Application of the Markov Chain Method in a Health Portal Recommendation System

This study produced a recommendation system that can effectively recommend items on a health portal. Toward this aim, a transaction log that records users’ traversal activities on the Medical College of Wisconsin’s HealthLink, a health portal with a subject directory, was utilized and investigated. This study proposed a mixed-method that included the transaction log analysis method, the Markov chain analysis method, and the inferential analysis method. The transaction log analysis method was applied to extract users’ traversal activities from the log. The Markov chain analysis method was adopted to model users’ traversal activities and then generate recommendation lists for topics, articles, and Q&A items on the health portal. The inferential analysis method was applied to test whether there are any correlations between recommendation lists generated by the proposed recommendation system and recommendation lists ranked by experts. The topics selected for this study are Infections, the Heart, and Cancer. These three topics were the three most viewed topics in the portal. The findings of this study revealed the consistency between the recommendation lists generated from the proposed system and the lists ranked by experts. At the topic level, two topic recommendation lists generated from the proposed system were consistent with the lists ranked by experts, while one topic recommendation list was highly consistent with the list ranked by experts. At the article level, one article recommendation list generated from the proposed system was consistent with the list ranked by experts, while 14 article recommendation lists were highly consistent with the lists ranked by experts. At the Q&A item level, three Q&A item recommendation lists generated from the proposed system were consistent with the lists ranked by experts, while 12 Q&A item recommendation lists were highly consistent with the lists ranked by experts. The findings demonstrated the significance of users’ traversal data extracted from the transaction log. The methodology applied in this study proposed a systematic approach to generating the recommendation systems for other similar portals. The outcomes of this study can facilitate users’ navigation, and provide a new method for building a recommendation system that recommends items at three levels: the topic level, the article level, and the Q&A item level

Vulnerability Analysis Case Studies of Control Systems Human Machine Interfaces

This dissertation describes vulnerability research in the area of critical infrastructure security. The intent of this research is to develop a set of recommendations and guidelines for improving the security of Industrial Control System (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems software. Specifically, this research focuses on the Human- Machine Interface (HMI) software that is used on control panel workstations. This document covers a brief introduction to control systems security terminology in order to define the research area, a hypothesis for the research, and a discussion of the contribution that this research will provide to the field. Previous work in the area by other researchers is summarized, followed by a description of the vulnerability research, analysis, and creation of deliverables. Technical information on the details of a number of vulnerabilities is presented for a number of HMI vulnerabilities, for which either the author has performed the analysis, or from public vulnerability disclosures where sufficient information about the vulnerabilities is available. Following the body of technical vulnerability information, the common features and characteristics of known vulnerabilities in HMI software are discussed, and that information is used to propose a taxonomy of HMI vulnerabilities. Such a taxonomy can be used to classify HMI vulnerabilities and organize future work on identifying and mitigating such vulnerabilities in the future. Finally, the contributions of this work are presented, along with a summary of areas that have been identified as interesting future work

A Study on the Field of XR Simulation Creation, Leveraging Game Engines to Develop a VR Hospital Framework

This thesis introduces an adaptable and extensible VR framework designed for clinicians and patients using pre-existing game development software like Blender and Unreal Engine. The framework aids patients in familiarizing themselves with hospital scenarios and environments, reducing anxiety, and improving navigation. Clinicians can use the tool to educate patients and collaboratively design new aspects of the environment. A prototype implementation demonstrates the system\u27s effectiveness, with usability studies indicating that teleport movement is preferred over sliding for locomotion and that navigation speed can improve with subsequent trials in the VR simulator. The framework\u27s potential for enhancing patient experience and facilitating informed consent is also discussed. The research findings provide valuable insights for future VR healthcare applications while affirming the valuable future applications of the hospital framework and development workflow

Multimodal game-based learning in Post-Secondary Education

In this age of unprecedented technological proliferation, educators have been given a unique opportunity to enhance classroom engagement. That opportunity is multimodal game-based learning (MGBL): classroom instruction through a combination of games and multiple modalities of information. Using today’s 3D systems and virtual reality tools, this concept can be explored to depths never before possible. The aim of this project was to design and implement an application that could be used to evaluate how MGBL could impact student engagement and learning, specifically at the post-secondary level. The application implemented during this work was a 3D and virtual reality Simulator for the instruction of data structures dubbed the Data Structure Simulator. The target demographic chosen for the evaluation of this tool\u27s effectiveness was computer science students at the post-secondary level. This paper details the implementation of the Data Structure Simulator, presents the results of the evaluation, and demonstrates that MGBL has promise as a tool of post-secondary education

Examining the Application of Modular and Contextualised Ontology in Query Expansions for Information Retrieval

This research considers the ongoing challenge of semantics-based search from the perspective of how to exploit Semantic Web languages for search in the current Web environment. The purpose of the PhD was to use ontology-based query expansion (OQE) to improve search effectiveness by increasing search precision, i.e. retrieving relevant documents in the topmost ranked positions in a returned document list. Query experiments have required a novel search tool that can combine Semantic Web technologies in an otherwise traditional IR process using a Web document collection

User Review Analysis for Requirement Elicitation: Thesis and the framework prototype's source code

Online reviews are an important channel for requirement elicitation. However, requirement engineers face challenges when analysing online user reviews, such as data volumes, technical supports, existing techniques, and legal barriers. Juan Wang proposes a framework solving user review analysis problems for the purpose of requirement elicitation that sets up a channel from downloading user reviews to structured analysis data. The main contributions of her work are: (1) the thesis proposed a framework to solve the user review analysis problem for requirement elicitation; (2) the prototype of this framework proves its feasibility; (3) the experiments prove the effectiveness and efficiency of this framework. This resource here is the latest version of Juan Wang's PhD thesis "User Review Analysis for Requirement Elicitation" and all the source code of the prototype for the framework as the results of her thesis

Enhancing cyber assets visibility for effective attack surface management : Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management based on Knowledge Graph

The contemporary digital landscape is filled with challenges, chief among them being the management and security of cyber assets, including the ever-growing shadow IT. The evolving nature of the technology landscape has resulted in an expansive system of solutions, making it challenging to select and deploy compatible solutions in a structured manner. This thesis explores the critical role of Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) technologies in managing cyber attack surfaces, focusing on the open-source CAASM tool, Starbase, by JupiterOne. It starts by underlining the importance of comprehending the cyber assets that need defending. It acknowledges the Cyber Defense Matrix as a methodical and flexible approach to understanding and addressing cyber security challenges. A comprehensive analysis of market trends and business needs validated the necessity of asset security management tools as fundamental components in firms' security journeys. CAASM has been selected as a promising solution among various tools due to its capabilities, ease of use, and seamless integration with cloud environments using APIs, addressing shadow IT challenges. A practical use case involving the integration of Starbase with GitHub was developed to demonstrate the CAASM's usability and flexibility in managing cyber assets in organizations of varying sizes. The use case enhanced the knowledge graph's aesthetics and usability using Neo4j Desktop and Neo4j Bloom, making it accessible and insightful even for non-technical users. The thesis concludes with practical guidelines in the appendices and on GitHub for reproducing the use case

Augmenting applications with hyper media, functionality and meta-information

The Dynamic Hypermedia Engine (DHE) enhances analytical applications by adding relationships, semantics and other metadata to the application\u27s output and user interface. DHE also provides additional hypermedia navigational, structural and annotation functionality. These features allow application developers and users to add guided tours, personal links and sharable annotations, among other features, into applications. DHE runs as a middleware between the application user interface and its business logic and processes, in a n-tier architecture, supporting the extra functionalities without altering the original systems by means of application wrappers. DHE automatically generates links at run-time for each of those elements having relationships and metadata. Such elements are previously identified using a Relation Navigation Analysis. DHE also constructs more sophisticated navigation techniques not often found on the Web on top of these links. The metadata, links, navigation and annotation features supplement the application\u27s primary functionality. This research identifies element types, or classes , in the application displays. A mapping rule encodes each relationship found between two elements of interest at the class level . When the user selects a particular element, DHE instantiates the commands included in the rules with the actual instance selected and sends them to the appropriate destination system, which then dynamically generates the resulting virtual (i.e. not previously stored) page. DHE executes concurrently with these applications, providing automated link generation and other hypermedia functionality. DHE uses the extensible Markup Language (XMQ -and related World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) sets of XML recommendations, like Xlink, XML Schema, and RDF -to encode the semantic information required for the operation of the extra hypermedia features, and for the transmission of messages between the engine modules and applications. DHE is the only approach we know that provides automated linking and metadata services in a generic manner, based on the application semantics, without altering the applications. DHE will also work with non-Web systems. The results of this work could also be extended to other research areas, such as link ranking and filtering, automatic link generation as the result of a search query, metadata collection and support, virtual document management, hypermedia functionality on the Web, adaptive and collaborative hypermedia, web engineering, and the semantic Web