abstract: Coal bed natural gas (CBNG) production has become a significant contribution to the nation's energy supply. Large volumes of water are generated as a byproduct of CBNG extraction, of which this "product water" is relatively high in sodium. High sodicity reduces water quality and limits environmentally compliant disposal options for producers. Crop irrigation with CBNG product water complies with state and federal laws and is a disposal method that also provides a beneficial use to private landowners. However, this disposal method typically requires gypsum and sulfur soil amendments due to the high levels of sodium in the water, which can reduce soil infiltration and hydraulic conductivity. In this study, I tested a new product called Salt Extractor that was marketed to CBNG producers to ameliorate the negative effects of high sodicity. The experiment was conducted in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. I used a random block design to compare the soil and vegetation properties of plots following application with CBNG product water and treatments of either Salt Extractor, gypsum and sulfur (conventional), or no treatment (control). Data was analyzed by comparing the amount of change between treatments after watering. Results demonstrated the known ability of gypsum and sulfur to lower the relative sodicity of the soil. Plots treated with Salt Extractor, however, did not improve relative levels of sodicity and exhibited no favorable benefits to vegetation. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Biology 2011

When performing web searches, users manually open a web browser, direct it to a search engine, input keywords, and finally manually filter and select relevant results. This repetitive task can negatively impact the user's experience, something the automation and personalization of web search can address. This thesis presents PALTask, an Instant Messaging (IM) application that exploits context of both the user and their conversation in order to automate and personalize related web tasks such as web searches relevant to the conversation. PALTask dynamically gathers context and provides feedback from the user and the system at runtime including keywords from the conversation and running them through various search services such as YouTube and Google to retrieve relevant results. This thesis also explores various natural language processing (NLP) tasks such as keyword extraction, sentiment analysis, and stemming. These NLP tasks help in the collection of dynamic context at runtime, identifying personalized context, and analyzing it to improve the user's experience. We also present our keyword ranking algorithm which aims to improve accuracy when retrieving web resources. / Graduate

The use of randomness in computer science is ubiquitous. Randomized protocols have turned out to be much more efficient than their deterministic counterparts. In addition, many problems in distributed computing and cryptography are impossible to solve without randomness. However, these applications typically require uniform random bits, while in practice almost all natural random phenomena are biased. Moreover, even originally uniform random bits can be damaged if an adversary learns some partial information about these bits. In this thesis, we study how to run randomized protocols in distributed computing and cryptography with imperfect randomness. We use the most general model for imperfect randomness where the weak random source is only required to have a certain amount of min-entropy. One important tool here is the randomness extractor. A randomness extractor is a function that takes as input one or more weak random sources, and outputs a distribution that is close to uniform in statistical distance. Randomness extractors are interesting in their own right and are closely related to many other problems in computer science. Giving efficient constructions of randomness extractors with optimal parameters is one of the major open problems in the area of pseudorandomness. We construct network extractor protocols that extract private random bits for parties in a communication network, assuming that they each start with an independent weak random source, and some parties are corrupted by an adversary who sees all communications in the network. These protocols imply fault-tolerant distributed computing protocols and secure multi-party computation protocols where only imperfect randomness is available. The probabilistic method shows that there exists an extractor for two independent sources with logarithmic min-entropy, while known constructions are far from achieving these parameters. In this thesis we construct extractors for two independent sources with any linear min-entropy, based on a computational assumption. We also construct the best known extractors for three independent sources and affine sources. Finally we study the problem of privacy amplification. In this model, two parties share a private weak random source and they wish to agree on a private uniform random string through communications in a channel controlled by an adversary, who has unlimited computational power and can change the messages in arbitrary ways. All previous results assume that the two parties have local uniform random bits. We show that this problem can be solved even if the two parties only have local weak random sources. We also improve previous results in various aspects by constructing the first explicit non-malleable extractor and giving protocols based on this extractor.

With the usage of biometrics becoming commonly used in a variety of applications, keeping those biometrics private and secure is an important issue. Indeed, the convenience of using biometrics for authentication is counteracted by the fact that they cannot easily be modified or changed. This can have dire consequences to a person if their biometrics are leaked. In the past decades, various techniques have been proposed to solve this problem. Such techniques range from using and storing randomized templates, using homomorphic encryption, or using biometric encryption techniques such as fuzzy extractors. Fuzzy extractors are a construction that allows the extraction of cryptographic keys from noisy data like biometrics. The key can then be rebuilt from some helper data and another biometric, provided that it is similar enough to the biometrics used to generate the key. This can be achieved through various approaches like the use of a quantizer or an error correcting code. In this thesis, we consider specifically fuzzy extractors for facial images. The first part of this thesis focuses on improving the security, privacy and performance of the extractor for faces first proposed by Sutcu et al. Our improvements make their construction more resistant to partial and total leaks of secure information, as well as improve the performance in a biometric authentication setting. The second part looks at using low density lattice codes (LDLC) as a quantizer in the fuzzy extractor, instead of using component based quantization. Although LDLC have been proposed as a quantizer for a general fuzzy extractor, they have yet to be used or tested for continuous biometrics like face images. We present a construction for a fuzzy extractor scheme using LDLC and we analyze its performance on a publicly available data set of images. Using an LDLC quantizer on this data set has lower accuracy than the improved scheme from the first part of this thesis. On the other hand, the LDLC scheme performs better when the inputs have additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), as we show through simulated data. As such, we expect it to perform well in general on data and biometrics with variance akin to a AWGN channel.

Biometrics can provide alternative methods for security than conventional authentication methods. There has been much research done in the field of biometrics, and efforts have been made to make them more easily usable in practice. The initial application for our work is a proof of concept for a system that would expedite some low-risk travellers’ arrival into the country while preserving the user’s privacy. This thesis focuses on the subset of problems related to the generation of cryptographic keys from noisy data, biometrics in our case. This thesis was built in two parts. In the first, we implemented a key generating quantization-based fuzzy extractor scheme for facial feature biometrics based on the work by Dodis et al. and Sutcu, Li, and Memon. This scheme was modified to increased user privacy, address some implementation-based issues, and add testing-driven changes to tailor it towards its expected real-world usage. We show that our implementation does not significantly affect the scheme's performance, while providing additional protection against malicious actors that may gain access to the information stored on a server where biometric information is stored. The second part consists of the creation of a process to automate the generation of deep datasets suitable for the testing of similar schemes. The process led to the creation of a larger dataset than those available for free online for minimal work, and showed that these datasets can be further expanded with only little additional effort. This larger dataset allowed for the creation of more representative recognition challenges. We were able to show that our implementation performed similarly to other non-commercial schemes. Further refinement will be necessary if this is to be compared to commercial applications.

The use of gradable adjectives and adverbs represents an important means of expressing comparison in English. The grammatical forms of comparatives and superlatives are used to express explicit orderings between objects with respect to the degree to which they possess some gradable property. While comparatives are commonly used to compare two entities (e.g., “The blue whale is larger than an African elephant”), superlatives such as “The blue whale is the largest mammal” are used to express a comparison between a target entity (here, the blue whale) and its comparison set (the set of mammals), with the target ranked higher or lower on a scale of comparison than members of the comparison set. Superlatives thus highlight the uniqueness of the target with respect to its comparison set. Although superlatives are frequently found in natural language, with the exception of recent work by (Bos and Nissim, 2006) and (Jindal and Liu, 2006b), they have not yet been investigated within a computational framework. And within the framework of theoretical linguistics, studies of superlatives have mainly focused on semantic properties that may only rarely occur in natural language (Szabolsci (1986), Heim (1999)). My PhD research aims to pave the way for a comprehensive computational treatment of superlatives. The initial question I am addressing is that of automatically extracting useful information about the target entity, its comparison set and their relationship from superlative constructions. One of the central claims of the thesis is that no unified computational treatment of superlatives is possible because of their great semantic complexity and the variety of syntactic structures in which they occur. I propose a classification of superlative surface forms, and initially focus on so-called “ISA superlatives”, which make explicit the IS-A relation that holds between target and comparison set. They are suitable for a computational approach because both their target and comparison set are usually explicitly realised in the text. I also aim to show that the findings of this thesis are of potential benefit for NLP applications such as Question Answering, Natural Language Generation, Ontology Learning, and Sentiment Analysis/Opinion Mining. In particular, I investigate the use of the “Superlative Relation Extractor“ implemented in this project in the area of Sentiment Analysis/Opinion Mining, and claim that a superlative analysis of the sort presented in this thesis, when applied to product evaluations and recommendations, can provide just the kind of information that Opinion Mining aims to identify.

Orientador: Roberto Lyra Villas Boas / Banca: João Carlos Cury Saad / Banca: Marcos Vinicius Folegatti / Resumo: O presente trabalho foi desenvolvido com o objetivo de avaliar os efeitos de diferentes níveis de condutividade elétrica em crisântemo (Dendranthema grandiflora Tzvelev.) em cultivo protegido como meio de indicar a melhor concentração de sais a ser aplicada às plantas. O experimento foi conduzido em ambiente protegido na propriedade Steltenpool, localizada no distrito de Holambra II, município de Paranapanema, Estado de São Paulo. Adotou-se o delineamento experimental em blocos casualizados com parcelas onde os níveis de condutividade elétrica foram as sub parcelas e as 5 épocas de leitura, as parcelas, em quatro repetições. Os níveis de condutividade elétrica determinados na solução aplicada foram: 1,42; 1,65; 1,89; 2,13 e 2,36 dS m-1 (fase vegetativa); 1,71; 1,97; 2,28; 2,57 e 2,85 dS m-1 (fase de botão). Semanalmente foram determinados os seguintes parâmetros: altura da planta e diâmetro do buquê. A cada quatorze dias foram avaliados: área foliar; fitomassa seca da parte aérea; concentração dos macro e micronutrientes. Na pós-colheita avaliou-se: número e diâmetro de inflorescências; diâmetro de haste; área foliar; número de folhas; tamanho das folhas; altura da planta e diâmetro do buquê. O monitoramento da concentração salina da solução do substrato na zona radicular das plantas foi feito com o uso de extratores e também determinada na solução 1:2. O tratamento correspondente à aplicação de uma solução com condutividade elétrica de 2,13 dS m-1 na fase vegetativa e 2,57 dS m-1 na fase de botão proporcionou o melhor aspecto visual de plantas de crisântemo no vaso, maior valor de fitomassa seca da parte aérea, maior área foliar, maior concentração de N e melhor formação, coloração e durabilidade pós-colheita. / Abstract: The present research was developed with the objective of evaluating the effects of different levels of eletrical conductivity under greenhouse conditions as a way of finding the best salt concentrations to be applied to the chrysanthemum plants (Dendranthema grandiflora Tzvelev.). The experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions at Steltenpoolþs farm, located in Holambra II disctrict, Paranapanema town, São Paulo State. The experimental design was the casual blocks with portions where the eletrical conductivity were the split plots and the 5 reading times, the plots, in four repeatings. The eletrical conductivity levels on the applied solution were: 1.42; 1.65; 1.89; 2.13 and 2.36 dS m-1 (bud vegetative stage); 1.71; 1.97; 2.28; 2.57 and 2.85 dS m-1 (bud stage). Every week the following parameters were evaluated: plant height and bouquet diameter. Every 14 days were evaluated: leaf area, dry mass of the aerial portion of the plant and macro and trace elements concentrations. During the post harvest were evaluated: number and diameter of the open flowers, stem diameter, leaf area, leaf amount, leaf size, plant height and bouquet diameter. The solution salt concentration monitoring of the substrate at the roots zone was done with the usage of extractors and was determined in the 1:2 solution. The related treatment to the application of a electrical conductivity level of 2.13 dS m-1 during the vegetative stage and 2.57 dS m-1 during the bud stage provided the best visual aspect of the plants in the chrysanthemum vase; higher aerial part dry mass; higher leaf area; higher N concentration and best formation; coloring and post harsvest life. / Mestre

Large data sets are difficult to visualize. For a human to find structures and understand the data, good visualization tools are required. In this project a technique will be developed that makes it possible for a user to look at complex data at different scales. This technique is obvious when viewing geographical data where zooming in and out gives a good feeling for the spatial relationships in map data or satellite images. However, for other types of data it is not obvious how much scaling should be done. In this project, an experimental application is developed that visualizes data in multiple dimensions from a large news article database. Using this experimental application, the user can select multiple keywords on different axis and then can create a visualization containing news articles with those keywords. The user is able to move around the visualization. If the camera is far away from the document icons then they are clustered using red coloured spheres. If the user moves the camera closer to the clusters they will pop up into single document icons. If the camera is very close to the document icons it is possible to read the news articles

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2004-12-14Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:15:43Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 mota_prd_me_botfca.pdf: 1043918 bytes, checksum: 264d283dfc8890420f9c56b095c780ea (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) / O presente trabalho foi desenvolvido com o objetivo de avaliar os efeitos de diferentes níveis de condutividade elétrica em crisântemo (Dendranthema grandiflora Tzvelev.) em cultivo protegido como meio de indicar a melhor concentração de sais a ser aplicada às plantas. O experimento foi conduzido em ambiente protegido na propriedade Steltenpool, localizada no distrito de Holambra II, município de Paranapanema, Estado de São Paulo. Adotou-se o delineamento experimental em blocos casualizados com parcelas onde os níveis de condutividade elétrica foram as sub parcelas e as 5 épocas de leitura, as parcelas, em quatro repetições. Os níveis de condutividade elétrica determinados na solução aplicada foram: 1,42; 1,65; 1,89; 2,13 e 2,36 dS m-1 (fase vegetativa); 1,71; 1,97; 2,28; 2,57 e 2,85 dS m-1 (fase de botão). Semanalmente foram determinados os seguintes parâmetros: altura da planta e diâmetro do buquê. A cada quatorze dias foram avaliados: área foliar; fitomassa seca da parte aérea; concentração dos macro e micronutrientes. Na pós-colheita avaliou-se: número e diâmetro de inflorescências; diâmetro de haste; área foliar; número de folhas; tamanho das folhas; altura da planta e diâmetro do buquê. O monitoramento da concentração salina da solução do substrato na zona radicular das plantas foi feito com o uso de extratores e também determinada na solução 1:2. O tratamento correspondente à aplicação de uma solução com condutividade elétrica de 2,13 dS m-1 na fase vegetativa e 2,57 dS m-1 na fase de botão proporcionou o melhor aspecto visual de plantas de crisântemo no vaso, maior valor de fitomassa seca da parte aérea, maior área foliar, maior concentração de N e melhor formação, coloração e durabilidade pós-colheita. / The present research was developed with the objective of evaluating the effects of different levels of eletrical conductivity under greenhouse conditions as a way of finding the best salt concentrations to be applied to the chrysanthemum plants (Dendranthema grandiflora Tzvelev.). The experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions at Steltenpoolþs farm, located in Holambra II disctrict, Paranapanema town, São Paulo State. The experimental design was the casual blocks with portions where the eletrical conductivity were the split plots and the 5 reading times, the plots, in four repeatings. The eletrical conductivity levels on the applied solution were: 1.42; 1.65; 1.89; 2.13 and 2.36 dS m-1 (bud vegetative stage); 1.71; 1.97; 2.28; 2.57 and 2.85 dS m-1 (bud stage). Every week the following parameters were evaluated: plant height and bouquet diameter. Every 14 days were evaluated: leaf area, dry mass of the aerial portion of the plant and macro and trace elements concentrations. During the post harvest were evaluated: number and diameter of the open flowers, stem diameter, leaf area, leaf amount, leaf size, plant height and bouquet diameter. The solution salt concentration monitoring of the substrate at the roots zone was done with the usage of extractors and was determined in the 1:2 solution. The related treatment to the application of a electrical conductivity level of 2.13 dS m-1 during the vegetative stage and 2.57 dS m-1 during the bud stage provided the best visual aspect of the plants in the chrysanthemum vase; higher aerial part dry mass; higher leaf area; higher N concentration and best formation; coloring and post harsvest life.

Submitted by RENAN LIMA DE SOUSA null (renann.agro@hotmail.com) on 2017-09-06T12:48:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Renan com ficha.pdf: 2704561 bytes, checksum: 1cf93728a3b3b1db055275b53062de1c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luiz Galeffi (luizgaleffi@gmail.com) on 2017-09-06T16:49:02Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 sousa_rl_me_bot.pdf: 2704561 bytes, checksum: 1cf93728a3b3b1db055275b53062de1c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-06T16:49:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 sousa_rl_me_bot.pdf: 2704561 bytes, checksum: 1cf93728a3b3b1db055275b53062de1c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-07-14 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Com o objetivo de avaliar o desenvolvimento e produção do cultivar ‘Gaston’ submetido a doses de cálcio e potássio, utilizando extratores de solução do solo, instalou-se a presente pesquisa em vasos na estufa agrícola do Departamento de Solos e Recursos Ambientais da Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho” - Campus de Botucatu. Com delineamento em blocos casualizados e quatro repetições, foi conduzido um experimento testando quatro doses de Ca (98 kg.ha-1, 196 kg ha-1, 294 kg ha-1 e 392,0 kg ha-1) e outro experimento com 4 doses de K2O (363 kg ha-1, 726 kg ha-1, 1088 kg ha-1 e 1451 kg ha-1) aplicados via fertirrigação por gotejamento. Foram avaliados: a extração semanal da solução do solo, altura da planta, concentração de nutrientes (folha, fruto e solo) e produção. Os extratores permitiram monitoramento eficiente e houve diferença significativa entre os tratamentos. O aumento da concentração de sais na solução do solo reduziu a altura das plantas, número de frutos e a produção. As doses, além da calagem, que proporcionaram maior produção de frutos foram: 98 kg ha-1 de Ca com 46,5 t ha-1 e 363 kg ha-1 de K2O com 39,2 t ha-1. / With the objective of evaluating the development and production of 'Gaston' cultivar submitted to calcium and potassium doses, use soil solution extractors, the present research in pots in the greenhouse of the Department of Soils and Environmental Resources of the State University Paulista "Júlio de Mesquita Filho" - Campus of Botucatu. A randomized complete block design with four replications was carried out by testing four Ca doses (98 kg ha-1 , 196 kg ha-1 , 294 kg ha-1 and 392.0 kg ha-1 ) and another experiment with 4 doses of K2O (363 kg ha-1 , 726 kg ha-1 , 1088 kg ha-1 and 1451 kg ha-1 ) applied via drip fertigation. Was evaluated: a weekly extraction of soil solution, plant height, nutrient concentration (leaf, fruit and soil) and production. The extractors allowed efficient monitoring and great difference between the treatments. Increasing the concentration of salts in the soil solution reduced plant height, number of fruits and yield. The doses, besides liming, that provide higher fruit yield: 98 kg ha- 1 of Ca with 46.5 t ha-1 and 363 kg ha-1 of K2O with 39.2 t ha-1 .