Computer Sciences Commons^™

Nonparametric Collective Spectral Density Estimation With An Application To Clustering The Brain Signals, Mehdi Maadooliat, Ying Sun, Tianbo Chen

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

In this paper, we develop a method for the simultaneous estimation of spectral density functions (SDFs) for a collection of stationary time series that share some common features. Due to the similarities among the SDFs, the log‐SDF can be represented using a common set of basis functions. The basis shared by the collection of the log‐SDFs is estimated as a low‐dimensional manifold of a large space spanned by a prespecified rich basis. A collective estimation approach pools information and borrows strength across the SDFs to achieve better estimation efficiency. Moreover, each estimated spectral density has a concise representation using the …

Enhancing Value-Based Healthcare With Reconstructability Analysis: Predicting Cost Of Care In Total Hip Replacement, Cecily Corrine Froemke, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Legislative reforms aimed at slowing growth of US healthcare costs are focused on achieving greater value per dollar. To increase value healthcare providers must not only provide high quality care, but deliver this care at a sustainable cost. Predicting risks that may lead to poor outcomes and higher costs enable providers to augment decision making for optimizing patient care and inform the risk stratification necessary in emerging reimbursement models. Healthcare delivery systems are looking at their high volume service lines and identifying variation in cost and outcomes in order to determine the patient factors that are driving this variation and …

Towards Optimal Implementation Of Decentralized Currencies: How To Best Select Probabilities In An Ethereum-Type Proof-Of-Stake Protocol, Thach N. Nguyen, Christian Servin, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Nowadays, most financial transactions are based on a centralized system, when all the transaction records are stored in a central location. This centralization makes the financial system vulnerable to cyber-attacks. A natural way to make the financial system more robust and less vulnerable is to switch to decentralized currencies. Such a transition will also make financial system more transparent. Historically first currency of this type -- bitcoin -- use a large amount of electric energy to mine new coins and is, thus, not scalable to the level of financial system as a whole. A more realistic and less energy-consuming scheme …

Relativistic Effects Can Be Used To Achieve A Universal Square-Root (Or Even Faster) Computation Speedup, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In this paper, we show that special relativity phenomenon can be used to reduce computation time of any algorithm from T to square root of T. For this purpose, we keep computers where they are, but the whole civilization starts moving around the computer -- at an increasing speed, reaching speeds close to the speed of light. A similar square-root speedup can be achieved if we place ourselves near a growing black hole. Combining the two schemes can lead to an even faster speedup: from time T to the 4-th order root of T.

Smartphone-Based Prenatal Education For Parents With Preterm Birth Risk Factors, U. Olivia Kim, K. Barnekow, Sheikh Iqbal Ahamed, S. Dreier, C. Jones, M. Taylor, Md Kamrul Hasan, M. A. Basir

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Objective

To develop an educational mobile application (app) for expectant parents diagnosed with risk factors for premature birth.

Methods

Parent and medical advisory panels delineated the vision for the app. The app helps prepare for preterm birth. For pilot testing, obstetricians offered the app between 18–22 weeks gestational age to English speaking parents with risk factors for preterm birth. After 4 weeks of use, each participant completed a questionnaire. The software tracked topics accessed and duration of use.

Results

For pilot testing, 31 participants were recruited and 28 completed the questionnaire. After app utilization, participants reported heightened awareness of preterm …

Using Magic In Computing Education And Outreach, Ronald I. Greenberg, Dale F. Reed

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This special session explores the use of magic tricks based on computer science ideas; magic tricks help grab students' attention and can motivate them to invest more deeply in underlying CS concepts. Error detection ideas long used by computer scientists provide a particularly rich basis for working such "magic'', with a CS Unplugged parity check activity being a notable example. Prior work has shown that one can perform much more sophisticated tricks than the relatively well-known CS Unplugged activity, and these tricks can motivate analyses across a wide variety of computer science concepts and are relevant to learning objectives across …

The Chapman Bone Algorithm: A Diagnostic Alternative For The Evaluation Of Osteoporosis, Elise Levesque, Anton Ketterer, Wajiha Memon, Cameron James, Noah Barrett, Cyril Rakovski, Frank Frisch

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Osteoporosis is the most common metabolic bone disease and goes largely undiagnosed throughout the world, due to the inaccessibility of DXA machines. Multivariate analyses of serum bone turnover markers were evaluated in 226 Orange County, California, residents with the intent to determine if serum osteocalcin and serum pyridinoline cross-links could be used to detect the onset of osteoporosis as effectively as a DXA scan. Descriptive analyses of the demographic and lab characteristics of the participants were performed through frequency, means and standard deviation estimations. We implemented logistic regression modeling to find the best classification algorithm for osteoporosis. All calculations and …

A Symmetry-Based Explanation Of The Main Idea Behind Chubanov's Linear Programming Algorithm, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich, Thongchai Dumrongpokaphan

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Many important real-life optimization problems can be described as optimizing a linear objective function under linear constraints -- i.e., as a linear programming problem. This problem is known to be not easy to solve. Reasonably natural algorithms -- such as iterative constraint satisfaction or simplex method -- often require exponential time. There exist efficient polynomial-time algorithms, but these algorithms are complicated and not very intuitive. Also, in contrast to many practical problems which can be computed faster by using parallel computers, linear programming has been proven to be the most difficult to parallelize. Recently, Sergei Chubanov proposed a modification of …

Semicontinuity Of Betweenness Functions, Paul Bankston, Aisling Mccluskey, Richard J. Smith

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

A ternary relational structure〈X,[⋅,⋅,⋅]〉, interpreting a notion of betweenness, gives rise to the family of intervals, with interval [a,b] being defined as the set of elements of X between a and b. Under very reasonable circumstances, X is also equipped with some topological structure, in such a way that each interval is a closed nonempty subset of X. The question then arises as to the continuity behavior—within the hyperspace context—of the betweenness function {x,y}↦[x,y]. We investigate two broad scenarios: the first involves metric spaces and Menger's betweenness interpretation; the second deals with continua and the subcontinuum interpretation.

The Transmuted Geometric-Quadratic Hazard Rate Distribution: Development, Properties, Characterizations And Applications, Fiaz Ahmad Bhatti, Gholamhossein Hamedani, Mustafa Ç. Korkmaz, Munir Ahmad

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

We propose a five parameter transmuted geometric quadratic hazard rate (TG-QHR) distribution derived from mixture of quadratic hazard rate (QHR), geometric and transmuted distributions via the application of transmuted geometric-G (TG-G) family of Afify et al.(Pak J Statist 32(2), 139-160, 2016). Some of its structural properties are studied. Moments, incomplete moments, inequality measures, residual life functions and some other properties are theoretically taken up. The TG-QHR distribution is characterized via different techniques. Estimates of the parameters for TG-QHR distribution are obtained using maximum likelihood method. The simulation studies are performed on the basis of graphical results to illustrate the performance …

Automatic Knowledge Extraction From Ocr Documents Using Hierarchical Document Analysis, Mohammad Masum, Sai Kosaraju, Tanju Bayramoglu, Girish Modgil, Mingon Kang

Published and Grey Literature from PhD Candidates

Industries can improve their business efficiency by analyzing and extracting relevant knowledge from large numbers of documents. Knowledge extraction manually from large volume of documents is labor intensive, unscalable and challenging. Consequently, there have been a number of attempts to develop intelligent systems to automatically extract relevant knowledge from OCR documents. Moreover, the automatic system can improve the capability of search engine by providing application-specific domain knowledge. However, extracting the efficient information from OCR documents is challenging due to highly unstructured format. In this paper, we propose an efficient framework for a knowledge extraction system that takes keywords based queries …

Why Bohmian Approach To Quantum Econometrics: An Algebraic Explanation, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva, Songsak Sriboonchitta

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Many equations in economics and finance are very complex. As a result, existing methods of solving these equations are very complicated and time-consuming. In many practical situations, more efficient algorithms for solving new complex equations appear when it turns out that these equations can be reduced to equations from other application areas -- equations for which more efficient algorithms are already known. It turns out that some equations in economics and finance can be reduced to equations from physics -- namely, from quantum physics. The resulting approach for solving economic equations is known as quantum econometrics. In quantum physics, …

Empirical Bayesian Approach To Testing Multiple Hypotheses With Separate Priors For Left And Right Alternatives, Naveen K. Bansal, Mehdi Maadooliat, Steven J. Schrodi

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

We consider a multiple hypotheses problem with directional alternatives in a decision theoretic framework. We obtain an empirical Bayes rule subject to a constraint on mixed directional false discovery rate (mdFDR≤α) under the semiparametric setting where the distribution of the test statistic is parametric, but the prior distribution is nonparametric. We proposed separate priors for the left tail and right tail alternatives as it may be required for many applications. The proposed Bayes rule is compared through simulation against rules proposed by Benjamini and Yekutieli and Efron. We illustrate the proposed methodology for two sets of …

Cancerin: A Computational Pipeline To Infer Cancer-Associated Cerna Interaction Networks, Duc Do, Serdar Bozdag

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) inhibit expression of target genes by binding to their RNA transcripts. It has been recently shown that RNA transcripts targeted by the same miRNA could “compete” for the miRNA molecules and thereby indirectly regulate each other. Experimental evidence has suggested that the aberration of such miRNA-mediated interaction between RNAs—called competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) interaction—can play important roles in tumorigenesis. Given the difficulty of deciphering context-specific miRNA binding, and the existence of various gene regulatory factors such as DNA methylation and copy number alteration, inferring context-specific ceRNA interactions accurately is a computationally challenging task. Here we propose a computational …

Preliminary Results Of Bayesian Networks And Reconstructability Analysis Applied To The Electric Grid, Marcus Harris, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reconstructability Analysis (RA) is an analytical approach developed in the systems community that combines graph theory and information theory. Graph theory provides the structure of relations (model of the data) between variables and information theory characterizes the strength and the nature of the relations. RA has three primary approaches to model data: variable based (VB) models without loops (acyclic graphs), VB models with loops (cyclic graphs) and state-based models (nearly always cyclic, individual states specifying model constraints). These models can either be directed or neutral. Directed models focus on a single response variable whereas neutral models focus on all relations …

Reconstructability & Dynamics Of Elementary Cellular Automata, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reconstructability analysis (RA) is a method to determine whether a multivariate relation, defined set- or information-theoretically, is decomposable with or without loss into lower ordinality relations. Set-theoretic RA (SRA) is used to characterize the mappings of elementary cellular automata. The decomposition possible for each mapping w/o loss is a better predictor than the λ parameter (Walker & Ashby, Langton) of chaos, & non-decomposable mappings tend to produce chaos. SRA yields not only the simplest lossless structure but also a vector of losses for all structures, indexed by parameter τ. These losses are analogous to transmissions in information-theoretic RA (IRA). IRA …

A Note On Sum, Difference, Product And Ratio Of Kumaraswamy Random Variables, Avishek Mallick, Indranil Ghosh, Gholamhossein G. Hamedani

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Explicit expressions for the densities of S = X₁ + X₂ , D = X₁ − X₂ , P = X₁X₂ and R= X₁/X₂ are derived when X₁ and X₂ are independent or sub-independent Kumaraswamy random variables. The expressions appear to involve the incomplete gamma functions. Some possible real life scenarios are mentioned in which such quantities might be of interest.

Reality Versus Grant Application Research “Plans”, Linda Burhansstipanov, Linda U. Krebs, Daniel Petereit, Mark Dignan, Sheikh Iqbal Ahamed, Michele Sargent, Krisin Cina, Kimberly Crawford, Doris Thibeault, Simone Bordeaux, Shalini Kanekar, Golam Mushih Tanimul Ahsan, Drew Williams, Ivor D. Addo

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

This article describes the implementation of the American Indian mHealth Smoking Dependence Study focusing on the differences between what was written in the grant application compared to what happened in reality. The study was designed to evaluate a multicomponent intervention involving 256 participants randomly assigned to one of 15 groups. Participants received either a minimal or an intense level of four intervention components: (1) nicotine replacement therapy, (2) precessation counseling, (3) cessation counseling, and (4) mHealth text messaging. The project team met via biweekly webinars as well as one to two in-person meetings per year throughout the study. The project …

Introduction To Reconstructability Analysis, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This talk will introduce Reconstructability Analysis (RA), a data modeling methodology deriving from the 1960s work of Ross Ashby and developed in the systems community in the 1980s and afterwards. RA, based on information theory and graph theory, is a member of the family of methods known as ‘graphical models,’ which also include Bayesian networks and log-linear techniques. It is designed for exploratory modeling, although it can also be used for confirmatory hypothesis testing. RA can discover high ordinality and nonlinear interactions that are not hypothesized in advance. Its conceptual framework illuminates the relationships between wholes and parts, a subject …

Beyond Spatial Autocorrelation: A Novel Approach Using Reconstructability Analysis, David Percy, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Raster data are digital representations of spatial phenomena that are organized into rows and columns that typically have the same dimensions in each direction. They are used to represent image data at any scale. Common raster data are medical images, satellite data, and photos generated by modern smartphones.
Satellites capture reflectance data in specific bands of wavelength that correspond to red, green, blue, and often some infrared and thermal bands. These composite vectors can then be classified into actual land use categories such as forest or water using automated techniques. These classifications are verified on the ground using hand-held sensors. …

Soft Computing Ideas Can Help Earthquake Geophysics, Solymar Ayala Cortez, Aaron A. Velasco, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Earthquakes can be devastating, thus it is important to gain a good understanding of the corresponding geophysical processing. One of the challenges in geophysics is that we cannot directly measure the corresponding deep-earth quantities, we have to rely on expert knowledge, knowledge which often comes in terms of imprecise ("fuzzy") words from natural language. To formalize this knowledge, it is reasonable to use techniques that were specifically designed for such a formalization -- namely, fuzzy techniques, In this paper, we formulate the problem of optimally representing such knowledge. By solving the corresponding optimization problem, we conclude that the optimal representation …

Combinatorial Proofs Of Identities Of Alzer And Prodinger And Some Generalizations, John Engbers, Christopher Stocker

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

We provide combinatorial proofs of identities published by Alzer and Prodinger. These identities include that for integers b, n, and r with b ≥ 1 and n − 1 ≥ r ≥ 0 we have

and for integers b, n, and r with b ≥ 0 and n − 1 ≥ r ≥ 0 we have

Our combinatorial proofs generalize squares to sth powers, and involve generalized Eulerian numbers and generalized Delannoy numbers.

Dynamic Statistical Models For Pyroclastic Density Current Generation At Soufrière Hills Volcano, Robert L. Wolpert, Elaine T. Spiller, Eliza S. Calder

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

To mitigate volcanic hazards from pyroclastic density currents, volcanologists generate hazard maps that provide long-term forecasts of areas of potential impact. Several recent efforts in the field develop new statistical methods for application of flow models to generate fully probabilistic hazard maps that both account for, and quantify, uncertainty. However, a limitation to the use of most statistical hazard models, and a key source of uncertainty within them, is the time-averaged nature of the datasets by which the volcanic activity is statistically characterized. Where the level, or directionality, of volcanic activity frequently changes, e.g., during protracted eruptive episodes, or at …

Impacts Of Simultaneous Multislice Acquisition On Sensitivity And Specificity In Fmri, Benjamin B. Risk, Mary C. Kociuba, Daniel B. Rowe

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Simultaneous multislice (SMS) imaging can be used to decrease the time between acquisition of fMRI volumes, which can increase sensitivity by facilitating the removal of higher-frequency artifacts and boosting effective sample size. The technique requires an additional processing step in which the slices are separated, or unaliased, to recover the whole brain volume. However, this may result in signal “leakage” between aliased locations, i.e., slice “leakage,” and lead to spurious activation (decreased specificity). SMS can also lead to noise amplification, which can reduce the benefits of decreased repetition time. In this study, we evaluate the original slice-GRAPPA (no leak block) …

Preservice Mathematics Teachers' Conceptions And Enactments Of Modeling Standards, Hyunyi Jung, Jill Newton

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Mathematical modeling has been highlighted recently as Common Core State Standards for Mathematics [CCSSM] included Model with Mathematics as one of the Standards for Mathematical Practices [SMP] and a modeling strand in the high school standards. This common aspect of standards across most states in the U.S. intended by CCSSM authors and policy makers seems to mitigate the diverse notions of mathematical modeling. When we observed secondary mathematics preservice teachers [PSTs] who learned about the SMP and used CCSSM modeling standards to plan and enact lessons, however, we noted differences in their interpretations and enactments of the standards, despite their …

Characterizations And Infinite Divisibility Of Certain Recently Introduced Distributions Iv, Gholamhossein G. Hamedani

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Certain characterizations of recently proposed univariate continuous distributions are presented in different directions. This work contains a good number of reintroduced distributions and may serve as a source of preventing the reinvention and/or duplication of the existing distributions in the future.

The Kumaraswamy Marshall-Olkin Log-Logistic Distribution With Application, Selen Cakmakyapan, Gamze Ozel, Yehia Mousa Hussein El Gebaly, Gholamhossein G. Hamedani

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

In this paper, we define and study a new lifetime model called the Kumaraswamy Marshall-Olkin log-logistic distribution. The new model has the advantage of being capable of modeling various shapes of aging and failure criteria. The new model contains some well-known distributions as special cases such as the Marshall-Olkin log-logistic, log-logistic, lomax, Pareto type II and Burr XII distributions. Some of its mathematical properties including explicit expressions for the quantile and generating functions, ordinary moments, skewness, kurtosis are derived. The maximum likelihood estimators of the unknown parameters are obtained. The importance and flexibility of the new model is proved empirically …

Graph Pebbling: Doppelgangers And Lemke Graphs, Mark Powers

17th Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Performance (2018)

Graph pebbling is a mathematical game played on a connected graph. A configuration places a nonnegative number of pebbles on each vertex. A move between a pair of adjacent vertices removes two pebbles from one vertex and places one pebble on the other. A configuration is solvable if a sequence of pebbling moves can be made to place a pebble on any given vertex. The pebbling number of a graph is the minimum number of pebbles so that any configuration is solvable. A graph satisfies the two-pebbling property if any configuration of more than twice the pebbling number minus the …

Quantum Attacks On Modern Cryptography And Post-Quantum Cryptosystems, Zachary Marron

Senior Honors Theses

Cryptography is a critical technology in the modern computing industry, but the security of many cryptosystems relies on the difficulty of mathematical problems such as integer factorization and discrete logarithms. Large quantum computers can solve these problems efficiently, enabling the effective cryptanalysis of many common cryptosystems using such algorithms as Shor’s and Grover’s. If data integrity and security are to be preserved in the future, the algorithms that are vulnerable to quantum cryptanalytic techniques must be phased out in favor of quantum-proof cryptosystems. While quantum computer technology is still developing and is not yet capable of breaking commercial encryption, these …

Economics Of Commitment: Why Giving Away Some Freedom Makes Sense, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva, Mahdokhat Afravi, Genesis Bejarano, Marisol Chacon

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In general, the more freedom we have, the better choices we can make, and thus, the better possible economic outcomes. However, in practice, people often artificially restrict their future options by making a commitment. At first glance, commitments make no economic sense, and so their ubiquity seems puzzling. Our more detailed analysis shows that commitment often makes perfect economic sense: namely, it is related to the way we take future gains and losses into account. With the traditionally assumed exponential discounting, commitment indeed makes no economic sense, but with the practically observed hyperbolic discounting, commitment is indeed often economically beneficial.