Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Bias-Corrected Bagging In Active Learning With An Actuarial Application, Yangxuan Xu

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The variable annuity (VA) is a modern insurance product that offers certain guaranteed protection and tax-deferred treatment. Because of the inherent complexity of guarantees’ payoff, the closed-form solution of fair market values (FMVs) is often not available. Most insurance companies depend on Monte Carlo (MC) simulation to price the FMVs of these products, which is an extremely computational intensive and time-consuming approach. The metamodeling approach can be used to circumvent the heavy computation.

In the modeling stage, the bagged tree method has proved to outperform other parametric approaches. Also, a bias-corrected (BC) bagging model was tried and showed significant improvement …

A Review Of Statistical Learning Methods With Applications, Natalie R. Masse

Major Papers

Statistical learning refers to a set of tools for modelling and understanding complex datasets. It is a recently developed area in statistics and blends with parallel developments in computer science and, in particular, machine learning. This paper aims to outline some of the key statistical learning methods in the areas of prediction and classification of data. The goal is to discuss the theory and methodology of Ordinary Least Squares Regression, Ridge Regression, Lasso Regression, Logistic Regression, K-Nearest Neighbours method of classification, Linear and Quadratic Discriminant analysis, and Classification Trees. We then discuss the idea of Cross Validation, and demonstrate these …

Investigating Distributions Of Epochs In Wildland Fire Lifetimes, Xinlei Wang

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The objective of my research project is to explore the relationship between variables related to wildland fire and to model distributions of epochs in wildland fire lifetimes. Several distributional families are considered for modeling these epochs, including the exponential distribution, gamma distribution, Weibull distribution and continuous phase-type distribution. I explain each of these distributions in short terms and illustrate how they are fit. Visual results of my exploratory data analysis are illustrated in two parts, data visualization and data modeling, along with my interpretation of each. Since this work is preliminary, I conclude the report with a discussion on what …

Reporting Standards For Machine Learning Research In Type 2 Diabetes, Grace Kang

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

In this project, three people scored 90 papers on machine learning predictive models for type 2 diabetes to assess their adherence to TRIPOD, MI-CLAIM, and DOME reporting guidelines.

The Q-Analogue Of The Extended Generalized Gamma Distribution, Wenhao Chen

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This project introduces a flexible univariate probability model referred to as the q-analogue of the Extended Generalized Gamma (or q-EGG) distribution, which encompasses the majority of the most frequently used continuous distributions, including the gamma, Weibull, logistic, type-1 and type-2 beta, Gaussian, Cauchy, Student-t and F. Closed form representations of its moments and cumulative distribution function are provided. Additionally, computational techniques are proposed for determining estimates of its parameters. Both the method of moments and the maximum likelihood approach are utilized. The effect of each parameter is also graphically illustrated. Certain data sets are modeled with q-EGG distributions; goodness of …

Lecture Note On Delay Differential Equation, Wenfeng Liu

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Delay differential equation is an important field in applied mathematics since it concerns more situations than the ordinary differential equation. Moreover, it makes the equations more applicable to the object's movement in real life.

My project is the lecture note on the delay differential equation provides a basic introduction to the delay differential equation, its application in real life, improving the ordinary differential equation, the primary method and definition for solving the delay differential equation and the use of the way in the ordinary differential equation to estimate the periodic solution to the delay differential equation.

Investigation Of Key Factors To Earthquake Insurance Take-Up Rates In Quebec And British Columbia Households And Prediction Model Building, Yongcheng Jiang

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Maintaining an adequate level of earthquake take-up rate could protect the insurance industry from systemic failure. Past research has shown that British Columbia and Quebec have significant differences in earthquake insurance take-up rate. This report investigates key factors from the structure (default options and various types) of the insurance plan and personal characteristics along with socioeconomic/demographic profiles that affect the demand for earthquake protection in the form of insurance. The report also provides a prediction model for earthquake insurance take-up rate. The results show an importance ranking of key factors of earthquake insurance take up, the most important three are …

Modified Synthesis Of A Photoswitchable Aa-Dd Hemthioindigo-Based Hydrogen Bond Complex, Victoria Chou, Paul Winiarz, James Wisner, Fereshteh Davoud,

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

No abstract provided.

A Qualitative Look Into Repair Practices, Jumana Labib

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This research poster is based on a working research paper which moves beyond the traditional scope of repair and examines the Right to Repair movement from a smaller, more personal lens by detailing the 6 categorical impediments as dubbed by Dr. Alissa Centivany (design, law, economic/business strategy, material asymmetry, informational asymmetry, and social impediments) have continuously inhibited repair and affected repair practices, which has consequently had larger implications (environmental, economic, social, etc.) on ourselves, our objects, and our world. The poster builds upon my research from last year (see "The Right to Repair: (Re)building a better future"), this time pulling …

Generating Light Curves From Simulated Active Galactic Nuclei Data, William Yuan

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are growing supermassive black holes found at the centers of massive galaxies. My research involves gathering data by simulating the light emitted by AGN, and then plotting the simulated light in the form of light curves.

Comparing Computational Methods By Stretching Diatomic Molecules, Aaron Mitchell

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

A comparison of functionals was done by comparing full electron density profiles along the bond axis of H₂ and N₂. Additionally, based on the success of the (HF)-DFT method, the goal of this project was to compare the mRKS method to (HF)-DFT.

Bismuth Binding In Human Metallothionein, Emily M. Toswell

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Bismuth metal is one of the least toxic heavy metals for humans. It is used in a wide variety of applications including organic synthesis, cosmetics and pharmaceutical applications. In biomedicine, bismuth is a therapeutic metal used in metallodrugs such as Pepto Bismol for its antimicrobial and antibacterial properties. Metallothionein (MT) is a cysteine rich protein found in the liver, kidneys, brain and central nervous system. MT can bind a variety of metals including essential metals such as zinc and copper. This research investigates the binding pathway of Bi[EDTA]- with fully metallated Zn₇MT by using mass-spectrometry and UV-vis absorption.

Model Transformations Between Sequence Diagram And Activity Diagram With Qvto, Yutong Xia

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Complex software systems are specified by various models denoting the behavior of the system components, the exchanges of messages and data among components, the intents of the system stakeholders, the flow of system processes, and the structure of the system as a collection of modules.

When such systems are maintained and evolved (e.g. by adding new functionality, fixing bugs, or porting to a new operating environment), one or more of these models are altered. This brings the system specification to an inconsistent state since some models reflect the new behavior while other models were not appropriately evolved.

This research presents …

Functional Structure Of Excess Return And Volatility, Chenxi Zhao

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Capturing the relation between excess returns and volatility can help making better decisions in the stock market in terms of portfolio allocation and assets risk management. This paper takes the data of a minute-by-minute series of S&P500 from January 2009 to January 2021 as the research object and explores the best structural representation for the excess return as a function of the volatility, for a well-known index. This is implemented via regression models for volatility and excess returns. The results reveal that there’s a structural break in the relationship between the excess return and volatility based on the sign of …

Damage Assessment In Aging Structures Using Augmented Reality, Omar Zuhair Awadallah, Ayan Sadhu

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is the assessment of bridges and observation of data regarding these bridges over time to monitor their evolution and detect the presence of any possible damages. However, existing methods to perform structural inspections in bridges are high in cost, time-consuming and risky. Inspectors use expensive equipment to reach a certain area of the bridge to inspect it, and at different heights, this can pose a risk to the inspector’s safety. This study aims to find cheaper, faster, and safer ways to perform structural inspections using augmented reality and artificial intelligence. The developed system uses a machine …

How Can Social Networks Impact Careers In Game Development?, Tongzhang Wang

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The game development industry is one characterized by young workers and fast worker turnover. The popularity of using twitter as a professional tool within the video games industry presents a potentially insightful view port into a professional's informal network. Investigating characteristics of the social networks of newly graduated students in the game development industry may reveal what factors contribute to fast worker turnover and how certain cohorts may face additional barriers.

Using Stable-Isotopes To Determine The Effects Of Land-Use Change On Carbon Storage, Morgan Basile

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Over the last century, there has been drastic conversion of natural vegetation to agriculture. The decomposition of plant tissue is transformed into soil organic matter that is rich in carbon and stored within soil aggregates. This research examines the effects of land-use change on carbon storage by using stable-isotopes of organic matter. The stable-isotopes of organic matter within aggregates will be used to quantify the amount of carbon that has been added to the soil after a change in land-use (e.g. restoration of agricultural land to grassland).

Optimization Of The Synthesis Parameters Of Sapo-34, Adam Honchar

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

A microporous material known as SAPO-34 is a very efficient catalyst in methanol-to-olefins reactions. My project aimed to optimize synthesis parameters of SAPO-34 to reduce crystallization time in order to study the formation mechanism using In-situ NMR spectroscopy. Understanding the crystallization mechanism would allow us to make it more efficient and tailor-made to fit for other applications.

Meteorite Investigation And Classification, Olivia N. Benest

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Several meteorites arrive on Earth every day, but only a small percentage of them are found. They are easiest to spot on deserts or frozen ice. Western has a large number of unclassified meteorites found in the Northwest Africa (NWA) and Oman deserts. These meteorites include chondrites, achondrites, irons, and even Lunar and Martian meteorites. Classifying a meteorite requires detailed examination by optical microscopy, as well as micro X-ray diffraction (µXRD), and Electron Probe Microanalysis (EPMA), to observe their mineralogy (metal, oxide, sulfide, and silicate mineral phases), textures (e.g. chondrules, CAIs) and composition, in order to classify their petrologic type …

Data Preprocessing For Machine Learning Modules, Rawan El Moghrabi

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Data preprocessing is an essential step when building machine learning solutions. It significantly impacts the success of machine learning modules and the output of these algorithms. Typically, data preprocessing is made-up of data sanitization, feature engineering, normalization, and transformation. This paper outlines the data preprocessing methodology implemented for a data-driven predictive maintenance solution. The above-mentioned project entails acquiring historical electrical data from industrial assets and creating a health index indicating each asset's remaining useful life. This solution is built using machine learning algorithms and requires several data processing steps to increase the solution's accuracy and efficiency. In this project, the …

Semantic Analysis Of Stock Market-Related Posts, Jiangqi Cui

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

No abstract provided.

Development Of High-Resolution Meteor Spectra Analysis, Zhangqing Yang

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Meteoroids are often billions of years old and as they ablate and ionize in the atmosphere, they give off light leaving us clues to the history of our solar system. In addition, their presence imposes serious risks to our equipment and astronauts in space. My research deals with analyzing High-Resolution Meteor Spectra, which are obtained by separating the light Meteors give off through a Diffraction Grating. Firstly, as the Meteor’s speed during ablation affects its spectrum, the position, speed, and trajectory of 40 well-tracked Meteors (picked from over 500) were determined using the programs Metal and Mirfit. Then, the spectra …

Simulating And Modelling Adaptive Walks With The Nk Model, Abigail K. Kushnir

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This presentation outlines results obtained by simulating adaptive walks using the NK model. We were interested in how the mutation bias affects the distribution of fitness effects and how we could use our results to form theoretical equations to model the behaviour of a walk. Necessary biological background is also described.

A Kuramoto Model Approach To Predicting Chaotic Systems With Echo State Networks, Sophie Wu, Jackson Howe

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

An Echo State Network (ESN) with an activation function based on the Kuramoto model (Kuramoto ESN) is implemented, which can successfully predict the logistic map for a non-trivial number of time steps. The reservoir in the prediction stage exhibits binary dynamics when a good prediction is made, but the oscillators in the reservoir display a larger variability in states as the ESN’s prediction becomes worse. Analytical approaches to quantify how the Kuramoto ESN’s dynamics relate to its prediction are explored, as well as how the dynamics of the Kuramoto ESN relate to another widely studied physical model, the Ising model.

Producing And Measuring Oscillatory Shear In A Novel Microfluidic Chip, Sanaz Lordfard, Daniel Lorusso, Tamie L. Poepping, Hristo N Nikolov, Kayla Soon, Stephen Sims, Jeffrey Dixon, David Holdsworth

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Purpose: To demonstrate the effectiveness of a novel microfluidic device mimicking oscillatory blood flow, allowing cell biologists to examine how endothelial cells respond to a range of oscillatory shear stress levels.

Methods: The microfluidic chip consists of a circular-shaped reservoir, leading to a rectangular channel that is examined under a microscope. The plunger is connected to a speaker system and oscilloscope, allowing the plunger to apply a range of frequencies (5-60Hz) and voltages (5-10 V, leading to a variety in oscillation amplitudes) to the reservoir region. 1.1 um fluorescent particles diluted in distilled water were used for tracking. Processing was …

Financial Literacy: Self-Evaluation And Reality, Yangsijia Wang

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This study is on the topic of financial literacy, with the data source containing information on clients' demographic information and self-evaluation, change in account value, and trade record, three major problems were investigated: first, whether a client's demographic traits are related to his/her self-evaluation of financial knowledge level; second, does the trading behaviour differ for clients who self-identified as in different financial knowledge groups; and third, do people who self-identified as financially knowledgeable have better investment result. Data manipulation was done using SQL and R. Exploratory analysis including multiple types of plots and proportion tables was used to derive the …

Polymer Translocation Through A Nanopore: Controlling Capture Conformations Using An Electrical Force, Matthew D. Wei

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Solid-state nanopore sensors remain a promising solution to the rising global demand for genome sequencing. These single-molecule sensing technologies require single-file translocation for high resolution and accurate detection. This study uses molecular dynamics-lattice Boltzmann simulations of the capture of a single polymer chain under pressure-driven hydrodynamic flow to investigate a method of increasing the single-file capture and translocation rate. By using a model force of two oppositely electrically charged rings, single-file capture in hydrodynamic flow can be amplified from about 45% to 51.5%. This paper found that the optimal values of force location, force strength, and system pressure/flow velocity are …

Contact Angle & Electrochemical Measurements Of Metallic Atmospheric Corrosion On Copper And Carbon Steel, Jacob J.M. Bunting, Jiju M. Joseph, Heng-Yong Nie, Samantha M. Gateman

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Understanding atmospheric corrosion has been incredibly challenging due to the complex interplay between surface microstructures, environmental variables, and electrochemical processes. The methodology presented is being developed to apply to atmospheric corrosion models of metals and other advanced materials by observing the change in contact angle in situ as a function of corrosion parameters. Performed contact angle measurements on two industrially relevant metals (copper and carbon steel) over a 1 min to 30-day time span to track the change in wettability due to the formation of an air-formed oxide layer (aged) as a function of surface roughness.

Simulating Salience: Developing A Model Of Choice In The Visual Coordination Game, Adib Sedig

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This project is primarily inspired by three papers: Colin Camerer and Xiaomin Li’s (2019 working paper)—Using Visual Salience in Empirical Game Theory, Ryan Oprea’s (2020)—What Makes a Rule Complex?, and Caplin et. al.’s (2011)—Search and Satisficing. Over the summer, I worked towards constructing a model of choice for the visual coordination game that can model player behavior more accurately than traditional game theoretic predictions. It attempts to do so by incorporating a degree of bias towards salience into a cellular automaton search algorithm and utilizing it alongside a sequential search mechanism of satisficing. This …

A Pressure And Stress Study Of Reidite, Gillian G. Noonan

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Zircon is a mineral that can commonly be found in many rocks in the Earth’s crust and other planetary bodies. Meteorite impact sites have also been shown to contain zircon and its high-pressure polymorph, Reidite.