Mathematics Commons^™

Catalytic Deoxygenation Of Model And Realistic Feeds To Fuel-Like Hydrocarbons Over Supported Nickel-Copper Catalysts, Deyshon Ward, Kazi Javed

Posters-at-the-Capitol

The goal was to make a renewable fuel by using catalysts to remove oxygen molecules from fats. This is a current issue that society faces today because nonrenewable fossil fuels hurt the environment more than they help it. There are two components that make up a heterogeneous catalyst, a support and a reduced metal active phase. The active metal phases Nickel, Palladium, Platinum have been studied in the past on an alumina and carbon supports. We were investigating other supports using Nickel as the active phase component to determine the effect the support has on the catalyst removing oxygen of …

Application And Evaluation Of Lighthouse Technology For Precision Motion Capture, Soumitra Sitole

Masters Theses

This thesis presents the development towards a system that can capture and quantify motion for applications in biomechanical and medical fields demanding precision motion tracking using the lighthouse technology. Commercially known as SteamVR tracking, the lighthouse technology is a motion tracking system developed for virtual reality applications that makes use of patterned infrared light sources to highlight trackers (objects embedded with photodiodes) to obtain their pose or spatial position and orientation. Current motion capture systems such as the camera-based motion capture are expensive and not readily available outside of research labs. This thesis provides a case for low-cost motion capture …

Keyword-Based Patent Citation Prediction Via Information Theory, Farshad Madani, Martin Zwick, Tugrul U. Daim

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Patent citation shows how a technology impacts other inventions, so the number of patent citations (backward citations) is used in many technology prediction studies. Current prediction methods use patent citations, but since it may take a long time till a patent is cited by other inventors, identifying impactful patents based on their citations is not an effective way. The prediction method offered in this article predicts patent citations based on the content of patents. In this research, Reconstructability Analysis (RA), which is based on information theory and graph theory, is applied to predict patent citations based on keywords extracted from …

Yelp’S Review Filtering Algorithm, Yao Yao, Ivelin Angelov, Jack Rasmus-Vorrath, Mooyoung Lee, Daniel W. Engels

SMU Data Science Review

In this paper, we present an analysis of features influencing Yelp's proprietary review filtering algorithm. Classifying or misclassifying reviews as recommended or non-recommended affects average ratings, consumer decisions, and ultimately, business revenue. Our analysis involves systematically sampling and scraping Yelp restaurant reviews. Features are extracted from review metadata and engineered from metrics and scores generated using text classifiers and sentiment analysis. The coefficients of a multivariate logistic regression model were interpreted as quantifications of the relative importance of features in classifying reviews as recommended or non-recommended. The model classified review recommendations with an accuracy of 78%. We found that reviews …

Analysis Of Shanghai Aviation Hub Logistics Competitiveness, Tuo Chen

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Horizontal Integration In The Port Industry In China Challenges And Outlook, Jiren Chen

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Hilbert-Huang Transform: A Theoretical Framework And Applications To Leak Identification In Pressurized Space Modules, Kenneth R. Bundy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Any manned space mission must provide breathable air to its crew. For this reason, air leaks in spacecraft pose a danger to the mission and any astronauts on board. The purpose of this work is twofold: the first is to address the issue of air pressure loss from leaks in spacecraft. Air leaks present a danger to spacecraft crew, and so a method of finding air leaks when they occur is needed. Most leak detection systems localize the leak in some way. Instead, we address the identification of air leaks in a pressurized space module, we aim to determine the …

Developing Optimization Techniques For Logistical Tendering Using Reverse Combinatorial Auctions, Jennifer Kiser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In business-to-business logistical sourcing events, companies regularly use a bidding process known as tendering in the procurement of transportation services from third-party providers. Usually in the form of an auction involving a single buyer and one or more sellers, the buyer must make decisions regarding with which suppliers to partner and how to distribute the transportation lanes and volume among its suppliers; this is equivalent to solving the optimization problem commonly referred to as the Winner Determination Problem. In order to take into account the complexities inherent to the procurement problem, such as considering a supplier’s network, economies of scope, …

Recent Trends In The Frequency And Duration Of Global Floods, Nasser Najibi, Naresh Devineni

Publications and Research

Frequency and duration of floods are analyzed using the global flood database of the Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO) to explore evidence of trends during 1985–2015 at global and latitudinal scales. Three classes of flood duration (i.e., short: 1–7, moderate: 8–20, and long: 21 days and above) are also considered for this analysis. The nonparametric Mann–Kendall trend analysis is used to evaluate three hypotheses addressing potential monotonic trends in the frequency of flood, moments of duration, and frequency of specific flood duration types. We also evaluated if trends could be related to large-scale atmospheric teleconnections using a generalized linear model framework. …

Identifying Prevalent Mathematical Pathways To Engineering In South Carolina, Eliza Gallagher, Christy Brown, D. Andrew Brown, Kristin Kelly Frady, Patrick Bass, Michael A. Matthews, Thomas T. Peters, Robert J. Rabb, Ikhalfani Solan, Ronald W. Welch, Anand K. Gramopadhye

Faculty Publications

National data indicate that initial mathematics course placement in college is a strong predictor of persistence to degree in engineering, with students placed in calculus persisting at nearly twice the rate of those placed below calculus. Within the state of South Carolina, approximately 95% of engineering-intending students who initially place below calculus are from in-state. In order to make systemic change, we are first analyzing system-wide data to identify prevalent educational pathways within the state, and the mathematical milestones along those pathways taken by students in engineering and engineering-related fields. This paper reports preliminary analysis of that data to understand …

Bi-Directional Testing For Change Point Detection In Poisson Processes, Moinak Bhaduri

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Point processes often serve as a natural language to chronicle an event's temporal evolution, and significant changes in the flow, synonymous with non-stationarity, are usually triggered by assignable and frequently preventable causes, often heralding devastating ramifications. Examples include amplified restlessness of a volcano, increased frequencies of airplane crashes, hurricanes, mining mishaps, among others. Guessing these time points of changes, therefore, merits utmost care. Switching the way time traditionally propagates, we posit a new genre of bidirectional tests which, despite a frugal construct, prove to be exceedingly efficient in culling out non-stationarity under a wide spectrum of environments. A journey surveying …

Re-Evaluating Performance Measurement: New Mathematical Methods To Address Common Performance Measurement Challenges, Jordan David Benis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Performance Measurement is an essential discipline for any business. Robust and reliable performance metrics for people, processes, and technologies enable a business to identify and address deficiencies to improve performance and profitability. The complexity of modern operating environments presents real challenges to developing equitable and accurate performance metrics. This thesis explores and develops two new methods to address common challenges encountered in businesses across the world. The first method addresses the challenge of estimating the relative complexity of various tasks by utilizing the Pearson Correlation Coefficient to identify potentially over weighted and under weighted tasks. The second method addresses the …

Multi Self-Adapting Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm (Msapso)., Gerhard Koch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The performance and stability of the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm depends on parameters that are typically tuned manually or adapted based on knowledge from empirical parameter studies. Such parameter selection is ineffectual when faced with a broad range of problem types, which often hinders the adoption of PSO to real world problems. This dissertation develops a dynamic self-optimization approach for the respective parameters (inertia weight, social and cognition). The effects of self-adaption for the optimal balance between superior performance (convergence) and the robustness (divergence) of the algorithm with regard to both simple and complex benchmark functions is investigated. This work …

Near-Optimal Control Of Switched Systems With Continuous-Time Dynamics Using Approximate Dynamic Programming, Tohid Sardarmehni

Mechanical Engineering Research Theses and Dissertations

Optimal control is a control method which provides inputs that minimize a performance index subject to state or input constraints [58]. The existing solutions for finding the exact optimal control solution such as Pontryagin’s minimum principle and dynamic programming suffer from curse of dimensionality in high order dynamical systems. One remedy for this problem is finding near optimal solution instead of the exact optimal solution to avoid curse of dimensionality [31]. A method for finding the approximate optimal solution is through Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) methods which are discussed in the subsequent chapters.

In this dissertation, optimal switching in switched …

A Multi-Step Nonlinear Dimension-Reduction Approach With Applications To Bigdata, R. Krishnan, V. A. Samaranayake, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a multi-step dimension-reduction approach is proposed for addressing nonlinear relationships within attributes. In this work, the attributes in the data are first organized into groups. In each group, the dimensions are reduced via a parametric mapping that takes into account nonlinear relationships. Mapping parameters are estimated using a low rank singular value decomposition (SVD) of distance covariance. Subsequently, the attributes are reorganized into groups based on the magnitude of their respective singular values. The group-wise organization and the subsequent reduction process is performed for multiple steps until a singular value-based user-defined criterion is satisfied. Simulation analysis is …

Controllability And Observability Of The Discrete Fractional Linear State-Space Model, Duc M. Nguyen

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis aims to investigate the controllability and observability of the discrete fractional linear time-invariant state-space model. First, we will establish key concepts and properties which are the tools necessary for our task. In the third chapter, we will discuss the discrete state-space model and set up the criteria for these two properties. Then, in the fourth chapter, we will attempt to apply these criteria to the discrete fractional model. The general flow of our objectives is as follows: we start with the first-order linear difference equation, move on to the discrete system, then the fractional difference equation, and finally …

Direct Error Driven Learning For Deep Neural Networks With Applications To Bigdata, R. Krishnan, Jagannathan Sarangapani, V. A. Samaranayake

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, generalization error for traditional learning regimes-based classification is demonstrated to increase in the presence of bigdata challenges such as noise and heterogeneity. To reduce this error while mitigating vanishing gradients, a deep neural network (NN)-based framework with a direct error-driven learning scheme is proposed. To reduce the impact of heterogeneity, an overall cost comprised of the learning error and approximate generalization error is defined where two NNs are utilized to estimate the costs respectively. To mitigate the issue of vanishing gradients, a direct error-driven learning regime is proposed where the error is directly utilized for learning. It …

Policy-Preferred Paths In As-Level Internet Topology Graphs, Mehmet Engin Tozal

Theory and Applications of Graphs

Using Autonomous System (AS) level Internet topology maps to determine accurate AS-level paths is essential for network diagnostics, performance optimization, security enforcement, business policy management and topology-aware application development. One significant drawback that we have observed in many studies is simplifying the AS-level topology map of the Internet to an undirected graph, and then using the hop distance as a means to find the shortest paths between the ASes. A less significant drawback is restricting the shortest paths to only valley-free paths. Both approaches usually inflate the number of paths between ASes; introduce erroneous paths that do not conform to …

Improvement Of The Material's Mechanical Characteristics Using Intelligent Real Time Control Interfaces In Hfc Hardening Process, Florentin Smarandache, Luige Vladareanu, Mihaiela Iliescu, Victor Vladareanu, Alexandru Gal, Octavian Melinte, Adrian Margean

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The paper presents Intelligent Control (IC) Interfaces for real time control of mechatronic systems applied to Hardening Process Control (HPC) in order to improvement of the material's mechanical characteristics. Implementation of IC laws in the intelligent real time control interfaces depends on the particular circumstances of the models characteristics used and the exact definition of optimization problem. The results led to the development of the IC interfaces in real time through Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and neural networks (NN) using offline the regression methods.

A Survey On Network Security-Related Data Collection Technologies, Huaqing Lin, Zheng Yan, Yu Chen, Lifang Zhang

Faculty Publications, Information Systems & Technology

Security threats and economic loss caused by network attacks, intrusions, and vulnerabilities have motivated intensive studies on network security. Normally, data collected in a network system can reflect or can be used to detect security threats. We define these data as network security-related data. Studying and analyzing security-related data can help detect network attacks and intrusions, thus making it possible to further measure the security level of the whole network system. Obviously, the first step in detecting network attacks and intrusions is to collect security-related data. However, in the context of big data and 5G, there exist a number of …

Inventing Around Edison’S Lamp Patent: The Role Of Patents In Stimulating Downstream Development And Competition, Ron D. Katznelson, John Howells

Ron D. Katznelson

We provide the first detailed empirical study of inventing around patent claims. The enforcement of Edison’s incandescent lamp patent in 1891-1894 stimulated a surge of patenting. Most of these later patents disclosed inventions around the Edison patent. Some of these patents introduced important new technology in their own right and became prior art for new fields, indicating that invention around patents contributes to dynamic efficiency. Contrary to widespread contemporary understanding, the Edison lamp patent did not suppress technological advance in electric lighting. The market position of General Electric (“GE”), the Edison patent-owner, weakened through the period of this patent’s enforcement.

Phytoforensics: Trees As Bioindicators Of Potential Indoor Exposure Via Vapor Intrusion, Jordan L. Wilson, V. A. Samaranayake, Matt A. Limmer, Joel Gerard Burken

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Human exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) via vapor intrusion (VI) is an emerging public health concern with notable detrimental impacts on public health. Phytoforensics, plant sampling to semi-quantitatively delineate subsurface contamination, provides a potential non-invasive screening approach to detect VI potential, and plant sampling is effective and also time- and cost-efficient. Existing VI assessment methods are time- and resource-intensive, invasive, and require access into residential and commercial buildings to drill holes through basement slabs to install sampling ports or require substantial equipment to install groundwater or soil vapor sampling outside the home. Tree-core samples collected in 2 days at …

Pythagorean Combinations For Lego Robot Building., Ronald I. Greenberg

Ronald Greenberg

This paper provides tips for LEGO robot construction involving bracing or gear meshing along a diagonal using standard Botball kits.

Pythagorean Approximations For Lego: Merging Educational Robot Construction With Programming And Data Analysis, Ronald I. Greenberg

Ronald Greenberg

Abstract. This paper can be used in two ways. It can provide reference information for incorporating diagonal elements (for bracing or gear meshing) in educational robots built from standard LEGO kits. Alternatively, it can be used as the basis for an assignment for high school or college students to recreate this information; in the process, students will exercise skills in both computer programming and data analysis. Using the paper in the second way can be an excellent integrative experience to add to an existing course; for example, the Exploring Computer Science high school curriculum concludes with the units “Introduction to …

Onsager Reciprocal Relations: Microscopic (Onsager) Or Macroscopic (Sliepcevich), R. E. "Buddy" Babcock

Chemical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper is a combination of the discussion of two nineteenth century theoretical giantsLars Onsager and C. M. Sliepcevich, their works in general, and specifically the famousreciprocal relations of Onsager with respect to irreversible thermodynamics. Emphasis isplaced on their penetrating depth and breadth of analysis so inherently necessary in theirproblem-solving endeavors. The landscape of their work will be laid out for the readerby a comparison of Onsager’s microscopic statistical mechanics derivation of the famousreciprocal relationships and a macroscopic thermodynamic derivation published by C. M.Sliepsevich that led to considerable discussion in the literature in the 1960’s. Somelabelled this discussion a controversy; …

Meeting Real World Demands Of The Global Economy: An Employer's Perspective, Doreen Mcgunagle, Laura Zizka

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Educational programs prepare students theoretically for the workplace, but many programs are still lacking in the real-world skills that the workplace requires. This is especially evident in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education where today’s graduates hold a fundamental role in advancing science, medicine, sustainability, national security, and the economy, yet the programs to prepare them are falling short of employer expectations. At present, there is a lack of information on the necessary skills for workplace success that is specific to Airline, Aerospace, Defense (A&D) and related Industries’ STEM graduates. This paper attempts to fill this gap by offering …

Boundary Effects On The Locomotion Of Active Janus Particles, Marola W. Issa, Nicky R. Baumgartner

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

Self-propelled or “active” micrometer scale particles are capable of supplying local mechanical work, necessary for microscale cargo delivery and useful in other applications within bioimaging and sensing. Research in the last decade has focused on developing, measuring, and manipulating the locomotion mechanisms of active particles in simple environments. However, many applications will be in complex environments with nearby boundaries or variations in physiochemical cues. This poster reports the directed motion of platinum coated polystyrene particles at infinite dilution in the presence of H2O2, which acts as a fuel to drive motion. A transport mechanism called “diffusiophoresis” drives motion of the …

Ssaw: A New Sequence Similarity Analysis Method Based On The Stationary Discrete Wavelet Transform, Jie Lin, Donald Adjeroh, Bing-Hua Jiang, Yue Jiang

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Background: Alignment-free sequence similarity analysis methods often lead to significant savings in computational time over alignment-based counterparts.

Results: Anewalignment-freesequencesimilarityanalysismethod,calledSSAWisproposed.SSAWstandsfor Sequence Similarity Analysis using the Stationary Discrete Wavelet Transform (SDWT). It extracts k-mers from a sequence, then maps each k-mer to a complex number field. Then, the series of complex numbers formed are transformed into feature vectors using the stationary discrete wavelet transform. After these steps, the original sequence is turned into a feature vector with numeric values, which can then be used for clustering and/or classification.

Conclusions: Usingtwodifferenttypesofapplications,namely,clusteringandclassification,wecomparedSSAW against the the-state-of-the-art alignment free sequence analysis methods. SSAW demonstrates competitive or …

Graphene Nanoplatelets-Sericin Surface-Modified Gum Alloy For Improved Biological Response, Valentina Mitran, Valentina Dinca, Raluca Ion, Vasile D. Cojocaru, Patricia Neacsu, Cerasela Zoica Dinu, Laurentiu Rusen, Simona Brajnicov, Anca Bonciu, Maria Dinescu, Doina Raducanu, Ioan Dan

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In this study a “Gum Metal” titanium-based alloy, Ti-31.7Nb-6.21Zr-1.4Fe-0.16O, was synthesized by melting and characterized in order to evaluate its potential for biomedical applications. The results showed that the newly developed alloy presents a very high strength, high plasticity and a low Young's modulus relative to titanium alloys currently used in medicine. For further bone implant applications, the newly synthesized alloy was surface modified with graphene nanoplatelets (GNP), sericin (SS) and graphene nanoplatelets/sericine (GNP–SS) composite films via Matrix Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation (MAPLE) technique. The characterization of each specimen was monitored by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), …

Mechanism Of Byproducts Formation In The Isobutane/Butene Alkylation On Hy Zeolites, Zhiwei Chen, Feng Gao, Kun Ren, Quangui Wu, Yan Luo, Hongjun Zhou, Meng Zhang, Quan Xu

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Submicron-size HY zeolites with a particles size of 200–700 nm were synthesized employing a crystal precipitation method in this study. The catalytic activity for the isobutane/butene alkylation was evaluated. The results indicated that butene conversion was above 90% and the selectivity of expected products (C8) was nearly at 90% within 72 h. The micropores-blocking and coverage of acid sites resulting from high hydrocarbons increased the difficulty for the diffusion of products to the bulk and inhibited the adsorption of reactant on activity sites, which caused deactivation of catalyst. The ultimate C12 content in alkylate oil, stemmed from trimerization of butene, …