Computer Sciences Commons^™

Adaptive Nonparametric Image Parsing, Tam Nguyen, Canyi Lu, Jose Sepulveda, Shuicheng Yan

Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this paper, we present an adaptive nonparametric solution to the image parsing task, namely, annotating each image pixel with its corresponding category label. For a given test image, first, a locality-aware retrieval set is extracted from the training data based on superpixel matching similarities, which are augmented with feature extraction for better differentiation of local superpixels. Then, the category of each superpixel is initialized by the majority vote of the k -nearest-neighbor superpixels in the retrieval set. Instead of fixing k as in traditional nonparametric approaches, here, we propose a novel adaptive nonparametric approach that determines the sample-specific k …

Mutations Of Adjacent Amino Acid Pairs Are Not Always Independent, Jyotsna Ramanan, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Evolutionary studies usually assume that the genetic mutations are independent of each other. This paper tests the independence hypothesis for genetic mutations with regard to protein coding regions. According to the new experimental results the independence assumption generally holds, but there are certain exceptions. In particular, the coding regions that represent two adjacent amino acids seem to change in ways that sometimes deviate significantly from the expected theoretical probability under the independence assumption.

A-Maze-D: Advanced Maze Development Kit Using Constraint Databases, Shruti Daggumarti, Peter Revesz, Corey Svehla

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

In this paper, we describe the A-Maze-D system which shows that constraint databases can be applied conveniently and efficiently to the design of maze games. A-Maze-D provides a versatile set of features by a combination of a MATLAB library and the MLPQ constraint database system. A-Maze-D is the first system that uses constraint databases to build maze games and opens new ideas in video game development.

Information Diffusion, Facebook Clusters, And The Simplicial Model Of Social Aggregation: A Computational Simulation Of Simplicial Diffusers For Community Health Interventions, Kerk Kee, Lisa Sparks, Daniele C. Struppa, Mirco A. Manucci, Alberto Damiano

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

By integrating the simplicial model of social aggregation with existing research on opinion leadership and diffusion networks, this article introduces the constructs of simplicial diffusers (mathematically defined as nodes embedded in simplexes; a simplex is a socially bonded cluster) and simplicial diffusing sets (mathematically defined as minimal covers of a simplicial complex; a simplicial complex is a social aggregation in which socially bonded clusters are embedded) to propose a strategic approach for information diffusion of cancer screenings as a health intervention on Facebook for community cancer prevention and control. This approach is novel in its incorporation of interpersonally bonded clusters, …

Developing Java Programs On Android Mobile Phones Using Speech Recognition, Santhrushna Gande

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Nowadays Android operating system based mobile phones and tablets are widely used and had millions of users around the world. The popularity of this operating system is due to its multi-tasking, ease of access and diverse device options. “Java Programming Speech Recognition Application” is an Android application used for handicapped individuals who are not able or have difficultation to type on a keyboard. This application allows the user to write a compute program (in Java Language) by dictating the words and without using a keyboard. The user needs to speak out the commands and symbols required for his/her program. The …

Large-Scale And High-Resolution 3-D Cave Mapping By Terrestrial Laser Scanning: A Case Study Of The Domica Cave, Slovakia, Michal Gallay, Ján Kaňuk, Zdenko Hochmuth, John D. Meneely, Jaroslav Hofierka, Vladimír Sedlák

International Journal of Speleology

Mapping and modelling the complicated geometry of caves is a challenging task that has traditionally been undertaken by tacheometric surveying methods. These methods are excellent for capturing the general shape of a cave system but they are not suitable for high-speed, high-resolution mapping of complex surfaces found in this environment. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) technologies can acquire millions of points represented by 3-D coordinates, at very high spatial densities on complex multifaceted surfaces within minutes. In the last few years, advances in measurement speed, reduction in size / cost and increased portability of this technology has revolutionised the collection of …

An Interactive User Interface Improves Data Visualization In R, Nathan Sweem

STAR Program Research Presentations

An interactive user interface application was created using the R statistical computing environment and the Shiny package to visualize historical data on the performance of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Historical data for these funds is scraped from the Yahoo! Finance webpage. The application allows the user to analyze this historical data by category and fund family, which are also scraped from Yahoo! Finance. The application generates interactive plots to compare the performance of selected mutual funds and ETFs given the baseline and center determined by the user. The application has been modified to attentively match the data with …

Naturalists’ Perspectives On The Use Of Mobile Technology During A Nature Hike, Aubin Marishka Radzewicz St. Clair

Master's Theses

Naturalists act as our link between scientific knowledge and the public’s understanding of natural history and conservation efforts. In order for them to succeed, they need access to reference materials as well as up-to-date information (Mankin, Warner, & Anderson, 1999). Incorporating mobile technology (i.e. tablets) into naturalists’ endeavors in natural history and environmental education can be used as supportive and educational tools. My project investigated how newly trained naturalists used tablet technology while leading groups of children on nature hikes. I investigated naturalists’ views on the use of mobile technology as a tool during the hikes. My research was guided …

A Visual Analysis Of Articulated Motion Complexity Based On Optical Flow And Spatial-Temporal Features, Beau Michael Christ

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The understanding of motion is an important problem in computer vision with applications including crowd-flow analysis, video surveillance, and estimating three-dimensional structure. A less-explored problem is the visual characterization and quantification of motion complexity. An important motion class that is prevalent in living beings is articulated motion (segments connected by joints). At present, no known standardized measure for quantifying the complexity of articulated motion exists. Such a measure could facilitate advanced motion analysis with applications including video indexing, motion comparison, and advanced biological study of visual signals in organisms.

This dissertation presents an in-depth study of the development of several …

Teaching Big Data By Three Levels Of Projects, Jianjun Yang, Ju Shen

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Big Data is a new topic and it is very hot nowadays. However, it is difficult to teach Big Data effectively by regular lecture. In this paper, we present a unique way to teach students Big Data by developing three levels of projects from easy to difficult. The three levels projects are initializing project, designing project, and comprehensive projects. They are developed to involve students in Big Data, train students' skills to analyze concrete problems of Big Data, and develop students' creative abilities and their abilities to solve real setting problems.

Growing The Practice Of Vocal Sketching, S. Delle Monache, D. Rocchesso, S. Baldan, Davide Andrea Mauro Phd

Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering Faculty Research

Sketch-thinking in the design domain is a complex representational activity, emerging from the reflective conversation with the sketch. A recent line of research on computational support for sound design has been focusing on the exploitation of voice, and especially vocal imitations, as effective representation strategy for the early stage of the design process. A set of introductory exercises on vocal sketching, to probe the communication effectiveness of vocal imitations for design purposes, are presented and discussed, in the scope of the research-through-design workshop activities of the EU project SkAT-VG.

Automatic Video Self Modeling For Voice Disorder, Ju Shen, Changpeng Ti, Anusha Raghunathan, Sen-Ching S. Cheung, Rita Patel

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Video self modeling (VSM) is a behavioral intervention technique in which a learner models a target behavior by watching a video of him- or herself. In the field of speech language pathology, the approach of VSM has been successfully used for treatment of language in children with Autism and in individuals with fluency disorder of stuttering. Technical challenges remain in creating VSM contents that depict previously unseen behaviors. In this paper, we propose a novel system that synthesizes new video sequences for VSM treatment of patients with voice disorders. Starting with a video recording of a voice-disorder patient, the proposed …

Salient Object Detection Via Augmented Hypotheses, Tam Nguyen, Jose Sepulveda

Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this paper, we propose using augmented hypotheses which consider objectness, foreground, and compactness for salient object detection. Our algorithm consists of four basic steps. First, our method generates the objectness map via objectness hypotheses. Based on the objectness map, we estimate the foreground margin and compute the corresponding foreground map which prefers the foreground objects. From the objectness map and the foreground map, the compactness map is formed to favor the compact objects. We then derive a saliency measure that produces a pixel-accurate saliency map which uniformly covers the objects of interest and consistently separates foreground and background.

We …

Between Worlds: Securing Mixed Javascript/Actionscript Multi-Party Web Content, Phu Huu Phung, Maliheh Monshizadeh, Meera Sridhar, Kevin W. Hamlen, V. N. Venkatakrishnan

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Mixed Flash and JavaScript content has become increasingly prevalent; its purveyance of dynamic features unique to each platform has popularized it for myriad Web development projects. Although Flash and JavaScript security has been examined extensively, the security of untrusted content that combines both has received considerably less attention. This article considers this fusion in detail, outlining several practical scenarios that threaten the security of Web applications. The severity of these attacks warrants the development of new techniques that address the security of Flash-JavaScript content considered as a whole, in contrast to prior solutions that have examined Flash or JavaScript security …

Post-Silicon Functional Validation With Virtual Prototypes, Kai Cong

Dissertations and Theses

Post-silicon validation has become a critical stage in the system-on-chip (SoC) development cycle, driven by increasing design complexity, higher level of integration and decreasing time-to-market. According to recent reports, post-silicon validation effort comprises more than 50% of the overall development effort of an 65nm SoC. Though post-silicon validation covers many aspects ranging from electronic properties of hardware to performance and power consumption of whole systems, a central task remains validating functional correctness of both hardware and its integration with software. There are several key challenges to achieving accelerated and low-cost post-silicon functional validation. First, there is only limited silicon observability …

Novel Methods For Learning And Adaptation In Chemical Reaction Networks, Peter Banda

Dissertations and Theses

State-of-the-art biochemical systems for medical applications and chemical computing are application-specific and cannot be re-programmed or trained once fabricated. The implementation of adaptive biochemical systems that would offer flexibility through programmability and autonomous adaptation faces major challenges because of the large number of required chemical species as well as the timing-sensitive feedback loops required for learning. Currently, biochemistry lacks a systems vision on how the user-level programming interface and abstraction with a subsequent translation to chemistry should look like. By developing adaptation in chemistry, we could replace multiple hard-wired systems with a single programmable template that can be (re)trained to …

Simple Macro: Addon For World Of Warcraft, Yemane Gebreyesus

Computer Engineering

This senior project was started to try and solve a problem within World of Warcraft. That particular problem is the underdeveloped default macro interface, which Simple Macro aims to remedy by creating a more user-friendly interface that is accessible by a wider audience. It employs a click through method of accessing and editing data to reduce the amount of typing necessary. The addon also has a feature to specifically help players that want to change a target in certain groups of macros all at once. The project was developed in both Lua and XML.

Tracking Criminals On Facebook: A Case Study From A Digital Forensics Reu Program, Daniel Weiss, Gary Warner

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The 2014 Digital Forensics Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) focused its summer efforts on tracking criminal forums and Facebook groups. The UAB-REU Facebook team was provided with a list of about 60 known criminal groups on Facebook, with a goal to track illegal information posted in these groups and ultimately store the information in a searchable database for use by digital forensic analysts. Over the course of about eight weeks, the UAB-REU Facebook team created a database with over 400 Facebook groups conducting criminal activity along with over 100,000 unique users …

Towards A Digital Forensics Competency-Based Program: Making Assessment Count, Rose Shumba

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper describes an approach that UMUC has initiated to revise its graduate programs to a Competency-Based Education (CBE) curriculum. The approach, which is Learning Demonstration (LD) centric, includes the identification of learning goals and competences, identification and description of the LDs, mapping of the LDs to the competences, scripting the LDs, placing the LDs into the respective courses, validating the developed materials, and the development of the open learning resources. Programs in the Cybersecurity and Information Assurance Department, including the Digital Forensics and Cyber Investigations program, are being revised. An LD centric approach to curriculum development helps align programs …

Phishing Intelligence Using The Simple Set Comparison Tool, Jason Britt, Alan Sprague, Gary Warner

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Phishing websites, phish, attempt to deceive users into exposing their passwords, user IDs, and other sensitive information by imitating legitimate websites, such as banks, product vendors, and service providers. Phishing investigators need fast automated tools to analyze the volume of phishing attacks seen today. In this paper, we present the Simple Set Comparison tool. The Simple Set Comparison tool is a fast automated tool that groups phish by imitated brand allowing phishing investigators to quickly identify and focus on phish targeting a particular brand. The Simple Set Comparison tool is evaluated against a traditional clustering algorithm over a month's worth …

Identifying Common Characteristics Of Malicious Insiders, Nan Liang, David Biros

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Malicious insiders account for large proportion of security breaches or other kinds of loss for organizations and have drawn attention of both academics and practitioners. Although methods and mechanism have been developed to monitor potential insider via electronic data monitoring, few studies focus on predicting potential malicious insiders. Based on the theory of planned behavior, certain cues should be observed or expressed when an individual performs as a malicious insider. Using text mining to analyze various media content of existing insider cases, we strive to develop a method to identify crucial and common indicators that an individual might be a …

An Open Source Advertisement Server, Pushkar Umaranikar

Master's Projects

This report describes a new online advertisement system and its implementation for the Yioop open source search engine. This system was implemented for my CS298 project. It supports both selling advertisements and displaying them within search results. The selling of advertisement is done using a novel auction system, which we describe in this paper. With this auction system, it is possible to create an advertisement, attach keywords to it, and add it to the advertisement inventory. An advertisement is displayed on a search results page if the search keyword matches the keywords attached to the advertisement. Display of advertisements is …

Continuous Monitoring System Based On Systems' Environment, Eli Weintraub, Yuval Cohen

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

We present a new framework (and its mechanisms) of a Continuous Monitoring System (CMS) having new improved capabilities, and discuss its requirements and implications. The CMS is based on the real-time actual configuration of the system and the environment rather than a theoretic or assumed configuration. Moreover, the CMS predicts organizational damages taking into account chains of impacts among systems' components generated by messaging among software components. In addition, the CMS takes into account all organizational effects of an attack. Its risk measurement takes into account the consequences of a threat, as defines in risk analysis standards. Loss prediction is …

Html5 Zero Configuration Covert Channels: Security Risks And Challenges, Jason Farina, Mark Scanlon, Stephen Kohlmann, Nhien-An Le-Khac, Tahar Kechadi

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In recent months there has been an increase in the popularity and public awareness of secure, cloudless file transfer systems. The aim of these services is to facilitate the secure transfer of files in a peer-to-peer (P2P) fashion over the Internet without the need for centralized authentication or storage. These services can take the form of client installed applications or entirely web browser based interfaces. Due to the P2P nature, there is generally no limit to the file sizes involved or to the volume of data transmitted - and where these limitations do exist they will be purely reliant on …

Measuring Hacking Ability Using A Conceptual Expertise Task, Justin S. Giboney, Jeffrey G. Proudfoot, Sanjay Goel, Joseph S. Valacich

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Hackers pose a continuous and unrelenting threat to organizations. Industry and academic researchers alike can benefit from a greater understanding of how hackers engage in criminal behavior. A limiting factor of hacker research is the inability to verify that self-proclaimed hackers participating in research actually possess their purported knowledge and skills. This paper presents current work in developing and validating a conceptual-expertise based tool that can be used to discriminate between novice and expert hackers. The implications of this work are promising since behavioral information systems researchers operating in the information security space will directly benefit from the validation of …

Invited Paper - A Profile Of Prolonged, Persistent Ssh Attack On A Kippo Based Honeynet, Craig Valli, Priya Rabadia, Andrew Woodard

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper is an investigation focusing on activities detected by SSH honeypots that utilised kippo honeypot software. The honeypots were located across a variety of geographical locations and operational platforms. The honeynet has suffered prolonged, persistent and attack from a /24 network which appears to be of Chinese geographical origin. In addition to these attacks, other attackers have been successful in compromising real hosts in a wide range of other countries that were subsequently involved in attacking the honeypot machines in the honeynet.

Keywords: Cyber Security, SSH, Secure Shell, Honeypots, Kippo

Inivited Paper - Potential Changes To Ediscovery Rules In Federal Court: A Discussion Of The Process, Substantive Changes And Their Applicability And Impact On Virginia Practice, Joseph J. Schwerha, Susan L. Mitchell, John W. Bagby

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) are subject to a unique process also once used in revising the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE). Today, this process is followed in revisions of the FRCP, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Bankruptcy Rules. This unique rulemaking process differs significantly from traditional notice and comment rulemaking required for a majority of federal regulatory agencies under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).1 Most notably, rule-making for the federal courts’ procedural matters remain unaffected by the invalidation of legislative veto. It is still widely, but wrongly believed, that the legislative veto was …

On The Network Performance Of Digital Evidence Acquisition Of Small Scale Devices Over Public Networks, Irvin Homem, Spyridon Dosis

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

While cybercrime proliferates – becoming more complex and surreptitious on the Internet – the tools and techniques used in performing digital investigations are still largely lagging behind, effectively slowing down law enforcement agencies at large. Real-time remote acquisition of digital evidence over the Internet is still an elusive ideal in the combat against cybercrime. In this paper we briefly describe the architecture of a comprehensive proactive digital investigation system that is termed as the Live Evidence Information Aggregator (LEIA). This system aims at collecting digital evidence from potentially any device in real time over the Internet. Particular focus is made …

A Review Of Recent Case Law Related To Digital Forensics: The Current Issues, Kelly A. Cole, Shruti Gupta, Dheeraj Gurugubelli, Marcus K. Rogers

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital forensics is a new field without established models of investigation. This study uses thematic analysis to explore the different issues seen in the prosecution of digital forensic investigations. The study looks at 100 cases from different federal appellate courts to analyze the cause of the appeal. The issues are categorized into one of four categories, ‘search and seizure’, ‘data analysis’, ‘presentation’ and ‘legal issues’. The majority of the cases reviewed related to the search and seizure activity.

Keywords: Computer Investigation, Case Law, Digital Forensics, Legal Issues, and Courts

A New Cyber Forensic Philosophy For Digital Watermarks In The Context Of Copyright Laws, Vinod P. Bhattathiripad, Sneha Sudhakaran, Roshna K. Thalayaniyil

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The objective of this paper is to propose a new cyber forensic philosophy for watermark in the context of copyright laws for the benefit of the forensic community and the judiciary worldwide. The paper first briefly introduces various types of watermarks, and then situates watermarks in the context of the ideaexpression dichotomy and the copyright laws. It then explains the forensic importance of watermarks and proposes a forensic philosophy for them in the context of copyright laws. Finally, the paper stresses the vital need to incorporate watermarks in the forensic tests to establish software copyright infringement and also urges the …