Student Projects

Student Projects

All recent projects produced by students of the MCIS Department are listed below. Select the year to jump to the publications produced in that year.

Mathematics

2007

Differences in Gender for Group Behavior in Public
April Colley, Jan Case

The purpose of this research was to consider the grouping behavior of adults at three public places: a mall, a cinema, and a restaurant. Data was collected through observation, and subjects were classified according to gender and the number of people in the group. Hypothesis tests revealed the following. Composition of customers at malls, cinemas and restaurant is dependent upon gender. The proportion of female customers at the mall is significantly higher than the proportion of male customers. Furthermore, same gender groups at the mall are more likely to be female. However, lone shoppers are equally likely to be male or female. In other observations, males tend to travel in smaller groups than females, and in mixed gender groups, females tend to outnumber males. These behavioral patterns will be studied further to determine if differences exist among age groups, over different days of the week, or in urban vs. rural settings.

GPA vs Organization
Marla Hartung, Jan Case

A great focus on organization is being established. Magazines and television stress organization for the home over and over. With thoughts of "No Child Left Behind," are we failing our students by not teaching them organization in their earlier grades? Can students GPA be increased by improving organization skills? As a teacher, I have worked with students, especially students with disabilities such as dyslexia, and tried to help them organize their work in ways that could benefit them to be successful. I have researched the topic but little is found on the subject. I have read one book, The Organized Student, where the mission of the organizer talks to the student and finds the best method of organization from their returned papers to diagrams in their lockers. This sparked my imagination and I began to consider the possibility that a student's grade point average could be directly correlated with their organization skills. The purpose of this research is to determine if organization is correlated to GPA. The sample data consists of all 9th - 12th grade students currently attending The Donoho School. These 122 students filled out a survey to determine if they are considered left brained or right brained. They allowed another student look in their backpack and evaluate them from 1 to 5 with 5 being meticulous. I looked in all the lockers and ranked their organization on the same scale. Students who have better organization skills have a higher GPA (p < .001). Females have better locker organization (p < .001) as well as higher GPA (p = .002).

Does Free and Reduced Lunch Status of Gadsden Middle School Students Affect Their Academic Performance?
Leslie Calloway, Jan Case

This study focuses on the relationship of free or reduced priced meal status and academic performance as measured by grades at a public school in Gadsden, Alabama. Data was collected from sixth graders (n = 148), seventh graders (n = 138), and eighth graders (n = 147). The racial composition of the school is primarily black (64.9%) and white (26.3%) and also included Asian, Hispanic, biracial, and other. Statistical analyses and methods of One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Chi-Square Test , and odds ratio were used to examine the data. Students who received free meals scored significantly lower in all subjects than those who paid for meals. Further, black students were more likely to received free meal status than white students were. This study also investigated gender disparity in academic performance and differences in academic performance between grade levels and race. Females significantly outperformed males in most subjects. Eighth graders scored lower in mathematics and science than sixth and seventh graders. This study successfully replicated findings reported in the literature.

Synthesis of Silicon Clathrates
Jennifer L. Timmons, Jan Gryko

Clathrates are crystalline materials composed of atomic cages arranged in a cubic crystalline configuration. Their structure is analogous to that of zeolites, except that clathrates do not contain oxygen. We present a new method of synthesis of clathrates via a chemical reaction between NaSi and metal and ammonium halides. We have investigated reactions of NaSi with NH4Br, FeCl3, and SnI4 in gas and liquid phase. The post reaction mixture contains varying amounts of crystalline Si, amorphous Si, and clathrate. We have found that the clathrate yield is maximized when the reaction is conducted in a gas phase. The best yield was for NH4Br, while the reaction with SnI4 resulted in almost pure crystalline Si.

Computer Science

2007

Visual Data Mining of Log Files
Dorothy Brown, Alina Monica Trifas, Guillermo Francia, III

Due to the continued threat of "hacking", computer scientists are continually seeking ways to prevent attacks and to minimize damage when those attacks do occur. Our Computer Forensic Visualization System supplies a picture to computer security personnel which will provide at a glance what actions have been taking place during a given time period. All computers automatically generate log files - records of actions performed on the computer. Different types of computer actions generate different sets of log files. For our visualization project, we chose to use server log files - records generated when a client computer sends a request to view a web page from a web server. The visualization system automatically collects these logs, encrypts them for secure storage, and prepares them for analysis through the use of a Microsoft tool called LogParser. Then another program, MineSet, automatically collates the raw data into a 3-D graph. This visual representation will allow the user to observe a large amount of data quickly through a pictorial presentation as opposed to sifting through thousands of lines of written records. Data anomalies, which could be cause for concern and signal the need for further investigation, are much easier to spot due to the strong visual perception abilities of humans. We believe the use of such a system could be developed into a powerful tool in the field of information security.

An Empirical Study on the Performance of Java/.Net Cryptographic APIs
Rahjima Francia, Guillermo Francia, III

The unprecedented growing demands on security and privacy protection ushered the proliferation of cryptographic tools. The concerns on the vulnerability of our information technology (IT) infrastructure and our constantly increasing dependence on IT have prompted government agencies to re-examine the consequences of an act of a major cyberspace aggression [1]. One of the most important components of such undertaking is that aspect which involves data protection through effective and secure encryption. Although there is much discussion on the efficacy of several cryptographic techniques and algorithms in published literature, there is very little information about performance comparison among each other on actual applications. This paper presents a study on the performance comparison of cryptographic Application Program Interfaces (APIs) that are implemented for the Java and the .Net frameworks. The comparison is based on the four encryption algorithms and the four message digest algorithm implementations in the .Net and the Java frameworks. The four encryption algorithms are: Data Encryption Standard (DES), Rivest's Cipher 2 (RC2), Rijndael, and Triple DES; the four message digest algorithms are: Message Digest 5 (MD5), Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA1), Secure Hash Algorithm 256 (SHA256), and Secure Hash Algorithm 512 (SHA512).

Mindful Software Implementations: A Case Study of a University Portal System
Lashunda Mitchell, Andrew Ciganek

Despite several high profile examples of software implementation failures, it is common today for organizations to fall into the same mindless traps that have plagued those prominent failures. The goal of this research is to examine how organizations avoid these traps and what efforts, if any, are made to ensure that they do not fall victim to them in the future. A case study approach involving a series of in-depth interviews was conducted to explore this phenomenon. The findings of this study reveal several rich insights that may be useful to both practitioners and researchers.

Integrating Security into the Software Engineering Process
Jane Wade, Andrew Ciganek

Today, information system security is a pressing concern in every business domain. Security is everyone's business, not just companies that provide 'security' products and services. Every software application from the Windows NT firewall to the Harvest Church online prayer request needs to be security-aware and understand the threats and vulnerabilities to their particular application. Whether a user is logging into a high security government site or logging into Calhoun County Rentals, if their name, address, phone number, email address and Paypal account number are captured by a key logger and exploited, damage has been done to that individual. This paper will explore and evaluate and seek to understand the Security Requirements Engineering Process (SREP) and some of the standards it references to see how it might be implemented into the mainstream software engineering process. SREP has just been proposed this year by Daniel Mellado, Eduardo Fernandez-Medina and Mario Piattini from the Information Technology Center of the National Social Security Institute, Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in Madrid, Spain and from the ALARCOS Research Group in Spain. This process was chosen over the many that have been published recently because it is more applicable to the everyday analyst in that it strives to incorporate current standards and norms prevalent in mainstream software engineering.

Issues Emerging From Cross-Cultural International Project Management
James M. E. Kopwe, Andrew Ciganek

This paper is a report for a research project that has an emphasis in International project management. The project as described in the title "Issues that emerge from cross-cultural international project management", evaluated cross-cultural issues that emerge during and while implementing various international projects. The motivation of this research project is to investigate the unique cross-cultural project management issues particular to developing countries. There is a lot of American and European based technology companies that are looking to explore markets, franchising and setting up branch office across their borders. These companies have been facing some challenges in implementing and developing the projects hence resulting in scope creep, budget blow up and or project failure. During the study of examining some projects that are international and cross-cultural in nature most findings suggested that application of e-learning could reduce and or eradicate most issues that affect the projects. In this project a study was conducted and three project managers and directors of some international and cross-cultural projects were interviewed. The study has found out issues experienced by these project leaders are common among these projects. Some of the common issues include, operating from a distance (Remote Management), culture difference between teams, team members and target groups, and language difference. Some of the recommendations reached by this study to reduce or eliminate these issues include E-learning and Information Technology application. These could be a great solution to some of the cross-cultural issues that affect international project management. E-learning could be used to reduce the effect of operating from distance (remote management) by establishing a monitoring tool over the web, by having a constant online conferencing, informational online forums etc. Culture difference can also be bridge when team members tend to have constant information sharing between them. That is teams across countries and continents could share most valuable information if online forums and blogs could be implemented Although E-learning and Information Technology seems to be the best tools to overcome the issues, the study found some challenges that needs to be addressed in order to integrate the use of E-learning and Information Technology in projects. These challenges are Governmental Politics, Poverty, Infrastructure and Political Stability. Most of the projects studied on this study have involvement in the developing countries, hence the fact that the distance between implementers and the project manager hinders direct communication.

2006

Visualization and Management of Digital Forensic Data

Three female computer science students: Dorothy Brown, Rahjima Francia, and Chrissy Scott were recently awarded a Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates (CREU) research grant for their work titled "Visualization and Management of Digital Forensic Data." Each student will receive a $3000 stipend and an additional $500 is allotted for supplies. The three women will join the ranks of previous research awardees from bigger institutions such as UC Berkeley, Harvard University, Duke University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia, Georgia Tech, and Tufts University. According to the CREU Project Director, the JSU proposal was judged to be one of the best projects that were submitted this year. A paper describing the project was accepted for presentation and publication in the 2006 Information Security (InfoSec2006) conference. Drs. Guillermo Francia, III and Alina Monica Trifas will act as faculty advisors for the research project. The award is jointly funded by the Computing Research Association (CRA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).