Computer Sciences Commons^™

"Ai's Pompous Vocabulary Sounds Like It's Trying To Impress Someone": Preservice Teachers' Respond To Ai Reviews Of Their Writing, Jennifer Kidd, Keri Parker, Samantha Myers

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This study examines pre-service teachers’ (PSTs’) responses to using AI to review their writing. As part of a class activity, PSTs prompted an AI-chatbot for feedback and revisions on a short essay based on a provided assignment rubric. Afterward, they reflected on the pros and cons of using AI in this way. While some PSTs initially encountered functionality issues, all were able to obtain feedback and the majority reported finding it useful. In general, the PSTs appreciated AI’s speed and expertise and the potential to customize feedback based on their needs. However, many were skeptical of AI’s evaluation of their …

Privobfnet: A Weakly Supervised Semantic Segmentation Model For Data Protection, Chiat Pin Tay, Vigneshwaran Subbaraju, Thivya Kandappu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The use of social media has made it easy to communicate and share information over the internet. However, it also brings issues such as data privacy leakage, which can be exploited by recipients with malicious intentions to harm the sender. In this paper, we propose a deep neural network that analyzes user’s image for privacy sensitive content and automatically locates sensitive regions for obfuscation. Our approach relies solely on image level annotations and learns to (a) predict an overall privacy score, (b) detect sensitive attributes and (c) demarcate the sensitive regions for obfuscation, in a given input image. We validated …

Societal Impacts Of Artificial Intelligence: Ethics, Legal, And Governance Issues, Yuzhou Qian, Keng Siau, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly changing the way we work and the way we live. The emergence of ChatGPT has thrust AI, especially Generative AI, into the spotlight. The societal impact of AI is on most people's minds. This article presents several research projects on how AI impacts work and society. Three research works are discussed in this article. The first study develops a theoretical framework structuring the legal and ethical objectives that are needed and the means to achieve them. The second study concentrates on bias and discrimination issues embedded in AI applications. It focuses on enhancing the collaboration …

Conceptthread: Visualizing Threaded Concepts In Mooc Videos, Zhiguang Zhou, Li Ye, Lihong Cai, Lei Wang, Yigang Wang, Yongheng Wang, Wei Chen, Yong Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) platforms are becoming increasingly popular in recent years. Online learners need to watch the whole course video on MOOC platforms to learn the underlying new knowledge, which is often tedious and time-consuming due to the lack of a quick overview of the covered knowledge and their structures. In this paper, we propose ConceptThread , a visual analytics approach to effectively show the concepts and the relations among them to facilitate effective online learning. Specifically, given that the majority of MOOC videos contain slides, we first leverage video processing and speech analysis techniques, including shot recognition, …

Towards Effective Developer Communication In Open Source Software Via Emotional Awareness, Mia Mohammad Imran

Theses and Dissertations

Emotions play an integral yet understudied role in open-source software development, profoundly shaping critical collaborative processes such as knowledge sharing, decision-making, and team dynamics. However, accurately detecting and analyzing emotions in developer communications poses significant challenges due to the lack of visual and auditory cues in text-based interactions. This dissertation investigates techniques to enhance the understanding and modeling of emotions within the textual artifacts of open-source projects. We conduct an extensive evaluation of existing emotion classification tools using a novel dataset of annotated GitHub comments. An error analysis reveals deficiencies in handling implicit emotional expressions and figurative language. We demonstrate …

Machine Learning Assisted Optimization For Calculation And Automated Tuning Of Antennas, Lauren Linkous

Theses and Dissertations

The Antenna Calculation and Autotuning Tool (AntennaCAT) software suite represents a significant advancement in the field of antenna design by automating the entire design, CAD, simulation, and optimization process compatible with several EM simulation software suites. It is the first comprehensive implementation of machine learning in this context. In particular, this work includes the capability to create and export structured datasets from the aforementioned EM software for iterative improvement and includes an expandable selection of optimizers.

Graph Coloring Reconfiguration, Reem Mahmoud

Theses and Dissertations

Reconfiguration is the concept of moving between different solutions to a problem by transforming one solution into another using some prescribed transformation rule (move). Given two solutions s₁ and s₂ of a problem, reconfiguration asks whether there exists a sequence of moves which transforms s₁ into s₂. Reconfiguration is an area of research with many contributions towards various fields such as mathematics and computer science.
The k-coloring reconfiguration problem asks whether there exists a sequence of moves which transforms one k-coloring of a graph G into another. A move in this case is a type …

Facilitating Mathematics And Computer Science Connections: A Cross-Curricular Approach, Kimberly E. Beck, Jessica F. Shumway, Umar Shehzad, Jody Clarke-Midura, Mimi Recker

Publications

In the United States, school curricula are often created and taught with distinct boundaries between disciplines. This division between curricular areas may serve as a hindrance to students' long-term learning and their ability to generalize. In contrast, cross-curricular pedagogy provides a way for students to think beyond the classroom walls and make important connections across disciplines. The purpose of this paper is a theoretical reflection on our use of Expansive Framing in our design of lessons across learning environments within the school. We provide a narrative account of our early work in using this theoretical framework to co-plan and enact …

Evaluating Pre-Trial Programs Using Interpretable Machine Learning Matching Algorithms For Causal Inference, Travis Seale-Carlisle, Saksham Jain, Courtney Lee, Caroline Levenson, Swathi Ramprasad, Brandon Garrett, Sudeepa Roy, Cynthia Rudin, Alexander Volfovsky

Faculty Scholarship

After a person is arrested and charged with a crime, they may be released on bail and required to participate in a community supervision program while awaiting trial. These ‘pretrial programs’ are common throughout the United States, but very little research has demonstrated their effectiveness. Researchers have emphasized the need for more rigorous program evaluation methods, which we introduce in this article. We describe a program evaluation pipeline that uses recent interpretable machine learning techniques for observational causal inference, and demonstrate these techniques in a study of a pre-trial program in Durham, North Carolina. Our findings show no evidence that …

The Right To A Glass Box: Rethinking The Use Of Artificial Intelligence In Criminal Justice, Brandon L. Garrett, Cynthia Rudin

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) increasingly is used to make important decisions that affect individuals and society. As governments and corporations use AI more pervasively, one of the most troubling trends is that developers so often design it to be a “black box.” Designers create AI models too complex for people to understand or they conceal how AI functions. Policymakers and the public increasingly sound alarms about black box AI. A particularly pressing area of concern has been criminal cases, in which a person’s life, liberty, and public safety can be at stake. In the United States and globally, despite concerns that …

All In One Place: Ensuring Usable Access To Online Shopping Items For Blind Users, Yash Prakash, Akshay Kolgar Nayak, Mohan Sunkara, Sampath Jayarathna, Hae-Na Lee, Vikas Ashok

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Perusing web data items such as shopping products is a core online user activity. To prevent information overload, the content associated with data items is typically dispersed across multiple webpage sections over multiple web pages. However, such content distribution manifests an unintended side effect of significantly increasing the interaction burden for blind users, since navigating to-and-fro between different sections in different pages is tedious and cumbersome with their screen readers. While existing works have proposed methods for the context of a single webpage, solutions enabling usable access to content distributed across multiple webpages are few and far between. In this …

Runtime Support For Cpu-Gpu High-Performance Computing On Distributed Memory Platforms, Polykarpos Thomadakis, Nikos Chrisochoides

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Hardware heterogeneity is here to stay for high-performance computing. Large-scale systems are currently equipped with multiple GPU accelerators per compute node and are expected to incorporate more specialized hardware. This shift in the computing ecosystem offers many opportunities for performance improvement; however, it also increases the complexity of programming for such architectures. This work introduces a runtime framework that enables effortless programming for heterogeneous systems while efficiently utilizing hardware resources. The framework is integrated within a distributed and scalable runtime system to facilitate performance portability across heterogeneous nodes. Along with the design, this paper describes the implementation and optimizations performed, …

Can Large Language Models Discern Evidence For Scientific Hypotheses? Case Studies In The Social Sciences, Sai Koneru, Jian Wu, Sarah Rajtmajer

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Hypothesis formulation and testing are central to empirical research. A strong hypothesis is a best guess based on existing evidence and informed by a comprehensive view of relevant literature. However, with exponential increase in the number of scientific articles published annually, manual aggregation and synthesis of evidence related to a given hypothesis is a challenge. Our work explores the ability of current large language models (LLMs) to discern evidence in support or refute of specific hypotheses based on the text of scientific abstracts. We share a novel dataset for the task of scientific hypothesis evidencing using community-driven annotations of studies …

Identifying New Cancer Genes Based On The Integration Of Annotated Gene Sets Via Hypergraph Neural Networks, Chao Deng, Hong-Dong Li, Li-Shen Zhang, Yiwei Liu, Yaohang Li, Jianxin Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Motivation

Identifying cancer genes remains a significant challenge in cancer genomics research. Annotated gene sets encode functional associations among multiple genes, and cancer genes have been shown to cluster in hallmark signaling pathways and biological processes. The knowledge of annotated gene sets is critical for discovering cancer genes but remains to be fully exploited.

Results

Here, we present the DIsease-Specific Hypergraph neural network (DISHyper), a hypergraph-based computational method that integrates the knowledge from multiple types of annotated gene sets to predict cancer genes. First, our benchmark results demonstrate that DISHyper outperforms the existing state-of-the-art methods and highlight the advantages of …

Artificial Intelligence For The Electron Ion Collider (Ai4eic), C. Allaire, R. Ammendola, E.-C. Aschenauer, M. Balandat, M. Battaglieri, J. Bernauer, M. Bondì, N. Branson, T. Britton, A. Butter, I. Chahrour, P. Chatagnon, E. Cisbani, E. W. Cline, S. Dash, C. Dean, W. Deconinck, A. Deshpande, M. Diefenthaler, R. Ent, C. Fanelli, M. Finger, M. Finger Jr., E. Fol, S. Furletov, Y. Gao, J. Giroux, N. C. Gunawardhana Waduge, O. Hassan, P. L. Hegde, R. J. Hernandez-Pinto, A. Hiller Blin, T. Horn, J. Huang, A. Jalotra, D. Jayakodige, B. Joo, M. Junaid, N. Kalantarians, P. Karande, B. Kriesten, R. Kunnawalkam Elayavalli, Y. Li, M. Lin, F. Liu, S. Liuti, G. Matousek, M. Mceneaney, D. Mcspadden, T. Menzo, T. Miceli, V. Mikuni, R. Montgomery, B. Nachman, R. R. Nair, J. Niestroy, S. A. Ochoa Oregon, J. Oleniacz, J. D. Osborn, C. Paudel, C. Pecar, C. Peng, G. N. Perdue, W. Phelps, M. L. Purschke, H. Rajendran, K. Rajput, Y. Ren, D. F. Renteria-Estrada, D. Richford, B. J. Roy, D. Roy, A. Saini, N. Sato, T. Satogata, G. Sborlini, M. Schram, D. Shih, J. Singh, R. Singh, A. Siodmok, J. Stevens, P. Stone, L. Suarez, K. Suresh, A. -N. Tawfik, F. Torales Acosta, N. Tran, R. Trotta, F. J. Twagirayezu, R. Tyson, S. Volkova, A. Vossen, E. Walter, D. Whiteson, M. Williams, S. Wu, N. Zachariou, P. Zurita

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a state-of-the-art facility for studying the strong force, is expected to begin commissioning its first experiments in 2028. This is an opportune time for artificial intelligence (AI) to be included from the start at this facility and in all phases that lead up to the experiments. The second annual workshop organized by the AI4EIC working group, which recently took place, centered on exploring all current and prospective application areas of AI for the EIC. This workshop is not only beneficial for the EIC, but also provides valuable insights for the newly established ePIC collaboration at EIC. …

Short: Can Citations Tell Us About A Paper's Reproducibility? A Case Study Of Machine Learning Papers, Rochana R. Obadage, Sarah M. Rajtmajer, Jian Wu

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The iterative character of work in machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) and reliance on comparisons against benchmark datasets emphasize the importance of reproducibility in that literature. Yet, resource constraints and inadequate documentation can make running replications particularly challenging. Our work explores the potential of using downstream citation contexts as a signal of reproducibility. We introduce a sentiment analysis framework applied to citation contexts from papers involved in Machine Learning Reproducibility Challenges in order to interpret the positive or negative outcomes of reproduction attempts. Our contributions include training classifiers for reproducibility-related contexts and sentiment analysis, and exploring correlations between …

Enhancing Research Productivity: Seamless Integration Of Personal Devices And Hpc Resources With The Cybershuttle Notebook Gateway, Yasith Jayawardana, Dimuthu Wannipurage, Eroma Abeysinghe, Suresh Marru

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Scientists often utilize personal laptops and workstations for initial research stages and turn to high-performance computing (HPC) supercomputers for compute-intensive tasks. However, seamless transitions between these environments are vital for enhancing productivity and accelerating research progress. Our paper presents the Cybershuttle Notebook Gateway, an open-source framework crafted to streamline this transition, optimize resource utilization, and reduce time-to-science for researchers. Leveraging JupyterLab, the framework extends kernel mechanics for seamless provisioning and connection to remote HPC cluster kernels. We delve into its architecture, which separates user authentication, kernel provisioning, and remote file system access. Additionally, we highlight practical capabilities like analyzing network …

Developing A Framework For Personalized Video-Based Quantum Information Science Education, Nikos Chrisochoides, Norou Diawara, Michail Giannakos

Computer Science Faculty Publications

This is a white paper on Workforce Development for Quantum Information Sciences (QIS) led by the Center for Real-Time Computing at Old Dominion University (ODU). We plan to investigate the potential of video lectures in supporting QIS. Specifically, we focus on following four objectives: (a) design a two-course series for both Master-level and PhD students; b) an upgrade of Experimental Lecture System (ELeSy) to test new, innovative, and transformative approaches for inclusive QIS education; c) design and implementation of a mixed-method systematic empirical study on the effects of video learning styles (in-person flipped classroom and voluntary video use) on graduate …

Hite: A Fast And Accurate Dynamic Boundary Adjustment Approach For Full-Length Transposable Element Detection And Annotation, Kang Hu, Peng Ning, Minghua Xu, You Zou, Jianye Chang, Xin Gao, Yaohang Li, Jue Ruan, Bin Hu, Jianxin Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Recent advancements in genome assembly have greatly improved the prospects for comprehensive annotation of Transposable Elements (TEs). However, existing methods for TE annotation using genome assemblies suffer from limited accuracy and robustness, requiring extensive manual editing. In addition, the currently available gold-standard TE databases are not comprehensive, even for extensively studied species, highlighting the critical need for an automated TE detection method to supplement existing repositories. In this study, we introduce HiTE, a fast and accurate dynamic boundary adjustment approach designed to detect full-length TEs. The experimental results demonstrate that HiTE outperforms RepeatModeler2, the state-of-the-art tool, across various species. Furthermore, …

Archiving Digital Marketing: Examining Preservation Of Dynamic Content On The Web Through The Lens Of Online Advertisements, Christopher Rauch, Alex H. Poole, Travis Reid, Michele C. Weigle, Michael L. Nelson, Faryaneh Poursardar, Mat Kelly

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The transition to digital marketing has revolutionized advertising, reflecting and shaping societal norms and trends. The “Saving Ads” project addresses the challenges of preserving these ephemeral digital artifacts, essential for understanding the evolution of advertising and its socio-cultural impact. The initiative focuses on technical solutions for archiving dynamic online ads and enhancing access to these critical resources for future scholarship. By examining the preservation of online advertisements and suggesting improved approaches for archiving dynamic online content, this project contributes to the documentation of digital history.

Image-To-Mesh Conversion Method For Multi-Tissue Medical Image Computing Simulations, Fotis Drakopoulos, Yixun Liu, Kevin Garner, Nikos Chrisochoides

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Converting a three-dimensional medical image into a 3D mesh that satisfies both the quality and fidelity constraints of predictive simulations and image-guided surgical procedures remains a critical problem. Presented is an image-to-mesh conversion method called CBC3D. It first discretizes a segmented image by generating an adaptive Body-Centered Cubic mesh of high-quality elements. Next, the tetrahedral mesh is converted into a mixed element mesh of tetrahedra, pentahedra, and hexahedra to decrease element count while maintaining quality. Finally, the mesh surfaces are deformed to their corresponding physical image boundaries, improving the mesh’s fidelity. The deformation scheme builds upon the ITK open-source library …

Enhancing Heart Disease Prediction With Reinforcement Learning And Data Augmentation, Gayathri R., Sangeetha S. K. B., Sandeep Kumar Mathivanan, Hariharan Rajadurai, Benjula Anbu Malar Mb, Saurav Mallik, Hong Qin

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The study presents a novel method to improve the prediction accuracy of cardiac disease by combining data augmentation techniques with reinforcement learning. The complex nature of cardiac data frequently presents challenges for traditional machine learning models, which results in subpar performance. In response, our fusion methodology improves predictive capabilities by augmenting data and utilizing reinforcement learning's skill at sequential decision-making. Our method predicts cardiac disease with an astounding 94 % accuracy rate, which is an outstanding result. This significant improvement outperforms existing techniques and shows a deeper comprehension of intricate data relationships. The amalgamation of reinforcement learning and data augmentation …

Forecasting Crude Oil Price Using Multiple Factors, Hind Aldabagh, Xianrong Zheng, Mohammad Najand, Ravi Mukkamala

Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this paper, we predict crude oil price using various factors that may influence its price. The factors considered are physical market, financial, and trading market factors, including seven key factors and the dollar index. Firstly, we select the main factors that may greatly influence the prices. Then, we develop a hybrid model based on a convolutional neural network (CNN) and long short-term memory (LSTM) network to predict the prices. Lastly, we compare the CNN–LSTM model with other models, namely gradient boosting (GB), decision trees (DTs), random forests (RFs), neural networks (NNs), CNN, LSTM, and bidirectional LSTM (Bi–LSTM). The empirical …

Bayesian Neural Netwok Variational Autoencoder Inverse Mapper (Bnn-Vaim) And Its Application In Compton Form Factors Extraction, Md Fayaz Bin Hossen, Tareq Alghamdi, Manal Almaeen, Yaohang Li

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We extend the Variational Autoencoder Inverse Mapper (VAIM) framework for the inverse problem of extracting Compton Form Factors (CFFs) from deeply virtual exclusive reactions, such as the unpolarized Deeply virtual exclusive scattering (DVCS) cross section. VAIM is an end-to-end deep learning framework to address the solution ambiguity issue in ill-posed inverse problems, which comprises of a forward mapper and a backward mapper to simulate the forward and inverse processes, respectively. In particular, we incorporate Bayesian Neural Network (BNN) into the VAIM architecture (BNN-VAIM) for uncertainty quantification. By sampling the weights and biases distributions of the BNN in the backward mapper …

Understaning Low Vision Graphical Perception Of Bar Charts, Yash Prakash, Akshay Kolgar Nayak, Sampath Jayarathna, Hae-Na Lee, Vikas Ashok

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Bar charts are widely used for their simplicity in data representation, prompting numerous studies to explore and model how users interact with and perceive bar chart information. However, these studies have predominantly focused on sighted users, with a few also targeting blind screen-reader users, whereas the graphical perception of low-vision screen magnifier users is still an uncharted research territory. We fill this knowledge gap in this paper by designing four experiments for a laboratory study with 25 low-vision participants to examine their graphical perception while interacting with bar charts. For our investigation, we built a custom screen magnifier-based logger that …

Enhanced Skin Cancer Diagnosis Through Grid Search Algorithm-Optimized Deep Learning Models For Skin Lesion Analysis, Rudresh Pillai, Neha Sharma, Sheifali Gupta, Deepali Gupta, Sapna Juneja, Saurav Malik, Hong Qin, Mohammed S. Alqahtani, Amel Ksibi

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Skin cancer is a widespread and perilous disease that necessitates prompt and precise detection for successful treatment. This research introduces a thorough method for identifying skin lesions by utilizing sophisticated deep learning (DL) techniques. The study utilizes three convolutional neural networks (CNNs)-CNN1, CNN2, and CNN3-each assigned to a distinct categorization job. Task 1 involves binary classification to determine whether skin lesions are present or absent. Task 2 involves distinguishing between benign and malignant lesions. Task 3 involves multiclass classification of skin lesion images to identify the precise type of skin lesion from a set of seven categories. The most optimal …

The Combined Focal Loss And Dice Loss Function Improves The Segmentation Of Beta-Sheets In Medium-Resolution Cryo-Electron-Microscopy Density Maps, Yongcheng Mu, Thu Nguyen, Bryan Hawickhorst, Willy Wriggers, Jiangwen Sun, Jing He

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Although multiple neural networks have been proposed for detecting secondary structures from medium-resolution (5–10 Å) cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) maps, the loss functions used in the existing deep learning networks are primarily based on cross-entropy loss, which is known to be sensitive to class imbalances. To monitor and tune the performance of various loss functions for the secondary structure detection problem, we investigated five loss functions: cross-entropy, Focal loss, Dice loss, and two combined loss functions. Using a U-Net architecture in our DeepSSETracer method and a dataset composed of 1,355 box-cropped atomic-structure/density-map pairs, we found that a newly designed loss function …

Retrogressive Document Manipulation Of Us Federal Environmental Websites, Lesley Frew, Michael L. Nelson, Michele C. Weigle

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Changes made to webpages can affect their retrievability. Often this is done with the intention of increasing the page's search engine ranking to improve overall access to information on the page. The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) created a dataset that describes changes on US federal environmental webpages between 2016 and 2020. EDGI noted that many environmental terms were deleted from the pages, but without user data, claims that page retrievability and public information access were lowered are only anecdotal. The Open Resource for Click Analysis in Search (ORCAS) dataset was created during the same time frame, from 2017 …

Evaluating Social Media Reach Via Mainstream Media Discourse, Himarsha R. Jayanetti

Computer Science Faculty Publications

This study examines the intersection between social media and mainstream television (TV) news with an aim to understand how social media content amplifies its impact through TV broadcasts. While many studies emphasize social media as a primary platform for information dissemination, they often underestimate its total influence by focusing solely on interactions within the platform. This research examines instances where social media posts gain prominence on TV broadcasts, reaching new audiences and prompting public discourse. By using TV news closed captions, on-screen text recognition, and social media logo detection, we analyze how social media is referenced in TV news. Our …

Towards Trust And Reputation As A Service In Society 5.0, Stephan Olariu, Ravi Mukkamala, Meshari Aljohani

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Our paper was inspired by the recent Society 5.0 initiative of the Japanese Government which seeks to create a sustainable human-centric society by putting to work recent advances in technology. One of the key challenges in implementing Society 5.0 is providing trusted and secure services for everyone to use. Motivated by this challenge, this paper makes three contributions that we summarize as follows: Our first main contribution is to propose a novel blockchain and smart contract-based trust and reputation service design to reduce the uncertainty associated with buyer feedback in marketplaces that we expect to see in Society 5.0. Our …