Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Forecasting Interaction Order On Temporal Graphs, Wenwen Xia, Yuchen Li, Jianwei Tian, Shenghong Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Link prediction is a fundamental task for graph analysis and the topic has been studied extensively for static or dynamic graphs. Essentially, the link prediction is formulated as a binary classification problem about two nodes. However, for temporal graphs, links (or interactions) among node sets appear in sequential orders. And the orders may lead to interesting applications. While a binary link prediction formulation fails to handle such an order-sensitive case. In this paper, we focus on such an interaction order prediction (IOP) problem among a given node set on temporal graphs. For the technical aspect, we develop a graph neural …

Insight Into The Early Exhumation Of The Cycladic Blueschist Unit, Syros, Greece: Combined Application Of Zoned Garnet Geochronology, Thermodynamic Modeling, And Quartz Elastic Barometry, Jennifer S. Gorce, Mark J. Caddick, Ethan F. Baxter, Besim Dragovic, John C. Schumacher, Robert J. Bodnar, Jamie F. Kendall

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Constraining conditions and mechanisms of the early stages of exhumation from within subduction zones is challenging. Although pressure, temperature, and age can be inferred from the exhumed rock record, it is generally difficult to derive each of these parameters from any single rock, thus demanding assumptions that diverse data from multiple samples can be safely combined into a single pressure-temperature-time (P-T-t) path that might then be used to infer tectonic context and mechanisms of exhumation. Here, we present new thermobarometric and geochronologic information preserved in a single sample from Syros, Greece, to deduce the …

Marine Debris And Human Health: An Exposure Pathway Of Pops?, Katie Conlon

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although there are not any direct studies linking persistent organic pollutants (POPs) accumulated on marine debris to human health, there are numerous studies showing human health impacts from repeated and high level POP exposure, as well as studies that show POPs accumulate on plastic debris in the marine environment. With this knowledge, there is a need for greater awareness of the risks of POP exposure for those who handle marine debris regularly, especially in contexts of higher exposure such as those working in marine debris concentrated areas. Amongst the scientific community, understanding of the exposure risk might be high, but …

Generating Test Inputs From String Constraints With An Automata-Based Solver, Marlin Roberts

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Software testing is an integral part of the software development process. To test certain parts of software, developers need to identify inputs that reach those parts. Data and control dependencies make this a non-trivial task, and as the complexity of software increases it becomes more difficult to manually derive such inputs. Due to complex data manipulations, this process is even more challenging for programs with string inputs, such as security applications. Thus, automated reachability test input generation for string data types is an important research area.

Symbolic Execution is a path-sensitive static program analysis technique that can automatically generate conditions …

Industrial Control System Data Resiliency, Daniel A. Bovard

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis identifies and fortifies against a critical vulnerability in industrial control system (ICS) security. A properly designed ICS security framework consists of a multi-layered approach starting with heavy fortifications in information technology and ending with control information of operational technology. Currently, ICS security frameworks lack visibility and place blind trust in devices at the lowest level of the control hierarchy. Attaining control data visibility at the lowest level of the control hierarchy is critical to increasing the resiliency of an ICS security posture. This thesis demonstrates how this data can be captured at the lowest level of the control …

Why Don't You Act Your Age?: Recognizing The Stereotypical 8-12 Year Old Searcher By Their Search Behavior, Michael Green

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Online search engines for children are known to filter retrieved resources based on page complexity, and offer specialized functionality meant to address gaps in search literacy according to a user's age or grade. However, not every searcher grouped by these identifiers displays the same level of text comprehension, or requires the same aid with search. Furthermore, these search engines typically rely on direct feedback to ascertain these identifiers. This reliance on self identification may cause users to accidentally misrepresent themselves. We therefore seek to recognize users from skill based signals rather than utilizing age or grade identifiers, as skill dictates …

Into The Unknown: Exploration Of Search Engines' Responses To Users With Depression And Anxiety, Ashlee Milton

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Mental health disorders (MHD) are a rising, yet stigmatized, topic. With statistics reporting that one in five adults in the United States will be afflicted by a MHD in their lifetime, researchers have begun exploring the behavioral nuances that emerge from interactions of these individuals with persuasive technologies, mainly social media. Yet, there is a gap in the analysis pertaining to a persuasive technology that is part of their everyday lives: search engines (SE). Each day, users with MHD embark on information seeking journeys using SE. Every step of the search process for better or worse has the potential to …

Modeling Real And Fake News Sharing In Social Networks, Abishai Joy

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Online media is changing the traditional news industry and diminishing the role of journalists, newspapers, and even news channels. This in turn is enhancing the ability of fake news to influence public opinion on important topics. The threat of fake news is quite imminent, as it allows malicious users to share their agenda with a larger audience. Major social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc., are making it easy to spread fake news due to the minimal moderation/ fact-checking on these platforms.

This work aims at predicting fake and real news sharing in social media. Specifically, we employ a multi-level …

A Case Study In Representing Scientific Applications (Geoac) Using The Sparse Polyhedral Framework, Ravi Shankar

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Tsunami detection and forecasting is a difficult problem that scientists are trying to tackle. Early path estimation and accurate prediction of the arrival time and size of a tsunami can save lives and help with impact assessment. Tsunami inducing earthquakes cause ground and sea-surface displacements that push up on the atmosphere. This atmospheric disturbance propagates upwards as an acoustic wave and eventually hits the ionosphere. IonoSeis is a software simulation package that leverages satellite-based ionospheric remote-sensing techniques to determine the epicenter of these earthquakes.

The execution time of the ray-tracing component of IonoSeis prevents its use as a real-time modeling …

Actors For The Internet Of Things, Arjun Shukla

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The actor model is a model for concurrent computation, centered around message passing between entities in a system. It is well suited for distributed programming, due to its semantics including very little guarantees or assumptions of reliability. Actor model implementations have grown more widespread in many languages.

The library Akka (written in Scala) is one of the most popular actor libraries. However, Akka is missing some key features. Our goal is to create our own actor library called Aurum, which not only has these features but exhibits higher performance. The new features include easy ways to forge references, configure and …

Modeling And Analyzing Users' Privacy Disclosure Behavior To Generate Personalized Privacy Policies, A.K.M. Nuhil Mehdy

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Privacy and its importance to society have been studied for centuries. While our understanding and continued theory building to hypothesize how users make privacy disclosure decisions has increased over time, the struggle to find a one-size solution that satisfies the requirements of each individual remains unsolved. Depending on culture, gender, age, and other situational factors, the concept of privacy and users' expectations of how their privacy should be protected varies from person to person. The goal of this dissertation is to design and develop tools and algorithms to support personal privacy management for end-users. The foundation of this research is …

Knn Based Piezo-Triboelectric Lead-Free Hybrid Energy Films, Abu Masa Abdullah, Muhtasim Ul Karim Sadaf, Farzana Tasnim, Horacio Vasquez, Karen Lozano, M. Jasim Uddin

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent times, the triboelectric and piezoelectric effects have garnered significant attention towards developing advanced material composites for energy harvesting and sensory applications. In this work, potassium sodium niobate (KNN) based energy films (EF) have been developed to utilize mechanical energy while simultaneously taking advantage of triboelectric and piezoelectric mechanisms. The KNN particles were synthesized using a wet ball milling technique and then incorporated into a polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) matrix together with addition of multi wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). The film was used to develop a piezoelectric nanogenerator (PENG) fitted with copper electrodes. The piezoelectric output of the film was …

Reconstructing 1856-7 California Mining Patterns From Placer Gold Recovered From The Wreck Of The Ss Central America, Kathryn Ruth Vonsydow

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The discovery of the SS Central America 1857 shipwreck site provides a time capsule that can be used to address questions about the spatial and temporal patterns of placer mining in California during the peak of the gold rush. Samples of placer gold in the collections of museums and private individuals can have uncertain pedigree due to labeling issues and alterations by cleaning and curatorial processes. However, placer gold from the 1857 shipwreck could only have come from the Mother Lode Country of California, as no other gold districts had yet been found in western North America. I compared the …

Desktop Application For The Puzzle Board Game “Rush Hour”, Huanqing Nong

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Rush Hour is a sliding block puzzle board game. This game comes with a board of 6 x 6 grid simulating a parking lot with an exit at the right end of the third row and some vehicle models of size 1 x 2 or 1 x 3 which can slide along the grooves of the grid forward or backward. The goal of the game is to clear the path by moving the vehicles on the board in a certain way for the target car, which lies on the third row of the grid, to merge out the “parking lot” …

Cybersecurity: Creating A Cybersecurity Culture, Steven Edward Ogden

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Human error has been identified as one of the highest contributing factors to successful cyber-attacks and security incidents that result in data leaks and theft of sensitive information. Human error has been caused by employees not behaving securely when interacting with information systems. This culminating experience project investigated how a cybersecurity culture can be developed to address the human error problem. The research was based on several key questions that focus on influencing factors of human behavior and best practices that have been used to develop a cybersecurity culture so that employees engage in secure behaviors. Social Cognitive Theory was …

Matroids Determinable By Two Partial Representations, Aurora Calderon Dojaquez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

A matroid is a mathematical object that generalizes and connects notions of independence that arise in various branches of mathematics. Some matroids can be represented by a matrix whose entries are from some field; whereas, other matroids cannot be represented in this way. However, every matroid can be partially represented by a matrix over the field GF(2). In fact, for a given matroid, many different partial representations may exist, each providing a different collection of information about the matroid with which they are associated. Such a partial representation of a matroid usually does not uniquely determine the matroid on its …

Laboratory Investigation Of Cyanide Evolution During Reaction Between Hypochlorous Acid And Glycine, Luz Chavez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Fresh water treatment and conservation is of great importance in a society with a growing population. Ensuring water safety is a crucial task for water treatment plants. Advances in science and technology have allowed for the testing and study of potentially harmful side substances produced by water sanitation methods, one of those substances is cyanide (-CN). Previous research correlated a significant increase of cyanide levels in effluent water sanitized with a chlorination method. Research has also proposed a mechanism for the formation of cyanogen chloride (CNCl) from reactions with amino acids during the chlorination process. Flow injection analysis was chosen …

Differences In Erosion Rates And Elevation Among Natural, Living And Hardened Shorelines In Mississippi, And Alabama, Brittany Juneau

Honors Theses

Shoreline erosion is a phenomenon that currently threatens both natural ecosystems and human settlements along the coast. With trends showing gradual sea level rise as a result of climate change, erosion is becoming an increasing threat to these communities. This research aims to provide more insight into the relationship between shoreline morphology and three shoreline protection techniques: natural marsh, living shoreline, and hardened structures. Six sites along the Alabama and Mississippi coast that had all three shoreline types were evaluated to determine what the average erosion rate and slope was for each shoreline. Erosion rates were calculated by image analysis …

Beam Formation And Vernier Steering Off Of A Rough Surface, Eric K. Nagamine, Kenneth W. Burgi, Samuel D. Butler

Faculty Publications

Wavefront shaping can refocus light after it reflects from an optically rough surface. One proposed use case of this effect is in indirect imaging; if any rough surface could be turned into an illumination source, objects out of the direct line of sight could be illuminated. In this paper, we demonstrate the superior performance of a genetic algorithm compared to other iterative feedback-based wavefront shaping algorithms in achieving reflective inverse diffusion for a focal plane system. Next, the ability to control the pointing direction of the refocused beam with high precision over a narrow angular range is demonstrated, though the …

Node Generation For Rbf-Fd Methods By Qr Factorization, Tony Liu, Rodrigo B. Platte

Faculty Publications

Polyharmonic spline (PHS) radial basis functions (RBFs) have been used in conjunction with polynomials to create RBF finite-difference (RBF-FD) methods. In 2D, these methods are usually implemented with Cartesian nodes, hexagonal nodes, or most commonly, quasi-uniformly distributed nodes generated through fast algorithms. We explore novel strategies for computing the placement of sampling points for RBF-FD methods in both 1D and 2D while investigating the benefits of using these points. The optimality of sampling points is determined by a novel piecewise-defined Lebesgue constant. Points are then sampled by modifying a simple, robust, column-pivoting QR algorithm previously implemented to find sets of …

Zernike Integrated Partial Phase Error Reduction Algorithm, Stephen C. Cain

Faculty Publications

A modification to the error reduction algorithm is reported in this paper for determining the prescription of an imaging system in terms of Zernike polynomials. The technique estimates the Zernike coefficients of the optical prescription as part of a modified Gerchberg-Saxton iteration combined with a new gradient-based phase unwrapping algorithm. Zernike coefficients are updated gradually as the error reduction algorithm converges by recovering the partial pupil phase that differed from the last known pupil phase estimate. In this way the wrapped phase emerging during each iteration of the error reduction algorithm does not represent the entire wrapped phase of the …

Synthesis Of Nanoparticles In A Silicate Matrix, Tatiana Alexandra Estrada-Mendoza

All Dissertations

Nanoparticle synthesis is the driving force behind research and development in nanotechnology. The development of more tailored nanoparticles for different uses is increasing the need for more efficient and cleaner synthetic methods. The use of sodium silicate matrix for the synthesis of various nanoparticles is a novel strategy requiring minimum laboratory set up. Exploratory studies that are presented and discussed here highlight the robust nature, versatility, and multifaceted role this matrix plays in the synthesis of nanoparticles. This dissertation focuses on the synthesis and properties of plasmonic hybrid nanoparticles and metal sulfide nanoparticles. The introductory chapter highlights the importance of …

Are We Really Getting Into The Green Scene? Investigating The Effects Of Kyoto Protocol Mechanisms On The Environment And Economy, Erica Reanne C. Co, Samantha Colleen M. Francisco, Chelsie Marie D. Gumba, Joshua Martine J. Magallanes

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

The world has changed drastically in favor of the human race as the processes of production improve, leading to the stimulation of economic growth. However, we failed to consider how these changes affect the environment, causing pollution levels to rise due to it being an unavoidable by-product of production. Eventually, nations were driven to develop a strategy to combat climate change and increase greenhouse gas emissions in the form of the Kyoto Protocol. This research compares two of the Kyoto Protocol Mechanisms, specifically the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), to investigate the effect of such …

We’Re In A Climate Casino: Here’S How To Fight Against The Odds, Winston T. L. Chow

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Extreme weather events point to an increasingly dangerous roulette game we play. Individuals and businesses can do their part but governments must do more at the upcoming Glasgow climate conference.

Machine Learning Applications For Waveform Analysis, Micah R. Cruz

Masters Theses

Since the later 20th century, the search for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) has been paramount to many nuclear and particle physicists. Neutron and nuclear beta decay experiments provide one avenue to search for evidence of BSM physics by contributing to the unitarity check of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix. Many of these experiments detect neutron decay products as digitized waveforms. As computing power increases and novel algorithms are developed, it is compelling to investigate machine learning methods as an analytic tool for such waveform data. These methods can allow for very fast data exploration techniques, and if pseudodata is available …

Cover Crop Treatment Impacts On Selected Soil Health Indicators In Two Tennessee Long-Term No-Till Corn-Soybean Rotations, Adam A. Zimmerman

Masters Theses

Soil hydraulic conductivity (K_sat) and soil microbial biomass carbon (SMB-C) estimates in Tennessee no-till corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean (Glycine max L.) rotation systems may be changed with cover crops. This study assessed differences in K_sat rates and SMB-C values under common cover crop treatments of two no-till corn and soybean rotation systems in west and middle Tennessee. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), cereal rye (Secale cereale L.), wheat/crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum L.), cereal rye/crimson clover, a five species mix (containing cereal rye, crimson …

Coastal Onlap/Offlap Amplification Due To Organic Sediment Accumulation And Degradation : Implications For Sea Level Reconstruction, Norjmaa Khosbaatar

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Coastal-plain depositional systems such as fluvial deltas are archives of past external (allogenic) forcing, such as sea-level variations, and their evolution can be described by two geomorphic boundaries: the alluvial-basement transition or upstream boundary, and the shoreline or downstream boundary. Patterns of landward/seaward migration of the shoreline (i.e., transgression/regression) and the alluvial basement transition (i.e., coastal onlap/offlap) in the rock record are often used for reconstruction of past sea-level changes. Theories for stratigraphic interpretation, however, need to be adapted to deal with internal (autogenic) processes that could play a significant role, but are to date largely unexplored. In particular, in-situ …

Transmission Telescope Optical Dynamic Alignment, Viviana Vladutescu, Aaron J. Swank, Dzu K. Le, Calvin R. Robinson, O. Scott Sands

Publications and Research

The Integrated Radio Optical Communication System (iROC) is designed to transmit data between Mars and Earth by means of radio waves at 32.67 GHz (Ka band) and laser beam (LB) at 1550 nm, both transmitted via a combined telescope/antenna called a teletenna. The iROC terminal will provide “beaconless” operations to allow full function from the outer planets. In order to point without the aid of an uplink beacon, the proof of concept presented here is addressing the need for an accurate determination and control of the relative position of the LB with respect to a reference star.

The experiment presented …

Splash: Learnable Activation Functions For Improving Accuracy And Adversarial Robustness, Mohammadamin Tavakoli, Forest Agostinelli, Pierre Baldi

Publications

We introduce SPLASH units, a class of learnable activation functions shown to simultaneously improve the accuracy of deep neural networks while also improving their robustness to adversarial attacks. SPLASH units have both a simple parameterization and maintain the ability to approximate a wide range of non-linear functions. SPLASH units are: (1) continuous; (2) grounded (f(0)=0"); (3) use symmetric hinges; and (4) their hinges are placed at fixed locations which are derived from the data (i.e. no learning required). Compared to nine other learned and fixed activation functions, including ReLU and its variants, SPLASH units show superior performance across three datasets …

Logbert: Log Anomaly Detection Via Bert, Haixuan Guo

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

When systems break down, administrators usually check the produced logs to diagnose the failures. Nowadays, systems grow larger and more complicated. It is labor-intensive to manually detect abnormal behaviors in logs. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an automated anomaly detection on system logs. Automated anomaly detection not only identifies malicious patterns promptly but also requires no prior domain knowledge. Many existing log anomaly detection approaches apply natural language models such as Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) to log analysis since both are based on sequential data. The proposed model, LogBERT, a BERT-based neural network, can capture the contextual information in …