Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Schedule (2009), Association Of Christians In The Mathematical Sciences

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2009

Seventeenth Conference of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences

Table Of Contents (2009), Association Of Christians In The Mathematical Sciences

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2009

Seventeenth Conference of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences

The Development Of An Optimized System Of Narcotic And Explosive Contraband Mimics For Calibration And Training Of Biological Detectors, Michael S. Macias

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current commercially available mimics contain varying amounts of either the actual explosive/drug or the chemical compound of suspected interest by biological detectors. As a result, there is significant interest in determining the dominant chemical odor signatures of the mimics, often referred to as pseudos, particularly when compared to the genuine contraband material. This dissertation discusses results obtained from the analysis of drug and explosive headspace related to the odor profiles as recognized by trained detection canines. Analysis was performed through the use of headspace solid phase microextraction in conjunction with gas chromatography mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS). Upon determination of specific odors, …

Perturbative Analysis Of The Method Of Particular Solutions For Improved Inclusion Of High-Lying Dirichlet Eigenvalues, A. H. Barnett

Dartmouth Scholarship

The Dirichlet eigenvalue or “drum” problem in a domain $\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^2$ becomes numerically challenging at high eigenvalue (frequency) E. In this regime the method of particular solutions (MPS) gives spectral accuracy for many domain shapes. It requires a number of degrees of freedom scaling as $\sqrt{E}$, the number of wavelengths on the boundary, in contrast to direct discretization for which this scaling is E. Our main result is an inclusion bound on eigenvalues that is a factor $O(\sqrt{E})$ tighter than the classical bound of Moler–Payne and that is optimal in that it reflects the true slopes of curves appearing …

Tree Ring Dating Of Logs From Tschantz Cabin, Kidron, Oh

Historic Structures

Dating historical structures in Wayne County, Ohio using dendrochronology. The Historical Structures collection consists of reports that are the result of dendochronological analysis of timbers from structures in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Contributors: Aughenbaugh, Kelly; Mennett, Colin; Wiesenberg, Nicholas; Wiles, Greg

Coalition Robustness Of Multiagent Systems, Nghia Cong Tran

Theses and Dissertations

Many multiagent systems are environments where distinct decision-makers compete, explicitly or implicitly, for scarce resources. In these competitive environments, itcan be advantageous for agents to cooperate and form teams, or coalitions; this cooperation gives agents strategic advantage to compete for scarce resources. Multiagent systems thus can be characterized in terms of competition and cooperation. To evaluate the effectiveness of cooperation for particular coalitions, we derive measures based on comparing these different coalitions at their respective equilibria. However, relying on equilibrium results leads to the interesting question of stability. Control theory and cooperative game theory have limitations that make it hard …

Effect Of Particulate Aggregation In Aquatic Environments On The Beam Attenuation And Its Utility As A Proxy For Particulate Mass, Emmanuel Boss, Wayne Slade, Paul Hill

Marine Sciences Faculty Scholarship

Marine aggregates, agglomerations of particles and dissolved materials, are an important particulate pool in aquatic environments, but their optical properties are not well understood. To improve understanding of the optical properties of aggregates, two related studies are presented. In the first, an in situ manipulation experiment is described, in which beam attenuation of undisturbed and sheared suspensions are compared. Results show that in the sheared treatment bulk particle size decreases and beam attenuation increases, consistent with the hypothesis that a significant fraction of mass in suspension is contained in fragile aggregates. Interestingly, the magnitude of increase in beam attenuation is …

Deployed Software Analysis, Madeline M. Diep

Department of Computer Science and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Profiling can offer a valuable characterization of software behavior. The richer the characterization is, the more effective the client analyses are in supporting quality assurance activities. For today's complex software, however, obtaining a rich characterization with the input provided by in-house test suites is becoming more difficult and expensive. Extending the profiling activity to deployed environments can mitigate this shortcoming by exposing more program behavior reflecting real software usage. To make profiling of deployed software plausible, however, we need to take into consideration that there are fundamental differences between the development and the deployed environments. Deployed environments allow for less …

Interview With Ivy Dunlap, Bureau Of Environmental Services, 2009 (Audio), Ivy Dunlap

All Sustainability History Project Oral Histories

Interview of Ivy Dunlap by Kris Thomason at Portland State University on May 23rd, 2009.

The interview index is available for download.

Cybercrime And The 2012 London Olympics, Denis Edgar-Nevill

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The London 2012 Olympics is just three years away and the clock is ticking to put in place plans get it right. The potential for cybercrime to cause harm during this event is very great; harm to national reputation, harm to the reputation to the Olympic movement, and harm to individuals competing, watching or officiating. This paper considers the need to address these risks by taking a look at what has happened in the past at sporting events and the rising wave of electronic security threats and fraud facilitated by computers at recent Olympics. The problems for law enforcement are …

Methodology For Investigating Individuals Online Social Networking Persona, Jonathan T. Rajewski

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

When investigators from either the private or public sector review digital data surrounding a case for evidentiary value, they typically conduct a systematic categorization process to identify the relevant digital devices. Armed with the proper methodology to accomplish this task, investigators can quickly recognize the appropriate digital devices for forensic processing and review. This paper purposes a methodology for investigating an individual’s online social networking persona.

Keywords: Social Networking, Web 2.0, Internet Investigations, Online Social Networking Community

An Efficient Algorithm For Real-Time Divisible Load Scheduling, Anwar Mamat, Ying Lu, Jitender S. Deogun, Steve Goddard

CSE Technical Reports

Providing QoS and performance guarantees to arbitrarily divisible loads has become a significant problem for many cluster-based research computing facilities. While progress is being made in scheduling arbitrarily divisible loads, existing approaches are not very efficient and cannot scale to large clusters. In this paper we propose an efficient algorithm for real-time divisible load scheduling, which has a time complexity linear to the number of tasks and the number of nodes in the cluster.

Interview With Kirk Davis, Glumac International, 2009 (Audio), Kirk Davis

All Sustainability History Project Oral Histories

Interview of Kirk Davis by Jay Fielding at Glumac International, Portland, Oregon on May 22nd, 2009.

The interview index is available for download.

Experimental Studies Of Nacs, Seth T. Ashman, C. M. Wolfe, J. P. Huennekens

Engineering & Physics Faculty Publications

We present experimental studies of excited electronic states of the NaCs molecule that are currently underway in our laboratory. The optical-optical double resonance method is used to obtain Doppler-free excitation spectra for several excited states. These data are being used to obtain RydbergKlein-Rees (RKR) or Inverse Perturbation Approach (IPA) potential curves for these states. We are also trying to map the bound portion of the 1(a) 3Σ + potential using resolved laser-induced fluorescence and Fourier transform spectroscopy to record transitions into the shallow well. Bound-free spectra from single ro-vibrational levels of electronically excited states to the repulsive wall of the …

A Bayesian Shrinkage Model For Incomplete Longitudinal Binary Data With Application To The Breast Cancer Prevention Trial, C. Wang, M.J. Daniels, Daniel O. Scharfstein, S. Land

Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Biostatistics Working Papers

We consider inference in randomized studies, in which repeatedly measured outcomes may be informatively missing due to drop out. In this setting, it is well known that full data estimands are not identified unless unverified assumptions are imposed. We assume a non-future dependence model for the drop-out mechanism and posit an exponential tilt model that links non-identifiable and identifiable distributions. This model is indexed by non-identified parameters, which are assumed to have an informative prior distribution, elicited from subject-matter experts. Under this model, full data estimands are shown to be expressed as functionals of the distribution of the observed data. …

Gauge Federation As An Alternative To Unification, John Donoghue, Preema Pais

John Donoghue

We motivate and explore the possibility that extra SU(N) gauge groups may exist independently of the Standard Model groups, yet not be subgroups of some grand unified group. We study the running of the coupling constants as a potential evidence for a common origin of all the gauge theories. Several different example are displayed. Some of the multiple options involve physics at the TeV scale.

Genetic Analysis Of Ribosome Stalling And Rescue, Douglas Ray Tanner

Theses and Dissertations

In eubacteria, ribosome stalling on broken messenger RNA transcripts can lead to cell death. The trans-translation quality control mechanism rescues many of these stalled ribosomes. In this process, tmRNA enters stalled ribosomes by mimicking a transfer RNA, accepting the stalled nascent peptide. The ribosome then releases the broken mRNA and resumes translation on a coding region within tmRNA itself. Translation of tmRNA marks the nascent peptide for destruction by the addition of a short proteolysis tag and the ribosome is released at a stop codon within the tmRNA open reading frame. An intriguing aspect of trans-translation is that …

A Simulated Annealing Approach To Communication Network Design, Stephen J. Sugden, Marcus Randall, Graham Mcmahon

Marcus Randall

This paper explores the use of the meta-heuristic search algorithm Simulated Annealing for solving a minimum cost network synthesis problem. This problem is a common one in the design of telecommunication networks. The formulation we use models a number of practical problems with hop-limit, degree and capacity constraints. Emphasis is placed on a new approach that uses a knapsack polytope to select amongst a number of pre-computed traffic routes in order to synthesise the network. The advantage of this approach is that a subset of the best routes can be used instead of the whole set, thereby making the process …

Bluetooth Hacking: A Case Study, Dennis Browning, Gary C. Kessler

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper describes a student project examining mechanisms with which to attack Bluetooth-enabled devices. The paper briefly describes the protocol architecture of Bluetooth and the Java interface that programmers can use to connect to Bluetooth communication services. Several types of attacks are described, along with a detailed example of two attack tools, Bloover II and BT Info.

Keywords: Bluetooth hacking, mobile phone hacking, wireless hacking

Concerning File Slack, Stephen P. Larson

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this paper we discuss the phenomena known as file slack. File slack is created each time a file is created on a hard disk, and can contain private or confidential data. Unfortunately, the methods used by Microsoft Windows operating systems to organize and save files require file slack, and users have no control over what data is saved in file slack. This document will help create awareness about the security issue of file slack and discuss research results concerning file slack.

Keywords : Computer Forensics, File Slack, Ram Slack, Disk Slack

The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act And The Law Of Unintended Consequences, Milton Luoma, Vicki Luoma

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

One of the most unanticipated results of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act arose from the law of unintended consequences. The CFAA was originally enacted in 1984 to protect federal government computers from intrusions and damage caused by hackers, identity thieves, and other cyber criminals. The law was later amended to extend the scope of its application to financial institutions’, business’s and consumers’ computers. To aid in the pursuit of cyber criminals, one of the subsequent revisions to the law included provision “G” that gave the right to private parties to seek compensation for damages in a civil action for …

Don’T Touch That! And Other E-Discovery Issues, Linda Volonino

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The ability to preserve and access electronically stored information (ESI) took on greater urgency when amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect in December 2006. These amendments, referred to as the electronic discovery (e-discovery) amendments, focus on the discovery phase of civil litigation, audits, or investigations. Discovery is the investigative phase of a legal case when opponents learn what evidence is available and how accessible it is. When ESI is the subject of discovery, it is called e-discovery. Recognizing that most business and personal records and communications are electronic, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin stated, "We used …

Why Are We Not Getting Better At Data Disposal?, Andy Jones

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper describes two sets of research, the first of which has been carried out over a period of four years into the levels and types of information that can be found on computer hard disks that are offered for sale on the second hand market. The second research project examined a number of second-hand hand held devices including PDAs, mobile (cell) phones and RIM Blackberry devices. The primary purpose of this research was to gain an understanding of the reasons for the failure to effectively remove potentially sensitive information from the disks and handheld devices. Other objectives included determining …

Analysis Of The ‘Db’ Windows Registry Data Structure, Damir Kahvedžić, Tahar Kechadi

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The Windows Registry stores a wide variety of data representing a host of different user properties, settings and program information. The data structures used by the registry are designed to be adaptable to store these differences in a simple format. In this paper we will highlight the existence of a rare data structure that is used to store a large amount of data within the registry hives. We analyse the manner in which this data structure stores its data and the implications that it may have on evidence retrieval and digital investigation. In particular, we reveal that the three of …

Correlating Orphaned Windows Registry Data Structures, Damir Kahvedžić, Tahar Kechadi

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Recently, it has been shown that deleted entries of the Microsoft Windows registry (keys) may still reside in the system files once the entries have been deleted from the active database. Investigating the complete keys in context may be extremely important from both a Forensic Investigation point of view and a legal point of view where a lack of context can bring doubt to an argument. In this paper we formalise the registry behaviour and show how a retrieved value may not maintain a relation to the part of the registry it belonged to and hence lose that context. We …

Polarization Spectroscopy And Collisions In Nak, Seth T. Ashman, C. M. Wolfe, J. Huennekens, B. Beser, J. Bai, A. M. Lyyra

Engineering & Physics Faculty Publications

We report current work to study transfer of population and orientation in collisions of NaK molecules with argon and potassium atoms using polarization labeling (PL) and laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy. In the PL experiment, a circularly polarized pump laser excites a specific NaK A1Σ +(v=16, J) ← X1Σ +(v=0, J ± 1) transition, creating an orientation (non-uniform MJ level distribution) in both levels. The linear polarized probe laser is scanned over various 3 1Π(v=8, J 0 ± 1) ← A1Σ +(v=16, J 0 ) transitions. The probe laser passes through a crossed linear polarizer before detection, and signal is recorded …

Elementary-Level Mathematics Content In Comic Book Format, Bruce Kessler, Janet Tassell, Mary Evans, Cathy Willoughby, Melissa Zimmer

Bruce Kessler

No abstract provided.

A Network-Aware Distributed Membership Protocol For Collaborative Defense, David Zage, Carl Livadas, Eve M. Schooler

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of Topologies And Communication In Large Particle Swarms, Matthew Gardner, Andrew Mcnabb, Kevin Seppi

Faculty Publications

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) has typically been used with small swarms of about 50 particles. However, PSO is more efficiently parallelized with large swarms. We formally describe existing topologies and identify variations which are better suited to large swarms in both sequential and parallel computing environments. We examine the performance of PSO for benchmark functions with respect to swarm size and topology. We develop and demonstrate a new PSO variant which leverages the unique strengths of large swarms. “Hearsay PSO” allows for information to flow quickly through the swarm, even with very loosely connected topologies. These loosely connected topologies are …

Elementary-Level Mathematics Content In Comic Book Format, Bruce Kessler, Janet Tassell, Mary Evans, Cathy Willoughby, Melissa Zimmer

Mathematics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.