Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Use Of Grothendieck Inequality In Interval Computations: Quadratic Terms Are Estimated Accurately Modulo A Constant Factor, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

One of the main problems of interval computations is to compute the range of a given function f over given intervals. For a linear function, we can feasibly estimate its range, but for quadratic (and for more complex) functions, the problem of computing the exact range is NP-hard. So, if we limit ourselves to feasible algorithms, we have to compute enclosures instead of the actual ranges. It is known that asymptotically the smallest possible excess width of these enclosures is O(Δ²), where Δ is the largest half-width of the input intervals. This asymptotics is attained for the Mean …

Bayesian Approach For Inconsistent Information, M. Stein, Michael Beer, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In engineering situations, we usually have a large amount of prior knowledge that needs to be taken into account when processing data. Traditionally, the Bayesian approach is used to process data in the presence of prior knowledge. Sometimes, when we apply the traditional Bayesian techniques to engineering data, we get inconsistencies between the data and prior knowledge. These inconsistencies are usually caused by the fact that in the traditional approach, we assume that we know the {\it exact} sample values, that the prior distribution is {\it exactly} known, etc. In reality, the data is imprecise due to measurement errors, the …

From P-Boxes To P-Ellipsoids: Towards An Optimal Representation Of Imprecise Probabilities, Konstantin K. Semenov, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

One of the most widely used ways to represent a probability distribution is by describing its cumulative distribution function (cdf) F(x). In practice, we rarely know the exact values of F(x): for each x, we only know F(x) with uncertainty. In such situations, it is reasonable to describe, for each x, the interval [F(x)] of possible values of x. This representation of imprecise probabilities is known as a p-box; it is effectively used in many applications.

Similar interval bounds are possible for probability density function, for moments, etc. The problem is that when we transform from one of such representations …

Aggregation Operations From Quantum Computing, Lidiane Visintin, Adriano Maron, Renata Reiser, Ana Maria Abeijon, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Computer systems based on fuzzy logic should be able to generate an output from the handling of inaccurate data input by applying a rule based system. The main contribution of this paper is to show that quantum computing can be used to extend the class of fuzzy sets. The central idea associates the states of a quantum register to membership functions (mFs) of fuzzy subsets, and the rules for the processes of fuzzyfication are performed by unitary qTs. This paper introduces an interpretation of aggregations obtained by classical fuzzy states, that is, by multi-dimensional quantum register associated to mFs on …

Relation Between Polling And Likert-Scale Approaches To Eliciting Membership Degrees Clarified By Quantum Computing, Renata Hax Sander Reiser, Adriano Maron, Lidiane Visintin, Ana Maria Abeijon, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In fuzzy logic, there are two main approaches to eliciting membership degrees: an approach based on polling experts, and a Likert-scale approach, in which we ask experts to indicate their degree of confidence on a scale -- e.g., on a scale form 0 to 10. Both approaches are reasonable, but they often lead to different membership degrees. In this paper, we analyze the relation between these two approaches, and we show that this relation can be made much clearer if we use models from quantum computing.

Why Inverse F-Transform? A Compression-Based Explanation, Vladik Kreinovich, Irina Perlieva, Vilém Novák

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, e.g., in signal processing, image processing, analysis of temporal data, it is very useful to use fuzzy (F-) transforms. In an F-transform, we first replace a function x(t) by a few local averages (this is called forward F-transform), and then reconstruct the original function from these averages (this is called inverse F-transform). While the formula for the forward F-transform makes perfect intuitive sense, the formula for the inverse F-transform seems, at first glance, somewhat counter-intuitive. On the other hand, its empirical success shows that this formula must have a good justification. In this paper, we provide …

A Symmetry-Based Approach To Selecting Membership Functions And Its Relation To Chemical Kinetics, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva, Jorge Y. Cabrera, Mario Gutierrez, Thavatchai Ngamsantivong

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we encounter physical quantities like time for which there is no fixed starting point for measurements: physical properties do not change if we simply change (shift) the starting point. To describe knowledge about such properties, it is desirable to select membership functions which are similarly shift-invariant. We show that while we cannot require that each membership function is shift-invariant, we can require that the linear space of all linear combinations of given membership functions is shift-invariant. We describe all such shift-invariant families of membership functions, and we show that they are naturally related to the corresponding …

Summer Land Surface Temperature: Small-Local Variation In Intro-Urban Environment In El Paso, Tx, Mactar Mohamed

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

It has been well documented that rapid urbanization and population growth have led to the transformation of the natural landscape into anthropogenic urban land and changed such surface physical properties as albedo, energy balance, and surface roughness. Cities, therefore, will be warmer at the urban areas than the rural lands; this situation creates a phenomenon called Urban Heat Island (UHI).

In the recent decades, numerous approaches to study the variation of land surface temperature during daytime have emerged; however, little is known about the variation during nighttime. This study addressed the spatial variation of Summer Nighttime Land Surface Temperature …

Impact Of Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles On Cilantro (Coriandrum Sativum), Maria Isabel Morales

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Studies have shown that plants exposed to ENPs suffer different types of stress. Other studies have revealed that plants can take up and accumulate CeO2 NPs without modification. Thus, these NPs could enter the food chain through edible plants, posing a threat for human health. Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) is a worldwide culinary and medicinal plant consumed either as a fresh herb or a spice. In this research, cilantro plants were germinated and cultivated for 30 days in organic soil treated with CeO2 NPs at concentrations varying from 0 to 500 mg kg!1. Subsequently, plant organs were analyzed by using spectroscopic …

Strong Coupled Quark Matter And Drawbacks Of Its Bcs-Bec Crossover, Israel Portillo Vazquez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

It was found many years ago, that the ground state wave functions of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieer (BCS) superconductivity in a degenerate Fermi gas and the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of composite molecules are essentially the same, and those two states can be smoothly connected through a crossover. This BCS-BEC crossover has being recently extended to relativistic Fermi System. This thesis is dedicated to exploring the possible crossover from BEC to BCS phase on strong-interacting matter and its implications for the system Equation of State. The study will be concentrated on dierent phases of dense quark-matter for vanishing temperatures and densities beyond hadronic …

Novel Copper (Ii) Mediated Transfection Nano-Systems And Biological Properties Of Pyridinium Surfactants, Sarit Pal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Efficacy of gene therapy is relied upon the improvement of gene delivery vectors into mammalian cells. Although viral-based polynucleotide carriers are still considered as the most common method for gene delivery but the cost effectiveness, nonspecific lethal immune response has evoked the renaissance of non-viral synthetic delivery systems. An initial discovery by Felgnar et al showed Cationic Liposomes (CLs) (having an overall positive charge) when mixed with DNA to form CL-DNA complexes can enhance the transfer of polynucleotides into cells followed by its expression. Presently, a flurry of experimental works is taking place for the better understanding of structural characterization …

Two-Photon Microscopy Of Nanoparticles And Biotissues, Judith Noemi Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Biomedical Imaging is an important tool in medical research and clinical practice. From understanding the fundamental processes involved in our biological makeup to its use in diagnostics in helping determine what ails us, the advancements in imaging and microscopy have helped shape our view of the world and nature. Microscopy in particular is often used to study the smallest of cells and their dynamical properties while attempting to minimally change the sample being studied. My research objective is largely divided into two parts. The first part consists of designing a video-rate raster scanning two-photon microscope that is faster than current …

A Convex Optimization Algorithm For Sparse Representation And Applications In Classification Problems, Reinaldo Sanchez Arias

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In pattern recognition and machine learning, a classification problem refers to finding an algorithm for assigning a given input data into one of several categories. Many natural signals are sparse or compressible in the sense that they have short representations when expressed in a suitable basis. Motivated by the recent successful development of algorithms for sparse signal recovery, we apply the selective nature of sparse representation to perform classification. Any test sample is represented in an overcomplete dictionary with the training sample as base elements. A given test sample can be expressed as a linear combination of only those training …

On Different Techniques For The Calculation Of Bouguer Gravity Anomalies For Joint Inversion And Model Fusion Of Geophysical Data In The Rio Grande Rift, Azucena Zamora

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Density variations in the Earth result from different material properties, which reflect the tectonic processes attributed to a region. Density variations can be identified through measurable material properties, such as seismic velocities, gravity field, magnetic field, etc. Gravity anomaly inversions are particularly sensitive to density variations but suffer from significant non-uniqueness. However, using inverse models with gravity Bouguer anomalies and other geophysical data, we can determine three dimensional structural and geological properties of the given area. We explore different techniques for the calculation of Bouguer gravity anomalies for their use in joint inversion of multiple geophysical data sets and a …

Utilizing Cyber Espionage To Combat Terrorism, Gary Adkins

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The world has effectively exited the Industrial Age and is firmly planted in the Information Age. Global communication at the speed of light has been a great asset to both businesses and private citizens. However, there is a dark side to the age we live in, where terrorist groups are able to communicate, plan, fund, recruit, and spread their message to the world. The relative anonymity the internet provides hinders law enforcement and security agencies in not only locating would-be terrorists but also in disrupting their operations. The internet is a loosely knit group of computers and routers and is …

A Semantic Web-Based Methodology For Describing Scientific Research Efforts, Aida Gandara

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Scientists produce research resources that are useful to future research and innovative efforts. In a typical scientific scenario, the results created by a collaborative team often include numerous artifacts, observations and relationships relevant to research findings, such as programs that generate data, parameters that impact outputs, workflows that describe processes, and publications, posters and presentations that explain results and findings. Scientists have options in what results to share and how to share them, however, there is no systematic approach to documenting scientific research and sharing it on the Web.

The goal of this research is to define a systematic approach …

Assessing The Equity Implications Of Greenspace Distribution In An Arid Region, Abdelatif Eldeb

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the last few decades, vegetation deterioration is receiving increased attention because of its adverse impacts on societal and human health, environmental sustainability, and quality of life. I have selected two cities in Chihuahua Desert region (El Paso and Juarez) as case study sites to develop a novel and applicable methodology for integrating remotely sensed data of different spectral and spatial resolutions into an analysis of the spatial distribution of an urban amenity. The primary objective of this research is to determine if the spatial distribution of greenspace in 2010 is equitable with respect to socio-demographics in El Paso and …

Method Development For A Chemical And Biological Analysis Of Glucocorticoids In Wastewater, Maria Carmen Lozano

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Glucocorticoids are a class of steroid hormones that can either be produced synthetically or naturally by the adrenal glands. The synthetic glucocorticoids are highly prescribed in the United States for their anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive properties to treat a variety of ailments and diseases; however, these have been implicated in a number of adverse human conditions such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, immune-suppression, delayed puberty, adrenal insufficiency and Cushing Syndrome, among others. Ongoing research has shown that synthetic and natural hormones are transported to aquatic environments via mammalian excretion or wastewater effluent, and as a result, the release of glucocorticoids into the …

The Eolian-Sabkha Transition In The Permian Cedar Mesa Sandstone, Se Utah, Alexandra Massad

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study focuses on the depositional transition between the Permian Cedar Mesa sand dune sea and the adjoining fluvial, lacustrine, playa and a sabkha facies. This transition provides insights into how climate and environment interacted in this unique setting where up to 300 m of eolian sands transition into evaporites. The evaporites are less common as tongues within the eolianites than previously thought and there were several environments that were observed that haven't been previously described or observed in the Cedar Mesa. The arrangement of the various units within the study area support the climate control on stratigraphy.

The intertonguing …

Organic Photovoltaics: A Charge Transfer Perspective In The Study Of Donor-Acceptor Systems, Marco Olguin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The present research involves the study of donor-acceptor (D/A) dyad complexes from a charge transfer energy perspective. The aim is to provide insight and predictive understanding into the charge transfer processes of the molecular-level components in donor-acceptor based organic solar cells using computational methods to describe photochemical processes at the quantum mechanical level within the Density Functional Theory (DFT) approximation. Predictive understanding is anchored in reproducing experimental results, wherein the present work a perturbative excited-state DFT method is described in detail and shown to give Charge Transfer (CT) energies in excellent agreement with benchmark experimental data. With an accurate excited …

Surface Plasmon Polaritons And Waveguide Modes At Structured And Inhomogeneous Surfaces, Javier Polanco

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In chapter 1, properties of a p-polarized surface plasmon polariton are studied, propagating circumferentially around a portion of a cylindrical interface between vacuum and a metal, a situation investigated earlier by M. V. Berry (J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 8, (1975) 1952). When the metal is convex toward the vacuum this mode is radiative and consequently is attenuated as it propagates on the cylindrical surface. An approximate analytic solution of the dispersion relation for this wave is obtained by an approach different from the one used by Berry, and plots of the real and imaginary parts of its wave number …

Depositional Setting And Sequence Stratigraphic Analysis Of The Lower Permian Lower Hueco Formation On The Western Margin Of The Orogrande Basin, South Central New Mexico, Jonathon Eric Stautberg

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

On the western margin of the Orogrande Basin in south-central New Mexico, eight outcrop datasets, in the form of measured stratigraphic sections from the lower interval of the Lower Permian Lower Hueco Formation were analyzed in regard to depositional facies distribution and sequence stratigraphy. Based on petrographic analysis of 247 samples and associated field relationships, 11 depositional facies are recognized: 1) quartz sandstone, 2) quartz siltstone and shale, 3) fenestral dolomudstone, 4) microbial intraclast packstone, 5) dolomudstone, 6) green-algal packstone to grainstone, 7) ostracode foram wackestone, 8) oolitic packstone, 9) fossiliferous packstone and grainstone, 10) fusulinid packstone and grainstone, 11) …

Cjc: An Extensible Checker For The Cleanjava Annotation Language, Cesar Eduardo Yeep

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Formal program verification can be used as a complementary technique to software testing. It allows checking the correctness of all the states of a program which may be impossible using only software testing as a verification technique. One software development process that relies on formal verification is Cleanroom Software Engineering. Cleanroom's main principles are to certify the software with respect to its specification and to produce zero-fault or near-zero-fault software. Cleanroom has being tested primarily in safety-critical systems that require a high level of correctness by development teams in places such as NASA and IBM, demonstrating lower fault rates and …

Thermal Barrier Coatings (Tbc's) For High Heat Flux Thrust Chambers, Christopher Michael Bradley

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The last 30 years materials engineers have been under continual pressure to develop materials with a greater temperature potential or to produce configurations that can be effectively cooled or otherwise protected at elevated temperature conditions. Turbines and thrust chambers produce some of the harshest service conditions for materials which lead to the challenges engineers face in order to increase the efficiencies of current technologies due to the energy crisis that the world is facing. The key tasks for the future of gas turbines are to increase overall efficiencies to meet energy demands of a growing world population and reduce the …

Security Games With Interval Uncertainty, Md Towhidul Islam

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Game theory has become an important tool in solving real-life decision making problems. Security games use the concept of game theory in adversarial scenarios to protect critical infrastructure. The main purpose of security games is to allocate security resources among various targets and maximize payoff for the defender considering various kinds of attackers. It is hard for domain experts to predict the attacker's behavior, so one of the major challenges in describing this game model is representing uncertainty about the attacker's payoff. Several approaches have been developed to generate these game models based on uncertainty, such as Bayesian games. However …

Generalizations Of Dirichlet Convolution, Juan Carlos Villarreal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The thesis reviews Dirichlet convolution of arithmetic functions and some generalizations. First, we present the main properties of the Dirichlet convolution on the set of arithmetic functions and some characterizations of prime numbers via arithmetic functions are given. Then we explore the K-convolution and the regular convolutions and finally we extend the study of Dirichlet convolution in categories. We give also an example for the evaluation of the Mobius function of a Mobius category.

Extracting Fuzzy Measures From Sample Data: Optimization Algorithms And Applications, Xiaojing Wang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM), decisions are based on several criteria that are usually conflicting and non-homogenously satisfied. We use non-additive (fuzzy) measures combined with the Choquet integral to solve MCDM problems, for they allow to model and aggregate the levels of satisfaction of the several criteria of the problem at hand by considering the relationship between these criteria. In practice, it is difficult to identify such fuzzy measures. An automated process is then necessary and can be used when sample data is available. Several optimization approaches have been used to extract fuzzy measures from sample data, for example, genetic …

Seismic Reflection Exploration Of Geothermal Reservoir Atnaval Air Station (Nas) Fallon, Nevada, Alay Ghebremariam Gebregiorgis

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Primary objective of this study is to increase geologic and tectonic understanding of the geothermal resources at the Naval Air Station (NAS) Fallon, Nevada. The seismic reflection method is employed to study faults, fractures and other tectonic structures in the subsurface in order to identify geothermal drill targets. The efficiency of geothermal systems is strongly dependent on water circulation. Discrete faults may be permeable and provide pathways for water flow depending on the fracture density. It is therefore desirable to detect and map faults and fracture zones and characterize their physical properties when evaluating a geothermal prospect.

The seismic …

In-Situ, Integrated U-Pb, Hf And O Isotopic Study Of Igneous, Metamorphic And Detrital Zircons. Implications To Crustal Evolution And Geodynamics, Munazzam Ali Mahar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Zircon data from South Karakoram gneiss dome provide evidence for Proterozoic inherited cores (1.8-1.9 Ga and 2.3-.2.5 Ga) surrounded by migmatitic overgrowth with ages ranging from ~6 to ~20Ma. Oxygen isotopic data of Neogene migmatite and inherited core is similar and indistinguishable ranging from 7.5 to 9.5 /. However, Neogene overgrowth is significantly less evolved than the inherited core in terms of Hf composition. This implies that the Hf composition of the migmatitic zircons is not controlled exclusively by the dissolution of the inherited cores and that contamination by external melts is likely. Isotopic data from the Baltoro plutonic unit …

Assessment Of Water Quality And Benthic Macroinvertebrate Community In A Wastewater Receiving Constructed Wetland, Jennifer Lynn Martinez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the El Paso region around the 1930s there was a loss of riparian areas and wetlands due to canalization of the Rio Grande. In an attempt to bring back native flora and fauna that once flourished in the floodplain of the Rio Grande region, the creation of Rio Bosque Wetlands Park (RBWP; El Paso Co., TX) was initiated in 1995. As part of the construction agreement, El Paso Water Utilities agreed to provide water to fill the wetland upon its completion. Beginning in 1998, RBWP was filled with treated effluent from the adjacent Roberto Bustamante Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) …