Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Search For A Supersymmetric Partner To The Top Quark Using A Multivariate Analysis Technique., Smita Darmora

Physics Dissertations

Supersymmetry (SUSY) is an extension to the Standard Model (SM) which introduces supersymmetric partners of the known fermions and bosons. Top squark (stop) searches are a natural extension of inclusive SUSY searches at the LHC. If SUSY solves the naturalness problem, the stop should be light enough to cancel the top loop contribution to the Higgs mass parameter. The 3rd generation squarks may be the first SUSY particles to be discovered at the LHC. The stop can decay into a variety of final states, depending, amongst other factors, on the hierarchy of the mass eigenstates formed from the linear superposition …

Business Reputation Of Social Networks Of Web Services, Zakaria Maamar, Gianpiero Costantino, Marinella Petrocchi, Fabio Martinelli

All Works

© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license. This paper introduces a set of criteria that are used to establish the reputation of a social network from a business perspective. This network is populated with social Web services. Compared to regular Web services, social Web services establish and maintain networks of contacts, count on their (privileged) contacts when needed, etc. These criteria are membershipCost, demandLevel, satisfactionLevel, and retentionLevel, and assist a social Web service in selecting the best social network in which it will sign up. Similar criteria have …

Weaving Risk Identification Into Crowdsourcing Lifecycle, Faouzi Kamoun, Dima Alhadidi, Zakaria Maamar

All Works

© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license. Crowdsourcing enables companies and individuals as well to tap into the versatile knowledge, creativity, and talent of a large population of crowd contributors. Yet, crowdsourcing can expose companies to a myriad of risks that can have drastic impact on the profitability and competitive position. This paper presents a Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) of crowdsourcing projects that spans the entire project's lifecycle. The paper first reports on a lifecycle model that captures the main phases of a crowdsourcing project. It then identifies …

A Service Oriented Broker-Based Approach For Dynamic Resource Discovery In Virtual Networks, Sleiman Rabah, May El Barachi, Nadjia Kara, Rachida Dssouli, Joey Paquet

All Works

© 2015, Rabah et al.; licensee Springer. In the past few years, the concept of network virtualization has received significant attention from industry and research fora. This concept applies virtualization to networking infrastructures by enabling the dynamic creation of several co-existing logical network instances (or virtual networks) over a shared physical network infrastructure (or substrate network). Due to the potential it offers in terms of diversifying existing networks and ensuring the co-existence of heterogeneous network architectures on top of shared substrates, network virtualization is often considered as an enabler of a polymorphic Internet and a cornerstone of the future Internet …

E-Mail Authorship Attribution Using Customized Associative Classification, Michael R. Schmid, Farkhund Iqbal, Benjamin C.M. Fung

All Works

E-mail communication is often abused for conducting social engineering attacks including spamming, phishing, identity theft and for distributing malware. This is largely attributed to the problem of anonymity inherent in the standard electronic mail protocol. In the literature, authorship attribution is studied as a text categorization problem where the writing styles of individuals are modeled based on their previously written sample documents. The developed model is employed to identify the most plausible writer of the text. Unfortunately, most existing studies focus solely on improving predictive accuracy and not on the inherent value of the evidence collected. In this study, we …

Factors Influencing Digital Forensic Investigations: Empirical Evaluation Of 12 Years Of Dubai Police Cases, Ibtesam Alawadhi, Janet Read, Andrew Marrington, Virginia Franqueira

All Works

In Digital Forensics, the number of person-hours spent on investigation is a key factor which needs to be kept to a minimum whilst also paying close attention to the authenticity of the evidence. The literature describes challenges behind increasing person-hours and identifies several factors which contribute to this phenomenon. This paper reviews these factors and demonstrates that they do not wholly account for increases in investigation time. Using real case records from the Dubai Police, an extensive study explains the contribution of other factors to the increase in person-hours. We conclude this work by emphasizing on several factors affecting the …

Graph-Theoretic Characterization Of Cyber-Threat Infrastructures, Amine Boukhtouta, Djedjiga Mouheb, Mourad Debbabi, Omar Alfandi, Farkhund Iqbal, May El Barachi

All Works

In this paper, we investigate cyber-threats and the underlying infrastructures. More precisely, we detect and analyze cyber-threat infrastructures for the purpose of unveiling key players (owners, domains, IPs, organizations, malware families, etc.) and the relationships between these players. To this end, we propose metrics to measure the badness of different infrastructure elements using graph theoretic concepts such as centrality concepts and Google PageRank. In addition, we quantify the sharing of infrastructure elements among different malware samples and families to unveil potential groups that are behind specific attacks. Moreover, we study the evolution of cyber-threat infrastructures over time to infer patterns …

Network And Device Forensic Analysis Of Android Social-Messaging Applications, Daniel Walnycky, Ibrahim Baggili, Andrew Marrington, Jason Moore, Frank Breitinger

All Works

In this research we forensically acquire and analyze the device-stored data and network traffic of 20 popular instant messaging applications for Android. We were able to reconstruct some or the entire message content from 16 of the 20 applications tested, which reflects poorly on the security and privacy measures employed by these applications but may be construed positively for evidence collection purposes by digital forensic practitioners. This work shows which features of these instant messaging applications leave evidentiary traces allowing for suspect data to be reconstructed or partially reconstructed, and whether network forensics or device forensics permits the reconstruction of …

Effects Of Prescribed Fire On Upland Plant Biodiversity And Abundance In Northeast Florida, Peter D. Maholland

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Terrestrial ecosystems in the southeastern United States have evolved with fire as a common disturbance and as a result many natural communities require the presence of fire to persist over time. Human development precludes natural fires from occurring within these communities; however, prescribed fire is considered to be a critical tool in the effort to restore fire-dependent ecosystems after decades of fire exclusion. Direct effects of fire on individual floral and faunal species as well as benefits to biodiversity at the landscape (gamma diversity) level have largely been supported in previous research. However, information on the effects of natural and …

Understanding The Physiological Effects Of Suspended Material On Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus Mykiss), Tyler J. Weinhardt

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The effect of global warming on northern environments is becoming increasingly evident. Melting of underlying permafrost is associated with widespread impacts in these environments. The loss of permafrost results in a destabilizing of underlying sedimentary layers resulting in thermokarst slumping. When this occurs on a large scale (mega-slumping) soil material becomes mobilized and is carried into local streams and rivers. The purpose of this study is to examine the sub-lethal physiological effects that suspended material has on rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in the context of the Peel River Plateau. Juvenile rainbow trout were exposed (following Environment Canada exposure …

Examination Of Field Scale Hydrological Processes Under Three Different Tillage Methods In Southern Ontario: Conventional Till (Ct); Modified Till (Mt); And No Till (Nt), Ian Martin

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In the wake of the severe algal blooms of 2011 and 2013 in the Great Lakes, international governing bodies such as the United Nations, are advocating for increased studies on nutrient dynamics within agricultural systems. Understanding farm contributions to nutrient loads entering the Great Lakes involves quantifying nutrient export from different tillage practices common in the Great Lakes basin, which include no-till (NT), conventional till (CT) and modified tillage (MT). Understanding differences in nutrient export from different tillage practices may well be related to structural differences in the upper portion of the vadose zone which impact infiltration, soil moisture and …

The Importance Of Supersaturated Silica Deposition For Base-Metalau-Ag Mineralisation In Western Turkey, Gülcan Bozkaya, David A. Banks

Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

In the Arapuçandere LS-IS epithermal deposit in western Turkey, either well crystallised euhedral quartz or milky amorphous silica occurrences are associated with the precious and base-metal mineralisation. This study has determined the relative importance of the processes precipitating both of these in relation to the deposition of the ore. Analysis by LA-ICPMS of euhedral quartz and amorphous silica show that the latter is associated with much higher metal concentrations and suggests that the process responsible is more important for deposition of ore in the deposit. Mineralisation at Kumarlar and Koru may be similar. Slow cooling precipitates euhedral quartz and some …

Moving Towards A Greener Future: An Investigation Of How Transit-Oriented Development Has The Potential To Redefine Cities Around Sustainability, Margaret E. Smith

Scripps Senior Theses

How does transportation shape the cities we live in? This paper takes a close look at the practice of transit-oriented development to assess its implications for the future of urban areas. Through the design of a hypothetical light rail station in the suburb of Redmond, WA, this paper demonstrates how targeting sustainable development around transit has the potential to influence entire towns to “go green,” and proposes that, moving forward, cities be designed to maximize mobility, livability, and sustainability.

Exploring How Social Media Can Be Used To Promote Space Awareness: A Case Study Of The Yuri's Night Web 2.0, Alan Steinberg, Jeffrey Alles, Ryan L. Kobrick

Publications

Despite the importance of social media as an inexpensive and efficient means of communication, it is not clear to what degree space advocacy groups are making a strong organized effort to use the resources available to them. Moreover, there is no previous literature that specifically examines the use of social media tools by space organizations. This study seeks to start a larger dialog regarding how the space advocacy community can make use of these tools to promote their mission. Using a case study approach, this article focuses specifically on the organization of Yuri’s Night to explore how this group is …

The Effect Of Compact Object Spin On The Search For Gravitational Waves From Binary Neutron Star And Neutron Star-Black Hole Mergers, Alexander Harvey Nitz

Dissertations - ALL

In this dissertation we study gravitational-wave searches for

binary neutron star and neutron star - black hole coalescences.

We determine the accuracy of post-Newtonian approximations as gravitational-wave

templates in matched-filter based searches for NSBH mergers.

We test a geometric method to generate template banks for BNS and NSBH mergers where

the components have intrinsic spin, and estimate the sensitivity to

astrophysical sources of searches that use these banks during Advanced LIGO.

We explore simplifications and optimizations to the search pipeline used

during S6/VSR2,3 gravitational-wave searches. We investigate methods for regenerating

template banks as the noise behavior of a detector changes …

Comparing Bulk Aerosol Profiles In The Mixed Layer In Coastal Los Angeles And The Inland Empire, Taia Sean Wu

Scripps Senior Theses

Characteristic westerly sea breeze carries air over the Los Angeles Basin in Southern California to the Inland Empire approximately 50 miles inland, directly impacting air quality in both of these two highly polluted regions. As particles play a critical role in air quality and human health, this study compares the bulk aerosol profiles of the Los Angeles pollution "source" and Inland Empire "receptor" regions during the 2013 and 2014 NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) campaigns onboard the NASA DC-8 airborne laboratory. The source and receptor regions were characterized by a series of missed approaches at the Los Angeles International …

Exploration Of Materials Used In 3-Dimensional Printing For The Dental Industry, Holly Chang Hayden

Scripps Senior Theses

A limiting factor in the digitization of dental devices is the availability of materials suitable for use in both dentistry and the new digital technologies. As a rapidly growing industry, three-dimensional printing (3DP) has the potential to disrupt traditional manufacturing and prototyping methods. A review of both restorative materials and the current 3DP materials has lead to a focus on fiber- reinforced composites in the exploration for a new 3DP material. In addition, another area worth exploring and investing in would be 3D bioprinting as it opens up the possibility of regenerative dentistry.

Student Contributors -- Global Perspectives/Regional Solutions: A Public Journalism Project Curated, Peter Adams

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

[Editor note: This project is in the form of a Wordpress site containing interviews, articles and other materials by students in a public journalism course. The primary pages were saved as a pdf document for download. For the full text of student works, please see the full Wordpress site at: https://snaax123.wordpress.com/

from "About":
Welcome to a project of Public Journalism CRN 10745
Climate Change: Global Perspectives. Regional Solutions
Students have learned the fundamentals of journalism research and reporting. Students also examined issues surrounding climate change and sea-level rise globally and regionally in Hampton Roads.]

Studying The Effect Of Sea-Level Rise On Infrastructure And Construction, Michelle Flanagan

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

Climate Central, a nonprofit research organization that aims to provide the public with relevant and reliable information on climate change, developed an interactive application called the Risk Finder tool that launched in October of 2013. This tool collects data from several federal agencies, including NOAA, FEMA, and the EPA, and allows users to research sea-level rise and climate change in their specific state. In an effort to provide a user-friendly platform, Dan Rizza at Climate Central tasked an introductory Technical and Scientific writing course at Old Dominion University with conducting usability testing on the Risk Finder tool. Usability testing is …

A Study Of The Effects Of Usability On Risk Perception And User Affinity Of Risk Finder, Erin Jacobson

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

In October 2013, Climate Central, a non-profit research organization, released Risk Finder, an online, interactive mapping tool that allows users to explore the effects of rising sea level in a specific geographic region. A research study for client Dan Rizza of Climate Central was conducted on the usability of the Risk Finder tool in an effort to identify potential system errors, improve user experience, and assess the future use of this tool based on user perception. Primary investigators Dr. Daniel Richards and Mrs. Megan McKittrick utilized an approach known as “productive usability,” which allows researchers to openly observe participants …

Sea Level Trends In Southeast Asian Seas, M. W. Strassburg, B. D. Hamlington, R. R. Manrung, J. Lumban-Gaol, B. Nababan, K.-Y. Kim

CCPO Publications

Southeast Asian seas span the largest archipelago in the global ocean and provide a complex oceanic pathway connecting the Pacific and Indian oceans. The Southeast Asian sea regional sea level trends are some of the highest observed in the modern satellite altimeter record that now spans almost 2 decades. Initial comparisons of global sea level reconstructions find that 17-year sea level trends over the past 60 years exhibit good agreement with decadal variability associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and related fluctuations of trade winds in the region. The Southeast Asian sea region exhibits sea level trends that vary dramatically …

An Ion Detector For The Array For Nuclear Astrophysics And Structure With Exotic Nuclei (Anasen), Cedric Williams, K Macon, C M. Deibel, J C. Blackmon

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Parallel Fabrication And Transport Properties Of Carbon Nanotube Single Electron Transistors, Muhammad Islam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Single electron transistors (SET) have attracted significant attention as a potential building block for post CMOS nanoelectronic devices. However, lack of reproducible and parallel fabrication approach and room temperature operation are the two major bottlenecks for practical realization of SET based devices. In this thesis, I demonstrate large scale single electron transistors fabrication techniques using solution processed single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and studied their electron transport properties. The approach is based on the assembly of individual SWNTs via dielectrophoresis (DEP) at the selected position of the circuit and formation of tunnel barriers on SWNT. Two different techniques: i) metal-SWNT …

Convective Heat Transfer In Quasi-One-Dimensional Magnetic Fluid In Horizontal Field And Temperature Gradients, Jun Huang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this work we studied the convective heat transfer in a magnetic fluid in both zero and applied magnetic fields. The natural convection is observed in a quasi-one dimensional magnetic fluid in a horizontal temperature gradient. The horizontal non-homogeneous magnetic fields were applied across the sample cell either parallel or anti-parallel to the temperature gradient. The temperature profile was measured by eight thermocouples and temperature sensitive paint. The flow velocity field and streamlines were obtained by optical flow method. Calculated Nusselt numbers, Rayleigh number, and Grashof number show that the convective flow is the main heat transfer mechanism in applied …

Structure-Property Relationship Of The Two-Photon Circular Dichroism Of Compounds With Axial And Helical Chirality, Carlos Diaz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Back in 1894 Lord Kelvin coined the term "chiral" in order to refer to molecules whose mirror images were not superimposable with themselves. Over the years, research has demonstrated the important role that chiral molecules play in life, chemistry, and biology as well as their importance in the development of new drugs and technologies. The efforts to understand chiral systems have been mainly driven by spectroscopic methods that leverage on the opposite responses that enantiomers have to linear or circularly polarized light of both handedness. More specifically, Electronic Circular Dichroism (ECD) which measures the differences in linear absorption of left …

Fast Strain Wave Induced Magnetization Changes In Long Cobalt Bars: Domain Motion Versus Coherent Rotation, S Davis, J A. Borchers, B B. Maranville, Shireen Adenwalla

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

A high frequency (88 MHz) traveling strain wave on a piezoelectric substrate is shown to change the magnetization direction in 40 lm wide Co bars with an aspect ratio of 103. The rapidly alternating strain wave rotates the magnetization away from the long axis into the short axis direction, via magnetoelastic coupling. Strain-induced magnetization changes have previously been demonstrated in ferroelectric/ferromagnetic heterostructures, with excellent fidelity between the ferromagnet and the ferroelectric domains, but these experiments were limited to essentially dc frequencies. Both magneto-optical Kerr effect and polarized neutron reflectivity confirm that the traveling strain wave does rotate the magnetization away …

Continuous Third Harmonic Generation In A Terahertz Driven Modulated Nanowire, Kathleen E. Hamilton, Alexey Kovalev, Amrit De, Leonid P. Pryadko

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

We consider the possibility of observing continuous third-harmonic generation using a strongly driven, single-band one-dimensional metal. In the absence of scattering, the quantum efficiency of frequency tripling for such a system can be as high as 93%. Combining the Floquet quasienergy spectrum with the Keldysh Green’s function technique, we derive a semiclassical master equation for a one-dimensional band of strongly and rapidly driven electrons in the presence of weak scattering by phonons. The power absorbed from the driving field is continuously dissipated by phonon modes, leading to a quasi-equilibrium in the electron distribution. We use the Kronig-Penney model with varying …

Thresholds For Correcting Errors, Erasures, And Faulty Syndrome Measurements In Degenerate Quantum Codes, Ilya Dumer, Alexey Kovalev, Leonid P. Pryadko

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

We suggest a technique for constructing lower (existence) bounds for the fault-tolerant threshold to scalable quantum computation applicable to degenerate quantum codes with sublinear distance scaling. We give explicit analytic expressions combining probabilities of erasures, depolarizing errors, and phenomenological syndrome measurement errors for quantum low-density parity-check codes with logarithmic or larger distances. These threshold estimates are parametrically better than the existing analytical bound based on percolation.

Spin Glass Reflection Of The Decoding Transition For Quantum Error Correcting Codes, Alexey Kovalev, Leonid P. Pryadko

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

We study the decoding transition for quantum error correcting codes with the help of a mapping to random-bond Wegner spin models. Families of quantum low density parity-check (LDPC) codes with a finite decoding threshold lead to both known models (e.g., random bond Ising and random plaquette Z₂ gauge models) as well as unexplored earlier generally non-local disordered spin models with non-trivial phase diagrams. The decoding transition corresponds to a transition from the ordered phase by proliferation of "post-topological" extended defects which generalize the notion of domain walls to non-local spin models. In recently discovered quantum LDPC code families with …

Relativistic Configuration Interaction Calculations Of The Atomic Properties Of Selected Transition Metal Positive Ions; Ni Ii, V Ii And W Ii, Marwa Hefny Abdalmoneam

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Relativistic Configuration Interaction (RCI) method has been used to investigate atomic properties of the singly ionized transition metals including Nickel (Ni II), Vanadium (V II), and Tungsten (W II). The methodology of RCI computations was also improved. Specifically, the method to shift the energy diagonal matrix of the reference configurations was modified which facilitated including the effects of many electronic configurations that used to be difficult to be included in the energy matrix and speeded-up the final calculations of the bound and continuum energy spectrum. RCI results were obtained for three different cases:

1. Atomic moments and polarizabilities of Ni II; …