Computer Sciences Commons^™

Why Penetration Testing Is A Limited Use Choice For Sound Cyber Security Practice, Craig Valli, Andrew Woodward, Peter Hannay, Mike Johnstone

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Penetration testing of networks is a process that is overused when demonstrating or evaluating the cyber security posture of an organisation. Most penetration testing is not aligned with the actual intent of the testing, but rather is driven by a management directive of wanting to be seen to be addressing the issue of cyber security. The use of penetration testing is commonly a reaction to an adverse audit outcome or as a result of being penetrated in the first place. Penetration testing used in this fashion delivers little or no value to the organisation being tested for a number of …

Awareness Of Scam E-Mails: An Exploratory Research Study, Tejashree D. Datar, Kelly A. Cole, Marcus K. Rogers

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The goal of this research was to find the factors that influence a user’s ability to identify e-mail scams. It also aimed to understand user’s awareness regarding e-mail scams and actions that need to be taken if and when victimized. This study was conducted on a university campus with 163 participants. This study presented the participants with two scam e-mails and two legitimate e-mails and asked the participants to correctly identify these e-mails as scam or legitimate. The study focused on the ability of people to differentiate between scam and legitimate e-mails. The study attempted to determine factors that influence …

Qr Codes For The Dead, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

Graveyards are becoming smart spaces, but will today's technology last for eternity?

A Comparison Of Dropout And Weight Decay For Regularizing Deep Neural Networks, Thomas Grant Slatton

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In recent years, deep neural networks have become the state-of-the art in many machine learning domains. Despite many advances, these networks are still extremely prone to overfit. In neural networks, a main cause of overfit is coadaptation of neurons which allows noise in the data to be interpreted as meaningful features. Dropout is a technique to mitigate coadaptation of neurons, and thus stymie overfit. In this paper, we present data that suggests dropout is not always universally applicable. In particular, we show that dropout is useful when the ratio of network complexity to training data is very high, otherwise traditional …

Development Of Etsu Student Life Android Application, Tyler L. Cox

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this thesis, the author gives a description his journey creating and developing a Student Life Application for East Tennessee State University. This thesis will document his process with development as well as reflect on the struggles and victories in creation of this application.

Tapjacking Threats And Mitigation Techniques For Android Applications, Vanessa Cooper

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects

With the increased dependency on web applications through mobile devices, malicious attack techniques have now shifted from traditional web applications running on desktop or laptop (allowing mouse click- based interactions) to mobile applications running on mobile devices (allowing touch-based interactions). Clickjacking is a type of malicious attack originating in web applications, where victims are lured to click on seemingly benign objects in web pages. However, when clicked, unintended actions are performed without the user’s knowledge. In particular, it is shown that users are lured to touch an object of an application triggering unintended actions not actually intended by victims. This …

Humanity Hyper-Externalized, Josh Gloe

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Learning Two-Input Linear And Nonlinear Analog Functions With A Simple Chemical System, Peter Banda, Christof Teuscher

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The current biochemical information processing systems behave in a predetermined manner because all features are defined during the design phase. To make such unconventional computing systems reusable and programmable for biomedical applications, adaptation, learning, and self-modification baaed on external stimuli would be highly desirable. However, so far, it haa been too challenging to implement these in real or simulated chemistries. In this paper we extend the chemical perceptron, a model previously proposed by the authors, to function as an analog instead of a binary system. The new analog asymmetric signal perceptron learns through feedback and supports MichaelisMenten kinetics. The results …

The Promises And Challenges Of Innovating Through Big Data And Analytics In Healthcare, Donald E. Wynn, Renée M. E. Pratt

MIS/OM/DS Faculty Publications

In this article, we present the promises and challenges of big data and analytics (BD&A) in healthcare, informed by our observations of and interviews with healthcare providers in the US and European Union (EU). We then provide a set of recommendations for capitalizing on the extraordinary innovation opportunities available through big data.

Automatic Objects Removal For Scene Completion, Jianjun Yang, Yin Wang, Honggang Wang, Kun Hua, Wei Wang, Ju Shen

Computer Science Faculty Publications

With the explosive growth of Web-based cameras and mobile devices, billions of photographs are uploaded to the Internet. We can trivially collect a huge number of photo streams for various goals, such as 3D scene reconstruction and other big data applications. However, this is not an easy task due to the fact the retrieved photos are neither aligned nor calibrated. Furthermore, with the occlusion of unexpected foreground objects like people, vehicles, it is even more challenging to find feature correspondences and reconstruct realistic scenes. In this paper, we propose a structure-based image completion algorithm for object removal that produces visually …

A Trust-Aware System For Personalized User Recommendations In Social Networks, Magdalini Eirinaki, Malamati Louta, Iraklis Varlamis

Faculty Publications

Social network analysis has recently gained a lot of interest because of the advent and the increasing popularity of social media, such as blogs, social networking applications, microblogging, or customer review sites. In this environment, trust is becoming an essential quality among user interactions and the recommendation for useful content and trustful users is crucial for all the members of the network. In this paper, we introduce a framework for handling trust in social networks, which is based on a reputation mechanism that captures the implicit and explicit connections between the network members, analyzes the semantics and dynamics of these …

Pointing Devices For Wearable Computers, Saverio Perugini, Andres A. Calvo

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We present a survey of pointing devices for wearable computers, which are body-mounted devices that users can access at any time. Since traditional pointing devices (i.e., mouse, touchpad, and trackpoint) were designed to be used on a steady and flat surface, they are inappropriate for wearable computers. Just as the advent of laptops resulted in the development of the touchpad and trackpoint, the emergence of wearable computers is leading to the development of pointing devices designed for them. However, unlike laptops, since wearable computers are operated from different body positions under different environmental conditions for different uses, researchers have developed …

Unstructured P2p Link Lifetimes Redux, Zhongmei Yao, Daren B. H. Cline

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We revisit link lifetimes in random P2P graphs under dynamic node failure and create a unifying stochastic model that generalizes the majority of previous efforts in this direction. We not only allow nonexponential user lifetimes and age-dependent neighbor selection, but also cover both active and passive neighbor-management strategies, model the lifetimes of incoming and outgoing links, derive churn-related message volume of the system, and obtain the distribution of transient in/out degree at each user. We then discuss the impact of design parameters on overhead and resilience of the network.

R Code To Accompany “Principal Component Analysis And Optimization: A Tutorial”, Robert Reris, J. Paul Brooks

Statistical Sciences and Operations Research Data

This data accompanies "Principal Component Analysis and Optimization: A Tutorial" by Robert Reris and J. Paul Brooks, presented at the 2015 INFORMS Computing Society Conference, Operations Research and Computing: Algorithms and Software for Analytics, Richmond, Virginia January 11-13, 2015.

The data contains R code, output, and comments that follow the examples for principal component analysis in the paper.

Data Files To Accompany "The Support Vector Machine And Mixed Integer Linear Programming: Ramp Loss Svm With L1-Norm Regularization", Eric J. Hess, J. Paul Brooks

Statistical Sciences and Operations Research Data

These files accompany, "The Support Vector Machine and Mixed Integer Linear Programming: Ramp Loss SVM with L1-Norm Regularization" by Eric J. Hess and J. Paul Brooks, presented at the 2015 INFORMS Computing Society Conference, Operations Research and Computing: Algorithms and Software for Analytics, Richmond, Virginia January 11-13, 2015.

The files contain instances of optimization problems that are described in the paper and for which results are reported. The files are in CPLEX LP format. The naming convention of the files is as follows: ndBTj0F.lp, where is the number of samples, is the number of attributes, and refers to …

Technology Initiative Assessment Through Acceptance And Satisfaction: A Case Study, Virginia Otto

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This case study examines a University-wide tablet program to assess the primary users’ (students) acceptance and satisfaction of the implemented technology. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and user satisfaction research acted as the theoretical foundation that directed how to assess students’ attitudes and beliefs toward this newly adopted technology. Wixom & Todd’s (2005) Integrated Model of User Satisfaction and Technology Acceptance, served as the conceptual model to examine how students’ acceptance and satisfaction of the tablet related. Online surveys were distributed to examine if perceived usefulness and ease of use can predict user satisfaction. Multiple regression tests found that the combination …

Visualizing And Predicting The Effects Of Rheumatoid Arthritis On Hands, Radu P. Mihail

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

This dissertation was inspired by difficult decisions patients of chronic diseases have to make about about treatment options in light of uncertainty. We look at rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic, autoimmune disease that primarily affects the synovial joints of the hands and causes pain and deformities. In this work, we focus on several parts of a computer-based decision tool that patients can interact with using gestures, ask questions about the disease, and visualize possible futures. We propose a hand gesture based interaction method that is easily setup in a doctor's office and can be trained using a custom set of …

Performance Modeling And Optimization Techniques For Heterogeneous Computing, Supada Laosooksathit

Doctoral Dissertations

Since Graphics Processing Units (CPUs) have increasingly gained popularity amoung non-graphic and computational applications, known as General-Purpose computation on GPU (GPGPU), CPUs have been deployed in many clusters, including the world's fastest supercomputer. However, to make the most efficiency from a GPU system, one should consider both performance and reliability of the system.

This dissertation makes four major contributions. First, the two-level checkpoint/restart protocol that aims to reduce the checkpoint and recovery costs with a latency hiding strategy in a system between a CPU (Central Processing Unit) and a GPU is proposed. The experimental results and analysis reveals some benefits, …

Introduction To Parallel Computation, Clinton Mckay

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Introduction to Parallel Computing is a course designed to educate students on how to use the parallel libraries and tools provided by modern operating systems and massively parallel computer graphics hardware.

Using a series of lectures and hands-on exercises. Students will learn about parallel algorithms and concepts that will aid them in analyzing a problem and constructing a parallel solution, if possible, using the tools available to their disposal.

The course consists of lectures, projects, quizzes, and homework. The combination of these components will deliver the necessary domain knowledge to students, test them, and in the process train them to …

Mobile Indoor Positioning For Augmented Reality Systems, Robert B. Glass

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the creation and setup of a prototype that allows users of the device to interact within an indoor real world environment and a virtual environment simultaneously using high-tech common technology. The prototype is comprised of a small mobile device such as a cellular mobile phone, Raspberry Pi computer, a battery powered handheld Pico projector, and software developed for the Android OS. The software can easily be ported to other mobile and non-mobile operating systems. The mobile device must contain accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope embedded sensors as well as 802.11 wireless network chip. The prototype software implements an …

Neutrosophic Logic Approaches Applied To ”Rabot” Real Time Control, Alexandru Gal, Luige Vladareanu, Florentin Smarandache, Hongnian Yu, Mincong Deng

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this paper we present a way of deciding which control law should operate at a time for a mobile walking robot. The proposed deciding method is based on the new research field, called Neutrosophic Logic. The results are presented as a simulated system for which the output is related to the inputs according to the Neutrosophic Logic.

Yeast Pheromone Pathway Modeling Using Petri Nets, Stephen D. Scott, Abhishek Majumdar, Jitender S. Deogun, Steven D. Harris

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Background: Our environment is composed of biological components of varying magnitude. The relationships between the different biological elements can be represented as a biological network. The process of mating in S. cerevisiae is initiated by secretion of pheromone by one of the cells. Our interest lies in one particular question: how does a cell dynamically adapt the pathway to continue mating under severe environmental changes or under mutation (which might result in the loss of functionality of some proteins known to participate in the pheromone pathway). Our work attempts to answer this question. To achieve this, we first propose a …

A Comparison Of A Campus Cluster And Open Science Grid Platforms For Protein- Guided Assembly Using Pegasus Workflow Management System, Natasha Pavlovikj, Kevin Begcy, Sairam Behera, Malachy Campbell, Harkamal Walia, Jitender S. Deogun

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Scientific workflows are a useful tool for managing large and complex computational tasks. Due to its intensive resource requirements, the scientific workflows are often executed on distributed platforms, including campus clusters, grids and clouds. In this paper we build a scientific workflow for blast2cap3, the protein-guided assembly, using the Pegasus Workflow Management System (Pegasus WMS). The modularity of blast2cap3 allows us to decompose the existing serial approach on multiple tasks, some of which can be run in parallel. Afterwards, this workflow is deployed on two distributed execution platforms: Sandhills, the University of Nebraska Campus Cluster, and the Open Science …

Transforming Web Tables To A Relational Database, David W. Embley, George Nagy, Sharad C. Seth

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

HTML tables represent a significant fraction of web data. The often complex headers of such tables are determined accurately using their indexing property. Isolated headers are factored to extract category hierarchies. Web tables are then transformed into a canonical form and imported into a relational database. The proposed processing allows for the formulation of arbitrary SQL queries over the collection of induced relational tables.

Colormoo: An Algorithmic Approach To Generating Color Palettes, Joshua Rael

CMC Senior Theses

Selecting one color can be done with relative ease, but this task becomes more difficult with each subsequent color. Colormoo is an online tool aimed at solving this problem. We implement three algorithms for generating color palettes based off of a starting color. Data is collected for each palette that is generated. Our analysis reveals two of the algorithms are preferred, but under different circumstances. Furthermore, we find that users prefer palettes containing colors that are compatible, but not too similar. With refined heuristics, we believe these techniques can be extended and applied beyond the field of graphic design alone.

A Look Into The Industry Of Video Games Past, Present, And Yet To Come, Chad Hadzinsky

CMC Senior Theses

Since its inception, the video game industry has been both a new medium for art and innovation as well as a major driving force in the advancements of many technologies. The often overlooked video game industry has turned from a hobby to a multi-billion dollar industry in its short, forty year life. People of all ages and genders across the world are playing video games at a higher clip than ever before. With so many new gamers and emerging technologies, it is an exciting time for the industry. The landscape is constantly changing and successful business models of the past …

A Proof-Theoretic Semantic Analysis Of Dynamic Epistemic Logic, Sabine Frittella, Giuseppe Greco, Alexander Kurz, Alessandra Palmigiano, Vlasta Sikimić

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

The present paper provides an analysis of the existing proof systems for dynamic epistemic logic from the viewpoint of proof-theoretic semantics. Dynamic epistemic logic is one of the best known members of a family of logical systems which have been successfully applied to diverse scientific disciplines, but the proof theoretic treatment of which presents many difficulties. After an illustration of the proof-theoretic semantic principles most relevant to the treatment of logical connectives, we turn to illustrating the main features of display calculi, a proof-theoretic paradigm which has been successfully employed to give a proof-theoretic semantic account of modal and substructural …

Categorization Of Large Corpora Of Malicious Software, Deekshit Kura

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Malware is computer software written by someone with mischievous or, more usually, malicious and/or criminal intent and specifically designed to damage data, hosts or networks. The variety of malware is increasing proportionally with the increase in computers and we are not aware of newly emerging malware. Tools are needed to categorize families of malware, so that analysts can compare new malware samples to ones that have been previously analyzed and determine steps to detect and prevent malware infections.

In this thesis, I developed a technique to catalog and characterize the behavior of malware, so that malware families, the level of …

Analysis Of Windows 8 Registry Artifacts, Jeremy M. Stormo

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Microsoft’s series of Windows operating systems represents some of the most commonly encountered technologies in the field of digital forensics. It is then fair to say that Microsoft’s design decisions greatly affect forensic efforts. Because of this, it is exceptionally important for the forensics community to keep abreast of new developments in the Windows product line. With each new release, the Windows operating system may present investigators with significant new artifacts to explore. Described by some as the heart of the Windows operating system, the Windows registry has been proven to contain many of these forensically interesting artifacts. Given the …

Curated Reasoning By Formal Modeling Of Provenance, Kevin B. Shaw

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The core problem addressed in this research is the current lack of an ability to repurpose and curate scientific data among interdisciplinary scientists within a research enterprise environment. Explosive growth in sensor technology as well as the cost of collecting ocean data and airborne measurements has allowed for exponential increases in scientific data collection as well as substantial enterprise resources required for data collection. There is currently no framework for efficiently curating this scientific data for repurposing or intergenerational use.

There are several reasons why this problem has eluded solution to date to include the competitive requirements for funding and …