Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Forensic Analysis Of Immersive Virtual Reality Social Applications: A Primary Account, Ananya Yarramreddy, Peter Gromkowski, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Our work presents the primary account for exploring the forensics of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) systems and their social applications. The Social VR applications studied in this work include Bigscreen, Altspace VR, Rec Room and Facebook Spaces. We explored the two most widely adopted consumer VR systems: the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift. Our tests examined the efficacy of reconstructing evidence from network traffic as well as the systems themselves. The results showed that a significant amount of forensically relevant data such as user names, user profile pictures, events, and system details may be recovered. We anticipate that this …

Remote Sensing Using I-Band And S-Band Signals Of Opportunity, Kadir Efecik, Benjamin R. Nold, James L. Garrison

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Measurement of soil moisture, especially the root zone soil moisture, is important in agriculture, meteorology, and hydrology. Root zone soil moisture is concerned with the first meter down the soil. Active and passive remote sensing methods used today utilizing L-band(1-2GHz) are physically limited to a sensing depth of about 5 cm or less. To remotely sense the soil moisture in the deeper parts of the soil, the frequency should be lowered. Lower frequencies cannot be used in active spaceborne instruments because of their need for larger antennas, radio frequency interference (RFI), and frequency spectrum allocations. Ground-based passive remote sensing using …

Deep Neural Network Architectures For Modulation Classification Using Principal Component Analysis, Sharan Ramjee, Shengtai Ju, Diyu Yang, Aly El Gamal

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

In this work, we investigate the application of Principal Component Analysis to the task of wireless signal modulation recognition using deep neural network architectures. Sampling signals at the Nyquist rate, which is often very high, requires a large amount of energy and space to collect and store the samples. Moreover, the time taken to train neural networks for the task of modulation classification is large due to the large number of samples. These problems can be drastically reduced using Principal Component Analysis, which is a technique that allows us to reduce the dimensionality or number of features of the samples …

A Simple Method Of Coil Design, M. Rawlik, A. Eggenberger, J. Krempel, Christopher Crawford, K. Kirch, F. M. Piegsa, G. Quéméner

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

In this article, we present a method to design a coil producing an arbitrarily shaped magnetic field by restricting the path of the coil's wires to a regular grid. The solution is then found by a simple least squares minimum. We discuss practical applications, in particular, in the active magnetic field stabilization system of the neutron electric dipole moment experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland. We also publish the software implementation of the method.

State Measurement Spoofing Prevention Through Model Predictive Control Design, Helen Durand

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

Security of chemical process control systems against cyberattacks is critical due to the potential for injuries and loss of life when chemical process systems fail. A potential means by which process control systems may be attacked is through the manipulation of the measurements received by the controller. One approach for addressing this is to design controllers that make manipulating the measurements received by the controller in any meaningful fashion very difficult, making the controllers a less attractive target for a cyberattack of this type. In this work, we develop a model predictive control (MPC) implementation strategy that incorporates Lyapunov-based stability …

Room Temperature Operation Of Quantum Cascade Lasers Monolithically Integrated Onto A Lattice-Mismatched Substrate, Rowel Go

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs) are semiconductor devices that, currently, have been observed to emit radiation from ~ 2.6 μm to 250 μm (1 to 100 terahertz range of frequencies.) They have established themselves as the laser of choice for spectroscopic gas sensing in the mid-wavelength infrared (3-8 μm) and long-wavelength infrared (8-15 μm) region. In the 4-12 μm wavelength region, the highest performing QCL devices, in terms of wall-plug efficiency and continuous wave operation, are indium phosphide (InP) based. The ultimate goal is to incorporate this InP-based QCL technology to silicon (Si) substrate since most opto-electronics are Si-based. The main …

High Dynamic Range Optical Devices And Applications., Elijah Robert Jensen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Much of what we know about fundamental physical law and the universe derives from observations and measurements using optical methods. The passive use of the electromagnetic spectrum can be the best way of studying physical phenomenon in general with minimal disturbance of the system in the process. While for many applications ambient visible light is sufficient, light outside of the visible range may convey more information. The signals of interest are also often a small fraction of the background, and their changes occur on time scales so quickly that they are visually imperceptible. This thesis reports techniques and technologies developed …

Opto-Thermal Characterization Of Plasmon And Coupled Lattice Resonances In 2-D Metamaterial Arrays, Vinith Bejugam

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Growing population and climate change inevitably requires longstanding dependency on sustainable sources of energy that are conducive to ecological balance, economies of scale and reduction of waste heat. Plasmonic-photonic systems are at the forefront of offering a promising path towards efficient light harvesting for enhanced optoelectronics, sensing, and chemical separations. Two-dimensional (2-D) metamaterial arrays of plasmonic nanoparticles arranged in polymer lattices developed herein support thermoplasmonic heating at off-resonances (near infrared, NIR) in addition to regular plasmonic resonances (visible), which extends their applicability compared to random dispersions. Especially, thermal responses of 2-D arrays at coupled lattice resonance (CLR) wavelengths were comparable …

Sustainability Of Utilizing Renewable And Nuclear Energy In Saudi Arabia Using Different Types Of Life Cycle Assessment, Kamel Almutairi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Evaluating the global environmental impacts of the current and future energy policies in Saudi Arabia using Life cycle assessment (LCA) method was the main objective of this dissertation. First, the attributional life cycle assessment (ALCA) framework was used to evaluate the Saudi’s air conditioning systems, as they are responsible for about 70% of the total Saudi residential electricity consumption. The ALCA’s results showed that the AC use phase produces the largest share of the environmental impact and the magnitude of the environmental impacts is influenced by the type of primary fuel used for electricity generation.

Emerging non-fossil sources of electricity …

Demand-Aware Charger Planning For Electric Vehicle Sharing, Bowen Du, Yongxin Tong, Zimu Zhou, Qian Tao, Wenjun Zhou

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Cars of the future have been predicted as shared and electric. There has been a rapid growth in electric vehicle (EV) sharing services worldwide in recent years. For EV-sharing platforms to excel, it is essential for them to offer private charging infrastructure for exclusive use that meets the charging demand of their clients. Particularly, they need to plan not only the places to build charging stations, but also the amounts of chargers per station, to maximally satisfy the requirements on global charging coverage and local charging demand. Existing research efforts are either inapplicable for their different problem formulations or are …

Query-Constraint-Based Mining Of Association Rules For Exploratory Analysis Of Clinical Datasets In The National Sleep Research Resource, Rashmie Abeysinghe, Licong Cui

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Background: Association Rule Mining (ARM) has been widely used by biomedical researchers to perform exploratory data analysis and uncover potential relationships among variables in biomedical datasets. However, when biomedical datasets are high-dimensional, performing ARM on such datasets will yield a large number of rules, many of which may be uninteresting. Especially for imbalanced datasets, performing ARM directly would result in uninteresting rules that are dominated by certain variables that capture general characteristics.

Methods: We introduce a query-constraint-based ARM (QARM) approach for exploratory analysis of multiple, diverse clinical datasets in the National Sleep Research Resource (NSRR). QARM enables rule mining on …

High-Performance Testbed For Vision-Aided Autonomous Navigation For Quadrotor Uavs In Cluttered Environments, Shakeeb Ahmad

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

This thesis presents the development of an aerial robotic testbed based on Robot Operating System (ROS). The purpose of this high-performance testbed is to develop a system capable of performing robust navigation tasks using vision tools such as a stereo camera. While ensuring the computation of robot odometery, the system is also capable of sensing the environment using the same stereo camera. Hence, all the navigation tasks are performed using a stereo camera and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) as the main sensor suite. ROS is used as a framework for software integration due to its capabilities to provide efficient …

Compact Hardware Implementation Of A Sha-3 Core For Wireless Body Sensor Networks, Yi Yang, Debiao He, Neeraj Kumar, Sherali Zeadally

Information Science Faculty Publications

One of the most important Internet of Things applications is the wireless body sensor network (WBSN), which can provide universal health care, disease prevention, and control. Due to large deployments of small scale smart sensors in WBSNs, security, and privacy guarantees (e.g., security and safety-critical data, sensitive private information) are becoming a challenging issue because these sensor nodes communicate using an open channel, i.e., Internet. We implement data integrity (to resist against malicious tampering) using the secure hash algorithm 3 (SHA-3) when smart sensors in WBSNs communicate with each other using the Internet. Due to the limited resources (i.e., storage, …

Survey Results On Adults And Cybersecurity Education, Frank Breitinger, Joseph Ricci, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Cyberattacks and identity theft are common problems nowadays where researchers often say that humans are the weakest link in the security chain. Therefore, this survey focused on analyzing the interest for adults for ‘cyber threat education seminars’, e.g., how to project themselves and their loved ones. Specifically, we asked questions to understand a possible audience, willingness for paying / time commitment, or fields of interest as well as background and previous training experience. The survey was conducted in late 2016 and taken by 233 participants. The results show that many are worried about cyber threats and about their children exploring …

Novel Compact Narrow-Linewidth Mid-Infrared Lasers For Sensing Applications, Behsan Behzadi

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

The mid-infrared (2-14 μm) spectral region contains the strong absorption lines of many important molecular species, which make this region crucial for several well-know applications such as spectroscopy, chemical and biochemical sensing, security, and industrial monitoring. To fully exploit this region through absorption spectroscopic techniques, compact and low-cost narrow-linewidth (NLW) mid-infrared (MIR) laser sources are of primary importance.

This thesis is focused on three novel compact NLW MIR lasers: demonstration and characterization of a new glass-based spherical microlaser, investigation of the performance of a novel fiber laser, and the design of a monolithic laser on a silicon chip. Starting with …

Adaptive Virtual Impedance Droop Control Based On Consensus Control Of Reactive Current, Zhilin Lu, Qing Wei, Yiyi Zhang, Junhui Zhao, Emad Manla

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

It is difficult to achieve accurate distribution of reactive power based on conventional droop control due to the line impedance mismatch in an islanded microgrid. An adaptive virtual impendence method based on consensus control of reactive current is proposed in this paper. A distributed control structure without the central controller has been established. In this structure, each distributed generation unit (DG) is an independent agent, one-way communication is used between the adjacent DGs, and the reactive power sharing is equivalent to a problem of reactive power current consensus. It has been proven that the system is asymptotically stable under the …

Experience Constructing The Artifact Genome Project (Agp): Managing The Domain's Knowledge One Artifact At A Time, Cinthya Grajeda, Laura Sanchez, Ibrahim Baggili, Devon R. Clark, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

While various tools have been created to assist the digital forensics community with acquiring, processing, and organizing evidence and indicating the existence of artifacts, very few attempts have been made to establish a centralized system for archiving artifacts. The Artifact Genome Project (AGP) has aimed to create the largest vetted and freely available digital forensics repository for Curated Forensic Artifacts (CuFAs). This paper details the experience of building, implementing, and maintaining such a system by sharing design decisions, lessons learned, and future work. We also discuss the impact of AGP in both the professional and academic realms of digital forensics. …

What Can I Do As A Student To Make A Positive Impact On The Environment?, Tammy Guthrie, Greg Herzig, Kathy Prophet, Cassie Kautzer

Middle School Lesson Plans

Students discover ways they can make a positive impact on the environment.

Analysis Of Bulk Power System Resilience Using Vulnerability Graph, Md Ariful Haque

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Critical infrastructure such as a Bulk Power System (BPS) should have some quantifiable measure of resiliency and definite rule-sets to achieve a certain resilience value. Industrial Control System (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) networks are integral parts of BPS. BPS or ICS are themselves not vulnerable because of their proprietary technology, but when the control network and the corporate network need to have communications for performance measurements and reporting, the ICS or BPS become vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Thus, a systematic way of quantifying resiliency and identifying crucial nodes in the network is critical for addressing the cyber …

Generation Of Large-Volume Diffuse Plasma By An External Ionization Wave From A Single-Electrode Plasma Jet, Seyed Hamid Razavi Barzoki

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A non-thermal transient diffuse plasma can be generated remotely in a nonconductive reduced pressure chamber by an external guided fast ionization wave (FIW). We found that an atmospheric-pressure low-temperature plasma jet (APPJ) can be a source of FIW which transfers an enhanced electric field at the wave front across a reduced pressure Pyrex glass chamber with no electrical connection to the chamber. Here, we studied the formation and propagation of the APPJ plasma, the interaction of atmospheric-pressure guided FIW with a dielectric surface which forms the wall of the reduced-pressure system, and the formation and propagation of the reduce-pressure FIW …

Non-Destructive Evaluation For Composite Material, Desalegn Temesgen Delelegn

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The Nondestructive Evaluation Sciences Branch (NESB) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center (LaRC) has conducted impact damage experiments over the past few years with the goal of understanding structural defects in composite materials. The Data Science Team within the NASA LaRC Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) has been working with the Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) subject matter experts (SMEs), Dr. Cheryl Rose, from the Structural Mechanics & Concepts Branch and Dr. William Winfree, from the Research Directorate, to develop computer vision solutions using digital image processing and machine learning techniques that can help identify …

Investigation Of The Skin Effect In Alternating Currents, Matthew Liang

The International Student Science Fair 2018

My research is on the investigation of the skin effect in alternating currents. The skin effect is when an alternating current tends to flow on the surface of the conductor, such that the current density is highest near the surface, and decreases with greater depths in the conductor. This is due to the alternating current inducing changing magnetic fields, which in turn induces currents that oppose the original flow of current, resisting the current flowing through the centre the most. This reduces the effective cross-sectional area of the conductor and increases the resistance, causing increased power losses. This effect becomes …

Energy Conversion System For Travelers (Ecost), Thipok Bovornratanaraks

The International Student Science Fair 2018

We have innovated “The Energy Conversion System for Travelers” or the ECoST. With the fact that most travelers have wheeled cabin-bags, whilst walking, the wheels will rotate so why don’t we harvest electricity from this kinetic energy? We thus install our innovation, the ECoST, to the bag to generate electricity from the spinning wheels. The electricity is then kept in the storage unit and ready to charge your empty battery devices in an emergency case via a USB port. To make life easy, our ECoST was designed to replicate the power bank charging method; therefore, we can charge …

The Relationship Between Electrical Conductivity And Magnetically Damped Motion, Kalem Akhtar

The International Student Science Fair 2018

Varying electrical conductivities of different, non-magnetic metals appears to affect the magnitude of magnetically damped motion. To determine the relationship between magnetic damping and conductivity an experiment was designed using different length tubes of aluminium, copper and brass. The tubes had the same diameter and similar wall thickness. A short, cylindrical neodymium magnet was dropped through the tubes of and the time for the magnet to traverse the tube was recorded using a smartphone camera. These times allowed for the terminal velocity to be calculated for each metal length and the average terminal velocity for each metal was determined. This …

Chemical Stability Investigations Of Catalyst Layer In Pemfc, Yan-Yan Gao, Ming Hou, Yong-Yi Jiang, Dong Liang, Jun Ai, Li-Min Zheng

Journal of Electrochemistry

This work was intended to study the effect of free radicals on the chemical stability of catalyst layer via ex situ accelerated stress test (AST). Fenton reagent was used as the free radical provider in this research. Apart from the decomposition of Nafion in catalyst layer, the agglomerated Pt nanoparticles and the corroded carbon support were also observed after being treated in Fenton reagent for 100 h. Firstly, the existence of fluoride (F) ions evidenced the chemical decomposation of Nafion after being attacked by trace radical species, which was supported by the intensity decrease in the C-F stretching and vibration …

Lead Modified Nanoporous Platinum Electro-Catalysts For Formic Acid Oxidation, Yuanyuan Zhang, Qingfeng Yi, Gekunkun Zuo, Tao Zou, Xiaoping Liu, Xiulin Zhou

Journal of Electrochemistry

Platinum (Pt) catalysts modified by other suitable metals significantly enhance their electrochemical activities for formic acid oxidation. In this work, a titanium-supported nanoporous network platinum (nanoPt/Ti) electrode was prepared using a hydrothermal method. The as-prepared nanoPt/Ti electrode was modified with a certain amount of lead by using cyclic voltammetry for different scan cycle numbers (n), namely, n = 10, 15, 20 and 30, to synthesize the novel lead-modified nanoporous Pt (nanoPb_(n)-Pt/Ti) electrodes. Electro-oxidation of formic acid on these electrodes was studied with cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry and chronopotentiometry in sulfuric acid solution. CV curves showed that both nanoPt/Ti …

Co3(Hcoo)6@Rgo As A Promising Anode For Lithium Ion Batteries, Heng Jiang, Jing-Min Fan, Ming-Sen Zheng, Quan-Feng Dong

Journal of Electrochemistry

Metal–organic framework(MOF) is a kind of novel electrode materials for lithium ion batteries. Here, a composite material Co₃(HCOO)₆@rGO was synthesized for the first time by in situ loading of Co₃(HCOO)₆ on rGO (reduced oxide graphene) through a solution chemistry method. As an anode material for lithium ion batteries, it exhibited an excellent cycle stability as well as a large reversible capacity of 926 mAh·g^-1 at a current density of 500 mA·g^-1 after 100 cycles within the voltage range of 0.02 ~ 3.0 V vs. Li/Li⁺ with a good rate capability. …

Recent Progress For Fe-N-C Electrocatalysts In Alkaline Fuel Cells, Xin Deng, Heng-Quan Chen, Ye Hu, Qing-Gang He

Journal of Electrochemistry

Fuel cells are highly recommended nowadays due to their intrinsic advantages such as high energy conversion efficiency, nearly no pollution, and convenient operation. With the development of anion exchange membrane, alkaline fuel cells have gone through a renaissance thanks to their superiorities such as faster reaction kinetics, wider choices for both fuels and electrocatalysts. It is essential to find an appropriate electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) to improve the performance of alkaline fuel cells. Further commercialization of the widely used Pt-based materials has suffered from disadvantages such as scarcity and high cost. As alternatives to largely investigated Pt-based materials, …

A Study Of Pulse Electrodeposition On Suppressing The Formation Of Lithium Dendrite, Wen-Jun Guo, Zi-Qiong Li, Ruo-Hao Ke, Dong-Fang Niu, Heng Xu, Xin-Sheng Zhang

Journal of Electrochemistry

A pulse charge method was used to suppress the formation of lithium dendrite on the copper electrode in 0.5 mol·L^-1 LiBr/propylene carbonate (PC) electrolyte. The surface variation of lithium deposition was investigated by scanning electron microscope and impedance measurement. The SEM test showed that the lithium dendrites were formed on the copper electrode during the traditional process of electrodeposition. However, the formed dendrite was suppressed by pulse charge method. The results of the impedance measurement confirmed that the pulse electrodeposition could suppress the dendrite under the optimized duty ratio (0.5). The long single pulse deposition time decreased the resistance …

Pt/G-C3N4 Nanosheet For Visible Light €“Induced Enhancement Of The Activity For Formic Acid Electro-Oxidation, Yong-Rong Sun, Chun-Yu Du, Guo-Kang Han, Ya-Jing Wang, Yun-Zhi Gao, Ge-Ping Yin

Journal of Electrochemistry

By using graphitic carbon nitride nanosheet (g-C₃N₄ nanosheet) as a support，Pt/g-C₃N₄ nanosheet catalyst was fabricated by microwave assisted polylol process. The nanoparticles size，composition，structure and optical properties of Pt/g-C₃N₄ nanosheet were characterized by TEM，XRD，XPS and UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Comparing with the catalytic activities toward formic acid electro-oxidation under dark and visible light illumination，the superior activity of Pt/g-C₃N₄ nanosheet catalyst was achieved under visible light illumination. This visible light-driven enhancement in the formic acid performance could be attributed to the plasmon-induced electron-hole separation on g-C₃N₄ with …