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AVESTA: Publications


Current Research Projects

SaTC: EDU: Puzzle-based Pedagogy and Collaborative Problem Solving for Cyber Security Education - NEW

Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Investigators: Dr. Namin (PI), and Dr. Flores (Evaluator)

This project will develop a set of instructional modeuls for digital forensics.


SCC-Planning: Enhancing Water Resource Management and Infrastructure Improvement through Sensing, Computation, and Community Engagement

Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Investigators: Drs. Fang (PI), Namin (Co-PI), Hewett (Co-PI), and Uddameri (Co-PI)

This multi-disciplinary project aims at building a capacity in water resource management and building an infrastructure to share data among stakeholders.


CyberCorps: Capacity Building In Social Engineering Penetration Testing

Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Investigators: Drs. Namin (PI), Jones (Co-PI), and Flores (Evaluator)

This multi-disciplinary project aims at investigating different aspects of social engineering attacks and learning about the features that lead to make penetration testing more effective.


NSF SaTC: Medium: User-Centric Design of a Sonification System for Automatically Alarming Security Threats and Impact

Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Investigators: Drs. Namin (PI), Jones (Co-PI), and Hewett (Co-PI)

This multi-disciplinary project aims at developing a user-centric sonification where each security threat is tagged with emotional impact. Similarly, each threat is represented by a representative sound that present the emotional impact of the corresponding threat.


Tech GO: The Texas Tech University’s Map Augmented with Reality App

Sponsor: Texas Tech Alumni Association (TTAA)
Investigator: Dr. Namin (PI)

The project aims at developing an Android app based on Augmented Reality (AR). The app can be useful for visitors and new-comers who are not familiar with campus and looking for a specific building.


Texas Tech University Virtual Life

Sponsor: Texas Tech Alumni Association (TTAA)
Investigators: Drs. Namin (PI) and Hewett (Co-PI)

The project aims at developing a prototype for Texas Tech University using Virtual Life.


NSF Building Cybersecurity Workforce and Capacity through Enhancing Defending Skill Sets

Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Investigators: Drs. Namin (PI), Keith S. Jones (Co-PI), Fethi Inan (Co-PI), and Flores (Evaluator)

The project aims at investigating the factors and skills needed for performing more effective cyber security defense..


Past Research Projects

NSF EAGER: Sonifying Cyber-Security Cues for Internet Users Who Are Visually Impaired

Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Investigators: Drs. Namin (PI), Hewett (Co-PI), Jones (Co-PI), Inan (Co-PI), and Zhang (Co-PI)

The project aims at sonifying security threats and cues with its focus on users who are visually impaired.


NSF REU Site: Declarative Approaches to Knowledge Intensive Applications

Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Investigators: Drs. Zhang (PI), Namin (Co-PI), Hewett (Co-PI), and Gelfond (Co-PI)

The project aims at promoting research and scholarly activities among undergraduate students and encouraging them to pursue graduate degree.


NSF I-Corps: CyberExercises, Instructional Modules Development for Exercise-based Teaching of CyberSecurity Concepts

Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Investigators: Drs. Namin (PI),Inan (Co-PI), Frias (Co-PI)

The project aims at investigating market needs in cybersecurity education in two and four-year colleges. .


NSF SFS: Capacity Building: Collaborative Project: Cyber-Security Education for Community College Faculty in Texas

Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Investigators: Drs. Namin (PI) and Hewett (Co-PI)

The project aims at promoting cybersecurity research and education in community colleges.


Cyber Security Modeling and Testing

Investigators: Dr. Namin, Dr. Hewett, and Dr. Zhang

The project aims at modeling security policies, attack detection, and security testing including secure programming, and modeling through software engineering practice.


Bayesian Techniques for Program Analysis

Investigators: Dr. Mohan Sridharan, Dr. Namin

This project is a joint work with Dr. Mohan Sridharan’s group. The main goal of this project is to develop and adapt Bayesian online learning techniques to several software testing problems. Several problems associated with program analysis have been discussed and planned. A Tutorial for introducing Bayesian data analysis was offered by Dr. Sridhana and myself.


The Role of Code Coverage on Defect Coverage

Investigators: Dr. Namin, Sahitya Kakarla

This project is addressing the fundamental question concerning whether coverage plays any role in predicting the effectiveness of test suites. The question is very challenging sue to misunderstanding of the effect of coverage on fault detection.


Testing Multi−Threaded and Multi−Core Applications

Investigators: Dr. Namin, Kunjal Rathod

The multicore software engineering is one of research interest of AVESTA group. We seek tools and techniques to model and test multithreaded applications. This includes producing a tool to generate interleavings for threads scheduling, auto−tuning, etc.


Mutation Analysis and Tools

Investigators: Dr. Namin, Prachi Devalapurkar, Pratyusha Madirajua, Cheranaya Chidambaram

The mutation testing research includes designing techniques to reduce the cost of mutation testing, to model the relationship between faults and mutants, and to develop new tools to the research community.


Adaptive Random Testing

Investigators: Dr. Namin, Selina Momotaz

Several researchers have been working on adaptive random testing. We mainly focus on application of probabilistic reasoning to build new tools.


Testing Probabilistic Systems

Investigators: Dr. Barbara Millet, Dr. Mohan Sridharan, Dr. Namin, Pulkit Tomar

Probabilistic systems are very interesting but difficult systems to test. The purpose of this project is to conduct empirical studies to investigate the possibility of developing new algorithms and techniques addressing non−deterministic nature of these systems. Probabilistic model checking is the major tool we use to test human-computer interaction and simulate the human factors.