The Class of 2020

The is a poem written in honor of the class of 2020. The coronavirus pandemic has robbed them of many fun activities in their final semester in college. The graduating seniors missed out on so many rites of passage such as march madness, commencement, award banquets, sports, labs, practice, face-to-face classes etc. for the last two months. Seniors are encouraged to have fortitude, practice patience, be grateful and show grit. The class of 2020 will conquer the world in due course. It is hoped that graduates will have imagination, will innovate and transform the world

Efficient Algorithms For Correlation Pattern Recognition

The mathematical operation of correlation is a very simple concept, yet has a very rich history of application in a variety of engineering fields. It is essentially nothing but a technique to measure if and to what degree two signals match each other. Since this is a very basic and universal task in a wide variety of fields such as signal processing, communications, computer vision etc., it has been an important tool. The field of pattern recognition often deals with the task of analyzing signals or useful information from signals and classifying them into classes. Very often, these classes are predetermined, and examples (templates) are available for comparison. This task naturally lends itself to the application of correlation as a tool to accomplish this goal. Thus the field of Correlation Pattern Recognition has developed over the past few decades as an important area of research. From the signal processing point of view, correlation is nothing but a filtering operation. Thus there has been a great deal of work in using concepts from filter theory to develop Correlation Filters for pattern recognition. While considerable work has been to done to develop linear correlation filters over the years, especially in the field of Automatic Target Recognition, a lot of attention has recently been paid to the development of Quadratic Correlation Filters (QCF). QCFs offer the advantages of linear filters while optimizing a bank of these simultaneously to offer much improved performance. This dissertation develops efficient QCFs that offer significant savings in storage requirements and computational complexity over existing designs. Firstly, an adaptive algorithm is presented that is able to modify the QCF coefficients as new data is observed. Secondly, a transform domain implementation of the QCF is presented that has the benefits of lower computational complexity and computational requirements while retaining excellent recognition accuracy. Finally, a two dimensional QCF is presented that holds the potential to further save on storage and computations. The techniques are developed based on the recently proposed Rayleigh Quotient Quadratic Correlation Filter (RQQCF) and simulation results are provided on synthetic and real datasets

Healing

This is a poem reflecting on the current human conditions in the USA, India-China conflict, racism, and other human conflicts. It calls for healing and asks every one to follow the golden rule: treat others as you want them to treat you

May USD Shine for a Thousand Years!

This is a poem penned by the author on his retirement from USD service, after 32 years as a faculty member at the USD Beacom School of Business

Moha Computer Services Limited: A Fraud Case

This article describes the implementation of a “Fraud case study” in an undergraduate auditing class. The author developed an instructional case based on the financial statement fraud that occurred at Satyam Computer Services Limited (Satyam) in India. Satyam is the largest corporate fraud ($1.5 billion) in India that came to light in 2009. Ironically, Satyam in Sanskrit means “truth”. This teaching case exposes students to several auditing-related concepts: 1) corporate governance issues; 2) financial statement fraud; 3) fraud auditing (SAS No. 99); 4) ethical reasoning and utilitarian principles; 5) internal control evaluation (AS 5); and 6) regulation. This case is appropriate for auditing courses at the undergraduate and Master’s levels. This ‘teaching innovation’ provides students with an opportunity to put on an auditor’s hat and participate in some active learning. During Fall 2011, a total of 43 accounting majors participated in this case project. The students worked in groups outside of class to answer questions. They came up with several red flags associated with fraud and suggested many new internal controls. Students found the case to be interesting and were engaged in the learning process. Student learning was assessed by grading written answers (for credit) provided by student groups. Student opinion surveys were also conducted about the learning outcomes of this project and the survey results indicate strong student engagement, group learning, and satisfaction

Life During a Pandemic

This is a short poem (6 stanzas) about the current pandemic and the trials and tribulations people are going through. This describes the heroic efforts by the doctors, nurses, and other frontline warriors in tackling the virus related illnesses and pays a rich tribute to all heroes from every walk of life who are in the front fighting this disease. It hopes for a plan, a vaccine, and a cure soon. This poem also describes the switchover to remote instruction at a reginal University, student and faculty adjustments to the pandemic and pokes gentle fun at the opportunity to watch Netflix, eat pizza, and drink beer

Adios 2020 and Welcome 2021

This is a short ballad about current health policy and practice regarding the Coronavirus. As vaccines are being administered, this poem points out that light is at the end of the tunnel. At the same time it urges caution, vigilance, masking and common sense. It praises science and scientists. It also calls for unity, cooperation and healing

WHIMS (Washing Hands, Immunity boost, Masking & Social distancing)

This is a shot poem about preventing the spread of Covid-19. It pleads general public to wear masks, wash hands, social distance, and boost immunity. It is set to a popular tune in Hindi - Dil Ke Jharoke Mein

Structural Bioinformatics and Big Data Analytics: A mini-review

Structural Biology and Structural Bioinformatics are two complementary areas that deal with three dimensional structures of biomolecules. With the advent of high-throughput techniques and automation of identifying structures there is a barrage of data generated currently, which fall under the area of Big Data. In this review, we present examples and current approach to handle massive volume of structural data and some potential applications of Big Data from Structural Bioinformatics perspective.

A Systematic Mapping Study of Access Control in the Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) provide wide range of services in both domestic and industrial environments. Access control plays a crucial role as to granting access rights to users and devices when an IoT device is connected to a network. Over the years, traditional access control models such as RBAC and ABAC have been extended to the IoT. Additionally, several other approaches have also been proposed for the IoT. This research performs a systematic mapping study of the research that has been conducted on the access control in the IoT. Based on the formulated search strategy, 1,617 articles were collected and screened for review. The systematic mapping study conducted in the paper answers three research questions regarding the access control in the IoT, i.e., what kind of access control related concerns have been raised in the IoT so far? what kind of solutions have been presented to improve access control in the IoT? what kind of research gaps have been identified in the access control research in the IoT? To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic mapping study performed on this topic