Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Region Detection & Segmentation Of Nissl-Stained Rat Brain Tissue, Alexandro Arnal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

People who analyze images of biological tissue rely on the segmentation of structures as a preliminary step. In particular, laboratories studying the rat brain delineate brain regions to position scientific findings on a brain atlas to propose hypotheses about the rat brain and, ultimately, the human brain. Our work intersects with the preliminary step of delineating regions in images of brain tissue via computational methods.

We investigate pixel-wise classification or segmentation of brain regions using ten histological images of brain tissue sections stained for Nissl substance. We present a deep learning approach that uses the fully convolutional neural network, U-Net, …

Glacier Segmentation From Remote Sensing Imagery Using Deep Learning, Bibek Aryal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Large-scale study of glaciers improves our understanding of global glacier change and is imperative for monitoring the ecological environment, preventing disasters, and studying the effects of global climate change. In recent years, remote sensing imagery has been preferred over riskier and resource-intensive field visits for tracking landscape level changes like glaciers. However, periodic manual labeling of glaciers over a large area is not feasible due to the considerable amount of time it requires while automatic segmentation of glaciers has its own set of challenges. Our work aims to study the challenges associated with segmentation of glaciers from remote sensing imagery …

Reprocessing Groundwater Resistivity Surveys In The Lower Mesilla Basin, New Mexico, And Texas, Leslie Bernal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Mesilla Basin is part of the Rio Grande Basin System. Its northern boundary is definedby the Doña Ana Mountains in New Mexico and to the south by Sierra San Blas, Sierra Almirez, and Sierra La Candelaria in Mexico, where the basin changes its name to Conejos-Médanos. It supplies water for irrigation and public use to the cities of Las Cruces, NM, El Paso, TX, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The southern part of the basin in the U.S. territory, known as the Lower Mesilla Basin, is bounded to the east by the Franklin Mountains, to the west by the Potrillo …

Achieving Safe Use Of Advanced Materials In Drinking Water Through Novel Nano Analytics And Enabling Electrification Using Green Catalyst, Kenneth Ray Flores

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The accumulation of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) in environmental sectors will continue to increase as more applications are discovered for their unique properties and characteristics. Additionally, the presence of nanomaterials in the environment becomes exacerbated as more consumer products containing nanoparticles are approved for use. It is debated whether the toxic effects of nanoparticles stem from the particles themselves, ionic species, or formation of secondary particles. Therefore, understanding the behavior of nanoparticles in the environment becomes key to discerning the toxicological effects of nanoparticles. Many advancements have been made with ICP-MS to understand the behavior of nanoparticles in the environmental systems, …

Nano-Engineered Soft Magnets: Potential Application In Water Treatment, Hyperthermia And Molecular (Organic) Magnets, Yohannes Weldemariam Getahun

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Scrutinizing the remarkable and tunable properties of magnetic materials at a nanoscale size "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom..." Richard Feynman, this study attempts to find sustainable solutions to some of the deteriorating environmental, health, and energy problems the world is encountering. Due to their simple preparation, surface adaptability, and tunable magnetic and optical properties, magnetic nanoparticles have been extensively investigated in water treatment, cancer therapy, data storage, and more. However, relying on non-reusable and chemical-based treatment agents in water, complex and costly cancer treatment procedures and molecular magnets that operate far below room temperature limited those attempts from …

Molecularly Inspired Organic Macrocycles Catalyzed Water Splitting Reaction For Sustainable Fuel Production, Yulu Ge

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Hydrogen fuel generation through electrochemical water splitting is considered as an advanced energy conversion technology driven by sustainable energy. High activity and cost effective electrocatalysts that are able to drive down the energy cost needed for both two half reactions, namely, hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are required to fulfill the energy transfer process. Exploring new electrocatalysts with enhanced OER and HER activity and stability is crucial for renewable energy applications. Porphyrin and macrocycle derivatives are versatile and can electrochemically catalyze water splitting efficiently. In our work, we use porphyrin as platform for both HER and …

Evaluation Of Effect Of Preprocessing Algorithms On Resting State Fmri Data, Hortencia Josefina Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Graph theory modeling is a common modeling approach in neurobiology research studies. These models are useful since they describe patterns of connection for regions of interest in the brain using resting state fMRI images. The standard rule of thumb is to threshold the observed activation levels prior to model building. It is reasonable to assume that the use of this threshold affects the statistical distribution of commonly reported centrality metrics from the graph theory model, such as degree, betweenness, and closeness. In this study we examine the differential effect of using the standard approaches versus alternative direct thresholds and incorporation …

The Qualification Of Sealability And Creep Relaxation Of Additively Manufactured Zytel Gaskets For Pem Fuel Cells, Robert Lazarin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to study the feasibility of low-cost additive manufacturing of gaskets for proton exchange membrane fuel cells exposed to extreme temperature conditions ranging from -55°C to 100°C. With the growing popularity and decreasing costs of additive manufacturing technologies, specifically Material Extrusion (ME), research is being conducted to determine the feasibility of ME components. Thermally cycled PEMFCs may exhibit accelerated gasket deterioration, therefore, the mechanical stability of material extruded gaskets following a harsh thermal cycle must be assessed. The feasibility of the material extruded gaskets will be proven by manufacturing optimization and mechanical testing. The target …

Implementation Of Structure From Motion (Sfm) Technology For Edcuational Lessons, Valeria Veronica Martinez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Education is the most important obligation the humanity race has in order to evolve and thrive in the modern world. There are various applications for educators to teach valuable lessons to students, and not all deliveries will be the same for every lesson and for every student. Lesson being taught, the lesson delivery from educator to student often changes every time the lesson is implemented, depending on the learning ability of the students. Students have the ability to learn in different ways, such as the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, reading and writing learners (Oxford 2003). As educators aware of the four …

Analyzing And Quantifying The Impact Of Software Diversification On Return-Oriented Programming (Rop) Based Exploits, David Reyes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the implementation of modern software mitigation techniques such: as Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), stack canaries, and the No-Execute bit (N.X.), attackers can no longer achieve arbitrary code execution simply by injecting shellcode into a vulnerable buffer and redirecting execution to this vulnerable buffer. Instead, attackers have pivoted to Return Oriented Programming (ROP) to achieve the same arbitrary code execution. Using this attack method, attackers string together ROP gadgets, assembly code snippets found in the target binary, to form what are known as ROP Chains. Using these ROP Chains, attackers can achieve the same malicious behavior as previous code …

Two-Step Single Qubit Gates For Superconducting Qubits, Edward Takyi

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Why quantum information processing? Contemporary manipulation and transmission of information is executed through physical machines (computers, routers, scanners, etc.) in which Classical Mechanics is used to describe the embodiment and transformation of information. However, the physical theory of the world is not Classical Mechanics. And so, there is no reason to suppose that machines following the laws of Classical Mechanics would have the same computational power like quantum machines. Quantum computers would break the rules of classical computers and they would be able solve problems that are intractable on conventional supercomputers.

In order to fabricate quantum computers and make significant …

How To Get The Most Accurate Measurement-Based Estimates, Salvador Robles, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we want to estimate a quantity y that is difficult -- or even impossible -- to measure directly. In such cases, often, there are easier-to-measure quantities x₁, ..., x_n that are related to y by a known dependence y = f(x₁,...,x_n). So, to estimate y, we can measure these quantities x_i and use the measurement results to estimate y. The two natural questions are: (1) within limited resources, what is the best accuracy with which we can estimate y, and (2) to reach a given accuracy, what amount …

Dialogs Re-Enacted Across Languages, Nigel Ward, Jonathan E. Avila, Emilia Rivas

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

To support machine learning of cross-language prosodic mappings and other ways to improve speech-to-speech translation, we present a protocol for collecting closely matched pairs of utterances across languages, a description of the resulting data collection, and some observations and musings. This report is intended for 1) people using this corpus, 2) people extending this corpus, and 3) people designing similar collections of bilingual dialog data.

Anomaly Detection In Crowdsourcing: Why Midpoints In Interval-Valued Approach, Alejandra De La Pena, Damian L. Gallegos Espinoza, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations -- e.g., when preparing examples for a machine learning algorithm -- we need to label a large number of images or speech recordings. One way to do it is to pay people around the world to perform this labeling; this is known as crowdsourcing. In many cases, crowd-workers generate not only answers, but also their degrees of confidence that the answer is correct. Some crowd-workers cheat: they produce almost random answers without bothering to spend time analyzing the corresponding image. Algorithms have been developed to detect such cheaters. The problem is that many crowd-workers cannot describe …

Dielectric Barrier Discharge (Dbd) Thrusters -- Aerospace Engines Of The Future: Invariance-Based Analysis, Alexis Lupo, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

One of the most prospective aerospace engines is a Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) thruster -- an effective electric engine without moving parts. Originally designed by NASA for flights over other planets, it has been shown to be very promising for Earth-based flights as well. The efficiency of this engine depends on the proper selection of the corresponding electric field. To make this selection, we need to know, in particular, how its thrust depends on the atmospheric pressure. At present, for this dependence, we only know an approximate semi-empirical formula. In this paper, we use natural invariance requirements to come up …

Hunting Habits Of Predatory Birds: Theoretical Explanation Of An Empirical Formula, Adilene Alaniz, Jiovani Hernandez, Andres D. Munoz, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Predatory birds play an important role in an ecosystem. It is therefore important to study their hunting behavior, in particular, the distribution of their waiting time. A recent empirical study showed that the waiting time is distributed according to the power law. In this paper, we use natural invariance ideas to come up with a theoretical explanation for this empirical dependence.

Aquatic Ecotoxicology: Theoretical Explanation Of Empirical Formulas, Demetrius R. Hernandez, George M. Molina Holguin, Francisco Parra, Vivian Sanchez, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

To analyze the effect of pollution on marine life, it is important to know how exactly the concentration of toxic substances decreases with time. There are several semi-empirical formulas that describe this decrease. In this paper, we provide a theoretical explanation for these empirical formulas.

Resource Allocation For Multi-Tasking Optimization: Explanation Of An Empirical Formula, Alan Gamez, Antonio Aguirre, Christian Cordova, Alberto Miranda, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

For multi-tasking optimization problems, it has been empirically shown that the most effective resource allocation is attained when we assume that the gain of each task logarithmically depends on the computation time allocated to this task. In this paper, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical fact.

Why Color Optical Computing, Victor L. Timchenko, Yury P. Kondratenko, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In this paper, we show that requirements that computations be fast and noise-resistant naturally lead to what we call color-based optical computing.

How To Reach A Joint Decision With The Smallest Need For Compromise, Sofia Holguin, Olga Kosheleva

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Usually, people's interests do not match perfectly. So when several people need to make a joint decision, they need to compromise. The more people one has to coordinate the decision with, the fewer chances that each person's preferences will be properly taken into account. Therefore, when a large group of people need to make a decision, it is desirable to make sure that this decision can be reached by dividing all the people into small-size groups so that this decision can reach a compromise between the members of each group. In this paper, we use a recent mathematical result to …

Word Representation: Theoretical Explanation Of An Empirical Fact, Leonel Escapita, Diana Licon, Madison Anderson, Diego Pedraza, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

There is a reasonably accurate empirical formula that predicts, for two words i and j, the number Xij of times when the word i will appear in the vicinity of the word j. The parameters of this formula are determined by using the weighted least square approach. Empirically, the predictions are the most accurate if we use the weights proportional to a power of Xij. In this paper, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical fact.

Need For Optimal Distributed Measurement Of Cumulative Quantities Explains The Ubiquity Of Absolute And Relative Error Components, Hector A. Reyes, Aaron D. Brown, Jeffrey Escamilla, Ethan D. Kish, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we need to measure the value of a cumulative quantity, i.e., a quantity that is obtained by adding measurement results corresponding to different spatial locations. How can we select the measuring instruments so that the resulting cumulative quantity can be determined with known accuracy -- and, to avoid unnecessary expenses, not more accurately than needed? It turns out that the only case where such an optimal arrangement is possible is when the required accuracy means selecting the upper bounds on absolute and relative error components. This results provides a possible explanation for the ubiquity of such …

An Improved Bio-Based Activated Carbon For The Water Treatment Of A Lagoon In Northern Mexico Based On Life Cycle Assessment Methodology, Leticia Elizabeth Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this research, different options in the preparation of activated carbon are investigated looking at potential environmental impacts, production cost improvement and physical characteristics for water treatment. The activated carbon made with agricultural waste is compared to activated carbon made with hard coal. Life cycle assessment techniques follow ISO 14040 to 14044 standards are used and calculations were performed using GaBi _education 18® software and databases at mid-point TRACI impact categories. The results of the life cycle impact assessment show that, compared to activated carbon made with hard coal, activated carbon made with peanut shell and rice husk allows reductions …

Why 1/(1+D) Is An Effective Distance-Based Similarity Measure: Two Explanations, Julio C. Urenda, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Most of our decisions are based on the notion of similarity: we use a decision that helped in similar situations. From this viewpoint, it is important to have, for each pair of situations or objects, a numerical value describing similarity between them. This is called a similarity measure. In some cases, the only information that we can use to estimate the similarity value is some natural distance measure d(a,b). In many such situations, empirical data shows that the similarity measure 1/(1+d) is very effective. In this paper, we provide two explanations for this effectiveness.

How To Describe Variety Of A Probability Distribution: A Possible Answer To Yager's Question, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Entropy is a natural measure of randomness. It progresses from its smallest possible value 0 -- when we have a deterministic case in which one alternative i occurs with probability 1 (pi = 1), to the largest possible value which is attained at a uniform distribution p1 = ... = pn = 1/n. Intuitively, both in the deterministic case and in the uniform distribution case, there is not much variety in the distribution, while in the intermediate cases, when we have several different values pi, there is a strong variety. Entropy does not seem to capture this notion of variety. …

How The Pavement Strength Changes With Time: Ai Ideas Help To Explain Semi-Empirical Formulas, Edgar Daniel Rodriguez Velasquez, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In this paper, we use AI ideas to provide a theoretical explanation for semi-empirical formulas that describe how the pavement strength changes with time, and how we can predict the pavement lifetime.

Why Seneca Effect?, Sean R. Aguilar, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Already ancients noticed that decrease is usually faster than growth -- whether we talk about companies or empires. A modern researcher Ugo Bardi confirmed that this phenomenon is still valid today. He called it Seneca effect, after the ancient philosopher Seneca -- one of those who observed this phenomenon. In this paper, we provide a natural explanation for the Seneca effect.

Why Smaller-Size Objects Affect The Flow Much More Than Larger Ones: A Geometric Explanation With Applications Ranging From Volcanoes And Tornadoes To Blood, Fish, And Building Preservation, Laxman Bokati, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

At first glance, the larger the object, the larger should be its effect on the surroundings -- in particular, the larger should be its effect on the surrounding flow. However, in many practical situations, we observe the opposite effect: smaller-size particles affect the flow much more than larger-size particles. This seemingly counterintuitive phenomena has been observed in many situations: lava flow in the volcanoes, air circulation in tornadoes, blood flow in a body, the effect of fish on water circulation in the ocean, and the effect of added particles on seeping water that damages historic buildings. In this paper, we …

What Is The Most Adequate Fuzzy Methodology?, Noah Velasco, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In practice, there is often a need to describe the relation y = f(x) between two quantities in algorithmic form: e.g., we want to describe the control value y corresponding to the given input x, or we want to predict the future value y based on the current value x. In many such cases, we have expert knowledge about the desired dependence, but experts can only describe their knowledge by using imprecise ("fuzzy") words from a natural language. Methodologies for transforming such knowledge into an algorithm y = f(x) are known as fuzzy methodologies. There exist several fuzzy methodologies, a …

A General Commonsense Explanation Of Several Medical Results, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In this paper, we show that many recent experimental medical results about the effect of different factors on our health can be explained by common sense ideas.