Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Visions Of Science: An Art Historical Exploration Of Medieval Scientific Manuscripts, Olivia Brock

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The late 16th century saw a new movement in the world of science to push scientific ideas and practice out of academia and into the hands of the layman. No longer were scholars the sole proprietors of science –everyday laborers, craftsman, and artists now had practical scientific principles at their fingertips that they could incorporate into their professions. This new spread of science was facilitated in several ways, including the publication of books incorporating detailed, explanatory images, new utilitarian instruments, and public lectures. Though science was disseminated through a variety of means, I have been particularly interested in the ways …

Beyond The Covid-19 Pandemic, Havovi Joshi

Asian Management Insights

As COVID-19 infection rates stabilise throughout the world, countries have already begun to prepare for life beyond the pandemic. In this issue, leading academics and seasoned practitioners walk us through the challenges that lay before us, giving us insights into issues from public health and regulations revolving around Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation, to challenges faced in implementing digital transformation and their implications for lives, livelihood, and society as we tread gingerly into the post-COVID-19 world.

Arseek: Identifying Api Resource Using Code And Discussion On Stack Overflow, Gia Kien Luong, Mohammad Hadi, Thung Ferdian, Fatemeh H. Fard, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

It is not a trivial problem to collect API-relevant examples, usages, and mentions on venues such as Stack Overflow. It requires efforts to correctly recognize whether the discussion refers to the API method that developers/tools are searching for. The content of the Stack Overflow thread, which consists of both text paragraphs describing the involvement of the API method in the discussion and the code snippets containing the API invocation, may refer to the given API method. Leveraging this observation, we develop ARSeek, a context-specific algorithm to capture the semantic and syntactic information of the paragraphs and code snippets in a …

Exais: Executable Ai Semantics, Richard Schumi, Jun Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Neural networks can be regarded as a new programming paradigm, i.e., instead of building ever-more complex programs through (often informal) logical reasoning in the programmers' mind, complex 'AI' systems are built by optimising generic neural network models with big data. In this new paradigm, AI frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorch play a key role, which is as essential as the compiler for traditional programs. It is known that the lack of a proper semantics for programming languages (such as C), i.e., a correctness specification for compilers, has contributed to many problematic program behaviours and security issues. While it is …

Press A To Jump: Design Strategies For Video Game Learnability, Lev Poretski, Anthony Tang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Learnability is a core aspect of software usability. Video games are not an exception, as game designers need to teach players how to play their creations. We analyzed 40 contemporary video games to identify how video games approach learning experiences. We found that games have advanced far beyond using simple tutorials or demonstration screens and adopt a range of repeatable and reusable design strategies using visual cues to facilitate learning. We provide a detailed descriptive framework of these design strategies, elucidating how and when they can be used, and describing how the visual cues are used to build them. Our …

Undiscounted Recursive Path Choice Models: Convergence Properties And Algorithms, Tien Mai, Emma Frejinger

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Traffic flow predictions are central to a wealth of problems in transportation. Path choice models can be used for this purpose, and in state-of-the-art models—so-called recursive path choice (RPC) models—the choice of a path is formulated as a sequential arc choice process using undiscounted Markov decision process (MDP) with an absorbing state. The MDP has a utility maximization objective with unknown parameters that are estimated based on data. The estimation and prediction using RPC models require repeatedly solving value functions that are solutions to the Bellman equation. Although there are several examples of successful applications of RPC models in the …

Defining The Collapse Point In Colloidal Unimolecular Polymer (Cup) Formation, Ashish Zore, Peng Geng, Yuwei Zhang, Michael R. Van De Mark

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

Colloidal unimolecular polymer (CUP) particles were made using polymers with different ratios of hydrophobic and hydrophilic monomers via a self-organization process known as water reduction. The water-reduction process and the collapse of the polymer chain to form a CUP were tracked using viscosity measurements as a function of composition. A vibration viscometer, which allowed for viscosity measurement as the water was being added during the water-reduction process, was utilized. The protocol was optimized and tested for factors such as temperature control, loss of material, measurement stability while stirring, and changes in the solution volume with the addition of water. The …

Sinusoidal Projection For 360° Image Compression And Triangular Discrete Cosine Transform Impact In The Jpeg Pipeline, Iker Vazquez Lopez

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The equirectangular projection is commonly used to store and transmit 360' images. However, using the equirectangular projection to store and transmit 360° images is not efficient due to its natural topographic redundancy. To generate the 360° image, captured pixels that form a spherical point cloud in the 3D space are projected onto a 2D plane using the equirectangular projection; generating redundant pixels in the process. These extra pixels in the image add extra memory requirements that have low impact in the final image quality. This dissertation presents results of research into the compression of 360° spherical imagery. It examines and …

The Matrix Sortability Problem, Seth Cleaver

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Sorting is such a fundamental component of achieving efficiency that a significant body of mathematics is dedicated to the investigation of sorting. Any modern textbook on algorithms contains chapters on sorting.

One approach to arranging a disorganized list of items into an organized list is to successively identify two blocks of contiguous items, and swap the two blocks. In a fundamental paper D.A. Christie showed that a special version of block swapping, in recent times called context directed swapping and abbreviated cds, is the most efficient among block swapping strategies to achieve an organized list of items. The cds …

Characterization And Mitigation Of False Information On The Web, Anu Shrestha

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Social media and Web sources have made information available, accessible, and shareable any time and anywhere nearly without friction. This information can be truthful, falsified, or can only be the opinion of the writer as users in such platforms are both information creators and consumers. In any case, it has the power to affect the decision of an individual, the beliefs of the society, activities, and the economy of the whole country. Thus, it is imperative to identify false information and mitigate the effects of false information that are ubiquitous across the Web and social media. Therefore, the main goal …

Security Analysis Of Lightweight Cryptographic Primitives, William Unger

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Symmetric key cryptographic primitives are essential to encrypt data and protect communication between parties. Due to resource constraints, some modern devices are not capable of executing traditional cryptographic algorithms. This fact necessitates new lightweight cryptographic algorithms. Current research into lightweight cryptology is vast, in part due to the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) lightweight cryptographic standardization process.

There is not much research into the vulnerability to a power analysis attack created by the choice of parameters of lightweight symmetric ciphers. This dissertation develops and demonstrates white box and black box cryptanalysis models for power analysis attacks on lightweight …

Error Level Analysis Technique For Identifying Jpeg Block Unique Signature For Digital Forensic Analysis, Nor Amira Nor Azhan, Richard Adeyemi Ikuesan, Shukor Abd Razak, Victor R. Kebande

All Works

The popularity of unique image compression features of image files opens an interesting research analysis process, given that several digital forensics cases are related to diverse file types. Of interest has been fragmented file carving and recovery which forms a major aspect of digital forensics research on JPEG files. Whilst there exist several challenges, this paper focuses on the challenge of determining the co-existence of JPEG fragments within various file fragment types. Existing works have exhibited a high false-positive rate, therefore rendering the need for manual validation. This study develops a technique that can identify the unique signature of JPEG …

Raman Spectroscopy Of Aged Waterlogged Bones: Protocol Optimization, Bailey Hoplight

Chemistry

Current methods used for determining the age buried bones for forensic purposes are heavily affected by environmental conditions, can be susceptible to scientific bias and the interpretation can vary from investigator to investigator. Raman Spectroscopy can potentially be used as an automatic method to analyze the composition of bone eliminating the human factor. To test this hypothesis, we will use Raman spectroscopy to potentially identify the burial time of bones. The change in the chemical composition of the pig bones was probed using a Raman spectrometer with a 785nm excitation wavelength. Other parameters of the Raman instrument were optimized to …

A Co-Evolutionary Approach To Test Case Generation For Safety-Critical Systems, Brad Thomas Costa

Theses and Dissertations

Safety-critical software development is a costly and time-consuming process that involves thousands of hours dedicated to test development. Tests must meet stringent developmental guidelines to verify the correct and complete implementation of their parent requirements. Further compounding any such effort is the tendency towards requirement churn or the frequent change to the software and other system requirements. This thesis presents a solution, PyTcGen, that alleviates these challenges by processing natural language requirements and programmatically generating the requisite test cases to ensure the software meets all of the conditions of that requirement. The solution uses template matching to marry requirements to …

Iot Security For Iotmon Attacks Based On Devices’ App Description, Raghad Jameel A. Alhazmi

Theses and Dissertations

There are concerns associated with ”inter-app” interactions, which occur when many independently developed home automation apps interact and affect one another, causing possibly dangerous unexpected app action. We extended a security tool named IoTMon, an IoT device management system capable of identifying all potential cross-app communication paths and analyzing their danger status. As part of our work, we keep an eye on the app description and safeguard IoTMon from being altered in any way that could obscure the real interaction related to another app action. We validate the IoTMon system’s integrity by applying the hash algorithm SHA512 with digital signature …

Framework Of Hardware Trojan Detection Leveraging Structural Checking Tool, Rafael Dacanay Del Carmen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since there is a significant demand for obtaining third-party soft Intellectual Property (IP) by first-party integrated circuit (IC) vendors, it is becoming easier for adversaries to insert malicious logic known as hardware Trojans into designs. Due to this, vendors need to find ways to screen the third-party IPs for possible security threats and then mitigate them. The development of the Structural Checking (SC) tool provides a solution to this issue. This tool analyzes the structure of an unknown soft IP design and creates a network of all the signals within the design and how they are connected to each other. …

Point Of Use Technologies To Increase Access To Clean Water In Rural Communities, Elena Arroway

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Access to clean water is an issue that many communities around the world struggle with. While large-scale efforts such as piping infrastructure have been successful, these are less effective at reaching small, rural communities. To supplement these efforts, point of use (POU) methods for water treatment can be implemented. These include boiling, chemical treatment, filters, and several additional technologies. These have all shown effectiveness in a lab setting, but their implementation in the real world, specifically in rural communities, has not been nearly as effective. In this paper, several different POU methods are evaluated for their effectiveness on a small-scale, …

Electromagnetic Detectability Of Binary Supermassive Black Holes, Kaylee Grace

Honors Scholar Theses

Supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries can be produced by galaxy mergers and are important sources of gravitational waves. Although several binary candidates have been identified in previous work, none have yet been fully confirmed. These pairs are difficult to detect, since single accreting SMBHs can have pseudo-periodic lightcurves due to stochastic noise that can mimic the signature of binary SMBHs. The aforementioned lightcurves are the detections we classify as ”false-positive.” The Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) will be a powerful new tool for detecting binary SMBHs. We determine the false-positive binary detection rate for VRO by attempting to recover sinusoidal binary …

Minimal Inscribed Polyforms, Jack Hanke

Honors Scholar Theses

A polyomino of size n is constructed by joining n unit squares together by their edge to form a shape in the plane. This thesis will first examine the formal definition of a polyomino and the common equivalence classes polyominos are enumerated under. We then turn to polyomino families, and provide exact enumeration results for certain families, including the minimal inscribed polyominos. Next we will generalize polyominos to polyforms, and provide novel formulae for polyform analogues of minimal inscribed polyominos. Finally, we discuss some further questions concerning minimal inscribed polyforms.

A Cross Section Measurement Of Muon Neutrino-Induced Charged-Current Coherent Positive Pion Production On Argon With The Microboone Detector, Zachary Glenn Randell Williams

Physics Dissertations - Archive

Neutrino-induced charged-current coherent pion production is an important channel for the study of neutrino-nucleus interactions. It is both a dangerous background for $\nu_{e}$ oscillation experiments, and a critical component required for precise understanding of neutrino-nucleus pion production in general. This work performed a search for $\nu_{\mu}$-induced charged-current (CC) coherent pion production on argon in MicroBooNE from Fermilab's Booster Neutrino Beamline (BNB), which produces $\nu_{\mu}$ with a mean energy of 0.823 GeV. A flux-integrated cross section measurement was made for this channel, and was found to be: $\sigma(\nu_{\mu} + Ar \rightarrow \mu^{-} + \pi^{+} + Ar) = 1.12 \pm 0.253 \textrm{(stat.)} …

Verification In Generalizations Of The 2-Handed Assembly Model, David Caballero

Theses and Dissertations

Algorithmic Self Assembly is a well studied field in theoretical computer science motivated by the analogous real world phenomenon of DNA self assembly, as well as the emergence of nanoscale technology. Abstract mathematical models of self assembly such as the Two Handed Assembly model (2HAM) allow us to formally study the computational capabilities of self assembly. The 2HAM is one of the most thoroughly studied models of self assembly, and thus in this paper we study generalizations of this model. The Staged Tile Assembly model captures the behavior of being able to separate assembly processes and …

A Decomposition Formula For The Multi-Soliton Solutions To The 'Good' Boussinesq Equation, Aldo Gonzalez

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, we relate multi-soliton waves generated by the 'good' Boussinesq equation to the distribution functions in the classical linear Schrödinger equation. The linear Schrödinger equation describes the distribution of a particle or particles in a particular environment. The Schrödinger equation is linear, the superposition principle of the solutions, especially the eigenfunctions is nonlinear and we will show that we may observe similar behavior in the solutions of the Boussinesq equations for soliton waves. The work extends the study of two-soliton solutions to the Boussinesq equation to the case of three-soliton solutions. …

Iterated Rascal Triangles, Jena M. Gregory

Theses and Dissertations

We introduce a sequence of number triangles, {Ri} i=0 infty , such that the entries of each share a common generalized recurrence relation. R1 is the Rascal triangle and as i grows large, Ri becomes Pascal's triangle. For all i, we provide a combinatorial interpretation and find closed-term formulas for the entries of Ri . Our proofs rely on generating functions and other combinatorial arguments.

Pentagonal Tilings Of The Plane, Ariana T. Hinojosa

Theses and Dissertations

Tilings are mathematical objects that allow us to use geometry to visualize interaction between objects as well as to create artistic realization of mathematical objects in the plane and in the space.

We will focus on tilings of the plane that use only one type of convex pentagonal tile each, the pentagonal tilings. There are fifteen types of pentagonal tiles, with each containing their own set of restrictions. The main result of this thesis is an interactive realization of all fifteen types of pentagonal tiles using GeoGebra.

Computational Complexity In Tile Self-Assembly, Timothy Gomez

Theses and Dissertations

One of the most fundamental and well-studied problems in Tile Self-Assembly is the Unique Assembly Verification (UAV) problem. This algorithmic problem asks whether a given tile system uniquely assembles a specific assembly. The complexity of this problem in the 2-Handed Assembly Model (2HAM) at a constant temperature is a long-standing open problem since the model was introduced. Previously, only membership in the class coNP was known and that the problem is in P if the temperature is one (τ = 1). The problem is known to be hard for many generalizations of the model, such as allowing one …

Total Synthesis Of Mansouramycin A, Abigail M. Zepeda

Theses and Dissertations

In 2009 bioactive compounds from marine Streptomyces species was isolated which resulted in deriving four isoquinoline-quinone alkaloids known as Mansouramycins A-D. There have been reports that there are 36 non-small cancer cells against cytotoxicity in Mansouramycins A-C in lung cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, and prostate cancer cells. Reports that have conducted total syntheses were all specific to a single compound only Mansouramycin A and D. However, in precedent methods, to obtain the derivatives with different substituents are limited when the substituents are on the fused-pyridine ring. Thus, a develop a systematic synthetic methods of isoquinoline-quinones, which are to be able …

Hydrologic Modeling Study To Determine Hydrologic Impact Of Resacas On The Lower Laguna Madre Watershed, Antonio L. Reyna

Theses and Dissertations

During a high intensity storm events, a series of catastrophic events occur. These catastrophic events include flooding and destruction of infrastructure. Engineers have determined a method to design for high intensity storms based off hydrologic analysis of previous storms. With this data engineers can determine the outflow of major rivers and streams that may impact infrastructure. By determining the watershed engineers can predict the flow of the water and as well as the location of the outfall. In the Rio Grande Valley, water quality is very important because after rain events stormwater from cities is carried out towards the Laguna …

Mathematical And Statistical Modeling With Deep Neural Networks, Albert Romero

Theses and Dissertations

General adversarial networks (GANs) are a form of machine learning that includes two neural networks competing in a zero-sum game. One network produces artificial, while the other tries to distinguish artificial data from real. The Wasserstein general adversarial network with gradient penalty (WGAN-GP) variant of this technique is used to produce solutions for ordinary and partial differential equations.

A Gpu Accelerated Genetic Algorithm For The Construction Of Hadamard Matrices, Raven I. Ruiz

Theses and Dissertations

Hadamard matrices are square matrices with +1 and -1 entries and with columns that are mutually orthogonal. The applications include signal processing and quantum computing. There are several methods for constructing Hadamard matrices of order 2k for every positive integer k. The Hadamard conjecture proposes that there are also Hadamard matrices of order 4k for every positive integer k. We use a genetic algorithm to construct (search for) Hadamard Matrices. The initial population of random matrices is generated to have a balanced number of +1 and -1 entries in each column. Several fitness functions are implemented exploiting …

Structural Analysis Of [Ni(Dippe)] Fragment Using Computational Methods, Jennifer L. Sanchez

Theses and Dissertations

The structural analysis of the Nickel (Bisdiisopropylphospino)ethane, also known as [Ni(dippe)H]2, has been heavily studied in our group in collaboration with William D. Jones's group. A computational analysis of the [Ni(dippe)] fragment was performed to determine the structural relationship between the nickel center and its phosphine ligand, due to phosphines having both electronic and steric properties. The reactivity of the Nickel will be most dependent on the dippe ligand. A conformational search generated 244 conformers after a thorough minimization using Molecular Mechanic (MM) calculations where a thorough minimization was performed and then re-minimized using a SEED command until unique conformers …