Computer Sciences Commons^™

Deepmag+ : Sniffing Mobile Apps In Magnetic Field Through Deep Learning, Rui Ning, Cong Wang, Chunsheng Xin, Jiang Li, Hongyi Wu

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper reports a new side-channel attack to smartphones using the unrestricted magnetic sensor data. We demonstrate that attackers can effectively infer the Apps being used on a smartphone with an accuracy of over 80%, through training a deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). Various signal processing strategies have been studied for feature extractions, including a tempogram based scheme. Moreover, by further exploiting the unrestricted motion sensor to cluster magnetometer data, the sniffing accuracy can increase to as high as 98%. To mitigate such attacks, we propose a noise injection scheme that can effectively reduce the App sniffing accuracy to only …

Priority Based Routing And Link Scheduling For Cognitive Radio Networks, Peng Jiang, Mitchell Zhou, Song Wen

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

To address the challenges caused by the time-varying rate requirement for multimedia communication sessions, we propose a Priority Based Routing and link Scheduling (PBRS) scheme for multi-hop cognitive radio networks. The objective is to minimize disruption to communication sessions due to channel switching as well as to minimize network resource consumption for multimedia applications based on a prioritized routing and resource allocation scheme. PBRS includes a priority based optimization formulation and an efficient algorithm to solve the problem. The main idea is to allocate the available resource to different types of services with their Quality of Experience (QoE) expectation as …

Generative Adversarial Networks For Visible To Infrared Video Conversion, Mohammad Shahab Uddin, Jiang Li, Chiman Kwan (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Deep learning models are data driven. For example, the most popular convolutional neural network (CNN) model used for image classification or object detection requires large labeled databases for training to achieve competitive performances. This requirement is not difficult to be satisfied in the visible domain since there are lots of labeled video and image databases available nowadays. However, given the less popularity of infrared (IR) camera, the availability of labeled infrared videos or image databases is limited. Therefore, training deep learning models in infrared domain is still challenging. In this chapter, we applied the pix2pix generative adversarial network (Pix2Pix GAN) …

Interaction, Collaboration And Content Creation In Informal Online Learning Environments: Multidimensional Analyses Of Longitudinal Data From The Scratch Coding Community, Seung B. Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Despite rising levels of participation by children and adolescents in large, informal online learning communities, there has been limited research examining the role that social dynamics play on the online behavior of young users. In this context, this mixed-methods longitudinal study aimed to investigate the relationship between interaction, collaboration and content creation through the analysis of user-generated comments and log-data from the Scratch platform. The research focused on more than 45,000 comments associated with the online activity of 200 randomly selected participants over a period of three months in early 2012. A combination of methodological techniques was applied in the …

Web Content Management System And Accessibility Awareness: A Comparative Study Of Novice Users And Accessibility Outcomes, Fatima Artiba Diaz

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Since its creation, the Web has progressively developed and become a vital source of information in every domain and for almost all people. It is crucial to guarantee that the information contained on the Web is available for everyone, especially for people with special needs. Removing accessibility barriers is fundamentally based on tools, skills and support of all contributors, particularly the content creators, to ensure information is navigable and usable in the context of the end users experience. Web Content Management Systems play a significant role in structuring, storing and provision content to the Web and have evolved to address …

Diota: Decentralized Ledger Based Framework For Data Authenticity Protection In Iot Systems, Lei Xu, Lin Chen, Zhimin Gao, Xinxin Fan, Taeweon Suh, Weidong Shi

Computer Science Faculty Publications

It is predicted that more than 20 billion IoT devices will be deployed worldwide by 2020. These devices form the critical infrastructure to support a variety of important applications such as smart city, smart grid, and industrial internet. To guarantee that these applications work properly, it is imperative to authenticate these devices and data generated from them. Although digital signatures can be applied for these purposes, the scale of the overall system and the limited computation capability of IoT devices pose two big challenges. In order to overcome these obstacles, we propose DIoTA, a novel decentralized ledger-based authentication framework for …

Fpga Based Blockchain System For Industrial Iot, Lei Xu, Lin Chen, Zhimin Gao, Hanyee Kim, Taeweon Suh, Weidong Shi

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Industrial IoT (IIoT) is critical for industrial infrastructure modernization and digitalization. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to provide adequate protection of the IIoT system. A modern IIoT system usually consists of a large number of devices that are deployed in multiple locations and owned/managed by different entities who do not fully trust each other. These features make it harder to manage the system in a coherent manner and utilize existing security mechanisms to offer adequate protection. The emerging blockchain technology provides a powerful tool for IIoT system management and protection because the IIoT nature of distributed deployment and involvement …

Blockchain Based End-To-End Tracking System For Distributed Iot Intelligence Application Security Enhancement, Lei Xu, Zhimin Gao, Xinxin Fan, Lin Chen, Hanyee Kim, Taeweon Suh, Weidong Shi

Computer Science Faculty Publications

IoT devices provide a rich data source that is not available in the past, which is valuable for a wide range of intelligence applications, especially deep neural network (DNN) applications that are data-thirsty. An established DNN model in turn provides useful analysis results that can improve the operation of IoT systems. The progress in distributed/federated DNN training further unleashes the potential of integration of IoT and intelligence applications. When a large number of IoT devices deployed in different physical locations, distributed training allows training modules to be deployed to multiple edge data centers that are close to the IoT devices …

Detecting Phone-Related Pedestrian Distracted Behaviours Via A Two-Branch Convolutional Neural Network, Humberto Saenz, Huiming Sun, Lingtao Wu, Xuesong Zhou, Hongkai Yu

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The distracted phone-use behaviours among pedestrians, like Texting, Game Playing and Phone Calls, have caused increasing fatalities and injuries. However, the research of phonerelated distracted behaviour by pedestrians has not been systemically studied. It is desired to improve both the driving and pedestrian safety by automatically discovering the phonerelated pedestrian distracted behaviours. Herein, a new computer vision-based method is proposed to detect the phone-related pedestrian distracted behaviours from a view of intelligent and autonomous driving. Specifically, the first end-to-end deep learning based Two-Branch Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is designed for this task. Taking one synchronised image pair by two front …

Human Face Sketch To Rgb Image With Edge Optimization And Generative Adversarial Networks, Feng Zhang, Huihuang Zhao, Wang Ying, Qingyun Liu, Alex Noel Joseph Raj, Bin Fu

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Generating an RGB image from a sketch is a challenging and interesting topic. This paper proposes a method to transform a face sketch into a color image based on generation confrontation network and edge optimization. A neural network model based on Generative Adversarial Networks for transferring sketch to RGB image is designed. The face sketch and its RGB image is taken as the training data set. The human face sketch is transformed into an RGB image by the training method of generative adversarial networks confrontation. Aiming to generate a better result especially in edge, an improved loss function based on …

Small-To-Medium-Size Enterprise Managers’ Experiences With Cloud Computing, Anthony Effiong

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Historically, managers of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have had concerns regarding cloud computing and cybersecurity. Their resistance to using cloud computing has influenced their ability to do business effectively and to compete with businesses that use cloud computing. The purposes of this descriptive phenomenological study were to explore the lived experiences and perceptions of SME managers that might influence their decisions to adopt cloud computing. Watson’s concept of resistance to change and Davis, Bagozzi, and Warhaw’s technology acceptance model were the conceptual frameworks that guided this qualitative study. Data collection consisted of conducting 16 semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions …

Information Security Ambassadors’ Perceptions Of Peer-Led Motivation In Phishing Detection, Kingkane Malmquist

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Phishing rates are increasing yearly and continue to compromise data integrity. The need to guard business information is vital for organizations to meet their business objectives and legal obligations. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore security ambassadors’ perceptions of motivating their peers to adopt safe internet behaviors in a large medical campus in Minnesota. Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristic motivation theory was used to frame the study. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 20 security ambassadors. Data coding and analysis yielded 7 themes: rewarding, value, personal interest, limited information security knowledge, increased interest, communication, and topics …

Tailored Information Security Strategies For Financial Services Companies In Nigeria, Kayode Alawonde

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Some financial institutions in Nigeria have not deployed strategies that mitigate cyber exploitation risks in the financial services industry. Financial institution leaders are concerned because cyber exploitation contributed to the reduction in the adult banking population to a low 38%. Grounded in the integrated systems theory of information security management, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies some financial institution leaders in Nigeria use to prevent cyber exploitations. The participants included 6 chief information security officers of 6 financial institutions. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and company and public documents. A thematic analysis identified themes …

Social Presence, Immediacy Of Communication, Concurrency, And Use Of Enterprise Social Networks, Veleta A. Gordon

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Managers are faced with low continuous postadoption usage rates for enterprise social networks implemented at high costs. The problem is a potential loss of value-added benefits when organizations experience a lapse in continuous usage of enterprise social networks among corporate knowledge workers. The purpose of this quantitative study was to test the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology that relates collaboration technology constructs to continuous usage of enterprise social networks for knowledge workers at information technology Fortune 500 companies in the United States. The key research question aimed to examine the relationship among social presence, immediacy of communication, …

Perceptions, Potholes, And Possibilities Of Using Digital Voice Assistants To Differentiate Instructions, Adrian A. Weir

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Access to technologies and understanding the potential uses of technology to differentiate instruction have been a concern for the teachers and students in a local school district located in the southeastern United States. Despite the emergence of digital voice assistants (DVAs) as tools for instructions, teachers lack knowledge and strategies for using DVAs to differentiate instruction in their classrooms. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify teacher knowledge and strategies employed among special education (SPED) teachers using DVAs to differentiate instruction in their classrooms. The concepts of Carol Tomlinson’s differentiation theory and Mishra and Koehler’s TPACK framework served …

Strategies For It Product Managers To Manage Microservice Systems In Enterprises, Walter Zrzavy

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many information technology (IT) product managers have experienced significant challenges in adopting microservice architecture (MSA) systems successfully in their organizations. Inefficiencies resulting from MSA system adoption are of concern to IT product managers as these inefficiencies increase the cost of maintenance and increase the time to deliver software updates to the business. Grounded in the technology-organization-environment theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore the strategies used by IT product managers for the domain-driven design and development and operations practices to reduce the inefficiencies during the MSA system adoption. The participants were 18 IT product managers …

Cloud Adoption Decision-Making Processes By Small Businesses: A Multiple Case Study, Francis Blay

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cloud services have emerged as a compelling technology with immense benefits, but many companies still have concerns about cloud services adoption because of several failures that have occurred, including mistakes by service providers, exploitation of security flaws by hackers, and immature policies and procedures. The specific problem is how small businesses often lack the understanding of the ramifications of their respective decision-making processes to adopt cloud services. There is little understanding of the decision-making processes managers use in cloud services adoption. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore the decision-making processes of 3 small businesses in …

Exploring Cybersecurity Awareness And Training Strategies To Protect Information Systems And Data, Michael Hanna

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Ineffective security education, training, and awareness (SETA) programs contribute to compromises of organizational information systems and data. Inappropriate actions from users due to ineffective SETA programs may result in legal consequences, fines, reputational damage, adverse impacts on national security, and criminal acts. Grounded in social cognitive theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies hospitality organizational information technology (IT) leaders utilized to implement SETA successfully. The participants were organizational IT leaders from four organizations in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Data collection was performed using telephone and video teleconference interviews with organizational IT leaders (n = 6) …

Design Strategies For User Interfaces In Virtual Reality Environments, Jennifer Maple

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The virtual reality market is rapidly increasing and is projected to drastically expand soon as more head-mounted displays are released to customers. These changes have made it more critical that organizations have adequate user interface strategies. Yet there is still a lack of research on how to design quality virtual reality user interfaces that result in positive user experiences. The purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to identify design strategies software developers use to create user interfaces for virtual reality environments. Constructionist and constructivist theories served as the conceptual frameworks. The participants consisted of 6 developers from 3 different …

The Role Of Internet Of Things In Hotels’ Profitability, Gershwin Narraidoo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

As consumers increase the use of smart technologies, the lack of or improper implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) systems may affect the profitability of hotel businesses. For this qualitative single case study, Porter’s value chain model was the conceptual framework. The data collection process also included direct observations, participant observations, company performance documents, and reflective journaling. Data analysis from multiple sources of data was triangulated to hoteliers revealing that the implementation of IoT systems strategies may increase profit through the use of IoT system technology. Using Yin’s 5-step process, data were coded and analyzed and produced 3 themes: offer …

Reducing Payment-Card Fraud, Chares R. Ross

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Critical public data in the United States are vulnerable to theft, creating severe financial and legal implications for payment-card acceptors. When security analysts and managers who work for payment card processing organizations implement strategies to reduce or eliminate payment-card fraud, they protect their organizations, consumers, and the local and national economy. Grounded in Cressey’s fraud theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies business owners and card processors use to reduce or eliminate payment-card fraud. The participants were 3 data security analysts and 1 manager working for an international payment card processing organization with 10 …

Exploring Trust In Cloud Computing For A Governmental Organization In Ethiopia: A Case Study, Estifanos Abebe Seyoum

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Organizations face a rapidly changing environment that forces them to seek high computing power. The problem was how to overcome factors that cause managers at governmental organizations in Ethiopia to be reluctant to trust cloud computing, while some managers overcame this lack of trust. The purpose of this qualitative, single case study was to provide a deeper understanding of how a governmental organization in Ethiopia overcame the factors that adversely influenced managers of other organizations to the extent that they distrusted and decided against adopting cloud computing. The population for this study was comprised of 12 managers from a governmental …

Strategies For Information Technology Employee Retention, Stephen Horton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Information technology (IT) employee retention is essential to IT departments tasked with supporting the goals and objectives of the organization. IT employees manage, support, and direct IT to drive business, pursue innovation, and create a competitive edge. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory multiple case study was to identify strategies that IT managers use to retain IT employees in order to support the goals and objectives of the IT organization. The population for this study consisted of 5 IT managers in the transportation industry. The IT managers selected for this study had subordinates and delegation duties and worked for employers …

Developing Cloud Computing Infrastructures In Developing Countries In Asia, Daryoush Charmsaz Moghaddam

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Developing Cloud Computing Infrastructures in Developing Countries in Asia

by

Daryoush Charmsaz Moghaddam

MS, Sharif University, 2005

BS, Civil Aviation Higher Education Complex, 1985

Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Information Technology

Walden University

March 2020

Exploring Strategies For Adapting Traditional Vehicle Design Frameworks To Autonomous Vehicle Design, Alex Munoz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Fully autonomous vehicles are expected to revolutionize transportation, reduce the cost of ownership, contribute to a cleaner environment, and prevent the majority of traffic accidents and related fatalities. Even though promising approaches for achieving full autonomy exist, developers and manufacturers have to overcome a multitude of challenged before these systems could find widespread adoption. This multiple case study explored the strategies some IT hardware and software developers of self-driving cars use to adapt traditional vehicle design frameworks to address consumer and regulatory requirements in autonomous vehicle designs. The population consisted of autonomous driving technology software and hardware developers who are …

Ecu-Ioht, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Surender Byreddy, Anush Nutakki, Leslie F. Sikos, Paul Haskell-Dowland

Research Datasets

In recent times, cyberattacks on Internet of Health Things (IoHT) have continuously been growing, and so it is important to develop robust countermeasures. However, there is a lack of publicly available datasets reflecting cyberattacks on IoHT, mainly due to privacy concerns. To strengthen the cyber security of IoHT, we have developed the dataset, named ECU-IoHT, that is built upon an IoHT environment having different attacks performed that exploit various vulnerabilities. This dataset was designed to help the healthcare security community in analyzing attack behaviour and developing robust countermeasures. To the best of our knowledge, no other publicly available datasets have …

Remote Communication In Wilderness Search And Rescue: Implications For The Design Of Emergency Distributed-Collaboration Tools For Network-Sparse Environments, Brennan Jones, Anthony Tang, Carman Neustaedter

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Wilderness search and rescue (WSAR) requires careful communication between workers in different locations. To understand the contexts from which WSAR workers communicate and the challenges they face, we interviewed WSAR workers and observed a mock-WSAR scenario. Our findings illustrate that WSAR workers face challenges in maintaining a shared mental model. This is primarily done through distributed communication using two-way radios and cell phones for text and photo messaging; yet both implicit and explicit communication suffer. WSAR workers send messages for various reasons and share different types of information with varying levels of urgency. This warrants the use of multiple communication …

Matlabta: A Style Critiquer For Novice Engineering Students, Marissa L. Walther

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Novice programmers, considered to be those who have yet to understand the fundamentals of programming, exist in both engineering and computing fields. Within computing, various resources exist to help novice programmers understand fundamentals and style guidelines such as WebTA, a code critique program that gives Java students feedback about their error and style issues. There is, however, a gap in automated code critique for MATLAB, a programming language that is popular in the engineering community. When it comes to MATLAB, there are not many programs that help novices understand their errors, and even fewer that help them understand style guidelines. …

Demand-Driven Execution Using Future Gated Single Assignment Form, Omkar Javeri

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation discusses a novel, previously unexplored execution model called Demand-Driven Execution (DDE), which executes programs starting from the outputs of the program, progressing towards the inputs of the program. This approach is significantly different from prior demand-driven reduction machines as it can execute a program written in an imperative language using the demand-driven paradigm while extracting both instruction and data level parallelism. The execution model relies on an executable Single Assignment Form which serves both as the internal representation of the compiler as well as the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) of the machine. This work develops the instruction set …

The Stained Glass Of Knowledge: On Understanding Novice Mental Models Of Computing, Briana Christina Bettin

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Learning to program can be a novel experience. The rigidity of programming can be at odds with beginning programmer's existing perceptions, and the concepts can feel entirely unfamiliar. These observations motivated this research, which explores two major questions: What factors influence how novices learn programming? and How can analogy by more appropriately leveraged in programming education?

This dissertation investigates the factors influencing novice programming through multiple methods. The CS1 classroom is observed as a "whole system", with consideration to the factors present in it that can influence the learning process. Learning's cognitive processes are elaborated to ground exploration into specifically …