Planning and Assessment of a Workshop on Undergraduate Education in Biometric Systems

Biometrics is the science of recognizing and authenticating people using their physiological features. Border and immigration control, restricted access to facilities and information systems, cybersecurity, crime investigations and forensic analysis are just a few of the primary application areas of biometrics used by commercial, government and law enforcement agencies. The global biometrics market has a compound annual growth rate of 21.3 percent. There is much research interest in different biometric systems and this has led to increasing efforts in ensuring that biometrics is taught at the undergraduate level. The authors are in the final year of an NSF TUES Type 2 grant that is based on the theme of vertically integrating biometrics experiments throughout the undergraduate curriculum. Three universities have joined together in this effort. This paper is about the planning and assessment of a 3 day workshop that is based on the NSF funded effort. Fifteen faculty from across the country participated in this workshop. Undergraduate and graduate students also attended. The key points of the workshop included invited lectures and hands-on laboratory activities. The invited lectures included a tutorial on biometrics, detailed lectures on speaker recognition and a lecture on how to assess an educational intervention. The hands-on activities were presented such that the attending faculty could take them back to their respective universities. They were based on the following learning outcomes: • Enhanced application of math skills • Enhanced software implementation skills • Enhanced interest in biometrics • Enhanced ability to analyze experimental results • Enhanced communication skills • Comprehension of the importance of vertical integration, in that students realize that their experiences are part of a flow that contributes to a unified knowledge base. The workshop assessment results are very positive with respect to organization, quality of the invited lectures, quality of the hands-on activities and the social program

Board # 29 : A PATTERN RECOGNITION APPROACH TO SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO ESTIMATION OF SPEECH

A blind approach for estimating the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of a speech signal corrupted by additive noise is proposed. The method is based on a pattern recognition paradigm using various linear predictive based features, a vector quantizer classifier and estimation combination. Blind SNR estimation is very useful in biometric speaker identification systems in which a confidence metric is determined along with the speaker identity. The confidence metric is partially based on the mismatch between the training and testing conditions of the speaker identification system and SNR estimation is very important in evaluating the degree of this mismatch. The educational impact of this project is two-fold: 1. Undergraduate students are initiated into research/development by working on a team to achieve a software implementation of the SNR estimation system. The students will also evaluate the performance of the system by experimenting with different features and classifiers. Producing a paper in a refereed technical conference is the objective. 2. The students will also write a laboratory manual for a portion of this project to be run in a junior level signals and systems class and a senior level class on speech processing. Producing a paper in a refereed education conference is the objective. The learning outcomes for the students engaged in research and for the students doing the project in a class include: • Enhanced application of math skills • Enhanced software implementation skills • Enhanced interest in signal processing • Enhanced ability to analyze experimental results • Enhanced communication skills. The assessment instruments include: • Student surveys (target versus control group comparison that includes a statistical analysis) • Faculty tracking of student learning outcomes based on student work • Faculty evaluation of student work based on significant rubrics • A concept inventory tes

The Effects of a Nutritional Intervention on Healthy Eating Habits and Body Mass Index

In the US, overweight and obesity are growing concerns, as both can have life altering consequences if not prevented or treated. Since 2000, there has been nearly a 10% increase of adults who are obese, from 30.5% (85.8 million) to 39.8% (93.9 million) in 2016 (CDC, 2017). These conditions are preventable with early intervention and motivation. Obesity statistics are especially of interest during the transition to young adulthood. The purpose of this project was to improve student outcomes by identifying barriers, effective strategies, and healthy choices that would ultimately impact weight, increasing healthy food choices, and decreasing overall BMI in overweight and obese students. The Model for Evidence-Based Practice Change provided the framework and guidance of the intervention for this project. A literature search was conducted using six databases, which yielded 11 relevant articles. Levels and quality of evidence were determined by the rating scales of JHNEBP and ranged from level I to V, all of high-quality rating. The literature search revealed best practice to support behavior change. For this project, students within the college health setting were initially screened to determine their BMI. Those having a BMI of \u3e 25 kg/m2 received an invitation to participate in a 12-week NP-led program nutrition program. The New Leaf (UNC CHPDP, 2013), a comprehensive tool (focused on increasing nutritional consumption, improving dietary behavior, and decreasing caloric intake) with established efficacy, was used as the foundation for educational sessions. Participating students completed pre-intervention New Leaf questionnaires which identified their dietary habits; then, those consenting to participate received an initial in-person educational session which lasted 30-45 minutes. Follow-up sessions, scheduled weekly, lasted lasting 15-30 minutes and addressed various healthy eating topics (e.g., consuming less sweets and selecting healthier choices when eating out). BMI was collected at each session, and there was no charge for the office visits correlating with participation in the project. Dependent t-tests were used to evaluate the effect of the intervention on the primary outcomes of this project: (a) the adoption of healthy eating habits (measured through the New Leaf questionnaires) and (b) BMI

Tiger Daily: September 9, 2021

ANNOUNCEMENTS COVID-19 Updates Calendar: Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities Health and Wellness Services to Offer Mental Health First Aid Training Travel Approval Process as of 9/1/21 “Together We Heal; Together We Rise” Call For Book Chapters: Implementing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Management in Organizational Change Initiatives Monthly Mindfulness Minutes (MMM) Is Happening Once Again! Hispanic Dance Sessions Fall 2021 *UPDATED* University Photo September Studio Dates New Exhibition in Moss-Thorns Gallery! YOGA ON THE LAWN IS BACK! Family & Friends Weekend – September 17-19, 2021 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb and Walk Smoky Hill Chorale – FALL 2021 NOTICE: 25Live Maintenance – Saturday, Sept 11, Noon-4pm New Faculty Knowledge Feast: Early Tiger Alert Faculty Development Funding Faculty and Staff LGBTQIA+ get together, Friday, September 10, 2021 Alpha Sigma Alpha – Advisors Needed Practice German with the Department of Modern World Languages FHSU Cheer Camp! Hispanic Film Festival Tiger Athletics Home Schedule NEW 2021 Biometric Screening Dates! EVENTS THIS WEEK/WEEKEND Applied Technology Career Day – 2021 – TODAY; 10:00am – 12:00pm Writing Circle – TOMORROW; 4:00pm – 5:00pm FUTURE EVENTS Mock Interview Days – September 13 & 16; Scheduled timeslots between 9:00am – 4:00pm Diversity Matters Series: Unpacking Implicit Bias and Micro-Aggressions: What Are They and How Do They Affect Me? - September 14; 1:00pm - 2:30pm September Staff Meeting – September 14; 1:30pm Ag Career Fair 2021 – September 14; 2:30pm – 4:00pm Business & Industry Career Fair 2021 - September 15; 2:30 pm - 4:00 pm SWIPE Out Hunger Event – September 18; 12:00pm – 2:00pm Learn To Solder in Makerspace! - September 22; 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm CliftonStrengths Essentials (Virtual) - September 22 & 23; 9:00am-12:00pm (both days) A Special Science Café: “Fort Hays State University Farm Tour with Meal provided”– September 27; 5:00pm Critical Conversations - September 29; 1:00pm - 4:00pm EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES Production Support Technical Coordinator, Technology Services Access Services Specialist, Forsyth Library University Police Officer Administrative Specialist – Teaching Innovation and Learning Technologies (TILT) Strategic Communications Project Manager, University Relations and Marketing Administrative Specialist in the Office of the Provost and in the Office of Institutional Effectiveness for Quality Improvement Information Security Officer – Technology Services Administrative Specialist – Center for Student Success Custodian – Residential Life Custodian – Memorial Union Senior Administrative Assistant – Department of Agriculture SHARE WITH STUDENTS Hispanic Heritage Month Kickoff Homecoming and Oktoberfest Annual Registered Student Organization Required Meeting Dates Upcoming Interview Opportunities Join FHSU for MMUN6

Real-Time Affective Support to Promote Learner’s Engagement

abstract: Research has shown that the learning processes can be enriched and enhanced with the presence of affective interventions. The goal of this dissertation was to design, implement, and evaluate an affective agent that provides affective support in real-time in order to enrich the student’s learning experience and performance by inducing and/or maintaining a productive learning path. This work combined research and best practices from affective computing, intelligent tutoring systems, and educational technology to address the design and implementation of an affective agent and corresponding pedagogical interventions. It included the incorporation of the affective agent into an Exploratory Learning Environment (ELE) adapted for this research. A gendered, three-dimensional, animated, human-like character accompanied by text- and speech-based dialogue visually represented the proposed affective agent. The agent’s pedagogical interventions considered inputs from the ELE (interface, model building, and performance events) and from the user (emotional and cognitive events). The user’s emotional events captured by biometric sensors and processed by a decision-level fusion algorithm for a multimodal system in combination with the events from the ELE informed the production-rule-based behavior engine to define and trigger pedagogical interventions. The pedagogical interventions were focused on affective dimensions and occurred in the form of affective dialogue prompts and animations. An experiment was conducted to assess the impact of the affective agent, Hope, on the student’s learning experience and performance. In terms of the student’s learning experience, the effect of the agent was analyzed in four components: perception of the instructional material, perception of the usefulness of the agent, ELE usability, and the affective responses from the agent triggered by the student’s affective states. Additionally, in terms of the student’s performance, the effect of the agent was analyzed in five components: tasks completed, time spent solving a task, planning time while solving a task, usage of the provided help, and attempts to successfully complete a task. The findings from the experiment did not provide the anticipated results related to the effect of the agent; however, the results provided insights to improve diverse components in the design of affective agents as well as for the design of the behavior engines and algorithms to detect, represent, and handle affective information.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201

On Security and Privacy for Networked Information Society : Observations and Solutions for Security Engineering and Trust Building in Advanced Societal Processes

Our society has developed into a networked information society, in which all aspects of human life are interconnected via the Internet — the backbone through which a significant part of communications traffic is routed. This makes the Internet arguably the most important piece of critical infrastructure in the world. Securing Internet communications for everyone using it is extremely important, as the continuing growth of the networked information society relies upon fast, reliable and secure communications. A prominent threat to the security and privacy of Internet users is mass surveillance of Internet communications. The methods and tools used to implement mass surveillance capabilities on the Internet pose a danger to the security of all communications, not just the intended targets. When we continue to further build the networked information upon the unreliable foundation of the Internet we encounter increasingly complex problems,which are the main focus of this dissertation. As the reliance on communication technology grows in a society, so does the importance of information security. At this stage, information security issues become separated from the purely technological domain and begin to affect everyone in society. The approach taken in this thesis is therefore both technical and socio-technical. The research presented in this PhD thesis builds security in to the networked information society and provides parameters for further development of a safe and secure networked information society. This is achieved by proposing improvements on a multitude of layers. In the technical domain we present an efficient design flow for secure embedded devices that use cryptographic primitives in a resource-constrained environment, examine and analyze threats to biometric passport and electronic voting systems, observe techniques used to conduct mass Internet surveillance, and analyze the security of Finnish web user passwords. In the socio-technical domain we examine surveillance and how it affects the citizens of a networked information society, study methods for delivering efficient security education, examine what is essential security knowledge for citizens, advocate mastery over surveillance data by the targeted citizens in the networked information society, and examine the concept of forced trust that permeates all topics examined in this work.Yhteiskunta, jossa elämme, on muovautunut teknologian kehityksen myötä todelliseksi tietoyhteiskunnaksi. Monet verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan osa-alueet ovat kokeneet muutoksen tämän kehityksen seurauksena. Tämän muutoksen keskiössä on Internet: maailmanlaajuinen tietoverkko, joka mahdollistaa verkottuneiden laitteiden keskenäisen viestinnän ennennäkemättömässä mittakaavassa. Internet on muovautunut ehkä keskeisimmäksi osaksi globaalia viestintäinfrastruktuuria, ja siksi myös globaalin viestinnän turvaaminen korostuu tulevaisuudessa yhä enemmän. Verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan kasvu ja kehitys edellyttävät vakaan, turvallisen ja nopean viestintäjärjestelmän olemassaoloa. Laajamittainen tietoverkkojen joukkovalvonta muodostaa merkittävän uhan tämän järjestelmän vakaudelle ja turvallisuudelle. Verkkovalvonnan toteuttamiseen käytetyt menetelmät ja työkalut eivät vain anna mahdollisuutta tarkastella valvonnan kohteena olevaa viestiliikennettä, vaan myös vaarantavat kaiken Internet-liikenteen ja siitä riippuvaisen toiminnan turvallisuuden. Kun verkottunutta tietoyhteiskuntaa rakennetaan tämän kaltaisia valuvikoja ja haavoittuvuuksia sisältävän järjestelmän varaan, keskeinen uhkatekijä on, että yhteiskunnan ydintoiminnot ovat alttiina ulkopuoliselle vaikuttamiselle. Näiden uhkatekijöiden ja niiden taustalla vaikuttavien mekanismien tarkastelu on tämän väitöskirjatyön keskiössä. Koska työssä on teknisen sisällön lisäksi vahva yhteiskunnallinen elementti, tarkastellaan tiukan teknisen tarkastelun sijaan aihepiirä laajemmin myös yhteiskunnallisesta näkökulmasta. Tässä väitöskirjassa pyritään rakentamaan kokonaiskuvaa verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan turvallisuuteen, toimintaan ja vakauteen vaikuttavista tekijöistä, sekä tuomaan esiin uusia ratkaisuja ja avauksia eri näkökulmista. Työn tavoitteena on osaltaan mahdollistaa entistä turvallisemman verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan rakentaminen tulevaisuudessa. Teknisestä näkökulmasta työssä esitetään suunnitteluvuo kryptografisia primitiivejä tehokkaasti hyödyntäville rajallisen laskentatehon sulautetuviiille järjestelmille, analysoidaan biometrisiin passeihin, kansainväliseen passijärjestelmään, sekä sähköiseen äänestykseen kohdistuvia uhkia, tarkastellaan joukkovalvontaan käytettyjen tekniikoiden toimintaperiaatteita ja niiden aiheuttamia uhkia, sekä tutkitaan suomalaisten Internet-käyttäjien salasanatottumuksia verkkosovelluksissa. Teknis-yhteiskunnallisesta näkökulmasta työssä tarkastellaan valvonnan teoriaa ja perehdytään siihen, miten valvonta vaikuttaa verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan kansalaisiin. Lisäksi kehitetään menetelmiä parempaan tietoturvaopetukseen kaikilla koulutusasteilla, määritellään keskeiset tietoturvatietouden käsitteet, tarkastellaan mahdollisuutta soveltaa tiedon herruuden periaatetta verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan kansalaisistaan keräämän tiedon hallintaan ja käyttöön, sekä tutkitaan luottamuksen merkitystä yhteiskunnan ydintoimintojen turvallisuudelle ja toiminnalle, keskittyen erityisesti pakotetun luottamuksen vaikutuksiin

Horizons Fall 2010

Features NSU Brings Hope to Haiti 4 Equine Therapy 8 Vatican Splendors 15 NSU’s Fischler School Creates Educators Who Excel 16 Garden of Tranquility 20 Greek Life at NSU 26 Pop Culture Enters Academia 32 Departments Letter from the Chancellor 2 Academic Notes Huizenga School Makes a Pitch for Sales 3 NSU Delivers Medical Training to War Zone Doctors 3 On Turtle Patrol 14 Leadership Program Gives Students an Edge 24 Health Care’s Paperless Future 35 Around Campus Art a Class Act at the Studio School 6 A Family Affair at the Student Educational Centers 6 University School Headmaster Receives Award 7 NSU Hosts Live Political Debates 7 NSU Goes Greener 37 Q & A Leo Irakliotis 13 Faculty Profile Sigmund Stahl 22 Jason Campbell 24 Student Profile Residential Life is the True “Real World” 28 Building a Sorority, Raising Hope 30 Student Courts a New Life Through NSU Law Center 31 Alumni Profile Steven Seltzer and Rowena Peralta 34 Marvin Chaney 36 Athletics Giving the Sharks Their Strength 38 Why I Became… Sue Kabot 40 Scott Poland 40https://nsuworks.nova.edu/nsu_horizons/1007/thumbnail.jp

The Role of Kentucky State-Supported Postsecondary Education in Creating a Healthier Citizenship

Citizens within the United States of America (USA) and the Commonwealth of Kentucky exhibit indicators of lessened health status in a variety of areas. Many chronic diseases and conditions are due to individual lifestyle behaviors, which can be modified through the implementation of dedicated health and wellness programming. Such programs, often housed within institutions of higher education, have the ability to impact many individuals including students, faculty, staff, and community members. This dissertation is a report of a mixed-methods study that begins to explore how state-supported postsecondary institutions may be able to impact individual behavior and thus, resulting health outcomes. This relationship is not only beneficial for the targeted individuals but also for the institutions, which may experience heightened success and sustainability. This research employs both quantitative and qualitative methods to gain an understanding of the current level of influence of state-supported postsecondary education in Kentucky on the health of its citizenship. Those working in various on-campus health and wellness departments at the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Eastern Kentucky University were surveyed. Next, key leaders at each university involved with these programming efforts were interviewed along with Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education officials, to gain an understanding of the leadership perspectives surrounding this issue. Finally, site visits at each university were completed to elicit knowledge regarding campus environments and how supportive they are in positively influencing individual health and wellbeing. It is possible that with more extensive findings across the Commonwealth of Kentucky and across the USA, a greater rationale can be made for institutional and state-wide leadership support of health and wellness programming efforts on college campuses. Resulting outcomes have great potential to be both robust and reciprocal to the university and its community members

The Usefulness of Multi-Sensor Affect Detection on User Experience: An Application of Biometric Measurement Systems on Online Purchasing

abstract: Traditional usability methods in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have been extensively used to understand the usability of products. Measurements of user experience (UX) in traditional HCI studies mostly rely on task performance and observable user interactions with the product or services, such as usability tests, contextual inquiry, and subjective self-report data, including questionnaires, interviews, and usability tests. However, these studies fail to directly reflect a user’s psychological involvement and further fail to explain the cognitive processing and the related emotional arousal. Thus, capturing how users think and feel when they are using a product remains a vital challenge of user experience evaluation studies. Conversely, recent research has revealed that sensor-based affect detection technologies, such as eye tracking, electroencephalography (EEG), galvanic skin response (GSR), and facial expression analysis, effectively capture affective states and physiological responses. These methods are efficient indicators of cognitive involvement and emotional arousal and constitute effective strategies for a comprehensive measurement of UX. The literature review shows that the impacts of sensor-based affect detection systems to the UX can be categorized in two groups: (1) confirmatory to validate the results obtained from the traditional usability methods in UX evaluations; and (2) complementary to enhance the findings or provide more precise and valid evidence. Both provided comprehensive findings to uncover the issues related to mental and physiological pathways to enhance the design of product and services. Therefore, this dissertation claims that it can be efficient to integrate sensor-based affect detection technologies to solve the current gaps or weaknesses of traditional usability methods. The dissertation revealed that the multi-sensor-based UX evaluation approach through biometrics tools and software corroborated user experience identified by traditional UX methods during an online purchasing task. The use these systems enhanced the findings and provided more precise and valid evidence to predict the consumer purchasing preferences. Thus, their impact was “complementary” on overall UX evaluation. The dissertation also provided information of the unique contributions of each tool and recommended some ways user experience researchers can combine both sensor-based and traditional UX approaches to explain consumer purchasing preferences.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Human Systems Engineering 201