Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

On Some 2-Adic Properties Of A Recurrence Involving Stirling Numbers, Tamas Lengyel

Tamas Lengyel

We analyze some 2 adic properties of the sequence defined by the recurrence Z(1) =1; Z(n) = n−1 k=1 S(n, k) Z(k), n ≥ 2, which counts the number of ultra-dissimilarity relations, i.e., ultra-metrics on an n-set. We prove the 2 adic growth property v2 (Z(n) ≥ log 2 n - 1) and present conjectures on the exact values.

Identification Of Gene-Environment Interactions In Cancer Prognosis Studies Using Penalization, Shuangge Ma

Shuangge Ma

High-throughput cancer studies have been extensively conducted, searching for genetic risk factors independently associated with prognosis beyond clinical and environmental risk factors. Many studies have shown that the gene-environment interactions may have important implications. Some of the existing methods, such as the commonly adopted single-marker analysis, may be limited in that they cannot accommodate the joint effects of a large number of genetic markers or use ineffective marker identification techniques. In this study, we analyze cancer prognosis studies, and adopt the AFT (accelerated failure time) model to describe survival. A weighted least squares approach, which has the lowest computational cost, …

Eulerian Polynomials And B-Splines, Tian-Xiao He

Tian-Xiao He

Here presented is the interrelationship between Eulerian polynomials, Eulerian fractions and Euler-Frobenius polynomials, Euler-Frobenius fractions, B-splines, respectively. The properties of Eulerian polynomials and Eulerian fractions and their applications in B-spline interpolation and evaluation of Riemann-zeta function values at odd integers are given. The relation between Eulerian numbers and B-spline values at knot points are also discussed.

Some Non-Asymptotic Properties Of Parametric Bootstrap P-Values, Chris Lloyd

Chris J. Lloyd

The bootstrap P-value is the exact tail probability of a test statistic, cal-culated assuming the nuisance parameter equals the null maximum likelihood (ML) estimate. For discrete data, bootstrap P-values perform amazingly well even for small samples, even as standard first order methods perform surprisingly poorly. Why is this? Detailed numerical calculations in Lloyd (2012a) strongly suggest that the good performance of bootstrap is not explained by asymptotics. In this paper, I establish several desirable non-asymptotic properties of bootstrap P-values. The most important of these is that bootstrap will correct ‘bad’ ordering of the sample space which leads to a more …

An Interview With Stephen A. Cook, Philip L. Frana

Philip L Frana

Stephen A. Cook, winner of the 1982 AM Turing Award, reflects on his career. nature of nP-complete class of problems has been one of the most active and important research activities in computer science.” Cook further discusses the feasibility of solving the P versus nP problem, which has recently received renewed attention given increasingly powerful computational capabilities and the decreasing cost of computing. In a September 2009 Communications article, Lance Fortnow wrote that Cook's work on computational ...

A Morphological Study Of Nanomaterials And Biomolecules Using Atomic Force Microscopy, Ravi A. Patel

Ravi A Patel

Understanding the morphologies of molecules and particles has played a key role in understanding key concepts such as mechanisms of formation, interaction and application. In the current work, atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques are used to emphasize the importance of topography in the field of nanomaterials and biochemistry. The intriguing relationship between graphene oxide and the copolymer Pluronic F-127 is investigated for its potential use in biological applications. Additionally, the importance of characterizing and calculating size distributions in semiconducting quantum dots as it relates to conduction efficiency is also described. AFM is similarly used in determining binding characteristics of two …

Reconfiguration Of The Receiver System For Sodium Doppler Wind/Temperature Lidar, Vardan Semerjyan, Tao Yuan

Vardan Semerjyan

Sodium (Na) Faraday filters based spectrometer is a relatively new instrument to study sodium nightglow [Harrell et al., 2010] as well as atmospheric chemistry in the mesopause region. Successful spectrometer measurement demands highly accurate control of filter temperature. The ideal operation site for this Na spectrometer would be an isolated location with minimum nocturnal sky background. Thus, the remote and automatic control of the filter temperature is a requirement for such operation, whereas current temperature controllers can only be adjusted manually by the operator. The proposed approach is aimed not only to enhance the accuracy of the temperature control but …

Short Period Gravity Waves In The Arctic Atmosphere Over Alaska, Michael Negale, Kim Nielsen, Mike Taylor, Britta Irving, Richard Collins

Michael Negale

The propagation nature and sources of short-period gravity waves have been studied extensively at low and mid-latitudes, while their extent and nature at the polar regions are less known. During the last decade, observations from select sites on the Antarctic continent have revealed a significant presence of these waves over the southern Polar Region as well as shown unexpected dynamical behavior. In contrast, observations over the Arctic region are few and the dynamical behavior is unknown. A recent project was initiated in January 2011 to investigate the presence and dynamics of these waves over interior Alaska. This site provides an …

Fluorescence-Guided Optical Coherence Tomography Imaging For Colon Cancer Screening: A Preliminary Mouse Study., Arun K. Iyer

Arun Iyer

A new concept for cancer screening has been preliminarily investigated. A cancer targeting agent loaded with a near-infrared (NIR) dye was topically applied on the tissue to highlight cancer-suspect locations and guide optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging, which was used to further investigate tissue morphology at the micron scale. A pilot study on ApcMin mice has been performed to preliminarily test this new cancer screening approach. As a cancer-targeting agent, poly(epsilon-caprolactone) microparticles (PCLMPs), labeled with a NIR dye and functionalized with an RGD (argenine-glycine-aspartic acid) peptide, were used. This agent recognizes the α(ν)β(3) integrin receptor (ABIR), which is over-expressed by …

Angular-Dependences Of Giant In-Plane And Interlayer Magnetoresistances In Bi2te3 Bulk Single Crystals, Zengji Yue

Zengji Yue

Angular-dependences of in-plane and interlayer magnetotransport properties in n-type Bi2Te3 bulk single crystals have been investigated over a broad range of temperatures and magnetic fields. Giant in-plane magnetoresistances (MR) of up to 500% and interlayer MR of up to 200% were observed, respectively. The observed MR exhibits quadratic field dependences in low fields and linear field dependences in high fields. The angular dependences of the MR represent strong anisotropy and twofold oscillations. The observed angle-dependent, giant MR might result from the strong coulomb scattering of electrons as well as impurity scattering in the bulk conduction bands of n-type Bi2Te3. The …

Learning Hierarchical Representations For Face Verification, Gary B. Huang, Honglak Lee, Erik G. Learned-Miller

Erik G Learned-Miller

Most modern face recognition systems rely on a feature representation given by a hand-crafted image descriptor, such as Local Binary Patterns (LBP), and achieve improved performance by combining several such representations. In this paper, we propose deep learning as a natural source for obtaining additional, complementary representations. To learn features in high-resolution images, we make use of convolutional deep belief networks. Moreover, to take advantage of global structure in an object class, we develop local convolutional restricted Boltzmann machines, a novel convolutional learning model that exploits the global structure by not assuming stationarity of features across the image, while maintaining …

Half-Wits: Software Techniques For Low-Voltage Probabilistic Storage On Microcontrollers With Nor Flash Memory., Mastooreh Salajegheh, Yue Wang, Anxiao Jiang, Erik G. Learned-Miller, Kevin Fu

Erik G Learned-Miller

No abstract provided.

Diffeomorphisms With Global Dominated Splittings Can Not Be Minimal, Pengfei Zhang

Pengfei Zhang

No abstract provided.

Computing Local Constants Of Cm Elliptic Curves, Sunil Chetty, Lung Li

Sunil Chetty

Let E/k be an elliptic curve with CM by O. We determine a formula for (a generalization of) the arithmetic local constant of Mazur-Rubin at almost all primes of good reduction. We apply this formula to the CM curves defined over Q and are able to describe extensions F/Q over which the O-rank of E grows.

Iron(Iii) Tosylate Catalyzed Acylation Of Alcohols, Phenols, And Aldehydes, Ram S. Mohan, Neil J. Baldwin, Anna N. Nord, Brendan D. O’Donnell

Ram S. Mohan

Adaptstar Model: A Climate-Friendly Strategy To Promote Built Environment Sustainability, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Craig Langston

Building adaptive reuse plays a critical role in emissions reduction and supports global climate protection. Thus, the designing of future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. This paper describes the development of a new rating tool known as adaptSTAR, which offers holistic and unified design criteria suitable for assessing the adaptive reuse potential of future buildings. The findings show that criteria can be identified and weighted according to physical, economic, functional, technological, social, legal and political categories to calculate an adaptive reuse star rating. In addition, this paper reports on the first stage …

Improvements In Joint Domain-Range Modeling For Background Subtraction, Manjunath Narayana, Allen Hanson, Erik G. Learned-Miller

Erik G Learned-Miller

In many algorithms for background modeling, a distribution over feature values is modeled at each pixel. These models, however, do not account for the dependencies that may exist among nearby pixels. The joint domain-range kernel density estimate (KDE) model by Sheikh and Shah [ 7 ], which is not a pixel-wise model, represents the background and foreground processes by combining the three color dimensions and two spatial dimensions into a five-dimensional joint space. The Sheikh and Shah model, as we will show, has a peculiar dependence on the size of the image. In contrast, we build three-dimensional color distributions at …

Identifying Bilingual Semantic Neural Representations Across Languages, Augusto Buchweitz, Svetlana V. Shinkareva, Robert A. Mason, Tom M. Mitchell, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Optimizing Memory-Bounded Controllers For Decentralized Pomdps, Christopher Amato, Daniel S. Bernstein, Shlomo Zilberstein

Shlomo Zilberstein

We present a memory-bounded optimization approach for solving infinite-horizon decentralized POMDPs. Policies for each agent are represented by stochastic finite state controllers. We formulate the problem of optimizing these policies as a nonlinear program, leveraging powerful existing nonlinear optimization techniques for solving the problem. While existing solvers only guarantee locally optimal solutions, we show that our formulation produces higher quality controllers than the state-of-the-art approach. We also incorporate a shared source of randomness in the form of a correlation device to further increase solution quality with only a limited increase in space and time. Our experimental results show that nonlinear …

Geomorphic Determinants Of Species Composition Of Alpine Tundra, Glacier National Park, U.S.A., George P. Malanson

George P Malanson

Because the distribution of alpine tundra is associated with spatially limited cold climates, global warming may threaten its local extent or existence. This notion has been challenged, however, based on observations of the diversity of alpine tundra in small areas primarily due to topographic variation. The importance of diversity in temperature or moisture conditions caused by topographic variation is an open question, and we extend this to geomorphology more generally. The extent to which geomorphic variation per se, based on relatively easily assessed indicators, can account for the variation in alpine tundra community composition is analyzed versus the inclusion of …

Efficient Method Of Visual Feature Extraction For Facial Image Detection And Retrieval, Sameem Abdul Kareem

Sameem Abdul Kareem

Due to the significant increase in the already huge collection of digital images that we have today, it has become imperative to find efficient methods for the archival and retrieval of these images. In this research, a content based human facial image detection and retrieval model is proposed for retrieving facial images of humans based on their visual content from an image database. The research proposes a technique of face segmentation based on which a new method of features extraction from the human face is devised. The capability and effectiveness of the color space models (RGB, HSV, and HSI) on …

Evaluation Of Fresh-Water Resources At The Line Hole Wellfield Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography, Scot A. Russell, Lee J. Florea, Chasity L. Stinson

Lee J Florea, PhD, P.G.

A major economic constraint in the Bahamas, and other small carbonates islands world-wide, is the lack of fresh water resources. To better address socio-economic problems on San Salvador Island, the Bahamas, I sought to gain a more detailed understanding of the extent, behavior, and controls on the island’s fresh-water lens using DC electrical resistivity tomography and time-series geochemical data from the Line Hole well field, an inactive source water supply last used in December of 2006. Electrical resistivity profiles were used to image the extent and geologic framework of the fresh water lens in this coastal setting. Time-series geochemical data …

Nonlinear Waves And Solitons On Contours And Closed Surfaces, Andrei Ludu

Andrei Ludu

No abstract provided.

Adaptstar Model: A Climate-Friendly Strategy To Promote Built Environment Sustainability, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Jim Smith

Building adaptive reuse plays a critical role in emissions reduction and supports global climate protection. Thus, the designing of future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. This paper describes the development of a new rating tool known as adaptSTAR, which offers holistic and unified design criteria suitable for assessing the adaptive reuse potential of future buildings. The findings show that criteria can be identified and weighted according to physical, economic, functional, technological, social, legal and political categories to calculate an adaptive reuse star rating. In addition, this paper reports on the first stage …

Positive Trait Item Response Models, Joseph F. Lucke

Joseph Lucke

A new item response model is proposed for which the trait is positive. Three such models, the loglogistic, the log-normal, and the Weibull, are presented along with their item information curves. The data of seven addiction items from the DSM-IV from a study on alcohol addiction is analyzed by these three models using Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The item characteristic curves and item information curves are presented for all three models. The person scores for four item response patterns are presented for the log-logistic model.

Excel Calculator For Assignment/Article "Compound Interest And The Power Of Saving", Richard H. Serlin

Richard H. Serlin

No abstract provided.

Cars And Carbon - Automobiles And European Climate Policy In A Global Context, Theodoros Zachariadis

Theodoros Zachariadis

No abstract provided.

A Remark On "A Nonlinear Mathematical Model Of The Corneal Shape", Ji-Huan He

Ji-Huan He

An analytical method using Taylor series is proposed to solve a nonlinear two-point boundary problem arising in corneal shape. The solution process makes it extremely easy to obtain a relatively accurate solution. The pencil-and-paper solution procedure can be extended to other boundary value problems.

Hydrogen Production From Biogas By Oxy-Reforming: Reaction System Analysis, Aleksandra Terlecka, Wojciech M. Budzianowski

Wojciech Budzianowski

Oxy-reforming is emerging as an interesting alternative to conventional methods of hydrogen generation. The current article characterises this process through analysis of individual reactions: SMR (steam methane reforming), WGS (water gas shift) and CPO (catalytic partial oxidation). Analyses relate to optimisation of thermal conditions thus enabling cost-effectivenes of the process.

Assessing Content Validity Through Correlation And Relevance Tools A Bayesian Randomized Equivalence Experiment, Byron J. Gajewski, Diane K. Boyle, Marjorie Bott, Larry R. Price, Jamie Leopold, Nancy Dunton

Byron J Gajewski

Content validity elicits expert opinion regarding items of a psychometric instrument. Expert opinion can be elicited in many forms: for example, how essential an item is or its relevancy to a domain. This study developed an alternative tool that elicits expert opinion regarding correlations between each item and its respective domain. With 109 Registered Nurse (RN) site coordinators from National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators, we implemented a randomized Bayesian equivalence trial with coordinators completing ‘‘relevance’’ or ‘‘correlation’’ content tools regarding the RN Job Enjoyment Scale. We confirmed our hypothesis that the two tools would result in equivalent content information. …