Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Adoption Of E-Learning Systems In Low Income Countries: The Case Of Ethiopia, Yonas Hagos, Solomon Negash

Faculty Articles

This paper presents the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to examine the adoption of e-learning system in low-income countries, the case of Ethiopia. The research uses a quantitative research approach to examine Ethiopian tertiary level distance students’ determinant factors for the acceptance of e-learning systems. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to collect data from 255 undergraduate distance learners in a higher education institute in Ethiopia. The data were analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) (Hair et al, 2005) technique to examine the causal model. The results indicated that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use significantly affected distance learners’ behavioral …

A Computational Approach To Qualitative Analysis In Large Textual Datasets, Michael Evans

Dartmouth Scholarship

In this paper I introduce computational techniques to extend qualitative analysis into the study of large textual datasets. I demonstrate these techniques by using probabilistic topic modeling to analyze a broad sample of 14,952 documents published in major American newspapers from 1980 through 2012. I show how computational data mining techniques can identify and evaluate the significance of qualitatively distinct subjects of discussion across a wide range of public discourse. I also show how examining large textual datasets with computational methods can overcome methodological limitations of conventional qualitative methods, such as how to measure the impact of particular cases on …

Unstructured P2p Link Lifetimes Redux, Zhongmei Yao, Daren B. H. Cline

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We revisit link lifetimes in random P2P graphs under dynamic node failure and create a unifying stochastic model that generalizes the majority of previous efforts in this direction. We not only allow nonexponential user lifetimes and age-dependent neighbor selection, but also cover both active and passive neighbor-management strategies, model the lifetimes of incoming and outgoing links, derive churn-related message volume of the system, and obtain the distribution of transient in/out degree at each user. We then discuss the impact of design parameters on overhead and resilience of the network.

Comparative Trust Management With Applications: Bayesian Approaches Emphasis, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Pramod Anantharam, Cory Andrew Henson, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Trust relationships occur naturally in many diverse contexts such as collaborative systems, e-commerce, interpersonal interactions, social networks, and semantic sensor web. As agents providing content and services become increasingly removed from the agents that consume them, the issue of robust trust inference and update becomes critical. There is a need to find online substitutes for traditional (direct or face-to-face) cues to derive measures of trust, and create efficient and robust systems for managing trust in order to support decision-making. Unfortunately, there is neither a universal notion of trust that is applicable to all domains nor a clear explication of its …

Cursing In English On Twitter, Wenbo Wang, Lu Chen, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Cursing is not uncommon during conversations in the physical world: 0.5% to 0.7% of all the words we speak are curse words, given that 1% of all the words are first-person plural pronouns (e.g., we, us, our). On social media, people can instantly chat with friends without face-to-face interaction, usually in a more public fashion and broadly disseminated through highly connected social network. Will these distinctive features of social media lead to a change in people's cursing behavior? In this paper, we examine the characteristics of cursing activity on a popular social media platform - Twitter, involving the analysis of …

Representative Discovery Of Structure Cues For Weakly-Supervised Image Segmentation, Luming Zhang, Yue Gao, Yingjie Xia, Ke Lu, Jialie Shen, Rongrong Ji

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Weakly-supervised image segmentation is a challenging problem with multidisciplinary applications in multimedia content analysis and beyond. It aims to segment an image by leveraging its imagelevel semantics (i.e., tags). This paper presents a weakly-supervised image segmentation algorithm that learns the distribution of spatially structural superpixel sets from image-level labels. More specifically, we first extract graphlets from a given image, which are small-sized graphs consisting of superpixels and encapsulating their spatial structure. Then, an ecient manifold embedding algorithm is proposed to transfer labels from training images into graphlets. It is further observed that there are numerous redundant graphlets that are not …

Democracy Is Good For Ranking: Towards Multi-View Rank Learning And Adaptation In Web Search, Wei Gao, Pei Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

Integrating Water Exclusion Theory Into Β Contacts To Predict Binding Free Energy Changes And Binding Hot Spots, Qian Liu, Steven C. H. Hoi, Chee Keong Kwoh, Limsoon Wong, Jinyan Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Binding free energy and binding hot spots at protein-protein interfaces are two important research areas for understanding protein interactions. Computational methods have been developed previously for accurate prediction of binding free energy change upon mutation for interfacial residues. However, a large number of interrupted and unimportant atomic contacts are used in the training phase which caused accuracy loss. Results: This work proposes a new method, β ACV ASA , to predict the change of binding free energy after alanine mutations. β ACV ASA integrates accessible surface area (ASA) and our newly defined β contacts together into an atomic contact vector …

Integrating Water Exclusion Theory Into Β Contacts To Predict Binding Free Energy Changes And Binding Hot Spots, Qian Liu, Steven C. H. Hoi, Chee Keong Kwoh, Limsoon Wong, Jinyan Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Binding free energy and binding hot spots at protein-protein interfaces are two important research areas for understanding protein interactions. Computational methods have been developed previously for accurate prediction of binding free energy change upon mutation for interfacial residues. However, a large number of interrupted and unimportant atomic contacts are used in the training phase which caused accuracy loss. Results: This work proposes a new method, β ACV ASA , to predict the change of binding free energy after alanine mutations. β ACV ASA integrates accessible surface area (ASA) and our newly defined β contacts together into an atomic contact vector …

Digital Certificate Management: Optimal Pricing And Crl Releasing Strategies, Jie Zhang, Nan Hu, M. K. Raka

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The fast growth of e-commerce and online activities places increasing needs for authentication and secure communication to enable information exchange and online transactions. The public key infrastructure (PKI) provides a promising foundation for meeting such demand, in which certificate authorities (CAs) provide digital certificates. In practice, it is critical to understand consumer purchasing and revocation behaviors so that CAs can better manage the digital certificates and its CRL releasing process. To address this problem, we analytically model a CA's pricing and revocation releasing strategies taking into consideration the users' rational decisions. The model provides solutions two main research questions: (1) …

Extended Comprehensive Study Of Association Measures For Fault Localization, Lucia Lucia, David Lo, Lingxiao Jiang, Ferdian Thung, Aditya Budi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Spectrum-based fault localization is a promising approach to automatically locate root causes of failures quickly. Two well-known spectrum-based fault localization techniques, Tarantula and Ochiai, measure how likely a program element is a root cause of failures based on profiles of correct and failed program executions. These techniques are conceptually similar to association measures that have been proposed in statistics, data mining, and have been utilized to quantify the relationship strength between two variables of interest (e.g., the use of a medicine and the cure rate of a disease). In this paper, we view fault localization as a measurement of the …

Social Correlation In Latent Spaces For Complex Networks, Freddy Chong Tat Chua

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation addresses the subject of measuring social correlation among users within a complex social network. Social correlation is closely related to the measurement of social influence in social sciences. While social influence focuses on the existence of causal influence among users, we take a computational approach to measure correlation strength among users based on their shared interactions. We call this social correlation. To formally model social correlation, we propose a framework which contains two major parts. The first part is that of representing users behavior in a computationally efficient and accurate manner. For example, social media users perform many …

Predicting Response In Mobile Advertising With Hierarchical Importance-Aware Factorization Machine, Richard Jayadi Oentaryo, Ee Peng Lim, Jia Wei Low, David Lo, Michael Finegold

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Mobile advertising has recently seen dramatic growth, fueled by the global proliferation of mobile phones and devices. The task of predicting ad response is thus crucial for maximizing business revenue. However, ad response data change dynamically over time, and are subject to cold-start situations in which limited history hinders reliable prediction. There is also a need for a robust regression estimation for high prediction accuracy, and good ranking to distinguish the impacts of different ads. To this end, we develop a Hierarchical Importance-aware Factorization Machine (HIFM), which provides an effective generic latent factor framework that incorporates importance weights and hierarchical …

Libol: A Library For Online Learning Algorithms, Steven C. H. Hoi, Jialei Wang, Peilin Zhao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

LIBOL is an open-source library for large-scale online learning, which consists of a large family of efficient and scalable state-of-the-art online learning algorithms for large- scale online classification tasks. We have offered easy-to-use command-line tools and examples for users and developers, and also have made comprehensive documents available for both beginners and advanced users. LIBOL is not only a machine learning toolbox, but also a comprehensive experimental platform for conducting online learning research.

Increasing Adolescent Interest In Computing Through The Use Of Social Cognitive Career Theory, Osama Eljabiri

Dissertations

While empirical research efforts are sufficient to provide evidence of the role of most constructs in the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), this dissertation shifts the research focus and finds serious shortcomings in defining the construct of computer technology learning experiences design.

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate whether, and to what extent, the proposed SCCT-enhanced framework can increase self-efficacy and interest of pre-college and college students in computer-based technology through the newly proposed “Learning Experiences” construct; in particular, whether it can reduce the gender gaps.

As a result of a comprehensive literature review, the dissertation connects learning, …

Svmaud: Using Textual Information To Predict The Audience Level Of Written Works Using Support Vector Machines, Todd Will

Dissertations

Information retrieval systems should seek to match resources with the reading ability of the individual user; similarly, an author must choose vocabulary and sentence structures appropriate for his or her audience. Traditional readability formulas, including the popular Flesch-Kincaid Reading Age and the Dale-Chall Reading Ease Score, rely on numerical representations of text characteristics, including syllable counts and sentence lengths, to suggest audience level of resources. However, the author’s chosen vocabulary, sentence structure, and even the page formatting can alter the predicted audience level by several levels, especially in the case of digital library resources. For these reasons, the performance of …

Component-Based Software Development, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Miriam Capretz, Dahai Li

Luiz Fernando Capretz

Component-based software development (CBSD) strives to achieve a set of pre-built, standardized software components available to fit a specific architectural style for some application domain; the application is then assembled using these components. Component-based software reusability will be at the forefront of software development technology in the next few years. This paper describes a software life cycle that supports component-based development under an object-oriented framework. Development time versus software life cycle phases, which is an important assessment of the component-based development model put forward, is also mentioned.

Ontology–Based Representation Of Simulation Models, Katarina Grolinger, Miriam A.M. Capretz, José R. Marti, Krishan D. Srivastava

Katarina Grolinger

Ontologies have been used in a variety of domains for multiple purposes such as establishing common terminology, organizing domain knowledge and describing domain in a machine-readable form. Moreover, ontologies are the foundation of the Semantic Web and often semantic integration is achieved using ontology. Even though simulation demonstrates a number of similar characteristics to Semantic Web or semantic integration, including heterogeneity in the simulation domain, representation and semantics, the application of ontology in the simulation domain is still in its infancy. This paper proposes an ontology-based representation of simulation models. The goal of this research is to facilitate comparison among …

Rethinking Fs-Isac: An It Security Information Sharing Network Model For The Financial Services Sector, Charles Zhechao Liu, Humayun Zafar, Yoris A. Au

Faculty Articles

This study examines a critical incentive alignment issue facing FS-ISAC (the information sharing alliance in the financial services industry). Failure to encourage members to share their IT security-related information has seriously undermined the founding rationale of FS-ISAC. Our analysis shows that many information sharing alliances’ membership policies are plagued with the incentive misalignment issue and may result in a “free-riding” or “no information sharing” equilibrium. To address this issue, we propose a new information sharing membership policy that incorporates an insurance option and show that the proposed policy can align members’ incentives and lead to a socially optimal outcome. Moreover, …

Knowledge As A Service Framework For Disaster Data Management, Katarina Grolinger, Emna Mezghani, Miriam Capretz, Ernesto Exposito

Katarina Grolinger

Each year, a number of natural disasters strike across the globe, killing hundreds and causing billions of dollars in property and infrastructure damage. Minimizing the impact of disasters is imperative in today’s society. As the capabilities of software and hardware evolve, so does the role of information and communication technology in disaster mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery. A large quantity of disaster-related data is available, including response plans, records of previous incidents, simulation data, social media data, and Web sites. However, current data management solutions offer few or no integration capabilities. Moreover, recent advances in cloud computing, big data, and …

Autonomic Database Management: State Of The Art And Future Trends, Katarina Grolinger, Miriam Am Capretz

Katarina Grolinger

In recent years, Database Management Systems (DBMS) have increased significantly in size and complexity, increasing the extent to which database administration is a time-consuming and expensive task. Database Administrator (DBA) expenses have become a significant part of the total cost of ownership. This results in the need to develop Autonomous Database Management systems (ADBMS) that would manage themselves without human intervention. Accordingly, this paper evaluates the current state of autonomous database systems and identifies gaps and challenges in the achievement of fully autonomic databases. In addition to highlighting technical challenges and gaps, we identify one human factor, gaining the trust …

Disaster Data Management In Cloud Environments, Katarina Grolinger

Katarina Grolinger

Facilitating decision-making in a vital discipline such as disaster management requires information gathering, sharing, and integration on a global scale and across governments, industries, communities, and academia. A large quantity of immensely heterogeneous disaster-related data is available; however, current data management solutions offer few or no integration capabilities and limited potential for collaboration. Moreover, recent advances in cloud computing, Big Data, and NoSQL have opened the door for new solutions in disaster data management. In this thesis, a Knowledge as a Service (KaaS) framework is proposed for disaster cloud data management (Disaster-CDM) with the objectives of 1) facilitating information gathering …

Data Management In Cloud Environments: Nosql And Newsql Data Stores, Katarina Grolinger, Wilson A. Higashino, Abhinav Tiwari, Miriam Am Capretz

Katarina Grolinger

: Advances in Web technology and the proliferation of mobile devices and sensors connected to the Internet have resulted in immense processing and storage requirements. Cloud computing has emerged as a paradigm that promises to meet these requirements. This work focuses on the storage aspect of cloud computing, specifically on data management in cloud environments. Traditional relational databases were designed in a different hardware and software era and are facing challenges in meeting the performance and scale requirements of Big Data. NoSQL and NewSQL data stores present themselves as alternatives that can handle huge volume of data. Because of the …

Introduction To The Information Technology For Development Minitrack, Mehruz Kamal, Sajda Qureshi, James B. Pick

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Information Technology for Development (ITD) research focuses on the use of information technology infrastructures to bring about economic, social, and human development. In essence, the ITD research provides insight for policy makers to facilitate the achievement of socio-economic development goals by increasing financial investments and stimulating business activities in their regions. Papers in this mini-track are invited for consideration in the ITD Journal which makes contributions in ITD research to what is known about improvements in the lives of people through their use of ICTs. In particular, innovative applications of IT in under-privileged regions, where resources are limited, comprise research …

A Cluster Analysis Of Research In Information Technology For Global Development: Where To From Here?, Jie Xiong, Sajda Qureshi, Lotfollah Najjar

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

While research in Information Systems recognizes the importance of Information Technology in a global context, it continues to focus on a narrow view of IT adoption. In recognizing that the majority of innovations in IT are taking place in developing countries, it is important to find out what research is being undertaken to understand the effects of the different technologies on development outcomes. This paper conducts a cluster analysis of 214 papers from the SigGlobDev Workshop, the Information Technology for Development Journal and other Information Systems Journals and conferences which have published papers in Information Systems and Global Development. This …

Effects Of The Digital Divide: Evidence From African-American And Native-American Owned Micro-Enterprises, Jie Xiong, Sajda Qureshi, Teresa Trumbly Lamsam

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have often been touted as a means of enabling people to make their way out of poverty. While there are success stories of people in Africa who have been able to access and use mobile and Internet-based Technologies to build businesses that give them better livelihoods, it is unclear how these technologies are being used by African American and Native American entrepreneurs in the United States. Pockets of low connectivity and lack of awareness or technical skills mean that some entrepreneurs are unable to take advantage of the opportunities provided by ICTs in the United …

Advances In Documentation, Digital Curation, Virtual Exhibition, And A Test Of 3d Geometric Morhpometrics: A Case Study Of The Vanderpool Vessels From The Ancestral Caddo Territory, Robert Z. Selden Jr., Timothy K. Perttula, Michael J. O'Brien

CRHR: Archaeology

Three-dimensional (3D) digital scanning of archaeological materials is typically used as a tool for artifact documentation. With the permission of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, 3D documentation of Caddo funerary vessels from the Vanderpool site (41SM77) was conducted with the initial goal of ensuring that these data would be publicly available for future research long after the vessels were repatriated. A digital infrastructure was created to archive and disseminate the resultant 3D datasets, ensuring that they would be accessible by both researchers and the general public (CRHR 2014a). However, 3D imagery can be used for much more than documentation. To …

Cms Use Of A Data Federation, Kenneth A. Bloom, C.

Kenneth Bloom Publications

CMS is in the process of deploying an Xrootd based infrastructure to facilitate a global data federation. The services of the federation are available to export data from half the physical capacity and the majority of sites are configured to read data over the federation as a back-up. CMS began with a relatively modest set of use-cases for recovery of failed local file opens, debugging and visualization. CMS is finding that the data federation can be used to support small scale analysis and load balancing. Looking forward we see potential in using the federation to provide more flexibility in the …

Networks Of Users And Powers: Blackboard Software Roadmap As Cultural Practice, Diana Gellci

Wayne State University Dissertations

With the rapid growth of eLearning applications - the software providing for learning through the Internet - it has become commonplace to describe those technologies as both simple tools and user-friendly. These two vague yet suggestive terms make the operating of the technology appear as social value and any related issues as a user's problem. Interested neo-liberal groups take a step further when considering eLearning technologies as the solution for the problems faced in the field. STS studies recognize that technology fetishism is strategically employed to justify the latest developments of capitalism as technological and logical.

This doctoral study examines …

Using Database Management System Todevelop And Implement An Automated Vehicle Management System, Dr. Dipo Theophilus Akomolafe Mbcs, Mncs, Mcpn,, Naomi Timothy, Francis Ofere

Dr. Dipo Theophilus Akomolafe MBCS, MNCS, MCPN,

The automated motor vehicle management system is a system developed for managing the movement of vehicles in and out of an organization. Presently, movemnts of vehicles in most organisations are handled manually bythe security officials that are stationed at the gates. This system is associated with mismanaged data, inaccurate data or no data at all in some instances. Consequently, it is imperative to develop a computerized system to manage data taken from the large number of vehicles that move in and out of organisations in order to deal with cases of theft, proper monitoring of people and vehicles and to …