<p>The swift emergence and wide-ranging utilization of machine learning (ML) across various industries, including healthcare, transportation, and robotics, have underscored the escalating need for efficient, scalable, and privacy-preserving solutions. Recognizing this, we present an integrated examination of three novel frameworks, each addressing different aspects of distributed learning and privacy issues: Two Timescale Hybrid Federated Learning (TT-HF), Delay-Aware Federated Learning (DFL), and Differential Privacy Hierarchical Federated Learning (DP-HFL). TT-HF introduces a semi-decentralized architecture that combines device-to-server and device-to-device (D2D) communications. Devices execute multiple stochastic gradient descent iterations on their datasets and sporadically synchronize model parameters via D2D communications. A unique adaptive control algorithm optimizes step size, D2D communication rounds, and global aggregation period to minimize network resource utilization and achieve a sublinear convergence rate. TT-HF outperforms conventional FL approaches in terms of model accuracy, energy consumption, and resilience against outages. DFL focuses on enhancing distributed ML training efficiency by accounting for communication delays between edge and cloud. It also uses multiple stochastic gradient descent iterations and periodically consolidates model parameters via edge servers. The adaptive control algorithm for DFL mitigates energy consumption and edge-to-cloud latency, resulting in faster global model convergence, reduced resource consumption, and robustness against delays. Lastly, DP-HFL is introduced to combat privacy vulnerabilities in FL. Merging the benefits of FL and Hierarchical Differential Privacy (HDP), DP-HFL significantly reduces the need for differential privacy noise while maintaining model performance, exhibiting an optimal privacy-performance trade-off. Theoretical analysis under both convex and nonconvex loss functions confirms DP-HFL’s effectiveness regarding convergence speed, privacy performance trade-off, and potential performance enhancement with appropriate network configuration. In sum, the study thoroughly explores TT-HF, DFL, and DP-HFL, and their unique solutions to distributed learning challenges such as efficiency, latency, and privacy concerns. These advanced FL frameworks have considerable potential to further enable effective, efficient, and secure distributed learning.</p>

Cognitive autonomy of an autonomous system depends on its cyber module's ability to comprehend the actions and intent of the applications and services running on that system. The autonomous system should be able to accomplish this without or with limited human intervention. These mission-critical autonomous systems are often deployed in unpredictable and dynamic environments and are vulnerable to evasive cyberattacks. In particular, some of these cyberattacks are Advanced Persistent Threats where an attacker conducts reconnaissance for a long period time to ascertain system features, learn system defenses, and adapt to successfully execute the attack while evading detection. Thus an autonomous system's cognitive autonomy and cybersecurity intelligence depend on its capability to learn, classify applications (good and bad), predict the attacker's next steps, and remain operational to carryout the mission-critical tasks even under cyberattacks. In this dissertation, we propose novel learning and prediction models for enhancing cognitive autonomy and cybersecurity in autonomous systems. We develop (1) a model using deep learning along with a model selection framework that can classify benign and malicious operating contexts of a system based on performance counters, (2) a deep learning based natural language processing model that uses instruction sequences extracted from the memory to learn and profile the behavior of evasive malware, (3) a scalable deep learning based object detection model with data pre-processing assisted by fuzzy-based clustering, (4) fundamental guiding principles for cognitive autonomy using Artificial Intelligence (AI), (5) a model for privacy-preserving autonomous data analytics, and finally (6) a model for backup and replication based on combinatorial balanced incomplete block design in order to provide continuous availability in mission-critical systems. This research provides effective and computationally efficient deep learning based solutions for detecting evasive cyberattacks and increasing autonomy of a system from application-level to hardware-level. <br>

<p>Technological advances have a profound impact on people and the world in which they live. People use a wide range of smart devices, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), smartphones, and wearable devices, on a regular basis, all of which store and use location data. With this explosion of technology, these devices have been playing an essential role in digital forensics and crime investigations. Digital forensic professionals have become more able to acquire and assess various types of data and locations; therefore, location data has become essential for responders, practitioners, and digital investigators dealing with digital forensic cases that rely heavily on digital devices that collect data about their users. It is very beneficial and critical when performing any digital/cyber forensic investigation to consider answering the six Ws questions (i.e., who, what, when, where, why, and how) by using location data recovered from digital devices, such as where the suspect was at the time of the crime or the deviant act. Therefore, they could convict a suspect or help prove their innocence. However, many digital forensic standards, guidelines, tools, and even the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cyber Security Personnel Framework (NICE) lack full coverage of what location data can be, how to use such data effectively, and how to perform spatial analysis. Although current digital forensic frameworks recognize the importance of location data, only a limited number of data sources (e.g., GPS) are considered sources of location in these digital forensic frameworks. Moreover, most digital forensic frameworks and tools have yet to introduce geo-contextualization techniques and spatial analysis into the digital forensic process, which may aid digital forensic investigations and provide more information for decision-making. As a result, significant gaps in the digital forensics community are still influenced by a lack of understanding of how to properly curate geodata. Therefore, this research was conducted to develop a transdisciplinary framework to deal with the limitations of previous work and explore opportunities to deal with geodata recovered from digital evidence by improving the way of maintaining geodata and getting the best value from them using an iPhone case study. The findings of this study demonstrated the potential value of geodata in digital disciplinary investigations when using the created transdisciplinary framework. Moreover, the findings discuss the implications for digital spatial analytical techniques and multi-intelligence domains, including location intelligence and open-source intelligence, that aid investigators and generate an exceptional understanding of device users' spatial, temporal, and spatial-temporal patterns.</p>

<p>A thesis study investigating the development and evaluation of a computer vision (CV) system for a manufacturing assembly task is reported. The CV inference results are compared to a Manufacturing Process Plan and an automation method completes a buyoff in the software, Solumina. Research questions were created and three hypotheses were tested. A literature review was conducted recognizing little consensus of Industry 4.0 technology adoption in manufacturing industries. Furthermore, the literature review uncovered the need for additional research within the topic of CV. Specifically, literature points towards more research regarding the cognitive capabilities of CV in manufacturing. A CV system was developed and evaluated to test for 90% or greater confidence in part detection. A CV dataset was developed and the system was trained and validated with it. Dataset contextualization was leveraged and evaluated, as per literature. A CV system was trained from custom datasets, containing six classes of part. The pre-contextualization dataset and post-contextualization dataset was compared by a Two-Sample T-Test and statistical significance was noted for three classes. A python script was developed to compare as-assembled locations with as-defined positions of components, per the Manufacturing Process Plan. A comparison of yields test for CV-based True Positives (TPs) and human-based TPs was conducted with the system operating at a 2σ level. An automation method utilizing Microsoft Power Automate was developed to complete the cognitive functionality of the CV system testing, by completing a buyoff in the software, Solumina, if CV-based TPs were equal to or greater than human-based TPs.</p>