Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Why Convex Combination Is An Effective Crossover Operation In Continuous Optimization: A Theoretical Explanation, Kelly Cohen, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

When evolutionary computation techniques are used to solve continuous optimization problems, usually, convex combination is used as a crossover operation. Empirically, this crossover operation works well, but this success is, from the foundational viewpoint, a challenge: why this crossover operation works well is not clear. In this paper, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical success.

Estimating Skewness And Higher Central Moments Of An Interval-Valued Fuzzy Set, Juan Carlos Figueroa-Garcia, Martine Ceberio, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

A known relation between membership functions and probability density functions allows us to naturally extend statistical characteristics like central moments to the fuzzy case. In case of interval-valued fuzzy sets, we have several possible membership functions consistent with our knowledge. For different membership functions, in general, we have different values of the central moments. It is therefore desirable to compute, in the interval-valued fuzzy case, the range of possible values for each such moment. In this paper, we provide efficient algorithms for this computation.

College Of Natural Sciences Newsletter, May & June 2022, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

Volume 3, Issue 4

Page 1 Dean's Message
Page 2 Awards and Recognition
Page 3-4 The path to a Doctorate Degree
Page 4 American Indian Student Center Native Graduate Honoring Ceremony
Page 5 Celebrating the lives of those who touched the College
Page 6 Media coverage of CNS
Page 7 Open PRAIRIE
Page 8-10 CNS Graduation Festivities
Page 11-14 Spring 2022 Dean's List
Page 16 Richard and Janice Vetter Endowed Professorship in Biotechnology.position

Toi-1696: A Nearby M4 Dwarf With A 3 R⊕ Planet In The Neptunian Desert, M. Mori, J. H. Livingston, J. De Leon, N. Narita, T. Hirano, A. Fukui, K. A. Collins, N. Fujita, Y. Hori, H. T. Ishikawa, K. Kawauchi, K. G. Stassun, N. Watanabe, S. Giacalone, R. Gore, A. Schroeder, C. D. Dressing, A. Bieryla, Eric L.N. Jensen, B. Massey, A. Shporer, M. Kuzuhara, D. Charbonneau, D. R. Ciardi, J. P. Doty, E. Esparza-Borges, H. Harakawa, K. Hodapp, M. Ikoma, K. Ikuta, K. Isogai, J. M. Jenkins, T. Kagetani, T. Kimura, T. Kodama, T. Kotani, V. Krishnamurthy, T. Kudo, S. Kurita, T. Kurokawa, N. Kusakabe, D. W. Latham, B. Mclean, F. Murgas, J. Nishikawa, T. Nishiumi, M. Omiya, H. P. Osborn, E. Palle, H. Parviainen, G. R. Ricker, S. Seager, T. Serizawa, H.-Y. Teng, Y. Terada, J. D. Twicken, A. Ueda, R. Vanderspek, S. Vievard, J. N. Winn, Y. Zou, M. Tamura

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

We present the discovery and validation of a temperate sub-Neptune around the nearby mid-M dwarf TIC 470381900 (TOI-1696), with a radius of 3.09 ± 0.11 R⊕ and an orbital period of 2.5 days, using a combination of Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS) and follow-up observations using ground-based telescopes. Joint analysis of multiband photometry from TESS, Multicolor Simultaneous Camera for studying Atmospheres of Transiting exoplanets (MuSCAT), MuSCAT3, Sinistro, and KeplerCam confirmed the transit signal to be achromatic as well as refined the orbital ephemeris. High-resolution imaging with Gemini/'Alopeke and high-resolution spectroscopy with the Subaru InfraRed Doppler (IRD) confirmed that there …

Consensus Embedding For Multiple Networks: Computation And Applications, Mengzhen Li, Mehmet Koyutürk

Faculty Scholarship

Machine learning applications on large-scale network-structured data commonly encode network information in the form of node embeddings. Network embedding algorithms map the nodes into a low-dimensional space such that the nodes that are “similar” with respect to network topology are also close to each other in the embedding space. Real-world networks often have multiple versions or can be “multiplex” with multiple types of edges with different semantics. For such networks, computation of Consensus Embeddings based on the node embeddings of individual versions can be useful for various reasons, including privacy, efficiency, and effectiveness of analyses. Here, we systematically investigate the …

Evaluation Of Sustainability Determinants To Develop A Sustainability Rating System For California Infrastructure Construction Projects, Joseph Kim, Patricia Mccarthy

Mineta Transportation Institute

This study evaluates the important sustainability determinants that affect factors’ success in meeting their sustainability goals when conducting infrastructure construction projects in California. The study implemented the online survey method to evaluate the sustainability characteristics that infrastructure industry professionals currently are aware of under the current situation in California. A data set of 25 validated survey responses is used for statistical data analysis using analysis of variables, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and two sample t-tests. The analysis results showed that the median response values for the six major sustainability categories do not show any significant difference. The results also showed that no …

Analysis Of The Zebrafish Olfactory System Using Immunohistochemistry And Enhanced Techniques Of Desorption Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry (Desi-Ms), Tara Lynn Maser

Dissertations

Desorption electrospray ionization (DESI-MS) is an ambient ionization technique where the sample is analyzed directly from a surface with very minimal sample preparation under ambient conditions and follows ESI-like ionization mechanisms. DESI-MS has proven powerful in analyzing or imaging lipids and other small molecules directly from biological samples and even allows for subsequent histological staining and analyses. However, DESI-MS is less widely used for protein analysis due to a lack of sensitivity and the complex diversity of proteins in biological samples.

A major goal of this research has been to obtain new neurobiological knowledge by combining histology and mass spectrometry …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Nanojars And Their Anion Binding Ability, Wisam Abdulabbas Flayyih Al Isawi

Dissertations

Inorganic anions are an important class of inherently negatively charged species. Anions such as sulfate (SO42–) and phosphates (H2PO4–, HPO42–) are ubiquitous in nature and biological systems, whereas chromate (CrO42–) and arsenates (H2AsO4–, HAsO42–) are environmental pollutants. Because of the high interest in the sequestration of anions from aqueous media, different methods have been explored to bind anions. Among these, the use of noncovalent interactions to encapsulate anions by organic and metal-organic host molecules is particularly attractive, because the reversibility of binding allows for the easy recovery of the extracted anion and the recycling of the anion extracting agent.

Nanojars …

Multiple Object Tracking For Marine Science, Nicholas A. Wachter

Computer Science and Software Engineering

As drone and computer vision technology has been improving, many fields of study have been quick to utilize it to improve the accuracy and ease of data collection. The combination of the two technologies is perfect for surveying large areas and identifying features of interest. Marine science utilizes these technologies for activities such as animal tracking and population counting. I am working with the Drones for Marine Science research group at Cal Poly who want to build a fleet of drones that will fly out over the ocean to identify and track various marine animals. My role will be to …

Solid Thermal Storage As An Energy Storage Device In Insulated Solar Electric Cookers: Thermal Modeling And Experiment, Michael Antonio Fernandez

Physics

The use of solid thermal storage (STS) as an energy storage device in insulated solar electric cookers (ISEC) was explored using a thermal simulation before retrofitting an existing cooker without energy storage and testing it under several conditions. STS sizing, material selection, and geometry were examined from both theoretical and practical perspectives and re-examined following experimental results. Characterization of the system’s thermal interfaces and methods to improve their thermal conductivities were investigated resulting in several performance enhancements to the system.

Ord River Irrigation Area Stage 2 M2 Supply Channel Compliance Assessment Report 2021 - Statement 938, Kimberley Boab Consultiung

Irrigated Agricultural Development in the North

This compliance assessment of progress with the implementation of Ministerial Statement 938 for the period 1/1/2021 to 31/12/2021 was undertaken on behalf of the Proponent, the Western Australian Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development. It assesses and makes recommendations on compliance with the delivery of the conditions applied to the development of the Ord River Irrigation Area Stage 2 (M2 Supply Channel) as stipulated in Ministerial Statement 938 issued by the Minister for the Environment and administered by the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation.

Previous audits have recommended changes to a number of actions in the Goomig Environmental …

The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey. Xxxiii. Stellar Population Gradients In The Virgo Cluster Core Globular Cluster System, Youkyung Ko, Eric W. Peng, Patrick Côté, Laura Ferrarese, Chengze Liu, Alessia Longobardi, Ariane Lançon, Roberto P. Muñoz, Thomas H. Puzia, Karla A. Alamo-Martínez, Laura V. Sales, Felipe Ramos-Almendares, Mario G. Abadi, Myung Gyoon Lee, Ho Seong Hwang, Nelson Caldwell, John P. Blakeslee, Alessandro Boselli, Jean-Charles Cuillandre, Pierre-Alain Duc, Susana Eyheramendy, Puragra Guhathakurta, Elisa Toloba

Pacific Faculty Work

We present a study of the stellar populations of globular clusters (GCs) in the Virgo Cluster core with a homogeneous spectroscopic catalog of 692 GCs within a major-axis distance R maj = 840 kpc from M87. We investigate radial and azimuthal variations in the mean age, total metallicity, [Fe/H], and α-element abundance of blue (metal-poor) and red (metal-rich) GCs using their co-added spectra. We find that the blue GCs have a steep radial gradient in [Z/H] within R maj = 165 kpc, with roughly equal contributions from [Fe/H] and [α/Fe], and flat gradients beyond. By contrast, the red GCs show …

2022 June - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Reports

No abstract provided.

Alpha-Crystallin Association With The Model Of Human And Animal Eye Lens-Lipid Membranes Is Modulated By Surface Hydrophobicity Of Membranes, Raju Timsina, Geraline Trossi-Torres, Jackson Thieme, Matthew O'Dell, Nawal K. Khadka, Laxman Mainali

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose

This research aims to probe the interaction of α-crystallin with a model of human, porcine, and mouse lens-lipid membranes.

Methods

Cholesterol/model of human lens-lipid (Chol/MHLL), cholesterol/model of porcine lens-lipid (Chol/MPLL), and cholesterol/model of mouse lens-lipid (Chol/MMLL) membranes with 0–60 mol% Chol were prepared using the rapid solvent exchange method and probe-tip sonication. The hydrophobicity near the surface of model lens-lipid membranes and α-crystallin association with these membranes were investigated using the electron paramagnetic resonance spin-labeling approach.

Results

With increased Chol content, the hydrophobicity near the surface of Chol/MHLL, Chol/MPLL, and Chol/MMLL membranes, the maximum percentage of membrane surface occupied …

"A Conceptual Framework For Measuring Criminal Justice Success In Responding To Violence Against Women Act (Vawa) Crimes: Final Results And Recommendations", Sarah Goan, Kris Lugo-Graulich, Susy Hawes, Hannah Brintlinger Mph, Susan Smith Howley

Publications

The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), established under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, leads national efforts to prevent and respond to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking through 19 grant programs that strengthen victim services and enhance offender accountability. These programs include four formula grants distributed to states and fifteen discretionary programs for which OVW defines eligibility, goals, and deliverables. Grantees submit biannual progress reports containing quantitative and qualitative data that are later compiled into biennial Reports to Congress. While these reports effectively capture outputs such as numbers of victims served, trainings conducted, and partnerships …

Reconceptualizing The Hyporheic Zone For Nonperennial Rivers And Streams, Kendra E. Kaiser

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Nonperennial streams dominate global river networks and are increasing in occurrence across space and time. When surface flow ceases or the surface water dries, flow or moisture can be retained in the subsurface sediments of the hyporheic zone, supporting aquatic communities and ecosystem processes. However, hydrological and ecological definitions of the hyporheic zone have been developed in perennial rivers and emphasize the mixing of water and organisms from both the surface stream and groundwater. The adaptation of such definitions to include both humid and dry unsaturated conditions could promote characterization of how hydrological and biogeochemical variability shape ecological communities within …

Artist-Configurable Node-Based Approach To Generate Procedural Brush Stroke Textures For Digital Painting, Keavon Chambers

Master's Theses

Digital painting is the field of software designed to provide artists a virtual medium to emulate the experience and results of physical drawing. Several hardware and software components come together to form a whole workflow, ranging from the physical input devices, to the stroking process, to the texture content authorship. This thesis explores an artist-friendly approach to synthesize the textures that give life to digital brush strokes.

Most painting software provides a limited library of predefined brush textures. They aim to offer styles approximating physical media like paintbrushes, pencils, markers, and airbrushes. Often these are static bitmap textures that are …

How Do You Define The Watershed? Individual Representations Of The Blackstone River Watershed And Their Roles In Collaborative Watershed Governance, Casey Merkle

Masters Theses

Key leaders of civic environmental stewardship organizations shape collaborative watershed governance. Individuals perceive and construct the watershed through past experiences, feeling, emotion, values, and practices. It is not well known how these individuals perceive and construct their own representations of the watershed and environmental stewardship practices. This thesis explored individuals past experiences, feelings, emotions, values, and practices in the Blackstone River watershed to a) examine the ways in which key leaders of civic environmental stewardship organizations represent the watershed b) understand how individuals think, feel, and engage in environmental stewardship practices and, c) reveal the congruences and incongruencies of individual …

Imnets: Deep Learning Using An Incremental Modular Network Synthesis Approach For Medical Imaging Applications, Redha A. Ali, Russell C. Hardie, Barath Narayanan Narayanan, Temesguen Messay

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Deep learning approaches play a crucial role in computer-aided diagnosis systems to support clinical decision-making. However, developing such automated solutions is challenging due to the limited availability of annotated medical data. In this study, we proposed a novel and computationally efficient deep learning approach to leverage small data for learning generalizable and domain invariant representations in different medical imaging applications such as malaria, diabetic retinopathy, and tuberculosis. We refer to our approach as Incremental Modular Network Synthesis (IMNS), and the resulting CNNs as Incremental Modular Networks (IMNets). Our IMNS approach is to use small network modules that we call SubNets …

Comparing Learned Representations Between Unpruned And Pruned Deep Convolutional Neural Networks, Parker Mitchell

Master's Theses

While deep neural networks have shown impressive performance in computer vision tasks, natural language processing, and other domains, the sizes and inference times of these models can often prevent them from being used on resource-constrained systems. Furthermore, as these networks grow larger in size and complexity, it can become even harder to understand the learned representations of the input data that these networks form through training. These issues of growing network size, increasing complexity and runtime, and ambiguity in the understanding of internal representations serve as guiding points for this work.

In this thesis, we create a neural network that …

Rasm: Compiling Racket To Webassembly, Grant Matejka

Master's Theses

WebAssembly is an instruction set designed for a stack based virtual machine, with an emphasis on speed, portability and security. As the use cases for WebAssembly grow, so does the desire to target WebAssembly in compilation. In this thesis we present Rasm, a Racket to WebAssembly compiler that compiles a select subset of the top forms of the Racket programming language to WebAssembly. We also present our early findings in our work towards adding a WebAssembly backend to the Chez Scheme compiler that is the backend of Racket. We address initial concerns and roadblocks in adopting a WebAssembly backend and …

Exploring The Numerical Range Of Block Toeplitz Operators, Brooke Randell

Master's Theses

We will explore the numerical range of the block Toeplitz operator with symbol function \(\phi(z)=A_0+zA_1\), where \(A_0, A_1 \in M_2(\mathbb{C})\). A full characterization of the numerical range of this operator proves to be quite difficult and so we will focus on characterizing the boundary of the related set, \(\{W(A_0+zA_1) : z \in \partial \mathbb{D}\}\), in a specific case. We will use the theory of envelopes to explore what the boundary looks like and we will use geometric arguments to explore the number of flat portions on the boundary. We will then make a conjecture as to the number of flat …

On The Numerical Range Of Compact Operators, Montserrat Dabkowski

Master's Theses

One of the many characterizations of compact operators is as linear operators which
can be closely approximated by bounded finite rank operators (theorem 25). It is
well known that the numerical range of a bounded operator on a finite dimensional
Hilbert space is closed (theorem 54). In this thesis we explore how close to being
closed the numerical range of a compact operator is (theorem 56). We also describe
how limited the difference between the closure and the numerical range of a compact
operator can be (theorem 58). To aid in our exploration of the numerical range of
a compact …

(R1510) A Special Case Of Rodriguez-Lallena And Ubeda-Flores Copula Based On Ruschendorf Method, Marvin G. Pizon, Rolando N. Paluga

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

Measure of dependence is a particular way of looking at the association between random variables, and one way to capture stochastic dependence is through the use of copula. In this study, a Rushendorf Method was applied to a bivariate function to obtain a copula through the use of a special case of Rodriguez-Lallena and Ubeda-Flores (RLUF) copula. Properties of the RLUF copula such as the density, measures of dependence, and lower and upper tail dependence were studied. In particular, measures of dependence such as Spearman’s rho, Kendall’s tau and Blomqvist’s beta of RLUF copula are given. Moreover, the Root-Mean-Square Error …

Periodic Functions Related To The Gompertz Difference Equation, Tom Cuchta, Nick Wintz

Faculty Scholarship

We investigate periodicity of functions related to the Gompertz difference equation. In particular, we derive difference equations that must be satisfied to guarantee periodicity of the solution.

Algorithm 1025: Paryopt: A Software For Parallel Asynchronous Remote Bayesian Optimization, Balaji Sesha Sarath Pokuri, Alec Lofquist, Chad Risko, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian

Chemistry Faculty Publications

PARyOpt is a Python based implementation of the Bayesian optimization routine designed for remote and asynchronous function evaluations. Bayesian optimization is especially attractive for computational optimization due to its low cost function footprint as well as the ability to account for uncertainties in data. A key challenge to efficiently deploy any optimization strategy on distributed computing systems is the synchronization step, where data from multiple function calls is assimilated to identify the next campaign of function calls. Bayesian optimization provides an elegant approach to overcome this issue via asynchronous updates. We formulate, develop and implement a parallel, asynchronous variant of …

A Generalized Family Of Exponentiated Composite Distributions, Bowen Liu, Malwane Ananda

Mathematical Sciences Faculty Research

In this paper, we propose a new family of distributions, by exponentiating the random variables associated with the probability density functions of composite distributions. We also derive some mathematical properties of this new family of distributions, including the moments and the limited moments. Specifically, two special models in this family are discussed. Three real datasets were chosen, to assess the performance of these two special exponentiated-composite models. When fitting to these three datasets, these three special exponentiated-composite distributions demonstrate significantly better performance, compared to the original composite distributions.

Recreating Nasa Images Using Hubble Data: Two Populations Of Stars In Messier 5, Adam N. Looper

Physics

This project seeks to recreate a color photo from NASA using Hubble data that shows the two distinct populations of stars in the cluster. Although the colored image displays the two types of stars, scientists often recolor astronomical pictures for two reasons: in order to clearly define objects, or to convert an image taken outside the visible spectrum into color. Thus, overlapping Hubble images colored according to filter should verify that there are two populations of stars in Messier 5, and the colored NASA photograph is valid in highlighting the unusual distribution of stars.

Quantum Key Distribution Simulation Using Entangled Bell States, Nayana Tiwari

Physics

To communicate information securely, the sender and recipient of the information need to have a shared, secret key. Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a proposed method for this and takes advantage of the laws of quantum mechanics. The users, Alice and Bob, exchange quantum information in the form of entangled qubits over a quantum channel as well as exchanging measurement information over a classical channel. A successful QKD algorithm will ensure that when an eavesdropper has access to both the quantum and classical information channels, they cannot deduce the key, and they will be detected by the key generators. This …

Legislative Language For Success, Sanjana Gundala

Master's Theses

Legislative committee meetings are an integral part of the lawmaking process for local and state bills. The testimony presented during these meetings is a large factor in the outcome of the proposed bill. This research uses Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning techniques to analyze testimonies from California Legislative committee meetings from 2015-2016 in order to identify what aspects of a testimony makes it successful. A testimony is considered successful if the alignment of the testimony matches the bill outcome (alignment is "For" and the bill passes or alignment is "Against" and the bill fails). The process of finding what …