Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Lower Estimate For The Norm Of The Kerzman-Stein Operator, Michael Bolt

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

We establish an elementary lower estimate for the norm of the Kerzman-Stein operator for a smooth, bounded domain. The estimate involves the boundary length and logarithmic capacity. The estimate is tested on model domains for which the norm is known explicitly. It is shown that the estimate is sharp for an annulus and a strip, and is asymptotically sharp for an ellipse and a wedge. © 2007 Rocky Mountain Mathematics Consortium.

What Allows Teachers To Extend Student Thinking During Whole-Group Discussions, Nesrin Cengiz

Dissertations

Research indicates that extending students' mathematical thinking during whole-group discussions is challenging, even for the most experienced teachers. That is, it is challenging for teachers to help students move beyond their initial mathematical observations and solutions during whole-group discussions. To better understand this phenomena, the teaching of six experienced elementary school teachers, who had been teaching aStandards-based curriculum for several years and had participated in a multi-year professional development project focused on that curriculum, is explored in this study. In particular, two issues are addressed: what it looks like to extend student thinking during whole-group discussions and how …

Extensions Of Two-Part Tests To Compare K Independent Populations, Marwan Daoud

Dissertations

We consider two-part models that are mixtures of a point-mass variable with all mass at zero and a continuous random variable. The model may assume a particular distributionh(x) for the continuous part such as a log-normal or a gamma. The response variable is defined as y=(x, d), where d=1 if x > 0 and d=0 if x = 0. The probability distribution function has the following form: fx,d=p ^1-d×1-p ×hx ^d.

Lachenbruch (1976, 2001) proposed several tests to compare means of two populations for this type of data. We proposed a two-part Wald test and …

Stochastic Models For In-Silico Event-Based Biological Network Simulation, Preetam Ghosh

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The multi-scale biological system model is a new research direction to capture the dynamic measurements of complex biological systems. The current statistical thermodynamic models can not scale to this challenge due to the explosion of state-spaces of the system, where a biological organ may have billions of cells, each with millions of molecule types and each type may have a few million molecules. We seek to propose a phenomenological theory that will require a smaller number of state variables to address this multi-scaling problem. Discrete Markov statistical process is used to understand the system dynamics in the networking community for …

Molecules That Target Beta-Amyloid, Cliff I. Stains, Kalyani Mondal, Indraneel Ghosh

Cliff Stains Publications

The devastating effects of Alzheimer’s and related amyloidogenic diseases have inspired the synthesis and evaluation of numerous ligands to understand the molecular mechanism of the aggregation of the beta-amyloid peptide. Our review focuses on the current knowledge in this field with respect to molecules that have been demonstrated to interact with either oligomeric or fibrillar forms of the beta-amyloid peptide. We describe natural proteins, peptides, peptidomimetics, and small molecules that have been found to interfere with beta-amyloid aggregation. We also detail recent efforts in selecting molecules that target beta-amyloid isolated from antibody, protein, and peptide libraries. These new molecules will …

Ral Interacting Protein (Ralbp1): Linking Glutathione Conjugate Transport To Oxidative Stress Defenses And Signaling Pathways, Dilki Wickramarachchi

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

The glutathione-conjugate transporter protein DNP-SG ATPase was demonstrated to be identical to the independently cloned Ral-effector, Ralbp1. Glutathione-conjugate transport is linked to substrate-stimulated ATPase activity, while GTPase stimulating activity (GAP-activity), and clathrin-coated pit-binding activity was demonstrated for this protein by different groups of investigators. The relationship between these activities and physiological functions of Ralbp1 were not clear. The present studies were designed to address the hypothesis that the ability of Ralbp1 to couple the hydrolysis of ATP with the movement of substances, i.e. its transport activity, is the crucial element that allows Ralbp1 to function as a stress-defense protein. Results …

Studies Towards Bioactive Imidazoles, Karuna Koda

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses - Archive

The work presented in this thesis focuses on the development of an enantioselective and practical route form the total synthesis of villagorgin via haplosleridamine imidazole alkaloid containing β- carboline moiety by employing the well-known Pictet-Spengler and Fischer indole reactions. We approached two different ways inorder to synthesize these molecules Our first approach focused on using a Dieckmann condensation, requiring the preparation of the corresponding diester. Initial attempts to prepare this substrate directly from histidine were unsuccessful, however after conversion to the N-benzzylamine and reductive amination with ester provided the key diester compound. Unfortunately, attempts to effect the Dieckmann reaction were …

Supramolecular Chemistry On Carbon Dioxide, Hexiang Zhang

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses - Archive

This dissertation describes approaches towards designs, syntheses, characterizations, and applications of supramolecular chemistry on carbon dioxide. Chapter 1 briefly overviews the field of supramolecular chemistry and highlights its horizons, also introduces the progress of sensing devices on chemical warfare agents. Chapter 2 introduces a modular approach to detect chemical warfare agent: phosgene by Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). It combines the chemical reactivity between amines and phosgene with fluorescence properties of coumarin fluorophores, forms a fast, selective and reliable sensing system. Chapter 3 overviews the chemistry between amines and carbon dioxide and introduces the applications of this reaction in molecular …

Uniform Weighted Compact / Non-Compact Schemes For Shock / Boundary Layer Interaction, Peng Xie

Mathematics Dissertations - Archive

The critical problem of CFD is perhaps an accurate approximation of derivatives for a given discrete data set. Based on our previous work on the weighted compact scheme (WCS), a uniform weighted compact / non-compact scheme (UWCNC) has been developed. Similar to WENO, three high order candidates, left, right, and central, are constructed by using Hermite polynomials. According to the smoothness, three weights are derived and assigned to each candidate. The weights will lead the scheme to be upwind-biased when approaching the shock or other discontinuities but quickly becomes central, compact, and of high order just off the shock. Therefore, …

Message From The Provost, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Learning Video Preferences Using Visual Features And Closed Captions, Darin Brezeale

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Viewers of video now have more choices than ever. As the number of choices increases, the task of searching through these choices to locate video of interest is becoming more difficult. Current methods for learning a viewer's preferences in order to automate the search process rely either on video having content descriptions or on having been rated by other viewers identified as being similar. However, much video exists that does not meet these requirements. To address this need, we use hidden Markov models to learn the preferences of a viewer by combining visual features and closed captions. We validate our …

Extending The Season For Sustainability In Utah, Britney Hunter

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The importance of providing fresh produce on a local level is becoming a widespread consideration among people concerned with the character of their food. For regions without an opportune growing climate, extending the growing season can drastically advance productivity. High tunnels are one way to effectively and profitably extend the growing season in cold climates. The benefits of growing in a high tunnel go beyond raising the temperature. High tunnels contribute to higher quality small fruits and vegetables. The benefits of growing in high tunnels have been explored in other states and could be exploited by Utah growers. Utah's climate …

Balanced Libraries: Thoughts On Continuity And Change, Walt Crawford

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

Chemistry Division, A. Ben Wagner

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

Materials Research & Manufacturing Section, Betsy Aldridge

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

Engineering Division, Bob Tolliver

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

Science-Technology Division, Ann Koopman

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Chemistry Web, Bob Buchanan

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

Sci-Tech Book News Reviews, Susan Fingerman

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

Histopathological Assessment And Comparison Sedimentation And Phosphate Stress On The Staghorn Coral, Acropora Cervicornis, Erin Christine Hodel

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Traditional coral reef monitoring efforts lack assessment of coral health at tissue and cellular levels. This thesis investigated tissue, cellular, and gross morphological responses of the Caribbean staghorn coral, Acropora cervicornis, to elevated sedimentation and phosphate using state-of-the-art histological techniques. Branch fragments of A. cervicornis were collected offshore Broward County, FL, acclimated for 12 weeks, subjected to a 4-week experimental period, and given a 1-week recovery period in laboratory aquaria. Treatments consisted of high doses (200 mg cm^-2 day^-1) of sedimentation (S), phosphate (4 μM) (P), and a combination of these two (S + P), in …

Generalized Multiagent Learning With Performance Bound, Bikramjit Banerjee, Jing Peng

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We present new Multiagent learning (MAL) algorithms with the general philosophy of policy convergence against some classes of opponents but otherwise ensuring high payoffs. We consider a 3-class breakdown of opponent types: (eventually) stationary, self-play and "other" (see Definition 4) agents. We start with ReDVaLeR that can satisfy policy convergence against the first two types and no-regret against the third, but it needs to know the type of the opponents. This serves as a baseline to delineate the difficulty of achieving these goals. We show that a simple modification on ReDVaLeR yields a new algorithm, RV σ(t), that achieves no-regret …

Weighted Additive Criterion For Linear Dimension Reduction, Jing Peng, Stefan Robila

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) for dimension reduction has been applied to a wide variety of face recognition tasks. However, it has two major problems. First, it suffers from the small sample size problem when dimensionality is greater than the sample size. Second, it creates subspaces that favor well separated classes over those that are not. In this paper, we propose a simple weighted criterion for linear dimension reduction that addresses the above two problems associated with LDA. In addition, there are well established numerical procedures such as semi-definite programming for efficiently computing the proposed criterion. We demonstrate the efficacy of …

Notes From The Director, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Teaching Time Savers: The Exam Practically Wrote Itself!, Michael E. Orrison Jr.

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

When I first started teaching, creating an exam for my upper division courses was a genuinely exciting process. The material felt fresh and relatively unexplored (at least by me), and I remember often feeling pleasantly overwhelmed with what seemed like a vast supply of intriguing and engrossing exam-ready problems. Crafting the perfect exam, one that was noticeably inviting, exceedingly fair, and unavoidably illuminating, was a real joy.

Distributed Predictive Health Monitoring, Jorge David Herrera Gonzalez

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

According to the National Center for Health Statistics the major causes of death in the US are (per year) heart diseases with 654 thousand cases, followed by cancer with 550 thousand cases and stroke with 150 thousand cases. In this project we propose, design, implement and test a prototype of a system that promises to improve the level of detection and prediction of several diseases and improves the quality of life of patients by utilizing non-invasive wireless medical sensors. This system is composed of a set of wireless medical sensors, a nearby (close-proximity) PDA (personal digital accessory) or cell phone …

Cxlengine - A Comprehensive Xml Loosely Structured Search Engine, Indhu Krishna Sivaramakrishnan

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

XML keyword search has been a widely researched area. [15] has proposed an XML semantic search engine called OOXSearch, which answers loosely structured queries. The framework of OOXSearch takes into account the semantic relationship between nodes based on their contexts. The context of a node is determined by its parent node. The label "name", for example, could mean the name of a book and could also mean the name of the book's author. If we try to consider the relationship between these two nodes without considering their parent nodes, we would be drawing the incorrect conclusion that these two nodes …

Limitations Of Ieee 802.15.4 Based Wireless Mesh Networks For Wireless Localization, William Anthony Wallace

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

It is highly desirable to create rapidly and inexpensively deployable mesh networks in certain scenarios. Consider the case of a large storage warehouse; workers are constantly moving in the area and not only do they need to send data periodically but their location needs to be tracked as well. Setting up such network can be accomplished with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, but a mesh network must be created. There would need to be stationary 802.15.4 nodes that join together to form a backbone infrastructure. This backbone infrastructure (mesh network) would allow the workers, using mobile 802.15.4 nodes, to transmit their …

Subrosa: An Experimental Platform For Studying Timing Analysis Of Real Time Anonymity Systems, Hatim Asger Daginawala

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Timing analysis poses a significant challenge for the mix based anonymous systems that wish to support low-latency applications like web browsing, instant messaging and Voice over IP (VOIP). Research in this area so far has been done through simulations on ad hoc simulators or non practical local area networks. We developed SubRosa, an experimental platform for studying timing analysis of real time anonymity systems to facilitate the study of Tor like low-latency anonymous systems. We present results of experiments on a real distributed network test bed PlanetLab, where we studied timing analysis attacks and some of the defenses to protect …

Panda Monitoring - A System To Monitor High Performance Computing For The Atlas Experiment-Design, Development,Implementation And Deployment, Prem A. Thilagar

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Grid resources are gaining wide importance in the wake of experiments such as ATLAS aiding in a bigger goal to understand the complexities of nature. The need for a good monitoring system is realized as grid resources are being implemented widely. This work is an analysis of the existing monitoring system of the Panda which is a grid middleware for the ATLAS experiment running in CERN. The thesis aims at identifying the key bottlenecks of the current monitor and speaks about the implementation of a new monitor for the same .The new monitor which is being designed with scalability and …

Ring Closing Enyne Metathesis Of Imidazole Derivatives And Subsequent Diels-Alder Reaction, E. Vindana Ekanayake

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses - Archive

The work presented in this thesis describes the development of new synthetic routes to elaborate simple imidazole derivatives into complex imidazole molecules by the application of different sequential transformations. The first transformation considered is the ring closing enyne metathesis (RCEYM) of imidazoles. To carry out this reaction various allyl and propargyl derivatives of imidazole have been synthesized. These enyne substrates have been varied by changing the positions on the imidazole, as well as changing the protecting groups. All substrates contain trimethysilyl-protected propargyl derivative as the "yne" moiety. After the successful preparation of different enyne substrates, they were subjected to the …