Computer Sciences Commons^™

Walknet: A Deep Learning Approach To Improving Sidewalk Quality And Accessibility, Andrew Abbott, Alex Deshowitz, Dennis Murray, Eric C. Larson

SMU Data Science Review

This paper proposes a framework for optimizing allocation of infrastructure spending on sidewalk improvement and allowing planners to focus their budgets on the areas in the most need. In this research, we identify curb ramps from Google Street View images using traditional machine learning and deep learning methods. Our convolutional neural network approach achieved an 83% accuracy and high level of precision when classifying curb cuts. We found that as the model received more data, the accuracy increased, which with the continued collection of crowdsourced labeling of curb cuts will increase the model’s classification power. We further investigated a model …

Cognitive Virtual Admissions Counselor, Kumar Raja Guvindan Raju, Cory Adams, Raghuram Srinivas

SMU Data Science Review

Abstract. In this paper, we present a cognitive virtual admissions counselor for the Master of Science in Data Science program at Southern Methodist University. The virtual admissions counselor is a system capable of providing potential students accurate information at the time that they want to know it. After the evaluation of multiple technologies, Amazon’s LEX was selected to serve as the core technology for the virtual counselor chatbot. Student surveys were leveraged to collect and generate training data to deploy the natural language capability. The cognitive virtual admissions counselor platform is currently capable of providing an end-to-end conversational dialog to …

Blockchain In Payment Card Systems, Darlene Godfrey-Welch, Remy Lagrois, Jared Law, Russell Scott Anderwald, Daniel W. Engels

SMU Data Science Review

Payment cards (e.g., credit and debit cards) are the most frequent form of payment in use today. A payment card transaction entails many verification information exchanges between the cardholder, merchant, issuing bank, a merchant bank, and third-party payment card processors. Today, a record of the payment transaction often records to multiple ledgers. Merchant’s incur fees for both accepting and processing payment cards. The payment card industry is in dire need of technology which removes the need for third-party verification and records transaction details to a single tamper-resistant digital ledger. The private blockchain is that technology. Private blockchain provides a linked …

Mapping Ordinances And Tweets Using Smart City Characteristics To Aid Opinion Mining, Manish Puri, Xu Du, Aparna S. Varde, Gerard De Melo

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This research focuses on mining ordinances (local laws) and public reactions to them expressed on social media. We place particular emphasis on ordinances and tweets relating to Smart City Characteristics (SCCs), since an important aim of our work is to assess how well a given region heads towards a Smart City. We rely on SCCs as a nexus between a seemingly infinite number of ordinances and tweets to be able to map them, and also to facilitate SCC-based opinion mining later for providing feedback to urban agencies based on public reactions. Common sense knowledge is harnessed in our approach to …

Using Data Visualization To Inform Machine Learning Approaches, Eric N. Zielonka, Aleksandr Fritz

STEM Student Research Symposium Posters

Machine learning with big data is a complicated task to tackle. Using data visualizations, one can find trends, anomalies, and patterns to help select the appropriate approach to the problem in machine learning. Using 2D visualizations, we’ve displayed flight data on interactive maps, visualizing density and property changes in an area. We’ve also used frequency histograms to view the quantitative properties of each point to look for trends. Using scatterplots, anomalies in data collection were found. Other plots confirmed previously found trends and initial thoughts about the data. These visualizations helped inform a machine learning approach to our problem and …

Small Web-Based Denormalized Database Effectiveness Threshold, Min Young Lee

Undergraduate Research Celebration 2018

No abstract provided.

Handwriting Recognition Of Bangla And Similar Scripts, Nishatul Majid

2018 Graduate Student Showcase

This research is about offline Bangla handwriting text recognition. Here we introduce a publicly accessible dataset, as well as a basic character recognition scheme. The dataset contains pages with a 104 word essay and a collection of 84 isolated alpha-numeric characters. All the components in the pages are tagged with the associated ground truth information. The character recognition scheme presented here uses zonal pixel counts, structural strokes and bag of features modeled with grid points using U-SURF descriptor as features. The maximum classification accuracy we obtain is 96.8% using an SVM classifier with a cubic kernel.

Distributed Iterative Graph Processing Using Nosql With Data Locality, Ayam Pokhrel

LSU Master's Theses

A tremendous amount of data is generated every day from a wide range of sources such as social networks, sensors, and application logs. Among them, graph data is one type that represents valuable relationships between various entities. Analytics of large graphs has become an essential part of business processes and scientific studies because it leads to deep and meaningful insights into the related domain based on the connections between various entities. However, the optimal processing of large-scale iterative graph computations is very challenging due to the issues like fault tolerance, high memory requirement, parallelization, and scalability. Most of the contemporary …

Blockchain: Technical Review, Evan D. Poff

Marriott Student Review

This review of blockchain technology accompanies the article "Strategic Implications of Blockchain."

Buzzwords, Evan D. Poff

Marriott Student Review

This feature will explain the following buzzwords:

• Blockchain
• Cryptocurrency
• Work-Life Integration
• Passive Equities
• Risk-Adjusted Returns

Efficient Reduced Bias Genetic Algorithm For Generic Community Detection Objectives, Aditya Karnam Gururaj Rao

Theses

The problem of community structure identification has been an extensively investigated area for biology, physics, social sciences, and computer science in recent years for studying the properties of networks representing complex relationships. Most traditional methods, such as K-means and hierarchical clustering, are based on the assumption that communities have spherical configurations. Lately, Genetic Algorithms (GA) are being utilized for efficient community detection without imposing sphericity. GAs are machine learning methods which mimic natural selection and scale with the complexity of the network. However, traditional GA approaches employ a representation method that dramatically increases the solution space to be searched by …

Optimization Of Biogas Production Process In Solid State Digesters In Semiarid Areas Of Northern Tanzania, Debora J Mahushiab, Alfred Nn Muzukaa, Revocatus L Machunda

Tanzania Journal of Science

Solid state digestion process has received much attention due to its low water requirements, making it preferred in semi-arid areas as well. In this study, the performance of the household solid state digesters was evaluated through monitoring of the feedstock mixing ratios and using the digester gas pressure as a measure of performance. Additionally, a batch study to verify the appropriate and optimal mixing ratio of feedstocks was also done. The mixing ratios of cow dung to water were 2:1, 3:1 and 4:1. Total solids determined were 120, 150 and 170 mg/g for the ratios 2:1, 3:1 and 4:1, respectively. …

Social Media: On Tech-Caves, Virtual Panopticism, And The Science Fiction-Like State In Which We Unwittingly Find Ourselves, Michael Major

Theses

Making use of three historic philosophical thought experiments, this paper blends psychological perspectives with philosophical reasoning to show how social media is corrupting our perception of reality, the result of which is ultimately detrimental to society as a whole. This is accomplished by first using Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to analyze and discuss the ways in which social media is limiting humanity’s access to real knowledge. Next, Michel Foucault’s analysis of punishment in its social context, Discipline and Punish, is used to discuss the ways in which social media is adversely affecting our behavior. Finally, Robert Nozick’s “Experience …

Integrating Interactive Computer Simulations Into K-12 Earth And Environmental Science, Michelle Zhu, Nicole Panorkou, Pankaj Lal, Sowmith Etikyala, Erell Germia, Pricilla Iranah, Bharath Samanthula, Debasmita Basu

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper discusses our work in progress aiming to explore how computer simulations can be integrated into the K-12 curriculum of Earth and Environmental science. Several interactive simulations using Netlogo, a multi-agent modeling environment, and Scratch, a visual programming software are being developed with steerable parameters and the corresponding output plots for students to manipulate and interpret the results, respectively. Here, we present two simulations we designed on water cycle and discuss how these may help students learn about the distribution of water and its continuous move in the ecosystem.

Cost-Effective Techniques For Continuous Integration Testing, Jingjing Liang

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Continuous integration (CI) development environments allow software engineers to frequently integrate and test their code. While CI environments provide advantages, they also utilize non-trivial amounts of time and resources. To address this issue, researchers have adapted techniques for test case prioritization (TCP) and regression test selection (RTS) to CI environments.

To date, current TCP techniques under CI environments have operated on test suites, and have not achieved substantial improvements. In this thesis, we use a lightweight approach based on test suite failure and execution history, and “continuously” prioritizes commits that are waiting for execution in response to the arrival of …

Lee Honors College Mobile Application, James Ward

Honors Theses

In the spring of 2018 three Computer Science students Benjamin Campbell, James Ward, and Peter Shutt created a mobile application. This app was developed over the span of two semesters for their senior design project; a capstone to their degrees.

Their client, The Lee Honors College at Western Michigan University --referred to as LHC and WMU respectively hereafter-- has a plethora of academic and social information, and a large demand for access to it. This information includes building hours, contact information, health resources, a LHC specific course catalog, social media posts, event descriptions, and much more. The volume of information, …

Sensor Technologies For Intelligent Transportation Systems, Juan Guerrero-Ibáñez, Sherali Zeadally, Juan Contreras-Castillo

Information Science Faculty Publications

Modern society faces serious problems with transportation systems, including but not limited to traffic congestion, safety, and pollution. Information communication technologies have gained increasing attention and importance in modern transportation systems. Automotive manufacturers are developing in-vehicle sensors and their applications in different areas including safety, traffic management, and infotainment. Government institutions are implementing roadside infrastructures such as cameras and sensors to collect data about environmental and traffic conditions. By seamlessly integrating vehicles and sensing devices, their sensing and communication capabilities can be leveraged to achieve smart and intelligent transportation systems. We discuss how sensor technology can be integrated with the …

A Reasonable Bias Approach To Gerrymandering: Using Automated Plan Generation To Evaluate Redistricting Proposals, Bruce E. Cain, Wendy K. Tam Cho, Yan Y. Liu, Emily R. Zhang

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Investigation Of Information Technology Mediated Customer Services In China, Jianhua Xiao, Suhong Li

Information Systems and Analytics Department Faculty Conference Proceedings

Information technology mediated customer service is a reality of the 21st century. More and more companies have moved their customer services from in store and in person to online through computer or mobile devices. Using 208 respondents collected from two Chinese universities, this paper investigates customer preference over two service delivery model (either in store or online) on five type of purchasing (retail, eating-out, banking, travel and entertainment) and their perception difference in customer service quality between those two delivery model. Results show that a majority of Chinese students prefer in store and in person for eating out. For ordering …

Developing A Google Chrome Extension To Improve Online Readability, Jori Gelbaugh, Amber Carnahan

17th Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Performance (2018)

The content of online articles, as well as distracting images and advertisements, can threaten a student’s ability to retain critical reading information, especially a student with a reading or learning disability. Articulus is a Google Chrome extension that allows users to easily read online articles by replacing difficult words on a webpage with less difficult synonyms and by removing distracting advertisements, allowing students to easily read material at a level that is closer to their reading level. After studying readability metrics, the researchers created and extensively tested the Carnahan-Gelbaugh metric to determine the difficulty of online articles. After analyzing the …

Instapark -- Smart Parking Solution, Sai Nikhil Reddy Mettupally

Research Horizons Day Posters

No abstract provided.

Graph Pebbling: Doppelgangers And Lemke Graphs, Mark Powers

17th Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Performance (2018)

Graph pebbling is a mathematical game played on a connected graph. A configuration places a nonnegative number of pebbles on each vertex. A move between a pair of adjacent vertices removes two pebbles from one vertex and places one pebble on the other. A configuration is solvable if a sequence of pebbling moves can be made to place a pebble on any given vertex. The pebbling number of a graph is the minimum number of pebbles so that any configuration is solvable. A graph satisfies the two-pebbling property if any configuration of more than twice the pebbling number minus the …

Pallist: Find Nearby Friends, Grace Du Mez, Michael Kiley

17th Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Performance (2018)

This project worked with the Ready For Life Program at Hope College in order to help its students more confidently find familiar faces when they find themselves alone in a public place. Our work resulted in the construction of an iPhone app, Pallist, which allows Ready For Life students to create connections with fellow iPhone users and see which of these other users is nearby. Our app was customized for Hope College students by designing it to sense when a user is in a specific building on campus and then showing the location of fellow users that are inside this …

Quantum Chemical Analysis Of Stable Noble Gas Cations For Astrochemical Detection, Carlie M. Novak

Honors College Theses

The search for possible, natural, noble gas molecules has led to quantum chemical, spectroscopic analysis of NeCCH+, ArNH+ ArCCH+, and ArCN+. Each of these systems have been previously shown to be a stable minimum on its respective potential energy surface. However, no spectroscopic data are available for laboratory detection or interstellar observation of these species, and the interstellar medium may be the most likely place, in nature, where these noble gas cations are found. The bent shape of NeCCH+ is confirmed here with a fairly large dipole moment and a bright C -- H stretching frequency at 3101.9 cm^{-1 …}

Modular Scheduling System For Westside School District, Tyler Bienhoff

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Westside School district offers a modular scheduling system for their high school that is more similar to a college schedule than the typical high school system. Due to the complexity of their master schedule each semester, there are no commercially available products that can assist in creating a schedule. Hence, this thesis discusses a scheduling algorithm and management system that was built specifically for Westside High School with the potential to be expanded for use by other interested schools. The first part of the paper is focused on gathering input from students and faculty for which courses and how many …

Predicting Attrition In The Whole Kids Outreach Program Using A Neural Network, Uzma Ghazanfar

Undergraduate Research Celebration 2018

No abstract provided.

Performance Characterization Of Deep Learning Models For Breathing-Based Authentication On Resource-Constrained Devices, Jagmohan Chauhan, Jathusan Rajasegaran, Surang Seneviratne, Archan Misra, Aruan Seneviratne, Youngki Lee

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Providing secure access to smart devices such as mobiles, wearables and various other IoT devices is becoming increasinglyimportant, especially as these devices store a range of sensitive personal information. Breathing acoustics-based authentication offers a highly usable and possibly a secondary authentication mechanism for such authorized access, especially as it canbe readily applied to small form-factor devices. Executing sophisticated machine learning pipelines for such authenticationon such devices remains an open problem, given their resource limitations in terms of storage, memory and computational power. To investigate this possibility, we compare the performance of an end-to-end system for both user identification anduser verification …

Proactive Empirical Assessment Of New Language Feature Adoption Via Automated Refactoring: The Case Of Java 8 Default Methods, Raffi Khatchadourian, Hidehiko Masuhara

Publications and Research

Programming languages and platforms improve over time, sometimes resulting in new language features that offer many benefits. However, despite these benefits, developers may not always be willing to adopt them in their projects for various reasons. In this paper, we describe an empirical study where we assess the adoption of a particular new language feature. Studying how developers use (or do not use) new language features is important in programming language research and engineering because it gives designers insight into the usability of the language to create meaning programs in that language. This knowledge, in turn, can drive future innovations …

Computer Security Documentation For A Non-Technical Audience, Salman Quraishi

Undergraduate Research Celebration 2018

This research project investigates the development of computer security documentation. Computer security includes the protection of hardware, software, and/or digital information from theft and/or damage, along with preventing disruption or misdirection of the services a computer may provide.The scope of the research was to develop a document detailing the basic fundamental concepts of computer security that individuals of all backgrounds can use without requiring prerequisite knowledge of computer security. The core concepts of the document encompass phishing, social engineering, password security, trusted/untrusted networks, viruses, malware, and antivirus software. Both technical and non-technical individuals can utilize the document to learn how …

Quantum Attacks On Modern Cryptography And Post-Quantum Cryptosystems, Zachary Marron

Senior Honors Theses

Cryptography is a critical technology in the modern computing industry, but the security of many cryptosystems relies on the difficulty of mathematical problems such as integer factorization and discrete logarithms. Large quantum computers can solve these problems efficiently, enabling the effective cryptanalysis of many common cryptosystems using such algorithms as Shor’s and Grover’s. If data integrity and security are to be preserved in the future, the algorithms that are vulnerable to quantum cryptanalytic techniques must be phased out in favor of quantum-proof cryptosystems. While quantum computer technology is still developing and is not yet capable of breaking commercial encryption, these …