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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Image Stitching And Matching Tool In The Automated Iterative Reverse Engineer (Aire) Integrated Circuit Analysis Suite, David C. Bowman Jan 2018

Image Stitching And Matching Tool In The Automated Iterative Reverse Engineer (Aire) Integrated Circuit Analysis Suite, David C. Bowman

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Due to current market forces, leading-edge semiconductor fabrication plants have moved outside of the US. While this is not a problem at first glance, when it comes to security-sensitive applications, over-production, device cloning, or design alteration becomes a possibility. Since these vulnerabilities exist during the fabrication phase, a Reverse Engineering (RE) step must be introduced to help ensure secure device operation. This thesis proposes several unique methods and a collection of tools to ensure trust assurance in integrated circuit design by detecting fabrication flaws and possible hardware Trojans using several image processing techniques; fused into a singular view of the …


Molecular Dynamics Study Of Hydrogen Trapping And Helium Clustering In Tungsten, Ashok Gurung Jan 2018

Molecular Dynamics Study Of Hydrogen Trapping And Helium Clustering In Tungsten, Ashok Gurung

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The field of plasma confinement and path toward achieving thermonuclear fusion started with experimental devices like tokamak and has evolved into other more complex variants of magnetic plasma confinement such as stellarator and spherical-tokamaks. As the plasma confinement machines advance towards higher temperature and plasma density (thermonuclear fusion conditions) the role and nature of plasma-wall interaction such as possible edge plasma regimes, particle recycling at the walls and its consequence for erosion, migration and re-deposition of wall material and impurity generation, transport and radiation as well as issues of particle exhaust continues to be a dominant limiting factor due to …


Multitrophic Impacts Of An Emerging Invasive Plant, Elizabeth J. Roberson Jan 2018

Multitrophic Impacts Of An Emerging Invasive Plant, Elizabeth J. Roberson

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The invasion of novel habitats by non-native plant species is a worldwide problem with serious economical and ecological implications. Broad biotic and abiotic filters contribute to the overall invasibility of non-native species. Invasive plants have the ability to rapidly establish themselves and outcompete their native counterparts as result of their relationship with herbivorous arthropods. Because invasive plants displace native plants, reduce overall plant diversity, and alter vegetation structure, this can have cascading effects on insect herbivores, particularly those that rely on one or a few food plants, and arthropod predators. The genus Euonymus (Celastraceae) is comprised of 130 species. Euonymus …


Verifying Data-Oriented Gadgets In Binary Programs To Build Data-Only Exploits, Zachary David Sisco Jan 2018

Verifying Data-Oriented Gadgets In Binary Programs To Build Data-Only Exploits, Zachary David Sisco

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Data-Oriented Programming (DOP) is a data-only code-reuse exploit technique that "stitches" together sequences of instructions to alter a program's data flow to cause harm. DOP attacks are difficult to mitigate because they respect the legitimate control flow of a program and by-pass memory protection schemes such as Address Space Layout Randomization, Data Execution Prevention, and Control Flow Integrity. Techniques that describe how to build DOP payloads rely on a program's source code. This research explores the feasibility of constructing DOP exploits without source code-that is, using only binary representations of programs. The lack of semantic and type information introduces difficulties …


Establishing A Quality Assurance Routine For Digital Imaging, Sulaiman Rana Al Jan 2018

Establishing A Quality Assurance Routine For Digital Imaging, Sulaiman Rana Al

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In the clinical medical physics field, Quality Assurance (QA) is a fundamental topic to insure patient safety and effective treatment. In recent years, the imaging hardware for diagnostic x-rays has been shifting to fully digital detectors. However, the quality assurance tests for such detectors in the clinical setting is still under development. In the Medical Imaging Department of Kettering Hospital (Kettering, OH), the currently accepted method of performing QA on detectors is to use an extensive set of tests suggested by the manufacturer. This set of tests requires about 90 minutes, which is too long for daily use. The goal …


Determination Of Dose Effects When Including Attenuation Of The Treatment Table Into Treatment Planning Computer Modeling, Abdullah Alshamrany Jan 2018

Determination Of Dose Effects When Including Attenuation Of The Treatment Table Into Treatment Planning Computer Modeling, Abdullah Alshamrany

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During radiation treatment, the patient commonly lies on a horizontal treatment table called a couch. The material used for the couch is chosen during the manufacturing process so as to minimize the effect of the couch on dose delivery, but it still has an effect. In addition to couch attenuation on the beam, the modern approach of using multiple beam angles for dose delivery makes treatment planning in the presence of the couch more challenging. However, the effect of the couch is not always considered when creating treatment plans, generally due to treatment planning software limitations. In this evaluation, the …


A Model For Seasonal Dynamic Networks, Jace D. Robinson Jan 2018

A Model For Seasonal Dynamic Networks, Jace D. Robinson

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Sociotechnological and geospatial processes exhibit time varying structure that make insight discovery challenging. This paper presents statistical model of systems with seasonal dynamics, modeled as a dynamic network, to address this challenge. It assumes the probability of edge formations depend on a type assigned to incident nodes and the current time. Time dependencies are modeled by unique seasonal processes. The model is studied on several synthetic and real datasets. Superior fidelity of this model on seasonal datasets compared to existing network models, while being able to remain equally accurate for networks with randomly changing structure, is shown. The model is …


Lead In Tap Water From The City Of Dayton, Ohio, Kayla Marie Haman Jan 2018

Lead In Tap Water From The City Of Dayton, Ohio, Kayla Marie Haman

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Lead (Pb) in public tap water is a national health concern and is the main pathway of human exposure to Pb. The City of Dayton has verified Pb pipelines and homes with Pb plumbing; thus, residents are at risk to Pb leaching into their tap water. I sampled water from 130 residential and 24 public water taps and measured Pb and copper (Cu). Five percent of samples exceeded the action level for Pb (> 15 [micro]g/L) and none exceeded the action level for Cu. The City of Dayton's lead pipeline map identifies potential Pb exposure from Pb distribution pipes. However, …


Geophysical Exploration Of The Upper Crust Underlying North-Central Indiana: New Insight Into The Eastern Granite-Rhyolite Province, Michael Ray Green Jan 2018

Geophysical Exploration Of The Upper Crust Underlying North-Central Indiana: New Insight Into The Eastern Granite-Rhyolite Province, Michael Ray Green

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This study analyzes ten 2D seismic lines donated by CountryMark together with potential field data to examine the upper crustal structure near Wabash, Indiana. These seismic profiles reveal significant relief of the Precambrian Unconformity and prominent upper crustal reflections. The Precambrian Unconformity interpreted from the unmigrated stacked seismic sections is characterized by undulations and bowtie artifacts. Zero offset seismic models constructed using profiles of the exposed Precambrian Unconformity across the Eastern Granite-Rhyolite Province outcrops of the St. Francois Mountains feature the same seismic expression. The upper crust below the Precambrian Unconformity on the Countrymark seismic sections is also characterized by …


Content-Based Clustering And Visualization Of Social Media Text Messages, Sydney A. Barnard Jan 2018

Content-Based Clustering And Visualization Of Social Media Text Messages, Sydney A. Barnard

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Although Twitter has been around for more than ten years, crisis management agencies and first response personnel are not able to fully use the information this type of data provides during a crisis or natural disaster. This thesis addresses clustering and visualizing social media data by textual similarity, rather than by only time and location, as a tool for first responders. This thesis presents a tool that automatically clusters geotagged text data based on their content and displays the clusters and their locations on the map. It allows at-a-glance information to be displayed throughout the evolution of a crisis. For …


Sedimentary Architecture And Paleochannel Dimensions Of The Lamotte Sandstone Of Southeastern Missouri, Jamilyn Ann Moore Jan 2018

Sedimentary Architecture And Paleochannel Dimensions Of The Lamotte Sandstone Of Southeastern Missouri, Jamilyn Ann Moore

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This study focused on outcrops of the Lamotte Sandstone (Cambrian) within Hawn State Park near Farmington, Missouri. The goal was to estimate the channel depth, channel width, and channel belt width for rivers that deposited this portion of the Lamotte Ss. Sedimentary characteristics (grain size, bedding type and thickness, and unit bar and compound bar boundaries) were mapped within three outcrops on photomosaics and within graphic sedimentary logs (totaling 14 m vertically). The change in sedimentary characteristics from the lowest to the highest deposits studied suggest the formation and filling of a major channel within the braided channel belt. The …


Development Of An Ios App For Learning Intonation Of Wind Instruments, Swathi Pamidi Jan 2018

Development Of An Ios App For Learning Intonation Of Wind Instruments, Swathi Pamidi

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Learning music instrument is a challenging task for a beginner without constant guidance from an instructor. The primary objective of this thesis research is to design and develop an iOS mobile / iPad learning app that helps users to learn and practice intonation for a suite of wind instruments by themselves with comfort and ease through app-provided tuning and charting guidance and app-assisted self-assessment. Particularly, our successfully-implemented app provides the following features to enhance the user's learning experience: 1 ) Provides learners easy-to-access information for the fingering and tuning techniques of wind instruments by converting Dr. Shelley Jagow's book - …


Abiotic Reduction Transformations Of Recalcitrant Chlorinated Methanes, Chlorinated Ethanes, And 2,4-Dinitroanisole By Reduced Iron Oxides At Bench-Scale, Adam C. Burdsall Jan 2018

Abiotic Reduction Transformations Of Recalcitrant Chlorinated Methanes, Chlorinated Ethanes, And 2,4-Dinitroanisole By Reduced Iron Oxides At Bench-Scale, Adam C. Burdsall

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Sites contaminated with chlorinated hydrocarbons are frequent and widespread, and with the rising use of insensitive high explosive (IHE) compounds, more widespread contamination is inevitable. In the cases of both classes of organic contaminants, natural attenuation is a critical component of our understanding of the environmental fate of these compounds. This dissertation is intended to expand the knowledge of potential abiotic natural attenuation mechanisms and, in the case of the study of chlorinated hydrocarbons, to examine degradation under variable pH conditions in the hopes of helping to develop minimally invasive remediation techniques. The results indicated that precipitated hydrolyzed Fe(II) species …


Malware Analysis Skills Taught In University Courses, Swetha Gorugantu Jan 2018

Malware Analysis Skills Taught In University Courses, Swetha Gorugantu

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Career opportunities for malware analysts are growing at a fast pace due to the evolving nature of cyber threats as well as the necessity to counter them. However, employers are often unable to hire analysts fast though due to a lack of the required skillset. Hence, the primary purpose of the thesis is to conduct a gap analysis between the binary analysis skills taught in universities with those that the recruiters are looking for. Malware can be analyzed using three main types of tools and techniques: high-level profiling, static analysis, and dynamic analysis. These methods provide detailed information about the …


A Lc-Ms/Ms-Based Method For The Multiplex Detection Of 24 Fentanyl Analogs And Metabolites In Whole Blood At Sub Ng Ml-1 Concentrations, Kraig Edward Strayer Jan 2018

A Lc-Ms/Ms-Based Method For The Multiplex Detection Of 24 Fentanyl Analogs And Metabolites In Whole Blood At Sub Ng Ml-1 Concentrations, Kraig Edward Strayer

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The United States and numerous other countries worldwide are currently experiencing a public health crisis due to the abuse of illicitly manufactured fentanyl (IMF) and its analogues. This manuscript describes the development of a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry-based method for the multiplex detection of N = 24 IMF analogues and metabolites in whole blood at concentrations as low as 0.1-0.5 ng mL-1. These available IMFs were fentanyl, norfentanyl, furanyl norfentanyl, remifentanil acid, butyryl norfentanyl, remifentanil, acetyl fentanyl, alfentanil, AH-7921, U-47700, acetyl fentanyl 4-methylphenethyl, acrylfentanyl, para-methoxyfentanyl, despropionyl fentanyl (4-ANPP), furanyl fentanyl, despropionyl para-fluorofentanyl, carfentanil, (±)-cis-3-methyl fentanyl, butyryl fentanyl, isobutyryl fentanyl, sufentanil, …


Sensor Data Streams Correlation Platform For Asthma Management, Vaikunth Sridharan Jan 2018

Sensor Data Streams Correlation Platform For Asthma Management, Vaikunth Sridharan

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Asthma is a high-burden chronic inflammatory disease with prevalence in children with twice the rate compared to adults. It can be improved by continuously monitoring patients and their environment using the Internet of Things (IoT) based devices. These sensor data streams so obtained are essential to comprehend multiple factors triggering asthma symptoms. In order to support physicians in exploring causal associations and finding actionable insights, a visualization system with a scalable cloud infrastructure that can process multimodal sensor data and Patient Generated Health Data (PGHD) is necessary. In this thesis, we describe a cloud-based asthma management and visualization platform that …


Electromagnetic Properties Of Fractal Antennas, Jordan Jeffrey Ewing Jan 2018

Electromagnetic Properties Of Fractal Antennas, Jordan Jeffrey Ewing

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Finite element method analysis is used to conduct electromagnetic simulations to characterize fractal antennas. This work considers wire (1D) antennas such as the triadic Koch curve, zig zag, and quadratic Koch curve of varying heights, iterations, and cross-sectional areas. Carpet (2D) antennas, including the Sierpinksi carpet, of varying heights, iterations, and deterministic and stochastic iterations are analyzed. The antenna shapes were generated in MATLAB and then modeled with finite element analysis using COMSOL Multiphysics®. The focus of this study is to determine what role various fractal patterns and iterations have on the S11 return loss and far field radiation patterns. …


A Parallel Spectral Method Approach To Model Plasma Instabilities, Kevin S. Scheiman Jan 2018

A Parallel Spectral Method Approach To Model Plasma Instabilities, Kevin S. Scheiman

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The study of solar-terrestrial plasma is concerned with processes in magnetospheric, ionospheric, and cosmic-ray physics involving different particle species and even particles of different energy within a single species. Instabilities in space plasmas and the earth's atmosphere are driven by a multitude of free energy sources such as velocity shear, gravity, temperature anisotropy, electron, and, ion beams and currents. Microinstabilities such as Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities are important for the understanding of plasma dynamics in presence of magnetic field and velocity shear. Modeling these turbulences is a computationally demanding processes; requiring large memory and suffer from excessively long runtimes. Previous …


The Feasibility Of Dementia Caregiver Task Performance Measurement Using Smart Gaming Technology, Garrett G. Goodman Jan 2018

The Feasibility Of Dementia Caregiver Task Performance Measurement Using Smart Gaming Technology, Garrett G. Goodman

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Dementia caregiver burnout is detrimental to both the familial caregiver and their loved ones with dementia. As the population of older adults increases, both the number of individuals with dementia and their corresponding caregivers increase as well. Thus, we are interested in developing a potential tool to non-invasively detect signs of caregiver burnout using a mobile application combined with machine learning. Hence, the mobile application "Caregiver Assessment using Smart Technology" (CAST) was developed which personalizes a word scramble game. The CAST application utilizes a heuristically constructed Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) optimized via a Genetic Algorithm (GA) to provide an individualized …


John-Stromberg Inequality For Certain Anisotropic Bmo Spaces, Yingfeng Hu Jan 2018

John-Stromberg Inequality For Certain Anisotropic Bmo Spaces, Yingfeng Hu

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In this paper, we establish the John-Stromberg inequality in certain anisotropic BMO spaces and apply the inequality to anisotropic Holder continuous function spaces. To achieve this goal, we define the median value, BMO space and sharp maximal function first. Secondly we constructed a family of continuously expanding rectangles and give a Calderon-Zygmund type decomposition. By using these tools, we establish the John-Stromberg inequality. Finally, an application to anisotropic Holder continuous function spaces is presented.


A Multi-Formal Languages Collaborative Scheme For Complex Human Activity Recognition And Behavioral Patterns Extraction, Anargyros Angeleas Jan 2018

A Multi-Formal Languages Collaborative Scheme For Complex Human Activity Recognition And Behavioral Patterns Extraction, Anargyros Angeleas

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Human Activity Recognition is an actively researched domain for the past few decades, and is one of the most eminent applications of today. It is already part of our life, but due to high level of uncertainty and challenges of human detection, we have only application specific solutions. Thus, the problem being very demanding and still remains unsolved. Within this PhD we delve into the problem, and approach it from a variety of viewpoints. At start, we present and evaluate different architectures and frameworks for activity recognition. Henceforward, the focal point of our attention is automatic human activity recognition. We …


A Stochastic Petri Net Reverse Engineering Methodology For Deep Understanding Of Technical Documents, Giorgia Rematska Jan 2018

A Stochastic Petri Net Reverse Engineering Methodology For Deep Understanding Of Technical Documents, Giorgia Rematska

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Systems Reverse Engineering has gained great attention over time and is associated with numerous different research areas. The importance of this research derives from several technological necessities. Security analysis and learning purposes are two of them and can greatly benefit from reverse engineering. More specifically, reverse engineering of technical documents for deeper automatic understanding is a research area where reverse engineering can contribute a lot. In this PhD dissertation we develop a novel reverse engineering methodology for deep understanding of architectural description of digital hardware systems that appear in technical documents. Initially, we offer a survey on reverse engineering of …


A Semantically Enhanced Approach To Identify Depression-Indicative Symptoms Using Twitter Data, Ankita Saxena Jan 2018

A Semantically Enhanced Approach To Identify Depression-Indicative Symptoms Using Twitter Data, Ankita Saxena

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According to the World Health Organization, more than 300 million people suffer from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) worldwide. PHQ-9 is used to screen and diagnose MDD clinically and identify its severity. With the unprecedented growth and enthusiastic acceptance of social media such as Twitter, a large number of people have come to share their feelings and emotions on it openly. Each tweet can indicate a user's opinion, thought or feeling. A tweet can also indicate multiple symptoms related to PHQ-9. Identifying PHQ-9 symptoms indicated by a tweet can provide crucial information about a user regarding his/her depression diagnosis. The current …


Highly-Configurable Multi-Objective Optimization For Physical Parameter Extraction Using Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy, Andrew John Niklas Jan 2018

Highly-Configurable Multi-Objective Optimization For Physical Parameter Extraction Using Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy, Andrew John Niklas

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The use of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy provides one of the most versatile and promising techniques for the robust determination of optical parameters, which is needed to enable identification of materials for quality control, materials science advancement, tamper prevention, drug enforcement, and hidden explosives detection. Previously, the state-of-the-art relied on legacy error measures for minimization of simulation error and the standard practice was to use a single unique measurement for each unknown material in a sample. Successful optical parameter extraction for uniformly varying optical property materials is correlated with low variation in extracted optical properties. This work advances the state-of-the-art in …


Building An Abstract-Syntax-Tree-Oriented Symbolic Execution Engine For Php Programs, Jin Huang Jan 2018

Building An Abstract-Syntax-Tree-Oriented Symbolic Execution Engine For Php Programs, Jin Huang

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This thesis presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of an abstract-syntax-tree-oriented symbolic execution engine for the PHP programming language. As a symbolic execution engine, our system emulate the execution of a PHP program by assuming that all inputs are with symbolic rather than concrete values. While our system inherits the basic definition of symbolic execution, it fundamentally differs from existing symbolic execution implementations that mainly leverage intermediate representation (IRs) to operate. Specifically, our system directly takes the abstract syntax tree (AST) of a program as input and subsequently interprets this AST. Performing symbolic execution using AST offers unique advantages. First, …


Degradation Of Select Chlorinated Hydrocarbons By (I) Sulfide-Treated Hydrous Ferric Oxide (Hfo) And (Ii) Hydroxyl Radicals Produced In The Dark By Oxygenation Of Sodium Dithionite-Reduced Hfo, Dhurba Raj Pandey Jan 2018

Degradation Of Select Chlorinated Hydrocarbons By (I) Sulfide-Treated Hydrous Ferric Oxide (Hfo) And (Ii) Hydroxyl Radicals Produced In The Dark By Oxygenation Of Sodium Dithionite-Reduced Hfo, Dhurba Raj Pandey

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A previous work demonstrated that sulfide-treated iron oxides (goethite, hematite, and magnetite) may not show reductive pathways with carbon tetrachloride (CT) as observed with lab-precipitated iron sulfide. We examined the kinetics and products of reaction of sulfide-treated hydrous ferric oxide (HFO) towards select chlorinated hydrocarbons in batch reactors with HFO: HS- molar ratio of 1:1.5 at pH 7. CT, 1,1,2-trichlroethane (1,1,2-TeCA), 1,1,1,2-tetrachloroethane (1,1,1,2-TeCA) and 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane (1,1,2,2-TeCA) showed faster kinetics whereas chloroform (CF) showed slower kinetics. Trichloroethene (TCE) degradation was observed at three pHs: 7, 8 and 10; the loss in the reactors were not much different from controls at pH …


Threats And Mitigation Of Ddos Cyberattacks Against The U.S. Power Grid Via Ev Charging, Glenn Sean Morrison Jan 2018

Threats And Mitigation Of Ddos Cyberattacks Against The U.S. Power Grid Via Ev Charging, Glenn Sean Morrison

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Cars are an ever changing and integral part of modern society. Two of the biggest changes in vehicles today are their heavy integration with wireless communication and the push toward battery powered Electric Vehicles (EV). EV and EV charging stations have become a part of the Internet of Things (IoT). While this connectedness increases the convenience and functionality of the vehicles and charging stations, it also opens them up to a wide range of cyber threats. This thesis examines the potential threats against the EV charging ecosystem through a historical analysis of past cyberattacks and identified vulnerabilities. As EV charging …


An Autonomous Intelligent Robotic Wheelchair To Assist People In Need: Standing-Up, Turning-Around And Sitting-Down, Iosif Papadakis Ktistakis Jan 2018

An Autonomous Intelligent Robotic Wheelchair To Assist People In Need: Standing-Up, Turning-Around And Sitting-Down, Iosif Papadakis Ktistakis

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The world’s ageing population has significantly increased over the last decades, which will result in one of the most significant transformations of the twenty-first century. As people age, they become more vulnerable to diseases and their health may need constant monitoring. At the same time, the number of people who have some kind of disability is also increasing. These people with disabilities may need daily assistance and monitoring of their health condition that is provided by specialists (health providers) at a high cost. A possible solution to the aforementioned problem comes from the assistive and intelligent robotics research area. The …


Fully Transparent Computer Vision Framework For Ship Detection And Tracking In Satellite Imagery, Jason T. Gottweis Jan 2018

Fully Transparent Computer Vision Framework For Ship Detection And Tracking In Satellite Imagery, Jason T. Gottweis

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Tracking of ships in satellite imagery is a challenging problem in remote sensing since it requires both object detection and object recognition. Most of the resources available only cover one of these problems and are often filled with machine learning techniques which are costly to train. Additionally, the techniques covered in these resources are often difficult to replicate or may be hard to combine with other solutions to get a full tracking algorithm. The proposed framework offers a transparent and efficient alternative to machine learning approaches and includes preprocessing, detection, and recognition needed for tracking. All components of the framework …