Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Statistical Prior For Photo Forensics: Object Removal, Wei Fan, Hany Farid

Computer Science Technical Reports

If we consider photo forensics within a Bayesian framework, then the probability that an image has been manipulated given the results of a forensic test can be expressed as a product of a likelihood term (the probability of a forensic test detecting manipulation given that an image was manipulated) and a prior term (the probability that an image was manipulated). Despite the success of many forensic techniques, the incorporation of a statistical prior has not been previously considered. We describe a framework for incorporating statistical priors into any forensic analysis and specifically address the problem of quantifying the probability that …

What Does Explainable Ai Really Mean? A New Conceptualization Of Perspectives, Derek Doran, Sarah Schulz, Tarek R. Besold

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

We characterize three notions of explainable AI that cut across research fields: opaque systems that offer no insight into its algo- rithmic mechanisms; interpretable systems where users can mathemat- ically analyze its algorithmic mechanisms; and comprehensible systems that emit symbols enabling user-driven explanations of how a conclusion is reached. The paper is motivated by a corpus analysis of NIPS, ACL, COGSCI, and ICCV/ECCV paper titles showing differences in how work on explainable AI is positioned in various fields. We close by introducing a fourth notion: truly explainable systems, where automated reasoning is central to output crafted explanations without requiring human …

Estimation Of A Noisy Subordinated Brownian Motion Via Two-Scales Power Variations, José E. Figueroa-López, Kiseop Lee

Mathematics Faculty Publications

High frequency based estimation methods for a semiparametric pure-jump subordinated Brownian motion exposed to a small additive microstructure noise are developed building on the two-scales realized variations approach originally developed by Zhang et al. (2005) for the estimation of the integrated variance of a continuous Itô process. The proposed estimators are shown to be robust against the noise and, surprisingly, to attain better rates of convergence than their precursors, method of moment estimators, even in the absence of microstructure noise. Our main results give approximate optimal values for the number K of regular sparse subsamples to be used, which is …

The Planet, 2017, Fall, Keiko Betcher, Huxley College Of The Environment, Western Washington University

The Planet

No abstract provided.

The Sponge Microbiome Project, Lucas Moitinho-Silva, Shaun Nielsen, Amnon Amir, Antonio Gonzalez, Gail Ackermann, Carlo Cerrano, Carmen Astudillo-Garcia, Cole Easson, Detmer Sipkema, Fang Liu, Georg Steinert, Giorgos Kotoulas, Grace Mccormack, Guofang Feng, James J. Bell, Jan Vicente, Johannes R. Bjork, Jose M. Montoya, Julie B. Olson, Julie Reveillaud, Laura Steindler, Mari-Carmen Pineda, Maria V. Marra, Micha Ilan, Michael W. Taylor, Paraskevi Polymenakou, Patrick M. Erwin, Peter J. Schupp, Rachel L. Simister, Rob Knight, Robert W. Thacker, Rodrigo Costa, Russell T. Hill, Susanna Lopez-Legentil, Thanos Dailianis, Timothy Ravasi, Ute Hentschel, Zhiyong Li, Nicole S. Webster, Torsten Thomas

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Marine sponges (phylum Porifera) are a diverse, phylogenetically deep-branching clade known for forming intimate partnerships with complex communities of microorganisms. To date, 16S rRNA gene sequencing studies have largely utilised different extraction and amplification methodologies to target the microbial communities of a limited number of sponge species, severely limiting comparative analyses of sponge microbial diversity and structure. Here, we provide an extensive and standardised dataset that will facilitate sponge microbiome comparisons across large spatial, temporal, and environmental scales. Samples from marine sponges (n = 3569 specimens), seawater (n = 370), marine sediments (n = 65) and other …

Assessing A Multi-Platform Data Fusion Technique In Capturing Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Heterogeneous Dryland Ecosystems In Topographically Complex Terrain, Peter J. Olsoy, Jessica Mitchell, Nancy F. Glenn, Alejandro N. Flores

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Water-limited ecosystems encompass approximately 40% of terrestrial land mass and play a critical role in modulating Earth’s climate and provisioning ecosystem services to humanity. Spaceborne remote sensing is a critical tool for characterizing ecohydrologic patterns and advancing the understanding of the interactions between atmospheric forcings and ecohydrologic responses. Fine to medium scale spatial and temporal resolutions are needed to capture the spatial heterogeneity and the temporally intermittent response of these ecosystems to environmental forcings. Techniques combining complementary remote sensing datasets have been developed, but the heterogeneous nature of these regions present significant challenges. Here we investigate the capacity of one …

A Framework For Recommendation Of Highly Popular News Lacking Social Feedback, Nuno Moniz, Luís Torgo, Magdalini Eirinaki, Paula Branco

Faculty Publications

Social media is rapidly becoming the main source of news consumption for users, raising significant challenges to news aggregation and recommendation tasks. One of these challenges concerns the recommendation of very recent news. To tackle this problem, approaches to the prediction of news popularity have been proposed. In this paper, we study the task of predicting news popularity upon their publication, when social feedback is unavailable or scarce, and to use such predictions to produce news rankings. Unlike previous work, we focus on accurately predicting highly popular news. Such cases are rare, causing known issues for standard prediction models and …

Droughtscape- Fall 2017, National Drought Mitigation Center

Droughtscape, Quarterly Newsletter of NDMC, 2007-

CONTENTS

Drought worsens in northern Great Plains............. 2

Drought takes toll on ag, livestock................ 4

Study examines ag advisors’ views on climate change............... 5

New drought definition could lead to better preparation.............. 6

McCook takes big steps toward drought readiness.............8

Group hopes to map drought planning process for Korea............9

South African researcher working to forecast drought.................. 10

Cultivating drought preparedness in South Africa.............. 12

A Hierarchical Approach For Creating Electrically Conductive Network Structure In Polyurethane Nanocomposites Using A Hybrid Of Graphene Nanoplatelets, Carbon Black And Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes, Pashupati Pokharel, Dequan Xiao, Folarin Erogbogbo, Ozgur Keles, Dai Soo Lee

Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Faculty Publications

Hierarchical organization of carbon nanomaterials is the best strategy to combine desirable factors and synergistically impart mechanical and electrical properties to polymers. Here, we investigate the relaxation behavior of carbon nanofillers filled polyurethane (PU) with special reference to particle size and aspect ratio, filler morphology, filler loading to understand the conductive network formation of fillers in the PU matrix. Typically, an addition of 2 wt% hybrid fillers of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs), conductive carbon black (CB) and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in PU at 1:1:2 mass ratio (GCM112-PU2) showed lowest surface resistivity ~10^6.8 ohm/sq along with highest improved mechanical properties. …

Sasakian Manifolds With Purely Transversal Bach Tensor, Amalendu Ghosh, Ramesh Sharma

Mathematics Faculty Publications

We show that a (2n + 1)-dimensional Sasakian manifold (M, g) with a purely transversal Bach tensor has constant scalar curvature ≥2n(2n+1), equality holding if and only if (M, g) is Einstein. For dimension 3, M is locally isometric to the unit sphere S³. For dimension 5, if in addition (M, g) is complete, then it has positive Ricci curvature and is compact with finite fundamental group π₁(M).

Geology Of The Middle Member Of The Bakken Formation In Divide County, North Dakota, Mandy Brewer

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

The Upper Devonian-Lower Mississippian Bakken Formation of Williston Basin is a large unconventional oil and gas play consisting of a lower shale member, a middle member, and an upper shale member. The middle member is a production target because it contains porosity and petroleum expelled from the shale members around it. Variable production and sweet spots of the Bakken in the study area of Divide County, ND and 15 miles around Divide County in the USA prompted a closer look at middle member Bakken sediments. For this study, 606 wells were correlated and thin sections from two wells located 10.17 …

The Infosys Times, Vol. 4, No. 1, St. Cloud State University

The Infosys TIMES

• Success Story: Internship Opportunity Through Scholarship, Kayla Jansen
• Quantum Information Systems Grant
• Commencement Speech,
• Business Computing Research Laboratory, Research on Quantum Information Systems, Erich Rice
• Data Analytics Minor
• Dr. Herath Receives Award from President of Sri Lanka
• TERP10 - SAP Education Services
• Faculty Highlights: Abdullah Abu Hussein, Channa Kumarage
• If you can't stop thinking about it, don't stop working for it!, Utsav Karanjit
• The NSF Scholarship - Benefits & Positives of the Program, Thomas Anderson
• IS 445/545 Application Program Development III, Cullen Anderson
• Alumnus Insight, Brikken Jensen
• IA Students Awarded Scholarship to Attend Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS)
• Exchange Student - …

Ethical Business Practice, Accountability, And Quality Assurance: Primary Drivers For Sustainable Tourism Development In Iceland, Abigail Harrison

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The tourism industry in Iceland has grown exponentially in the last decade, causing changes to the natural landscape and drastically shifting revenue streams in the economy. This rapid growth coupled with the recent development of Iceland’s tourism industry makes it the perfect case study for how to effectively mitigate tourism influxes. This unprecedented rate of growth impels the creation of sustainability measures within this industry in order to ensure a lasting vision of Icelandic tourism in the future. Both the government and private sector have already begun to institute sustainability measures in society and in business. The primary aim of …

The Role Of Young Environmental Activists In Iceland And Furthering Youth Engagement With Environmental Issues, Story Schwantes

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper looks at the role of youth environmental activism in Iceland and how these actors view their work in a country which has long held a reputation as one of the greenest in the world. Much of the credit for that distinction goes not to careful choices, sacrifice, or excellent stewardship but rather to its ideal geography providing massive geothermal energy which Iceland turns into electricity, a clean renewable source. So are there young environmental activists in Iceland, and if so what do they do? Short answer: yes, and they study and talk. The long answer is more complex. …

Energy-Constrained Quantum Communication And Digital Dynamical Decoupling, Haoyu Qi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This is a two-part thesis glued together by an everlasting theme in Quantum Information Science \-- to save the quantum state, or the information stored in it, from unavoidably environment-induced noise. The first part of this thesis studies the ultimate rate of reliably transmitting information, stored in quantum systems, through a noisy evolution. Specifically, we consider communication over optical links, upon which future inter-city quantum communication networks will be built. We show how to treat the infinite-dimensional bosonic system rigorously and establish the theory of energy-constrained private and quantum communication over quantum channels. Our result represents important progress in the …

Ribonucleoprotein Purification And Characterization Using Rna Mango, Shanker Shyam S. Panchapakesan, Matthew L. Ferguson, Eric J. Hayden, Xin Chen, Aaron A. Hoskins, Peter J. Unrau

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The characterization of RNA–protein complexes (RNPs) is a difficult but increasingly important problem in modern biology. By combining the compact RNA Mango aptamer with a fluorogenic thiazole orange desthiobiotin (TO1-Dtb or TO3-Dtb) ligand, we have created an RNA tagging system that simplifies the purification and subsequent characterization of endogenous RNPs. Mango-tagged RNP complexes can be immobilized on a streptavidin solid support and recovered in their native state by the addition of free biotin. Furthermore, Mango-based RNP purification can be adapted to different scales of RNP isolation ranging from pull-down assays to the isolation of large amounts of biochemically defined cellular …

Spatiotemporal Subspace Feature Tracking By Mining Discriminatory Characteristics, Richard D. Appiah

Doctoral Dissertations

Recent advancements in data collection technologies have made it possible to collect heterogeneous data at complex levels of abstraction, and at an alarming pace and volume. Data mining, and most recently data science seek to discover hidden patterns and insights from these data by employing a variety of knowledge discovery techniques. At the core of these techniques is the selection and use of features, variables or properties upon which the data were acquired to facilitate effective data modeling. Selecting relevant features in data modeling is critical to ensure an overall model accuracy and optimal predictive performance of future effects. The …

Increased Birth Weight Is Associated With Altered Gene Expression In Neonatal Foreskin, Leryn J. Reynolds, Rebecca I. Pollack, Richard J. Charnigo, Cetewayo S. Rashid, Arnold J. Stromberg, Shu Shen, John O'Brien, Kevin J. Pearson

Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences Faculty Publications

Elevated birth weight is linked to glucose intolerance and obesity health-related complications later in life. No studies have examined if infant birth weight is associated with gene expression markers of obesity and inflammation in a tissue that comes directly from the infant following birth. We evaluated the association between birth weight and gene expression on fetal programming of obesity. Foreskin samples were collected following circumcision, and gene expression analyzed comparing the 15% greatest birth weight infants (n = 7) v. the remainder of the cohort (n = 40). Multivariate linear regression models were fit to relate expression levels on differentially …

Every Step You Take, I’Ll Be Watching You: Practical Stepauth-Entication Of Rfid Paths, Kai Bu, Yingjiu Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Path authentication thwarts counterfeits in RFID-based supply chains. Its motivation is that tagged products taking invalid paths are likely faked and injected by adversaries at certain supply chain partners/steps. Existing solutions are path-grained in that they simply regard a product as genuine if it takes any valid path. Furthermore, they enforce distributed authentication by offloading the sets of valid paths to some or all steps from a centralized issuer. This not only imposes network and storage overhead but also leaks transaction privacy. We present StepAuth, the first step-grained path authentication protocol that is practically efficient for authenticating products with strict …

Honors Course Project Investigations, Hannah Falewicz

Honors Program Contracts

For my project I will be completing four physics problems that go beyond the work from class. These problems will be about topics including free fall, binomial theorem, simple harmonic motion, and constant acceleration.

Isolation By Distance, Not Rivers, Control The Distribution Of Termite Species In The Amazonian Rain Forest, Cristian S. Dambros, José W. Morais, Renato A. Azevedo, Nicholas J. Gotelli

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

The spatial distribution of species is affected by dispersal barriers, local environmental conditions and climate. However, the effect of species dispersal and their adaptation to the environment across geographic scales is poorly understood. To investigate the distribution of species from local to broad geographic scales, we sampled termites in 198 transects distributed in 13 sampling grids in the Brazilian Amazonian forest. The sampling grids encompassed an area of 271 500 km2 and included the five major biogeographic regions delimited by Amazonian rivers. Environmental data for each transect were obtained from local measurements and remote sensing. Similar to previous studies, termite …

Environmental Proteomics Reveals Taxonomic And Functional Changes In An Enriched Aquatic Ecosystem, Amanda C. Northrop, Rachel K. Brooks, Aaron M. Ellison, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Bryan A. Ballif

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Aquatic ecosystem enrichment can lead to distinct and irreversible changes to undesirable states. Understanding changes in active microbial community function and composition following organic matter loading in enriched ecosystems can help identify biomarkers of such state changes. In a field experiment, we enriched replicate aquatic ecosystems in the pitchers of the northern pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea. Shotgun metaproteomics using a custom metagenomic database identified proteins, molecular pathways, and contributing microbial taxa that differentiated control ecosystems from those that were enriched. The number of microbial taxa contributing to protein expression was comparable between treatments; however, taxonomic evenness was higher in controls. …

Ideas & Graphs, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

A graph can specify the skeletal structure of an idea, onto which meaning can be added by interpreting the structure.

This paper considers graphs (but not hypergraphs) consisting of four nodes, and suggests meanings that can be associated with several different directed and undirected graphs.

Drawing on Bennett's "systematics," specifically on the Tetrad that systematics offers as a model of 'activity,' the analysis here shows that the Tetrad is versatile model of problem-solving, regulation and control, and other processes.

Why We Should Have Seen That Coming: Comments On Microsoft’S Tay “Experiment,” And Wider Implications, K. W. Miller, Marty J. Wolf, Frances S. Grodzinsky

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper we examine the case of Tay, the Microsoft AI chatbot that was launched in March, 2016. After less than 24 hours, Microsoft shut down the experiment because the chatbot was generating tweets that were judged to be inappropriate since they included racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic language. We contend that the case of Tay illustrates a problem with the very nature of learning software (LS is a term that describes any software that changes its program in response to its interactions) that interacts directly with the public, and the developer’s role and responsibility associated with it. We make …

Counting Crabs: Assessment Of Mangrove Crab Diversity And Density Among Three Sites In Ushongo, Tanzania, Clarasophia Gust

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study assessed the density and diversity of crabs across three mangrove forest zones in Ushongo, Tanzania. The aim was to understand variance in the composition and distribution of mangrove crabs in relation to mangrove tree composition gradients in the area. Sites were measured using a 200m line transect and 40-plot method. Data was also collected from a sand beach habitat to compare to the diversity and distribution of mangrove habitats. Diversity was analyzed using Simpson’s Index of Diversity and an ANOVA test on the average number of species found per plot in each site. Density was analyzed using an …

A Retinal Vessel Detection Approach Based On Shearlet Transform And Indeterminacy Filtering On Fundus Images, Florentin Smarandache, Yanhui Guo, Umit Budak, Abdulkadir Sengur

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

A fundus image is an effective tool for ophthalmologists studying eye diseases. Retinal vessel detection is a significant task in the identification of retinal disease regions. This study presents a retinal vessel detection approach using shearlet transform and indeterminacy filtering. The fundus image’s green channel is mapped in the neutrosophic domain via shearlet transform. The neutrosophic domain images are then filtered with an indeterminacy filter to reduce the indeterminacy information. A neural network classifier is employed to identify the pixels whose inputs are the features in neutrosophic images. The proposed approach is tested on two datasets, and a receiver operating …

Neutrosophic N -Structures Applied To Bck/Bci-Algebras, Florentin Smarandache, Young Bae Jun, Hashem Bordbar

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Neutrosophic N -structures with applications in BCK/BC I-algebras is discussed. The notions of a neutrosophic N -subalgebra and a (closed) neutrosophic N -ideal in a BCK/BC I-algebra are introduced, and several related properties are investigated. Characterizations of a neutrosophic N -subalgebra and a neutrosophic N -ideal are considered, and relations between a neutrosophic N -subalgebra and a neutrosophic N -ideal are stated. Conditions for a neutrosophic N -ideal to be a closed neutrosophic N -ideal are provided.

Systems Biology Approach To Late-Onset Alzheimer's Disease Genome-Wide Association Study Identifies Novel Candidate Genes Validated Using Brain Expression Data And Caenorhabditis Elegans Experiments, Shubhabrata Mukherjee, Joshua C. Russell, Daniel T. Carr, Jeremy D. Burgess, Mariet Allen, Daniel J. Serie, Kevin L. Boehme, John S. K. Kauwe, Adam C. Naj, David W. Fardo, Dennis W. Dickson, Thomas J. Montine, Nilufer Ertekin-Taner, Matt R. Kaeberlein, Paul K. Crane

Biostatistics Faculty Publications

Introduction—We sought to determine whether a systems biology approach may identify novel late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) loci.

Methods—We performed gene-wide association analyses and integrated results with human protein-protein interaction data using network analyses. We performed functional validation on novel genes using a transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans Aβ proteotoxicity model and evaluated novel genes using brain expression data from people with LOAD and other neurodegenerative conditions.

Results—We identified 13 novel candidate LOAD genes outside chromosome 19. Of those, RNA interference knockdowns of the C. elegans orthologs of UBC, NDUFS3, EGR1, and ATP5H were associated with Aβ …

Flagellar Swimming In Viscoelastic Fluids: Role Of Fluid Elastic Stress Revealed By Simulations Based On Experimental Data, Chuanbin Li, Boyang Qin, Arvind Gopinath, Paulo E. Arratia, Becca Thomases, Robert D. Guy

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

Many important biological functions depend on microorganisms' ability to move in viscoelastic fluids such as mucus and wet soil. The effects of fluid elasticity on motility remain poorly understood, partly because the swimmer strokes depend on the properties of the fluid medium, which obfuscates the mechanisms responsible for observed behavioural changes. In this study, we use experimental data on the gaits of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii swimming in Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids as inputs to numerical simulations that decouple the swimmer gait and fluid type in order to isolate the effect of fluid elasticity on swimming. In viscoelastic fluids, cells employing the …

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter, October 2017, University Of Northern Iowa. Iowa Waste Reduction Center.

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter

Inside this Issue:

--- Finish Out 2017 with an On-Site Review
--- Free Resource for Tracking and Recording Paint and Solvent Use
--- November Workshop to Focus on RCRA
--- Brewery Certification Program Wins Commitment to Iowa Award
--- Food Waste Reduction Case Study: Postville, IA