Computer Sciences Commons^™

Using Modeling And Simulation To Examine The Benefits Of A Network Tasking Order, Matthew D. Compton, Kenneth M. Hopkinson, Gilbert L. Peterson, James T. Moore

Faculty Publications

The Global Information Grid (GIG) is the military’s computer and communications network which supports the myriad of military missions. Military missions are highly planned, passing through many hands in the strategy-to-task methodology to ensure completeness, accuracy, coordination, cohesion, and appropriateness. A benefit of this planning is the possibility to collect knowledge of future conditions that could be of use to network designers whose goals include optimizing and protecting the GIG. This advanced knowledge includes which networked military equipment will be involved, what their capabilities are, where they will be, when they will be there, and particulars on the required data …

Design And Analysis Of A Dynamically Configured Log-Based Distributed Security Event Detection Methodology, Michael R. Grimaila, Justin M. Myers, Robert F. Mills, Gilbert L. Peterson

Faculty Publications

Military and defense organizations rely upon the security of data stored in, and communicated through, their cyber infrastructure to fulfill their mission objectives. It is essential to identify threats to the cyber infrastructure in a timely manner, so that mission risks can be recognized and mitigated. Centralized event logging and correlation is a proven method for identifying threats to cyber resources. However, centralized event logging is inflexible and does not scale well, because it consumes excessive network bandwidth and imposes significant storage and processing requirements on the central event log server. In this paper, we present a flexible, distributed event …

Quest Hierarchy For Hyperspectral Face Recognition, David M. Ryer, Trevor J. Bihl, Kenneth W. Bauer Jr., Steven K. Rogers

Faculty Publications

A qualia exploitation of sensor technology (QUEST) motivated architecture using algorithm fusion and adaptive feedback loops for face recognition for hyperspectral imagery (HSI) is presented. QUEST seeks to develop a general purpose computational intelligence system that captures the beneficial engineering aspects of qualia-based solutions. Qualia-based approaches are constructed from subjective representations and have the ability to detect, distinguish, and characterize entities in the environment Adaptive feedback loops are implemented that enhance performance by reducing candidate subjects in the gallery and by injecting additional probe images during the matching process. The architecture presented provides a framework for exploring more advanced integration …

Malware Target Recognition Via Static Heuristics, Thomas E. Dube, Richard A. Raines, Gilbert L. Peterson, Kenneth W. Bauer, Michael R. Grimaila, Steven K. Rogers

Faculty Publications

Organizations increasingly rely on the confidentiality, integrity and availability of their information and communications technologies to conduct effective business operations while maintaining their competitive edge. Exploitation of these networks via the introduction of undetected malware ultimately degrades their competitive edge, while taking advantage of limited network visibility and the high cost of analyzing massive numbers of programs. This article introduces the novel Malware Target Recognition (MaTR) system which combines the decision tree machine learning algorithm with static heuristic features for malware detection. By focusing on contextually important static heuristic features, this research demonstrates superior detection results. Experimental results on large …

Computer Aided Geometric Design, Thomas W. Sederberg

Faculty Publications

This semester is the twenty-fourth time I have taught a course at Brigham Young University titled, "Computer Aided Geometric Design." When I first taught such a course in 1983, the field was young enough that no textbook covered everything that I wanted to teach, and so these notes evolved. The field now has matured to the point that several semesters worth of valuable material could be compiled. These notes, admittedly biased towards my own interests, reflect my personal preferences as to which of that material is most beneficial to students in an introductory course. I welcome anyone who has an …

Testing The Effectiveness Of Lecture Capture Technology Using Prior Gpa As A Performance Indicator, Michael D. Stroup, Michael M. Pickard, Korey E. Kahler

Faculty Publications

This empirical study examines whether making lecture capture technology available in a face-to-face lecture environment can improve students’ ability to learn the course material. We examine student performance in undergraduate principles courses in computer science and economics. However, rather than simply comparing average course grades between lecture capture and non-lecture capture classes, we use student grade point average (GPA) as a predictor of course grades earned in non-lecture capture classes and lecture capture classes taught by the same professors using the same course materials. Our results imply that making lecture capture technology available in face-to-face lectures does not appear to …

Using Self Organizing Maps To Analyze Demographics And Swing State Voting In The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, Paul T. Pearson, Cameron I. Cooper

Faculty Publications

Emergent self-organizing maps (ESOMs) and k-means clustering are used to cluster counties in each of the states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio by demographic data from the 2010 United States census. The counties in these clusters are then analyzed for how they voted in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, and political strategies are discussed that target demographically similar geographical regions based on ESOM results. The ESOM and k-means clusterings are compared and found to be dissimilar by the variation of information distance function.

A Synthetic Document Image Dataset For Developing And Evaluating Historical Document Processing Methods, Daniel Walker, William Lund, Eric Ringger

Faculty Publications

Document images accompanied by OCR output text and ground truth transcriptions are useful for developing and evaluating document recognition and processing methods, especially for historical document images. Additionally, research into improving the performance of such methods often requires further annotation of training and test data (e.g., topical document labels). However, transcribing and labeling historical documents is expensive. As a result, existing real-world document image datasets with such accompanying resources are rare and often relatively small. We introduce synthetic document image datasets of varying levels of noise that have been created from standard (English) text corpora using an existing document degradation …

Acquiring Os X File Handles Through Forensic Memory Analysis, Andrew F. Hay, Gilbert L. Peterson

Faculty Publications

Memory analysis has become a critical capability in digital forensics because it provides insight into system state that cannot be fully represented through traditional media analysis. The volafox open source project has begun the work of structured memory analysis for OS X with support for a limited set of kernel structures. This paper addresses one memory analysis deficiency on OS X with the introduction of a new volafox module for parsing file handles associated with running processes. The developed module outputs information comparable to the UNIX lsof (list open files) command, which is used to validate the results.

Learning The Structure Of Gene Regulatory Networks From Time Series Gene Expression Data, Haoni Li, Nan Wang, Ping Gong, Edward J. Perkins, Chaoyang Zhang

Faculty Publications

Background: Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN) is an approach widely used for reconstruction of gene regulatory networks from time-series microarray data. Its performance in network reconstruction depends on a structure learning algorithm. REVEAL (REVerse Engineering ALgorithm) is one of the algorithms implemented for learning DBN structure and used to reconstruct gene regulatory networks (GRN). However, the two-stage temporal Bayes network (2TBN) structure of DBN that specifies correlation between time slices cannot be obtained by score metrics used in REVEAL.

Methods: In this paper, we study a more sophisticated score function for DBN first proposed by Nir Friedman for stationary …

A Speculative Approach To Parallelization In Particle Swarm Optimization, Matthew Gardner, Andrew Mcnabb, Kevin Seppi

Faculty Publications

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) has previously been parallelized primarily by distributing the computation corresponding to particles across multiple processors. In these approaches, the only benefit of additional processors is an increased swarm size. However, in many cases this is not efficient when scaled to very large swarm sizes (on very large clusters). Current methods cannot answer well the question: “How can 1000 processors be fully utilized when 50 or 100 particles is the most efficient swarm size?” In this paper we attempt to answer that question with a speculative approach to the parallelization of PSO that we refer to as …

Windows Driver Memory Analysis: A Reverse Engineering Methodology, James S. Okolica, Gilbert L. Peterson

Faculty Publications

In a digital forensics examination, the capture and analysis of volatile data provides significant information on the state of the computer at the time of seizure. Memory analysis is a premier method of discovering volatile digital forensic information. While much work has been done in extracting forensic artifacts from Windows kernel structures, less focus has been paid to extracting information from Windows drivers. There are two reasons for this: (1) source code for one version of the Windows kernel (but not associated drivers) is available for educational use and (2) drivers are generally called asynchronously and contain no exported functions. …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Cascade Error Reconciliation Protocol For Quantum Key Distribution, Timothy I. Calver, Michael R. Grimaila, Jeffrey W. Humphries

Faculty Publications

Modern cryptography provides the means to securely communicate data between authorized entities by using mathematical transformations which require pre-shared cryptographic keys. The need to share key material with authorized entities in a secure, cost efficient and timely manner has driven efforts to develop new key distribution methods. A promising method is Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) which is considered to be “unconditionally secure” because it relies upon the immutable laws of quantum physics rather than computational complexity as the basis for its security. An important component of any QKD system is the error reconciliation protocol which is used to identify and …

Improving Occupancy Grid Fastslam By Integrating Navigation Sensors, Christopher Weyers, Gilbert L. Peterson

Faculty Publications

When an autonomous vehicle operates in an unknown environment, it must remember the locations of environmental objects and use those object to maintain an accurate location of itself. This vehicle is faced with Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), a circularly defined robotics problem of map building with no prior knowledge. The SLAM problem is a difficult but critical component of autonomous vehicle exploration with applications to search and rescue missions. This paper presents the first SLAM solution combining stereo cameras, inertial measurements, and vehicle odometry into a Multiple Integrated Navigation Sensor (MINS) path. The FastSLAM algorithm, modified to make use …

Extracting The Windows Clipboard From Physical Memory, James S. Okolica, Gilbert L. Peterson

Faculty Publications

When attempting to reconstruct the events leading up to a cyber security incident, one potentially important piece of information is the clipboard (Prosise et al., 2003). The clipboard has been present in Windows since Windows 3.1 and is the mechanism for transferring information from one application to another through copy and pasting actions. Being able to retrieve the last file copied or the last password used may provide investigators with invaluable information during a forensic investigation. This paper describes the Windows clipboard structure and the process of retrieving copy/paste information from Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 (both 32 bit …

A Theoretical Model Of Multi-Agent Quantum Computing, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

The best design for practical quantum computing is one that emulates the multi-agent quantum logic function of natural biological systems. Such systems are theorized to be based upon a quantum gate formed by a nucleic acid Szilard engine (NASE) that converts Shannon entropy of encountered molecules into useful work of nucleic acid geometric reconfiguration. This theoretical mechanism is logically and thermodynamically reversible in this special case because it is literally constructed out of the (nucleic acid) information necessary for its function, thereby allowing the nucleic acid Szilard engine to function reversibly because, since the information by which it functions exists …

Wolf Ant, Gilbert L. Peterson, Christopher M. Mayer, Kevin Cousin

Faculty Publications

Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms can generate quality solutions to combinatorial optimization problems. However, like many stochastic algorithms, the quality of solutions worsen as problem sizes grow. In an effort to increase performance, we added the variable step size off-policy hill-climbing algorithm called PDWoLF (Policy Dynamics Win or Learn Fast) to several ant colony algorithms: Ant System, Ant Colony System, Elitist-Ant System, Rank-based Ant System, and Max-Min Ant System. Easily integrated into each ACO algorithm, the PDWoLF component maintains a set of policies separate from the ant colony's pheromone. Similar to pheromone but with different update rules, the PDWoLF policies …

War Fighting In Cyberspace: Evolving Force Presentation And Command And Control, M. Bodine Birdwell, Robert F. Mills

Faculty Publications

The Department of Defense (DOD) is endeavoring to define war fighting in the global cyberspace domain. Creation of US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), a subunified functional combatant command (FCC) under US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), is a huge step in integrating and coordinating the defense, protection, and operation of DOD networks; however, this step does not mean that USCYBERCOM will perform or manage all cyberspace functions. In fact the vast majority of cyberspace functions conducted by the services and combatant commands (COCOM), although vital for maintaining access to the domain in support of their operations, are not of an active war-fighting nature. …

Maine It Workforce Skills Management : A Study For The Maine State Department Of Labor, David F. Bantz Phd, C. Daniel Paradis, Glenn Wilson

Faculty Publications

Executive Summary:

From August 2010 to February 2011 personnel from Information and Innovation at the University of Southern Maine have conducted a study of IT skills needed, possessed and taught in Maine. The goals of this study were to provide fine-grained information to the Maine state Department of Labor to facilitate their workforce development activities.

This study concerns the skills sought after by employers, possessed by unemployed and employed workers and taught in education and training establishments with a "bricks and mortar" presence in Maine. It relied on data created by third parties and by study personnel. Anecdotal evidence was …

Determining Solution Space Characteristics For Real-Time Strategy Games And Characterizing Winning Strategies, Gary B. Lamont, Kurt Weissgerber, Brett J. Borghetti, Gilbert L. Peterson

Faculty Publications

The underlying goal of a competing agent in a discrete real-time strategy (RTS) game is to defeat an adversary. Strategic agents or participants must define an a priori plan to maneuver their resources in order to destroy the adversary and the adversary's resources as well as secure physical regions of the environment. This a priori plan can be generated by leveraging collected historical knowledge about the environment. This knowledge is then employed in the generation of a classification model for real-time decision-making in the RTS domain. The best way to generate a classification model for a complex problem domain depends …

Nuclear Pairing Reduction Due To Rotation And Blocking, X. Wu, Z.H. Zhang, J.Y. Zeng, Y.A. Lei

Faculty Publications

Nuclear pairing gaps of normally deformed and superdeformed nuclei are investigated using the particle-number-conserving (PNC) formalism for the cranked shell model, in which the blocking effects are treated exactly. Both rotational frequency omega dependence and seniority (number of unpaired particles) nu dependence of the pairing gap (Delta) over tilde are investigated. For the ground-state bands of even-even nuclei, PNC calculations show that, in general, (Delta) over tilde decreases with increasing omega, but the omega dependence is much weaker than that calculated by the number-projected Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov approach. For the multiquasiparticle bands (seniority nu > 2), the pairing gaps stay almost omega independent. …

Usage Of And Satisfaction With Online Help Vs. Search Engines For Aid In Software Use, Charles J. Welty Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Computer users have long been frustrated by software problems. It is unusual that the Help menu actually helps with the software problems they have. At the same time, computer science students and professionals have been using search engines to get help with the complex software they use. The use of search engines to get help with software by both computer scientists and students in other disciplines is investigated. Students from all disciplines tested were found to use and be more satisfied by search engines than Help. Further investigation showed that, generally, students went to other people more than Help or …

Diffusion And Random Walks, Lewis Ludwig, Annabel Edwards

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Real-Time Behavior-Based Robot Control, Brian G. Woolley, Gilbert L. Peterson, Jared T. Kresge

Faculty Publications

Behavior-based systems form the basis of autonomous control for many robots, but there is a need to ensure these systems respond in a timely manner. Unexpected latency can adversely affect the quality of an autonomous system’s operations, which in turn can affect lives and property in the real-world. A robots ability to detect and handle external events is paramount to providing safe and dependable operation. This paper presents a concurrent version of a behavior-based system called the Real-Time Unified Behavior Framework, which establishes a responsive basis of behavior-based control that does not bind the system developer to any single behavior …

An Fpga-Based System For Tracking Digital Information Transmitted Via Peer-To-Peer Protocols, Karl R. Schrader, Barry E. Mullins, Gilbert L. Peterson, Robert F. Mills

Faculty Publications

This paper presents a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based tool designed to process file transfers using the BitTorrent Peer-to-Peer (P2P) protocol and VoIP phone calls made using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The tool searches selected control messages in real time and compares the unique identifier of the shared file or phone number against a list of known contraband files or phone numbers. Results show the FPGA tool processes P2P packets of interest 92% faster than a software-only configuration and is 97.6% accurate at capturing and processing messages at a traffic load of 89.6 Mbps.

Electronic Image Stabilization Using Optical Flow With Inertial Fusion, Michael J. Smith, Alexander J. Boxerbaum, Gilbert L. Peterson, Roger D. Quinn

Faculty Publications

When a camera is affixed on a dynamic mobile robot, image stabilization is the first step towards more complex analysis on the video feed. This paper presents a novel electronic image stabilization (EIS) algorithm for highly dynamic mobile robotic platforms. The algorithm combines optical flow motion parameter estimation with angular rate data provided by a strapdown inertial measurement unit (IMU). A discrete Kalman filter in feedforward configuration is used for optimal fusion of the two data sources. Performance evaluations are conducted using a simulated video truth model (capturing the effects of image translation, rotation, blurring, and moving objects), and live …

Beyond Robot Fan-Out: Towards Multi-Operator Supervisory Control, Michael A. Goodrich, Yisong Guo, Jonathan M. Whetten

Faculty Publications

This paper explores multi-operator supervisory control (MOSC) of multiple independent robots using two complementary approaches: a human factors experiment and an agent-based simulation. The experiment identifies two task and environment limitations on MOSC: task saturation and task diffusion. It also identifies the correlation between task specialization and performance, and the possible existence of untapped spare capacity that emerges when multiple operators coordinate. The presence of untapped spare capacity is explored using agent-based simulation, resulting in evidence which suggests that operators may be more effective when they operate at less than maximum capacity.

Detailed Requirements For Robots In Autism Therapy, Alan Atherton, Bonnie Brinton, Mark Colton, Nicole Giullian, Michael A. Goodrich, Daniel Ricks

Faculty Publications

Robot-based autism therapy is a rapidly developing area of research, with a wide variety of robots being developed for use in clinical settings. Specific, detailed requirements for robots and user interfaces are needed to provide guidelines for the creation of robots that more effectively assist therapists in autism therapy. This paper enumerates a set of requirements for a clinical humanoid robot and the associated human interface. The design of two humanoid robots and an intuitive and flexible user interface for use by therapists in the treatment of children with autism are described.

Sql Querie Recommendations: A Query Fragment-Based Approach, Jayad Akbarnejad, Magdalini Eirinaki, Suju Koshy, Duc On, Neoklis Polyzotis

Faculty Publications

Relational database systems are becoming increasingly popular in the scientific community to support the interactive exploration of large volumes of data. In this scenario, users employ a query interface (typically, a web-based client) to issue a series of SQL queries that aim to analyze the data and mine it for interesting information. First-time users, however, may not have the necessary knowledge to know where to start their exploration. Other times, users may simply overlook queries that retrieve important information. In this work we describe a framework to assist non-expert users by providing personalized query recommendations. The querying behavior of the …

Personal Vs. Social, Magdalini Eirinaki

Faculty Publications

The last few years we witnessed an impressive growth in social networks and in applications that add value to their amassed information. At the same time, the continuing expansion of mobile platforms and applications (e.g. iPhone), combined with the overwhelming supply of information and services, makes effective personalization and context-awareness much required features. One may consider "personal" and "social" data management as comprising two distinct directions with conflicting characteristics. However, it can be argued that they complement each other and that in future applications they will ultimately converge. This "personal vs. social" predicament presents a number of interesting topics that …