Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Deep Learning (Partly) Demystified, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Successes of deep learning are partly due to appropriate selection of activation function, pooling functions, etc. Most of these choices have been made based on empirical comparison and heuristic ideas. In this paper, we show that many of these choices -- and the surprising success of deep learning in the first place -- can be explained by reasonably simple and natural mathematics.

Twitter And The Magic Pony, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

London-based Magic Pony went from A.I. startup to a multimillion dollar cash-out in 18 months. Was selling to Twitter the right exit strategy?

Dark Matter And No Dark Matter: On The Halo Mass Of Ngc 1052, Duncan Forbes, Adebusola Alabi, Jean Brodie, Aaron Romanowsky

Faculty Publications

The NGC 1052 group, and in particular the discovery of two ultra-diffuse galaxies with very low internal velocity dispersions, has been the subject of much attention recently. Here we present radial velocities for a sample of 77 globular clusters associated with NGC 1052 obtained on the Keck telescope. Their mean velocity and velocity dispersion are consistent with that of the host galaxy. Using a simple tracer mass estimator, we infer the enclosed dynamical mass and dark matter fraction of NGC 1052. Extrapolating our measurements with a Navarro–Frenk–White (NFW) mass profile we infer a total halo mass of 6.2(±0.2) × 1012 …

Conceptual Models For Integer Addition And Subtraction, Nicole M. Wessman-Enzinger, Edward S. Mooney

Faculty Publications - College of Education

In this article, we report the findings of a study conducted with 6 Grade 8 students in the United States. The students posed stories for open number sentences involving addition and subtraction of integers. We analysed the stories posed by the students to build models that describe the conceptual structures behind these posed stories – the conceptual models for integer addition and subtraction. These four conceptual models for thinking about and using integer addition and subtraction include Bookkeeping, Counterbalance, Relativity, and Translation, and are generated from the students’ posed stories. We also provide profiles of conceptual model use for two …

The Graphs That Have Antivoltages Using Groups Of Small Order, Vaidy Sivaraman, Dan Slilaty

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Given a group Γ of order at most six, we characterize the graphs that have Γ-antivoltages and also determine the list of minor-minimal graphs that have no Γ-antivoltage. Our characterizations yield polynomial-time recognition algorithms for such graphs.

Consolidated Climate Markets Mechanism Analysis—Case Studies Of China, Japan, And Taiwan, Jules Chuang, Hsing-Lung Lien, Akemi Kokubo Roche, Pei-Hsuan Liao, Walter Den

Water Resources Science and Technology Faculty Publications

The post-Kyoto Protocol era has seen a transition to focus on the development of a renewable energy (RE) market as a primary instrument to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide. This paper analyses the development of GHG reduction and RE market in China, Japan, and Taiwan that are geographically proximate but socioeconomically diverse, and each plays a different but significant role in the world’s economy. By deploying a consolidated model incorporating the key components of market drivers underlying the goal of achieving GHG reduction, we threaded through the policy- and market-instruments implemented for each of the case studies over the …

Soil Erosion Analysis Of The Monroe County’S Watersheds In Indiana, Danielli De Melo Moura, Jie Shan

Purdue GIS Day

This study was carried out to spatially predict the amount of soil loss (tons/ha/year ) of Monroe County’s watersheds using Geographic Information System (GIS). Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was used to estimate potential soil losses by using information such as rainfall data for calculating the rainfall erosivity (R) , soil map for calculating the soil erodibility (K), digital elevation model for obtaining the topography factor (LS) and vegetation/cropland cover for calculating the cover management factor (C) and support practice factor (P). The result of the analysis depicted that the soil loss rate in Moroe’s watersheds ranges from 0 …

Properly Handling Negative Values In The Calculation Of Binding Constants By Physicochemical Modeling Of Spectroscopic Titration Data, Nathanael P. Kazmierczak, Douglas A. Vander Griend

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

To implement equilibrium hard-modeling of spectroscopic titration data, the analyst must make a variety of crucial data processing choices that address negative absorbance and molar absorptivity values. The efficacy of three such methodological options is evaluated via high-throughput Monte Carlo simulations, root-mean-square error surface mapping, and two mathematical theorems. Accuracy of the calculated binding constant values constitutes the key figure of merit used to compare different data analysis approaches. First, using singular value decomposition to filter the raw absorbance data prior to modeling often reduces the number of negative values involved but has little effect on the calculated binding constant …

Exploring The Law Of Detrital Zircon: La-Icp-Ms And Ca-Tims Geochronology Of Jurassic Forearc Strata, Cook Inlet, Alaska, Usa, Trystan M. Herriott, James L. Crowley, Mark D. Schmitz, Marwan A. Wartes, Robert J. Gillis

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Uranium-lead (U-Pb) geochronology studies commonly employ the law of detrital zircon: A sedimentary rock cannot be older than its youngest zircon. This premise permits maximum depositional ages (MDAs) to be applied in chronostratigraphy, but geochronologic dates are complicated by uncertainty. We conducted laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) and chemical abrasion-thermal ionization mass spectrometry (CA-TIMS) of detrital zircon in forearc strata of southern Alaska (USA) to assess the accuracy of several MDA approaches. Six samples from Middle–Upper Jurassic units are generally replete with youthful zircon and underwent three rounds of analysis: (1) LA-ICP-MS of ∼115 grains, with one date per …

Spatially Extensive Ground‐Penetrating Radar Snow Depth Observations During Nasa's 2017 Snowex Campaign: Comparison With In Situ, Airborne, And Satellite Observations, Hans-Peter Marshall

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Seasonal snow is an important component of Earth's hydrologic cycle and climate system, yet it remains challenging to consistently and accurately measure snow depth and snow water equivalent (SWE) across the range of diverse snowpack conditions that exist on Earth. The NASA SnowEx campaign is focused on addressing the primary gaps in snow remote sensing in order to gain an improved spatiotemporal understanding of this important resource and to further efforts toward a future satellite‐based snow remote sensing mission. Ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) is an efficient and mature approach for measuring snow depth and SWE. We collected ~1.3 million GPR snow …

Capability Of Sentinel-2 Msi Data For Monitoring And Mapping Of Soil Salinity In Dry And Wet Seasons In The Ebinur Lake Region, Xinjiang, China, Jingzhe Wang, Jianli Ding, Danlin Yu, Xuankai Ma, Zipeng Zhang, Xiangyu Ge, Dexiong Teng, Xiaohang Li, Jing Liang, Ivan Lizaga, Xiangyue Chen, Lin Yuan, Yahui Guo

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Soil salinization is one of the most important causes for land degradation and desertification and is an important threat to land management, farming activities, water quality, and sustainable development in arid and semi-arid areas. Soil salinization is often characterized with significant spatiotemporal dynamics. The salt-affected soil is predominant in the Ebinur Lake region in the Northwestern China. However, detailed local soil salinity information is ambiguous at the best due to limited monitoring techniques. Nowadays, the availability of Multi-Spectral Instrument (MSI) onboard Sentinel-2, offers unprecedented perspectives for the monitoring and mapping of soil salinity. The use of MSI data is an …

An Extensible Geospatial Data Framework (Geoedf) For Fair Science, Carol Song, Rajesh Kalyanam, Lan Zhao

Purdue GIS Day

The growing urgency in dealing with the 21st century’s grand challenges associated with increasing population, food and water security, frequently occurring natural disasters, and changing climate demands innovative, collaborative, and multidisciplinary solutions for sustainability and resilience. However, scientific data, especially geospatial data, presents significant barriers to the effective access, use and sharing of data as they come in large volumes, from different sources, and with widely varying formats, resolutions, or annotation schemas that can differ among disciplines or even research groups. This presentation describes a recently funded NSF CSSI project to develop an open source, extensible geospatial data framework (GeoEDF), …

A Generalization Of Schroter's Formula To George Andrews, On His 80th Birthday, James Mclaughlin

Mathematics Faculty Publications

We prove a generalization of Schroter's formula to a product of an arbitrary number of Jacobi triple products. It is then shown that many of the well-known identities involving Jacobi triple products (for example the Quintuple Product Identity, the Septuple Product Identity, and Winquist's Identity) all then follow as special cases of this general identity. Various other general identities, for example certain expansions of (q; q)(infinity) and (q; q)(infinity)(k), k >= 3, as combinations of Jacobi triple products, are also proved.

Forum: Critical Decision Dates For Drought Management In Centraland Northern Great Plains Rangeland, Alexander J. Smart, Keith Harmoney, J. Derek Scasta, Mitchell B. Stephenson, Jerry D. Volesky, Lance T. Vermeire, Jeffrey C. Mosley, Kevin Sedivec, Miranda Meehan, Tonya Haigh, Justin D. Derner, Mitchel P. Mcclaran

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

Ranchers and other land managers of central and northern Great Plains rangelands face recurrent droughts that negatively influence economic returns and environmental resources for ranching enterprises. Accurately estimating annual forage production and initiating drought decision-making actions proactively early in the growing season are both critical to minimize financial losses and degradation to rangeland soil and plant resources. Long-term forage production data sets from Alberta, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming demonstrated that precipitation in April, May, and June (or some combination of these months) robustly predict annual forage production. Growth curves from clipping experiments and ecological site …

Optimization Of Electrospray Ionization For Liquid Chromatography Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry Analysis Of Preservatives In Wood Leachate Matrix, Kukowski Klara, Gysbers Brianna, Stephen Fisher, Alena Kubatova

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Triazoles and 3-iodo-2-propynyl butylcarbamate (IPBC) are commonly used wood preservatives active against a wide range of fungi and bacteria. As they are prone to leaching, their amounts need to be monitored by the industry to determine preservative loss from the products and for environmental impact assessment. Therefore, a liquid chromatography–electrospray–time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC–ESI–TOFMS) method was developed and optimized for simultaneous quantification of triazoles and IPBC in aqueous wood extracts, specifically wood leachate. Analyte pre-concentration on a solid-phase extraction cartridge prior to the analysis yielded > 94% recoveries. ESI method parameters (e.g., solvent system, electrolyte type, electrolyte concentration, capillary and fragmentor voltages) …

Toi-150b And Toi-163b: Two Transiting Hot Jupiters, One Eccentric And One Inflated, Revealed By Tess Near And At The Edge Of The Jwst Cvz, D. Kossakowski, N. Espinoza, R. Brahm, A. Jordán, T. Henning, F. Rojas, M. Kürster, P. Sarkis, M. Schlecker, F. J. Pozuelos, K. Barkaoui, E. Jehin, M. Gillon, E. Matthews, E. P. Horch, D. R. Ciardi, I. J. M. Crossfield, E. Gonzales, S. B. Howell, R. Matson, J. Schlieder, J. Jenkins, G. Ricker, S. Seager, J. N. Winn, J. Li, M. E. Rose, J. C. Smith, S. Dynes, E. Morgan, J. N. Villasenor, D. Charbonneau, T. Jaffe, L. Yu, G. Bakos, W. Bhatti, F. Bouchy, K. A. Collins, K. I. Collins, Z. Csubry, P. Evans, Eric L.N. Jensen, C. Lovis, M. Marmier, L. D. Nielsen, D. Osip, F. Pepe, H. M. Relles, D. Ségransan, A. Shporer, C. Stockdale, V. Suc, O. Turner, S. Udry

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

We present the discovery of TYC9191-519-1b (TOI-150b, TIC 271893367) and HD271181b (TOI-163b, TIC 179317684), two hot Jupiters initially detected using 30-min cadence Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) photometry from Sector 1 and thoroughly characterized through follow-up photometry (CHAT, Hazelwood, LCO/CTIO, El Sauce, TRAPPIST-S), high-resolution spectroscopy (FEROS, CORALIE), and speckle imaging (Gemini/DSSI), confirming the planetary nature of the two signals. A simultaneous joint fit of photometry and radial velocity using a new fitting package juliet reveals that TOI-150b is a 1.254±0.016 RJ⁠, massive (⁠2.61+0.19−0.12 MJ⁠) hot Jupiter in a 5.857-d orbit, while TOI-163b is an inflated (⁠RP = 1.478+0.022−0.029RJ⁠, MP = …

Exploring Planetary Surfaces With Remote Sensing, Donald R. Hood

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Aside from Earth, Mars is the most well-explored planetary body in our solar system. Much has been learned about its geologic past including a history of volcanism, ice ages, and potentially long-lasting liquid water. Much of this knowledge of Mars comes from remote observations of the surface and atmosphere from Mars-orbiting satellites. Such remote observations remain the only way to examine the entirety of Mars’ surface as rovers and landers can only examine small areas. The chapters of this work cover three projects that explore the surface of Mars through a variety of remote sensing methods.

In chapter 1, Gamma-ray …

Tests Of General Relativity With The Binary Black Hole Signals From The Ligo-Virgo Catalog Gwtc-1, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, Marco Cavaglia, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The detection of gravitational waves by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo provides an opportunity to test general relativity in a regime that is inaccessible to traditional astronomical observations and laboratory tests. We present four tests of the consistency of the data with binary black hole gravitational waveforms predicted by general relativity. One test subtracts the best-fit waveform from the data and checks the consistency of the residual with detector noise. The second test checks the consistency of the low- and high-frequency parts of the observed signals. The third test checks that phenomenological deviations introduced in the waveform model (including in …

Numerical, Secondary Big Data Quality Issues, Quality Threshold Establishment, & Guidelines For Journal Policy Development, Anita Lee-Post, Ram Pakath

Marketing & Supply Chain Faculty Publications

An IS researcher may obtain Big Data from primary or secondary data sources. Sometimes, acquiring primary Big Data is infeasible due to availability, accessibility, cost, time, and/or complexity considerations. In this paper, we focus on Big Data-based IS research and discuss ways in which one may, post hoc, establish quality thresholds for numerical Big Data obtained from secondary sources. We also present guidelines for developing journal policies aimed at ensuring the veracity and verifiability of such data when used for research purposes.

Post-Acquisition Processing Confounds In Brain Volumetric Quantification Of White Matter Hyperintensities, Ahmed A. Bahrani, Omar M. Al-Janabi, Erin L. Abner, Shoshana H. Bardach, Richard J. Kryscio, Donna M. Wilcock, Charles D. Smith, Gregory A. Jicha

Neurology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Disparate research sites using identical or near-identical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acquisition techniques often produce results that demonstrate significant variability regarding volumetric quantification of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) in the aging population. The sources of such variability have not previously been fully explored.

NEW METHOD: 3D FLAIR sequences from a group of randomly selected aged subjects were analyzed to identify sources-of-variability in post-acquisition processing that can be problematic when comparing WMH volumetric data across disparate sites. The methods developed focused on standardizing post-acquisition protocol processing methods to develop a protocol with less than 0.5% inter-rater variance.

RESULTS: A series …

Review Of Great Plains Birds, By Larkin Powell, William E. Jensen

The Prairie Naturalist

Biologists who live in the Great Plains of North America know well the general aspersion cast toward our regional home by those unfamiliar with the region and its natural treasures. Larkin Powell alludes to this all-too-common aspersion and diplomatically dispels it in his ornithological showcase of the Great Plains, simply titled Great Plains Birds. The book is a nice, quick read and a well-composed profile of the region’s avian biogeographical history, its disruptions, conservation remedies, examples of basic bird biology, and tips on how to enjoy the bird life on display in this dynamic region. Having been an ornithologist …

Review Of Birds Of Prey Of The East: A Field Guide By Brian K. Wheeler, Janet W. Ng

The Prairie Naturalist

Brian Wheeler’s new field guide, Birds of Prey of the East, is a well-researched, comprehensive field guide to birds of prey found in eastern Canada and United States. This 13- year labor of love reflects a life spent studying the nuances of North American birds of prey, as well as partnerships with fellow enthusiasts who provided detailed range maps and other valuable inputs. Birds of Prey of the East features 72 color plates of 27 species, including 14 plates for the Redtailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), which can be one of the most challenging species to identify in …

What Do You Mean? Research In The Age Of Machines, Arthur J. Boston

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

What Do You Mean?” was an undeniable bop of its era in which Justin Bieber explores the ambiguities of romantic communication. (I pinky promise this will soon make sense for scholarly communication librarians interested in artificial intelligence [AI].) When the single hit airwaves in 2015, there was a meta-debate over what Bieber meant to add to public discourse with lyrics like “What do you mean? Oh, oh, when you nod your head yes, but you wanna say no.” It is unlikely Bieber had consent culture in mind, but the failure of his songwriting team to take into account that some …

What Temporal Resolution Is Required For Remote Sensing Of Regional Aerosol Concentrations Using The Himawari-8 Geostationary Satellite, Miles Sowden, Ute Mueller, David Blake

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Few studies have directly addressed the question of what temporal resolution is required for air quality studies using geostationary remote sensing data. If timescales are too large, there is a risk that events affecting air quality may be missed; and if too small, there is a possibility that large data files may be processed frequently, at significant computing cost and potentially without concomitant improvements in the monitoring of air quality. The problem is particularly significant in sparsely populated regional areas such as the Pilbara in Western Australia, where air quality issues arising from a range of events, dispersed over a …

Spatial Multiplexing Of Squeezed Light By Coherence Diffusion, Jian Sun, (...), Eugeniy E. Mikhailov, Irina Novikova, Et Al.

Arts & Sciences Articles

Spatially splitting nonclassical light beams is in principle prohibited due to noise contamination during beam splitting. We propose a platform based on thermal motion of atoms to realize spatial multiplexing of squeezed light. Light channels of separate spatial modes in an antirelaxation coated vapor cell share the same long-lived atomic coherence jointly created by all channels through the coherent diffusion of atoms, which in turn enhances the individual channel’s nonlinear process responsible for light squeezing. Consequently, it behaves as squeezed light in one optical channel transferring to other distant channels even with laser powers below the threshold for squeezed light …

On The Equality Case Of The Ramanujan Conjecture For Hilbert Modular Forms, Liubomir Chiriac

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The generalized Ramanujan Conjecture for cuspidal unitary automorphic representations π on GL(2) asserts that |av(π)| ≤ 2. We prove that this inequality is strict if π is generated by a CM Hilbert modular form of parallel weight two and v is a finite place of degree one. Equivalently, the Satake parameters of πv are necessarily distinct. We also give examples where the equality case does occur for primes of degree two.

Extraction And Visualization Of Orientation Data From Virtual Geologic Surfaces With Matlab®, Avery J. Welker, John Patrick Hogan, Andreas Eckert

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

High-resolution visualization of surfaces of geologic interest, at a multitude of scales, using 3D point cloud technologies provides an opportunity to analyze spatial relationships of surfaces using orientation data. We present a MATLAB® script that produces planar geologic attitude data (e.g., strike, dip, and dip-direction data) from 3D datasets (e.g., point clouds, 3D scanning). The method utilizes Cartesian coordinates of triangular planar surfaces and converts them into matrices of conventional geologic attitude data. Spatial relationships among data points can be investigated, using polar tangent diagrams, stereographic analysis, or geologic curvature analysis. We utilize this script to create "synthetic" graphical plots …

A Multi-Step Approach To Modeling The 24-Hour Daily Profiles Of Electricity Load Using Daily Splines, Abdelmonaem Jornaz, V. A. Samaranayake

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Forecasting of real-time electricity load has been an important research topic over many years. Electricity load is driven by many factors, including economic conditions and weather. Furthermore, the demand for electricity varies with time, with different hours of the day and different days of the week having an effect on the load. This paper proposes a hybrid load-forecasting method that combines classical time series formulations with cubic splines to model electricity load. It is shown that this approach produces a model capable of making short-term forecasts with reasonable accuracy. In contrast to forecasting models that utilize a multitude of regressor …

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter, November 2019, University Of Northern Iowa. Iowa Waste Reduction Center.

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter

Inside this Issue:

--- IWRC Welcomes Two More Students to the Staff
--- Meet Dre Presswood
--- Meet Maritza Salinas
--- Iowa DNR's New EASY Air System
--- Painter Training Program Featured in UNI Business Magazine
--- Industry News

Natural Resource Condition Assessment, Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, David S. Jones, Roy Cook, John Sovell, Christopher Herron, Jay Benner, Karin Decker, Andrew Beavers, Johannes Beebee, David Weinzimmer, Rob Schorr

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

The National Park Service (NPS) Natural Resource Condition Assessment (NRCA) Program administered by the NPS Water Resources Division evaluates current conditions for important natural resources and resource indicators using primarily existing information and data. NRCAs also report on trends in resource condition when possible, identify critical data gaps, and characterize a general level of confidence for study findings. This NRCA complements historic resource assessments, is multi-disciplinary in scope, employs a hierarchical indicator framework, identifies and develops reference conditions/values for comparison against current conditions, and emphasizes spatial evaluation of conditions and GIS products.

Created in 1996, Tallgrass Prairie National …