Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Effectiveness Of Physical Robot Versus Robot Simulator In Teaching Introductory Programming, Oka Kurniawan, Norman Tiong Seng Lee, Subhajit Datta, Nachamma Sockalingam, Pey Lin Leong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This study reports the use of a physical robot and robot simulator in an introductory programming course in a university and measures students' programming background conceptual learning gain and learning experience. One group used physical robots in their lessons to complete programming assignments, while the other group used robot simulators. We are interested in finding out if there is any difference in the learning gain and experiences between those that use physical robots as compared to robot simulators. Our results suggest that there is no significant difference in terms of students' learning between the two approaches. However, the control group …

On Learning Psycholinguistics Tools For English-Based Creole Languages Using Social Media Data, Pei-Chi Lo, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool is a psycholinguistics tool that has been widely used in both psychology and sociology research, and the LIWC scores derived from user-generated content are known to be good features for personality prediction [1], [2]. LIWC, however, is language specific as it relies on counting the percentage of predefined dictionary words occurring in the content. For content written in English Creoles which are languages based on English, the original English LIWC may not perform optimally due to its lack of words which are only used in the English Creoles. In this paper, we …

Investigation Of Electrolytic Flocculation For Microalga Scenedesmus Sp Using Aluminum And Graphite Electrodes, Shihong Liu, Husam A. Abu Hajar, Guy Riefler, Ben J. Stuart

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Electrolytic flocculation using non-sacrificial electrodes with flocculants added was studied on harvesting Scenedesmus sp. In order to optimize the operating conditions of the electrolytic flocculation process and to quantify the amount of flocculants added, aluminum electrodes were first used in the process. It was found that under optimal conditions, the microalgae removal efficiency using aluminum electrodes could reach 98.5%, while 34.2 mg L^-1 of aluminum ions were released during the process. Different metal electrodes were also studied, but high microalgae removal efficiency was witnessed only using aluminum electrodes, indicating the influence of the aluminum ion in flocculation. When non-sacrificial …

Deep Unsupervised Pixelization, Chu Han, Qiang Wen, Shengfeng He, Qianshu Zhu, Yinjie Tan, Guoqiang Han, Tien-Tsin Wong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we present a novel unsupervised learning method for pixelization. Due to the difficulty in creating pixel art, preparing the paired training data for supervised learning is impractical. Instead, we propose an unsupervised learning framework to circumvent such difficulty. We leverage the dual nature of the pixelization and depixelization, and model these two tasks in the same network in a bi-directional manner with the input itself as training supervision. These two tasks are modeled as a cascaded network which consists of three stages for different purposes. GridNet transfers the input image into multi-scale grid-structured images with different aliasing …

Active Matting, Xin Yang, Ke Xu, Shaozhe Chen, Shengfeng He, Baocai Yin, Rynson Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Image matting is an ill-posed problem. It requires a user input trimap or some strokes to obtain an alpha matte of the foreground object. A fine user input is essential to obtain a good result, which is either time consuming or suitable for experienced users who know where to place the strokes. In this paper, we explore the intrinsic relationship between the user input and the matting algorithm to address the problem of where and when the user should provide the input. Our aim is to discover the most informative sequence of regions for user input in order to produce …

Message From The Chairs, Toshiki Hirao, Yutaro Kashiwa, Christoph Treude, Raula Gaikovina Kula

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

It is our great pleasure to welcome everyone to the 2018 International Workshop on Empirical Software Engineering in Practice (IWESEP 2018). Our workshop aims to foster the development of the area by providing a forum where researchers and practitioners can report on and discuss new research results and applications in the area of empirical software engineering. The workshop encourages the exchange of ideas within the international community so as to be able to understand, from an empirical viewpoint, the strengths and weaknesses of technology in use and new technologies, with the expectation of advancing the field of software engineering in …

Efficient Stochastic Gradient Hard Thresholding, Pan Zhou, Xiao-Tong Yuan, Jiashi Feng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Stochastic gradient hard thresholding methods have recently been shown to work favorably in solving large-scale empirical risk minimization problems under sparsity or rank constraint. Despite the improved iteration complexity over full gradient methods, the gradient evaluation and hard thresholding complexity of the existing stochastic algorithms usually scales linearly with data size, which could still be expensive when data is huge and the hard thresholding step could be as expensive as singular value decomposition in rank-constrained problems. To address these deficiencies, we propose an efficient hybrid stochastic gradient hard thresholding (HSG-HT) method that can be provably shown to have sample-size-independent gradient …

Functional Materials, Device Architecture, And Flexibility Of Perovskite Solar Cell, Istiak Hussain, Hoang Phong Tran, Jared R. Jaksik, Justin Moore, Mohammed Jasim Uddin

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are an emerging photovoltaic technology that promises to offer facile and efficient solar power generation to meet future energy needs. PSCs have received considerable attention in recent years, have attained power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) over 22%, and are a promising candidate to potentially replace the current photovoltaic technology. The emergence of PSCs has revolutionized photovoltaic research and development because of their high efficiencies, inherent flexibility, the diversity of materials/synthetic methods that can be employed to manufacture them, and the various possible device architectures. Further optimization of material compositions and device architectures will help further improve efficiency …

Scale-Out Algorithm For Apache Storm In Saas Environment, Ravi Kiran Puttaswamy

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

The main appeal of the Cloud is in its cost effective and flexible access to computing power. Apache Storm is a data processing framework used to process streaming data. In our work we explore the possibility of offering Apache Storm as a software service. Further, we take advantage of the cgroups feature in Storm to divide the computing power of worker machine into smaller units to be offered to users. We predict that the compute bounds placed on the cgroups could be used to approximate the state of the workflow. We discuss the limitations of the current schedulers in facilitating …

Reducing The Tail Latency Of A Distributed Nosql Database, Jun Wu

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

The request latency is an important performance metric of a distributed database, such as the popular Apache Cassandra, because of its direct impact on the user experience. Specifically, the latency of a read or write request is defined as the total time interval from the instant when a user makes the request to the instant when the user receives the request, and it involves not only the actual read or write time at a specific database node, but also various types of latency introduced by the distributed mechanism of the database. Most of the current work focuses only on reducing …

Improving Detection Of Dim Targets: Optimization Of A Moment-Based Detection Algorithm, Shannon R. Young

Theses and Dissertations

Wide area motion imagery (WAMI) sensor technology is advancing rapidly. Increases in frame rates and detector array sizes have led to a dramatic increase in the volume of data that can be acquired. Without a corresponding increase in analytical manpower, much of these data remain underutilized. This creates a need for fast, automated, and robust methods for detecting dim, moving signals of interest. Current approaches fall into two categories: detect-before-track (DBT) and track-before-detect (TBD) methods. The DBT methods use thresholding to reduce the quantity of data to be processed, making real time implementation practical but at the cost of the …

Revolution In Crime: How Cryptocurrencies Have Changed The Criminal Landscape, Igor Groysman

Student Theses

This thesis will examine the ways in which various cryptocurrencies have impacted certain traditional crimes. While crime is always evolving with technology, cryptocurrencies are a game changer in that they provide anonymous and decentralized payment systems which, while they can be tracked in a reactive sense via the blockchain, are seen by criminals as having better uses for them than traditional fiat currencies, such as the ability to send money relatively fast to another party without going through an intermediary, or the ability to obscure the origin of the money for money laundering purposes. Every week there are new cryptocurrencies …

Regional Sulfur Isotope Study Of The Vms Deposits In The Penokean Volcanic Belt, Nicholas M. Moleski

Masters Theses

The Penokean Volcanic Belt (PVB), located in northern Wisconsin and Upper Peninsula, Michigan hosts several volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits (VMS) including the well-known deposits of Flambeau and Crandon. The host rocks of the VMS deposits are Paleoproterozoic in age overlying Archean age basement rocks. This study provides δ³⁴S (VCDT) values for the following deposits within the PVB; (1) Eisenbrey, (2) Schoolhouse, (3) Bend, (4) Flambeau, (5) Reef, (6) Horseshoe, and (7) Back Forty, and explains the distribution of δ³⁴S values in the region.

The study reveals tight ranges of δ³⁴S values for each deposit …

Influence Of High Aspect Ratio Nanoparticle Filler Addition On Piezoelectric Nanocomposites, Jeremy A. Armas

Master's Theses

Piezoelectric nanogenerators (PNGs) are a new class of energy harvesting materials that show potential as a direct energy source for low powered electronics. Recently, piezoelectric polymers have been utilized for PNG technology due to low toxicity, high flexibility, and facile solution processing which provide manufacturing opportunities such as screen printing. Throughout the last decade, countless projects have focused on how to enhance the energy harvesting capabilities of these PNGs through the incorporation of nanoparticle fillers, which have been reported to enhance the piezoelectric properties of the film either directly through their intrinsic piezoelectric properties or through acting as surfaces for …

Improving Ultra-Wideband Localization By Detecting Radio Misclassification, Cory A. Mayer

Master's Theses

The Global Positioning System (GPS) and other satellite-based positioning systems are often a key component in applications requiring localization. However, accurate positioning in areas with poor GPS coverage, such as inside buildings and in dense cities, is in increasing demand for many modern applications. Fortunately, recent developments in ultra-wideband (UWB) radio technology have enabled precise positioning in places where it was not previously possible by utilizing multipath-resistant wide band pulses.

Although ultra-wideband signals are less prone to multipath interference, it is still a bottleneck as increasingly ambitious projects continue to demand higher precision. Some UWB radios include on-board detection of …

Nba 2k, Joseph Saludo

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

The NBA 2K games have come a long way from an emerging basketball game to now becoming the biggest basketball game ever created. From its graphics, gameplay, community, and many more reasons why the game became so successful today, NBA 2K has evolved into the best basketball game by improving its overall structure every year-round.

Deepsign: A Deep-Learning Architecture For Sign Language, Jai Amrish Shah

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Sign languages are used by deaf people for communication. In sign languages, humans use hand gestures, body, facial expressions and movements to convey meaning. Humans can easily learn and understand sign languages, but automatic sign language recognition for machines is a challenging task. Using recent advances in the field of deep-learning, we introduce a fully automated deep-learning architecture for isolated sign language recognition. Our architecture tries to address three problems: 1) Satisfactory accuracy with limited data samples 2) Reducing chances of over-fitting when the data is limited 3) Automating recognition of isolated signs. Our architecture uses deep convolutional encoder-decoder architecture …

Generating An Adaptive Path Using Rrt Sampling And Potential Functions With Directional Nearest Neighbors, Sandeep Chahal

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Planning algorithms have attained omnipresent successes in several fields including robotics, animation, manufacturing, drug design, computational biology and aerospace applications. Path Planning is an essential component for autonomous robots. The problem involves searching the configuration space and constructing a desired collision-free path that connects two states (the start and the goal) for a robot to gradually navigate from one state to another. In global path planners, the complete path is computed prior to the robot set off. Sampling based planning like Rapidly Expanding Random Trees (RRT) and Probabilistic Road Maps (PRM) used for single or multi-query planning has gained popularity …

Defending Neural Networks Against Adversarial Examples, Armon Barton

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

Deep learning is becoming a technology central to the safety of cars, the security of networks, and the correct functioning of many other types of systems. Unfortunately, attackers can create adversarial examples, small perturbations to inputs that trick deep neural networks into making a misclassification. Researchers have explored various defenses against this attack, but many of them have been broken. The most robust approaches are Adversarial Training and its extension, Adversarial Logit Pairing, but Adversarial Training requires generating and training on adversarial examples from any possible attack. This is not only expensive, but it is inherently vulnerable to novel attack …

Health Monitoring Of Atlas Data Center Clusters And Failure Analysis, Meenakshi Balasubramanian

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Monitoring the health of data center clusters is an integral part of any industrial facility. ATLAS is one of the High Energy Physics experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. ATLAS DDM (Distributed Data Management) is a system that manages data transfer, staging, deletions and experimental data on the LHC grid. Currently, the DDM system relies on Rucio software, with Cloud based object storage and No-SQL solutions. It is a cumbersome process in the current system, to fetch and analyze the transfer, staging and deletion metrics of a specific site for any regional center. In this thesis, a …

Monitoring Of Swt2 Data Clusters For The Atlas Experiment, Antara Ray

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Monitoring of the South West Tier 2 RSEs is done by CERN with the help of Rucio. The challenge faced by the team monitoring the servers at the University of Texas site was that the monitoring data is pictorially represented and provided to them in GIF format. In this work we focus on creating an interactive site that will not only monitor the data at the local RSEs but also create a platform to analyze the data storage systems. It turn it will also create alerts whenever during monitoring an aberration from expected behavior is noticed either in the storage …

Dwrelu : Double Weighted Rectifier Linear Unit An Activation Function With Trainable Scaling Parameter, Bhaskar Chandra Trivedi

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Deep Neural Network have become very popular for computer vision application in recent years. At the same time, it remains important to understand the different implementation choices that need to be made when designing a neural network and to thoroughly investigate existing and novel alternatives for those choices. One of those choices is the activation function. The ReLU activation function is a widely used activation function. It discards all the values below zero and keeps the ones greater than zero. Variations such as Leaky ReLU and Parametric ReLU do not discard values, so that gradiants are nonzero for the entire …

Topological And Feature Based Identification Of Hole Boundaries In Point Cloud Data And Differentiation Between Surface And Physical Holes, Aaqif Muhtasim

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

With the advent of autonomous agents becoming prominent in everyday lives, the importance of processing the surroundings into understandable features becomes more and more important. 3D point clouds play a major role in the perception of such agents and thus having the ability to correctly decipher features from point clouds is crucial to the planning of actions that the agent would need to undertake. This thesis analyzes holes found in point clouds. Based on two approaches that center around topological data analysis and local point set features respectively. It studies how each of the methods works and how a combination …

Text Mining On Twitter Data To Evaluate Sentiment, Srijanee Niyogi

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Social media platforms have been a major part of our daily lives. But with the freedom of expression there is no way one can check whether the posts/tweets/expressions are classified on which polarity. Since Twitter is one of the biggest social platforms for microblogging, hence the experiment was done on this platform. There are several topics that are popular over the internet like sports, politics, finance, technology are chosen as the source of the experiment. These tweets were collected over a span of time for more than 2 months via a cron job. Every tweet can be divided into three …

Towards End-To-End Semi-Supervised Deep Learning For Drug Discovery, Xiaoyu Zhang

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Observing the recent progress in Deep Learning, the employment of AI is surging to accelerate drug discovery and cut R&D costs in the last few years. However, the success of deep learning is attributed to large-scale clean high-quality labeled data, which is generally unavailable in drug discovery practices. In this thesis, we address this issue by proposing an end-to-end deep learning framework in a semi supervised learning fashion. That is said, the proposed deep learning approach can utilize both labeled and unlabeled data. While labeled data is of very limited availability, the amount of available unlabeled data is generally huge. …

Classification Of Clinical Narratives Using Convolutional Neural Network, Nikit Rajiv Lonari

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Patient safety is a key aspect for good consumer care. When an individual is hospitalized or receives medication the family wants the patient safety to be above all factors. For instance, a drug can do both either cure the disease or perhaps, give rise to an adverse event. A drug administered for an indicated condition has substantial power to reduce or cure a disease and further to prevent it from happening again in the future but at the risk of side effects. At present, there are several methods in patient safety and in particular in the area of signal detection …

A Transfer Learning Approach For Sentiment Classification., Omar Abdelwahab

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The idea of developing machine learning systems or Artificial Intelligence agents that would learn from different tasks and be able to accumulate that knowledge with time so that it functions successfully on a new task that it has not seen before is an idea and a research area that is still being explored. In this work, we will lay out an algorithm that allows a machine learning system or an AI agent to learn from k different domains then uses some or no data from the new task for the system to perform strongly on that new task. In order …

Framing Climate Change As National Security: A Survey-Experiment On Climate Change Perceptions., Adam Lyons

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The issues surrounding climate change continue to have polarizing effects on many Americans. In this thesis I offer a potential bridge to this divide with a comprehensive study on how issue frames can impact how individuals shape their opinions on environmental issues. Focusing on a national security frame, I ask the central research “Will the public perceive issues of climate change differently when they are framed as threats to national security?” For this thesis I design an original experimental survey to measure the impact security framing has on participants’ perception of both climate change and environmental policy options. The survey …

Computational Prediction, Characterization, And Methodology Development For Two-Dimensional Nanostructures: Phosphorene And Phosphide Binary Compounds., Congyan Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, a comprehensive computational simulation was carried out for predicting, characterizing, and applications of two-dimensional (2D) materials. The newly discovered GaP and InP layers were selected as an example to demonstrate how to explore new 2D materials using computational simulations. The performance of phosphorene as the anode material of Lithium-ion battery was discussed as the example of the application of 2D material. Furthermore, the semi-empirical Hamiltonian for phosphorous and lithium elements have been developed for our future work on the application of phosphorus and lithium-based systems. The novel 2D materials of GaP and InP binary compounds were found …

The Regional Distribution And Molecular Interactions Of Phospholipids And Glucose In Mammalian Vitreous Humors., Abigail Nicole Schnepf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The vitreous humor (VH) is located in between the lens and the retina. It is composed of 98% water, hyaluronan (HA), collagen, proteins, phospholipids (PLs), and other metabolites. With aging, the VH undergoes liquefaction, a process that causes the gel-like structure of the VH to turn into a liquid and can lead to serious ocular diseases, including retinal detachment, vitreal detachment, and macular hole formation. The liquefaction process is expedited in diabetic VHs. This project focuses on understanding the molecular changes that lead to liquefaction and the reasons for which this process is accelerated with diabetes. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization/mass …