Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Information Theory Problem Description Parser, Gary Brent Hurst

Masters Theses

Data corruption and data loss create huge problems when they occur, so naturally safeguards are usually in place to recover lost data. This often involves allowing less space for data in order to allow space for an encoding that can be used to recover any data that might be lost. The question arises, then, about how to most efficiently implement these safeguards with respect to storage, network bandwidth, or some linear combination of those two things. This work has two main goals for the information theory community: to produce an intuitive-to-use problem description parser that facilitates research in the area, …

An Explicit Asymptotic Approach Applied To Neutrino-Electron Scattering In The Neutrino Transport Problem, Aaron Michael Lackey-Stewart

Masters Theses

This thesis presents results of explicit asymptotic calculations applied to neutrino-electron collisions in the neutrino transport problem; a problem that is generally solved using implicit methods when simulating core collapsed supernovae. It is shown that the explicit asymptotic method provides stable solutions to these stiff systems of equations while also yielding comparative accuracy and time stepping to standard implicit treatments such as Backward Euler, Fixed Point Iteration, and Anderson Accelerated Fixed Point. Because implicit methods are found to be less efficient for large systems of stiff, coupled equations, these results could help cut costs in solving this problem while also …

Improving Conservation And Recreation In Environments Shared By Humans And Bats, Hannah Shapiro

Masters Theses

White-nose syndrome (WNS) has drastically changed how caves are managed in the United States. This disease has killed millions of bats throughout eastern North America and continues to spread westward. Since the discovery of WNS, The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) has acted to slow the spread of the disease through the development of educational programs and the deployment of decontamination measures. Despite the vast array of research on the biological and ecological aspects of bats and WNS, few studies focus on how visitor attitudes and knowledge of management strategies implemented in response to WNS impact the effectiveness of these …

From Drones To Soil Cores: Comprehensive Ecological Assessments For Enhancing Conservation Management Of Urban Forested Natural Areas, Mia T. Wavrek

Masters Theses

Urban natural areas are vegetated areas within cities that exhibit characteristics of non-urban natural areas in that they have relatively high levels of self-regulation (low or no level of management) of natural ecosystem processes and exhibit high taxonomic, genetic, and structural diversity. When these areas take the form of urban parkland, they are often managed for their social benefits to urban residents, while their ecological potential remains underutilized. Growing interest in enhancing biodiversity conservation in cities has highlighted the importance of improving the ecological planning and management of urban natural areas, particularly forested natural areas. For the variety of agencies …

Carbon Metabolism In Cave Subaerial Biofilms, Victoria E. Frazier

Masters Theses

Subaerial biofilms (SABs) grow at the interface between the atmosphere and rock surfaces in terrestrial and subterranean environments around the world. Multi-colored SABs colonizing relatively dry and nutrient-limited cave surfaces are known to contain microbes putatively involved in chemolithoautotrophic processes using inorganic carbon like carbon dioxide (CO₂) or methane (CH₄). However, the importance of CO₂ and CH₄ to SAB biomass production has not been quantified, the environmental conditions influencing biomass production and diversity have not been thoroughly evaluated, and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope compositions have yet to be determined from epigenic cave SABs. …

Synthesis And Biological Evaluation Of Azide- Tagged Biomimetic Probes For Global Labeling Of The Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Glycerolipidome, Matthew R. Johnson

Masters Theses

Lipid metabolism is an extremely complex, interconnected process that, when dysregulated, is strongly linked to cellular disease states including cancer. Study of these metabolic processes is complicated by the characteristic intricacy of these systems; nonetheless, it is achievable through metabolic labeling. Visualization of biosynthesis is an advantage offered by metabolic labeling through the incorporation of fluorescent tags. In this technique, synthetic probes bearing a clickable tag such as azide are fed into live cells where they are directly incorporated using the native enzymatic and cellular processes to metabolically label lipid products. These labeled lipid products are capable of being studied …

Electron Microprobe In Situ Monazite Dating Of The Slide Lake Shear Zone, Jeremy Leierzapf

Masters Theses

The Colorado mineral belt (CMB) shear zone system records Proterozoic deformation episodes documenting the progressive tectonic accretion of Laurentia. Regional fold formation (D₁ & D₂) is coeval with the ca. 1700 – 1600 Ma Yavapai and Mazatzal orogenies, while Mesoproterozoic sub-vertical shear zones (D₃ & D₄) are a response to 1450 – 1300 Ma intracontinental deformation. The Slide Lake shear zone (SLSZ) is a sub-horizontal shear zone located in the Northern Sawatch Range, central Colorado. Aside from its orientation, the SLSZ records similar deformational structures to other shear zones in the CMB, but there …

Investigating The Ecology And Behavior Of The Indiana Bat And Tri-Colored Bat During Fall Swarming And Spring Staging, Mallory E. Tate

Masters Theses

White-nose syndrome has devastated bat populations across North America since 2005. Due to declines in Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) and tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus) populations across the eastern United States, management prescriptions need to consider all seasons of these species annual cycles. However, data is severely lacking on the two seasons surrounding winter hibernation. These include fall swarming, a time period when bats are mating and preparing for hibernation, and spring staging, when bats are emerging from hibernation and preparing for spring migration. Both periods are critical for successful reproduction and survival following white-nose syndrome infection. …

Dataset And Evaluation Of Self-Supervised Learning For Panoramic Depth Estimation, Ryan Nett

Master's Theses

Depth detection is a very common computer vision problem. It shows up primarily in robotics, automation, or 3D visualization domains, as it is essential for converting images to point clouds. One of the poster child applications is self driving cars. Currently, the best methods for depth detection are either very expensive, like LIDAR, or require precise calibration, like stereo cameras. These costs have given rise to attempts to detect depth from a monocular camera (a single camera). While this is possible, it is harder than LIDAR or stereo methods since depth can't be measured from monocular images, it has to …

Phantom Ocean, Real Impact: Natural Surf Sound Experiments Alter Foraging Activity And Habitat Use Across Taxa, Ryan N. Wardle

Master's Theses

A growing body of research focuses on how background sounds shape and alter critical elements of animals’ lives, such as foraging behavior, habitat use, and ecological interactions (Bradbury & Vehrencamp, 2011; Barber et al., 2010; Kight & Swaddle, 2011; Shannon et al., 2016). Much of this research has centered on the effects of anthropogenic noise (Dominoni et al., 2020; Francis & Barber, 2013; Ortega, 2012; Swaddle et al., 2015), but recent studies have also revealed that natural sound sources can influence animal behavior (Davidson et al., 2017; Le et al., 2019). Natural sounds, such as crashing surf, can create conditions …

Investigation On The Use Of Small Aperture Telescopes For Leo Satellite Orbit Determination, Luis R. Curiel Iii

Master's Theses

The following thesis regards the use of small aperture telescopes for space domain awareness efforts. The rapidly populating space domain was motivation for the development of a new operation scheme to conduct space domain awareness feasibility studies using small telescopes. Two 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescopes at the California Polytechnic State University and the Air Force Research Lab in Kirtland AFB, NM, in conjunction with a dedicated CCD camera and a commercial DSLR camera, were utilized to conduct optical observations on satellites in Earth orbit.

Satellites were imaged during August 2019, and from January 2020 to March 2020, resulting in the collection …

Attentional Parsing Networks, Marcus Karr

Master's Theses

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have dominated the computer vision field since the early 2010s, when deep learning largely replaced previous approaches like hand-crafted feature engineering and hierarchical image parsing. Meanwhile transformer architectures have attained preeminence in natural language processing, and have even begun to supplant CNNs as the state of the art for some computer vision tasks.

This study proposes a novel transformer-based architecture, the attentional parsing network, that reconciles the deep learning and hierarchical image parsing approaches to computer vision. We recast unsupervised image representation as a sequence-to-sequence translation problem where image patches are mapped to successive layers …

Measurement Of Pion-Pion Final State Interactions In Η → Π +Π −Γ With Clas At Jefferson Lab, Torri C. Jeske

Physics Theses & Dissertations

Decays of pseudoscalar mesons proceed from the chiral anomaly, which arises from spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. In the limit of massless quarks (chiral limit), the η → π +π −γ the decay width is determined solely by the box anomaly term in the Wess Zumino Witten Lagrangian. Since the physical quarks are not massless, the decay region of the η meson is far from the chiral limit and thus proper inclusion of the momentum dependence is essential to reproduce the measured decay width. Several theoretical frameworks have been proposed to describe these interactions. We report a new measurement of the …

Conical Orbital Mechanics: A Rework Of Classic Orbit Transfer Mechanics, Cian Anthony Branco

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Simple orbital maneuvers obeying Kepler’s Laws, when taken with respect to Newton’s framework, require considerable time and effort to interpret and understand. Instead of a purely mathematical approach relying on the governing relations, a graphical geometric conceptual representation provides a useful alternative to the physical realities of orbits. Conic sections utilized within the full scope of a modified cone (frustum) were employed to demonstrate and develop a geometric approach to elliptical orbit transformations. The geometric model in-question utilizes the rotation of a plane intersecting the orbital frustum at some angle β (and the change in this angle) in a novel …

Real-Time Action Classification Using Intermediate Skeletal Pose Estimation, Kleanthis Zisis Tegos

Theses and Dissertations

The topic of Human Action Classification has attracted significant interest these past years, which can be attributed to the advancements in deep learning methodologies. Its applications range from robotics to surveillance and automated video categorization, as well as in the healthcare industry. The literature, however, has primarily focused on offline action classification, without significant attention being given to the constraints of an online real-time classifier. Using an intermediate skeletal representation of humans, while convoluted, provides a scalable means of tackling the action classification problem. This project discusses the existing literature, and adapts two of the state-of-the-art approaches for real-time analysis. …

A Fast And Exact Motif Enumeration Algorithm For Dynamic Networks, Abbas Al-Thaedan

Theses and Dissertations

From social to biological networks, prior research in complex networks have demonstrated the importance of the frequency and distribution of different types of motifs to important network functions and properties. A network motif (or graphlet) is defined as a small connected sub-pattern which is over-represented in a network. Network motifs have been widely applied in a wide range of applications, namely biological, social, and technical networks. The counting of the network motif involves expensive enumeration of graph sub-patterns along with the detection of graph isomorphism. In general, network motif detection algorithms are computationally expensive and often designed to operate over …

Biometric Face Skintone Data Augmentation Using A Generative Adversarial Network, Rosalin Dash

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers seek methods to increase the accuracy and efficiency in identifying an individual using facial biometric systems. Factors like skin color, which may affect the accuracy of facial recognition, need to be investigated further. To analyze the impact of race with respect to skin color of face on biometric systems, we focused on generating a dataset with uniformly distributed images of different skin tones while preserving identities. Deep learning neural network architectures like the generative adversarial network (GAN) focus on modifying only certain features of the face like the color of the skin. In our experimental approach, we implemented a …

Sediment Oxygen Demand And Stoichiometry Of Irl Nutrient Fluxes, Iulia Bibire

Theses and Dissertations

Eutrophication of coastal systems has become a prominent global issue with a variety of detrimental effects, one of these being the shift in the composition of phytoplankton communities often promoting harmful algal blooms (HABs) resulting at least partially from changes to the relative abundance of N:P:Si. This study investigated nutrient fluxes from muck, a fine-grained and organic-rich sediment, and from sand to determine the importance of these sediments with regards to regulating N:P ratios in the water column. Overall sediment oxygen demand (SOD) was used as an indicator of aerobic decomposition and was found to decrease from north to south …

Envrment: Investigating Experience In A Virtual User-Composed Environment, Matthew Key

Master's Theses

Virtual Reality is a technology that has long held society's interest, but has only recently began to reach a critical mass of everyday consumers. The idea of modern VR can be traced back decades, but because of the limitations of the technology (both hardware and software), we are only now exploring its potential. At present, VR can be used for tele-surgery, PTSD therapy, social training, professional meetings, conferences, and much more. It is no longer just an expensive gimmick to go on a momentary field trip; it is a tool, and as with the automobile, personal computer, and smartphone, it …

Rapid Implicit Diagonalization Of Variable-Coefficient Differential Operators Using The Uncertainty Principle, Carley Walker

Master's Theses

We propose to create a new numerical method for a class of time-dependent PDEs (second-order, one space dimension, Dirichlet boundary conditions) that can be used to obtain more accurate and reliable solutions than traditional methods. Previously, it was shown that conventional time-stepping methods could be avoided for time-dependent mathematical models featuring a finite number of homogeneous materials, thus assuming general piecewise constant coefficients. This proposed method will avoid the modeling shortcuts that are traditionally taken, and it will generalize the piecewise constant case of energy diffusion and wave propagation to work for an infinite number of smaller pieces, or a …

Incorporating Shear Resistance Into Debris Flow Triggering Model Statistics, Noah J. Lyman

Master's Theses

Several regions of the Western United States utilize statistical binary classification models to predict and manage debris flow initiation probability after wildfires. As the occurrence of wildfires and large intensity rainfall events increase, so has the frequency in which development occurs in the steep and mountainous terrain where these events arise. This resulting intersection brings with it an increasing need to derive improved results from existing models, or develop new models, to reduce the economic and human impacts that debris flows may bring. Any development or change to these models could also theoretically increase the ease of collection, processing, and …

Hierarchical Aggregation Of Multidimensional Data For Efficient Data Mining, Safaa Khalil Alwajidi

Dissertations

Big data analysis is essential for many smart applications in areas such as connected healthcare, intelligent transportation, human activity recognition, environment, and climate change monitoring. Traditional data mining algorithms do not scale well to big data due to the enormous number of data points and the velocity of their generation. Mining and learning from big data need time and memory efficiency techniques, albeit the cost of possible loss in accuracy. This research focuses on the mining of big data using aggregated data as input. We developed a data structure that is to be used to aggregate data at multiple resolutions. …

On Simes’S Second Conjecture: An Extended Single-Step Simes Test Procedure For Multiple Testing, Matthew G. Hudson

Dissertations

One of the major concerns with multiple tests of significance is controlling the family wise error rate. Various methods have been developed to ensure that the false positive rate be maintained at some prespecified level. One of the most well know being the Bonferroni procedure. Simes presented an improved Bonferroni procedure for testing the global hypothesis that is more powerful and less conservative, especially with positively correlated tests. While Simes’s procedure is more powerful, it does not allow for making inferences on the individual hypotheses. However, the Simes procedure has since become the foundation of many p-value based multiple testing …

On The Local Theory Of Profinite Groups, Mohammad Shatnawi

Dissertations

Let G be a finite group, and H be a subgroup of G. The transfer homomorphism emerges from the natural action of G on the cosets of H. The transfer was first introduced by Schur in 1902 [22] as a construction in group theory, which produce a homomorphism from a finite group G into H/H^' an abelian group where H is a subgroup of G and H' is the derived group of H. One important first application is Burnside’s normal p-complement theorem [5] in 1911, although he did not use the transfer homomorphism explicitly to prove it. …

Mcst : An App For Patron Awareness Of Covid-19 Safety Measures Instituted By Small Businesses, Jorge Torres

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Small businesses across America are having restrictions placed upon them due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those fortunate enough to remain open now face the challenge of trying to generate enough revenue to stay afloat. Small businesses, with their lack of funds, have resorted to listing their safety precautions on their front door to inform patrons. However, viewing these rules would require patrons to leave their homes. Additionally, there is no consistent set of rules being enforced by the government which is dangerous as some patrons may feel that stricter procedures be in place. These inconsistencies and lack of information can …

A Colonized Cop: Indigenous Exclusion And Youth Climate Justice Activism At The United Nations Climate Change Negotiations, Corrie Grosse, Brigid Mark

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Youth activists around the world are demanding urgent climate action from elected leaders. The annual United Nations climate change negotiations, known as COPs, are key sites of global organizing and hope for a comprehensive approach to climate policy. Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews at COP25 in 2019, this research examines youth climate activists’ priorities, frustrations and hopes for creating just climate policy. Youth are disillusioned with the COP process and highlight a variety of ways through which the COP perpetuates colonial power structures that marginalize Indigenous peoples and others fighting for justice. This is intersectional exclusion - the …

Existence And Stability Of The Doubly Nonlinear Anisotropic Parabolic Equation, Huashui Zhan, Zhaosheng Feng

School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper, we are concerned with a doubly nonlinear anisotropic parabolic equation, in which the diffusion coefficient and the variable exponent depend on the time variable t. Under certain conditions, the existence of weak solution is proved by applying the parabolically regularized method. Based on a partial boundary value condition, the stability of weak solution is also investigated.

Jointly Optimizing Sensing Pipelines For Multimodal Mixed Reality Interaction, Ramesh Darshana Rathnayake Kanatta Gamage, Ashen De Silva, Dasun Puwakdandawa, Lakmal Meegahapola, Archan Misra, Indika Perera

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Natural human interactions for Mixed Reality Applications are overwhelmingly multimodal: humans communicate intent and instructions via a combination of visual, aural and gestural cues. However, supporting low-latency and accurate comprehension of such multimodal instructions (MMI), on resource-constrained wearable devices, remains an open challenge, especially as the state-of-the-art comprehension techniques for each individual modality increasingly utilize complex Deep Neural Network models. We demonstrate the possibility of overcoming the core limitation of latency–vs.–accuracy tradeoff by exploiting cross-modal dependencies–i.e., by compensating for the inferior performance of one model with an increased accuracy of more complex model of a different modality. We present a …

Deep Multi-Task Learning For Depression Detection And Prediction In Longitudinal Data, Guansong Pang, Ngoc Thien Anh Pham, Emma Baker, Rebecca Bentley, Anton Van Den Hengel

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Depression is among the most prevalent mental disorders, affecting millions of people of all ages globally. Machine learning techniques have shown effective in enabling automated detection and prediction of depression for early intervention and treatment. However, they are challenged by the relative scarcity of instances of depression in the data. In this work we introduce a novel deep multi-task recurrent neural network to tackle this challenge, in which depression classification is jointly optimized with two auxiliary tasks, namely one-class metric learning and anomaly ranking. The auxiliary tasks introduce an inductive bias that improves the classification model's generalizability on small depression …

Heterogeneous Univariate Outlier Ensembles In Multidimensional Data, Guansong Pang, Longbing Cao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In outlier detection, recent major research has shifted from developing univariate methods to multivariate methods due to the rapid growth of multidimensional data. However, one typical issue of this paradigm shift is that many multidimensional data often mainly contains univariate outliers, in which many features are actually irrelevant. In such cases, multivariate methods are ineffective in identifying such outliers due to the potential biases and the curse of dimensionality brought by irrelevant features. Those univariate outliers might be well detected by applying univariate outlier detectors in individually relevant features. However, it is very challenging to choose a right univariate detector …