Spring 2018 C-Day Program

C-Day Home Page

Return to the C-Day home page.

Spring 2018 Winners

View the Spring 2018 C-Day winners.

Flash Session Presentation

Download the C-Day Flash Session Presentation.

• Time
  Event
• 4:00 pm - 4:30 pm
      J (Atrium) building 1st & 3d floors
  Student check-in: J (Atrium) building 1st floor lobby
  followed by set-up :J (Atrium) building 3d floor (presenters only)

• 4:30 pm - 5:00 pm  
    J (Atrium) building 1st floor lobby

  Check-in judges, industry partners,
  Networking. Students, bring your resume. 
• 5:00 pm - 5:35 pm
      I2 (Design 2) Auditorium
  Welcome from Dean Preston followed by Flash Session
• 5:35 pm - 6:20 pm
     J (Atrium) building 3d floor
  Judging of Student Projects
  Browsing
• 6:20 pm - 6:50 pm
     I2 (Design 2) Auditorium
  Pizza and Networking. Students, bring your resume. 
• 6:50 pm - 7:00 pm
     I2 (Design 2) Auditorium
  Recognition of Judges
• 7:00 pm - 7:30 pm
     I2 (Design 2) Auditorium
  Presentation of Awards

  • Best Undergraduate Project
  • Best Graduate Project
  • Best Undergraduate Research Project
  • Best Graduate Research Project

Mark your calendar for Fall 2018 C-Day: Thursday, November 29 5-8pm

Sponsor 

• Judges

  Academic courses undergraduate 

  • Lynn Biester - Technology Innovation Sr. Manager, Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products, LLC
  • Joe Cassavaugh - CEO/Designer/Engineer, Puzzles By Joe
  • Bob Cole - Managing Director, Accenture
  • Ryan Gibson - Associate Director - College Recruiting , AT&T
  • Dana Graham - Director, IT, Georgia-Pacific
  • Andrew Greenberg - Executive Director, GGDA/HDI
  • Suneel Mendiratta - VP - Product Development, HRO, ADP
  • D. Nguyen - Quality Assurance , Tripwire Interactive
  • Evanda Remington - Director - R&D, Manhattan Associates
  • Rushabh Shah - Principal System Architect, Pegasystems
  • Bruce Skillin - Technology Innovator, Georgia-Pacific

  Academic courses graduate 

  • Vladimir Rusanov - Development Manager, Stanley Black & Decker
  • Peter Vennel - Director - Data Management, Safe-Guard Products Intl.

  Undergraduate Research Projects

  • Charles Igwilo - Partner, upSTART Venture Partners
  • Dr. Hossain Shahriar - Assistant Professor of Information Technology, KSU
  • Dr. Ming Yang - Professor of Information Technology, KSU

  Graduate Research Projects

  • Andrew Hamilton - CTO, Cybriant
  • Frank L Ziller - CIO, Intelliteach

  Guests

  • Colin Malone - Senior Principal Business Analyst, Manhattan Associates
  • Nancy McCrory - Software Development Manager, Automated Logic
  • Laura Moore - Sr. Developer, UTC - CCS
  • Jaspal Sagoo - CTO, CDC
• Rubric and acceptance rate

  137 project reviewed, 66 project accepted for presentation (48%).

  Undergraduate and graduate projects: scale 0 - 10 with 0 representing "Poor" and 10 representation "Exceeds Expectations"

  • Successfully completed stated project goals and reported deliverables (0-10)
  • Methodology/Approach: All required elements are clearly visible, organized, and articulated (0-10)
  • Effective verbal presentation (0-10)
  • Evidence of Rigor (10)

  Games: scale 0 - 10 with 0 representing "Poor" and 10 representation "Awesome"

  • TECHNICAL: Technically sound with appropriate visual & audio fidelity(0-10)
  • GAMEPLAY: Engaging & Fun, with an intuitive UI. Rules of play are clear. Includes a win/lose state(0-10)
  • ORIGINALITY: Sound, Art, Design, or Code(0-10)
  • Evidence of Rigor (10)
• Academic courses undergraduate (e.g. capstones, games, innovative special topics projects, other course projects) (39)

  * Candidates for the best graduate research project award
  + Project will be featured during the Flash Session

  • *+UC-03 Ascension
    by Zachary Baker, Anthony Onukwuli, Nikki Ashaka 
    Major: BAACS Advisor: Dr. Michael Franklin
    An archaeologist seeking ancient secrets plummets down an underground passage. As he attempts to find his way out, he stumbles upon a darkness that can be contained. In the inky depths of the cavern, he comes upon relics that contain the spirits of the Fallen Ones. Each of them, lamenting and contrite, were helpless victims of the ruthless power they attempted to oppose. With the power of the relics, the lost excavator must free these tortured spirits from their bondage and redeem the sins of ancient evils.
    
    

  • *+UC-05 Autonomous Robot Sim Using Unity
    by Christian Cho, Derek Martin, Jesse Manders, Christian Cho 
    Major: BSCGDD Advisor: Dr. Michael Franklin
    Simulation of an autonomous mobile robot in a closed office environment using Unity. The simulation is realized as an actual autonomous real world robot. The project will utilize real world imaging from the robot integrated inside of the Unity environment. The simulation will also include modeling of sensors and the implementation of an artificial intelligence.
    
    

  • *+UC-09 Hidden Opus
    by Jacob Jennings, Chris Regan, LaDarius DeShield, Richard Lago, Jacob Jennings 
    Major: BSCGDD Advisor: Dr. Michael Franklin
    First person horror experience. Explore the ruins of a derelict town to unravel its mystery. Use only your camera in order to survive the night and discover the truth!
    
    

  • *+UC-10 Neon Skyline
    by Erik Sheffer, Jacob Holloway, Jarrod Ariola, Hunter Jones 
    Major: BSCGDD Advisor: Dr. Michael Franklin
    Neon Skyline is a fast paced, futuristic, and gritty racing game. In the year 2095, Adam Reeds is an ex-racer, who recently retired and escaped from the underground. He arrives home on New Years to find his daughter kidnapped, with nothing left behind but a note, and a suspicious set of keys. With the help of his mechanic, Sam Rodgers, Adam Reeds will have to re-enter the racing scene, to find his daughter, and take her back. Neon Skyline features local multiplayer, procedural generated race courses, and crazy ramps and tracks to keep your heart racing as fast as the hover cars flying by you.
    
    

  • *+UC-11 VR Bloodstream
    by Robert Forbes, Kalib Crone, Joshua Skelton 
    Major: BSCGDD Advisor: Dr. Michael Franklin
    A Virtual Reality Experience that sends players into a virtual lab and bloodstream environment. The goal of the project is to teach students how to read and examine the bloodstream of different animals in order to determine when they are sick or irregularities are happening based on their bloodstream cell counts.

  • *+UC-12 The Darkness Within
    by Nadia Khan, Haley Gragg 
    Major: BSCGDD Advisor: Dr. Michael Franklin
    “The Darkness Within is the story of a young fox spirit who is attacked by darkness and falls from grace, waking up on Earth with no memory of its past. The Darkness now hunts the young sprite hoping to corrupt the spirit’s light and send the world into chaos. The light sprite must learn its purpose and purge the world of darkness.” The Darkness Within is a 3D platformer adventure game intended for children. The game is fantasy-based, but also teaches children simple physics as the game progresses.
    
    

  • *+UC-14 EDP (Enterprise Delivery Planning)
    by Alexander Plattel, William Parish, David McFall, Clayton Hunsinger, Heather Rego, Chasse Cossairt 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Selena He
    The purpose of EDP will be to offer a simple SAP interface for mobile devices which will allow users to update data in SAP in real time from their mobile device. We will be building the initial instance of this tool for an auto parts supply company called IMC and it will be a resource for truck drivers to register the items they deliver and the selected payment method and amount paid (although we will currently not be taking payments through the application).
    
    

  • *+UC-15 MenYou
    by Austin Ford, Jackson Wessels, Miguel Toledo, Nathan Foshee 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    Our project is an android application built on the Verifone Carbon 10 device. Our application is a menu management system that allows both customers and businesses to have the information of their menu at their fingertips. Our application allows businesses to create and manage their menu down to the details of the ingredients. Employees can search and filter the menu by specific ingredients and by name. This is useful for people with food sensitivities and food allergies.
    
    

  • *UC-16 Virtual Reality Locomotion
    by Adam Hayes, Vojtech Martinek, Anderson McGee, Alex Kimbell 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    Our project is a research project focusing on Virtual Reality(VR) Locomotion. We want to answer several questions regarding VR Locomotion, such as “Which locomotion do users find easiest to use”, and “With which locomotion do users maintain better spatial awareness”. We built a simulation using the Unity Engine to give users simple tests that will help answer those questions. We designed both an obstacle course for them to navigate and a simple room to test their spatial awareness.
    
    

  • UC-17 Wellstar IT Optimization
    by Andrew Hubeli, Sarah Hansberry, Dante Taylor, Austin Barnett, Michael Little 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    The Wellstar IT department receives upwards of 20000 tickets per month. The demand for IT services must be met while managing costs and resources. Many of the tickets could be resolved through automation or self-service.
    
    

  • *+UC-18 IoT Occupancy Tracking
    by Alex Googe, Joshua Sanyika, Marc Wise 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Selena He
    The project uses two to four PIR motion sensors connected to a Raspberry Pi to detect motion going inside or outside of a doorway, hallway, etc. It then keeps a count of the number of occupants inside of the given room or area. The project also includes a web application that shows data in a easy to use manner for end users.
    
    

  • *+UC-19 KSU Go
    by Albert Lim, Anthony Schell, Chase Godwin, Dayton Chamberlin, Nick Wilson, Patrick Hilerio 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Selena He
    The driving objective behind this project is to improve the student experience through a user friendly mobile app. Part of the problem with student involvement is poor communication of relevant information, and this app will be focused at presenting this in a visually pleasing, easy to access manner. We are going to create an app called KSU Go. It will be initially available to Android users and feature information about the campus, such as a campus directory, emergency services, D2L, Owl Life (clubs and organizations), Handshake (career planning), social feeds, campus map, and BOB (KSU bus) route tracking.
    
    

  • *+UC-22 IoT Smart Coffee Pot
    by Brent Robinson, Justin Voorhees, Chip Gardner 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Selena He
    Implementation of a smart coffee pot utilizing a raspberry pi, temperature sensor and load cell to display relevant data and notify others when a new pot of coffee is ready.
    
    

  • *UC-23 NVidia CUDA in Bioinformatics 
    by Brent Robinson, Justin Voorhees, Chip Gardner, Victor Sahin 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    Analysis of a pairwise protein distance algorithm on an NVidia GPU using the CUDA API versus a serial implementation of the same algorithm.
    
    

  • UC-24 Pibble
    by Nick Main, Charles Bryant, Sean Hale, Haley Bear, Mark Petell 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr Selena He
    “Pibble” (the common nickname for pitbulls) is a chrome extension with the ability to scrape data websites to assist our sponsor, Labrador, it will also implement machine learning for the application to work on other sites. Labrador has sponsored this team to create an alternative to the manual method of data collection and entry currently used by their employees. The plugin solution includes the collection of data from two main sites: Edward’s and Fortune’s.
    
    

  • *UC-26 Smart Pill Bottle
    by Dylan Clark, Ben Davenport-Ray 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr Selena He
    Creating a smart pill bottle that will allow a user to input his/her medication schedule and dosage then remind the user to take his/her medication at the correct time. It will also notify the user via push notification if he/she misses a dose.
    
    

  • *UC-27 IoT Voice & Gesture Control System 
    by Deja Tyla Jackson, Zoe Cesar , Richmond Mensah , Nathaniel Klein, Amanda Norris , Khadijah Mahley 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Selena He
    A gesture and voice recognition system that connects to AWS IoT core to publish a command. A robotic car is subscribed to the cloud and it receives the command and performs an associated action.
    
    

  • *+UC-28 “What's Next?!” Travel App
    by Delia Sanders, Shivani Patel, Kevin Benitez Santos, Aniruddh Kathiriya, Dhruv Patel 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    Create a travel App that allows users to create a custom list with their desired locations of the chosen activities, based on the selected timeline. The app also provides a custom map for the user to reach the locations of their activities in the least amount of time.
    
    

  • *+UC-30 Carbon Chain
    by John Price, Nick Miller, Connor Armstrong, Alex Turner, Brandon Gonzalez 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    We have developed a loyalty point program that interfaces with the Verifone Carbon platform. This system was built using blockchain technology in order to create a reward system for their network of customers. We built the system as an API to be plugged into any existing application on the point of sale device. The demonstration application was built using android studio and the proprietary sdk for the device, and the backend was developed in NodeJS with Express.js, which was hosted on AWS’ cloud platform.
    
    

  • +UC-31 Smart Alarm Clock
    by Jacob Stewart, Kurt Floyd 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Selena He
    An alarm clock that dynamically alters wake up times based on current weather and traffic conditions, controls room lighting, tracks user sleep patterns, and suggests that an alarm be set if a user fails to set one during a normal time.
    
    

  • UC-34 FMSnote
    by Mohamed Kabad, Shainu Vazhathil, Faisal Abdulkadir 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    Android application that merges three of the most utilized apps by students. The application, “FMSnote”, will merge Reminders, Notes and To-Do applications. The application helps the users track all the important dates and events in their every day lives.
    
    

  • UC-38 Rare Event Detection
    by Rakeem Durand, Karim Rattani, Ihsan Hashem, Roberta Beaulieu, Thomas Fuller 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    Surveillance cameras have become a part of our life. We see them in almost every corner of the street and outside restaurants. However, hiring people to monitor all the surveillance video is expensive. The purpose of our project is to implement an algorithm that will detect abnormal activity such as robbery, accident, etc. and alert the corresponding authorities.
    
    

  • *+UC-39 Virtual Education
    by Sourav Debnath, Adi Vrskic, Andrea Pinardi, Jeffrey Dennis, Marc Wise 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Selena He
    Our project aims to add the level of immersion in an online class, by developing a suite of virtual reality scenes simulating a real physical classroom environment, for the betterment and enrichment of a student’s education.
    
    

  • *+UC-40 Verifone Support WebApp
    by Srija Kukkadapu, Ahmad Alissa, Dylan Clark, Kevin Burke, Josh Sisson 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    A WebApp for Verifone with an easy-to-use interface that answers questions that exist within the customer base of the company
    
    

  • *+UC-41 Visualization of Big Data with AR
    by Sean Saffan, Ronald Brooks, Victor Orellana, Matt Alyward (HS Intern) 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Sarah North
    Project Title: Visualization of Streamed Big Data Through Augmented Reality; The purpose of this project is to design, develop and measure the effectiveness of an augmented reality (AR) application for the visualization of streamed data of network traffic. This application will be developed for the Microsoft HoloLens, with several AR models of data visualization to select from. The effectiveness of this application will be measured in an experiment.
    
    

  • UC-43 Bibliography Management Tool
    by William Patrick, Randolph Wilson, Michael Lin, Avery Snyder, Roberto Recinos 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Selena He
    A tool that will allow users to easily manage their cited sources when writing a paper, and generate a work cited page in MLA/APA format when they have finished writing their paper.
    
    

  • *+UC-44 Smart Baby Monitor
    by Taylor Bounds, Jayce Chen, Jordan Mateen, William Simmons, Bo Wang, Michael Wong 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Selena He
    A baby monitor connected to an android application that utilizes facial recognition to determine when the baby is waking up and alert the parents.
    
    

  • *+UC-45 KSU Capstone 15: SCADA Networks
    by Allen McCrory, Zivalus Nixon, Andrew Connelly, Chad Womble, Ashad Mahmood 
    Major: BSIT Advisor: Dr. Ming Yang
    An analysis of the network architecture and vulnerabilities of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems governing the daily operation of five sectors of critical infrastructure: water, energy, communications, transportation, and emergency management. Graphical models are used to demonstrate the network layouts of autonomous control systems and how they may be attacked.
    
    

  • UC-47 Moodle
    by Courtney Walker, Jessica Herr, Brian Luong, Adam Lee, Doutimi Azu 
    Major: BSIT Advisor: Dr. Ming Yang
    The Distance Learning Center at Kennesaw State University is looking for an alternative to D2L in order to deliver its training programs to newly hired faculty. A previous Capstone group had already setup the Moodle server for testing. So, our goal for this semester has been to research and implement the various Reporting and Badge tools available in Moodle.
    
    

  • *UC-50 CCSE Internship video blog 
    by Juan Castro, Isaura Romero, Joe Black, Alexander Lam, Evgeniya Koganitskaya 
    Major: BSIT Advisor: Prof. Dawn Tatum
    We are exploring the possibility of creating a website for internship students to post video blogs/presentation about their internship experiences.
    
    

  • UC-53 How Immigration Affects Economics
    by Jack Matthews, Codi Sordelet, Jinhee Kim, Ebele Orakpo, Mahad Ahmed 
    Major: BSIT Advisor: Dr. Ming Yang
    A look at how immigration affects economics, examined through data visualizations of H1B visa statistics and economic indicators.
    
    

  • *+UC-54 IT Alumni Database ETL System
    by Ricky Parks, Vy Duong, Zack Downing, Desiree Smokes, Hang Yu 
    Major: BSIT Advisor: Dr. Ming Yang
    The IT department at KSU maintains an alumni database which stores graduates’ career information. In the past, alumni’s career information was manually extracted from LinkedIn.com and then loaded into a relational database which is a very labor-intensive process. In this project, we aim to create an automated extract, transform and load (ETL) system for the IT alumni database.
    
    

  • *UC-55 Cyber Actor Profiles 
    by Ramiz Ramic, Sabrina Buckholdt, Kevin Tillack, Hao Pham, Nick Kennelly 
    Major: BSIT Advisor: Dr. Ming Yang
    Research of cyber actor groups from: Eastern Europe, Asia, and Middle East. Develop profiles of each group's activity to include motivations, techniques, tools, and procedures and favorite targets of attack. Video demonstration of a group's typical attack against a favorite target.
    
    

  • *+UC-56 Cybriant SOC Portal
    by Ali Abdulelah, Cameron Fite, Zachary Auzenne, Brett Warner, Francisco Escalante, Arjumand Fatima 
    Major: BSSWE Advisor: Dr. Reza Parizi
    In a Security Operations Center there is a need to certify that a task has been performed for future auditing. Unfortunately, there are many different tools on the market and only moderate integration into ticketing or task management platforms. This means that it is difficult to quantify the time it takes for Security Analysts to perform tasks. The ability to certify (or at least recognize) that a task has been completed and the time it takes enables an organization help identify efficiencies as well as opportunities for further employee training.
    
    

  • *+UC-57 M.A.I.D.A.S
    by Andre Maxwell, Robert Torres, Gavin Smith, Adam Britton, Alex Creilson, Mariel Mcneil 
    Major: BSSWE Advisor: Dr. Reza Parizi
    The purpose of our project is to use a drone in order to perform trailer yard auditing for our client, Manhattan Associates. We are to use to drone to capture the locations of trailers and their spots on a “yard” using a camera, and report the locations of those trailers to provide auditing of which trailers are on the yard and which parking spots or “docks” they reside in. This solution was asked to be deployed so that the manual labor that is required with performing manual yard audits would not longer be necessary, and the process of documenting the trailers and their locations on the yard would be streamlined.
    
    

  • *UC-58 Windows Forensics Suite
    by Jessica Camilien, Joseph Blanco, David Klein, Justice Collier 
    Major: BSSWE Advisor: Dr. Reza Parizi
    A collection of tools that pull metadata from various locations in a Windows NTFS system and aggregate and display the data in a readable format. This allows the user to conduct a forensic investigation on a computer running Windows 8 or Windows 10.
    
    

  • *+UC-59 Roommates40Plus.com
    by John Landsman, Ferit Akaybicen, Daniel Hanley, Daryan Sankar, Andres Rodriguez, Forrest Cain 
    Major: BSSWE Advisor: Dr. Reza Parizi
    Roommates40Plus.com is a dedicated website for older US citizens to find potential roommates. Generic forum websites such as Craigslist are looked down on by older citizens as a dangerous place for criminals and con artists. Roommates40Plus.com offers a safe and simple place for older generations to find like minded individuals to meet and potentially live with. This project was presented to us by Ms. Susan Asher, a Marietta local and owner of Roommates40Plus.com.
    
    

  • *UC-61 High Performance Caching of Data
    by Robert Montgomery, Dickson Diku, Macauley Odinaka, Jared Wilson, Malcolm Frank, Abebe Adamu 
    Major: BSSWE Advisor: Dr. Reza Parizi
    Travelport is undertaking an effort to improve the way they cache inventory data using an in memory database during their search process. This project objectives are listed below: 1.Research technologies in the in-memory database space, and select a technology in which to build a proof of concept. (Technology chose: Pivotal GemFire) 2. Develop behavioral and non-behavioral requirements for a cache application that can scale to 100 billion requests per month at associated peak usage. 3. Design and develop a proof of concept application with the selected in-memory database technology, and demonstrate its ability to scale.
    
    

  • *UC-62 HealthQ
    by Benny Villegas, Eddie Matos, Austin Harris, Zikomo Bullock, Stuart Tresslar, Brian Deguzis 
    Major: BSSWE Advisor: Dr. Reza Parizi
    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recognized that a need exists for a free, fast-to-learn, easy-to-use software solution that is designed around epidemiologists and their public health initiatives. HealthQ rises to the challenge with an application using Google’s SDK and it’s virtual voice intelligence, Google Assistant. The purpose of this project is to improve the quality of research the CDC is conducting while alleviating the hardships of researchers on the field. HealthQ's goal for their product is to help the CDC in their efforts to prevent disease, injury, and disability, promote health and well-being, and prepare for and respond to disasters. HealthQ believes they can aid in this efforts by analyzing data and drawing conclusions based on user prompted questions. HealthQ believes anyone should be able to conversant with their data.
• Academic courses graduate (e.g. capstones, games, innovative special topics projects, other course projects) (8)

  * Candidates for the best graduate research project award
  + Project will be featured during the Flash Session

  • *GC-02 Medical Image Classification
    by Jessica Rudd 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Mingon Kang
    This project will compare traditional convolutional neural network (CNN) with the latest improvements to CNN technology known as CapsNet for improved medical image classification.
    
    
  • GC-05 2018 Machine Learning Madness
  • by Beau Schmookler 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Mingon Kang
    Predict the 2018 March Madness Bracket using the annual Kaggle March Machine Learning Mania's combination of rich historical data and a variety of Machine Learning algorithms.
    
    
  • *GC-06 Pedestrian detection by a robot
    by Dane Hylton 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Mingon Kang
    Using the Raspberry Pi Smart Video Car Kit our aim is to detect pedestrians and classify them as either being stationary or moving
    
    

  • *GC-17 Statistical Analysis of NYC data
    by Archana Joshi 
    Major: MSIT Advisor: Dr. Meng Han
    Statistical Analysis of NYC taxi and Uber data to determine the popularity of the services and propose solutions to overcome the hurdles in service usage.
    
    

  • *+GC-19 Ethical hacking with Raspberry Pi
    by Don Privitera 
    Major: MSIT Advisor: Dr. Hossain Shahriar
    A Raspberry Pi is a tiny and inexpensive Internet of Things computer device that can be used as an ethical hacking tool. This project details proposed coursework as a basis for an advanced Ethical Hacking class at KSU as a follow-on the existing Ethical Hacking class. This work details procedures to stage KALI Linux on a Raspberry Pi device. In addition, this project details lab exercises to utilize the device for key ethical hacking lab exercises.
    
    

  • GC-21 Data Analytics with Python
    by Abraham Kim 
    Major: MSIT Advisor: Dr. Meng Han
    Data analysis using Python on massive data from https://world.openfoodfacts.org to compare the salt and sugar levels in organic foods and non-organic foods.
    
    

  • *+GC-22 PDF DExtractor
    by Neal Hughart, Charlie So, Sarada Sundaresan 
    Major: MSSWE Advisor: Dr. Reza Parizi
    PDF DExtractor is a web application that allows the end-user to upload a zip file to the website. The system then unzips the zip file and returns a random PDF form from a stack of PDF forms within the zip file. The end-user selects the text and format of the destination file that they would like the system to extract for all of the PDF forms in the zip file. The end-user is then given the option to save the selection coordinates for future use if they have created an account on the PDF DExtractor web site.
    
    

  • *GC-55 House Prices- Regression Techniques
    by Aakanksha Gupta, Aditi Kasat 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Mingon Kang
    A large data set with 79 different features (like living area, number of rooms, location, etc.) along with their prices are provided for residential homes in Ames, Iowa. The challenge is to learn a relationship between the important features and the price of the home and then use the above relationship to predict the prices of a new set of houses. The goal for the project is to predict the sales price for each house(Id).
• Graduate Research (12) 

  * Candidates for the best graduate research project award
  + Project will be featured during the Flash Session

  • GR-02 K-Nearest Neighbor on Hadoop
    by Arialdis Japa, Daniel Brown 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    For this research, we implemented the K-Nearest Neighbor algorithm in a MapReduce paradigm and tested it on a Hadoop cluster.
    
    

  • GR-03 Clustering Algorithms for MapReduce
    by Daniel Brown, Arialdis Japa 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Yong Shi
    An implementation of big data clustering algorithms for use with the MapReduce framework and Apache Hadoop.
    
    

  • *GR-06 Malware Classification by ML & LBP
    by Jhu-Sin Luo 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Dan Lo
    Malware classification is a critical part in the cybersecurity. Traditional methodologies for the malware classification typically use static analysis and dynamic analysis to identify malware. In this paper, a malware classification methodology based on its binary image and extracting local binary pattern (LBP) features is proposed. First, hexadecimal malwares are converted into RGBA scale image and reorganized into 3 by 3 grids which is mainly used to extract LBP feature. Second, the LBP is implemented on the malware images to extract features in that it is useful in pattern or texture classification. Finally, Tensorflow, a library for machine learning, is applied to classify malware images with the LBP feature. Performance comparison results among different classifiers with different image descriptors such as GIST, a spatial envelop, and the LBP demonstrate that our proposed approach outperforms others.
    
    

  • *+GR-09 Monitoring animals in wilderness
  • by Joel Kamdem Teto 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Ying Xie
    The purpose of this research is first to be able to localize animals in wilderness using live camera feeds. Then, using the existing techniques (Convolutional Neural Network) detect each animal, count for each species and identify the behavior at the moment. The behavior here is considered as either standing, not standing, resting or not, eating, baby. Nonetheless, a recent paper from Geoffrey Hinton, have proven some shortcomings of the state-of-the-art convolutional neural network to detect objects. Indeed, he proposed a new model of network called the Capsule network that is supposed to overcome the shortcomings of the CNN. The main objective of this research is to be able to achieve this task using CNN and Capsule Network.
    
    

  • *+GR-12 Predicting Amazon Best-Sellers
    by Michael Kranzlein 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Dan Lo
    A multiple classifier system of neural networks built on Amazon product descriptions and images for predicting best sellers across a variety of product categories.
    
    

  • *GR-16 Training a Neural Network to Walk
  • by Oscar Garcia
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr Selena He
    Using a novel neural network architecture navigate an arena to reach a target. This is an implementation step towards achieving an architecture capable of solving insight class problems (the ability to synthesize solutions to a novel problem without training those solutions).
    
    

  • *GR-18 R-CNN for Gender Identification
    by Rehnuma Afrin 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Mingon Kang
    R-CNN (Region based Convolutional Neural Network ) is very effective for object detection and localization. It takes in an image, and correctly identify the objects in the image via a bounding box. In this project, R-CNN is used for Gender detection and classification.
    
    

  • *GR-20 Algorithms to Improve MRI Scanning
    by Srivarna Settisara Janney, Dr. Sumit Chakravarty 
    Major: MSCS Advisor: Dr. Chih-Cheng Hung
    Applying three new algorithms in Compressed Sensing to Medical images (MRI) such as Brain, Chest, Shoulder, and Heart type of image data sets, offers significant scan time reductions, which benefits patients, at the same time retains quality images for accurate diagnoses by radiologist.
    
    

  • *GR-24 Object Tracking with OpenCV
    by Tao Wu, Nisha Desai 
    Major: MSIT Advisor: Dr. Ming Yang
    In this project, we utilize template matching and OpenCV library to enable object tracking. We have applied different search window size and template dimension to achieve the best matching precision and performance.
    
    

  • GR-26 Deep Embedding Kernel
    by Linh Le, Linh, Le 
    Major: PHD Data Science Advisor: Dr. Ying Xie
    In this poster, we propose a novel supervised learning method that is called Deep Embedding Kernel (DEK). DEK combines the advantages of deep learning and kernel methods in a unified framework. More specifically, DEK is a learnable kernel represented by a newly designed deep architecture. Compared with pre-defined kernels, this kernel can be explicitly trained to map data to an optimized high-level feature space where data may have favorable features toward the application. Compared with typical deep learning using SoftMax or logistic regression as the top layer, DEK is expected to be more generalizable to new data. Experimental results show that DEK has superior performance than typical machine learning methods in identity detection, classification, regression, dimension reduction, and transfer learning.
    
    

  • *+GR-27 Fault Detection in IoT using DL
    by Sergiu Buciumas 
    Major: PHD Data Science Advisor: Dr. Dan Lo
    With current increasing attacks for the industrial systems, traditional machine learning models are able to only find the malicious activity at the communication level and the binary level. With the increasing success of the Deep Neural Networks we present method from DL to solve the problem. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the current sequence-to-sequence based on an LSTM neural network to monitor and detect faults in industrial multivariate time series data. We know that the current area with high security concerns is the IoT, and in special the cyber-security for industrial processes. We provide in this paper results of the current state of the art models used for fault detection and also bring an improvement model from multivariate time series in order to solve current challenges. The data used into the research paper is a real gasoil plant.
    
    

  • GR-28 Comparison of forecasting methods
    by Shashank Hebbar 
    Major: PHD Data Science Advisor: Dr. Mingon Kang
    Will compare LSTM Neural networks with traditional time series methods in forecasting web traffic for wikipedia pages
• Undergraduate Research (7)

  * Candidates for the best graduate research project award
  + Project will be featured during the Flash Session

  • *UR-02 Self-Schooling Tablet
    by Pauline Sawadogo 
    Major: BSIT Advisor: Prof. Diana Rabah
    The “Self-Schooling Tablet” is designed to be used as a learning support device for the millions of out of school children. The self-Schooling Tablet is connected to two trays. Starting from the bottom, the first tray contains sand. The second tray is of two folds, the first is a homework sheet with markers & pencils container and the second is a white board. Beginners, starts with watching video lessons on the tablet, follow instructions, and practice writing on the sand, the white board and then completing homework sheet for mentors to review. Advanced learners will watch videos or PowerPoint lessons, practice on white board if applicable and then complete homework for mentors to review.
    
    

  • *UR-04 Peak Shaving: Optimizing HVAC Cost
    by Derek Martin
    Major: BSCGDD Advisor: Dr. Michael Franklin
    We developed a simulation, of a typical day at West Point Academy, and a predictive model to attempt to optimize the efficiency of their A/C system during peak hours of the day (when a large amount of students return to their dorm room after class or extracurricular activities). In other words, we attempted to develop a model that will preheat or pre-cool the rooms of the residents, to satisfy the residents, while also reducing the workload/cost of running the HVAC system.
    
    

  • UR-06 Animal Detection Using R-CNN
    by John Jajeh, Masood Abdul Salam 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Mingon Kang
    By applying regions on CNN features, R-CNN provides computer vision solutions for multiple-object detection. In our research, we are utilizing AlexNet’s pre-trained model in the Caffe framework to detect approximately 400 different animal species and are acclimating this work from KSU’s GPU server to the Android environment. After an individual downloads the application and an animal is detected, he/she can click on the animal, which will prompt Google to search the animal label. Essentially, this app will allow users to photograph unfamiliar (or familiar) animals for identification and better personal understanding.
    
    

  • *+UR-07 MS Office Macro Malware Detection
    by Ruth Bearden 
    Major: BSCS Advisor: Dr. Dan Lo
    Macro malware hidden in Microsoft Office files still poses a threat to cyber security two decades after its emergence. This research seeks to increase macro malware detection accuracy by using machine learning techniques to improve common approaches to the problem.
    
    
  • +UR-08 Interaction Humanoid Robots/Humans
    by Joel Tedo, Ben Tamo, Matt Alyward (High School Intern) 
    Major: CS Advisor: Dr. Sarah North
    Project Title: Interaction between Humanoid Robots and Humans in Collaborative Environments; One of the most challenging areas of robotics research is in the cooperation between humans and machines. The main objective of this research is to investigate the interaction between humanoid robots and humans in collaborative environments. Two UXA-90s, Multipurpose Humanoid Robots (MHRs) with Scratch Builder software (RQ Robot Coding software) are used in two distinct experiments. The first experiment measures unambiguous task completion and accurateness by two MHRs working together, while the second experiment measures unambiguous task completion and accurateness by an MHR and human working together. Preliminary pilot experimentation and observations are encouraging. A comprehensive interface and experimentation are under development, and collected data are subjected to a battery of statistical analysis procedures, including ANOVA and t-test. Conclusions are derived and reported accordingly.

  • *UR-10 Cryptocurrency Sentiment Analysis
    by Nusrat Sultana 
    Major: BSIT Advisor: Dr. Meng Han
    Analyzing social media data (Twitter, Reddit) to predict the price rise/down for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

   

  • +*UR-13 User Traffic Patterns Models
    by Nick Murphy, Devan Patel, Drew Savas, Derek Martin 
    Major: MSCS & BSCGDD Advisor: Dr. Rongkai Guo
    In this phase of our research, we have developed a method for modeling the shape and size of “walkable” pathways of an environment based on traffic data collected from Bluetooth beacons in that area.