Computer Sciences Commons^™

Tracking And Monitoring Unmanned Aircraft Systems Activities With Crowd-Based Mobile Apps, Tejaswini Papireddy

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

An Unmanned Aircraft System(UAS) is an aircraft without human pilot onboard. They can be controlled remotely from a ground control station (GCS) or can fly autonomously based on pre-programmed flight plans. Tracking and monitoring these UASs activities in the National Airspace System (NAS) is one of the major challenges related to UAS. This system tracks a set of UASs at a given point of time based on the user-submitted tracking information. This thesis presents the basic knowledge of UAS, types of UAS, advantages, and challenges with UASs. The implemented Android application allows the users to submit the observed UAS information …

Concurrent Lazy Splay Tree With Relativistic Programming Approach, Jaya Ram Sedai

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A splay tree is a self-adjusting binary search tree in which recently accessed elements are quick to access again. Splay operation causes the sequential bottleneck at the root of the tree in concurrent environment. The Lazy splaying is to rotate the tree at most one per access so that very frequently accessed item does full splaying. We present the RCU (Read-copy-update) based synchronization mechanism for splay tree operations which allows reads to occur concurrently with updates such as deletion and restructuring by splay rotation. This approach is generalized as relativistic programming. The relativistic programming is the programming technique for concurrent …

Blocking Negative Influential Node Set In Social Networks: From Host Perspective, Harneet Kaur

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

Nowadays, social networks are considered as the very important medium for the spreading of information, innovations, ideas and influences among individuals. Viral marketing is a most prominent marketing strategy using word-of-mouth advertising in social networks. The key problem with the viral marketing is to find the set of influential users or seeds, who, when convinced to adopt an innovation or idea, shall influence other users in the network, leading to large number of adoptions. In our study, we propose and study the competitive viral marketing problem from the host perspective, where the host of the social network sells the viral …

Interpretation At The Controller's Edge: The Role Of Graphical User Interfaces In Virtual Archaeology, Tyler Duane Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The important role of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) as a medium of interaction with technology is well established in the world of media design, but has not received significant attention in the field of virtual archaeology. GUIs provide interactive capabilities and contextual information for 3D content such as structure-from-motion (SFM) models, and can represent the difference between "raw data" and thoughtful, skilled scholarly publications. This project explores the implications of a GUI created with the game engine Unity 3D (Unity) for a series of SFM models recorded at a structure known as the Area B House at the ancient central …

Advancement Of Computing On Large Datasets Via Parallel Computing And Cyberinfrastructure, Ahmet Artu Yildirim

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Large datasets require high processing power to compute, high-speed network connections to transmit, or high storage capacity to archive. With the advent of the internet, many in the science community and the public at large are faced with a need to manage, store, transmit and process large datasets in an efficient fashion to create value for all concerned. By example, large environmental researchers analyze large map data to extract hydrologic information from topography. However, processing these data and other tasks is hard – sometimes impossible – in minimal resource environments such as desktop systems.

This dissertation demonstrates novel approaches and …

Algorithmic Information Theory Applications In Bright Field Microscopy And Epithelial Pattern Formation, Hamid Mohamadlou

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The incredible patterns of multicellular organisms emerge as a result of the operation of Gene Regulatory Networks (GRN) that work during development. Understanding how GRNs produce these complex multicellular patterns is a significant challenge in biology. The primary goal of this dissertation is to employ Algorithmic Information Theory (AIT), also known as Kolmogorov complexity, to unravel the information complexity of GRNs and the resultant multicellular patterns. To obtain a better understanding of Kolmogorov complexity performance, first we study an application in cell image segmentation.

There are an estimated 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes in the human genome. The sheer size of the …

Improving Reuse Of Distributed Transaction Software With Transaction-Aware Aspects, Anas Ahmad Alsobeh

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Implementing crosscutting concerns for transactions is difficult, even using Aspect-Oriented Programming Languages (AOPLs) such as AspectJ. Many of these challenges arise because the context of a transaction-related crosscutting concern consists of loosely-coupled abstractions like dynamically-generated identifiers, timestamps, and tentative value sets of distributed resources. Current AOPLs do not provide joinpoints and pointcuts for weaving advice into high-level abstractions or contexts, like transaction contexts. Other challenges stem from the essential complexity in the nature of the data, operations on the data, or the volume of data, and accidental complexity comes from the way that the problem is being solved, even using …

Computational Modeling To Study Disease Development: Applications To Breast Cancer And An In Vitro Model Of Macular Degeneration, Qanita Bani Baker

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

There have been several techniques developed in recent years to develop computer models of a variety of disease behaviors. Agent-based modeling is a discrete-based modeling approach used agents to represent individual cells that mechanically interact and secrete, consume or react to soluble products. It has become a powerful modeling approach, widely used by computational researchers. In this research, we utilized agent-based modeling to study and explore disease development, particularly in two applications, breast cancer and bioengineering experiments. We further proposed an error-minimization search approach and used it to estimate cellular parameters from multicellular in vitro data.

In this dissertation, in …

A Multi-Level Trust Management Scheme For The Internet Of Things, Anusha Ramanathan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The significance of the Internet of Things (IoT) in current trends is continuously rising. It is an umbrella term that signifies a network of physical devices that are embedded with electronics, software, sensors and connectivity that enable greater functions and services through the exchange of data accomplished through interconnection. The applications of the IoT are varied and numerous; they range from relatively simple home automation scenarios to the much more complex scenarios of interconnected smart cities. IoT is expected to dominate the future with huge amounts of content oriented traffic that is a result of intensive interactions between the millions …

Gaseous Particulate Interaction In A 3-Phase Granular Simulation, Kevin W. Munns

Theses and Dissertations

As computer generated special effects play an increasingly integral role in the development of films and other media, simulating granular material continues to be a challenging and resource intensive process. Solutions tend to be pieced together in order to address the complex and different behaviors of granular flow. As such, these solutions tend to be brittle, overly specific, and unnatural. With the introduction of a holistic 3-phase granular simulation, we can now create a reliable and adaptable granular simulation.Our solution improves upon this hybrid solution by addressing the issue of particle flow and correcting interpenetration amongst particles while maintaining the …

Feature Identification And Reduction For Improved Generalization Accuracy In Secondary-Structure Prediction Using Temporal Context Inputs In Machine-Learning Models, Matthew Benjamin Seeley

Theses and Dissertations

A protein's properties are influenced by both its amino-acid sequence and its three-dimensional conformation. Ascertaining a protein's sequence is relatively easy using modern techniques, but determining its conformation requires much more expensive and time-consuming techniques. Consequently, it would be useful to identify a method that can accurately predict a protein's secondary-structure conformation using only the protein's sequence data. This problem is not trivial, however, because identical amino-acid subsequences in different contexts sometimes have disparate secondary structures, while highly dissimilar amino-acid subsequences sometimes have identical secondary structures. We propose (1) to develop a set of metrics that facilitates better comparisons between …

An Exploration Into Computer Graphics: L-Systems And A Non-Photorealistic Filter, Victoria Edwards

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

This past fall I worked on developing a graphics pipeline. I implemented a handful of graphics algorithms that allowed me to render creative scenes. This semester we explored the world of computer graphics by doing an in-depth study of different areas in the field. To do this we read critical SIGGRAPH papers on the subjects. SIGGRAPH is the publication forum for computer graphics and it maps the last forty years of research in the computer graphics world. This semester I have decided to focused on the photorealistic method of creating L-Systems and a non-photo realistic image filter.

Exploring Computer Graphics: Photorealistic And Non-Photorealistic Rendering, Brittany Chin

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Over the course of the year, the Advanced Computer Graphics course has explored a variety of image rendering techniques starting with the basic filling of polygons, and working all the way up to non-photorealistic rendering techniques. I have implemented a variety of these techniques in projects which demonstrate the growth and advancements of graphics over time. The implementations that are featured are an interactive tile game, a curve editor, a ray-tracer, and a non-photorealistic project. The capabilities of computer graphics are seemingly endless, and it is getting easier and easier to model the real world in synthetic systems. Where will …

Graphics, Beatrice Liang

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Here I show images generating using computer graphics methods ranging from green screen images to 3D models

Photorealistic Computer Rendering, William Kearney

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Sample portfolio demonstrating photorealistic and non-photorealistic computer graphic techniques such as ray tracing and edge detection.

3d Model Generation From Flat Images And Other Pretty Pictures, Matthew Levine

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

We present a novel method of generating 3D models from 2D images using neural network techniques. We also show a custom implementation of a global illumination model natively integrated into Python's standard 2D image library (with a fast C backend).

Trees And Non-Photorealistic Images, Christopher Burnham

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Showing of a graphics system with some trees and non-photorealistic images.

A Look Into Graphics Engines And Non-Photorealistic Rendering, Margaux Leblanc

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Throughout the year I have created a graphics pipeline that can render both photorealistic and non-photorealistic images. It all starts with defining what a pixel is and building from there. For instance, an image is a collection of pixels, a color is just three numbers (red, green, and blue values), a line is coloring certain pixels with such a color based on Bresenham's line algorithm and so on. My graphics engine can draw and shade points, lines, polylines, and polygons according to different algorithms. Using these basic shapes I can create photorealistic images of L-systems and non-photorealistic images of paintbrush …

Computer Graphics Presentation, Itrat Akhter

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

The aim of this poster presentation is to display the works that I did over two semester of computer graphics classes. As such, I will give a brief glimpse of the methods and images involving fractals, bezier curves and surfaces, hierarchical modeling, shading and lighting, particle systems and others.

Big Data And Smart Cities, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

Enabling Large-Scale Biomolecular Conformation Search With Replica Exchange Statistical Temperature Molecular Dynamics (Restmd) Over Hpc And Cloud Computing Resources, Nayong Kim, Richard Platania, Wei Huang, Chris Knight, Tom Keyes, Seung Jong Park, Joohyun Kim

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present the latest development and experimental simulation studies of Statistical Temperature Molecular Dynamics (STMD) and its parallel tempering version, Replica Exchange Statistical Temperature Molecular Dynamics (RESTMD). Our main contributions are i) introduction of newly implemented STMD in LAMMPS, ii) use of large scale distributed cyber infrastructure including Amazon EC2 and the nationwide distributed computing infrastructure GENI, in addition to High-performance Computing (HPC) cluster systems, and iii) benchmark and simulation results highlighting advantages and potentials of STMD and RESTMD for challenging large-scale bio molecular conformational search. In this work, we attempt to provide convincing evidence that RESTMD, combining two advanced …

Positive Influence Dominating Set Generation Via A New Greedy Algorithm, Matthew Rink

Computer Science Honors Papers

Current algorithms in the Positive Influence Dominating Set (PIDS) problem domain are focused on a specific type of PIDS, the Total Positive Influence Dominating Set (TPIDS). We have developed an algorithm specifically targeted towards the non-total type of PIDS. In addition to our new algorithm, we adapted two existing TPIDS algorithms to generate PIDS. We ran simulations for all three algorithms, and our new algorithm consistently generates smaller PIDS than either existing algorithm, with our algorithm generating PIDS approximately 5% smaller than the better of the two existing algorithms.

Robust And Real-Time Stereo Matching On Parallel Graphics Hardware Using Gradient-Based Disparity Refinement, Jedrzej Kowalczuk

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Computer vision attempts to provide camera-equipped machines with visual perception, i.e., the capability to comprehend their surroundings through the analysis and understanding of images. The ability to perceive depth is a vital component of visual perception that enables machines to interpret the three-dimensional structure of their surroundings and allows them to navigate through the environment. In computer vision, depth perception is achieved via stereo matching, a process that identifies correspondences between pixels in images acquired using a pair of horizontally offset cameras. It is possible to calculate depths from correspondences or, more specifically, the positional offsets (disparities) between pixels in …

Modeling Traffic At An Intersection, Kaleigh L. Mulkey, Saniita K. Fasenntao

Symposium of Student Scholars

The main purpose of this project is to build a mathematical model for traffic at a busy intersection. We use elements of Queueing Theory to build our model: the vehicles driving into the intersection are the “arrival process” and the stop light in the intersection is the “server.”

We collected traffic data on the number of vehicles arriving to the intersection, the duration of green and red lights, and the number of vehicles going through the intersection during a green light. We built a SAS macro code to simulate traffic based on parameters derived from the data.

In our program …

Protection Of Sensitive Data In Clouds Using Active Privacy Bundles And Agent-Based Multi-Party Computation, Akram Sarhan

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

The lack of the protection tools and the fast pace of technological advancement make people unable to control privacy of their data in clouds and other distribution environments. We propose an approach called Active Privacy Bundles with Multi-Party Computation (APB-MPC), that protects senesitive data and identities of their owners/guardians during the entire data lifecycle in clouds or other distribution systems. Our research has three goals: (i) proctecting sensitive data without centralized trusted third parties (TTPs); (ii) using APB and MPC for identity management without centralized TTPs; and (iii) exploiting parallelism for efficient data dissemination.

Protecting User's Privacy In Electronic Prescribing Systems With Apb, Raed M. Salih

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Electronic prescribing (or e-prescribing) systems are used to record and transmit millions of electronic prescriptions between prescribers and pharmacies. During a dissemination of e-prescriptions, a patient's sensitive data might leak or be disclosed to unauthorized parties. Examples of sensitive data included in prescriptions are patient's name, home address, and names of mental illness medications. We propose the use of Active Privacay Bundles (APB) for protecting privacy of e-prescribing users (patients, prescibers, or pharmacy benefit managers). APB protects prescriptions that are being disseminated among different authorized parties within an electronic prescribing system.

Simple Secrecy: Analog Stream Cipher For Secure Voice Communication, John M. Campbell

Senior Honors Theses

Voice signals are inherently analog, and some voice communication systems still utilize analog signals. Existing analog cryptographic methods do not satisfactorily provide cryptosecurity for communication systems due to several limitations. This paper proposes a novel means of provided cryptosecurity for analog signals without digitization; thereby avoiding the latency which results from ADC/DAC conversions. This method utilizes the principles of the digital stream cipher, generating instead a continuous pseudorandom analog key stream signal which is transformed with the original analog signal to create an encrypted ciphertext signal which is statistically independent of the original signal and the key stream signal. The …

Teaching Cybersecurity Using The Cloud, Khaled Salah, Mohammad Hammoud, Sherali Zeadally

Information Science Faculty Publications

Cloud computing platforms can be highly attractive to conduct course assignments and empower students with valuable and indispensable hands-on experience. In particular, the cloud can offer teaching staff and students (whether local or remote) on-demand, elastic, dedicated, isolated, (virtually) unlimited, and easily configurable virtual machines. As such, employing cloud-based laboratories can have clear advantages over using classical ones, which impose major hindrances against fulfilling pedagogical objectives and do not scale well when the number of students and distant university campuses grows up. We show how the cloud paradigm can be leveraged to teach a cybersecurity course. Specifically, we share our …

Contact Angle Measurement, Wenting Zhao, Mark Liffiton, Faculty Advisor

John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference

The Contact angle, where a liquid/vapor interface meets a solid surface[wiki], has been widely used to measure the wettability of a surface in physics and chemistry. Scientists place a drop on a surface of interest, take an image of the drop in profile, and measure the angle the drop makes with the surface. We have developed a Contact Angle Measurement plugin for the ImageJ image analysis framework, which provides researchers a easier way to access experiment data. The major goal of our algorithm is to automatically detect drops and surfaces via image analysis, so that we can calculate the contact …

Public Debate Format For The Development Of Soft Skill Competency In Computer Science Curricula, Christopher S. Stuetzle

Computer and Data Science Faculty Publications

We present a method for incorporating soft skill development into a traditional computer science curriculum through the use of a public debate format. The debate format forces participants to practice public speaking, active listening, teamwork, research and preparation, and critical thinking, as well as having the less obvious benefit of contextualizing the material taught in the classroom by introducing contemporary, real-world debate topics. This work presents an example of the incorporation of public debates in an upper-level human-computer interaction class, including a discussion of student feedback, and suggestions for adopting the debate format to other upper-level courses and its perceived …