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Series

2016

Smith College

Mathematics

Articles 1 - 16 of 16

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Fibonacci Or Quasi-Symmetric Phyllotaxis. Part Ii: Botanical Observations, Stéphane Douady, Christophe Golé Dec 2016

Fibonacci Or Quasi-Symmetric Phyllotaxis. Part Ii: Botanical Observations, Stéphane Douady, Christophe Golé

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

Historically, the study of phyllotaxis was greatly helped by the simple description of botanical patterns by only two integer numbers, namely the number of helices (parastichies) in each direction tiling the plant stem. The use of parastichy num- bers reduced the complexity of the study and created a proliferation of generaliza- tions, among others the simple geometric model of lattices. Unfortunately, these simple descriptive method runs into difficulties when dealing with patterns pre- senting transitions or irregularities. Here, we propose several ways of addressing the imperfections of botanical reality. Using ontogenetic analysis, which follows the step-by-step genesis of the pattern, …

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Fibonacci Or Quasi-Symmetric Phyllotaxis. Part I: Why?, Christophe Golé, Jacques Dumais, Stéphane Douady Dec 2016

Fibonacci Or Quasi-Symmetric Phyllotaxis. Part I: Why?, Christophe Golé, Jacques Dumais, Stéphane Douady

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

The study of phyllotaxis has focused on seeking explanations for the occurrence of consecutive Fibonacci numbers in the number of helices paving the stems of plants in the two opposite directions. Using the disk-accretion model, first introduced by Schwendener and justified by modern biological studies, we observe two dis- tinct types of solutions: the classical Fibonacci-like ones, and also more irregular configurations exhibiting nearly equal number of helices in a quasi-square pack- ing, the quasi-symmetric ones, which are a generalization of the whorled patterns. Defining new geometric tools allowing to work with irregular patterns and local transitions, we provide simple …

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Unfolding Genus-2 Orthogonal Polyhedra With Linear Refinement, Mirela Damian, Erik Demaine, Robin Flatland, Joseph O'Rourke Nov 2016

Unfolding Genus-2 Orthogonal Polyhedra With Linear Refinement, Mirela Damian, Erik Demaine, Robin Flatland, Joseph O'Rourke

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

We show that every orthogonal polyhedron of genus g ≤ 2 can be unfolded without overlap while using only a linear number of orthogonal cuts (parallel to the polyhedron edges). This is the first result on unfolding general orthogonal polyhedra beyond genus- 0. Our unfolding algorithm relies on the existence of at most 2 special leaves in what we call the “unfolding tree” (which ties back to the genus), so unfolding polyhedra of genus 3 and beyond requires new techniques.

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Smoothness Of Subriemannian Isometries, Luca Capogna, Enrico Le Donne Oct 2016

Smoothness Of Subriemannian Isometries, Luca Capogna, Enrico Le Donne

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

We show that the group of isometries (i.e., distance-preserving homeomorphisms) of an equiregular subRiemannian manifold is a finite-dimensional Lie group of smooth transformations. The proof is based on a new PDE argument, in the spirit of harmonic coordinates, establishing that in an arbitrary subRiemannian manifold there exists an open dense subset where all isometries are smooth.

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Bayesian Peer Calibration With Application To Alcohol Use, Miles Q. Ott, Joseph W. Hogan, Krista J. Gile, Crystal Linkletter, Nancy P. Barnett Aug 2016

Bayesian Peer Calibration With Application To Alcohol Use, Miles Q. Ott, Joseph W. Hogan, Krista J. Gile, Crystal Linkletter, Nancy P. Barnett

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

Peers are often able to provide important additional information to supplement self-reported behavioral measures. The study motivating this work collected data on alcohol in a social network formed by college students living in a freshman dormitory. By using two imperfect sources of information (self-reported and peer-reported alcohol consumption), rather than solely self-reports or peer-reports, we are able to gain insight into alcohol consumption on both the population and the individual level, as well as information on the discrepancy of individual peer-reports. We develop a novel Bayesian comparative calibration model for continuous, count and binary outcomes that uses covariate information to …

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Unfolding Convex Polyhedra Via Radially Monotone Cut Trees, Joseph O'Rourke Jul 2016

Unfolding Convex Polyhedra Via Radially Monotone Cut Trees, Joseph O'Rourke

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

A notion of "radially monotone" cut paths is introduced as an effective choice for finding a non-overlapping edge-unfolding of a convex polyhedron. These paths have the property that the two sides of the cut avoid overlap locally as the cut is infinitesimally opened by the curvature at the vertices along the path. It is shown that a class of planar, triangulated convex domains always have a radially monotone spanning forest, a forest that can be found by an essentially greedy algorithm. This algorithm can be mimicked in 3D and applied to polyhedra inscribed in a sphere. Although the algorithm does …

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Splines In Geometry And Topology, Julianna Tymoczko Jul 2016

Splines In Geometry And Topology, Julianna Tymoczko

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

This survey paper describes the role of splines in geometry and topology, emphasizing both similarities and differences from the classical treatment of splines. The exposition is non-technical and contains many examples, with references to more thorough treatments of the subject.

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Regularity For Subelliptic Pde Through Uniform Estimates In Multi-Scale Geometries, Luca Capogna, Giovanna Citti Jul 2016

Regularity For Subelliptic Pde Through Uniform Estimates In Multi-Scale Geometries, Luca Capogna, Giovanna Citti

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

We aim at reviewing and extending a number of recent results addressing stability of certain geometric and analytic estimates in the Riemannian approximation of subRiemannian structures. In particular we extend the recent work of the the authors with Rea (Math Ann 357(3):1175–1198, 2013) and Manfredini (Anal Geom Metric Spaces 1:255–275, 2013) concerning stability of doubling properties, Poincare’ inequalities, Gaussian estimates on heat kernels and Schauder estimates from the Carnot group setting to the general case of Hörmander vector fields.

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A Bayesian Method For Cluster Detection With Application To Five Cancer Sites In Puget Sound, Albert Y. Kim, Jon Wakefield May 2016

A Bayesian Method For Cluster Detection With Application To Five Cancer Sites In Puget Sound, Albert Y. Kim, Jon Wakefield

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

Cluster detection is an important public health endeavor and in this paper we describe and apply a recently developed Bayesian method. Commonly-used approaches are based on so-called scan statistics and suffer from a number of difficulties including how to choose a level of significance and how to deal with the possibility of multiple clusters. The basis of our model is to partition the study region into a set of areas which are either “null” or “non-null”, the latter corresponding to clusters (excess risk) or anti-clusters (reduced risk). We demonstrate the Bayesian method and compare with a popular existing approach, using …

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Generalized Splines On Arbitrary Graphs, Simcha Gilbert, Julianna Tymoczko, Shira Viel Apr 2016

Generalized Splines On Arbitrary Graphs, Simcha Gilbert, Julianna Tymoczko, Shira Viel

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

Let G be a graph whose edges are labeled by ideals of a commutative ring. We introduce a generalized spline, which is a vertex labeling of G by elements of the ring so that the difference between the labels of any two adjacent vertices lies in the corresponding edge ideal. Generalized splines arise naturally in combinatorics (algebraic splines of Billera and others) and in algebraic topology (certain equivariant cohomology rings, described by Goresky, Kottwitz, and MacPherson, among others). The central question of this paper asks when an arbitrary edge-labeled graph has nontrivial generalized splines. The answer is “always”, and we …

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Sticky Seeding In Discrete-Time Reversible-Threshold Networks, Gwen Spencer Mar 2016

Sticky Seeding In Discrete-Time Reversible-Threshold Networks, Gwen Spencer

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

When nodes can repeatedly update their behavior (as in agent-based models from computational social science or repeated-game play settings) the problem of optimal network seeding becomes very complex. For a popular spreading-phenomena model of binary-behavior updating based on thresholds of adoption among neighbors, we consider several planning problems in the design of Sticky Interventions: when adoption decisions are reversible, the planner aims to find a Seed Set where temporary intervention leads to long-term behavior change. We prove that completely converting a network at minimum cost is Ω(ln(OP T ))-hard to approximate and that maximizing conversion subject to a budget is …

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Equilibrium Circulation And Stress Distribution In Viscoelastic Creeping Flow, Joseph A. Biello, Becca Thomases Mar 2016

Equilibrium Circulation And Stress Distribution In Viscoelastic Creeping Flow, Joseph A. Biello, Becca Thomases

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

An analytic, asymptotic approximation of the nonlinear steady-state equations for viscoelastic creeping flow, modeled by the Oldroyd-B equations with polymer stress diffusion, is derived. Near the extensional stagnation point the flow stretches and aligns polymers along the outgoing streamlines of the stagnation point resulting in a stress-island, or birefringent strand. The polymer stress diffusion coefficient is used, both as an asymptotic parameter and a regularization parameter. The structure of the singular part of the polymer stress tensor is a Gaussian aligned with the incoming streamline of the stagnation point a smoothed δ-distribution whose width is proportional to the square-root of …

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A Generalization Of Turaev’S Virtual String Cobracket And Self-Intersections Of Virtual Strings, Patricia Cahn Jan 2016

A Generalization Of Turaev’S Virtual String Cobracket And Self-Intersections Of Virtual Strings, Patricia Cahn

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

Previously we defined an operation µ that generalizes Turaev’s cobracket for loops on a surface. We showed that, in contrast to the cobracket, this operation gives a formula for the minimum number of self-intersections of a loop in a given free homotopy class. In this paper we consider the corresponding question for virtual strings, and conjecture that µ gives a formula for the minimum number of self-intersection points of a virtual string in a given virtual homotopy class. To support the conjecture, we show that µ gives a bound on the minimal self-intersection number of a virtual string which is …

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A Coin Vibrational Motor Swimming At Low Reynolds Number, Alice C. Quillen, Hesam Askari, Douglas H. Kelley, Tamar Friedmann, Patrick W. Oakes Jan 2016

A Coin Vibrational Motor Swimming At Low Reynolds Number, Alice C. Quillen, Hesam Askari, Douglas H. Kelley, Tamar Friedmann, Patrick W. Oakes

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

Low-cost coin vibrational motors, used in haptic feedback, exhibit rotational internal motion inside a rigid case. Because the motor case motion exhibits rotational symmetry, when placed into a fluid such as glycerin, the motor does not swim even though its oscillatory motions induce steady streaming in the fluid. However, a piece of rubber foam stuck to the curved case and giving the motor neutral buoyancy also breaks the rotational symmetry allowing it to swim. We measured a 1 cm diameter coin vibrational motor swimming in glycerin at a speed of a body length in 3 seconds or at 3 mm/s. …

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Unequal Edge Inclusion Probabilities In Link-Tracing Network Sampling With Implications For Respondent-Driven Sampling, Miles Q. Ott, Krista J. Gile Jan 2016

Unequal Edge Inclusion Probabilities In Link-Tracing Network Sampling With Implications For Respondent-Driven Sampling, Miles Q. Ott, Krista J. Gile

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

Respondent-Driven Sampling (RDS) is a widely adopted linktracing sampling design used to draw valid statistical inference from samples of populations for which there is no available sampling frame. RDS estimators rely upon the assumption that each edge (representing a relationship between two individuals) in the underlying network has an equal probability of being sampled. We show that this assumption is violated in even the simplest cases, and that RDS estimators are sensitive to the violation of this assumption.

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Geometric Deformations Of Sodalite Frameworks, Ciprian Borcea, Ileana Streinu Jan 2016

Geometric Deformations Of Sodalite Frameworks, Ciprian Borcea, Ileana Streinu

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

In mathematical crystallography and computational materials science, it is important to infer flexibility properties of framework materials from their geometric representation. We study combinatorial, geometric and kinematic properties for frameworks modeled on sodalite.

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