may result in cascading failures spanning different infrastructures. Behavior of each CI can be observed and analyzed through the use of domain simulators, but this does not account for their interdependency. To explore CI interdependencies, domain simulators need to be integrated in a federation where they can collaborate.

This paper explores three different simulators: the EPANET water distribution simulator, the PSCAD power system simulator and the …