Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Exploring The Shift In Player Enthusiasm Towards Games, David Daniel

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

Video games, providing a constant source of excitement have been an integral part of the lives of many enthusiasts, helping shape childhoods and providing a source of entertainment and social interaction between friends and strangers. From the joy of unboxing the Wii with siblings back in the day, all the way to playing multiplayer battle royales and among us with our friends over the pandemic, the gaming platform has been an ever changing and dynamic experience. However, with time, a noticeable split emerged among peers who once shared the same joy of running home and putting on the headset. Some …

An Analysis Of The Debate And How It Changed Everything: Narratology Vs. Ludology, Robert Veloya

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

Video games will rot your brain. Something that people have told us during its inception into the modern world; however, little did they know that the video game industry will one day take its place in the world as one of the best mediums to tell a story and challenge its audience. The video game industry is an ever-growing industry where innovation flows through its veins causing it to grow into a field that is more immersive and compelling. Video games have also evolved into a field of study, a discipline that dives deep into what makes them a unique …

From Pong To Narrative: The Evolution Of Ai In Gaming, Muhammad Assaf

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

As video games evolve, the role of artificial intelligence also referred to as AI has been essential. Games have come a long way from being small and having rudimentary logic to being extremely complex and narrative-driven. This research paper will dive into the vast history of AI in gaming, following its path from the simple ball-paddle mechanics of Pong, to the intricate entanglements presented in modern games such as Fortnite, Call of Duty, League of Legends, and more. The interplay between game design and AI development doesn’t just show how far we have come in technological advancement, but rather it …

Influence Of Pavement Conditions On Commercial Motor Vehicle Crashes, Stephen Arhin, Babin Manandhar, Adam Gatiba

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

Commercial motor vehicle (CMV) safety is a major concern in the United States, including the District of Columbia (DC), where CMVs make up 15% of traffic. This research uses a comprehensive approach, combining statistical analysis and machine learning techniques, to investigate the impact of road pavement conditions on CMV accidents. The study integrates traffic crash data from the Traffic Accident Reporting and Analysis Systems Version 2.0 (TARAS2) database with pavement condition data provided by the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). Data spanning from 2016 to 2020 was collected and analyzed, focusing on CMV routes in DC. The analysis employs binary …

Examining The Externalities Of Highway Capacity Expansions In California: An Analysis Of Land Use And Land Cover (Lulc) Using Remote Sensing Technology, Serena E. Alexander, Bo Yang, Owen Hussey, Derek Hicks

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

There are over 590,000 bridges dispersed across the roadway network that stretches across the United States alone. Each bridge with a length of 20 feet or greater must be inspected at least once every 24 months, according to the Federal Highway Act (FHWA) of 1968. This research developed an artificial intelligence (AI)-based framework for bridge and road inspection using drones with multiple sensors collecting capabilities. It is not sufficient to conduct inspections of bridges and roads using cameras alone, so the research team utilized an infrared (IR) camera along with a high-resolution optical camera. In many instances, the IR camera …

What You Don't See: The Impact Of Hidden Game Mechanics On Players, Jan Virsunen

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

Since the rise of technology in the early nineteen sixties the art of gaming became an increasingly popular form of entertainment for many people throughout the years. As time progressed so did the advancements in technology which allowed for video games to become more immersive, captivating, and complex. Due to these advancements in tech, it generated a wide variety of ways for developers to increase game complexities. However, as the complexity of video games has increased, so too has the number of hidden game mechanics. These game mechanics are seen as the underlying systems and rules that govern how the …

A Gravity Model Integrating Land-Use And Transportation Policies For Sustainable Development: Case Study Of Fresno, California, Chih-Hao Wang, Na Chen

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

The idea of urban compaction has been long proposed and promoted to address the problem of urban sprawl in many American cities. However, there are still rare successful cases of such implementation in the United States. This study uses a classic gravity model, TELEM (Transpiration, Economic, and Land-Use Model) to examine to what extent a land-use or transportation policy must be regulated to make the urban compaction occur in a typical auto-dependent city—Fresno, California. Five scenarios are considered (BL, L1, L2, T1, and T2), in which the baseline (BL) is a natural growth scenario. Without any policy interventions, the city …

Melt Inclusion Record Of Submarine Caldera Formation On Axial Seamount, Juan De Fuca Ridge, Destiny Kapule

Master's Theses

This study contributes to understanding magmatic processes and the plumbing system of submarine volcanoes before, during, and after caldera formation with the use of melt inclusions (MIs). Major, trace and volatile geochemistry from both olivine and plagioclase-hosted MIs taken from volcaniclastic deposits around Axial Seamount reveal information about the storage conditions, ascent rates and eruption styles of magmas. Magma crystallizes in the subsurface, capturing MIs, and ascends where some host glasses may interact with seawater during eruption. Oversaturation in volatiles and low vesicularity show quick ascent rates. By analyzing chemical data within a pre-existing stratigraphic context this study can assess …

Impacts Of Synoptic-Scale Dynamics On Cloud Properties And Radiation In High Southern Latitudes, Tyler R. Barone

Master's Theses

Predicting future climate change relies on accurate representations of the earth’s surface radiation budget. Complex interactions between large-scale dynamical conditions (e.g., low-pressure systems) and microscale processes (e.g., cloud properties) are key contributors to energy budget biases within global climate models. Proper estimation of cloud microscale processes and their responses to synoptic-scale dynamics will greatly improve the accuracy of the simulated energy balance within global climate models. High-latitudinal clouds have significant influences on the Earth’s radiative balance. We examined observations from two field campaigns at Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean and McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Two global climate models are …

Gender Classification Via Human Joints Using Convolutional Neural Network, Cheng-En Sung

Master's Projects

With the growing demand for gender-related data on diverse applications, including security systems for ascertaining an individual’s identity for border crossing, as well as marketing purposes of digging the potential customer and tailoring special discounts for them, gender classification has become an essential task within the field of computer vision and deep learning. There has been extensive research conducted on classifying human gender using facial expression, exterior appearance (e.g., hair, clothes), or gait movement. However, within the scope of our research, none have specifically focused gender classification on two-dimensional body joints. Knowing this, we believe that a new prediction pipeline …

Dynamic Predictions Of Thermal Heating And Cooling Of Silicon Wafer, Hitesh Kumar

Master's Projects

Neural Networks are now emerging in every industry. All the industries are trying their best to exploit the benefits of neural networks and deep learning to make predictions or simulate their ongoing process with the use of their generated data. The purpose of this report is to study the heating pattern of a silicon wafer and make predictions using various machine learning techniques. The heating of the silicon wafer involves various factors ranging from number of lamps, wafer properties and points taken in consideration to capture the heating temperature. This process involves dynamic inputs which facilitates the heating of the …

Vehicle-Based Disconnected Data Distribution, Aditya Singhania

Master's Projects

The world today is highly connected and there is an immense dependency on this connectivity to accomplish basic everyday tasks. However much of the world lacks connectivity. Even in well-connected locations, natural disasters can cause infrastructure disruption. To combat these situations, Delay Tolerant Networks

(DTNs) employ to store and forward techniques along with intermittently connected transports to provide data connectivity. DTNs focus on intermittently connected networks however what if the regions are never connected? For example, Region A - is never connected to the internet, and Region B – has internet connectivity. Using a vehicle that travels between the two …

Spartanscript: New Language Design For Smart Contracts, Ajinkya Lakade

Master's Projects

Smart contracts have become a crucial element for developing decentralized applications on blockchain, resulting in numerous innovative projects on blockchain networks. Ethereum has played a significant role in this space by providing a high-performance Ethereum virtual machine, enabling the creation of several high- level programming languages that can run on the Ethereum blockchain. Despite its usefulness, the Ethereum Virtual Machine has been prone to security vulnerabilities that can result in developers succumbing to common pitfalls which are otherwise safeguarded by modern virtual machines used in programming languages. The project aims to introduce a new interpreted scripting programming language that closely …

Proof-Of-Stake For Spartangold, Nimesh Ashok Doolani

Master's Projects

Consensus protocols are critical for any blockchain technology, and Proof-of- Stake (PoS) protocols have gained popularity due to their advantages over Proof-of- Work (PoW) protocols in terms of scalability and efficiency. However, existing PoS mechanisms, such as delegated and bonded PoS, suffer from security and usability issues. Pure PoS (PPoS) protocols provide a stronger decentralization and offer a potential solution to these problems. Algorand, a well-known cryptocurrency, employs a PPoS protocol that utilizes a new Byzantine Agreement (BA) mechanism for consensus and Verifiable Random Functions (VRFs) to securely scale the protocol to accommodate many participants, making it possible to handle …

Ubiquitous Application Data Collection In A Disconnected Distributed System, Deepak Munagala

Master's Projects

Despite some incredible advancements in technology, a significant population of the world does not have internet connectivity. These people lack access to crucial information that is easily available to the rest of the world. To solve this problem, we implement a Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) that allows users in disconnected regions access to the internet. This is enabled by collecting all data requests on the users’ phones and passing them to a device that can carry them to a connected region. This device can then collect the necessary information and give it back to the users in the disconnected region. …

Codeval, Aditi Agrawal

Master's Projects

Grading coding assignments call for a lot of work. There are numerous aspects of the code that need to be checked, such as compilation errors, runtime errors, the number of test cases passed or failed, and plagiarism. Automated grading tools for programming assignments can be used to help instructors and graders in evaluating the programming assignments quickly and easily. Creating the assignment on Canvas is again a time taking process and can be automated. We developed CodEval, which instantly grades the student assignment submitted on Canvas and provides feedback to the students. It also uploads, creates, and edits assignments, thereby …

Spartan Price Oracle: A Schelling-Point Based Decentralized Pirce Oracle, Sihan He

Master's Projects

Nakamoto’s Bitcoin is the first decentralized digital cash system that utilizes a blockchain to manage transactions in its peer-to-peer network. The newer generation of blockchain systems, including Ethereum, extend their capabilities to support deployment of smart contracts within their peer-to-peer networks. However, smart contracts cannot acquire data from sources outside the blockchain since the blockchain network is isolated from the outside world. To obtain data from external sources, smart contracts must rely on Oracles, which are agents that bring data from the outside world to a blockchain network. However, guaranteeing that the oracle’s off-chain nodes are trustworthy remains a challenge. …

Analyzing Improvement Of Mask R-Cnn On Arms Plates (And Sponges And Coral), James Lee

Master's Projects

Coral Reefs and their diverse array of life forms play a vital role in maintaining the health of our planet's environment. However, due to their fragility, it can be challenging to study the reefs without damaging their delicate ecosystem. To address this issue, researchers have employed non-invasive methods such as using Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) plates to monitor biodiversity. Data was collected as genetic samples from the plates, and high-resolution photographs were taken. To make the best use of this image data, scientists have turned to machine learning and computer vision. Prior to this study, MASKR-CNN was utilized as …

Macruby: User Defined Macro Support For Ruby, Arushi Singh

Master's Projects

Ruby does not have a way to create custom syntax outside what the language already offers. Macros allow custom syntax creation. They achieve this by code generation that transforms a small set of instructions into a larger set of instructions. This gives programmers the opportunity to extend the language based on their own custom needs.

Macros are a form of meta-programming that helps programmers in writing clean and concise code. MacRuby is a hygienic macro system. It works by parsing the Abstract Syntax Tree(AST) and replacing macro references with expanded Ruby code. MacRuby offers an intuitive way to declare macro …

The New Student: The Enhancement Of An Ebook To Support Emotional Connection, Rebecca Zumaeta

Master's Projects

EBooks are a form of multimedia applications that encourage cognitive learning. Multimedia can also influence readers to have a deeper connection to the story. Understanding the influence of a static picture book versus an animated and audio guided eBook can prove valuable in developing learning media and other forms of content. In this research we take a published children's book and apply the content into a multimedia eBook. The purpose of the creation of the eBook is to compare the interest of a reader on a story when static format, when some multimedia is added and when the story is …

Untraining Gender Bias: An Eye-Tracking Study, Ripujit S. Bamrah

Master's Projects

In recent years, social cognitive theory has emphasized the role of cognitive processes in shaping perceptions and behavior related to gender bias. By examining the impact of targeted training interventions, this study seeks to better understand the influence of such processes on decision-making in the context of character selection. This human-computer interaction study explores the potential of intervention-based training to untraining gender bias in character selection. With an increasing need to address gender bias in various domains, understanding the impact of gender-based training becomes crucial. According to our hypothesis, exposure to masculine characters would boost people’s preference for female- intellectualized …

Bias Detector Tool For Face Datasets Using Image Recognition, Jatin Vamshi Battu

Master's Projects

Computer Vision has been quickly transforming the way we live and work. One of its sub- domains, i.e., Facial Recognition has also been advancing at a rapid pace. However, the development of machine learning models that power these systems has been marred by social biases, which open the door to various societal issues. The objective of this project is to address these issues and ensure that computer vision systems are unbiased and fair to all individuals. To achieve this, we have created a web tool that uses three image classifiers (implemented using CNNs) to classify images into categories based on …

Video Sign Language Recognition Using Pose Extraction And Deep Learning Models, Shayla Luong

Master's Projects

Sign language recognition (SLR) has long been a studied subject and research field within the Computer Vision domain. Appearance-based and pose-based approaches are two ways to tackle SLR tasks. Various models from traditional to current state-of-the-art including HOG-based features, Convolutional Neural Network, Recurrent Neural Network, Transformer, and Graph Convolutional Network have been utilized to tackle the area of SLR. While classifying alphabet letters in sign language has shown high accuracy rates, recognizing words presents its set of difficulties including the large vocabulary size, the subtleties in body motions and hand orientations, and regional dialects and variations. The emergence of deep …

Eye Movements Behaviors In A Driving Simulator During Simple And Complex Distractions, Pradeep Narayana

Master's Projects

Road accidents occur frequently due to driving distractions all around the world. A driving simulator has been created to explore the cognitive effects of distractions while driving in order to address this problem. The purpose of this study is to discover the distraction-causing elements and how they affect driving performance. The simulator offers a secure and regulated setting for carrying out tests while being distracted by different visual distractions, such as solving mathematical equations and number memorizations.

Several trials have been conducted in the studies, which were carried out under varied circumstances like varying driving sceneries and by displaying different …

Driving Simulator : Driving Performance Under Distraction, Kaushik Pilligundla

Master's Projects

This pilot study used a driving simulator experiment to look into how podcast consumption affects driving performance as a continuous distraction. Three volunteers conducted three trials in the study, each with a different driving scenario. Data analysis was done to compare two conditions. The first condition is the Audio, where volunteers listen to podcasts while driving. The second condition is no-audio condition.. The no-audi condition had nothing to play in the background. We used eye-tracking technology to gather gaze data. The study's findings using the post survey and eye fixation data indicate that listening to podcasts leads to continuous distraction …

High Performance Distributed File System Based On Blockchain, Ajinkya Rajguru

Master's Projects

Distributed filesystem architectures use commodity hardware to store data on a large scale with maximum consistency and availability. Blockchain makes it possible to store information that can never be tampered with and incentivizes a traditional decentralized storage system. This project aimed to implement a decentralized filesystem that leverages the blockchain to keep a record of all the transactions on it. A conventional filesystem viz. GFS [1] or HDFS [2] uses designated servers owned by their organization to store the data and are governed by a master service. This project aimed at removing a single point of failure and makes use …

Enhancing Facial Emotion Recognition Using Image Processing With Cnn, Sourabh Deokar

Master's Projects

Facial expression recognition (FER) has been a challenging task in computer vision for decades. With recent advancements in deep learning, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have shown promising results in this field. However, the accuracy of FER using CNNs heavily relies on the quality of the input images and the size of the dataset. Moreover, even in pictures of the same person with the same expression, brightness, backdrop, and stance might change. These variations are emphasized when comparing pictures of individuals with varying ethnic backgrounds and facial features, which makes it challenging for deep-learning models to classify. In this paper, we …

Enhancing The Security Of Yioop Discussion Board, Prajna Gururaj Puranik

Master's Projects

Yioop is an open-source web portal that serves as a search engine and a discussion board, enabling users to create, join, and share content within groups. Data security is a critical concern for Yioop, as it involves storing and accessing user-generated data and generating statistical data. Yioop has an existing security mechanism in place, but continuous enhancements are needed to protect against potential vulnerabilities and cyber threats.

This project aims to strengthen the security of Yioop by implementing additional security measures that build upon the existing security mechanism. To prevent statistical attacks, this project extends differential privacy to mask the …

Robust Cache System For Web Search Engine Yioop, Rushikesh Padia

Master's Projects

Caches are the most effective mechanism utilized by web search engines to optimize the performance of search queries. Search engines employ caching at multiple levels to improve its performance, for example, caching posting list and caching result set. Caching query results reduces overhead of processing frequent queries and thus saves a lot of time and computing power. Yioop is an open-source web search engine which utilizes result cache to optimize searches. The current implementation utilizes a single dynamic cache based on Marker’s algorithm. The goal of the project is to improve the performance of cache in Yioop. To choose a …

3d Ar Reconstruction, Sneh Arvind Kothari

Master's Projects

The goal of the project is to improve the shopping experience for users by using augmented reality technology. People generally want opinions from others when buying shoes offline. Clicking and sending images of a shoe is not an ideal solution as it does not give the complete feel of the shoe. We developed the 3D AR Reconstruction app to make this process better. A user of our app clicks photos of the shoe. This image data is converted to form a mesh that can be shared. On receiving a model the user can open it in the app and interact …