Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Leveraging Automated Privacy Checking For Design Of Mobile Privacy Protection Mechanisms, Joseph Joo Keng Chan, Lingxiao Jiang, Kiat Wee Tan, Rajesh Balan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While mobile platforms rely on developers to follow good practices in privacy design, developers might not always adhere. In addition, it is often difficult for users to understand the privacy behaviour of their applications without some prolonged usage. To aid in these issues, we describe on-going research to improve privacy protection by utilizing techniques that mine privacy information from application binaries as a grey-box (Automated Privacy Checking). The outputs can then be utilized to improve the users' ability to exercise privacy-motivated discretion. We conducted a user study to observe the effects of presenting information on leak-causing triggers within applications in …

Sonifying Git History, Kevin J. North

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Version control is a technique that software developers use in industry to manage their source code artifacts. One benefit of using version control is that it produces a history of every change made to a codebase, which developers frequently analyze in order to aid the software development process. However, version control history contains highly multidimensional and temporal data. State of the art techniques can show several of these dimensions, but they cannot show a large number of dimensions simultaneously without becoming difficult to understand. An alternative technique to understand temporal data with high dimensionality is sonification. Sonification maps information to …

Synthesis Of Two Monomers For Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (Pemfcs), Abdulmajeed A. Alayyaf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The overall goal of this research is to synthesize two different monomers for proton exchange membrane (PEM) Fuel Cells. Such monomers are proposed to be polymerized to improve the efficiency and compatibility of electrodes and electrolytes in PEM fuel cells.

The first target is to synthesize 4-diazonium-3-fluoro PFSI zwitterionic monomer. Three steps were carried out in the lab. First one was the ammonolysis of 3-fluoro-4-nitrobenzenesulfonyl chloride. Second reaction was the bromination of Nafion monomer. The next coupling reaction, between brominated Nafion monomer and the 3-fluoro-4-nitrobenzenesulfonamide, was failed. The obstacles involve the harsh reaction condition and troublesome purification procedure.

The second …

Computational Studies Of Spin Trapping Of Biologically Relevant Radicals By New Heteroaryl Nitrones, Eyram Asempa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Heteroaryl nitrone spin traps have been suggested to act as free radical scavengers. The geometry optimizations and the single-point energies of the spin trapping reactions of the heteroaryl nitrones, 5,5-dimethylpyrroline-N-oxide (DMPO) and α-phenyl-N-t-butylnitrone (PBN) have been computationally studied using ab initio (Hartree-Fock (HF) and second-order Møller-Plesset (MP2)) methods and Density Functional Theory (DFT) methods. The effects of new heteroaryl substituents on a parent nitrone spin trap have been examined at the HF and MP2 levels with the 6-31G*, and cc-pVnZ (n=D, T, Q) basis sets. The thermodynamics of the spin trapping at the C-site and O-site with •H, …

Immobilization Of Heteropolyacids In Silica Gel, Opeyemi Adetola

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Silica gels containing incorporated heteropolyacids (HPAs) were synthesized in acidic media by co-condensation of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) with phosphotungstic or phosphomolybdic acids using sol-gel technique. Effect of the synthesis conditions on their structure and morphology was studied. Yields of modified materials were some lower as compared to non-modified silica gels. All materials were mesoporous but contained micropores in their structures. Presence of bands of Keggin’s structures in FT-IR spectra along with absence of XRD patterns of crystalline HPAs confirmed their fine incorporation into silica network. Particle sizes of modified materials were 800-1100 nm excepting for W-containing sample obtained with trimethylstearylammonium chloride. …

Ecological Niche Modeling Of The North American Giant Salamander: Predicting Current And Future Potential Distributions And Examining Environmental Influences, Selena S. Roark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

North American Giant Salamanders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis), commonly known as hellbenders, have been experiencing a population decline for decades due to human influences, such as pollution and habitat destruction. Many efforts are underway to save the hellbender but their entire potential geographical range has not been well-studied. Currently, hellbender populations are delineated by county boundaries and are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. The Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Production, an Ecological Niche Model, was used to model the current hellbender potential distribution at a macro-scale under two different environmental scenarios. Additionally, future potential distributions were …

Facilitating Conceptual Learning In Quantitative Chemistry, Sarah R. Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditional chemistry laboratory courses have a manual consisting of “step-by-step” experiments; instructions are given to complete experiments, requiring minimal information/concepts processing to be successful. This experience leaves students unprepared for the real-world, where critical thinking skills are needed to conduct research. This study focused on building analytical techniques, conceptual knowledge, and critical thinking skills used to solve research problems. A new quantitative chemistry laboratory manual was developed to transition students from traditional to inquiry-based experiments, requiring analytical method development. Data showed students having less difficulty using the new manual (0.8281 average difficulty) on method development exam questions and experiments, compared …

The Complete Structure Of Linear And Nonlinear Deformations Of Frames On A Hilbert Space, Devanshu Agrawal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A frame is a possibly linearly dependent set of vectors in a Hilbert space that facilitates the decomposition and reconstruction of vectors. A Parseval frame is a frame that acts as its own dual frame. A Gabor frame comprises all translations and phase modulations of an appropriate window function. We show that the space of all frames on a Hilbert space indexed by a common measure space can be fibrated into orbits under the action of invertible linear deformations and that any maximal set of unitarily inequivalent Parseval frames is a complete set of representatives of the orbits. We show …

Takens Theorem With Singular Spectrum Analysis Applied To Noisy Time Series, Thomas K. Torku

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The evolution of big data has led to financial time series becoming increasingly complex, noisy, non-stationary and nonlinear. Takens theorem can be used to analyze and forecast nonlinear time series, but even small amounts of noise can hopelessly corrupt a Takens approach. In contrast, Singular Spectrum Analysis is an excellent tool for both forecasting and noise reduction. Fortunately, it is possible to combine the Takens approach with Singular Spectrum analysis (SSA), and in fact, estimation of key parameters in Takens theorem is performed with Singular Spectrum Analysis. In this thesis, we combine the denoising abilities of SSA with the Takens …

Evaluating The Role That A Putative Fxiii Binding Site Plays In The Reactivity Of Three Glutamines Within The Coagulation Substrate Fibrinogen Aα (233-425)., Chad A. Stephens

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Formation of a stable thrombus in vivo depends on the interaction between fibrinogen and the transglutaminase factor XIII (FXIII). Characteristics of blood plasma, such as concentration of Ca2+, are well known to regulate the activation and subsequent reactivity of FXIII. Despite this knowledge, the role fibrin(ogen) plays in modulating FXIII activation and reactivity is not entirely delineated. Currently, the coagulation substrate fibrinogen Aα is proposed to contain a binding site for the active factor XIII with fibrinogen Aα E396 serving a major role. A series of mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy studies was conducted to assess whether putative interactions between …

Generalized Singular Value Decomposition With Additive Components, Stan Lipovetsky

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The singular value decomposition (SVD) technique is extended to incorporate the additive components for approximation of a rectangular matrix by the outer products of vectors. While dual vectors of the regular SVD can be expressed one via linear transformation of the other, the modified SVD corresponds to the general linear transformation with the additive part. The method obtained can be related to the family of principal component and correspondence analyses, and can be reduced to an eigenproblem of a specific transformation of a data matrix. This technique is applied to constructing dual eigenvectors for data visualizing in a two dimensional …

Almost Unbiased Estimator Using Known Value Of Population Parameter(S) In Sample Surveys, Rajesh Singh, S.B. Gupta, Sachin Malik

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

An almost unbiased estimator using known value of some population parameter(s) is proposed. A class of estimators is defined which includes Singh and Solanki (2012) and Sahai and Ray (1980), Sisodiya and Dwivedi (1981), Singh, Cauhan, Sawan, and Smarandache (2007), Upadhyaya and Singh (1984), Singh and Tailor (2003) estimators. Under simple random sampling without replacement (SRSWOR) scheme the expressions for bias and mean square error (MSE) are derived. Numerical illustrations are given.

A Comparison Of Estimation Methods For Nonlinear Mixed-Effects Models Under Model Misspecification And Data Sparseness: A Simulation Study, Jeffrey R. Harring, Junhui Liu

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A Monte Carlo simulation is employed to investigate the performance of five estimation methods of nonlinear mixed effects models in terms of parameter recovery and efficiency of both regression coefficients and variance/covariance parameters under varying levels of data sparseness and model misspecification.

Variable Selection In Regression Using Multilayer Feedforward Network, Tejaswi S. Kamble, Dattatraya N. Kashid

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The selection of relevant variables in the model is one of the important problems in regression analysis. Recently, a few methods were developed based on a model free approach. A multilayer feedforward neural network model was proposed for developing variable selection in regression. A simulation study and real data were used for evaluating the performance of proposed method in the presence of outliers, and multicollinearity.

Jmasm39: Algorithm For Combining Robust And Bootstrap In Multiple Linear Model Regression (Sas), Wan Muhamad Amir, Mohamad Shafiq, Hanafi A.Rahim, Puspa Liza, Azlida Aleng, Zailani Abdullah

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The aim of bootstrapping is to approximate the sampling distribution of some estimator. An algorithm for combining method is given in SAS, along with applications and visualizations.

Jmasm35: A Percentile-Based Power Method: Simulating Multivariate Non-Normal Continuous Distributions (Sas), Jennifer Koran, Todd C. Headrick

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The conventional power method transformation is a moment-matching technique that simulates non-normal distributions with controlled measures of skew and kurtosis. The percentile-based power method is an alternative that uses the percentiles of a distribution in lieu of moments. This article presents a SAS/IML macro that implements the percentile-based power method.

Mechanism And Use Of Paired Ion Electrospray Ionization (Piesi) In High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (Hplc-Ms) For Sensitive Analysis Of Anionic Compounds, Hongyue Guo

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

In recent years, the paired ion electrospray ionization (PIESI) technique has been emerged as a promising alternative to overcome the inherent low sensitivity of negative ESI-MS. The current research focused on the further understanding of the mechanism of the enhanced sensitivity in PIESI based on previous studies, as well as novel applications of PIESI in sensitive and selective analysis of challenging anionic compounds. Specifically, this dissertation describes research in two areas: 1) The mechanism of PIESI in sensitive detection of anions was further investigated using two rational designed surface-active ion-pairing reagents. As compared to their corresponding non-surface-active ion-pairing reagents, the …

Highly Fluorinated, Coinage Metal Complexes Of Tris(Pyrazolyl)Borates With Additional Electron Withdrawing Groups And Pyrazolate Π-Stackings With Arenes, Naleen Bandupriya Jayaratna

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

Tris(pyrazolyl)borates are very popular ligands in inorganic chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry, and organometallic chemistry due to their attractive properties. It is possible to extensively modify the steric and electronic properties of these ligands by changing the pyrazolyl substituent groups. Taking into account the importance and current interest of fluorinated tris(pyrazolyl)borates and weakly coordinating anions in general, three new tris(pyrazolyl)borates, [HB(4-Cl-3,5-(CF₃)₂Pz)₃]-, [HB(3,4,5-(CF₃)3Pz)₃] and [HB(4-(NO₂)-3,5-(CF3)₂Pz)₃]- have been developed (Pz = pyrazolyl). Silver alkene adducts of the ligands have been isolated to evaluate the electronic properties of the ligands and to study their catalytic properties. These adducts found to be the most electron deficient …

An Improved Pipeline To Search For Gravitational Waves From Compact Binary Coalescence, Samantha Usman

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

We describe the search pipeline, called PyCBC , used to identify gravitational wave candidates in Advanced LIGO's O1 search. We give an overall summary of the pipeline including a general layout and the methods for calculating the signal-to-noise ratio and the chi-squared statistic. We then give detailed explanations of removing noise transient before processing, called gating ; the way to create a bank of template waveforms and the process of matched filtering these waveforms against the data; the chi-squared statistic's role in eliminating noise transients; the latest coincidence testing method, which requires candidates to be both nearly simultaneous and have …

Investigation Of The Tandem Alkylation-Cyclization Of Endocyclic Enol Ethers For The Preparation Of Unusual Oxygen Heterocycles, Sarah Mehdi

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The purpose of this research is to study the alkylation and subsequent cyclization reaction of endocyclic enol ethers such as 2H-dihydropyran. This sequence is expected to yield oxygen heterocycles whose structures represent unique scaffolds with promising functionality.

A series of trichloroacetimidates were selected for the direct alkylation of 2H-dihydropyran. Following the alkylation, the addition of acid was expected to induce an intramolecular cyclization reaction that would yield the desired oxygen heterocycles. This stepwise scheme would then be converted into a tandem process in which the reaction would be expected to proceed in a single pot.

Studies showed that the alkylation …

Ruthenium Hydride Catalyzed Silylvinylation Of Terminal And Internal Alkynes And Synthesis Of Poly(Trimethylenecarbonate) And Poly(Dimethylacrylamide) Block Copolymer, Alec Beaton Jr.

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Various propargyl alcohols were synthesized via Grignard reactions. These alkynic alcohols are tethered with dimethyl and biphenyl silicon tethers. These terminal alkyne substrates are reacted with RuHCl(CO)(H₂IMes)(PPh₃) as a catalyst under high pressure (80 psi) ethylene atmosphere to afford the 5-exo-dig trans-silylvinylation product in poor yield. Internal alkyne substrates are found to be much more efficiently transformed into the silylvinylation product, favoring one cycloisomer product over the other.

Towards A Verified Complex Protocol Stack In A Production Kernel: Methodology And Demonstration, Peter C. Johnson

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Any useful computer system performs communication and any communication must be parsed before it is computed upon. Given their importance, one might expect parsers to receive a significant share of attention from the security community. This is, however, not the case: bugs in parsers continue to account for a surprising portion of reported and exploited vulnerabilities. In this thesis, I propose a methodology for supporting the development of software that depends on parsers---such as anything connected to the Internet---to safely support any reasonably designed protocol: data structures to describe protocol messages; validation routines that check that data received from the …

Strain Analysis Across The Margins Of The Elkahatchee And Coley Creek Plutons, Alabama Eastern Blue Ridge: Implications For The Alexander City Fault, Kenneth Joel Roop-Eckart

Theses and Dissertations

The Ashland-Wedowee-Emuckfaw belt of the eastern Blue Ridge of Alabama and Georgia consists of metamorphosed Neoproterozoic-Ordovician continental margin and Ordovician back-arc sedimentary/volcanic sequences intruded by Ordovician-Mississippian granitic plutons. Two of these plutons, the Elkahatchee Quartz Diorite and Coley Creek orthogneiss exhibit zones of high strain, evidenced by mylonitic fabrics, ductile deformation of feldspar grains, grain size reduction, and changes in mica content at their margins. Geologic mapping in the vicinity of the Coley Creek pluton shows no evidence for a ductile shear zone beyond its margins and thus, is unlikely to be associated with a major fault. More likely, this …

An Exploration Of Rule Clustering In Cellular Automata Rule Spaces, Jordon Huffman

Theses and Dissertations

The study of complex systems examines the global behavior of a system and how the individual parts of the system affect that behavior [1]. The study of complex systems spans across many fields of science like biology, physics, engineering, and computer science. One area of complex systems that has not been fully explored is cellular automata. Since its discovery by John von Neumann, there have been no consistent ways of categorizing similarities between cellular automata rules or collecting similar rules for observation. This thesis introduces an approach to identifying clusters of similar rules and extracting rules from that cluster. Several …

Polytetraflouroethylene Thin Coatings For Tribological Applications, Samuel L. Jenkins

Physics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Mechanical components with lower coefficients of friction decrease the amount of energy dissipated by the system due to friction. Coating these components would decrease the coefficients of friction between surfaces without sacrificing the strength of the components. A polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) layer adhered through a polydopamine (PDA) layer on a steel substrate will reduce the coefficient of friction on the substrate surface. This paper discusses different methods for attempting to increase the uniformity of the PDA layer as well as decrease the PDA coating time. Methods for increasing uniformity include using a particle disperser instead of a magnet stir rod, changing …

Presence And Distribution Of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons In Sediment Contaminated With Tar Sands Crude Oil, Kayla Lockmiller

Honors Projects

Contamination of sediment with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) derived from heavy crude oils (ex. tar sands oil) pose significant threats to human health as well as to the natural ecosystem. These compounds may persist in the environment for long periods of time following a crude oil spill. As such, this study sought to evaluate the persistence of PAHs in sediment and possible correlation between PAH distribution and grain size. This was accomplished through the collection of sediment samples from a portion of river bank along the Kalamazoo River near Ceresco, MI. Five years previously, a pipeline break spilled an estimated …

Spurious Acceleration Noise On The Lisa Spacecraft Due To Solar Irradiance, Brandon Piotrzkowski

Honors Projects

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a conguration of three satellites that will very precisely measure the distance between each satellite in order to detect gravitational waves, small undulations in spacetime.[1] Therefore, the stability of LISA satellite conguration will be crucial to its ability to measure gravitational waves, as will understanding the noise introduced in the measured gravitational wave signal from various environmental accelerations. Although solar irradiance will most denitely be a great source of noise in the desired frequency band and will greatly attempt to disrupt the satellite conguration, previous research has only considered zeroth order calculations of …

High-Precision Theory For Top-Quark Production, Nikolaos Kidonakis

Faculty Articles

I present high-precision results for top quark production at hadron collider energies. Total and differential cross sections are calculated through aN3LO for top-antitop pair production and through aNNLO for single-top production. Top production in association with a charged Higgs boson and via anomalous couplings is also briefly discussed.

Comparing The Quantitation Of Opiates From Possible Drug Overdose Cases Using Results Of Blood Analysis And Liver Analysis, Lee Ann Garozzo

Forensic Science Theses

Currently the quantitation of opiates at the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office Toxicology Laboratory is conducted through whole blood analysis. The objective of this thesis project was to determine if the analysis of opiates could be conducted through liver analysis, and if the analysis of opiates would provide a more accurate quantitation compared to the blood analysis. The quantitation of opiates was conducted from the livers of sixty-four possible overdose cases that were brought into the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office between 2013 and 2015. Results showed that the opiate drugs could successfully be quantitated using the liver analysis. Generally …

Viscous Liquids And The Glass Transition At Extremely High Pressure: Optical Techniques Applied To Cumene In A Diamond Anvil Cell, Timothy Craig Ransom

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents the results from experiments studying the pressure-dependence of properties associated with the glass transition in the glass-forming liquid cumene. Through the use of a diamond anvil cell, we achieve extremely high pressures over 40,000 atmospheres. A new technique is refined to directly measure the glass transition temperature Tg extremely accurately, and we show that thermodynamic scaling is capable of describing the liquid�glass transition boundary up to record-high pressures. Optical techniques are also implemented to probe the system dynamics in the viscous regime leading up to the glass transition. We present laser light-scattering measurements of the dynamic susceptibility …