Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Report On Advances In The Field Of Artificial Intelligence Attributed To Captcha, Craig M. Schow

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

A CAPTCHA is a specialized human interaction proof that exploits gaps between human and computer recognition abilities. By design, the hardness of a CAPTCHA is based on the difficulty of advancing the underlying artificial intelligence [AI] technology to a level that eliminates any exploitable gap. Due to this fact computer scientists have concluded that the widespread use of CAPTCHA would accelerate research in the underlying fields of AI eventually leading to near-­‐human capabilities in certain AI systems. Despite these predictions no attempt has been made to identify advances in AI which can be attributed to the use of CAPTCHA.

The …

Enhancing Inettest By Improving The Programming Question And Group Grading, Sushil Dosi

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This report describes an improvement to the Utah State University iNetTest testing system. The iNetTest system allows instructors and/or students to: • Create/take tests with rich sets of question types (multiple choice, essay, true/false, computational programming question, etc.); • Monitor the test takers for cheating; • Auto-grade for many types of questions, as well as group grade for all question types; and • Send scores to students via either email or SMS. Specifically, this report discusses the design and development of an improved computational programming question for the iNetTest system. For programming questions, iNetTest allows for the use of various …

Going Green, Dermot Kehily

Articles

No abstract provided.

Algebraic Properties Of Killing Vectors For Lorentz Metrics In Four Dimensions, Jesse W. Hicks

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Four-dimensional space-times with symmetry play a central role in the theory of general relativity. In 1961, in the book Einstein Spaces, A.Z. Petrov gave a complete local classification of four-dimensional space-times based upon their local isometry group, that is, their Lie algebra of Killing vector fields. In this report we discuss algebraic and geometric properties of these Lie algebras. A database of these properties has been computed for the five-dimensional Lie algebras of Killing vectors found in Petrov. As an application of our work, we present dieomorphisms between a few pairs of these Lie algebras of Killing vectors.

First-Principles Studies On Physical And Chemical Properties Of Nanostructures, Menghao Wu

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The physical and chemical properties of decorated graphene and graphene ribbons, single-layer III-V systems, three-dimensional carbon and BN foam, and transition-metal-molecular sandwich nanowires have been investigated by first-principle calculations and their potential applications have been predicted. First, it is shown that zigzag graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs) can be converted into half metal when their edges are decorated by some chemical functional groups, and the half-metalicity is induced by chemical potential difference between two edges when one edge is decorated by electron-donating group like –OH and the other edge is decorated by electron-accepting group like –F, -NH₂, -N(CH₃) …

Grapher: A Multiplatform Gui For Drawing Customizable Graphs In R, Maxime Hervé

The R Journal

This article presents GrapheR, a Graphical User Interface allowing the user to draw customizable and high-quality graphs without knowing any R commands. Six kinds of graph are available: histograms, box-and-whisker plots, bar plots, pie charts, curves and scatter plots. The complete process is described with the examples of a bar plot and a scatter plot illustrating the legendary puzzle of African and European swallows’ migrations.

Using The Google Visualisation Api With R, Markus Gesmann, Diego De Castillo

The R Journal

The googleVis package provides an interface between R and the Google Visualisation API to create interactive charts which can be embedded into web pages. The best known of these charts is probably the Motion Chart, popularised by Hans Rosling in his TED talks. With the googleVis package users can easily create web pages with interactive charts based on R data frames and display them either via the local R HTTPhelp server or within their own sites.

Nonparametric Goodness-Of-Fit Tests For Discrete Null Distributions, Taylor B. Arnold, John W. Emerson

The R Journal

Methodology extending nonparametric goodness-of-fit tests to discrete null distributions has existed for several decades. However, modern statistical software has generally failed to provide this methodology to users. We offer a revision of R’s ks.test() function and a new cvm.test() function that fill this need in the R language for two of the most popular nonparametric goodness-of-fit tests. This paper describes these contributions and provides examples of their usage. Particular attention is given to various numerical issues that arise in their implementation.

Ckmeans.1d.Dp: Optimal K-Means Clustering In One Dimension By Dynamic Programming, Haizhou Wang, Mingzhou Song

The R Journal

The heuristic k-means algorithm, widely used for cluster analysis, does not guarantee optimality. We developed a dynamic programming algorithm for optimal one-dimensional clustering. The algorithm is implemented as an R package called Ckmeans.1d.dp. We demonstrate its ad vantage in optimality and runtime over the standard iterative k-means algorithm.

Content-Based Social Network Analysis Of Mailing Lists, Angela Bohn, Ingo Feinerer, Kurt Hornik, Patrick Mair

The R Journal

Social Network Analysis (SNA) provides tools to examine relationships between people. Text Mining (TM) allows capturing the text they produce in Web 2.0 applications, for example, however it neglects their social structure. This paper applies an approach to combine the two methods named “content-based SNA”. Using the R mailing lists, R-help and R-devel, we show how this combination can be used to describe people’s interests and to find out if authors who have similar interests actually communicate. We find that the expected positive relationship between sharing interests and communicating gets stronger as the centrality scores of authors in the communication …

Review Of Teaching Children Science: Hands-On Nature Study In North America, 1890-1930 By Sally Kohlstedt, Meena M. Balgopal

The Prairie Naturalist

Many scientists and educators agree that the goal of science education is to prepare students "to know, use and interpret scientific explanations of the natural world," as cited in the National Research Council publication, Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8 (DuschI et al. 2007). Yet, many science instructors of K-12 and post-secondary students often rely on teacher-telling modes of pedagogy and neglect to engage their students in natural inquiry and scientific study that model the research methods used by scientists. As a result, many young people are not aware of how scientists make discoveries about …

Depth And Littoral Habitat Association Of Age-0 Yellow Perch In Two South Dakota Glacial Lakes, Daniel J. Dembkowski, Melissa R. Wuellner, David W. Willis

The Prairie Naturalist

Yellow perch (Perca flavescens) are a recreationally important species and represent a key ecological component of glacial lake littoral fish assemblages (Stone 1996, Blackwell et al. 1999). Research has shown a generalized pattern of juvenile (age-0) yellow perch spatial distribution wherein larvae hatch in near-shore areas, migrate to limnetic areas where they remain for approximately 40 d, and then return to demersal behaviors and within near-shore littoral habitats (Noble 1975, Whiteside et al. 1985). However, anomalous distribution and habitat use by age-0 yellow perch has been observed in South Dakota glacial lakes (Fisher and Willis 1997) and the …

Massasauga Repatriation On A Restored Wet Prairie, Francis E. Durbian, Brian N. Lomas, Jeff Briggler, Paul Mckenzie, Tom Nagel

The Prairie Naturalist

The massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus) is a small rattlesnake that occurs from Texas to New York (Schmidt and Davis 1941, Conant and Collins 1991, Szymanski 1998). In Missouri, the Eastern massasauga rattlesnake (EMR; S. c. catenatus), a subspecies of the massasauga, occurs north and east of the Missouri River, is a former candidate for listing under the United States Endangered Species Act (Code of Federal Regulations 64 FR 57534; Szymanski 1998), and is listed as a state endangered species (Missouri Natural Heritage Program 2011). Missouri currently harbors five extant EMR populations (Johnson 2000, Durbian et al., unpublished report, …

Book Review Of Encyclopedia Of Biological Invasions, Edited By Daniel Simberloff And Marcel Rejmanek, Qinfeng Guo

The Prairie Naturalist

Book review of Encyclopedia of Biological Invasions, edited by Daniel Simberloff and Marcel Rejmanek.

Species introductions and consequent biotic invasions and homogenization are major components of global change that are drawing increasing concern and various levels of actions and reactions around the world. Invasion ecology has advanced rapidly during the last few decades, and the discipline is now increasingly integrated with the social and economic sciences. A better understanding of the invasion process and its effects is thus clearly needed. For basic research, invasion biology offers fascinating and sometimes unique opportunities for testing certain ecological or evolutionary theories and …

Modeling Parental Provisioning By Red-Winged Blackbirds In North Dakota, George M. Linz, Richard S. Sawin, Mark W. Lutman, William J. Bleier

The Prairie Naturalist

Male red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) exhibit a difference in nest provisioning rates along an east-west gradient in North America. North Dakota is located in the center of North America and harbors a large population of breeding red-winged blackbirds (RWBL). This location provided an opportunity to compare provisioning rates in the central U.S. with those reported for the eastern and western populations. We placed video cameras at RWBL nests to record male and female feeding trips. Thirty-four nests were located on territories with original males and 30 were on territories where a replacement (floater) male had taken over a …

Manuscript Content: Where Does It Belong?, Christopher N. Jacques

The Prairie Naturalist

One of the most common issues we address during content editing of papers for The Prairie Naturalist (journal) is the appropriate placement of content in the text body. Based on my experience with the editorial process, content placement also is one of the issues that authors are most resistant to suggestions or do not fully understand why we are so persistent about it (Thompson 2010). One of the primary objectives of scientific writing is to concisely and accurately disseminate information. Scientific papers are structured to help both the author and reader accomplish this objective. The material that belongs in each …

Factors That Cause Growth And Development In The City Of Lincoln, Ne, Kaylene Tegtmeier

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

This qualitative study looks at what factors may contribute to the outward growth and development of the city of Lincoln, Nebraska. The two main factors the study discusses are the Lincoln Public School planners and their placement of schools in the city, and the “American dream” of the people, looking at where the people of Lincoln want to be living throughout the city and what some of their daily habits are. This study also discusses some of the main visions of the city of Lincoln’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan how the plan’s ambitions may affect the two factors looked at in …

Spring Migration Of Mallards From Arkansas As Determined By Satellite Telemetry, David George Krementz, Kwasi Asante, Luke W. Naylor

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

We used satellite telemetry to document spring migration phenology, routes, stopover regions, and nesting sites of mallards Anas platyrhynchos marked in Arkansas during the winters of 2004–2007. Of the 143 marked mallards that migrated from Arkansas, they did so, on average, by mid-March. Mallards flew over the Missouri Ozarks and 42% made an initial stopover in Missouri, where they used areas that had larger rivers (Mississippi River, Missouri River) embedded in an agricultural landscape. From this stopover region they either migrated directly to the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) or they migrated north to Minnesota where they either moved next to …

Preparation And Characterization Of Biomimetic Hydroxyapatite-Resorbable Polymer Composites For Hard Tissue Repair, Kristopher R. Hiebner

Department of Chemistry: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Autografts are the orthopedic “gold standard” for repairing bone voids. Autografts are osteoconductive and do not elicit an immune response, but they are in short supply and require a second surgery to harvest the bone graft. Allografts are currently the most common materials used for the repair of segmental defects in hard tissue. Unlike autografts, allografts can cause an undesirable immune response and the possibility of disease transmission is a major concern. As an alternative to the above approaches, recent research efforts have focused on the use of composite materials made from hydroxyapatite (HA) and bioresorbable polymers, such as poly-L-lactide …

Distributed Algorithms For Energy Savings In The Core Network, Lin Liu

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Recently, many efforts have been undertaken to reduce the energy consumption of core networks. Bundle link is a commonly deployed technique in core networks to combine several high-speed physical sublinks into a virtual connection to achieve bandwidth upgrade flexibility and network reliability. The traffic passing through a bundle link can be carried fully over the first few sublinks (bin packing) or evenly distributed over all sublinks (load balancing). In the current network when a bundle link is on, all of its sublinks are on, thus, selectively shutting down a few sublinks during periods of low traffic could save a large …

Water Quality Models For Stormwater Runoff In Two Lincoln, Nebraska Urban Watersheds, Jake Fisher

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Water quality monitoring was conducted in two urban watersheds (Colonial Hills and Taylor Park) located in southeast Lincoln, NE over a three year period spanning from October 2008 through September 2011. In-line probes continuously measured for turbidity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and water temperature while other water quality constituents were analyzed for discrete water samples collected using grab and automatic sampling techniques. The water quality data was used to calculate event mean concentrations (EMCs) for sixteen storm events sampled over the duration of the project period. Three types of stormwater quality multiple linear regression models were developed for the estimation of …

A Cooperative Game Theoretic Approach For Data Replication In Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks, Dan Hirsch, Sanjay Madria

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The mobile computing environment provides many benefits such as ubiquitous access to computing but include constraints on resources such as: Available bandwidth and battery life. Replication is a widely recognized method for balancing the demands of storage space with bandwidth and battery life. We propose a novel scheme that seeks to strategically balance these constrained resources through a cooperative game-theoretic approach for replication in a mobile environment. Our replication strategy relies on the cooperation of the nodes within the network to make replica caching decisions which are spatiotemporally local-optimal for the network from an energy and bandwidth conservation standpoint. in …

A Secure And Distributed Framework To Identify And Share Needed Information, Wei Jiang, Bharath K. Samanthula

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Information analysis and communication play significant roles in decision making, especially in battle grounds and situations where national security is under threat. in many situations when information in consideration is sensitive/confidential, it is in our best interests to analyze and share only needed information to minimize the potential of security breach regarding other irrelevant but sensitive information. Thus, the goal of this paper is to investigate the required methodologies and propose an advanced communication framework that enables different entities in distributed environments to identify, share and analyze only needed information, without disclosing other unwanted but sensitive information. Such a framework …

Personalized Searching For Web Service Using User Interests, Rong Hu, Wanchun Dou, Xiaoqing Frank Liu, Jianxun Liu

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Users usually have different prospective even they input a same keyword to search Web services. It is a challenge to personalize web service search engine as more and more keyword-like Web services becoming available on Internet. User interest plays an important role in personalizing search result. Therefore, through interest extraction, Web service search engine is personalized. at last, an experiment is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the method. © 2011 IEEE.

Exploring Caching For Efficient Collection Operations, Swetha Surapaneni, Venkata Krishna Suhas Nerella, Sanjay K. Madria, Thomas Weigert

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Many useful programs operate on collection types. Extensive libraries are available in many programming languages, such as the C++ Standard Template Library, which make programming with collections convenient. Extending programming languages to provide collection queries as first class constructs in the language would not only allow programmers to write queries explicitly in their programs but it would also allow compilers to leverage the wealth of experience available from the database domain to optimize such queries. This paper describes an approach to reducing the run time of programs involving explicit collection queries by leveraging a cache to store previously computed results. …

Middleware For Supporting Content Sharing In Dynamic Networks, Mohan Kumar, Sharma Chakravarthy, Sanjay Kumar Madria, Mark Linderman, Waseem Naqvi

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper proposes a middleware architecture to enable seamless content sharing in highly dynamic networks, such as those involving a number of aerial unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs), which are characterized by constantly changing connectivity and network topology. the proposed middleware maintains up-to-date network status as well as metadata information about data objects in the network nodes, masking the content sharing applications from the network dynamics and faults. Mechanisms for node discovery, message passing, and network management are developed. a strategy is also proposed for efficient replication to ensure availability of data in highly mobile environments. the middleware includes a message …

Modeling 3d Articulated Motions With Conformal Geometry Videos (Cgvs), Dao T. P. Quynh, Ying He, Xiaoming Chen, Jiazhi Xia, Qian Sun, Steven C. H. Hoi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

3D articulated motions are widely used in entertainment, sports, military, and medical applications. Among various techniques for modeling 3D motions, geometry videos (GVs) are a compact representation in that each frame is parameterized to a 2D domain, which captures the 3D geometry (x, y, z) to a pixel (r, g, b) in the image domain. As a result, the widely studied image/video processing techniques can be directly borrowed for 3D motion. This paper presents conformal geometry videos (CGVs), a novel extension of the traditional geometry videos by taking into the consideration of the isometric nature of 3D articulated motions. We …

Mahalanobis-Taguchi System As A Multi-Sensor Based Decision Making Prognostics Tool For Centrifugal Pump Failures, Ahmet Soylemezoglu, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Can Saygin

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A novel Mahalanobis Taguchi System (MTS) based fault detection, isolation, and prognostics scheme is presented. the proposed scheme fuses data from multiple sensors into a single system level performance metric using Mahalanobis Distance (MD) and generates fault clusters based on MD values. MD thresholds derived from the clustering analysis are used for fault detection and isolation. When a fault is detected, the prognostics scheme, which monitors the progression of the MD values over time, is initiated. Then, using a linear approximation, time to failure is estimated. the performance of the scheme has been validated via experiments performed on a mono-block …

Erratum: Experimental Study Of The Role Of Physicochemical Surface Processing On The In Ability Of Mineral Dust Particles (Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics (2011) 11 (11131-11144)), D. Niedermeier, S. Hartmann, T. Clauss, H. Wex, A. Kiselev, R. C. Sullivan, P. J. Demott, M. D. Petters, P. Reitz, J. Schneider, E. Mikhailov, B. Sierau, O. Stetzer, B. Reimann, U. Bundke, R. A. Shaw, A. Buchholz, T. F. Mentel, F. Stratmann

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

No abstract provided.

Sufficient Conditions For Uniqueness Of The Weak Value, Justin Dressel, Andrew N. Jordan

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We review and clarify the sufficient conditions for uniquely defining the generalized weak value as the weak limit of a conditioned average using the contextual values formalism introduced in Dressel, Agarwal and Jordan (2010 Phys. Rev. Lett. 104 240401). We also respond to criticism of our work by Parrott (arXiv:1105.4188v1) concerning a proposed counter-example to the uniqueness of the definition of the generalized weak value. The counter-example does not satisfy our prescription in the case of an underspecified measurement context. We show that when the contextual values formalism is properly applied to this example, a natural interpretation of the …