Gordon W. Skelton

Cyber security for emergency management

Cyber security continues to be an increasingly important topic when considering Homeland Security issues. This area however is often overlooked during a disaster or emergency situation. Emergency management within the US as it currently stands lacks any real cyber situational awareness with respect to the core activities of emergency management such as mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. As a result critical cyberinfrastructure resources that emergency management personnel rely on is left on the sideline when planning, handling, and recovering from emergencies or natural disasters. As emergency management evolves within the US to handle dynamic man-made, and natural disasters such as terrorist attacks, hurricanes, and floods, these issues must be addressed to mitigate risks. This paper takes the first step in examining the issue of cyber situational awareness within emergency management and identifies several concerns for the emergency management community.

Solving Time Dependent Diffusion Equations on Arbitrary Grids Using a High-Order Space-Time discontinuous Galerkin Cell Vertex Scheme

In this paper, the high-order space-time discontinuous Galerkin cell vertex scheme (DGCVS) developed by the authors for hyperbolic conservation laws is extended for time dependent diffusion equations. The treatment of the diffusive flux is exactly the same as that for the advective flux. Thanks to the Riemann-solver-free and reconstructionfree features of DG-CVS, both the advective flux and the diffusive flux are continuous across the cell interface in DG-CVS. As a result, the resulting formulation with diffusive fluxes present is still consistent and does not need any extra ad hoc techniques to cure the common “variational crime” problem when traditional spatial DG methods are applied to diffusion problems. For this reason, DG-CVS is conceptually simpler than other existing DG-typed methods. Some numerical results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy of the method.

To change or not to change: That is the question

Digital forensics has become a prevalent force in the field of computer security; aiding in determining events that may or may not have taken place. Academia has taught computer forensics students that one of the most important elements of the digital forensic process is having a working copy of the original device. Though this concept works well with computers and laptops, it does not with smartphones. At this point, a bit-for-bit image of a smartphone cannot be made. Furthermore, any action taken on a smartphone is logged and therefore, attempting to create a copy would in essence change the state of the device; making the use of hashes null and void. In an effort to realize interesting and unique forensic patterns in the operations of smartphones, two experiments were designed using XRY, DiffMerge, and four smartphone devices: RIM Blackberry 8703e, Blackberry 7103, Blackberry 8530, and Symbian HTC TouchPro 6850. These experiments allowed the researchers to compare and contrast the four smartphones not only by the specific device but by carrier, manufacturer, file size by category, file size by test, and folder size in terms of how the kernel deals with file stores, edits, and deletes after specific user operations. The outcome of the experiments resulted in a process that helps the forensic examiner to manually inspect a device while being aware of the path of contamination introduced to the device through user functions. The goal of this research is to create an open debate in the forensic community about the consideration of different standards when examining smartphones, one of which would be the acceptance of change.

Enhancing Student Performance by Promoting Self-Regulated Learning

Self-regulated Learning (SRL) focuses on the use of self-evaluation and self-motivation to aid the student in developing the correct habits, techniques, and tools necessary for success in a learning environment. With self-regulated learning, students can evaluate their study and learning strategies. Training programs that promote self-regulated learning have been found to be beneficial for students’ learning. SRL is currently viewed as a vital prerequisite for the successful acquisition of knowledge in school and beyond. However, SRL is not well known and utilized by the Engineering and Technology education community for facilitating student learning. Self-regulated learning is an important but difficult concept to present to students. The application of self-regulation to learning is a complicated process involving not only the awareness and application of learning strategies but also extensive reflection and self-awareness. This paper describes the design and development of the SRL instructional strategies, their implementation, and the evaluation of their effectiveness. The outcomes are provided and recommendations are discussed.© 2011 ASME

Hierarchical architecture for a multi-rover system

To enhance robustness and to expand planetary exploration, a multi-rover system is suggested. To support such a system a hierarchical architecture is proposed. That architecture provides for heterogeneous rovers to share tasks, communicate with one another and to respond to unforeseen events.

Multi-rover collaboration

This paper discusses the ongoing research being conducted on the use of multi-rover teams for planetary exploration. The value of a multi-rover system is presented, along with the challenges faced with trying to coordinate multiple rovers in a consolidated effort to complete a given mission.