Applied Mathematics Commons^™

Creating The Park Cool Island In An Inner-City Neighborhood: Heat Mitigation Strategy For Phoenix, Az, Juan Declet-Barreto, Anthony J. Brazel, Chris A. Martin, Winston T. L. Chow, Sharon L. Harlan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We conducted microclimate simulations in ENVI-Met 3.1 to evaluate the impact of vegetation in lowering temperatures during an extreme heat event in an urban core neighborhood park in Phoenix, Arizona. We predicted air and surface temperatures under two different vegetation regimes: existing conditions representative of Phoenix urban core neighborhoods, and a proposed scenario informed by principles of landscape design and architecture and Urban Heat Island mitigation strategies. We found significant potential air and surface temperature reductions between representative and proposed vegetation scenarios: 1) a Park Cool Island effect that extended to non-vegetated surfaces; 2) a net cooling of air underneath …

Dark Solitons Of The Qiao's Hierarchy, Rossen Ivanov, Tony Lyons

Articles

We obtain a class of soliton solutions of the integrable hierarchy which has been put forward in a series of works by Z. Qiao. The soliton solutions are in the class of real functions approaching constant value fast enough at infinity, the so-called 'dark solitons'.

Should Voting Be Mandatory? Democratic Decision Making From The Economic Viewpoint, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich, Boakun Li

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Many decisions are made by voting. At first glance, the more people participate in the voting process, the more democratic -- and hence, better -- the decision. In this spirit, to encourage everyone's participation, several countries make voting mandatory. But does mandatory voting really make decisions better for the society? In this paper, we show that from the viewpoint of decision making theory, it is better to allow undecided voters not to participate in the voting process. We also show that the voting process would be even better -- for the society as a whole -- if we allow partial …

Ubiquity Of Data And Model Fusion: From Geophysics And Environmental Sciences To Estimating Individual Risk During An Epidemic, Omar Ochoa, Aline Jaimes, Christian Servin, Craig Tweedie, Aaron Velasco, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we need to combine the results of measuring a local value of a certain quantity with results of measuring average values of this same quantity. For example, in geosciences, we need to combine the seismic models (which describe density at different locations and depths) with gravity models which describe density averaged over certain regions. Similarly, in estimating the risk of an epidemic to an individual, we need to combine probabilities describe the risk to people of the corresponding age group, to people of the corresponding geographical region, etc. In this paper, we provide general techniques for …

G-Strands, Darryl Holm, Rossen Ivanov, James Percival

Articles

A G-strand is a map g(t,s): RxR --> G for a Lie group G that follows from Hamilton's principle for a certain class of G-invariant Lagrangians. The SO(3)-strand is the G-strand version of the rigid body equation and it may be regarded physically as a continuous spin chain. Here, SO(3)_K-strand dynamics for ellipsoidal rotations is derived as an Euler-Poincar'e system for a certain class of variations and recast as a Lie-Poisson system for coadjoint flow with the same Hamiltonian structure as for a perfect complex fluid. For a special Hamiltonian, the SO(3) …

Thermal Detection Of Inaccessible Corrosion, Matthew Charnley, Andrew Rzeznik

Mathematical Sciences Technical Reports (MSTR)

In this paper, we explore the mathematical inverse problem of detecting corroded material on the reverse side of a partially accessible metal plate. We will show how a linearization can be used to simplify the initial problem and explain a regularization method used to obtain acceptable results for the corrosion profile. We will also state and perform some calculations for the full three-dimensional problem for possible future work.

How To Create A Two-Component Spinor, Charles G. Torre

How to... in 10 minutes or less

Let (M, g) be a spacetime, i.e., a 4-dimensional manifold M and Lorentz signature metric g. The key ingredients needed for constructing spinor fields on the spacetime are: a complex vector bundle E -> M ; an orthonormal frame on TM ; and a solder form relating sections of E to sections of TM (and tensor products thereof). We show how to create a two-component spinor field on the Schwarzschild spacetime using the DifferentialGeometry package in Maple. PDF and Maple worksheets can be downloaded from the links below.

Cyclic Universe With An Inflationary Phase From A Cosmological Model With Real Gas Quintessence, Rossen Ivanov, Emil Prodanov

Articles

Phase-plane stability analysis of a dynamical system describing the Universe as a two-fraction uid containing baryonic dust and real virial gas quintessence is presented. Existence of a stable periodic solution experiencing in ationary periods is shown. A van der Waals quintessence model is revisited and cyclic Universe solution again found.

How To Define Relative Approximation Error Of An Interval Estimate: A Proposal, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

The traditional definition of a relative approximation error of an estimate X as the ratio |X - x|/|x| does not work when the actual value x is 0. To avoid this problem, we propose a new definition |X - x|/|X|. We show how this definition can be naturally extended to the case when instead of a numerical estimate X, we have an interval estimate [x], i.e., an interval that is guaranteed to contain the actual (unknown) value x.

A Unified Approach To Generalized Stirling Functions, Tian-Xiao He

Scholarship

Here presented is a unified approach to generalized Stirling functions by using generalized factorial functions, $k$-Gamma functions, generalized divided difference, and the unified expression of Stirling numbers defined in \cite{He11}. Previous well-known Stirling functions introduced by Butzer and Hauss \cite{BH93}, Butzer, Kilbas, and Trujilloet \cite{BKT03} and others are included as particular cases of our generalization. Some basic properties related to our general pattern such as their recursive relations, generating functions, and asymptotic properties are discussed, which extend the corresponding results about the Stirling numbers shown in \cite{HS98} to the defined Stirling functions.

Quantifying Performance Bias In Label Fusion, Alexander M. Venzin

Theses and Dissertations

Classification systems are employed to remotely assess whether an element of interest falls into a target class or non-target class. These systems have uses in fields as far ranging as biostatistics to search engine keyword analysis. The performance of the system is often summarized as a trade-off between the proportions of elements correctly labeled as target plotted against the number of elements incorrectly labeled as target. These are empirical estimates of the true positive and false positive rates. These rates are often plotted to create a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve that acts as a visual tool to assess classification …

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.

270: How To Win The Presidency With Just 17.56% Of The Popular Vote, Charles D. Wessell

Math Faculty Publications

With the U.S. presidential election fast approaching we will often be reminded that the candidate who receives the most votes is not necessarily elected president. Instead, the winning candidate must receive a majority of the 538 electoral votes awarded by the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Someone with a curious mathematical mind might then wonder: What is the small fraction of the popular vote a candidate can receive and still be elected president? [excerpt]

Higher Order Symmetries Of The Kdv Equation, Ian M. Anderson

Research Vignettes

In this worksheet we symbolically construct the formal inverse of the total derivative operator and use it to construct the recursion operator for the higher-order symmetries of the KdV equation. Using this recursion operator we generate the first 5 generalized symmetries of the KdV equation and verify that they all commute.

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

An Analysis Of The Career Length Of Professional Basketball Players, Kwame D. Fynn, Morgan Sonnenschein

The Macalester Review

An interesting problem in professional basketball is predicting how long a player remains in the NBA League. Previous research on this problem has focused on factors such as race, performance in games, and size. We propose to analyze career duration in the NBA based on awards won, position played and biological variables such as height. Using Accelerated Failure Time models, Cox Proportional Hazards models and Kaplan-Meier analyses, we determine that both height and number of awards won lengthen career duration; however, only certain player positions significantly affect career length of a player.

Nasa Flight Opportunities Program (Fop) Platform Tradeoffs Analysis, Stephanie Kugler, Dougal Maclise

STAR Program Research Presentations

The Flight Opportunities Program (FOP) exemplifies NASA’s shift in policy from a public driven space industry towards an emphasis on public-private partnerships. The Payloads team, as part of FOP, is responsible for soliciting, selecting and shepherding payloads that require flight testing in order to mature technologies, not only to reduce risk in a deep space or manned space missions, but also to develop critical technologies with multiple applications in space. Several companies have been awarded contracts to provide these flight opportunities and each have unique capabilities to fly payloads in environments that closely imitate the environment of space missions. As …

Local Polynomial Regression With Application To Sea Surface Temperatures, Michael Finney

All Theses

Our problem involves methods for determining the times of a maximum or minimum for a general mean function in time series data. The methods explored here involve polynomial smoothing. In theory, the methods calculate a general number of derivatives of the estimated polynomial. Using these techniques, we wish to find a balance between error, variance, and complexity and apply it to a time series of sea surface temperatures. We will first explore the theory behind the method and then find a way to optimally apply it to our data.

Robust Parameter Estimation In The Weibull And The Birnbaum-Saunders Distribution, Jing Zhao

All Theses

This paper concerns robust parameter estimation of the two-parameter Weibull distribution and the two-parameter Birnbaum-Saunders distribution. We use the proposed method to estimate the distribution parameters from (i) complete samples with and without contamination (ii) type-II censoring samples, in both distributions. Also, we consider the maximum likelihood estimation and graphical methods to compare the maximum likelihood estimation and graphical method with the proposed method based on quantile. We find the advantages and disadvantages for those three different methods.

Modeling The Curvature Of A Ferrofluid Interface Using A Height Function Method, Holly Timme

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The behavior of an interface embedded in a fluid is central to a wide range of biological, chemical, environmental and physical problems and engineering processes. Modeling the evolution of a fluid interface is thus a critical and important problem. In many instances, including two-phase (e.g. liquid-gas) flows, the interface is an internal boundary within a PDE model. A model of the interface properties and its evolution is then typically performed by numerical computation, within the framework of the PDE solution method, such as finite differences (FD). Volume of Fluid (VOF) is a simple FD based method which exhibits excellent volume …

Degree Constrained Triangulation, Roshan Gyawali

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Triangulation of simple polygons or sets of points in two dimensions is a widely investigated problem in computational geometry. Some researchers have considered variations of triangulation problems that include minimum weight triangulation, de-launay triangulation and triangulation refinement. In this thesis we consider a constrained version of the triangulation problem that asks for triangulating a given domain (polygon or point sites) so that the resulting triangulation has an increased number of even degree vertices. This problem is called Degree Constrained Triangulation (DCT). We propose four algorithms to solve DCT problems. We also present experimental results based on the implementation of the …