Mathematics Commons^™

Spock, Euler, And Madison: Graph Theory In The Classroom, Michael Buhler

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This work is an attempt to accomplish two main objectives. First is to encourage secondary students to engage in the kinds of mathematical reasoning skills that will be necessary to them when they move to college math classes. My experience in college, along with that of many others is that "school math," with its obsession with calculations and memorization, is dreadfully insufficient in preparing students for the proof and reasoning-based classes they will face in high school. This is an attempt to integrate some of those reasoning skills into high school courses using graph theory as a vehicle.

The second …

How To Find Killing Vectors, Charles G. Torre

How to... in 10 minutes or less

We show how to compute the Lie algebra of Killing vector fields of a metric in Maple using the commands KillingVectors and LieAlgebraData. A Maple worksheet and a PDF version can be found below.

How To Find A Levi Decomposition Of A Lie Algebra, Ian M. Anderson

How to... in 10 minutes or less

We show how to compute the Levi decomposition of a Lie algebra in Maple using the command LeviDecomposition. A worksheet and corresponding PDF can be found below.

How To Create A Jordan Algebra, Ian M. Anderson, Thomas J. Apedaile

How to... in 10 minutes or less

We show how to create a Jordan algebra in Maple using the commands AlgebraLibraryData and AlgebraData.

How To Create The Quaternion & Octonion Algebras, Ian M. Anderson, Thomas J. Apedaile

How to... in 10 minutes or less

We show how to create the quaternion and octonion algebras with the DifferentialGeometry software. For each algebra, there is a split-form also available.

Ultrasonic Analysis Of Breast Tissue For Pathology Classification, Kristina Marie Sorensen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Real time measurements may assist surgeons in obtaining negative or cancer free margins during lumpectomy to eliminate invasive re-excision. Previous findings show that high-frequency ultrasound can differentiate between a range of breast pathologies in surgical specimens. Two parameters, peak density and second-order spectral slope, are sensitive to histopathology. Our objective was to determine the mechanism linking high-frequency ultrasound to histology. The hypothesis is that ultrasound sensitivity is a function of the microscopic heterogeneity (and thus histology) of the tissue. Ultrasonic results from breast specimens were used to construct a multivariate analysis of the parameters that permitted differentiation of normal, adipose, …

The Octonions And The Exceptional Lie Algebra G2, Ian M. Anderson

Research Vignettes

The octonions O are an 8-dimensional non-commutative, non-associative normed real algebra. The set of all derivations of O form a real Lie algebra. It is remarkable fact, first proved by E. Cartan in 1908, that the the derivation algebra of O is the compact form of the exceptional Lie algebra G2. In this worksheet we shall verify this result of Cartan and also show that the derivation algebra of the split octonions is the split real form of G2.

PDF and Maple worksheets can be downloaded from the links below.

A Classroom Experiment: Implementing A Math-Talk Environment In A University Setting, Janice Bodily

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

A need for reform in teaching mathematics has long been recognized. The traditional classroom with the sage on the stage lacks a higher level of engagement for the students and therefore, produces a lower level of student satisfaction. The math-talk classroom is one attempt to engage students and to raise the level of interaction and discussion, thus enabling students to increase their level of comprehension. In an effort to create a math-talk experience in my Calculus II course, I applied the methodology of Thinking Through a Lesson Protocol (TTLP) to test its effectiveness in assisting the instructor in creating an …

Sigtree: An Automated Meta-Analytic Approach To Find Significant Branches In A Phylogenetic Tree, Todd R. Jones

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

An experiment was performed on two groups of mice, the first group receiving a refined wheat diet, and the second group receiving a whole wheat diet. The levels of abundance of hundreds of bacteria in the guts of the mice were measured. Of interest was whether the levels of these bacteria were different depending on type of diet. In addition, it was desired to examine differences by diet in all of the families of bacteria. These family relationships are represented in a tree, and it was determined helpful to color the branches of this tree based on the differences of …

A Homogeneous Solution Of The Einstein-Maxwell Equations, Charles G. Torre

Research Vignettes

We exhibit and analyze a homogeneous spacetime whose source is a pure radiation electromagnetic field [1]. It was previously believed that this spacetime is the sole example of a homogeneous pure radiation solution of the Einstein equations which admits no electromagnetic field (see [2] and references therein). Here we correct this error in the literature by explicitly displaying the electromagnetic source. This result implies that all homogeneous pure radiation spacetimes satisfy the Einstein-Maxwell equations.

PDF and Maple worksheets can be downloaded from the links below.

Carrying Biomath Education In A Leaky Bucket, James A. Powell, Brynja R. Kohler, James W. Haefner, Janice Bodily

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

In this paper, we describe a project-based mathematical lab implemented in our Applied Mathematics in Biology course. The Leaky Bucket Lab allows students to parameterize and test Torricelli’s law and develop and compare their own alternative models to describe the dynamics of water draining from perforated containers. In the context of this lab students build facility in a variety of applied biomathematical tools and gain confidence in applying these tools in data-driven environments. We survey analytic approaches developed by students to illustrate the creativity this encourages as well as prepare other instructors to scaffold the student learning experience. Pedagogical results …

How To Create A Lie Algebra, Ian M. Anderson

How to... in 10 minutes or less

We show how to create a Lie algebra in Maple using three of the most common approaches: matrices, vector fields and structure equations. PDF and Maple worksheets can be downloaded from the links below.

Estimation And Testing For Spatially Indexed Curves With Application To Ionospheric And Magnetic Field Trends, Oleksandr Gromenko, Piotr Kokoszka, Lie Zhu, Jan Josef Sojka

All Physics Faculty Publications

We develop methodology for the estimation of the functional mean and the functional principal components when the functions form a spatial process. The data consist of curves X(sk;t), t∈[0, T], observed at spatial locations s1,s2, . . . ,sN. We propose several methods, and evaluate them by means of a simulation study. Next, we develop a significance test for the correlation of two such functional spatial fields. After validating the finite sample performance of this test by means of a simulation study, we apply it to determine if there is correlation between long-term trends in the so-called critical ionospheric frequency …

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster: A Graphical Assessment Of Its Impact On Wildlife, Anvar Suyundikov

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

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010. Considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in history, oil flowed for three months and approximately five million barrels of oil spilled through by mid-July 2010. In this report, we analyze fish and bird data to assess the impact of the oil spill on the Gulf wildlife. Our findings based on the available fish data for 2005, 2006, and 2010 are not very helpful to make a judgement on the negative impact of the oil spill on fish species. On the other hand, the bird …

Homogenization Of Large-Scale Movement Models In Ecology With Application To The Spread Of Chronic Wasting Disease In Mule Deer, Martha J. Garlick

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) that affects deer, elk, and moose. TSEs are prion diseases which include mad cow disease and scrapie in sheep and goats. The disease agent is a misshapen protein called a prion, which causes lesions in the brain, and to date, there is no cure. CWD is a slow-developing, fatal disease, which is rare in the free-ranging mule deer population of Utah. Infected deer shed prions into the environment through saliva, feces, and decaying carcasses. These prions remain infective in soils for many years and healthy deer may contract CWD by …

Assessing Changes In The Abundance Of The Continental Population Of Scaup Using A Hierarchical Spatio-Temporal Model, Beth E. Ross

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

In ecological studies, the goal is often to describe and gain further insight into ecological processes underlying the data collected during observational studies. Because of the nature of observational data, it can often be difficult to separate the variation in the data from the underlying process or 'state dynamics.' In order to better address this issue, it is becoming increasingly common for researchers to use hierarchical models. Hierarchical spatial, temporal, and spatio-temporal models allow for the simultaneous modeling of both first and second order processes, thus accounting for underlying autocorrelation in the system while still providing insight into overall spatial …

Ignoring The Spatial Context In Intro Statistics Classes - And Some Simple Graphical Remedies, Nathan Voge

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

Statistical data often have a spatial (geographic) context, be it countries of the world, states in the US, counties within a state, cities across the globe, or locations where measurements have been taken. However, most introductory statistics books do not even suggest that such data often are not independent from location, but rather are eected by some spatial association. Remedies are simple: Display data via various map views and brie y discuss which additional information can be extracted from such a graphical representation. In this report, we will visit a variety of popular introductory statistics textbooks and show how some …

Validation Study: A Case Study Of Calculus 1 (Math 1210), Abibat Adebisi Lasisi

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

This report discusses the process of assessing the validity of a test. We provide an analysis of the validation study of a test administered to the first semester calculus students at Utah State University in the Fall 2011 semester. The results of our analysis suggest that the test has some measurement relevance. This implies that the subject contents of the test correlate with the syllabus of the course. Thus, the measurement has some learning level relevance. Our analysis also revealed that the measurement has a high reliability coefficient which signifies some internal consistency of the mea- surement. The relevancy and …

A Collection And Analysis Of Local Middle Grade Math Projects For The Common Core, Lynnette Checketts

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

The State of Utah has changed the mathematics core curriculum several times over the past decade. The latest change was the adoption of the Common Core State Standards introducing both grade level content standards and standards of mathematical practice that emphasize how students are to study and reason with mathematics at all grade levels. According to state officials, these standards require more mathematical reasoning, problem solving, and deeper understanding than previous core curriculum documents. One way to address this change is for teachers to educate using projects during their instruction as unit starters, daily lessons, and for evaluation purposes. Yet …

Full Isolation Number Of Matrices: Some Extremal Results, David Tate, David E. Brown

Browse All Undergraduate research

A set of nonzero entries of a (0,1)-matrix is an isolated set if no two entries belong to the same row, no two entries belong to the same column, and no two entries belong to a submatrix of the form [1 1; 1 1]. The isolation number of a matrix is the maximum size over all isolated sets. The isolation number of a matrix is a well-known and well-used lower bound for the matrix's Boolean rank. We will discuss the isolation number of the adjacency matrix of various graphs and develop some extremal results for n x n matrices with …

Juggling By Numbers: Siteswap Notation For Juggling, David Tate

Browse All Undergraduate research

A basic overview of the juggling notation known as "Siteswap". This is a way of describing juggling patterns using sequences of numbers.

New Symbolic Tools For Differential Geometry, Gravitation, And Field Theory, Ian M. Anderson, Charles G. Torre

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

DifferentialGeometry is a Maple software package which symbolically performs fundamental operations of calculus on manifolds, differential geometry, tensor calculus, spinor calculus, Lie algebras, Lie groups, transformation groups, jet spaces, and the variational calculus. These capabilities, combined with dramatic recent improvements in symbolic approaches to solving algebraic and differential equations, have allowed for development of powerful new tools for solving research problems in gravitation and field theory. The purpose of this paper is to describe some of these new tools and present some advanced applications involving: Killing vector fields and isometry groups, Killing tensors, algebraic classification of solutions of the Einstein …

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.

Modeling Phloem Temperatures Relative To Mountain Pine Beetle Phenology, Matthew Jared Lewis

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

We explore a variety of methods to estimate phloem temperatures from ambient air temperatures suitable for the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae. A model's ability to induce the same phenology generated from observed phloem temperatures measures its effectiveness rather than a simple reconstruction of phloem temperatures. From a model's phenology results we are able to ascertain whether the model produces a similar amount of developmental energy exhibited by observed phloem temperatures.

Three models performed best: Newton, Newton South and Matching. The Newton model uses Newton's Law of Cooling to effectively estimate northern aspect phloem temperatures. The Newton South model …

Darboux Integrability - A Brief Historial Survey, Ian M. Anderson

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Presentations

No abstract provided.

Critical Issues In Middle And Secondary Mathematics Placement: A Case Study, Morgan E. Summers

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This qualitative research project focuses on the issues facing middle and secondary mathematics placement through an extensive literature review as well as a case study of a local school district. As students move from elementary school to middle and secondary schools, they are placed into classes that appear to be based on ability. One of the driving questions of this project is how is this ability level determined? Through an in-­‐depth look at one school district, it is found that a primary source of information is both norm-­‐referenced and criterion-­‐referenced assessments given to students in fifth and eighth grades. In …

Estimation Of Beta In A Simple Functional Capital Asset Pricing Model For High Frequency Us Stock Data, Yan Zhang

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

This project applies the methods of functional data analysis (FDA) to intra-daily returns of US corporations. It focuses on an extension of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) to such returns. The CAPM is essentially a linear regression with the slope coefficient β. Returns of an asset are regressed on index return. We compare the estimates of β obtained for the daily and intra-daily returns. The variability of these estimates is assessed by two bootstrap methods. All computations are performed using statistical software R. Customized functions are developed to process the raw data, estimate the parameters and assess their variability. …

Graphshop: An Interactive Software Environment For Graph Theory Research And Applications, Aaron Andersen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Graph Theory is the mathematical study of the structure of abstract relationships between objects. Although these constructions (graphs) are themselves purely theoretical, their ability to model pair-wise relationships in systems of arbitrary complexity yields abundant direct correspondence with numerous important physical and societal systems in the real world. Additionally, the simple discrete nature of fundamental graph structures allows for easy pseudo-geometric visualization of graphs in a wide variety of ways. Taken together, these two properties suggest that graph theory teaching, research, and applications would benefit greatly from the use of a unified software environment for graph construction, interaction, and visualization. …

Mathematical Justification Of Introductory Hypothesis Tests And Development Of Reference Materials, Jennifer L. Loveland

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

This purpose of this project was to create a set of reference material for an introductory level statistics course. The focus was on the Neyman-Pearson approach to hypothesis testing. A brief historical development of the Neyman-Pearson approach is followed by mathematical proofs of each of the hypothesis tests covered in the reference material. The reference material includes the basic hypothesis tests taught in an introductory statistics course, the accompanying distributions, and prerequisite information.

Controlling Error Rates With Multiple Positively-Dependent Tests, Abdullah Al Masud

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

It is a typical feature of high dimensional data analysis, for example a microarray study, that a researcher allows thousands of statistical tests at a time. All inferences for the tests are determined using the p-values; a smaller p-value than the α-level of the test signifies a statistically significant test. As the number of tests increases, the chance of observing some small p-values is very high even when all null hypotheses are true. Consequently, we make wrong conclusions on the hypotheses. This type of potential problem frequently happens when we test several hypotheses simultaneously, i.e., the multiple testing problem. …