Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Recurrent Neural Networks And Their Applications To Rna Secondary Structure Inference, Devin Willmott

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are state of the art sequential machine learning tools, but have difficulty learning sequences with long-range dependencies due to the exponential growth or decay of gradients backpropagated through the RNN. Some methods overcome this problem by modifying the standard RNN architecure to force the recurrent weight matrix W to remain orthogonal throughout training. The first half of this thesis presents a novel orthogonal RNN architecture that enforces orthogonality of W by parametrizing with a skew-symmetric matrix via the Cayley transform. We present rules for backpropagation through the Cayley transform, show how to deal with the Cayley …

Spherulitic Growth And Thermodynamic Equilibrium In Multicomponent Elastic Films Under Solvent-Vapor Annealing, Ding Zhao

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

In this dissertation, we will study solvent-vapor induced spherulitic growth in multicomponent thin films modeled as prestressed elastic solids. The interface between the crystalline phase and the amorphous phase will be treated as an evolving thermodynamic system and no diffusion of any component will be considered.

The dissertation is divided into three parts. In Part I we will determine necessary conditions of thermodynamic equilibrium between the two solid phases, the inter- face, and the vapor. In Part II we will derive the thermodynamic driving force for spherulitic growth in multicomponent elastic thin films. In Part III we will investigate the …

A Representation Theorem For Material Tensors Of Textured Thin Sheets With Weak Planar Anisotropy, Yucong Sang

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

Herein we consider material tensors that pertain to thin sheets or thin films, which we model as two-dimensional objects. We assume that the thin sheet in question carries a crystallographic texture characterized by an orientation distribution function defined on the rotation group SO(3), which is almost transversely-isotropic about the sheet normal so that mechanical and physical properties of the thin sheet have weak planar-anisotropy. We present a procedure by which a special orthonormal basis can be determined in each tensor subspace invariant under the action of the orthogonal group O(2). We call members of such special bases irreducible basis tensors …

Homogenization In Perforated Domains And With Soft Inclusions, Brandon C. Russell

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

In this dissertation, we first provide a short introduction to qualitative homogenization of elliptic equations and systems. We collect relevant and known results regarding elliptic equations and systems with rapidly oscillating, periodic coefficients, which is the classical setting in homogenization of elliptic equations and systems. We extend several classical results to the so called case of perforated domains and consider materials reinforced with soft inclusions. We establish quantitative H¹-convergence rates in both settings, and as a result deduce large-scale Lipschitz estimates and Liouville-type estimates for solutions to elliptic systems with rapidly oscillating periodic bounded and measurable coefficients. Finally, …