Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Super Mario Evolution By The Augmentation Of Topology, Russell A. Autin

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper describes the creation and development of an implementation of the NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) architecture to train an agent to play Super Mario Brothers. Building off of a basic implementation of NEAT, this thesis project shows the process of refining the fitness calculation that ranks the networks in the population and also defines the creation and application of a dataset to train the agent. The use of a dataset to train an agent is a novel idea in the world of reinforcement learning because, generally, reinforcement learning trains an agent to complete a singular task like the …

The Pawn System: How Procedurally Adaptive Webbed Narratives Create Stories, Steven T. Bordelon

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes the design, implementation, and testing of a novel procedural narrative system called the Procedurally Adaptive Webbed Narrative (PAWN) system. PAWN procedurally generates characters and, responding to choices made by the player, produces more responsive characters and relationships involving the player and these narrative agents. Initially, this thesis discusses other interactive narrative types that exist, such as emergent or event-driven narratives, along with their strengths and weaknesses. It then examines each aspect of PAWN, starting with initial actor generation, then moving to the capturing of game events and translating them into logical objects called Occurrences. These Occurrences are …

Comparative Predictive Analysis Of Stock Performance In The Tech Sector, Asaad Sendi

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study compares the performance of deep learning models, including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU), and Transformer, in predicting stock prices across five companies (AAPL, CSCO, META, MSFT, and TSLA) from July 2019 to July 2023. Key findings reveal that GRU models generally exhibit the lowest Mean Absolute Error (MAE), indicating higher precision, particularly notable for CSCO with a remarkably low MAE. While LSTM models often show slightly higher MAE values, they outperform Transformer models in capturing broader trends and variance in stock prices, as evidenced by higher R-squared (R2) values. Transformer models generally exhibit higher MAE …

Choreographing The Rhythms Of Observation: Dynamics For Ranged Observer Bipartite-Unipartite Spatiotemporal (Robust) Networks, Edward A. Holmberg Iv

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Existing network analysis methods struggle to optimize observer placements in dynamic environments with limited visibility. This dissertation introduces the novel ROBUST (Ranged Observer Bipartite-Unipartite SpatioTemporal) framework, offering a significant advancement in modeling, analyzing, and optimizing observer networks within complex spatiotemporal domains. ROBUST leverages a unique bipartite-unipartite approach, distinguishing between observer and observable entities while incorporating spatial constraints and temporal dynamics.

This research extends spatiotemporal network theory by introducing novel graph-based measures, including myopic degree, spatial closeness centrality, and edge length proportion. These measures, coupled with advanced clustering techniques like Proximal Recurrence, provide insights into network structure, resilience, and the effectiveness …

Innovative Rate Design As A Free Market Solution To Climate, Resiliency, And Economic Challenges, Brendan J. Moore

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A century-old problem of electricity rate design is cost-shifting between ratepayers (Wellinghoff, J. & Tong, J., 2015). A much newer cost-shifting example of great and increasing importance happens whenever ratepayer generated “renewable energy” is sold to the grid—all too often, this is accused of being unfairly rewarded (Ritchie, 2016). ProRate resolves both these concerns and ProRate can actually be derived simply from the premise of avoiding “all” cost shifts between ratepayers (Katz, CLEPm Rewards to Arrest Demand Cost-Shifting, 2019; Katz, CLEP5 Rewards to Arrest Energy Cost-Shifting, 2019). Another major problem with the Old Utility Model is the lack of price …

Blade Design And Validation Of Hydrokinetic Turbine To Harvest Water Current Energy, Setare Sadeqi

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The innovative aspect of this research lies in the careful integration of cutting-edge technologies throughout the entire process of designing, fabricating, and testing the carbon fiber propeller for the 3-bladed horizontal axis ocean current turbine (OCT). SolidWorks software played a pivotal role in the initial design phase, enabling a meticulous and precise modeling of the propeller's geometry. The utilization of SolidWorks allowed for a detailed exploration of various design parameters, ensuring that the propeller's structure and form were optimized for performance in ocean current conditions. Moving beyond the realm of virtual design, the choice of carbon fiber as the fabrication …

Modeling Prices In Limit Order Book Using Univariate Hawkes Point Process, Wenqing Jiang

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a time-changed geometric Brownian price model with the univariate Hawkes processes to trace the price changes in a limit order book. Limit order books are the core mechanism for trading in modern financial markets, continuously collecting outstanding buy and sell orders from market participants. The arrival of orders causes fluctuations in prices over time. A Hawkes process is a type of point process that exhibits self-exciting behavior, where the occurrence of one event increases the probability of other events happening in the near future. This makes Hawkes processes well-suited for capturing the clustered arrival patterns of orders …

Towing Tank Trials Of Hydrokinetic Turbine Scale Model To Support Marine Energy System Verification, Shahab Rouhi

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In response to the escalating demand for sustainable energy solutions and the critical reevaluation of conventional fossil fuels due to environmental concerns, this dissertation embarks on a comprehensive exploration of hydrokinetic energy as a promising alternative. The study delves into the underexplored domain of hydrokinetic energy, leveraging innovative methodologies for effective utilization and harnessing, particularly through the development and investigation of hydrokinetic turbines.

In the realm of hydrokinetic energy conversion, our research has exclusively concentrated on horizontal-axis turbines, distinct from other turbine configurations. Noteworthy is the adaptation of a conventional horizontal-axis wind turbine for water currents, revealing enhanced performance through …

Lower Bound On Preserved Flood Duration In Fluvial Bedform Stratigraphy (Experimental Dataset), Robert C. Mahon, Vamsi Ganti, Madeline M. Kelley, Debsmita Das, Victoria Sanchez, Giancarlo Portocarrero, Mayson Fredricks

Lower Bound on Preserved Flood Duration in Fluvial Bedform Stratigraphy (experimental dataset)

This data is collected to assess the role of hydrograph timescale relative to dune migration on the preservation of cross sets in the stratigraphic record. The data presented here are of dune evolution under steady-state conditions, as well as three hydrographs of the same magnitude but varying timescales.

Methodology:

We collected data from four experiments tracking bedform evolution in a 22-m-long, 0.56-m-wide, 0.9-m-deep flume at the University of New Orleans Dynamics of Sedimentation laboratory. We conducted an equilibrium experiment (discharge value 0.027 m3/s) and three flood experiments, which were characterized by a symmetrical flood wave. In all flood experiments, the …

Measuring The Lengths Of Sperm Whales Of The Northern Gulf Of Mexico By Wavelet Analysis Of Their Usual Clicks, George Drouant

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Acoustic recordings of underwater sounds produced by marine mammals present an attractive alternative to costly and logistically complex ship based visual surveys for collecting population data for various species.

The first reported use of underwater acoustic recordings in the long-term monitoring of sperm whale populations was by Ackleh et al. (Ackleh et al., 2012). The paper describes counting sperm whale clicks at different locations to track population changes over time.

Analysis of sperm whale clicks offers additional insight into sperm whale populations. The echo location clicks (usual clicks) of sperm whales can be used to give an estimate of …

Wavelet Compression As An Observational Operator In Data Assimilation Systems For Sea Surface Temperature, Bradley J. Sciacca

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The ocean remains severely under-observed, in part due to its sheer size. Containing nearly billion of water with most of the subsurface being invisible because water is extremely difficult to penetrate using electromagnetic radiation, as is typically used by satellite measuring instruments. For this reason, most observations of the ocean have very low spatial-temporal coverage to get a broad capture of the ocean’s features. However, recent “dense but patchy” data have increased the availability of high-resolution – low spatial coverage observations. These novel data sets have motivated research into multi-scale data assimilation methods. Here, we demonstrate a new assimilation approach …

Spot1356 Black Rock, Robert C. Mahon, Elizabeth J. Trower, Benjamin P. Smith, Tyler A. Lincoln, Juliana Olsen-Valdez, John S. Magyar, Cedric J. Hagen

2D Wave Spectral Data, South Arm, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Data in this folder are produced by a SoFarOcean Spotter wave buoy deployed along the south arm of the Great Salt Lake, near Antelope Island State Park from the period of July 13, 2021 through June 28, 2022, in relatively shallow water, approximately 1.6m.

Spot1328 Meira Spit, Robert C. Mahon, Elizabeth J. Trower, Benjamin P. Smith, Tyler A. Lincoln, Juliana Olsen-Valdez, John S. Magyar, Cedric J. Hagen

2D Wave Spectral Data, South Arm, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Data in this folder are produced by a SoFarOcean Spotter wave buoy deployed along the south arm of the Great Salt Lake, near Antelope Island State Park from the period of July 13, 2021 through June 28, 2022, in relatively shallow water, approximately 1.6m.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Water depths for #1328 (Miera Spit) started at ~1.7 m, but dropped rapidly to 0.9 m on July 15, 2021 and dropped further to ~0.4 m on August 17, 2021. The timing of these rapid water depth changes matches the timing of buoy location changes when the anchor was dragged inshore by waves. When …

Spot1356 Black Rock Derived Data, Robert C. Mahon, Elizabeth J. Trower, Benjamin P. Smith, Tyler A. Lincoln, Juliana Olsen-Valdez, John S. Magyar, Cedric J. Hagen

2D Wave Spectral Data, South Arm, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Data in this folder are produced by a SoFarOcean Spotter wave buoy deployed along the south arm of the Great Salt Lake, near Antelope Island State Park from the period of July 13, 2021 through June 28, 2022, in relatively shallow water, approximately 1.6m.

Spot1328 Meira Spit Derived Data, Robert C. Mahon, Elizabeth J. Trower, Benjamin P. Smith, Tyler A. Lincoln, Juliana Olsen-Valdez, John S. Magyar, Cedric J. Hagen

2D Wave Spectral Data, South Arm, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Data in this folder are produced by a SoFarOcean Spotter wave buoy deployed along the south arm of the Great Salt Lake, near Antelope Island State Park from the period of July 13, 2021 through June 28, 2022, in relatively shallow water, approximately 1.6m.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Water depths for #1328 (Miera Spit) started at ~1.7 m, but dropped rapidly to 0.9 m on July 15, 2021 and dropped further to ~0.4 m on August 17, 2021. The timing of these rapid water depth changes matches the timing of buoy location changes when the anchor was dragged inshore by waves. When …

Analysis Of Forensic Artifacts In Database Memory Using Support Vector Machine, Mahfuzul I. Nissan

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Memory analysis allows forensic investigators to establish a more complete timeline of system activity using a snapshot of main memory (i.e., RAM). Investigators may rely on such analysis to detect malicious activity and understand the scope of what data was exfiltrated. This is of particular interest in the presence of incomplete or untrusted logs, where a privileged user (or an attacker with such capabilities) can altogether bypass or disable logging. In such instances, a forensic investigator can still rely on the fact that data must ultimately be processed in memory, regardless of the information that is recorded in audit logs. …

Synthesis And Electrochemical Characterization Of Alkali Metal Borides As Redox Active Anion Frameworks, Michael R. Shabetai

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Redox activity in intercalation cathodes is commonly attributed to changes in oxidation states of transition metal ions. Recently, a growing body of evidence revealed that the redox activity of oxygen contributes to the capacity of some known cathodes. We focused on designing an oxygen free intercalation cathode with redox-active anions. In order to overcome the entropic driving force for the decomposition of a charged redox active anion cathode, we looked for chemistries with solid (no gases) possible decomposition products. Additionally, the involvement of anions in a network of covalent bonds with shared electrons was considered as a possible way for …

Phosphate Mineralogy And Paragenesis Of The Fletcher Pegmatite, North Groton, New Hampshire, Susanna T. Kreinik

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Investigation of phosphate assemblages selectively collected at the Fletcher Mine pegmatite, North Groton, New Hampshire, yielded eighteen discrete secondary phosphate species. Secondary phases were formed via metasomatic (high temperature) and hydrothermal (low temperature) alteration of primary triphylite and fluorapatite. Mineral associations bear proximal phases known to occur under contrasting conditions, both oxidizing and reducing, suggesting the formation of microenvironments during concomitant mineral generation. Late-stage hydrothermal fluids provide ions taken up in low temperature secondary phases with calcium and magnesium most prevalent in these suites. High iron to manganese ratios in analyzed specimens establish the relative evolution of the pegmatite host. …

Photoproducts And Transformations Of Organic Pollutants In Aquatic Environments, Elizabeth Whisenhant

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The degradation of petroleum-derived organic pollutants in aquatic systems occurs through lengthened exposure to UV and visible light. In this thesis, organic pollutants include crude oil, refined fuels, and plastic particles or films. The photo-oxidation of these pollutants are monitored over natural waters. To characterize the molecular signatures of photo-oxidized petroleum, bench-scale spills of refined fuels and crude oil were irradiated over Alaskan waters. A 4-component fluorescence PARAFAC model revealed a unique feature associated with photo-oxidized refined fuel unlike traditional “microbial”- or “terrestrial-like” components. In contrast, crude oil photolytically decomposed into humic-like components and oxidized aliphatics. FT-ICR MS data corroborated …

Denoising And Deconvolving Sperm Whale Data In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Using Fourier And Wavelet Techniques, Kendal Mccain Leftwich

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The use of underwater acoustics can be an important component in obtaining information from the oceans of the world. It is desirable (but difficult) to compile an acoustic catalog of sounds emitted by various underwater objects to complement optical catalogs. For example, the current visual catalog for whale tail flukes of large marine mammals (whales) can identify even individual whales from their individual fluke characteristics. However, since sperm whales, Physeter microcephalus, do not fluke up when they dive, they cannot be identified in this manner. A corresponding acoustic catalog for sperm whale clicks could be compiled to identify individual …

Tools For Predicting Emulsification Capacity Of Crude Oil Exposed To Sunlight: Impact Of Photoproduced Carboxylic Acids On Emulsion Stability, Chaka Nacaya Brown

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The role of acids in the formation of emulsions from sunlight exposed petroleum is not well understood. To elucidate the impact of sunlight on the formation of emulsions from petroleum, Macondo, its surrogate and NIST 1619b and 2717a were separately exposed to simulated sunlight for up to 48 hours as a film dispersed into a quartz dish, or a film spread on water. Emulsion stability was scored from 0-5. All exposures demonstrated a correlation between emulsion stability and sunlight exposure with no observable emulsification in absence of photoproduction due to sunlight exposure. Aqueous studies of DOC_HC (dissolved organic carbon …

Protein-Protein Interaction Prediction From Language Of Biological Coding, Nayan Howladar

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Protein-protein interactions in a cell are essential to the characterization and performance of various fundamental biological processes. Due to the tedious, resource-expensive, and time-consuming experimental processes, computational techniques to solve protein pair interaction difficulties have emerged as an active research area in bioinformatics. This research seeks to develop an innovative machine learning-based technique that predicts the interaction of a protein pair based on carefully selected input features and exploits information-rich evolutionary information. We developed a protein-protein interaction predictor, PPILS, that leverages the evolutionary knowledge from the protein language model. We examined several distinct neural network architectures: CNN+LSTM, Transformer, Encoder-Decoder, and …

Ocean Wave Prediction And Characterization For Intelligent Maritime Transportation, Pujan Pokhrel

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The national Earth System Prediction (ESPC) initiative aims to develop the predictions
for the next generation predictions of atmosphere, ocean, and sea-ice interactions in the scale of days to decades. This dissertation seeks to demonstrate the methods we can use to improve the ESPC models, especially the ocean prediction model. In the application side of the weather forecasts, this dissertation explores imitation learning with constraints to solve combinatorial optimization problems, focusing on the weather routing of surface vessels. Prediction of ocean waves is essential for various purposes, including vessel routing, ocean energy harvesting, agriculture, etc. Since the machine learning approaches …

Chromosome Number Evolution, Phylogeography, And The Effects Of Climate Change On Species Distributions In Polyploid Plant Systems, Courtney H. Babin

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Polyploidy, a term used to describe organisms with cells having more than two paired sets of chromosomes, is a significant driver of diversification among land plants. Over a century of research has advanced our understanding of polyploidization in some taxa, but polyploid organisms remain understudied. In this dissertation, I investigate chromosome number evolution, phylogeographic structure, genetic differentiation, and the effects of climate change on ploidy level distribution using polyploid plant systems. In the first chapter, I inferred a molecular phylogeny of Allium, an economically important genus that includes cultivated crops and ornamentals, to investigate evolutionary transitions in chromosome number …

Facies Analysis Of Terrebonne Basin Using Vibracores And Chirp Seismic Data, Joseph M. Hankerson

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted in upper and lower Madison Bay as well as Lake Boudreaux in Terrebonne basin located in southcentral Louisiana. This region is part of the recently abandoned Lafourche delta complex (0.6-0.8 kyr). Much of coastal Louisiana is comprised of formerly active delta complexes of the Mississippi River that have undergone subsequent reworking. As more restoration actions are being considered to combat land loss in coastal Louisiana, exploring the framework of a recently abandoned delta complex could aid in these plans. Utilizing core descriptions and CHIRP seismic data, facies analysis was performed to produce cross sections that display …

Parallel Algorithms For Scalable Graph Mining: Applications On Big Data And Machine Learning, Naw Safrin Sattar

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Parallel computing plays a crucial role in processing large-scale graph data. Complex network analysis is an exciting area of research for many applications in different scientific domains e.g., sociology, biology, online media, recommendation systems and many more. Graph mining is an area of interest with diverse problems from different domains of our daily life. Due to the advancement of data and computing technologies, graph data is growing at an enormous rate, for example, the number of links in social networks is growing every millisecond. Machine/Deep learning plays a significant role for technological accomplishments to work with big data in modern …

Synthesis, Derivatives, And Applications Of Structured Nanomaterials, Md Shahidul Islam Khan

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Nanomaterials offer abundant applications not accessible in regular bulk structures. A nanotubular structure (nanoscroll or nanotube) is a 1D architecture with distinct properties varying from that of the parent material. The new structure for example provides more surface area and presents more active sites on the structure exterior, interior, or edges. In this research, different nanotubular materials were targeted including nanopeapods (NPPs), nanoscrolls (NScs), and their various derivatives.

Halloysite nanotubes (HNT) were used as pod materials to grow noble metal NPs in their lumen. The synthesis was done rapidly, within 2 minutes at 55 ^⸰C. This allows the growth …

Levee Seepage Identification From Aerial Images Using Machine Learning, Sofiane Benkara

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Levees protect from natural disasters that can threaten human health, infrastructure, and biological systems by protecting low-lying lands near or below sea level from flooding. However, seepage in those levees undermines their structural integrity, leading to failures. Today the United States has approximately over a hundred thousand miles of levee, many of which are reaching or have surpassed their initial design life. Given the concern, there is a need to develop reliable, rapid, and non-intrusive levee monitoring systems to detect the presence of seepage. This study explores the use of Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) integrated with Discrete Cosine Transform …

Video Games, Grief, And The Character Link System, Nam Nguyen

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Grief can encompass more than just the loss of real-life people. It can be felt with the loss of a pet, changes in daily structure, and even the loss of video game characters. The topic of grief related to video games and video game characters comes at a time when games as a service (GaaS) continue to increase in popularity and the phenomenon where these games also inevitably terminate service. To combat this unique form of grief, the Character LINK System was created as a tool that uses simple natural language processing (NLP) techniques to offer support to the bereaved …

State Estimation—Beyond Gaussian Filtering, Haozhan Meng

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considers the state estimation problems with symmetric Gaussian/asymmetric skew-Gaussian assumption under linear/nonlinear systems. It consists of three parts. The first part proposes a new recursive finite-dimensional exact density filter based on the linear skew-Gaussian system. The second part adopts a skew-symmetric representation (SSR) of distribution for nonlinear skew-Gaussian estimation. The third part gives an optimized Gauss-Hermite quadrature (GHQ) rule for numerical integration with respect to Gaussian integrals and applies it to nonlinear Gaussian filters.

We first develop a linear system model driven by skew-Gaussian processes and present the exact filter for the posterior density with fixed dimensional recursive …