Computer Sciences Commons^™

Region Detection & Segmentation Of Nissl-Stained Rat Brain Tissue, Alexandro Arnal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

People who analyze images of biological tissue rely on the segmentation of structures as a preliminary step. In particular, laboratories studying the rat brain delineate brain regions to position scientific findings on a brain atlas to propose hypotheses about the rat brain and, ultimately, the human brain. Our work intersects with the preliminary step of delineating regions in images of brain tissue via computational methods.

We investigate pixel-wise classification or segmentation of brain regions using ten histological images of brain tissue sections stained for Nissl substance. We present a deep learning approach that uses the fully convolutional neural network, U-Net, …

Glacier Segmentation From Remote Sensing Imagery Using Deep Learning, Bibek Aryal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Large-scale study of glaciers improves our understanding of global glacier change and is imperative for monitoring the ecological environment, preventing disasters, and studying the effects of global climate change. In recent years, remote sensing imagery has been preferred over riskier and resource-intensive field visits for tracking landscape level changes like glaciers. However, periodic manual labeling of glaciers over a large area is not feasible due to the considerable amount of time it requires while automatic segmentation of glaciers has its own set of challenges. Our work aims to study the challenges associated with segmentation of glaciers from remote sensing imagery …

Decision Making Under Uncertainty With A Special Emphasis On Geosciences And Education, Laxman Bokati

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In many practical situations, we need to make a decision. In engineering, we need to decideon the best design of a system, and, for existing systems - on the best control strategy. In financial applications, we need to decide what is the best way to invest money. In geosciences, we need to decide whether we should explore a possible mineral deposit - or whether we should perform more experiments and measurements (and what exactly). In some cases, we can compute the exact consequences of each decision - e.g., if we are controlling a satellite. However, in many other cases, we …

Online/Incremental Learning To Mitigate Concept Drift In Network Traffic Classification, Alberto R. De La Rosa

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Communication networks play a large role in our everyday lives. COVID19 pandemic in 2020 highlighted their importance as most jobs had to be moved to remote work environments. It is possible that the spread of the virus, the death toll, and the economic consequences would have been much worse without communication networks. To remove sole dependence on one equipment vendor, networks are heterogeneous by design. Due to this, as well as their increasing size, network management has become overwhelming for network managers. For this reason, automating network management will have a significant positive impact. Machine learning and software defined networking …

Analyzing And Quantifying The Impact Of Software Diversification On Return-Oriented Programming (Rop) Based Exploits, David Reyes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the implementation of modern software mitigation techniques such: as Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), stack canaries, and the No-Execute bit (N.X.), attackers can no longer achieve arbitrary code execution simply by injecting shellcode into a vulnerable buffer and redirecting execution to this vulnerable buffer. Instead, attackers have pivoted to Return Oriented Programming (ROP) to achieve the same arbitrary code execution. Using this attack method, attackers string together ROP gadgets, assembly code snippets found in the target binary, to form what are known as ROP Chains. Using these ROP Chains, attackers can achieve the same malicious behavior as previous code …

Metrological Challenges Of Practical Computer-Enhanced Measurements, Hector Alejandro Reyes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

As technology progresses, sensors and computers become cheaper, so we can afford to perform more measurements and process the data faster. However, this also brings challenges.The goal of this thesis is to enumerate these challenges and to provide possible solutions. The first challenge is related to the fact that the existing metrological recommendations are mostly based on the previous practice, when we could only afford to have a small number of measurements. In this regard, our objective is to describe the related problem and to propose a solution to this problem. These description (on the example of the design of …

Radio Frequency Fingerprinting And Its Application To Scada Environments, Evan White

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the introduction of IoT into ICS and smartgrid environments there has been a mod-ernization of communication protocols through the internet. This has led to the use of features such as TCP/IP but with it comes modernized attack vectors against these sys- tems. These attacks can be Man In the Middle (MITM), rogue device communication and device cloning. To prevent these attacks, this thesis deploys Radio Frequency Fingerprint- ing (RFF) techniques to verify the uniqueness and legitimacy of known devices. It is crucial to employ security measures within ICS that do not add to the network complexity as this effects …

Oil Particle Analysis Using Machine Learning And Holography Imaging, Daniel Cruz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Holographic cameras show potential as a sensor to monitor oil spills. Holographic cameras record the light interference from particles in a volume of space, producing an image called a hologram. Processing these holograms is known as hologram reconstruction. It produces a representation of particles located in three-dimensional space. These cameras can record precise shapes and sizes of particles in a volume of water. However, it is very time-consuming and resource-intensive to process the images. Most algorithms that perform particle analysis require the hologram reconstruction step. The well-documented hybrid method is one such algorithm. Machine learning is one possible technique that …

How To Get The Most Accurate Measurement-Based Estimates, Salvador Robles, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we want to estimate a quantity y that is difficult -- or even impossible -- to measure directly. In such cases, often, there are easier-to-measure quantities x₁, ..., x_n that are related to y by a known dependence y = f(x₁,...,x_n). So, to estimate y, we can measure these quantities x_i and use the measurement results to estimate y. The two natural questions are: (1) within limited resources, what is the best accuracy with which we can estimate y, and (2) to reach a given accuracy, what amount …

Dialogs Re-Enacted Across Languages, Nigel Ward, Jonathan E. Avila, Emilia Rivas

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

To support machine learning of cross-language prosodic mappings and other ways to improve speech-to-speech translation, we present a protocol for collecting closely matched pairs of utterances across languages, a description of the resulting data collection, and some observations and musings. This report is intended for 1) people using this corpus, 2) people extending this corpus, and 3) people designing similar collections of bilingual dialog data.

Anomaly Detection In Crowdsourcing: Why Midpoints In Interval-Valued Approach, Alejandra De La Pena, Damian L. Gallegos Espinoza, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations -- e.g., when preparing examples for a machine learning algorithm -- we need to label a large number of images or speech recordings. One way to do it is to pay people around the world to perform this labeling; this is known as crowdsourcing. In many cases, crowd-workers generate not only answers, but also their degrees of confidence that the answer is correct. Some crowd-workers cheat: they produce almost random answers without bothering to spend time analyzing the corresponding image. Algorithms have been developed to detect such cheaters. The problem is that many crowd-workers cannot describe …

Dielectric Barrier Discharge (Dbd) Thrusters -- Aerospace Engines Of The Future: Invariance-Based Analysis, Alexis Lupo, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

One of the most prospective aerospace engines is a Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) thruster -- an effective electric engine without moving parts. Originally designed by NASA for flights over other planets, it has been shown to be very promising for Earth-based flights as well. The efficiency of this engine depends on the proper selection of the corresponding electric field. To make this selection, we need to know, in particular, how its thrust depends on the atmospheric pressure. At present, for this dependence, we only know an approximate semi-empirical formula. In this paper, we use natural invariance requirements to come up …

Hunting Habits Of Predatory Birds: Theoretical Explanation Of An Empirical Formula, Adilene Alaniz, Jiovani Hernandez, Andres D. Munoz, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Predatory birds play an important role in an ecosystem. It is therefore important to study their hunting behavior, in particular, the distribution of their waiting time. A recent empirical study showed that the waiting time is distributed according to the power law. In this paper, we use natural invariance ideas to come up with a theoretical explanation for this empirical dependence.

Aquatic Ecotoxicology: Theoretical Explanation Of Empirical Formulas, Demetrius R. Hernandez, George M. Molina Holguin, Francisco Parra, Vivian Sanchez, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

To analyze the effect of pollution on marine life, it is important to know how exactly the concentration of toxic substances decreases with time. There are several semi-empirical formulas that describe this decrease. In this paper, we provide a theoretical explanation for these empirical formulas.

Resource Allocation For Multi-Tasking Optimization: Explanation Of An Empirical Formula, Alan Gamez, Antonio Aguirre, Christian Cordova, Alberto Miranda, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

For multi-tasking optimization problems, it has been empirically shown that the most effective resource allocation is attained when we assume that the gain of each task logarithmically depends on the computation time allocated to this task. In this paper, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical fact.

Why Color Optical Computing, Victor L. Timchenko, Yury P. Kondratenko, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In this paper, we show that requirements that computations be fast and noise-resistant naturally lead to what we call color-based optical computing.

How To Reach A Joint Decision With The Smallest Need For Compromise, Sofia Holguin, Olga Kosheleva

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Usually, people's interests do not match perfectly. So when several people need to make a joint decision, they need to compromise. The more people one has to coordinate the decision with, the fewer chances that each person's preferences will be properly taken into account. Therefore, when a large group of people need to make a decision, it is desirable to make sure that this decision can be reached by dividing all the people into small-size groups so that this decision can reach a compromise between the members of each group. In this paper, we use a recent mathematical result to …

Word Representation: Theoretical Explanation Of An Empirical Fact, Leonel Escapita, Diana Licon, Madison Anderson, Diego Pedraza, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

There is a reasonably accurate empirical formula that predicts, for two words i and j, the number Xij of times when the word i will appear in the vicinity of the word j. The parameters of this formula are determined by using the weighted least square approach. Empirically, the predictions are the most accurate if we use the weights proportional to a power of Xij. In this paper, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical fact.

Need For Optimal Distributed Measurement Of Cumulative Quantities Explains The Ubiquity Of Absolute And Relative Error Components, Hector A. Reyes, Aaron D. Brown, Jeffrey Escamilla, Ethan D. Kish, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we need to measure the value of a cumulative quantity, i.e., a quantity that is obtained by adding measurement results corresponding to different spatial locations. How can we select the measuring instruments so that the resulting cumulative quantity can be determined with known accuracy -- and, to avoid unnecessary expenses, not more accurately than needed? It turns out that the only case where such an optimal arrangement is possible is when the required accuracy means selecting the upper bounds on absolute and relative error components. This results provides a possible explanation for the ubiquity of such …

Why 1/(1+D) Is An Effective Distance-Based Similarity Measure: Two Explanations, Julio C. Urenda, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Most of our decisions are based on the notion of similarity: we use a decision that helped in similar situations. From this viewpoint, it is important to have, for each pair of situations or objects, a numerical value describing similarity between them. This is called a similarity measure. In some cases, the only information that we can use to estimate the similarity value is some natural distance measure d(a,b). In many such situations, empirical data shows that the similarity measure 1/(1+d) is very effective. In this paper, we provide two explanations for this effectiveness.

How To Describe Variety Of A Probability Distribution: A Possible Answer To Yager's Question, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Entropy is a natural measure of randomness. It progresses from its smallest possible value 0 -- when we have a deterministic case in which one alternative i occurs with probability 1 (pi = 1), to the largest possible value which is attained at a uniform distribution p1 = ... = pn = 1/n. Intuitively, both in the deterministic case and in the uniform distribution case, there is not much variety in the distribution, while in the intermediate cases, when we have several different values pi, there is a strong variety. Entropy does not seem to capture this notion of variety. …

How The Pavement Strength Changes With Time: Ai Ideas Help To Explain Semi-Empirical Formulas, Edgar Daniel Rodriguez Velasquez, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In this paper, we use AI ideas to provide a theoretical explanation for semi-empirical formulas that describe how the pavement strength changes with time, and how we can predict the pavement lifetime.

Why Seneca Effect?, Sean R. Aguilar, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Already ancients noticed that decrease is usually faster than growth -- whether we talk about companies or empires. A modern researcher Ugo Bardi confirmed that this phenomenon is still valid today. He called it Seneca effect, after the ancient philosopher Seneca -- one of those who observed this phenomenon. In this paper, we provide a natural explanation for the Seneca effect.

Why Smaller-Size Objects Affect The Flow Much More Than Larger Ones: A Geometric Explanation With Applications Ranging From Volcanoes And Tornadoes To Blood, Fish, And Building Preservation, Laxman Bokati, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

At first glance, the larger the object, the larger should be its effect on the surroundings -- in particular, the larger should be its effect on the surrounding flow. However, in many practical situations, we observe the opposite effect: smaller-size particles affect the flow much more than larger-size particles. This seemingly counterintuitive phenomena has been observed in many situations: lava flow in the volcanoes, air circulation in tornadoes, blood flow in a body, the effect of fish on water circulation in the ocean, and the effect of added particles on seeping water that damages historic buildings. In this paper, we …

What Is The Most Adequate Fuzzy Methodology?, Noah Velasco, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In practice, there is often a need to describe the relation y = f(x) between two quantities in algorithmic form: e.g., we want to describe the control value y corresponding to the given input x, or we want to predict the future value y based on the current value x. In many such cases, we have expert knowledge about the desired dependence, but experts can only describe their knowledge by using imprecise ("fuzzy") words from a natural language. Methodologies for transforming such knowledge into an algorithm y = f(x) are known as fuzzy methodologies. There exist several fuzzy methodologies, a …

A General Commonsense Explanation Of Several Medical Results, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In this paper, we show that many recent experimental medical results about the effect of different factors on our health can be explained by common sense ideas.

Why Best-Worst Method Works Well, Sean Aguilar, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many cases, experts are much more accurate when they estimate the ratio of two quantities than when they estimate the actual values. For example, if it difficult to accurately estimate the height of a person on a photo, but if we have two people standing side by side, we can easily estimate to what extent one of them is taller than the other one. To get accurate estimates, it is therefore desirable to use such ratio estimates. Empirical analysis shows that to obtain the most accurate results, we need to compare all the objects with either the "best" object …

How Hot Is Too Hot, Sofia Holguin, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

A recent study has shown that the temperature threshold -- after which even young healthy individuals start feeling the effect of heat on their productivity -- is 30.5 ± 1 C. In this paper, we use decision theory ideas to provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical finding.

Invariance Explains Empirical Success Of Many Intelligent Techniques, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many applications of intelligent computing, we need to choose an appropriate function -- e.g., an appropriate re-scaling function, or an appropriate aggregation function. In applications of intelligent techniques, the problem of selecting an optimal function is usually too complex or too imprecise to be solved analytically, so the best functions are found empirically, by trying a large number of alternatives. In this paper, we show that in many such cases, the resulting empirical choice can be explained by natural invariance ideas. Example range from applications to building blocks of intelligent techniques -- such as aggregation (including hierarchical aggregation) and …

Why Exponential Almon Lag Works Well In Econometrics: An Invariance-Based Explanation, Laxman Bokati, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many econometric situations, we can predict future values of relevant quantities by using an empirical formula known as exponential Almon lag. While this formula is empirically successful, there have been no convincing theoretical explanation for this success. In this paper, we provide such a theoretical explanation based on general invariance ideas.