Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Homogenization In Perforated Domains And With Soft Inclusions, Brandon C. Russell

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

In this dissertation, we first provide a short introduction to qualitative homogenization of elliptic equations and systems. We collect relevant and known results regarding elliptic equations and systems with rapidly oscillating, periodic coefficients, which is the classical setting in homogenization of elliptic equations and systems. We extend several classical results to the so called case of perforated domains and consider materials reinforced with soft inclusions. We establish quantitative H¹-convergence rates in both settings, and as a result deduce large-scale Lipschitz estimates and Liouville-type estimates for solutions to elliptic systems with rapidly oscillating periodic bounded and measurable coefficients. Finally, …

Hilbert Bases, Descent Statistics, And Combinatorial Semigroup Algebras, Mccabe J. Olsen

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

The broad topic of this dissertation is the study of algebraic structure arising from polyhedral geometric objects. There are three distinct topics covered over three main chapters. However, each of these topics are further linked by a connection to the Eulerian polynomials.

Chapter 2 studies Euler-Mahonian identities arising from both the symmetric group and generalized permutation groups. Specifically, we study the algebraic structure of unit cube semigroup algebra using Gröbner basis methods to acquire these identities. Moreover, this serves as a bridge between previous methods involving polyhedral geometry and triangulations with descent bases methods arising in representation theory.

In Chapter …

Accounting For Matching Uncertainty In Photographic Identification Studies Of Wild Animals, Amanda R. Ellis

Theses and Dissertations--Statistics

I consider statistical modelling of data gathered by photographic identification in mark-recapture studies and propose a new method that incorporates the inherent uncertainty of photographic identification in the estimation of abundance, survival and recruitment. A hierarchical model is proposed which accepts scores assigned to pairs of photographs by pattern recognition algorithms as data and allows for uncertainty in matching photographs based on these scores. The new models incorporate latent capture histories that are treated as unknown random variables informed by the data, contrasting past models having the capture histories being fixed. The methods properly account for uncertainty in the matching …

High Dimensional Multivariate Inference Under General Conditions, Xiaoli Kong

Theses and Dissertations--Statistics

In this dissertation, we investigate four distinct and interrelated problems for high-dimensional inference of mean vectors in multi-groups.

The first problem concerned is the profile analysis of high dimensional repeated measures. We introduce new test statistics and derive its asymptotic distribution under normality for equal as well as unequal covariance cases. Our derivations of the asymptotic distributions mimic that of Central Limit Theorem with some important peculiarities addressed with sufficient rigor. We also derive consistent and unbiased estimators of the asymptotic variances for equal and unequal covariance cases respectively.

The second problem considered is the accurate inference for high-dimensional repeated …

Accounting For Spatial Autocorrelation In Modeling The Distribution Of Water Quality Variables, Lorrayne Miralha

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Several studies in hydrology have reported differences in outcomes between models in which spatial autocorrelation (SAC) is accounted for and those in which SAC is not. However, the capacity to predict the magnitude of such differences is still ambiguous. In this thesis, I hypothesized that SAC, inherently possessed by a response variable, influences spatial modeling outcomes. I selected ten watersheds in the USA and analyzed them to determine whether water quality variables with higher Moran’s I values undergo greater increases in the coefficient of determination (R²) and greater decreases in residual SAC (rSAC) after spatial modeling. I compared non-spatial ordinary …

Investigating The Role Of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs In Reducing Rates Of Opioid-Related Poisonings, Nathan James Pauly

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

The United States is in the midst of an opioid epidemic. In addition to other system level interventions, almost all states have responded to the crisis by implementing prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs). PDMPs are state-level interventions that track the dispensing of Controlled Substances. Data generated at the time of medication dispensing is uploaded to a central data server that may be used to assist in identifying drug diversion, medication misuse, or potentially aberrant prescribing practices.

Prior studies assessing the impact of PDMPs on trends in opioid-related morbidity have often failed to take into account the wide heterogeneity of program …

Using The Qbest Equation To Evaluate Ellagic Acid Safety Data: Generating A Qnoael With Confidence Levels From Disparate Literature, Cynthia Rose Dickerson

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

QBEST, a novel statistical method, can be applied to the problem of estimating the No Observed Adverse Effect Level (NOAEL or QNOAEL) of a New Molecular Entity (NME) in order to anticipate a safe starting dose for beginning clinical trials. The NOAEL from QBEST (called the QNOAEL) can be calculated using multiple disparate studies in the literature and/or from the lab. The QNOAEL is similar in some ways to the Benchmark Dose Method (BMD) used widely in toxicological research, but is superior to the BMD in some ways. The QNOAEL simulation generates an intuitive curve that is comparable to the …

Pressure-Driven Stabilization Of Capacitive Deionization, Landon S. Caudill

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

The effects of system pressure on the performance stability of flow-through capacitive deionization (CDI) cells was investigated. Initial data showed that the highly porous carbon electrodes possessed air/oxygen in the micropores, and the increased system pressure boosts the gases solubility in saline solution and carries them out of the cell in the effluent. Upon applying a potential difference to the electrodes, capacitive-based ion adsorption occurs in competition with faradaic reactions that consume oxygen. Through the addition of backpressure, the rate of degradation decreases, allowing the cell to maintain its salt adsorption capacity (SAC) longer. The removal of oxygen from the …

Characterization Of Rotary Bell Atomizers Through Image Analysis Techniques, Jacob E. Wilson

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

Three methods were developed to better understand and characterize the near-field dynamic processes of rotary bell atomization. The methods were developed with the goal of possible integration into industry to identify equipment changes through changes in the primary atomization of the bell. The first technique utilized high-speed imaging to capture qualitative ligament breakup and, in combination with a developed image processing technique and PIV software, was able to gain statistical size and velocity information about both ligaments and droplets in the image data. A second technique, using an Nd:YAG laser with an optical filter, was used to capture size statistics …

The Family Of Conditional Penalized Methods With Their Application In Sufficient Variable Selection, Jin Xie

Theses and Dissertations--Statistics

When scientists know in advance that some features (variables) are important in modeling a data, then these important features should be kept in the model. How can we utilize this prior information to effectively find other important features? This dissertation is to provide a solution, using such prior information. We propose the Conditional Adaptive Lasso (CAL) estimates to exploit this knowledge. By choosing a meaningful conditioning set, namely the prior information, CAL shows better performance in both variable selection and model estimation. We also propose Sufficient Conditional Adaptive Lasso Variable Screening (SCAL-VS) and Conditioning Set Sufficient Conditional Adaptive Lasso Variable …

Mixtures-Of-Regressions With Measurement Error, Xiaoqiong Fang

Theses and Dissertations--Statistics

Finite Mixture model has been studied for a long time, however, traditional methods assume that the variables are measured without error. Mixtures-of-regression model with measurement error imposes challenges to the statisticians, since both the mixture structure and the existence of measurement error can lead to inconsistent estimate for the regression coefficients. In order to solve the inconsistency, We propose series of methods to estimate the mixture likelihood of the mixtures-of-regressions model when there is measurement error, both in the responses and predictors. Different estimators of the parameters are derived and compared with respect to their relative efficiencies. The simulation results …

Effect Of Socioeconomic And Demographic Factors On Kentucky Crashes, Aaron Berry Cambron

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The goal of this research was to examine the potential predictive ability of socioeconomic and demographic data for drivers on Kentucky crash occurrence. Identifying unique background characteristics of at-fault drivers that contribute to crash rates and crash severity may lead to improved and more specific interventions to reduce the negative impacts of motor vehicle crashes. The driver-residence zip code was used as a spatial unit to connect five years of Kentucky crash data with socioeconomic factors from the U.S. Census, such as income, employment, education, age, and others, along with terrain and vehicle age. At-fault driver crash counts, normalized over …

Investigation Of Volatile Organic Compounds (Vocs) Detected At Vapor Intrusion Sites, Mohammadyousef Roghani

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

This dissertation investigates unexplained vapor intrusion field data sets that have been observed at hazardous waste sites, including: 1) non-linear soil gas concentration trends between the VOC source (i.e. contaminated groundwater plume) and the ground surface; and, 2) alternative pathways that serve as entry points for vapors to infiltrate into buildings and serve to increase VOC exposure risks as compared to the classic vapor intrusion model, which primarily considered foundation cracks as the route for vapor entry. The overall hypothesis of this research is that theoretical knowledge of fate and transport processes can be systematically applied to vapor intrusion field …

Scalable Feature Selection And Extraction With Applications In Kinase Polypharmacology, Derek Jones

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

In order to reduce the time associated with and the costs of drug discovery, machine learning is being used to automate much of the work in this process. However the size and complex nature of molecular data makes the application of machine learning especially challenging. Much work must go into the process of engineering features that are then used to train machine learning models, costing considerable amounts of time and requiring the knowledge of domain experts to be most effective. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate data driven approaches to perform the feature selection and extraction steps in …

Modeling And Mapping Location-Dependent Human Appearance, Zachary Bessinger

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Human appearance is highly variable and depends on individual preferences, such as fashion, facial expression, and makeup. These preferences depend on many factors including a person's sense of style, what they are doing, and the weather. These factors, in turn, are dependent upon geographic location and time. In our work, we build computational models to learn the relationship between human appearance, geographic location, and time. The primary contributions are a framework for collecting and processing geotagged imagery of people, a large dataset collected by our framework, and several generative and discriminative models that use our dataset to learn the relationship …

Kentucky River Watershed Watch: Summary Of 2017 Sampling Results, Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute

Kentucky River Watershed Watch

No abstract provided.

Bi-Objective Optimization Of Kidney Exchanges, Siyao Xu

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Matching people to their preferences is an algorithmic topic with real world applications. One such application is the kidney exchange. The best "cure" for patients whose kidneys are failing is to replace it with a healthy one. Unfortunately, biological factors (e.g., blood type) constrain the number of possible replacements. Kidney exchanges seek to alleviate some of this pressure by allowing donors to give their kidney to a patient besides the one they most care about and in turn the donor for that patient gives her kidney to the patient that this first donor most cares about. Roth et al.~first discussed …

Correlation Between Emission Lines And Radio Luminosities Of Active Galactic Nuclei, Jessica Short-Long

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

Radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN) are one class of objects associated with accretion activity onto supermassive black holes in centers of massive galaxies. They are believed to be in a radiatively-inefficient accretion mode with low accretion rate. To understand this accretion mode, it is important to measure its radiative output at high energies (> 13.6eV), which can be traced through optical emission lines. However, little is known about their true radiative output. This is because no correlation between optical emission-line and radio luminosity has been found for the majority of low-luminosity radio AGN, which are often classified as low-excitation radio …

Rr Lyrae Calibration Using Sdss, Single-Epoch Spectroscopy, Stacy Long

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

I use single-epoch, SDSS spectroscopy of RR Lyraes identified in the Catalina survey to separate the spectra into same-temperature groups. Then I draw temperature-phase diagrams of the groups. I find shocked stars, improperly phased stars, low amplitude stars, and a few that are more likely eclipsing binaries. The RR Lyraes are then given precise metallicities by measurements of the CaII K and H-β, H-γ, and H-δ lines. This leads to better distance measurements, which allow me to confirm a distinction between the inner and outer galactic halo.

Automated Tree-Level Forest Quantification Using Airborne Lidar, Hamid Hamraz

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Traditional forest management relies on a small field sample and interpretation of aerial photography that not only are costly to execute but also yield inaccurate estimates of the entire forest in question. Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is a remote sensing technology that records point clouds representing the 3D structure of a forest canopy and the terrain underneath. We present a method for segmenting individual trees from the LiDAR point clouds without making prior assumptions about tree crown shapes and sizes. We then present a method that vertically stratifies the point cloud to an overstory and multiple understory tree …

Magnetic Field Design To Reduce Systematic Effects In Neutron Electric Dipole Moment Measurements, James Ryan Dadisman

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

Charge-Conjugation (C) and Charge-Conjugation-Parity (CP) Violation is one of the three Sakharov conditions to explain via baryogenesis the observed baryon asymmetry of the universe (BAU). The Standard Model of particle physics (SM) contains sources of CP violation, but cannot explain the BAU. This motivates searches for new physics beyond the standard model (BSM) which address the Sakharov criteria, including high-precision searches for new sources of CPV in systems for which the SM contribution is small, but larger effects may be present in BSM theories. A promising example is the search for the electric dipole moment of the neutron (nEDM), which …

Sdn-Based Mechanisms For Provisioning Quality Of Service To Selected Network Flows, Faisal Alharbi

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Despite the huge success and adoption of computer networks in the recent decades, traditional network architecture falls short of some requirements by many applications. One particular shortcoming is the lack of convenient methods for providing quality of service (QoS) guarantee to various network applications. In this dissertation, we explore new Software-Defined Networking (SDN) mechanisms to provision QoS to targeted network flows. Our study contributes to providing QoS support to applications in three aspects. First, we explore using alternative routing paths for selected flows that have QoS requirements. Instead of using the default shortest path used by the current network routing …

Probing The Low-X Gluon Helicity Distribution With Dijet Double Spin Asymmetries In Polarized Proton Collisions At √S = 510 Gev, Suvarna Ramachandran

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

The proton is a complex subatomic particle consisting of quarks and gluons, and one of the key questions in nuclear physics is how the spin of the proton is distributed amongst its constituents. Polarized deep inelastic scattering experiments with leptons and protons estimate that the quark spin contribution is approximately 30%. The limited kinematic reach of these experiments, combined with the fact that they are only indirectly sensitive to the electrically neutral gluon, means they can provide very little information about the gluon contribution to the spin of the proton. In contrast, hadronic probes, such as polarized proton collisions provide …

Deep Probabilistic Models For Camera Geo-Calibration, Menghua Zhai

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

The ultimate goal of image understanding is to transfer visual images into numerical or symbolic descriptions of the scene that are helpful for decision making. Knowing when, where, and in which direction a picture was taken, the task of geo-calibration makes it possible to use imagery to understand the world and how it changes in time. Current models for geo-calibration are mostly deterministic, which in many cases fails to model the inherent uncertainties when the image content is ambiguous. Furthermore, without a proper modeling of the uncertainty, subsequent processing can yield overly confident predictions. To address these limitations, we propose …

Studies Of Magnetically Induced Faraday Rotation By Polarized Helium-3 Atoms, Joshua Abney

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

Gyromagnetic Faraday rotation offers a new method to probe limits on properties of simple spin systems such as the possible magnetic moment of asymmetric dark matter or as a polarization monitor for polarized targets. Theoretical calculations predict the expected rotations of linearly polarized light due to the magnetization of spin-1/2 particles are close to or beyond the limit of what can currently be measured experimentally (10⁻⁹ rad). So far, this effect has not been verified. Nuclear spin polarized ³He provides an ideal test system due to its simple structure and ability to achieve high nuclear spin polarization via …

Determination Of The Neutron Beta-Decay Asymmetry Parameter A Using Polarized Ultracold Neutrons, Michael A.-P. Brown

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

The UCNA Experiment at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) is the first measurement of the β-decay asymmetry parameter A₀ using polarized ultracold neutrons (UCN). A₀ , which represents the parity-violating angular correlation between the direction of the initial neutron spin and the emitted decay electron’s momentum, determines λ = g_A /g_V , the ratio of the weak axial-vector and vector coupling constants. A high-precision determination of λ is important for weak interaction physics, and when combined with the neutron lifetime it permits an extraction of the CKM matrix element V_ud solely …

Nanoscale Devices Consisting Of Heterostructures Of Carbon Nanotubes And Two-Dimensional Layered Materials, Mohsen Nasseri

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

One dimensional carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and two-dimensional layered materials like graphene, MoS₂, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), etc. with different electrical and mechanical properties are great candidates for many applications in the future. In this study the synthesis and growth of carbon nanotubes on both conducting graphene and graphite substrates as well as insulating hBN substrate with precise crystallographic orientation is achieved. We show that the nanotubes have a clear preference to align to specific crystal directions of the underlying graphene or hBN substrate. On thicker flakes of graphite, the edges of these 2D materials can control the orientation …

Measurement Of The Helicity Asymmetry E In Ω → Π+Π−Π0 Photoproduction, Z. Akbar, P. Roy, S. Park, V. Crede, A. V. Anisovich, I. Denisenko, E. Klempt, V. A. Nikonov, A. V. Sarantsev, K. P. Adhikari, S. Adhikari, M. J. Amaryan, S. Anefalos Pereira, H. Avakian, J. Ball, M. Battaglieri, V. Batourine, I. Bedlinskiy, S. Boiarinov, W. J. Briscoe, J. Brock, W. K. Brooks, V. D. Burkert, F. T. Cao, C. Carlin, D. S. Carman, A. Celentano, G. Charles, T. Chetry, G. Ciullo, Wesley P. Gohn

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

The double-polarization observable E was studied for the reaction γp → pω using the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) in Hall B at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and the longitudinally polarized frozen-spin target (FROST). The observable was measured from the charged decay mode of the meson, ω → π⁺π⁻π⁰, using a circularly polarized tagged-photon beam with energies ranging from the ω threshold at 1.1 to 2.3 GeV. A partial-wave analysis within the Bonn-Gatchina framework found dominant contributions from the 3/2⁺ partial wave near threshold, which is identified with the subthreshold N …

Origin Of The Exciton Mass In The Frustrated Mott Insulator Na2Iro3, Zhanybek Alpichshev, Edbert J. Sie, Fahad Mahmood, Gang Cao, Nuh Gedik

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We use a three-pulse ultrafast optical spectroscopy to study the relaxation processes in a frustrated Mott insulator Na₂IrO₃. By being able to independently produce the out-of-equilibrium bound states (excitons) of doublons and holons with the first pulse and suppress the underlying antiferromagnetic order with the second one, we were able to elucidate the relaxation mechanism of quasiparticles in this system. By observing the difference in the exciton dynamics in the magnetically ordered and disordered phases we found that the mass of this quasiparticle is mostly determined by its interaction with the surrounding spins.

Extraction Of The Neutron Electric Form Factor From Measurements Of Inclusive Double Spin Asymmetries, V. Sulkosky, G. Jin, E. Long, Y. -W. Zhang, M. Mihovilovic, A. Kelleher, B. Anderson, D. W. Higinbotham, S. Širca, K. Allada, J. R. M. Annand, T. Averett, W. Bertozzi, W. Boeglin, P. Bradshaw, A. Camsonne, M. Canan, G. D. Cates, C. Chen, J. -P. Chen, E. Chudakov, R. De Leo, X. Deng, A. Deur, C. Dutta, L. El Fassi, D. Flay, S. Frullani, F. Garibaldi, Wolfgang Korsch

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Background: Measurements of the neutron charge form factor, Gⁿ_E, are challenging because the neutron has no net charge. In addition, measurements of the neutron form factors must use nuclear targets which require accurately accounting for nuclear effects. Extracting Gⁿ_E with different targets and techniques provides an important test of our handling of these effects.

Purpose: The goal of the measurement was to use an inclusive asymmetry measurement technique to extract the neutron charge form factor at a four-momentum transfer of 1 (GeV/c)². This technique has very different systematic uncertainties …