Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Reinforcement Learning Applied To The Shoals Marine Laboratory Smart Grid, Daniel C. Mattson

Honors Theses and Capstones

Reinforcement learning (RL) techniques have been applied to smart grids with a variety of applications. The most common objective is to optimize profit for one actor in the system. The goal of this work is to apply different RL models to the smart grid at the Shoals Marine Laboratory (SML) located on Appledore Island, Maine in an effort to reduce costs and minimize the amount of nonrenewable energy consumed on the island. The RL models implemented resulted in more sustainable practices in simulations, with a linear spline model outperforming the naive policy the SML currently uses. Future work includes extending …

Generally Covariant Theory Of Multipole Moment Conserving Quasiparticles, Gavin Eric Riley

Honors Theses and Capstones

This report represents the creation of a field theory which is capable of describing quasiparticle excitations that preserve 2^k -pole moments. These quasiparticles exhibit certain ’semidynamic’ properties such as individual particle immobility but free movement of bound 2^L-tuples. We provide a review of work done on dipole conserving fractons and their dynamics [1] and expand upon it to describe higher moment conserving systems with global quadratic (and higher) phase symmetry. This requires the selection of the temporal and spatial directions. The selection of a temporal direction is done with a foliation defined by an anisotropic scaling of space and time, …

Development Of A Fluxgate Magnetometer Model, Eleonora Olsmats

Honors Theses and Capstones

As a part of the UNH SWFO-L1 mission to monitor space weather and the sun’s behavior, the fluxgate magnetometer is an important component to measure external magnetic fields. The basic principle of a fluxgate magnetometer is to detect changes in the ambient magnetic field by inducing a magnetic field in a ferromagnetic material via a drive winding. Each magnetometer is unique due to the ferromagnetic properties of the core material which can be seen in the hysteresis loop which is a relationship between the magnetic field strength (H) and the induced magnetic field (B). Measuring the hysteresis of a fluxgate …

Multidisciplinary Engagement For Fencing Research Informs Efficacy And Rancher-To-Researcher Knowledge Exchange, Matthew Hyde, Stewart W. Breck, Alex Few, Jared Beaver, Joshua Schrecengost, Jim Stone, Cameron Krebs, Russell Talmo, Kari Eneas, Rae Nickerson, Kyran E. Kunkel, Julie K. Young

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Across much of the Western United States, recovery of large carnivore populations is creating new challenges for livestock producers. Reducing the risks of sharing the landscape with recovering wildlife populations is critical to private working lands, which play an vital role in securing future energy, water, food, and fiber for an ever-expanding human population. Fencing is an important mitigation practice that many ranchers, land managers, and conservationists implement to reduce carnivore-livestock conflict. While fencing strategies have been reviewed in the literature, research seldom incorporates knowledge from the people who utilize fencing the most (i.e., livestock producers). Incorporating producers and practitioners …

Conserving Endangered Black-Footed Ferrets: Biological Threats, Political Challenges, And Lessons Learned, Travis M. Livieri, Steven C. Forrest, Marc R. Matchett, Stewart Breck

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

There may be few stories in the annals of wildlife management that are as dramatic as the near demise and comeback of the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes). Endemic only to North America, this charming little carnivore found only in the continent’s central grasslands was hardly known to science until the mid-20th century. By then, vast colonies of the prey it depended on for food and shelter, the prairie dog (Cynomys spp.), had been wiped out through disease (sylvatic plague) and an agricultural industry with little tolerance for burrowing and grazing rodents. At its low point, the species’ …

Humans And The Core Partition: An Agent-Based Modeling Experiment, Andrew J. Collins, Sheida Etemadidavan

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Although strategic coalition formation is traditionally modeled using cooperative game theory, behavioral game theorists have repeatedly shown that outcomes predicted by game theory are different from those generated by actual human behavior. To further explore these differences, in a cooperative game theory context, we experiment to compare the outcomes resulting from human participants’ behavior to those generated by a cooperative game theory solution mechanism called the core partition. Our experiment uses an interactive simulation of a glove game, a particular type of cooperative game, to collect the participant’s decision choices and their resultant outcomes. Two different glove games are considered, …

Future Climate Streamflow Estimation In The Donnelly River Catchment, Justin Hughes, Bill Wang

Natural resources commissioned reports

The Donnelly River is located in the south-west of Western Australia. An irrigation development has been proposed in the catchment that would extract water from the Donnelly River and store this in an off stream reservoir for irrigation use. Given the known issues related to non-stationarity and hydrological prediction, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) contracted CSIRO to review the hydrological model that was used to estimate future climate streamflow in the Donnelly River. This model was owned and operated by the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER). The CSIRO review of the model, which also …

A Pilot Course As A Step Towards New Academic Programs In Renewable Energies, Otilia Popescu, Orlando Ayala, Isaac Flory, Jose Fernandez, Vukica Jovanović

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The challenges arising from climate change have never before in human history been more pressing for solutions. Addressing pollution and the transition to clean energies are essential problems to solve in the upcoming decades. The process of transitioning to renewable energies has started already, with some states leading the process. As the development of industries sees a fast growth, the supply of qualified engineers and technicians to support these industries needs to keep up. At the community college level, some efforts have already started to introduce courses on renewable energies as well as boot camps or certifications to prepare the …

Framework For Sustainable Pastoral Management - Revised Edition, R Fletcher

Natural resources published reports

This Framework for sustainable pastoral management, revised edition (the Framework) describes the contemporary risk-based approach that is now being used within Western Australia (WA) to ensure management of the State’s pastoral estate meets the principles of ecologically sustainable development (ESD). Development of the Framework was undertaken as part of the Pastoral Lands Reform project initiated by the WA Government in response to the Office of the Auditor General’s (OAG 2017) report, Management of pastoral lands in Western Australia. The Framework was developed by DPIRD with input from the Interagency Steering Committee (ISC – which included senior representatives of the WA …

Framework For Sustainable Pastoral Management - Land Condition Version, R Fletcher

Natural resources published reports

This document outlines the revised edition of the Framework for sustainable pastoral management, with a particular emphasis on the land condition components, including the monitoring, assessment and compliance processes. These processes are now being used to guide the management of land condition on all pastoral leases and stations within Western Australia (WA), which cover 860,000 km2 and represents over 40% of WA’s extensive rangeland area.

Status Of The Western Australian Pastoral Rangelands 2021, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Natural resources published reports

This report updates the 2020 Rangelands annual report, the 2020 report outlines the condition, trend and risk of vegetation condition decline of pastoral rangelands in WA, based on the information available to September 2020. This 2021 report summaries the findings of the 2020 report and provides updated information on seasonal conditions in 2021 and stocking rates in 2020.

DPIRD produces a full report on the condition, trend and risk status of the WA pastoral rangelands every five years and provides updates on an annual basis. It is expected that the monitoring and assessment protocols used to generate future annual condition …

Using Data Science Tools For Investigating Chat Logs From The Conti Ransomware Group, Boyan Kostadinov, Joseph Liu, Julio Rayme

Publications and Research

The main goal of this paper is to showcase some results from a comprehensive data analysis that we did on the cache of chat logs from the notorious ransomware group Conti. The chat logs were made publicly available on February 27, 2022. They were translated from Russian into English, and contain 393 json files with chat logs from the instant messaging service Jabber. We employ a variety of modern data science tools for text mining, natural language processing, network analysis and geospatial analysis to investigate the Conti chat logs so that we can understand the command and control structure of …

Differentially Private Fractional Frequency Moments Estimation With Polylogarithmic Space, Lun Wang, Iosif Pinelis, Dawn Song

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

We prove that Fp sketch, a well-celebrated streaming algorithm for frequency moments estimation, is differentially private as is when p ∈ (0, 1]. Fp sketch uses only polylogarithmic space, exponentially better than existing DP baselines and only worse than the optimal non-private baseline by a logarithmic factor. The evaluation shows that Fp sketch can achieve reasonable accuracy with differential privacy guarantee. The evaluation code is included in the supplementary material.

A Review On Security Issues And Solutions Of The Internet Of Drones, Wencheng Yang, Song Wang, Xuefei Yin, Xu Wang, Jiankun Hu

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The Internet of Drones (IoD) has attracted increasing attention in recent years because of its portability and automation, and is being deployed in a wide range of fields (e.g., military, rescue and entertainment). Nevertheless, as a result of the inherently open nature of radio transmission paths in the IoD, data collected, generated or handled by drones is plagued by many security concerns. Since security and privacy are among the foremost challenges for the IoD, in this paper we conduct a comprehensive review on security issues and solutions for IoD security, discussing IoD-related security requirements and identifying the latest advancement in …

A Low-Cost Machine Learning Based Network Intrusion Detection System With Data Privacy Preservation, Jyoti Fakirah, Lauhim Mahfuz Zishan, Roshni Mooruth, Michael L. Johnstone, Wencheng Yang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Network intrusion is a well-studied area of cyber security. Current machine learning-based network intrusion detection systems (NIDSs) monitor network data and the patterns within those data but at the cost of presenting significant issues in terms of privacy violations which may threaten end-user privacy. Therefore, to mitigate risk and preserve a balance between security and privacy, it is imperative to protect user privacy with respect to intrusion data. Moreover, cost is a driver of a machine learning-based NIDS because such systems are increasingly being deployed on resource-limited edge devices. To solve these issues, in this paper we propose a NIDS …

Contexts For Children’S Digital Citizenship In India, Korea And Australia: A Literature Review, Kylie Stevenson, Emma Jayakumar, Viet Tho Le, Yeonghwi Ryu, Harrison See

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Children’s digital citizenship today: In an increasingly digitised and technically mediated world, an individual’s digital citizenship, or “ability to use digital technology and media in safe, responsible and ethical ways” (DQ Institute, 2019) has never been more relevant, particularly when it concerns our youngest digital citizens. Navigating online spaces safely and confidently are skills fundamental to a modern individual’s social and emotional development, education, work and play. A digital citizen’s abilities, however, are greatly impacted by notions of access; not just physical access, but also access mediated culturally and socio-economically. Less is known about very young children’s experiences of digital …

Anatomy Of An Internet Hijack And Interception Attack: A Global And Educational Perspective, Ben A. Scott, Michael N. Johnstone, Patryk Szewczyk

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The Internet’s underlying vulnerable protocol infrastructure is a rich target for cyber crime, cyber espionage and cyber warfare operations. The stability and security of the Internet infrastructure are important to the function of global matters of state, critical infrastructure, global e-commerce and election systems. There are global approaches to tackle Internet security challenges that include governance, law, educational and technical perspectives. This paper reviews a number of approaches to these challenges, the increasingly surgical attacks that target the underlying vulnerable protocol infrastructure of the Internet, and the extant cyber security education curricula; we find the majority of predominant cyber security …

Revisiting The Interval And Fuzzy Topsis Methods: Is Euclidean Distance A Suitable Tool To Measure The Differences Between Fuzzy Numbers?, Hosein Arman, Abdollah Hadi-Vencheh, Reza Kiani Mavi, Mehdi Khodadadipour, Ali Jamshidi

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Euclidean distance (ED) calculates the distance between n-coordinate points that n equals the dimension of the space these points are located. Some studies extended its application to measure the difference between fuzzy numbers (FNs).This study shows that this extension is not logical because although an n-coordinate point and an FN are denoted the same, they are conceptually different. An FN is defined by n components; however, n is not equal to the dimension of the space where the FN is located. This study illustrates this misapplication and shows that the ED between FNs does not necessarily reflect their difference. We …

Edge-Iiotset: A New Comprehensive Realistic Cyber Security Dataset Of Iot And Iiot Applications For Centralized And Federated Learning, Mohamed A. Ferrag, Othmane Friha, Djallel Hamouda, Leandros Maglaras, Helge Janicke

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

In this paper, we propose a new comprehensive realistic cyber security dataset of IoT and IIoT applications, called Edge-IIoTset, which can be used by machine learning-based intrusion detection systems in two different modes, namely, centralized and federated learning. Specifically, the dataset has been generated using a purpose-built IoT/IIoT testbed with a large representative set of devices, sensors, protocols and cloud/edge configurations. The IoT data are generated from various IoT devices (more than 10 types) such as Low-cost digital sensors for sensing temperature and humidity, Ultrasonic sensor, Water level detection sensor, pH Sensor Meter, Soil Moisture sensor, Heart Rate Sensor, Flame …

Cyber Security Curriculum In Western Australian Primary And Secondary Schools: Interim Report: Curriculum Mapping, Nicola Johnson, Ahmed Ibrahim, Leslie Sikos, Cheryl Glowrey

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Cyber-crime poses a significant threat to Australians—think of, for example, how scams take advantage of vulnerable people and systems. There is a need to educate people from an early age to protect them from cyberthreats.

Consistent with the increasing prevalence of cyberthreats to individuals and organisations in Australia, the national Australian curriculum has been updated (version 9.0) to include specific content for cyber security for primary and secondary students up to Year 10. Endorsed by Education Ministers in April 2022, the Western Australian School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA) completed a detailed audit of the endorsed Australian Curriculum version 9.0 …

A Framework Of Lightweight Deep Cross-Connected Convolution Kernel Mapping Support Vector Machines, Qi Wang, Zhaoying Liu, Ting Zhang, Shanshan Tu, Yujian Li, Muhammad Waqas

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Deep kernel mapping support vector machines have achieved good results in numerous tasks by mapping features from a low-dimensional space to a high-dimensional space and then using support vector machines for classification. However, the depth kernel mapping support vector machine does not take into account the connection of different dimensional spaces and increases the model parameters. To further improve the recognition capability of deep kernel mapping support vector machines while reducing the number of model parameters, this paper proposes a framework of Lightweight Deep Convolutional Cross-Connected Kernel Mapping Support Vector Machines (LC-CKMSVM). The framework consists of a feature extraction module …

Social Disorganisation Theory And Violent Crime: A Spatial-Econometric Analysis Of Chicago And Sydney, Anthony N. Greening

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The spatialisation of violent crime is explored in two large case studies, Chicago and Sydney, using spatial econometric methods and macro-sociological variables derived from Social Disorganisation Theory.

Social Disorganisation Theory (SDT) is introduced in terms of its formulation in response to highly specific conditions arising in Chicago, as well as its adoption of methodological and theoretical developments from existing traditions. This specificity belies its breadth of application and enduring presence in criminology. With “Social Disorganisation Theory” hosting a wealth of highly nuanced academic dialogue conducted under its banner, current incarnations of SDT appear as branches on an evolutionary tree. This …

Deep Learning Augmentation For Medical Image Analysis, Fouzia Altaf

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Deep learning is at the center of the current rise of computer aided diagnosis in medical imaging. This technology has the ability to mimic extremely complex mathematical functions for predictive tasks. These functions are encoded as computational models that are learned directly from data. Deep learning models are known to achieve human-level accuracy for predictive tasks. However, such a performance requires that the model is trained on a huge amount of training data. For computer aided diagnosis tasks, the relevant training data needs to be carefully annotated by medical experts. This process is laborious and expensive, which generally results in …

Towards A Digital Twin For Characterising Natural Source Zone Depletion: A Feasibility Study Based On The Bemidji Site, Kaveh Sookhak Lari, Greg B. Davis, John L. Rayner

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Natural source zone depletion (NSZD) of light non-aqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs) may be a valid long-term management option at petroleum impacted sites. However, its future long-term reliability needs to be established. NSZD includes partitioning, biotic and abiotic degradation of LNAPL components plus multiphase fluid dynamics in the subsurface. Over time, LNAPL components are depleted and those partitioning to various phases change, as do those available for biodegradation. To accommodate these processes and predict trends and NSZD over decades to centuries, for the first time, we incorporated a multi-phase multi-component multi-microbe non-isothermal approach to representatively simulate NSZD at field scale. To …

Geostatistical Tools To Assess Shifts In Recreational Fishing, Shannon J. Burchert, Glenn A. Hyndes, Karina Ryan, Ute Mueller

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The use of geostatistical indices to examine fishery-dependent data over time is novel. We assess the value of a range of these indices for describing trends in boat-based recreational fishing in Western Australia and areas of high effort and catches for two demersal species with varying biological characteristics, life histories and distributions. The number of blocks (10- × 10-nautical mile (~19- × 19-km) area) visited decreased by 40%, while the number of fishing trips with demersal species catch increased by 15%. Spatial indices showed a south-easterly shift in demersal catch per unit effort (CPUE) across survey years. The southerly shift …

Modeling Digital Camera Monitoring Count Data With Intermittent Zeros For Short-Term Prediction, Eben Afrifa-Yamoah, Ute Mueller

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Digital camera monitoring has revolutionised survey designs in many fields, as an important source of information. The extended sampling coverage offered by this monitoring scheme makes it preferable compared to other traditional methods of survey. However, data obtained from digital camera monitoring are often highly variable, and characterized by sparse periods of zero counts, interspersed with missing observations due to outages. In practice, missing data of relatively shorter duration are mostly observed and are often imputed using interpolation techniques, ignoring long-term trends leading to inherent estimation biases. In this study, we investigated time series forecasting methods that adequately handle intermittency …

Finding Geodesics Joining Given Points, Lyle Noakes, Erchuan Zhang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Finding a geodesic joining two given points in a complete path-connected Riemannian manifold requires much more effort than determining a geodesic from initial data. This is because it is much harder to solve boundary value problems than initial value problems. Shooting methods attempt to solve boundary value problems by solving a sequence of initial value problems, and usually need a good initial guess to succeed. The present paper finds a geodesic γ: [0 , 1] → M on the Riemannian manifold M with γ(0) = x0 and γ(1) = x1 by dividing the interval [0,1] into several sub-intervals, preferably just …

More Amazon Than Mafia: Analysing A Ddos Stresser Service As Organised Cybercrime, Roberto Musotto, David S. Wall

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, The Author(s). The internet mafia trope has shaped our knowledge about organised crime groups online, yet the evidence is largely speculative and the logic often flawed. This paper adds to current knowledge by exploring the development, operation and demise of an online criminal group as a case study. In this article we analyse a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) stresser (also known as booter) which sells its services online to enable offenders to launch attacks. Using Social Network Analysis to explore the service operations and payment systems, our findings show a central business model that is similar to …

Emissions, Shawn Urbanski, Susan O'Neill, Amara L. Holder, Sarah Green, Rick L. Graw

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

This chapter assesses the current state of the science regarding the composition, intensity, and drivers of wildland fire emissions in the USA and Canada. Globally and in the USA wildland fires are a major source of gases and aerosols which have significant air quality impacts and climate interactions. Wildland fire smoke can trigger severe pollution episodes with substantial effects on public health. Fire emissions can degrade air quality at considerable distances downwind, hampering efforts by air regulators to meet air standards. Fires are a major global source of aerosols which affect the climate system by absorbing and scattering radiation and …

Identifying Key Elements To Assess Patient’S Acceptability Of Neurorehabilitation In Stroke Survivors–A Delphi Method, Manonita Ghosh, Kaoru Nosaka, Lisa Whitehead, Kazunori Nosaka

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose: Assessing patient acceptability of treatment is a clinical concern. No guidance exists to determine the best way to measure acceptability in stroke neurorehabilitation. This study identifies key elements to measure patient’s acceptance of stroke neurorehabilitation by establishing expert consensus.

>Materials and methods: A four-phase Delphi method with a three-round electronic-based survey was conducted. Experts were considered as stroke survivors or their caregivers and professionals in stroke neurorehabilitation. A twenty-five-item list was sourced from a literature review and discussion with a consumer panel (n = 22). In Round-1 (n = 118) and Round-2 (n = 80), experts …