Computer Sciences Commons^™

Improving The Cybersecurity Of Cyber-Physical Systems Through Behavioral Game Theory And Model Checking In Practice And In Education, Seth T. Hamman

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents automated methods based on behavioral game theory and model checking to improve the cybersecurity of cyber-physical systems (CPSs) and advocates teaching certain foundational principles of these methods to cybersecurity students. First, it encodes behavioral game theory's concept of level-k reasoning into an integer linear program that models a newly defined security Colonel Blotto game. This approach is designed to achieve an efficient allocation of scarce protection resources by anticipating attack allocations. A human subjects experiment based on a CPS infrastructure demonstrates its effectiveness. Next, it rigorously defines the term adversarial thinking, one of cybersecurity educations most important …

Maximizing H-Colorings Of Connected Graphs With Fixed Minimum Degree, John Engbers

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

A Temporal Framework For Hypergame Analysis Of Cyber Physical Systems In Contested Environments, Nicholas S. Kovach

Theses and Dissertations

Game theory is used to model conflicts between one or more players over resources. It offers players a way to reason, allowing rationale for selecting strategies that avoid the worst outcome. Game theory lacks the ability to incorporate advantages one player may have over another player. A meta-game, known as a hypergame, occurs when one player does not know or fully understand all the strategies of a game. Hypergame theory builds upon the utility of game theory by allowing a player to outmaneuver an opponent, thus obtaining a more preferred outcome with higher utility. Recent work in hypergame theory has …

Data Driven Device Failure Prediction, Paul L. Jordan

Theses and Dissertations

As society becomes more dependent upon computer systems to perform increasingly critical tasks, ensuring those systems do not fail also becomes more important. Many organizations depend heavily on desktop computers for day to day operations. Unfortunately, the software that runs on these computers is still written by humans and as such, is still subject to human error and consequent failure. A natural solution is to use statistical machine learning to predict failure. However, since failure is still a relatively rare event, obtaining labeled training data to train these models is not trivial. This work presents new simulated fault loads with …

Physical Layer Defenses Against Primary User Emulation Attacks, Joan A. Betances

Theses and Dissertations

Cognitive Radio (CR) is a promising technology that works by detecting unused parts of the spectrum and automatically reconfiguring the communication system's parameters in order to operate in the available communication channels while minimizing interference. CR enables efficient use of the Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum by generating waveforms that can coexist with existing users in licensed spectrum bands. Spectrum sensing is one of the most important components of CR systems because it provides awareness of its operating environment, as well as detecting the presence of primary (licensed) users of the spectrum.

A Novel Machine Learning Classifier Based On A Qualia Modeling Agent (Qma), Sandra L. Vaughan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses a problem found in supervised machine learning (ML) classification, that the target variable, i.e., the variable a classifier predicts, has to be identified before training begins and cannot change during training and testing. This research develops a computational agent, which overcomes this problem. The Qualia Modeling Agent (QMA) is modeled after two cognitive theories: Stanovich's tripartite framework, which proposes learning results from interactions between conscious and unconscious processes; and, the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of Consciousness, which proposes that the fundamental structural elements of consciousness are qualia. By modeling the informational relationships of qualia, the QMA allows …

Grnsight: A Web Application And Service For Visualizing Models Of Small- To Medium-Scale Gene Regulatory Networks, Kam D. Dahlquist, John David N. Dionisio, Ben G. Fitzpatrick, Nicole A. Anguiano, Anindita Varshneya, Britain J. Southwick, Mihir Samdarshi

Biology Faculty Works

GRNsight is a web application and service for visualizing models of gene regulatory networks (GRNs). A gene regulatory network (GRN) consists of genes, transcription factors, and the regulatory connections between them which govern the level of expression of mRNA and protein from genes. The original motivation came from our efforts to perform parameter estimation and forward simulation of the dynamics of a differential equations model of a small GRN with 21 nodes and 31 edges. We wanted a quick and easy way to visualize the weight parameters from the model which represent the direction and magnitude of the influence of …

Crowdservice: Serving The Individuals Through Mobile Crowdsourcing And Service Composition, Xin Peng, Jingxiao Gu, Tian Huat Tan, Jun Sun, Yijun Yu, Bashar Nuseibeh, Wenyun Zhao Zhao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Some user needs in real life can only be accomplished by leveraging the intelligence and labor of other people via crowdsourcing tasks. For example, one may want to confirm the validity of the description of a secondhand laptop by asking someone else to inspect the laptop on site. To integrate these crowdsourcing tasks into user applications, it is required that crowd intelligence and labor be provided as easily accessible services (e.g., Web services), which can be called crowd services. In this paper, we develop a framework named CROWDSERVICE which supplies crowd intelligence and labor as publicly accessible crowd services via …

An Interactive Videogame Designed To Improve Respiratory Navigator Efficiency In Children Undergoing Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, Sean M. Hamlet, Christopher M. Haggerty, Jonathan D. Suever, Gregory J. Wehner, Jonathan D. Grabau, Kristin N. Andres, Moriel H. Vandsburger, David K. Powell, Vincent L. Sorrell, Brandon K. Fornwalt

Saha Cardiovascular Research Center Faculty Publications

Background: Advanced cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) acquisitions often require long scan durations that necessitate respiratory navigator gating. The tradeoff of navigator gating is reduced scan efficiency, particularly when the patient’s breathing patterns are inconsistent, as is commonly seen in children. We hypothesized that engaging pediatric participants with a navigator-controlled videogame to help control breathing patterns would improve navigator efficiency and maintain image quality.

Methods: We developed custom software that processed the Siemens respiratory navigator image in real-time during CMR and represented diaphragm position using a cartoon avatar, which was projected to the participant in the scanner as visual feedback. The …

Directed Feedback For Simulation-Based Training In Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery, Anand Malpani

Link Foundation Modeling, Simulation and Training Fellowship Reports

Surgical educators have recommended the need for objective and automated teaching tools for technical skills training. Current training platforms provide automated or manual global assessments that are based on postoperative performance review. Approaches like these lack task segment specific feedback that informs the trainee of where, why and what went wrong that led to the lower performance scores, if at all. Coaching with targeted feedback is crucial not only for new trainees, but also equally critical for experienced surgeons to retain their skills and maintain higher levels of performance. The objective of my thesis project is to develop a virtual …

Get Me To My Gate On Time: Efficiently Solving General-Sum Bayesian Threat Screening Games, Aaron Schlenker, Matthew Brown, Arunesh Sinha, Milind Tambe, Ruta Mehta

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Threat Screening Games (TSGs) are used in domains where there is a set of individuals or objects to screen with a limited amount of screening resources available to screen them. TSGs are broadly applicable to domains like airport passenger screening, stadium screening, cargo container screening, etc. Previous work on TSGs focused only on the Bayesian zero-sum case and provided the MGA algorithm to solve these games. In this paper, we solve Bayesian general-sum TSGs which we prove are NP-hard even when exploiting a compact marginal representation. We also present an algorithm based upon a adversary type hierarchical tree decomposition and …

Pattern Synonyms, Matthew Pickering, Gergő Érdi, Simon Peyton Jones, Richard A. Eisenberg

Computer Science Faculty Research and Scholarship

Pattern matching has proven to be a convenient, expressive way of inspecting data. Yet this language feature, in its traditional form, is limited: patterns must be data constructors of concrete data types. No computation or abstraction is allowed. The data type in question must be concrete, with no ability to enforce any invariants. Any change in this data type requires all clients to update their code.

This paper introduces pattern synonyms, which allow programmers to abstract over patterns, painting over all the shortcomings listed above. Pattern synonyms are assigned types, enabling a compiler to check the validity of a …

Optimization And Coding Of A Lcls Control Program, Tanner M. Worden

STAR Program Research Presentations

SLAS’s, Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) also known as X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) is the first X-ray laser of its kind. It gave Scientist from around the world the unique ability to observe the world at a subatomic level. Allowing for major advancements in the field of biological chemistry, drug science, material science and many more. Since the LCLS is a fairly unique scientific instrument, the demand for its use by the scientific community has always been high since it turned on back in 2009. This means that any and all time that the laser is not being used for …

Why Pairwise Testing Works So Well: A Possible Theoretical Explanation Of An Empirical Phenomenon, Francisco Zapata, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Some software defects can be detected only if we consider all possible combinations of three, four, or more inputs. However, empirical data shows that the overwhelming majority of software defects are detected during pairwise testing, when we only test the software on combinations of pairs of different inputs. In this paper, we provide a possible theoretical explanation for the corresponding empirical data.

Computability Of The Avoidance Set And Of The Set-Valued Identification Problem, Anthony Welte, Luc Jaulin, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In some practical situations, we need to find the {\em avoidance set}, i.e., the set of all initial states for which the system never goes into the forbidden region. Algorithms are known for computing the avoidance set in several practically important cases. In this paper, we consider a general case, and we show that, in some reasonable sense, the corresponding general problem is always algorithmically solvable. A similar algorithm is possible for another general system-related problem: the problem of describing the set of all possible states which are consistent with the available measurement results.

Hifocap: An Android App For Wearable Health Devices, Yoonsik Cheon, Rodrigo A. Romero

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Android is becoming a platform for mobile health-care devices and apps. However, there are many challenges in developing soft real-time, health-care apps for non-dedicated mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. In this paper we share our experiences in developing the HifoCap app, a mobile app for receiving electroencephalogram (EEG) wave samples from a wearable device, visualizing the received EEG samples, and transmitting them to a cloud storage server. The app is network and data-intensive. We describe the challenges we faced while developing the HifoCap app---e.g., ensuring the soft real-time requirement in the presence of uncertainty on the Android platform---along …

Secure Multiset Intersection Cardinality And Its Application To Jaccard Coefficient, Bharath K. Samanthula, Wei Jiang

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Jaccard Coefficient, as an information similarity measure, has wide variety of applications, such as cluster analysis and image segmentation. Due to the concerns of personal privacy, the Jaccard Coefficient cannot be computed directly between two independently owned datasets. The problem, secure computation of the Jaccard Coefficient for multisets (SJCM), considers the situation where two parties want to securely compute the random shares of the Jaccard Coefficient between their multisets. During the process, the content of each party's multiset is not disclosed to the other party and also the value of Jaccard Coefficient should be hidden from both parties. Secure …

Creating A Probabilistic Model For Wordnet, Lubomir Stanchev

Computer Science and Software Engineering

We present a probabilistic model for extracting and storing information from WordNet and the British National Corpus. We map the data into a directed probabilistic graph that can be used to compute the conditional probability between a pair of words from the English language. For example, the graph can be used to deduce that there is a 10% probability that someone who is interested in dogs is also interested in the word “canine”. We propose three ways for computing this probability, where the best results are achieved when performing multiple random walks in the graph. Unlike existing approaches that only …

A Pilot Case Study On Innovative Behaviour: Lessons Learned And Directions For Future Work, Cleviton Monteiro, Fabio Q. B. Silva Dr., Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Context: A case study is a powerful research strategy for investigating complex social-technical and managerial phenomena in real life settings. However, when the phenomenon has not been fully discovered or understood, pilot case studies are important to refine the research problem, the research variables, and the case study design before launching a full-scale investigation. The role of pilot case studies has not been fully addressed in empirical software engineering research literature. Objective: To explore the use of pilot case studies in the design of full-scale case studies, and to report the main lessons learned from an industrial pilot …

Critical Success Factors To Improve The Game Development Process From A Developer's Perspective, Saiqa Alemm, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Faheem Ahmed

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

The growth of the software game development industry is enormous and is gaining importance day by day. This growth imposes severe pressure and a number of issues and challenges on the game development community. Game development is a complex process, and one important game development choice is to consider the developer’s perspective to produce good-quality software games by improving the game development process. The objective of this study is to provide a better understanding of the developer’s dimension as a factor in software game success. It focuses mainly on an empirical investigation of the effect of key developer’s factors on …

The Innovative Behaviour Of Software Engineers: Findings From A Pilot Case Study, Cleviton Monteiro, Fabio Q.B. Silva Dr., Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Context: In the workplace, some individuals engage in the voluntary and intentional generation, promotion, and realization of new ideas for the benefit of individual performance, group effectiveness, or the organization. The literature classifies this phenomenon as innovative behaviour. Despite its importance to the development of innovation, innovative behaviour has not been fully investigated in software engineering. Objective: To understand the factors that support or inhibit innovative behaviour in software engineering practice. Method: We conducted a pilot case study in a Canadian software company using interviews and observations as data collection techniques. Using qualitative analysis, we identified relevant …

How Software Development Group Leaders Influence Team Members’ Behavior, Fabio Queda Silva, Cleviton Monteiro, Igor Ebrahim Santos, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Evidence in the literature from several business sectors shows that exploratory and exploitative innovation strategies are complementarily important for competitiveness. Our empirical findings reinforced those evidences in the context of software development companies. The innovative behaviour of individuals is an essential ingredient to success in both types of innovations strategies and leaders can have a big influence on this behaviour. Adopting a leadership style that combines transactional and transformational practices is more likely to produce effective results in supporting innovative behaviour. In software development, project managers and other group leaders should be stimulated and supported in adopting such practices to …

Preliminaries To A Study Of Stance In News Broadcasts, Nigel Ward

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Aspects of stance have significant potential for information retrieval and filtering. This technical report is about stance in radio news broadcast, and is intended primarily to motivate and document details of the data and annotations used in the work reported in Inferring Stance from Prosody (Ward et al., 2016). It describes the process of identifying 14 important aspects of stance, describes two corpora for investigating stance, describes the annotation of those corpora, presents some preliminary observations, and lists a set of useful prosodic features.

For Multi-Interval-Valued Fuzzy Sets, Centroid Defuzzification Is Equivalent To Defuzzifying Its Interval Hull: A Theorem, Vladik Kreinovich, Songsak Sriboonchitta

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In the traditional fuzzy logic, the expert's degree of certainty in a statement is described either by a number from the interval [0,1] or by a subinterval of such an interval. To adequately describe the opinion of several experts, researchers proposed to use a union of the corresponding sets -- which is, in general, more complex than an interval. In this paper, we prove that for such set-valued fuzzy sets, centroid defuzzification is equivalent to defuzzifying its interval hull.

As a consequence of this result, we prove that the centroid defuzzification of a general type-2 fuzzy set can be reduced …

Metric Spaces Under Interval Uncertainty: Towards An Adequate Definition, Mahdokhat Afravi, Vladik Kreinovich, Thongchai Dumrongpokaphan

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we only know the bounds on the distances. A natural question is: knowing these bounds, can we check whether there exists a metric whose distance always lie within these bounds -- or such a metric is not possible and thus, the bounds are inconsistent. In this paper, we provide an answer to this question. We also describe possible applications of this result to a description of opposite notions in commonsense reasoning.

Decision Making Under Interval Uncertainty As A Natural Example Of A Quandle, Mahdokhat Afravi, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many real-life situations, we need to select an alternative from a set of possible alternatives. In many such situations, we have a well-defined objective function u(a) that describes our preferences. If we know the exact value of u(a) for each alternative a, then we select the alternative with the largest value of u(a). In practice, however, we usually know the consequences of each decision $a$ only with some uncertainty. As a result, for each alternative $a$, instead of the exact utility value $u(a)$, we only know the interval of possible values. In this paper, we show that the resulting …

Virtual Networks Comparison Solutions For Community Clouds, Adnan Lupçi

Theses and Dissertations

Cloud computing has a huge importance and big impact nowadays on the IT world. The idea of community clouds has emerged recently in order to satisfy several user expectations. Clouds are distributed technology platforms that leverage sophisticated technology innovations to provide highly scalable and resilient environments that can be remotely utilized by organizations in a multitude of powerful ways. To successfully build upon, integrate with, or even create a cloud environment requires an understanding of its common inner mechanics, architectural layers, and models, as well as an understanding of the business and economic factors that result from the adoption and …

Implementimi I Ipv6 Në Protokollet E Rrugëtimit, Faton Ferizi

Theses and Dissertations

Në këtë hulumtim është shtjelluar tema ,,Implementimi i IPv6 në protokollet e rrugëtimit”. Ky hulumtim përmban hyrje rreth protokollit kryesor në të cilin aktualisht është i bazuar interneti, IPv4. Fillimisht është cekur struktura dhe tiparet e IPv4: adresimi, klasat e adresave dhe organizimi i header-it. Po ashtu tregohen kufizimet e këtij protokolli të cilat do t’i paraprijnë nevojës për një protokoll të ri të internetit i cili do t’i eliminojë këto kufizime.

Më pas tema shtjellon protokollin IPv6 që është pasardhës i IPv4, ku tregohen aspektet kyçe të tij si: formati i header-it, adresimi dhe benefitet që sjell …

Adsmerge – Cross Media Advertising Platform, Edison Rama

Theses and Dissertations

Zhvillimi teknologjik në ditët e sotme si rezultat ka pasur rritje eksponenciale të sistemeve softwerike. Gjatë zhvillimit të këtyre sistemeve, bota e marketingut ka marrë kahje tjetër. Shumë nga kompani të ndryshme anë e mbanë botës përdorin internetin për reklamimin e produkteve të tyre apo shërbimeve që ata posedojnë për klientët e tyre. Por, shumë nga sistemet që ofrojnë këtë mundësi reklamimi, marrin shumë kohë dhe resurse për t’u menaxhuar, duke rezultuar në zvoglim të reklamuesve në këtë drejtim. Prandaj, një sistem që do të ofronte çasje të lehtë dhe të shpejtë në rrjete sociale që ofrojnë opcione reklamimi, do …

Web Services Në Java Ee, Jax-Ws Vs. Jax-Rs, Marigona Çeta

Theses and Dissertations

Interneti ka revolucianizuar bizneset tona duke siguruar një rrugë të informacionit që vepron si një shtyllë e re komunikimi. Ky medium i ri ka dërguar bizneset në një botë virtuale ku konsumatorit nuk i ofrohet vetëm tetë orë shërbime por gjatë gjithe kohës[6].

Përveq kësaj, rritë përfitimet e rëndësishme në aspektin e produktivitetit të biznesit, kursimet e kostos dhe kënaqësi të konsumatorëve në një organizatë. Fenomeni kryesorë mundëson që aplikacionet e biznesit në internet të jenë të bazuara në një teknologji që quhet kompjuterika e shperndarë.

Që atëherë, aplikacionet softuerike funksionojnë në një sërë platformash harduerike, sistemeve operative si dhe …