Computer Sciences Commons^™

Reduction Of False Positives In Intrusion Detection Based On Extreme Learning Machine With Situation Awareness, Donald A. Burgio

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Protecting computer networks from intrusions is more important than ever for our privacy, economy, and national security. Seemingly a month does not pass without news of a major data breach involving sensitive personal identity, financial, medical, trade secret, or national security data. Democratic processes can now be potentially compromised through breaches of electronic voting systems. As ever more devices, including medical machines, automobiles, and control systems for critical infrastructure are increasingly networked, human life is also more at risk from cyber-attacks. Research into Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) began several decades ago and IDSs are still a mainstay of computer and …

The Factors That Impact Patient Portal Utilization, William Carroll Reed

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Spawned by legislative mandates, such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, and individuals desiring to have more personal accountability for their health and healthcare, the introduction and use of electronic personal health information (ePHI) has grown substantially. Given that most ePHI is maintained within the healthcare delivery system, an information portal is required for individuals to have access to the ePHI. As a result, the legislation required the introduction and use of patient portals to grant such access.

Despite substantial financial incentives and disincentives for healthcare organizations to …

An Examination Of User Detection Of Business Email Compromise Amongst Corporate Professionals, Shahar Sean Aviv

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

With the evolution in technology and increase in utilization of the public Internet, Internet-based mobile applications, and social media, security risks for organizations have greatly increased. While corporations leverage social media as an effective tool for customer advertisements, the abundance of information available via public channels along with the growth in Internet connections to corporate networks including mobile applications, have made cyberattacks attractive for cybercriminals. Cybercrime against organizations is a daily threat and targeting companies of all sizes. Cyberattacks are continually evolving and becoming more complex that make it difficult to protect against with traditional security methods. Cybercriminals utilize email …

Motivation Factors For Using Mobile Information Systems In M-Learning, Neelima Bhatnagar

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Organizations of all types have benefited from the development and use of information systems. With the explosion of mobile applications, also known as mobile information systems, new uses are emerging. One such application of mobile information systems is mobile learning, referred to as m-learning hereafter. M-learning has found its ways in the corporate world for employee training and development, and in higher education for teaching and student learning. However, m-learning has not seen the same extent of usage as distance learning and e-learning, often attributed to technological limitations. Motivational factors, though, may also contribute to the slow adoption of m-learning. …

Information Systems Security Leadership: An Empirical Study Of Behavioral Influences Of Leaders On Employees’ Security Compliance, Marcus Alan Winkfield

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This empirical study examined the behavioral influences of leaders on employees’ security compliance. Organizations can use leadership concepts in the field of Information Systems (IS) security. Despite the adoption of technical and managerial approaches, organizations still face issues motivating employee IS security compliance. This dissertation argued that organizations need strong leadership to encourage employees. Using the expectancy theory, this paper created a theoretical model to help understand the influence of task and relationship-oriented leadership behaviors on nontechnical controls IS security compliance. The conceptual underpinnings translated into perceived security effort, perceived security performance, and expected security outcomes. The theoretical model was …

Assessing The Presence Of Mindfulness Within Cyber And Non-Cybersecurity Groups, Christopher Wilder

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Corporations and individuals continue to be under Phishing attack. Researchers categorizes methods corporations and individuals can employ to reduce the impact of being caught in a Phishing scheme. Corporation enable technical mechanisms such as automated filtering, URL blacklisting, and manipulation of browser warning messages to reduce phishing susceptibility costing billions of dollars annually. However, even with robust efforts to educate employees about phishing techniques through security awareness training the abundance of attacks continues to plague organizations. This study aims to identify whether a correlation exists between mindfulness and phishing susceptibility. The goal of this research is to determine if mindful …

An Investigation Of Factors Motivating Employee Attitudes And Intentions To Share Knowledge In Homeland Security, Evette Maynard-Noel

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The terrorist events of September 11, 2001, highlighted the inability of federal employees and officials to collaborate and share actionable knowledge-based information with the right people at the right time. However, much of the literature on knowledge sharing provided insight into knowledge sharing in private sector organizations and foreign public-sector organizations, instead of domestic public sectors or the United States federal government. While the importance of knowledge sharing for homeland security has been documented in the literature, there are no established frameworks that evaluate knowledge sharing motive and intentions in this context. The main goal of this research was to …

Cyber Situational Awareness And Cyber Curiosity Taxonomy For Understanding Susceptibility Of Social Engineering Attacks In The Maritime Industry, Guillermo Francisco Perez

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The maritime information system (IS) user has to be prepared to deal with a potential safety and environmental risk that can be caused by an unanticipated failure to a cyber system used onboard a vessel. A hacker leveraging a maritime IS user’s Cyber Curiosity can lead to a successful cyber-attack by enticing a user to click on a malicious Web link sent through an email and/or posted on a social media website. At worst, a successful cyber-attack can impact the integrity of a ship’s cyber systems potentially causing disruption or human harm. A lack of awareness of social engineering attacks …

The Influence Of Identifiable Personality Traits On Nurses’ Intention To Use Wireless Implantable Medical Devices, Vincent Molosky

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Technically-driven medical devices such as wireless implantable medical devices (WIMD) have become ubiquitous within healthcare. The use of these devices has changed the way nurses administer patient care. Consequently, the nursing workforce is large and diverse, and with it comes an expected disparity in personalities. Research involving human factors and technology acceptance in healthcare is not new. Yet due to the changing variables in the manner of which patient care is being administered, both in person and in the mechanism of treatment, recent research suggests that individual human factors such as personality traits may hold unknown implications involving more successful …

User Information Security Behavior In Professional Virtual Communities: A Technology Threat Avoidance Approach, Vivienne Forrester

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The popularization of professional virtual communities (PVCs) as a platform for people to share experiences and knowledge has produced a paradox of convenience versus security. The desire to communicate results in disclosure where users experience ongoing professional and social interaction. Excessive disclosure and unsecured user security behavior in PVCs increase users’ vulnerability to technology threats. Nefarious entities frequently use PVCs such as LinkedIn to launch digital attacks. Hence, users are faced with a gamut of technology threats that may cause harm to professional and personal lives. Few studies, however, have examined users’ information security behavior and their motivation to engage …

Usability Challenges With Insulin Pump Devices In Diabetes Care: What Trainers Observe With First-Time Pump Users, Helen Birkmann Hernandez

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Insulin pumps are designed for the self-management of diabetes mellitus in patients and are known for their complexity of use. Pump manufacturers engage trainers to teach patients how to use the devices correctly to control the symptoms of their disease. Usability research related to insulin pumps and other infusion pumps with first-time users as participants has centered on the relationship between user interface design and the effectiveness of task completion. According to prior research, the characteristics of system behavior in a real life environment remain elusive. A suitable approach to acquire information about potential usability problems encountered by first-time users …

The Impact Of Cross-References On The Readability Of The U.S. Internal Revenue Code, Jeffrey A. Lasky

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Scholars and practitioners have long argued that U.S. income tax law (“the Tax Code”) is excessively complex and difficult to understand, and hence imposes non-trivial adjudication, administration, planning, and compliance costs across the spectrum of income tax stakeholders: the courts, the Internal Revenue Service, tax practitioners, business managers, and individual taxpayers. Hence, there is considerable interest in reducing the effort needed to accurately understand and apply the provisions of income tax law. Prior scholarly work has strongly argued that exceptions to Tax Code provisions as expressed by cross-references embedded in the Tax Code text constitute a major source of reading …

A Data Mining Framework For Improving Student Outcomes On Step 1 Of The United States Medical Licensing Examination, James Clark

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Identifying the factors associated with medical students who fail Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) has been a focus of investigation for many years. Some researchers believe lower scores on the Medical Colleges Admissions Test (MCAT) are the sole factor used to identify failure. Other researchers believe lower course outcomes during the first two years of medical training are better indicators of failure. Yet, there are medical students who fail Step 1 of the USMLE who enter medical school with high MCAT scores, and conversely medical students with lower academic credentials who are expected to have …

Knowledge Sharing Among Academics In Higher Education Institutions In Saudi Arabia, Fahad M. Alsaadi

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) in Saudi Arabia aims to move toward a knowledge-based economy and many knowledge management (KM) and knowledge sharing (KS) initiatives have been taken to accelerate the achievement of this goal. Despite the substantial body of research into KS in the business environment, research that investigates factors that promote KS practices among academics in higher education institutions (HEIs) is generally limited, but particularly in Saudi Arabia. To bridge this gap, the goal was to explore what individual and organizational factors contribute to a person’s willingness to share knowledge and develop a profile of the current …

Identifying Factors Contributing Towards Information Security Maturity In An Organization, Madhuri M. Edwards

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Information security capability maturity (ISCM) is a journey towards accurate alignment of business and security objectives, security systems, processes, and tasks integrated with business-enabled IT systems, security enabled organizational culture and decision making, and measurements and continuous improvements of controls and governance comprising security policies, processes, operating procedures, tasks, monitoring, and reporting. Information security capability maturity may be achieved in five levels: performing but ad-hoc, managed, defined, quantitatively governed, and optimized. These five levels need to be achieved in the capability areas of information integrity, information systems assurance, business enablement, security processes, security program management, competency of security team, security …

Database Streaming Compression On Memory-Limited Machines, Damon F. Bruccoleri

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Dynamic Huffman compression algorithms operate on data-streams with a bounded symbol list. With these algorithms, the complete list of symbols must be contained in main memory or secondary storage. A horizontal format transaction database that is streaming can have a very large item list. Many nodes tax both the processing hardware primary memory size, and the processing time to dynamically maintain the tree. This research investigated Huffman compression of a transaction-streaming database with a very large symbol list, where each item in the transaction database schema’s item list is a symbol to compress. The constraint of a large symbol list …

Standardizing Instructional Definition And Content Supporting Information Security Compliance Requirements, Theresa Curran

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Information security (IS)-related risks affect global public and private organizations on a daily basis. These risks may be introduced through technical or human-based activities, and can include fraud, hacking, malware, insider abuse, physical loss, mobile device misconfiguration or unintended disclosure. Numerous and diverse regulatory and contractual compliance requirements have been mandated to assist organizations proactively prevent these types of risks. Two constants are noted in these requirements. The first constant is requiring organizations to disseminate security policies addressing risk management through secure behavior. The second constant is communicating policies through IS awareness, training and education (ISATE) programs. Compliance requirements direct …

Wireless Sensor Network Clustering With Machine Learning, Larry Townsend

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are useful in situations where a low-cost network needs to be set up quickly and no fixed network infrastructure exists. Typical applications are for military exercises and emergency rescue operations. Due to the nature of a wireless network, there is no fixed routing or intrusion detection and these tasks must be done by the individual network nodes. The nodes of a WSN are mobile devices and rely on battery power to function. Due the limited power resources available to the devices and the tasks each node must perform, methods to decrease the overall power consumption of …

Assessing The Role Of Critical Value Factors (Cvfs) On Users’ Resistance Of Urban Search And Rescue Robotics, Marion A. Brown

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Natural and manmade disasters have brought urban search and rescue (USAR) robots to the technology forefront as a means of providing additional support for search and rescue workers. The loss of life among victims and rescue workers necessitates the need for a wider acceptance of this assistive technology. Disasters, such as hurricane Harvey in 2017, hurricane Sandy in 2012, the 2012 United States tornadoes that devastated 17 states, the 2011 Australian floods, the 2011 Japan and 2010 Haiti earthquakes, the 2010 West Virginia coal mine explosions, the 2009 Typhoon caused mudslides in Taiwan, the 2001 Collapse of the World Trade …

The Effects Of Student Activity Dashboards On Student Participation, Performance, And Persistence, Edwin Hill

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have turned their attention to the use of learning analytics and dashboard systems in education. Schools are using knowledge gained in this area to address the issue of persistence to increase graduation rates. While dashboard systems have been developed and are starting to be implemented, it is not yet clear how activity and performance data from dashboards influences student behavior. In addition, much of the research has been focused on instructor-facing dashboards rather than student-facing dashboards. The current study implemented a student-facing dashboard in the learning management system and measured how information on the dashboard may have influenced participation …

Conservation Of Limited Resources: Design Principles For Security And Usability On Mobile Devices, Ann-Marie Horcher

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Mobile devices have evolved from an accessory to the primary computing device for an increasing portion of the general population. Not only is mobile the primary device, consumers on average have multiple Internet-connected devices. The trend towards mobile has resulted in a shift to “mobile-first” strategies for delivering information and services in business organizations, universities, and government agencies. Though principles for good security design exist, those principles were formulated based upon the traditional workstation configuration instead of the mobile platform. Security design needs to follow the shift to a “mobile-first” emphasis to ensure the usability of the security interface. The …

Assessing The Impact Of A Geospatial Information System For Improving Campus Emergency Decision-Making Of Novice Crisis Managers, Adam R. Albina

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

A significant increase in campus-based emergencies warrants the investigation into emergency management information systems that serve a novice crisis decision-maker. Institutions of higher education that are not large enough to have dedicated emergency management offices generally press novice decision-makers into emergency management roles. An investigation was conducted to assess the impact of an emergency management geospatial information system on the decision performance of novice crisis managers through the use of a scenario-based simulation. A mixed method sequential explanatory method was used to collect quasi-experimental data on decision time, decision accuracy and situational awareness. Qualitative analysis was conducted through interviews with …

Beyond Automated Assessment: Building Metacognitive Awareness In Novice Programmers In Cs1, James Prather

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The primary task of learning to program in introductory computer science courses (CS1) cognitively overloads novices and must be better supported. Several recent studies have attempted to address this problem by understanding the role of metacognitive awareness in novices learning programming. These studies have focused on teaching metacognitive awareness to students by helping them understand the six stages of learning so students can know where they are in the problem-solving process, but these approaches are not scalable. One way to address scalability is to implement features in an automated assessment tool (AAT) that build metacognitive awareness in novice programmers. Currently, …

A Knowledge Management System (Kms) Using A Storytelling-Based Approach To Collect Tacit Knowledge, Nicholas Shaw

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1990s, Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) have been largely unsuccessful in the collection of tacit knowledge. The process, whether through direct input by the holder of the tacit knowledge or through an intermediary such as the collection of tacit knowledge through interviews and videos, has not succeeded. Reasons encompass the organizational (such as culture of the organization), the technological (example: poor tools), and the individual (example: knowledge is power, i.e. where experts with rare knowledge results in knowledge hoarding instead of transfer). The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that tacit knowledge could be successfully and consistently collected …

Factors That Contribute To The Resistance To Cloud Computing Adoption By Tech Companies Vs. Non-Tech Companies, Zadok Hakim

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Cloud computing (CC) may be the most significant development in recent history for businesses seeking to utilize technology. However, the adoption of CC hinges on many factors, and can have a greater positive impact on organizational performance. This study examined the different factors that contribute to the resistance to CC adoption. Anchored in The Theory of Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE), the study used a qualitative, grounded theory approach to develop a theoretical model for the acceptance of CC across firms. CC can have significant effects on efficiency and productivity for firms, but these effects will only be realized if IT usage becomes …

An Investigation Of The Interaction Between Organizational Culture And Knowledge Sharing Through Socialization: A Multi-Level Perspective, Ali Baker

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Knowledge management (KM) has been determined by many researchers as one of the most important domains within the information systems (IS) field, and knowledge sharing (KS) has been identified as the most vital component of KM. Lack of KS within organizations has been approached from many perspectives. One perspective that has been outlined in recent studies is the organizational culture (OC) perspective, which examines the interaction between OC and KS behaviors. Although research has been conducted on OC and KS, the findings of recent studies have been contradictory. These conflicts were due to the different operationalization of KS. The purpose …

Development, Implementation, And Assessment Of An Online Doctoral Student Orientation, Russell J. Garner

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

An examination of the recent literature revealed there are no established standards for orienting online doctoral students. To address this problem, the relevant literature was examined and suggested that doctoral students can be effectively oriented to their academic environment when provided with the requisite programmatic and institutional information, and factors that support socialization and self-efficacy.

A literature-based orientation was developed to examine its impact on students’ first semester success in terms of rates of retention and grade point averages (GPA). This was accomplished using a developmental study approach that included three primary phases: 1) development of a literature-based orientation; 2) …

Design And Development Of Simulation-Based Instruction On Meaningful Use And Interprofessionalism Core Competencies In A Healthcare Team-Based Learning Environment, Elizabeth Oviawe

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Policymakers and electronic health records (EHR) experts agree that healthcare professionals lack proficiency in meaningful use of EHRs. This competency gap can result in increased medical errors. It is essential for health professions graduates to acquire skill sets that are adaptable to any electronic health information technologies including the EHRs to facilitate work process and information access. Simulation as an instructional method to create transformative learning experiences has shown promise in the medical profession. In simulations, learners are able to engage in real-life scenarios and practice their cognitive, affective, and psychomotor skills in a safe environment.

The goal was to …

Probabilistic Clustering Ensemble Evaluation For Intrusion Detection, Steven M. Mcelwee

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Intrusion detection is the practice of examining information from computers and networks to identify cyberattacks. It is an important topic in practice, since the frequency and consequences of cyberattacks continues to increase and affect organizations. It is important for research, since many problems exist for intrusion detection systems. Intrusion detection systems monitor large volumes of data and frequently generate false positives. This results in additional effort for security analysts to review and interpret alerts. After long hours spent reviewing alerts, security analysts become fatigued and make bad decisions. There is currently no approach to intrusion detection that reduces the workload …

Comparing Training Methodologies On Employee’S Cybersecurity Countermeasures Awareness And Skills In Traditional Vs. Socio-Technical Programs, Jodi Goode

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Organizations, which have established an effective technical layer of security, continue to experience difficulties triggered by cyber threats. Ultimately, the cybersecurity posture of an organization depends on appropriate actions taken by employees whose naive cybersecurity practices have been found to represent 72% to 95% of cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities to organizations. However, employees cannot be held responsible for cybersecurity practices if they are not provided the education and training to acquire skills, which allow for identification of security threats along with the proper course of action to mitigate such threats. In addition, awareness of the importance of cybersecurity, the responsibility …