Master of Science in Engineering, University of Toledo, 2009, Electrical Engineering

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are autonomous, infrastructure-less networks in which mobile nodes organize themselves in a network without the help of any predefined infrastructure. Securing MANETs is an important part of deploying and utilizing them, since they are often used in critical applications where data and communications integrity in important. Existing solutions for wireless networks can be used to obtain a certain level of such security. However, these solutions may not always be sufficient for MANETs, since their characteristics create vulnerabilities that cannot be addressed by these solutions. To obtain an acceptable level of security in such a context, traditional security solutions should be coupled with an intrusion detection mechanism.We propose using a quantitative method to detect intrusion in MANETS with mobile nodes. Our method is a behavioral anomaly based system, which makes it dynamic, scalable, configurable and robust. We verify our method using simulations where mobile nodes follow linear movement patterns. The simulations are run with mobile nodes and employing Ad-hoc on-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing. It is observed that the malicious node detection rate is very good, and the false positive detection rate is low.

Committee: Mansoor Alam Dr (Committee Chair); Daniel Solarek (Committee Member); Henry Ledgard Dr (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science; Electrical Engineering

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2023, Natural Resources

One of the critical questions in the field of environment and natural resources from a policy perspective is to understand how collaborative processes and beneficial working relationships can lead to improved urban farming practices. While the topic has received attention by scholars across the nation, research on this topic is lacking regarding urban agriculture in low-income settings of Columbus Ohio. In this thesis, I will examine the perceived barriers that historically underserved urban farmers encounter in low-income settings. Specifically, I study the Community Growers Network (CGN), a new collaborative initiative that brings together urban farmers to work on creative solutions to solve their problems. Through interviews and participant observation, I uncover and explain the variables that limit urban agriculture production and help establishing stronger collaborative relationships between urban farmers. According to the interviews there are a plethora of challenges that urban farmers face; however, in this thesis I only highlighted the challenges that were common amongst all interviewees which are, 1) Land management, 2) Access to proper infrastructure, 3) Labor force (access to volunteers), 4) Access to funding 5) Access to specialized knowledge, and 6) Pest control and soil management. I find that he CGN is, in general, well equipped to help farmers face these challenges, and that the inner structure of the network is conducive to such solutions. I conclude by discussing the limitations of this study and potential areas of development for future research. I highlight not only the academic value of these findings, but also the value for individuals working in the development of urban farming in Columbus Ohio.

Committee: Ramiro Berardo (Advisor); Matthew Hamilton Hamilton (Committee Member); Kristi Lekies (Committee Member) Subjects: Agriculture; Environmental Management; Land Use Planning; Natural Resource Management; Sustainability

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Comparative Biomedical Sciences

Cattle are well known reservoirs for antimicrobial resistant Salmonella, yet the epidemiology of Salmonella within various cattle industries is not well understood. Indeed, little is known regarding environmental transmission and its impact on Salmonella carriage within cattle populations. To improve human and animal health, a better understanding of environmental prevalence and transmission routes are necessary to design effective preharvest interventions and reduce potential downstream impacts on food production contamination with Salmonella. Environmental contamination is combated via cleaning and disinfection protocols, however, field trials in agricultural environments often report residual contamination. There is a clear need for evidence-based cleaning and disinfection protocols. The overall goal of this dissertation was to i). assess the environmental prevalence of Salmonella in livestock markets and commercial veal production and ii). provide critical knowledge regarding Salmonella biofilm formation and biocide tolerance that can be expanded on to design effective pre-harvest cleaning and disinfection protocols. To that end, four studies were conducted and are described within. The first two studies were conducted in livestock markets and a commercial veal production system. Recently, a multi-drug resistant Salmonella outbreak was epidemiologically linked to livestock markets and veal calves, however, transmission routes are unclear. Therefore, a repeated cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the environmental prevalence of Salmonella at livestock markets in Ohio and Wisconsin. Further, a prospective cohort study was conducted following 10 special-fed veal calf cohorts through preharvest exposures to determine i). the prevalence of Salmonella in veal production environments and lymph nodes and ii). the relatedness of Salmonella select isolates that were recovered. Whole genome sequencing was utilized to determine the genetic relatedness of Sal (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Gregory Habing (Advisor); Thomas Wittum (Committee Member); Paul Stoodley (Committee Member); Dubraska Diaz-Campos (Committee Member) Subjects: Agriculture; Animal Sciences; Bioinformatics; Epidemiology; Microbiology; Public Health

Master of Science in Engineering, University of Akron, 2022, Electrical Engineering

A decentralized framework for network optimization is presented for wireless sensing nodes. The wireless sensing nodes use a dynamic programming algorithm to choose optimal routes for data transmission from any network node to a specialized ‘gateway' node that provides access to the wider internet. The dynamic programming algorithm is a variation of the Bellman-Ford algorithm and allows for the wireless sensing nodes to make decisions based on locally available network information, resulting in a decentralized routing algorithm. Routing decisions depend on the cost it takes to communicate from a node to a gateway, either directly or indirectly, using neighboring nodes as relay points. Nodes constantly share information with neighbors and when something effects the cost of a path, such as a node failure or the discovery of a less costly route, all nodes upstream along the existing path are made aware and re-route accordingly. A sample network is used to illustrate and verify the functionality of the proposed algorithm. The network and node decisions are simulated to show the evolution of the network routing decisions, and the simulation consistently shows the network converging to an optimal configuration. The speed of convergence depends on the order in which the nodes are assumed to attempt to establish and optimize their connections.

Committee: Robert Veillette (Advisor); Jose Alexis De Abreu Garcia (Committee Member); Nghi Tran (Committee Member) Subjects: Applied Mathematics; Computer Engineering; Computer Science; Electrical Engineering; Engineering

Master of Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, 2020, EECS - Computer Engineering

The internet of things (IoT) is rapidly becoming part of everyday life. The internet of things can be anything from smart assistants, or smart devices such LED light bulbs, electric outlets to widely used wireless sensor networks. Electrical devices inside any household has potential to become part of wireless mesh network where each device is monitored for their operation and electrical energy consumption. Still, monitoring electric consumption inside a household is still not actively utilized under internet of things. Majority of the houses are equipped with smart energy meters which transmit weekly or monthly power usage to electrical companies. These readings are reflected in the electric bill every month and provide very crude and irrelevant information to pinpoint energy activities in the desired `meshes' of individual rooms of any household and therefore cannot meet the growing expectation and requirements for abundance and accuracy of the data, for efficient electrical energy management. After a comprehensive survey of existing energy monitoring devices and systems, a few technologies have come across which focus either on single device or on overall household. These technologies will not be able to pinpoint every device in a household. Apart from the surface level monitoring, these devices tend to be expensive as they come with subscription and added devices for complete support. To compete with such technologies, an electric energy monitoring system is proposed. This system has three layers of software and hardware components. The first layer is sensors. These sensors make use of existing wireless sensor network mesh technology. Each sensor is a low-cost Bluetooth low energy (BLE) based module which monitors electrical devices. The second layer is gateway. The gateway acts as the middle man between sensor and the third layer which is server. Gateway grabs data from the sensors and translates it to server compatible language package and sends it to the se (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Philip Feng (Advisor); Christos Papachristou (Committee Member); Kenneth Loparo (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Comparative and Veterinary Medicine

Non-typhoidal Salmonella enterica is one of the leading causes of foodborne infections worldwide. Cattle are considered a major reservoir of Salmonella that can be transmitted to humans predominantly by consumption of contaminated food or through contact with infected animals or the environment. The overall goal of this dissertation was to assess the impact of pre-harvest cow-level determinants (parturition, microbiome, stress, clinical disease) that could contribute on the shedding of this ubiquitous microorganism. Identifying pre-harvest factors that influence Salmonella shedding represents a cornerstone to design and implement strategies to prevent transmission and safeguard the food safety.

Committee: Thomas Wittum (Advisor); Habing Greg (Advisor); Armando Hoet (Committee Member); Mohamed El-Gazzar (Committee Member) Subjects: Animal Sciences; Epidemiology; Livestock; Microbiology; Public Health

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2013, Engineering and Applied Science: Nuclear and Radiological Engineering

This research improves the measurement of activity deposited in the axillary lymph nodes through the following specific aims:A. Determine the confounding influence of 241Am deposited in organs adjacent to the axillary lymph nodes by simultaneous solution of response functions for measurement of 241Am deposited in the liver, lungs, and skeleton.Hypothesis: A series of direct, organ-specific measurements can be used to account for measurement interference for the axillary lymph nodes from activity deposited in other organs.Radioactive material deposited in multiple organs of the body is likely to confound a result of an in vivo measurement performed over the lungs for routine occupational exposure monitoring. The significance of this interference was evaluated by measuring anthropometric torso phantoms containing lungs, liver, skeleton and axillary lymph nodes, each with a precisely known quantity of 241Am uniformly distributed in the organs. Arrays of multiple high resolution germanium detectors were positioned over organs within the torso phantom containing 241Am or over proximal organs without activity to determine the degree of measurement confounding due to photons emitted from other source organs. A set of four mathematical response functions describe the measured count rate with detectors positioned over each of the relevant organs and 241Am contained in the measured organ or one of the other organs selected as a confounder. Simultaneous solution of these equations yields the activity deposited in each of the relevant organs. The matrix solutions described represent a technically valid method for adjusting a result of 241Am measured in one organ for interferences that may arise from 241Am deposited elsewhere, so internal dose from radioactive materials known to deposit in multiple organs may be evaluated based upon in vivo measurements.B. Select the size and type of detector that offers the greatest sensitivity for 241Am in axillary lymph nodes measurements wit (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Henry Spitz Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Sam Glover Ph.D. (Committee Member); J. Kim Ph.D. (Committee Member); Paul Succop Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Nuclear Engineering

Master of Science in Computer Engineering (MSCE), Wright State University, 2011, Computer Engineering

Fall related injuries are the leading cause of death and hospitalization among the elderly. Falls among older people become a major problem facing hospitals and nursing homes. In this study we put an effort to design a wireless device capable of detecting falls with the hope that this study will provide a path towards better healthcare monitoring and better independent living for the elderly. In this project I showed how the fall detection device can be interfaced with different systems to achieve functionality without adding extra cost. For seniors who prefer to stay at their homes and live independently, the device can communicate with their smart phone to request help if needed. For hospitals and nursing homes, an infrared receiver and infrared signals decoding algorithms were implemented to interface with FastFind software to keep track of the location of the residents who fall or request help. There is also an option of having a live video feed from the specific room where the fall was detected.

Committee: Jack Jean PhD (Advisor); Yong Pei PhD (Committee Member); Meilin Liu PhD (Committee Member); Mateen Rizki PhD (Other); Andrew Hsu PhD (Other) Subjects: Engineering

Master of Science in Computer Engineering (MSCE), Wright State University, 2007, Computer Engineering

Due to the increasing pervasiveness of data sets using the XML data format,numerous query languages have been proposed that exploit the structure inherent in XML. Many such query languages, supported by specialized XML search engines, are complex and not suitable for naive users. A simple keyword based query language is described which not only exploits the structure of XML documents to extract relevant fragments, but can also fall back on retrieval through plain text search. This thesis focuses on developing a prototype implementation for a Coherent Keyword Based XML Query Language. It analyzes the typical challenges posed by the semi-structured nature of the XML format, and then describes the design and implementation of a framework that can index and search XML datasets. The prototype, built on Apache Lucene (a Java-based Text Indexing and Search APIs), incorporates several available techniques to obtain precise and coherent results. It also provides a simple user interface to browse the vicinity of result document fragments.

Committee: Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan (Advisor) Subjects: Computer Science

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2001, Engineering : Computer Engineering

Reconfigurable Computing(RC) is emerging as a viable alternative to traditional approaches for solving some classes of computational problems. It also shows the potential to offer a vastly improved performance/cost ratio when compared to these approaches. It has necessitated the development of some new concepts to widen its applicability and improve performance. One such concept is temporal partitioning. Temporal partitioning takes advantage of the reconfigurability of RC machines to re-use the same hardware over time to allow large applications to be executed on comparatively smaller hardware. Thus, whenever an application needs a logic area greater than that available in the RC machine, it is temporally partitioned into smaller segments each of which can fit into the available logic area. These segments are then executed in the correct sequential order on the same RC machine to get the final results. However, performance degradation is a major drawback of this technique. In this thesis, we examine the factors causing this degradation, such as the reconfiguration overhead between partitions, the data communication overhead between partitions etc. We also develop a temporal partitioning framework to minimize this degradation. This framework is quite flexible and can accommodate a variety of partitioning objectives.

Committee: Dr. Dinesh Bhatia (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Electrical Engineering

Distributed sensor networks are growing in popularity for a large number of sensing applications ranging from environmental monitoring to military target classification and tracking. However, knowledge of the individual sensor positions is a prerequisite to obtaining meaningful information from measurements made by the sensors. With the scale of sensor networks rapidly increasing due to advances in communications and MEMS technology, an automatic localization service based on inter-sensor measurements is becoming an essential element in modern networks. This dissertation studies fundamental aspects of localization performance while deriving general results for singular estimation problems. Because inter-sensor measurements, such as distances or angles-of-arrival (AOA), are invariant to absolute positioning of the sensor scene, localizing sensors with an absolute reference, e.g., latitude and longitude, is inherently a singular estimation problem suffering from non-identifiability of the absolute location parameters. This results in a corresponding singular Fisher information matrix. We consider means of regularizing the absolute localization problem and devise novel performance characterizations by showing that the location parameters have a natural decomposition into relative configuration and centroid transformation components based on the singularity of the problem. A linear representation of the transformation manifold, which includes representations of rotation, translation, and scaling, is used for decomposition of general localization error covariance matrices. The unified statistical framework presented – which naturally generalizes to non-localization problems – allows us to quantify and bound performance in the relative and transformation domains. These tools facilitate analysis of relative-only algorithms while enabling new algorithm development to finely tune performance in each subdomain. The analysis is applied to a novel closed-form AOA-based localiza (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Randolph Moses (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, 2009, EECS - Computer Engineering

This thesis proposes a technique for non-destructive and functional testing of ICs to detect modifications made to the design. The outsourcing of the fabrication process by semiconductor manufacturers has made IC design vulnerable to third party modifications and placed a risk on the reliability and security of hardware systems. These hardware modifications/Trojans are carefully injected so that they cannot be detected using regular functional testing techniques. Once injected, a Trojan can perform any functionality from resetting the circuit to transmitting signals to propagating incorrect signals to the circuit output. In this work we present a technique for injection, modeling and detection of Trojans. Here the inputs of a Trojan are identified using proximity estimation techniques and the Trojan is modeled as a black box with the identified set of IOs. Then the test patterns for the detection of Trojans are generated using a modified form of ATPG. In our experiments we generated the test patterns for combinational and sequential Trojans in various benchmark circuits. Then we injected Trojans in some of the circuits and performed fault simulation to test the efficiency of the generated patterns.

Committee: Daniel Saab (Committee Chair); Francis Merat (Committee Member); Christos Papachristou (Committee Member) Subjects: Electrical Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2006, Mathematics/Probability and Statistics

With the advent of faster computers and the availability of RNA crystal structures we can now use more information to align homologous RNA sequences. We can take a crystal structure and construct a probabilistic model, based on a SCFG, of an RNA molecule. We construct objects called nodes that modularize the model into small pieces that are more manageable. Using this model we can take sequences that are similar to the sequence in the 3D crystal structure and look for the most probable way that the model could have generated the sequence. Then we can get a detailed description of how each node of the model could have generated the sequence. Using this information we can align sequences. Given a seed alignment we give a procedure to construct a 3D structural alignment quickly. In addition we show how the parameters from the model can be estimated. We also have the ability to do motif swaps using objects called alternative nodes. We have developed an algorithm to quickly search through RNA 3D structures to find motifs. This is accomplished by taking a query motif with m bases and finding the center of the heavy atoms for each base and then rotating it onto candidate motifs that have the same number of bases. Then we measure how good a fit the candidate is to the query by using a discrepancy that we define which involves the distance between bases and their relative orientations. A simple inequality allows us to quickly identify candidates whose discrepancy with the query motif will exceed a cutoff discrepancy. We use this to screen out the vast majority quickly.

Committee: Craig Zirbel (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Science, University of Akron, 2006, Computer Science

Virtual Reality (VR) and associated technologies are experiencing growing importance in medicine and surgery. Virtual surgery simulation can help surgeons to explore optimal surgical operations, thus reducing risks in the real surgery. It helps doctors to train medical students in a cost effective manner. Virtual surgery simulation demands fast and real time performance. The finite element method has been used for surgery simulations; however, finite element method is computationally intensive and is unsuitable for real time simulation of cutting large amount of tissue in arbitrary paths. We have developed a fuzzy logic based system which involves significantly reduced computational time and provides real time simulation of soft tissue cutting in any desired paths. The user-exerted forces on a simulated cutting tool held by the user are dynamically measured and fed to the fuzzy logic system. The user-exerted forces and the stiffness of the element are first fuzzified and fed to a fuzzy rule base to provide the output membership values. These output membership values are then defuzzified using the centroid defuzzification technique to provide a crisp output of the cutting depth. The computed cutting depth is then sent to the visualization module, which provides realistic rendering of surgical tools, surgery objects, and their interactions to the surgeons in a 3D virtual environment. It animates the entire surgical process in the virtual environment and allows surgeons to view the surgical simulation in any vantage point. To realistically render the soft tissue during a virtual surgery process, his study also explores a novel method to take care of structural and textural changes in the soft tissue by splitting and cloning internal mesh nodes. A virtual surgery system, completed with its five subsystems, has been designed and implemented. A multi threaded approach has been used to implement the system. This isolates the data acquisition system from the simulation syst (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Yingcai Xiao (Advisor) Subjects: