Computer Sciences Commons^™

Designing Interactive Virtual Environments With Feedback In Health Applications., Yi Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most important factors to influence user experience in human-computer interaction is the user emotional reaction. Interactive environments including serious games that are responsive to user emotions improve their effectiveness and user satisfactions. Testing and training for user emotional competence is meaningful in healthcare field, which has motivated us to analyze immersive affective games using emotional feedbacks. In this dissertation, a systematic model of designing interactive environment is presented, which consists of three essential modules: affect modeling, affect recognition, and affect control. In order to collect data for analysis and construct these modules, a series of experiments were …

Network Science Algorithms For Mobile Networks., Heba Mohamed Elgazzar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Network Science is one of the important and emerging fields in computer science and engineering that focuses on the study and analysis of different types of networks. The goal of this dissertation is to design and develop network science algorithms that can be used to study and analyze mobile networks. This can provide essential information and knowledge that can help mobile networks service providers to enhance the quality of the mobile services. We focus in this dissertation on the design and analysis of different network science techniques that can be used to analyze the dynamics of mobile networks. These techniques …

Multi Self-Adapting Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm (Msapso)., Gerhard Koch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The performance and stability of the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm depends on parameters that are typically tuned manually or adapted based on knowledge from empirical parameter studies. Such parameter selection is ineffectual when faced with a broad range of problem types, which often hinders the adoption of PSO to real world problems. This dissertation develops a dynamic self-optimization approach for the respective parameters (inertia weight, social and cognition). The effects of self-adaption for the optimal balance between superior performance (convergence) and the robustness (divergence) of the algorithm with regard to both simple and complex benchmark functions is investigated. This work …

Analysis Of Protein-Protein Interaction Networks Using High Performance Scalable Tools, Bikesh Pandey

Senior Honors Theses

Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) Research currently generates an extraordinary amount of publications and interest in fellow computer scientists and biologists alike because of the underlying potential of the source material that researchers can work with. PPI networks are the networks of protein complexes formed by biochemical events or electrostatic forces serving a biological function [1]. Since the analysis of the protein networks is now growing, we have more information regarding protein, genomes and their influence on life. Today, PPI networks are used to study diseases, improve drugs and understand other processes in medicine and health that will eventually help mankind.

Though …

Prediction Of Dna-Binding Proteins And Their Binding Sites, Pujan Pokhrel

Senior Honors Theses

DNA-binding proteins play an important role in various essential biological processes such as DNA replication, recombination, repair, gene transcription, and expression. The identification of DNA-binding proteins and the residues involved in the contacts is important for understanding the DNA-binding mechanism in proteins. Moreover, it has been reported in the literature that the mutations of some DNA-binding residues on proteins are associated with some diseases. The identification of these proteins and their binding mechanism generally require experimental techniques, which makes large scale study extremely difficult. Thus, the prediction of DNA-binding proteins and their binding sites from sequences alone is one of …

Database Design And Optimization For Telemetric Aquatic Species-Tracking Systems, Bijay Regmi

Senior Honors Theses

Tracking an individual species has always been a challenge for scientists, especially when one has to make sure to not change its natural movement pattern. When the number of individuals being tracked is increased and water is added to the equation, the task becomes next to impossible. But thanks to technologies and tracking methods like telemetry, the task of tracking any species without affecting the natural movement pattern has not only become a reality but easily accessible to scientists. Underwater acoustic telemetry has become a standard tool for fisheries biologist to study the movement pattern of the fish (Heupel). This …

A Comparative Study Of Large-Scale Network Data Visualization Tools, Prakash Joshi

Senior Honors Theses

One of the most important parts of Data Analysis is Data Visualization [15]. The easy thing about Data Visualization is that there are hundreds of ways to do it, one better than the other. Ironically, however, it is difficult to choose the right tool for the job. This can be a concern because it is really important to know which tool is best depending on the resources we have. This thesis tries to answer that question – to an extent. In this thesis, I have tried to compare three Data Visualization tools: Gephi, Pajek and NodeXL. I have mainly discussed …

Implementation Of Replica Exchange With Dynamic Scaling In Gromacs 2018, Gregory John Schwing

Senior Honors Theses

This is a problem of sampling. The number of classical states of an N-body system grows with O( 3 ^ N ). To sample this space, advanced techniques are required. Replica Exchange (RE), also known as parallel tempering, is an example that uses parallelization, and Hamiltonian Replica Exchange is a subset of RE that scales the energy of the replicas. The number of simulations required grows at O( N^(1/2) ), where N is number of atoms in the system. Replica Exchange with Dynamical Scaling (REDS) attempts to address this problem to decrease computational cost. It has been shown to increase …

A Continuous Space Generative Model, Erzen Komoni

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Generative models are a class of machine learning models capable of producing digital images with plausibly realistic properties. They are useful in such applications as visualizing designs, rendering game scenes, and improving images at higher magnifications. Unfortunately, existing generative models generate only images with a discrete predetermined resolution. This paper presents the Continuous Space Generative Model (CSGM), a novel generative model capable of generating images as a continuous function, rather than as a discrete set of pixel values. Like generative adversarial networks, CSGM trains by alternating between generative and discriminative steps. But unlike generative adversarial networks, CSGM uses only one …

Ksugo, Chase Godwin

KSU Journey Honors College Capstones and Theses

KSUGo seeks to better enable students to interact with their community, maintain a level of safety on and off campus, improve their course management skills, and increase information propagation among students and campus officials. Currently, Kennesaw State does not have a dedicated general purpose native application on any mobile device platform for students, faculty, or staff to use for improving their everyday Kennesaw State experience. This project seeks to rectify that need by providing a native application with support for the Android platform.

Preservice Mathematics Teachers' Conceptions And Enactments Of Modeling Standards, Hyunyi Jung, Jill Newton

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Mathematical modeling has been highlighted recently as Common Core State Standards for Mathematics [CCSSM] included Model with Mathematics as one of the Standards for Mathematical Practices [SMP] and a modeling strand in the high school standards. This common aspect of standards across most states in the U.S. intended by CCSSM authors and policy makers seems to mitigate the diverse notions of mathematical modeling. When we observed secondary mathematics preservice teachers [PSTs] who learned about the SMP and used CCSSM modeling standards to plan and enact lessons, however, we noted differences in their interpretations and enactments of the standards, despite their …

Characterizations And Infinite Divisibility Of Certain Recently Introduced Distributions Iv, Gholamhossein G. Hamedani

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Certain characterizations of recently proposed univariate continuous distributions are presented in different directions. This work contains a good number of reintroduced distributions and may serve as a source of preventing the reinvention and/or duplication of the existing distributions in the future.

Adaptive Fluid Simulation Using A Linear Octree Structure, Sean A. Flynn

Theses and Dissertations

An Eulerian approach to fluid flow provides an efficient, stable paradigm for realistic fluid simulation. However, its traditional reliance on a fixed-resolution grid is not ideal for simulations that simultaneously exhibit both large and small-scale fluid phenomena. Octree-based fluid simulation approaches have provided the needed adaptivity, but the inherent weakness of a pointer-based tree structure has limited their effectiveness. We present a linear octree structure that provides a significant runtime speedup using these octree-based simulation algorithms. As memory prices continue to decline, we leverage additional memory when compared to traditional octree structures to provide this improvement. In addition to reducing …

Stress Levels Of Cs1 Students During Programming- Measurement And A Cause And Effect Analysis, Gopi Satya Sainadh Raju Sarikonda

Theses and Dissertations

Stress is a kind of feeling we experience when we are under pressure. Stress is the word that we use when we feel that we are overloaded mentally in our thoughts and wonder whether we can cope with those placed upon us. The effects of stress are different for different people when we take their age, profession, gender and other aspects into consideration. Many studies show that stress in a learning environment impacts learning negatively.

In this thesis, the role of stress on students in an introductory programming course (CS1) at CSU has been explored. Introductory programming course has a …

Minimization Techniques For Symbolic Automata, Jonathan Homburg

Honors Scholar Theses

Symbolic finite automata (SFAs) are generalizations of classical finite state automata. Whereas the transitions of classical automata are labeled by characters from some alphabet, the transitions of symbolic automata are labeled by predicates over a Boolean algebra defined on the alphabet. This allows for SFAs to be efficiently constructed over extremely large, and possibly infinite, alphabets. This thesis examines an existing incremental algorithm for the minimization of deterministic finite automata. Several extensions of this algorithm to de- terministic symbolic automata are introduced. Although more efficient algorithms already exist for deterministic SFA minimization, the presented algorithms are uniquely designed to minimize …

Secure Short-Range Communications, Timothy J. Pierson

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Analysts predict billions of everyday objects will soon become ``smart’' after designers add wireless communication capabilities. Collectively known as the Internet of Things (IoT), these newly communication-enabled devices are envisioned to collect and share data among themselves, with new devices entering and exiting a particular environment frequently. People and the devices they wear or carry may soon encounter dozens, possibly hundreds, of devices each day. Many of these devices will be encountered for the first time. Additionally, some of the information the devices share may have privacy or security implications. Furthermore, many of these devices will have limited or non-existent …

Approximate Set Union Via Approximate Randomization, Pengfei Gu

Theses and Dissertations

We develop an randomized approximation algorithm for the size of set union problem |A1 U A2 U...UAm|, which given a list of sets A1,...,Am with approximate set size m i for Ai with mi ∈ ((1–βL)|A i|,(1+βR)|Ai|), and biased random generators with Prob(x = RandomElement(Ai)) ∈ [1–a L/Ai, 1 +aR/Ai] for each input set Ai and element x ∈ Ai, where i = 1,2,...,m. The approximation |Ai | |Ai | ratio for |A1 U A2 U...UAm| is in the range [(1–ϵ)(1–aL)(1–βL),(1+ϵ)(1+β R)(1+βR)] for any ϵ ∈ (0,1), where α L,αR,βL,βR ∈ (0,1). The complexity of the algorithm …

Simplification Of Eeg Signal Extraction, Processing, And Classification Using A Consumer-Grade Headset To Facilitate Student Engagement In Bci Research, Jesus D. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are an emerging technology that leverage neurophysiological signals as input to computing systems. By circumventing the reliance on traditional input methods (e.g., mouse and keyboard), BCIs show a promising alternative interaction modality for people with disabilities. Advances in BCI research have further inspired a range of novel applications, such as the use of neurophysiological signals as passive input (e.g., to detect and reduce operator workload when managing multiple machines). BCIs have also emerged as a tool for student engagement due to the intrinsic interdisciplinarity of the technology, which spans the fields of computer science, electrical engineering, neuroscience, …

Multimodal Depression Detection: An Investigation Of Features And Fusion Techniques For Automated Systems, Michelle Renee Morales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Depression is a serious illness that affects a large portion of the world’s population. Given the large effect it has on society, it is evident that depression is a serious health issue. This thesis evaluates, at length, how technology may aid in assessing depression. We present an in-depth investigation of features and fusion techniques for depression detection systems. We also present OpenMM: a novel tool for multimodal feature extraction. Lastly, we present novel techniques for multimodal fusion. The contributions of this work add considerably to our knowledge of depression detection systems and have the potential to improve future systems by …

Physical Applications Of The Geometric Minimum Action Method, George L. Poppe Jr.

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis extends the landscape of rare events problems solved on stochastic systems by means of the \textit{geometric minimum action method} (gMAM). These include partial differential equations (PDEs) such as the real Ginzburg-Landau equation (RGLE), the linear Schroedinger equation, along with various forms of the nonlinear Schroedinger equation (NLSE) including an application towards an ultra-short pulse mode-locked laser system (MLL).

Additionally we develop analytical tools that can be used alongside numerics to validate those solutions. This includes the use of instanton methods in deriving state transitions for the linear Schroedinger equation and the cubic diffusive NLSE.

These analytical solutions are …

Adaptation And Augmentation: Towards Better Rescoring Strategies For Automatic Speech Recognition And Spoken Term Detection, Min Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Selecting the best prediction from a set of candidates is an essential problem for many spoken language processing tasks, including automatic speech recognition (ASR) and spoken keyword spotting (KWS). Generally, the selection is determined by a confidence score assigned to each candidate. Calibrating these confidence scores (i.e., rescoring them) could make better selections and improve the system performance. This dissertation focuses on using tailored language models to rescore ASR hypotheses as well as keyword search results for ASR-based KWS.

This dissertation introduces three kinds of rescoring techniques: (1) Freezing most model parameters while fine-tuning the output layer in order to …

Hierarchical Learning Of Cross-Language Mappings Through Distributed Vector Representations For Code, Nghi D. Q. Bui, Lingxiao Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Translating a program written in one programming language to another can be useful for software development tasks that need functionality implementations in different languages. Although past studies have considered this problem, they may be either specific to the language grammars, or specific to certain kinds of code elements (e.g., tokens, phrases, API uses). This paper proposes a new approach to automatically learn cross-language representations for various kinds of structural code elements that may be used for program translation. Our key idea is two folded: First, we normalize and enrich code token streams with additional structural and semantic information, and train …

Factors Influencing The Adoption Of Smart Wearable Devices, Apurva Adapa, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Richard H. Hall, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This article examined factors associated with the adoption of smart wearable devices. More specifically, this research explored the contributing and inhibiting factors that influence the adoption of wearable devices through in-depth interviews. The laddering approach was used in the interviews to identify not only the factors but also their relationships to underlying values. The wearable devices examined were a Smart Glass (Google Glass) and a Smart Watch (Sony Smart Watch 3). Two user groups, college students and working professionals, participated in the study. After the participants had the opportunity to try out each of the two devices, the factors that …

Entity Summarization Of Reviews And Micro-Reviews, Thanh Son Nguyen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Along with the regular review content, there is a new type of user-generated content arising from the prevalence of mobile devices and social media, that is micro-review. Micro-reviews are bite-size reviews (usually under 200 char- acters), commonly posted on social media or check-in services, using a mobile device. They capture the immediate reaction of users, and they are rich in information, concise, and to the point. Both reviews and micro-reviews are useful for users to get to know the entity of interest, thus facilitating users in making their decision of purchasing or dining. However, the abundant number of both reviews …

Recommending Apis For Software Evolution, Ferdian Thung

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Softwares are constantly evolving. This evolution has been made easier through the use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). By leveraging APIs, developers reuse previously implemented functionalities and concentrate on writing new codes. These APIs may originate from either third parties or internally from other compo- nents of the software that are currently developed. In the first case, developers need to know how to find and use third party APIs. In the second case, developers need to be aware of internal APIs in their own software. In either case, there is often too much information to digest. For instance, finding the …

Automatic Vulnerability Detection And Repair, Siqi Ma

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Vulnerability becomes a major threat to the security of many systems, including computer systems (e.g., Windows and Linux) and mobile systems (e.g., Android and iOS). Attackers can steal private information and perform harmful actions by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities often remain undetected for a long time as they may not affect the typical functionalities of systems. Thus, it is important to detect and repair a vulnerability in time. However, it is often difficult for a developer to detect and repair a vulnerability correctly and timely if he/she is not a security expert. Fortunately, automatic repair approaches significantly assist developers to …

Al Planning Assistant For Scheduling Daily Activities, Priyanka Ahuja

Theses and Dissertations

Artificial conversational agents are software agents that can interact with humans in the way humans do. Siri Cortana, and Alexa are examples of intelligent agents that can help us with almost all the basic tasks. These agents are smart enough to do the basic tasks, but not as much when it comes to complex tasks, such as analyzing traffic data, reviewing scheduling conflicts, rescheduling meetings while resolving conflicts, and offering suggestions based upon data analyses (e.g. traffic patterns, weather, etc.) The actual potential of dialogue-based task agent potential remains untapped. The reason is the fact agents lack the ability to …

Self-Organized Structures: Modeling Polistes Dominula Nest Construction With Simple Rules, Matthew Harrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The self-organized nest construction behaviors of European paper wasps (Polistes dominula) show potential for adoption in artificial intelligence and robotic systems where centralized control proves challenging. However, P. dominula nest construction mechanisms are not fully understood. This research investigated how nest structures stimulate P. dominula worker action at different stages of nest construction. A novel stochastic site selection model, weighted by simple rules for cell age, height, and wall count, was implemented in a three-dimensional, step-by-step nest construction simulation. The simulation was built on top of a hexagonal coordinate system to improve precision and performance. Real and idealized …

Identifying The Most Relevant Arguments From User Meta-Data, Roussi Roussev

Theses and Dissertations

Arguments are essential objects in a debate. In the DirectDemocracyP2P system, they occur in association with signatures for petitions. The arguments of a signer on a given issue are grouped into one single justification, are classified by the type of signature, in our case supporting or opposing, and can be subject to various types of relations such as refute, subsume or more recent. Given those signatures and relations, the addressed problems are: (i) what makes a good supporting or opposing justification (ii) how to recommend the best justification to a new voter, (iii) how to recommend a compact list of …

On Threshold-Free Error Detection For Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks, Jianliang Gao, Jianxin Wang, Ping Zhong, Haodong Wang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

One of the important sources for big data is the datasets collected by wireless sensor networks. However, errors in sensor data could result in serious damages in industrial applications. Therefore, error detection plays a crucial role in industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs). Existing approaches of error detection are generally threshold-based, which rely on a predetermined threshold to judge whether a reading is erroneous. The threshold-based approaches, however, often fail to balance between detection accuracy and false alarm rate. It is thus difficult, if not impossible, to obtain a proper threshold for various errors in real-world applications. Motivated by this consideration, …