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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Gt-Ches And Dycon: Improved Classification For Human Evolutionary Systems, Joseph S. Johnson Mar 2024

Gt-Ches And Dycon: Improved Classification For Human Evolutionary Systems, Joseph S. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this work is to rethink the process of learning in human evolutionary systems. We take a sober look at how game theory, network theory, and chaos theory pertain specifically to the modeling, data, and training components of generalization in human systems. The value of our research is three-fold. First, our work is a direct approach to align machine learning generalization with core behavioral theories. We made our best effort to directly reconcile the axioms of these heretofore incompatible disciplines -- rather than moving from AI/ML towards the behavioral theories while building exclusively on AI/ML intuition. Second, this …


Improving Xrd Analysis With Machine Learning, Rachel E. Drapeau Aug 2023

Improving Xrd Analysis With Machine Learning, Rachel E. Drapeau

Theses and Dissertations

X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) is an inexpensive method to quantify the relative proportions of mineral phases in a rock or soil sample. However, the analytical software available for XRD requires extensive user input to choose phases to include in the analysis. Consequently, analysis accuracy depends greatly on the experience of the analyst, especially as the number of phases in a sample increases (Raven & Self, 2017; Omotoso, 2006). The purpose of this project is to test whether incorporating machine learning methods into XRD software can improve the accuracy of analyses by assisting in the phase-picking process. In order to provide …


A Survey Of Graph Neural Networks On Synthetic Data, Brigham Stone Carson Apr 2023

A Survey Of Graph Neural Networks On Synthetic Data, Brigham Stone Carson

Theses and Dissertations

We relate properties of attributed random graph models to the performance of GNN architectures. We identify regimes where GNNs outperform feedforward neural networks and non-attributed graph clustering methods. We compare GNN performance on our synthetic benchmark to performance on popular real-world datasets. We analyze the theoretical foundations for weak recovery in GNNs for popular one- and two-layer architectures. We obtain an explicit formula for the performance of a 1-layer GNN, and we obtain useful insights on how to proceed in the 2-layer case. Finally, we improve the bound for a notable result on the GNN size generalization problem by 1.


Language Modeling Using Image Representations Of Natural Language, Seong Eun Cho Apr 2023

Language Modeling Using Image Representations Of Natural Language, Seong Eun Cho

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents training of an end-to-end autoencoder model using the transformer, with an encoder that can encode sentences into fixed-length latent vectors and a decoder that can reconstruct the sentences using image representations. Encoding and decoding sentences to and from these image representations are central to the model design. This method allows new sentences to be generated by traversing the Euclidean space, which makes vector arithmetic possible using sentences. Machines excel in dealing with concrete numbers and calculations, but do not possess an innate infrastructure designed to help them understand abstract concepts like natural language. In order for a …


Using Machine Learning To Classify Volleyball Jumps, Miki Jauhiainen Aug 2022

Using Machine Learning To Classify Volleyball Jumps, Miki Jauhiainen

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, inertial measurement units (IMUs) were used to train a random forest classifier to correctly classify different jump types in volleyball. Athlete motion data were collected in a controlled setting using three IMUs, one on the waist and one on each ankle. There were 11 participants who at the time played volleyball at the collegiate level in the United States, seven male and four female. Each performed the same number of jumps across the eight jump types--five BASIC jumps and three each of the other seven--resulting in 26 jumps per subject for a total of 286. The data …


Reconstructing Historical Earthquake-Induced Tsunamis: Case Study Of 1820 Event Near South Sulawesi, Indonesia, Taylor Jole Paskett Jul 2022

Reconstructing Historical Earthquake-Induced Tsunamis: Case Study Of 1820 Event Near South Sulawesi, Indonesia, Taylor Jole Paskett

Theses and Dissertations

We build on the method introduced by Ringer, et al., applying it to an 1820 event that happened near South Sulawesi, Indonesia. We utilize other statistical models to aid our Metropolis-Hastings sampler, including a Gaussian process which informs the prior. We apply the method to multiple possible fault zones to determine which fault is the most likely source of the earthquake and tsunami. After collecting nearly 80,000 samples, we find that between the two most likely fault zones, the Walanae fault zone matches the anecdotal accounts much better than Flores. However, to support the anecdotal data, both samplers tend toward …


Language Learning Using Models Of Intentionality In Repeated Games With Cheap Talk, Jonathan Berry Skaggs May 2022

Language Learning Using Models Of Intentionality In Repeated Games With Cheap Talk, Jonathan Berry Skaggs

Theses and Dissertations

Language is critical to establishing long-term cooperative relationships among intelligent agents (including people), particularly when the agents' preferences are in conflict. In such scenarios, an agent uses speech to coordinate and negotiate behavior with its partner(s). While recent work has shown that neural language modeling can produce effective speech agents, such algorithms typically only accept previous text as input. However, in relationships among intelligent agents, not all relevant context is expressed in conversation. Thus, in this paper, we propose and analyze an algorithm, called Llumi, that incorporates other forms of context to learn to speak in long-term relationships modeled as …


Physics-Guided Machine Learning In Ocean Acoustics Using Fisher Information, Michael Craig Mortenson Apr 2022

Physics-Guided Machine Learning In Ocean Acoustics Using Fisher Information, Michael Craig Mortenson

Theses and Dissertations

Waterborne acoustic signals carry information about the ocean environment. Ocean geoacoustic inversion is the task of estimating environmental parameters from received acoustic signals by matching the measured sound with the predictions of a physics-based model. A lower bound on the uncertainty associated with environmental parameter estimates, the Cramér-Rao bound, can be calculated from the Fisher information, which is dependent on derivatives of a physics-based model. Physics-based preconditioners circumvent the need for variable step sizes when computing numerical derivatives. This work explores the feasibility of using a neural network to perform geoacoustic inversion for environmental parameters and their associated uncertainties from …


Using Connections To Make Predictions On Dynamic Networks, Rebecca Dorff Jones Apr 2022

Using Connections To Make Predictions On Dynamic Networks, Rebecca Dorff Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Networks are sets of objects that are connected in some way and appear abundantly in nature, sociology, and technology. For many centuries, network theory focused on static networks, which are networks that do not change. However, since all networks transform over time, static networks have limited applications. By comparison, dynamic networks model how connections between objects change over time. In this work, we will explore how connections in dynamic networks change and how we can leverage these changes to make predictions about future iterations of networks. We will do this by first considering the link prediction problem, using either Katz …


Turn Of Phrase: Contrastive Pre-Training For Discourse-Aware Conversation Models, Roland Laboulaye Aug 2021

Turn Of Phrase: Contrastive Pre-Training For Discourse-Aware Conversation Models, Roland Laboulaye

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding long conversations requires recognizing a discourse flow unique to conversation. Recent advances in unsupervised representation learning of text have been attained primarily through language modeling, which models discourse only implicitly and within a small window. These representations are in turn evaluated chiefly on sentence pair or paragraph-question pair benchmarks, which measure only local discourse coherence. In order to improve performance on discourse-reliant, long conversation tasks, we propose Turn-of-Phrase pre-training, an objective designed to encode long conversation discourse flow. We leverage tree-structured Reddit conversations in English to, relative to a chosen conversation path through the tree, select paths of varying …


Reinforcement Learning With Auxiliary Memory, Sterling Suggs Jun 2021

Reinforcement Learning With Auxiliary Memory, Sterling Suggs

Theses and Dissertations

Deep reinforcement learning algorithms typically require vast amounts of data to train to a useful level of performance. Each time new data is encountered, the network must inefficiently update all of its parameters. Auxiliary memory units can help deep neural networks train more efficiently by separating computation from storage, and providing a means to rapidly store and retrieve precise information. We present four deep reinforcement learning models augmented with external memory, and benchmark their performance on ten tasks from the Arcade Learning Environment. Our discussion and insights will be helpful for future RL researchers developing their own memory agents.


A Hybrid Method For Auralizing Vibroacoustic Systems And Evaluating Audio Fidelity/Sound Quality Using Machine Learning, Andrew Jared Miller Apr 2021

A Hybrid Method For Auralizing Vibroacoustic Systems And Evaluating Audio Fidelity/Sound Quality Using Machine Learning, Andrew Jared Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Two separate methods are presented to aid in the creation and evaluation of acoustic simulations. The first is a hybrid method that allows separate low and high-frequency acoustic responses to be combined into a single broadband response suitable for auralization. The process consists of four steps: 1) creating separate low-frequency and high-frequency responses of the system of interest, 2) interpolating between the two responses to get a single broadband magnitude response, 3) adding amplitude modulation to the high-frequency portion of the response, and 4) calculating approximate phase information. An experimental setup is used to validate the hybrid method. Listening tests …


Leveraging The Inductive Bias Of Large Language Models For Abstract Textual Reasoning, Christopher Michael Rytting Dec 2020

Leveraging The Inductive Bias Of Large Language Models For Abstract Textual Reasoning, Christopher Michael Rytting

Theses and Dissertations

Large natural language models (such as GPT-2 or T5) demonstrate impressive abilities across a range of general NLP tasks. Here, we show that the knowledge embedded in such models provides a useful inductive bias, not just on traditional NLP tasks, but also in the nontraditional task of training a symbolic reasoning engine. We observe that these engines learn quickly and generalize in a natural way that reflects human intuition. For example, training such a system to model block-stacking might naturally generalize to stacking other types of objects because of structure in the real world that has been partially captured by …


Semantic-Driven Unsupervised Image-To-Image Translation For Distinct Image Domains, Wesley Ackerman Sep 2020

Semantic-Driven Unsupervised Image-To-Image Translation For Distinct Image Domains, Wesley Ackerman

Theses and Dissertations

We expand the scope of image-to-image translation to include more distinct image domains, where the image sets have analogous structures, but may not share object types between them. Semantic-Driven Unsupervised Image-to-Image Translation for Distinct Image Domains (SUNIT) is built to more successfully translate images in this setting, where content from one domain is not found in the other. Our method trains an image translation model by learning encodings for semantic segmentations of images. These segmentations are translated between image domains to learn meaningful mappings between the structures in the two domains. The translated segmentations are then used as the basis …


Deep Learning To Predict Ocean Seabed Type And Source Parameters, David Franklin Van Komen Aug 2020

Deep Learning To Predict Ocean Seabed Type And Source Parameters, David Franklin Van Komen

Theses and Dissertations

In the ocean, light from the surface dissipates quickly leaving sound the only way to see at a distance. Different sediment types on the ocean floor and water properties like salinity, temperature, and ocean depth all change how sound travels across long distances. Hard sediment types, such as sand and bedrock, are highly reflective while softer sediment types, such as mud, are more absorptive and change the received sound upon arrival. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the ocean floor is not mapped and the expenses involved in creating such a map are far too great. Traditional signal processing methods in …


Age-Suitability Prediction For Literature Using Deep Neural Networks, Eric Robert Brewer Jul 2020

Age-Suitability Prediction For Literature Using Deep Neural Networks, Eric Robert Brewer

Theses and Dissertations

Digital media holds a strong presence in society today. Providers of digital media may choose to obtain a content rating for a given media item by submitting that item to a content rating authority. That authority will then issue a content rating that denotes to which age groups that media item is appropriate. Content rating authorities serve publishers in many countries for different forms of media such as television, music, video games, and mobile applications. Content ratings allow consumers to quickly determine whether or not a given media item is suitable to their age or preference. Literature, on the other …


Towards Cooperating In Repeated Interactions Without Repeating Structure, Huy Pham Jun 2020

Towards Cooperating In Repeated Interactions Without Repeating Structure, Huy Pham

Theses and Dissertations

A big challenge in artificial intelligence (AI) is creating autonomous agents that can interact well with other agents over extended periods of time. Most previously developed algorithms have been designed in the context of Repeated Games, environments in which the agents interact in the same scenario repeatedly. However, in most real-world interactions, relationships between people and autonomous agents consist of sequences of distinct encounters with different incentives and payoff structures. Therefore, in this thesis, we consider Interaction Games, which model interactions in which the scenario changes from encounter to encounter, often in ways that are unanticipated by the players. For …


Chaotic Model Prediction With Machine Learning, Yajing Zhao Apr 2020

Chaotic Model Prediction With Machine Learning, Yajing Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

Chaos theory is a branch of modern mathematics concerning the non-linear dynamic systems that are highly sensitive to their initial states. It has extensive real-world applications, such as weather forecasting and stock market prediction. The Lorenz system, defined by three ordinary differential equations (ODEs), is one of the simplest and most popular chaotic models. Historically research has focused on understanding the Lorenz system's mathematical characteristics and dynamical evolution including the inherent chaotic features it possesses. In this thesis, we take a data-driven approach and propose the task of predicting future states of the chaotic system from limited observations. We explore …


Retiming Smoke Simulation Using Machine Learning, Samuel Charles Gérard Giraud Carrier Mar 2020

Retiming Smoke Simulation Using Machine Learning, Samuel Charles Gérard Giraud Carrier

Theses and Dissertations

Art-directability is a crucial aspect of creating aesthetically pleasing visual effects that help tell stories. A particularly common method of art direction is the retiming of a simulation. Unfortunately, the means of retiming an existing simulation sequence which preserves the desired shapes is an ill-defined problem. Naively interpolating values between frames leads to visual artifacts such as choppy frames or jittering intensities. Due to the difficulty in formulating a proper interpolation method we elect to use a machine learning approach to approximate this function. Our model is based on the ODE-net structure and reproduces a set of desired time samples …


Using Logical Specifications For Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning, Kolby Nottingham Mar 2020

Using Logical Specifications For Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning, Kolby Nottingham

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the multi-objective reinforcement learning (MORL) paradigm, the relative importance of environment objectives is often unknown prior to training, so agents must learn to specialize their behavior to optimize different combinations of environment objectives that are specified post-training. These are typically linear combinations, so the agent is effectively parameterized by a weight vector that describes how to balance competing environment objectives. However, we show that behaviors can be successfully specified and learned by much more expressive non-linear logical specifications. We test our agent in several environments with various objectives and show that it can generalize to many never-before-seen specifications.


Machine Learning For Effective Parkinson's Disease Diagnosis, Brennon Brimhall Mar 2020

Machine Learning For Effective Parkinson's Disease Diagnosis, Brennon Brimhall

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Parkinson’s Disease is a degenerative neurological condition that affects approximately 10 million people globally. Because there is currently no cure, there is a strong motivation for research into improved and automated diagnostic procedures. Using Random Forests, a computer can effectively learn to diagnose Parkinson’s disease in a patient with high accuracy (94%), precision (95%), and recall (91%) across the data of over 2800 patients. Using similar techniques, I further determine that the most predictive medical tests relate to tremors observed in patients.


Materials Prediction Using High-Throughput And Machine Learning Techniques, Chandramouli Nyshadham Dec 2019

Materials Prediction Using High-Throughput And Machine Learning Techniques, Chandramouli Nyshadham

Theses and Dissertations

Predicting new materials through virtually screening a large number of hypothetical materials using supercomputers has enabled materials discovery at an accelerated pace. However, the innumerable number of possible hypothetical materials necessitates the development of faster computational methods for speedier screening of materials reducing the time of discovery. In this thesis, I aim to understand and apply two computational methods for materials prediction. The first method deals with a computational high-throughput study of superalloys. Superalloys are materials which exhibit high-temperature strength. A combinatorial high-throughput search across 2224 ternary alloy systems revealed 102 potential superalloys of which 37 are brand new, all …


The Application Of Synthetic Signals For Ecg Beat Classification, Elliot Morgan Brown Sep 2019

The Application Of Synthetic Signals For Ecg Beat Classification, Elliot Morgan Brown

Theses and Dissertations

A brief overview of electrocardiogram (ECG) properties and the characteristics of various cardiac conditions is given. Two different models are used to generate synthetic ECG signals. Domain knowledge is used to create synthetic examples of 16 different heart beat types with these models. Other techniques for synthesizing ECG signals are explored. Various machine learning models with different combinations of real and synthetic data are used to classify individual heart beats. The performance of the different methods and models are compared, and synthetic data is shown to be useful in beat classification.


Computational Regiospecific Analysis Of Brain Lipidomic Profiles, Austin Ahlstrom Mar 2019

Computational Regiospecific Analysis Of Brain Lipidomic Profiles, Austin Ahlstrom

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Mass spectrometry provides an extensive data set that can prove unwieldy for practical analytical purposes. Applying programming and machine learning methods to automate region analysis in DESI mass spectrometry of mouse brain tissue can help direct and refine such an otherwise unusable data set. The results carry promise of faster, more reliable analysis of this type, and yield interesting insights into molecular characteristics of regions of interest within these brain samples. These results have significant implications in continued investigation of molecular processes in the brain, along with other aspects of mass spectrometry, collective analysis of biological molecules (i.e. omics), and …


Toward Real-Time Flip Fluid Simulation Through Machine Learning Approximations, Javid Kennon Pack Dec 2018

Toward Real-Time Flip Fluid Simulation Through Machine Learning Approximations, Javid Kennon Pack

Theses and Dissertations

Fluids in computer generated imagery can add an impressive amount of realism to a scene, but are particularly time-consuming to simulate. In an attempt to run fluid simulations in real-time, recent efforts have attempted to simulate fluids by using machine learning techniques to approximate the movement of fluids. We explore utilizing machine learning to simulate fluids while also integrating the Fluid-Implicit-Particle (FLIP) simulation method into machine learning fluid simulation approaches.


Flow Adaptive Video Object Segmentation, Fanqing Lin Dec 2018

Flow Adaptive Video Object Segmentation, Fanqing Lin

Theses and Dissertations

We tackle the task of semi-supervised video object segmentation, i.e, pixel-level object classification of the images in video sequences using very limited ground truth training data of its corresponding video. Recently introduced online adaptation of convolutional neural networks for video object segmentation (OnAVOS) has achieved good results by pretraining the network, fine-tuning on the first frame and training the network at test time using its approximate prediction as newly obtained ground truth. We propose Flow Adaptive Video Object Segmentation (FAVOS) that refines the generated adaptive ground truth for online updates and utilizes temporal consistency between video frames with the help …


Using Machine Learning To Accurately Predict Ambient Soundscapes From Limited Data Sets, Katrina Lynn Pedersen Oct 2018

Using Machine Learning To Accurately Predict Ambient Soundscapes From Limited Data Sets, Katrina Lynn Pedersen

Theses and Dissertations

The ability to accurately characterize the soundscape, or combination of sounds, of diverse geographic areas has many practical implications. Interested parties include the United States military and the National Park Service, but applications also exist in areas such as public health, ecology, community and social justice noise analyses, and real estate. I use an ensemble of machine learning models to predict ambient sound levels throughout the contiguous United States. Our data set consists of 607 training sites, where various acoustic metrics, such as overall daytime L50 levels and one-third octave frequency band levels, have been obtained. I have data for …


Using Aviris And Machine Learning To Map And Discriminate Bull Kelp And Giant Kelp Along The Pacific Coast Of The United States, Tanner Thompson, Dr. Ryan Jensen Sep 2018

Using Aviris And Machine Learning To Map And Discriminate Bull Kelp And Giant Kelp Along The Pacific Coast Of The United States, Tanner Thompson, Dr. Ryan Jensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Kelp forests provide food and shelter for many organisms, and they are an important part of coastal ecosystems throughout the world. Along the Pacific coast of the United States, kelp forests are made up of two species of kelp: bull kelp (Nereocystis Leutkana) and giant kelp (Macrocystis Pyrifera). While similar, these two species are physiologically and structurally different.


Machine Learning To Discover And Optimize Materials, Conrad Waldhar Rosenbrock Dec 2017

Machine Learning To Discover And Optimize Materials, Conrad Waldhar Rosenbrock

Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, scientists have dreamed of creating materials by design. Rather than discovery by accident, bespoke materials could be tailored to fulfill specific technological needs. Quantum theory and computational methods are essentially equal to the task, and computational power is the new bottleneck. Machine learning has the potential to solve that problem by approximating material behavior at multiple length scales. A full end-to-end solution must allow us to approximate the quantum mechanics, microstructure and engineering tasks well enough to be predictive in the real world. In this dissertation, I present algorithms and methodology to address some of these problems at …


Machine Learning With Scattering Transforms, Jacob Hansen, Gus Hart Jun 2017

Machine Learning With Scattering Transforms, Jacob Hansen, Gus Hart

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Our goal was to implement scattering transforms as a mathematical representation of materials. The intention of this project was to build intuition on this technique using model data in one and two dimensions. The tools created here will be used as templates in further projects on real materials data. The intuition built during this project is crucial to the machine learning framework for materials design that we hope to build in the near future.