Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Carbon Disclosure Project Report 2008 S&P 500, Lisa Zilinski

Lisa Zilinski

"This year’s Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) U.S. report comes at a pivotal point in the race to address global climate change. While public policy, consumer concern, and stakeholder awareness have converged on the issue, the need for corporate America to actively confront the challenges a carbon-constrained global economy presents has never been more urgent."

Harnessing Individual Behavior To Address Climate Change: Options For Congress, John C. Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

On Existence And Uniqueness Results For The Bbm Equation With Arbitrary Forcing Terms, Timothy A. Smith

Timothy Smith

On KS,T-Minors In Graphs With Given Average Degree, A. V. Kostochka, N. Prince

Noah Prince

Let D(H) be the minimum d such that every graph G with average degree d has an H-minor. Myers and Thomason found good bounds on D(H) for almost all graphs H and proved that for 'balanced' H random graphs provide extremal examples and determine the extremal function. Examples of 'unbalanced graphs' are complete bipartite graphs K_s,t for a fixed s and large t. Myers proved upper bounds on D(K_s,t ) and made a conjecture on the order of magnitude of D(K_s,t ) for a fixed s and …

Padé Spline Functions, Tian-Xiao He

Tian-Xiao He

We present here the definition of Pad´e spline functions, their expressions, and the estimate of the remainders of pad´e spline expansions. Some algorithms are also given.

Mobile Manipulators For Assisted Living In Residential Settings, Patrick Deegan, Roderic Grupen, Allen Hanson, Emily Horrell, Shichao Ou, Edward Riseman, Shiraj Sen, Byan Thibodeau, Adam Williams, Dan Xie

Roderic Grupen

We describe a methodology for creating new technologies for assisted living in residential environments. The number of eldercare clients is expected to grow dramatically over the next decade as the baby boom generation approaches 65 years of age. The UMass/Smith ASSIST framework aims to alleviate the strain on centralized medical providers and community services as their clientele grow, reduce the delays in service, support independent living, and therefore, improve the quality of life for the up-coming elder population. We propose a closed loop methodology wherein innovative technical systems are field tested in assisted care facilities and analyzed by social scientists …

Using Fmri Brain Activation To Identify Cognitive States Associated With Perception Of Tools And Dwellings, Svetlana V. Shinkareva, Robert A. Mason, Vicente L. Malave, Wei Wang, Tom M. Mitchell, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Modifying The Brain Activation Of Poor Readers During Sentence Comprehension With Extended Remedial Instruction: A Longitudinal Study Of Neuroplasticity, Ann Meyler, Timothy A. Keller, Vladimir L. Cherkassky, John D. E. Gabrieli, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

A Discrete Direct Retrieval Model For Image And Video Retrieval, Shaolei Feng, R. Manmatha

R. Manmatha

This paper proposes a formal framework for image and video retrieval using discrete Markov random fields(MRF). The training dataset consists of images with keywords (regions are not labeled). The model may be built using quantized region or point features generated from the training images. Unlike many previous techniques, our MRF based model doesn't require an explicit annotation step for retrieval. The model directly ranks all test images according to the posterior probability of an image given a query. Image and video retrieval experiments are performed on two standard datasets (one Corel datasets and a TRECVID3 dataset) which consist of 4,500 …

A New Exact And More Powerful Unconditional Test Of No Treatment Effect From Binary Matched Pairs, Chris Lloyd

Chris J. Lloyd

We consider the problem of testing for a difference in the probability of success from matched binary pairs. Starting with three standard inexact tests, the nuisance parameter is first estimated and then the residual dependence is eliminated by maximisation, producing what I call an E+M P-value. The E+M P-value based on McNemar's statistic is shown numerically to dominate previous suggestions, including partially maximised P-values as described in Berger and Sidik (2003). The latter method however may have computational advantages for large samples.

Alignment Memory Of A Nematic Liquid Crystal And Thermal Isotropization Of The Surface Adsorbed Layer, A. B. Nych, D. Yu. Reznikov, O. P. Boiko, V. G. Nazarenko, V. M. Pergamenshchik, Philip Bos

Philip J. Bos

We use a digital image analysis of the schlieren textures to study the effect of memory of the surface anisotropy in a nematic-liquid-crystal cell and establish its relation to the surface adsorbed molecular layer. The anisotropy is induced on an isotropic glass surface by a flow of the nematic liquid. The proposed technique allows us to quantify the alignment and its changes under the effect of temperature. The temperature at which the memory of the alignment texture is lost is interpreted as the temperature of the full isotropization of the initial anisotropic surface layer adsorbed during the flow: the molecules …

User Models For Email Activity Management, Mark Dredze, Hanna M. Wallach

Hanna M. Wallach

A single user activity, such as planning a conference trip, typically involves multiple actions. Although these actions may involve several applications, the central point of coordination for any particular activity is usually email. Previous work on email activity management has focused on clustering emails by activity. Dredze et al. [3] accomplished this by combining supervised classifiers based on document similarity, authors and recipients, and thread information. In this paper, we take a different approach and present an unsupervised framework for email activity clustering. We use the same information sources as Dredze et al.—namely, document similarity, message recipients and authors, and …

The Role Of Survival Analysis In Financial Distress Prediction, Adrian Gepp, Kuldeep Kumar

Adrian Gepp

Accurate business failure prediction models would be extremely valuable to many industry sectors, particularly in financial investment and lending. The potential value of such models has been recently emphasised by the extremely costly failure of high profile businesses in both Australia and overseas, such as HIH (Australia) and Enron (USA). Consequently, there has been a significant increase in interest in business failure prediction from both industry and academia. Statistical business failure prediction models attempt to predict the failure or success of a business. Discriminant and logit analyses have been the most popular approaches, but there are also a large number …

Convergence To Equilibrium In Experimental Markets, Carolyn A. Galantine Cpa., Phd, Charles W. Swenson

Carolyn A Galantine CPA., PhD

The process by which market prices achieve equilibrium is an important topic, as the price formation process is fundamental to applied economic theory. Recently, economists have been applying complex mathematical functions to study the course of market prices convergence to equilibrium. Studies have made progress in modeling the price convergence process in at least one type of experimental market setting, the double auction. The double auction is of interest not only because of its prevalence in many types of real-world markets (e.g., the New York Stock Exchange), but also because of its extensive use in experimental economics. The double auction …

Panel On “Artificial Agents For Psychotherapy”, Eva Hudlicka, Christine Lisetti, Diane Hodge, Ana Paiva, Albert Rizzo, Eric Wagner

Eva Hudlicka

No abstract provided.

Exact Tests Of Non-Inferiority From Independent Binomial Data Based On Second Order Test Statistics, Chris Lloyd

Chris J. Lloyd

Recent advances in likelihood asymptotics (Reid, 2003) lead to pivotal quantities that are closer to standard normal than standard pivotals and also respect some kind of conditionality. It is less clear the extent to which these methods work for discrete models. On the other hand, in the context of binomial trials conditional pivotals can lead to more efficient unconditional inferences, see Boschloo (1970) and Lloyd and Moldovan (2007). This suggests that second order pivotals that respect local conditionality might provide more powerful exact tests. For testing the rate ratio from independent binomial samples, we investigate 5 first order pivotals and …

What Brain Imaging Can Tell Us About Embodied Meaning, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Byzantium Beneath The Black Sea, Bridget Buxton, Robert Ballard, Michael Brennan, Dwight Coleman, Katy Croff, Christopher Roman, Dan Davis, Dennis Piechota, Sergiy Voronov

Christopher N. Roman

This poster reports on the August 2007 Black Sea Expedition of the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island (IAO) and the Institute for Exploration (IFE), in collaboration with the Department of the Underwater Heritage of Ukraine. This year’s work marks a new phase in a multi-year (2000–2012) archaeological and oceanographic survey of the Black Sea. 2007 fieldwork focuses on two Byzantine shipwrecks. The 10th century C.E. shipwreck Chersonesos A (discovered in 2006) lies at 140 m depth in the suboxic zone off the Crimean peninsula. The ship carried a cargo of one-handled jars of a widely …

Pennies And Eggs: Initiation Into Inquiry Learning For Pre-Service Elementary Education Teachers, D. J. Wink, J. Hwang Choe

Jeong Choe

Two labs incorporating the Science Writing Heuristic are described that introduce scientific inquiry in a course for preservice students majoring in elementary education. One lab adapts a previously described discovery learning opportunity involving the change in composition and mass of pennies in 1982. The other involves the use of flotation methods to separate hard-boiled and uncooked eggs based on density. Evidence for student engagement with the method is presented, along with analysis of persistent problems with the concept of density revealed by students’ writing about their understandings.

Characterization And Properties Of Matrices With K-Involutory Symmetries, William F. Trench

William F. Trench

No abstract provided.

A Jess Enabled Context Elicitation System For Providing Context-Aware Web Services, Stephen J.H. Yang, Jia Zhang, Irene Y.L. Chen

Jia Zhang

No abstract provided.

Applying Web Page Adaptation Technique To The Augmentation Of Mobile Learning, Stephen J.H. Yang, Jia Zhang, Angus F.M. Huang

Jia Zhang

No abstract provided.

Cavity Resonances Of Metal-Dielectric-Metal Nanoantennas, Bhuwan Joshi, Qi-Huo Wei

Qi-Huo Wei

We propose a new design of optical nanoantennas and numerically study their optical properties. The nanoantennas are composed of two cylindrical metal nanorods stacked vertically with a circular dielectric disk spacer. Simulation results show that when the dielectric disk is less than 5nm in thickness, such nanoantennas exhibit two types of resonances: one corresponding to antenna resonance, the other corresponding to cavity resonances. The antenna resonance generates a peak in scattering spectra, while the cavity resonances lead to multiple dips in the scattering spectra. The cavity resonant frequency can be tuned by varying the size of the dielectric disk. The …

Theory Of Mind Disruption And Recruitment Of The Right Hemisphere During Narrative Comprehension In Autism, Robert A. Mason, Diane L. Williams, Rajesh K. Kana, Nancy J. Minshew, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Water Resource Requirements Of Corn-Based Ethanol, Stanley Mubako

Stanley Mubako

No abstract provided.

Southern Africa Environment Outlook 2008, Stanley Mubako

Stanley Mubako

No abstract provided.

Thermodynamic Limitations To Nuclear Energy Deployment As A Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Technology, Joshua M. Pearce

Joshua M. Pearce

Environmentally Friendly Organic Synthesis Using Bismuth Compounds: Bismuth(Iii) Iodide Catalyzed Deprotection Of Acetals In Water, Ram S. Mohan, Aaron D. Bailey, Ashvin R. Baru, Kendall K. Tashe

Ram S. Mohan

Hierarchies Of Networked Phases Induced By Multiple Liquid-Liquid Critical Points, C. W. Hsu, J. Largo, F. W. Sciortino, Francis Starr

Francis Starr

No abstract provided.

Bush Lemons And Beach Hauling: Evolving Traditions And New Thinking For Protected Areas Management And Aboriginal People In New South Wales, Michael Adams, Vanessa Cavanagh, Bridget Edmunds

Vanessa Cavanagh