Mathematics Commons^™

Bayesian Analyses For Time-Varying Data And Opinion Dynamics, Torin Quinlivan

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

We consider Bayesian analyses for time-varying data from the opinion dynamics in social networks and the processes of sensorimotor learning. Firstly, understanding the underlying opinions of social media users is a difficult process, as they must be understood filtered through the messages sent. To understand how to best estimate the latent opinions, we use a Bayesian approach to estimate various characteristics of the users and the network. We present a model for using Bayesian methods for this problem, along with a simulation study to demonstrate effectiveness. Secondly, incentivization with punishments or rewards may affect human skill learning. To investigate the …

Volume 15, Connor Thompson, Emily Steffenhagen, Emily Robertson, Luis Fernando Dos Reis, Emily Farmer, Samuel Villa, Robert Allison, Zachary Chessor, Megan Borden, Austin Burnett, Larry W. Grant Jr., Tristan Marowski, Emma Moore, Pearl Siff

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Introduction Dr. Amorette Barber, Director, Office of Student Research

From the Editor Dr. Hannah Dudley-Shotwell

Artist’s Statement Connor Thompson

On Mentorship Dr. John Miller

The Meat of the Matter: Alien, Human, and Animal in Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat” by Emily Steffenhagen

“Please REBLOG!”: An Ethical Analysis of Doxxing, Internet Vigilantism and Racists Getting Fired by Emily Robertson

Journaling: Paper Has More Patience Than People by Luis Fernando Dos Reis

The Effects of Climate Change on the Archaeological World by Emily Farmer

Lowered Seat Height Does Not Impair Wingate Performance in Untrained Cyclists by Samuel Villa, Robert Allison, …

Prospective Teachers' Conceptions Of Area, Betsy Mcneal, Sayonita Ghosh Hajra, Michael Battista, Ayse Ozturk

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This study explored 10 prospective teachers’ (PTs’) understanding of the area of a rectangular region using square and non-square rectangular area-units. In an hour-long interview, each PT was first asked to explain how they would find the area of a given rectangular region in terms of a non-square notecard. For several PTs, this task prompted discussion of a square unit defined by the edge of the notecard. In a second task, PTs were presented with a rectangular array of squares and were asked to explain to a fictional child why multiplying length times width does not count the top left …

The Coulomb Gauge In Non-Associative Gauge Theory, Sergey Grigorian

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

The aim of this paper is to extend existence results for the Coulomb gauge from standard gauge theory to a non-associative setting. Non-associative gauge theory is based on smooth loops, which are the non-associative analogs of Lie groups. The main components of the theory include a finite-dimensional smooth loop L , its tangent algebra l , a finite-dimensional Lie group Ψ , that is the pseudoautomorphism group of L , a smooth manifold M with a principal Ψ -bundle P , and associated bundles Q and A with fibers L and l , respectively. A configuration in this theory is …

Symmetries And Integrable Systems, Sen-Yue Lou, Bao-Feng Feng

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Symmetry plays key roles in modern physics especially in the study of integrable systems because of the existence of infinitely many local and nonlocal generalized symmetries. In addition to the fundamental role to find exact group invariant solutions via Lie point symmetries, some important new developments on symmetries and conservation laws are reviewed. The recursion operator method is important to find infinitely many local and nonlocal symmetries of (1+1)-dimensional integrable systems. In this paper, it is pointed out that a recursion operator may be obtained from one key symmetry, say, a residual symmetry. For (2+1)-dimensional integrable systems, the master-symmetry approach …

Modeling The Effect Of Observational Social Learning On Parental Decision-Making For Childhood Vaccination And Diseases Spread Over Household Networks, Tamer Oraby, Andras Balogh

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

In this paper, we introduce a novel model for parental decision-making about vaccinations against a childhood disease that spreads through a contact network. This model considers a bilayer network comprising two overlapping networks, which are either Erdős–Rényi (random) networks or Barabási–Albert networks. The model also employs a Bayesian aggregation rule for observational social learning on a social network. This new model encompasses other decision models, such as voting and DeGroot models, as special cases. Using our model, we demonstrate how certain levels of social learning about vaccination preferences can converge opinions, influencing vaccine uptake and ultimately disease spread. In addition, …

Structure Of Fine Selmer Groups In Abelian P-Adic Lie Extensions, Debanjana Kundu, Filippo Alberto Edoardo Nuccio Mortarino Majno Di Capriglio, Sujatha Ramdorai

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper studies fine Selmer groups of elliptic curves in abelian p -adic Lie extensions. A class of elliptic curves are provided where both the Selmer group and the fine Selmer group are trivial in the cyclotomic Z p -extension. The fine Selmer groups of elliptic curves with complex multiplication are shown to be pseudonull over the trivializing extension in some new cases. Finally, a relationship between the structure of the fine Selmer group for some CM elliptic curves and the Generalized Greenberg's Conjecture is clarified.

Assessing Concepts, Procedures, And Cognitive Demand Of Chatgpt-Generated Mathematical Tasks, Bima Sapkota, Liza Bondurant

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

In November 2022, ChatGPT, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) capable of generating human-like responses, was launched. ChatGPT has a variety of promising applications in education, such as using it as thought-partner in generating curricular resources. However, scholars also recognize that the use of ChatGPT raises concerns, such as outputs that are inaccurate, nonsensical, or vague. We, two mathematics teacher educators, engaged in a collaborative self-study using qualitative descriptive approaches to investigate the procedures, concepts, and cognitive demand of ChatGPT-generated mathematical tasks focused on fraction multiplication using the area model approach. We found that the ChatGPT-generated tasks were …

Exploring International Educators' Learning About Local And Global Social Justice In A Virtual Community Of Practice, Bima Sapkota, Xuwei Luo, Muna Sapkota, Murat Akarsu, Emmanuel Deogratias, Daphne Fauber, Rose Mbewe, Fidelis Mumba, Ram Krishna Panthi, Jill Newton

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

In this chapter, the authors report themes that emerged when a cross-cultural team of researchers involved in a virtual international community of practice (Global Social Justice in Education-GSJE) investigated reflections on activities focused on social justice in local and global contexts. The findings suggested that the activities elicited GSJE community members' understandings of the complexities of social justice associated with naming practices, privilege, and the arts within their own and across contexts. The authors discuss implications of the activities to advance diverse educators' understanding of social justice in global and local contexts. They also unpack the opportunities and challenges that …

Investigating Preservice Teachers’ Conceptualizations Of Mathematical Knowledge For Teaching Through Video Analysis, Bima Sapkota

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Mathematics Preservice Teachers’ (M-PSTs) conceptions of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) enhance their reflective skills because they utilize such conceptions to reflect on how to contextualize content knowledge during secondary mathematics teaching. While previous studies suggested M-PSTs develop MKT, including pedagogical content knowledge by analyzing teaching in video lessons, how M-PSTs enhance their conceptions of MKT through such analysis is underexplored. I used a collective case study approach to investigate how four secondary M-PSTs conceptualized MKT when they analyzed and discussed teaching represented in a video lesson using the MKT framework. The findings indicated that the M-PSTs often described teacher …

Heuristics For Anti-Cyclotomic ℤp-Extensions, Debanjana Kundu, Lawrence C. Washington

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper studies Iwasawa invariants in anti-cyclotomic towers. We do this by proposing two heuristics supported by computations. First we propose the Intersection Heuristics: these model “how often” the p-Hilbert class field of an imaginary quadratic field intersects the anti-cyclotomic tower and to what extent. Second we propose the Invariants Heuristics: these predict that the Iwasawa invariants 𝜆 and 𝜇 usually vanish for imaginary quadratic fields where p is non-split.

Extending Natural Mates In Euclidean 3-Space And Applications To Bertrand Pairs, Yun Myung Oh, Alexander Navarro

Faculty Publications

In Euclidean 3-space, a family of curves, the co-successor, is motivated and then introduced in relation to the natural mate. A complete characterization of co-successors is proved, followed by an application of the co-successor towards describing Bertrand curves and their mates.

Ivermectin, Colleen Aldous, Eleftherios Gkioulekas, Philip Oldfield

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

On The Structure Of Repeated-Root Polycyclic Codes Over Local Rings, Maryam Bajalan, Edgar Martinez-Moro, Reza Sobhani, Steve Szabo, Guelsuem Goezde Yilmazguc

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This paper provides the Generalized Mattson Solomon polynomial for repeated-root polycyclic codes over local rings that gives an explicit decomposition of them in terms of idempotents. It also states some structural properties of repeated-root polycyclic codes over finite fields in terms of matrix product codes. Both approaches provide a description of the perpendicular to 0-dual code for a given polycyclic code. (c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Paley Graphs, Prime Graphs, And Crossword Puzzles, Robert D. Jacobs Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, we will talk about many different mathematical concepts. We will prove theorems about Paley graphs, prime graphs, and crossword puzzles. It will be very fun.

The results in the section about Paley graphs include structure theorems about the subgraph induced by the quadratic residues, the subgraph induced by the non-residues and a few related subgraphs. The main is to better understand the “independence structure” of the Paley graph itself. No good upper bound on the independence number of Paley graphs is known. Theorems about these subgraphs, and various counts aim at future improvement of upper bounds for …

Problems In Graph Theory With Applications To Topology And Modeling Rna, Rayan K. Ibrahim

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, we explore four projects. In the first project, we explore $r$-neighbor bootstrap percolation on a graph $G$. We establish upper bounds for the number of vertices required to percolate in the case that $r=2$ for particular classes of graphs. In the second project, we study the structure of graphs with independence number two. We prove a lower bound on the number of edges of such graphs, related to an upper bound on the number of edges in a triangle-saturated graph, and give a sufficient forbidden induced subgraph condition for independence number two graphs. In the third project, …

Graph Coloring Reconfiguration, Reem Mahmoud

Theses and Dissertations

Reconfiguration is the concept of moving between different solutions to a problem by transforming one solution into another using some prescribed transformation rule (move). Given two solutions s₁ and s₂ of a problem, reconfiguration asks whether there exists a sequence of moves which transforms s₁ into s₂. Reconfiguration is an area of research with many contributions towards various fields such as mathematics and computer science.
The k-coloring reconfiguration problem asks whether there exists a sequence of moves which transforms one k-coloring of a graph G into another. A move in this case is a type …

Cats, Dogs, And Roll Waves: Solutions For Fermi Questions, April 2024, John Adam

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

On a hot afternoon in western North Carolina, the heavens opened and (to mix metaphors) it started raining “cats and dogs.” The rain was torrential, and soon a river of water was flowing downhill into the parking lot. In rivers and dam spillways, these are known as flood waves. The picture shows a particular type of flood waves known s roll waves—shock-like patterns separated by smooth profiles. In a steady-state situation, the drag forces on the water in the channel are balanced by the down-slope gravitational force. The dimensionless friction coefficient is C, the stream depth is h, v is …

Mixed Mechanisms Of Multi-Site Phosphorylation, Suha Jayyousi Dajani

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Multi-site phosphorylation is an important mechanism in cell biology that regulates protein function and activity. It also plays a critical role in a wide variety of cellular processes that control intra-cellular signaling. Studies on mono- and dual-site phosphorylation have been conducted theoretically and experimentally by researchers. However, there is little research on triple-site and multi-site mixed mechanism phosphorylation.

The aim of this research is to study and identify the number of positive steady states (multistationarity) in a mathematical model of a triple-site mixed mechanism, processive and distributive, phosphorylation network. This research is accomplished by means of ordinary differential equations, Jacobian …

Univariate Extreme Value Analysis Of Quantitative Investment Management, George Agbenyega Zumanu

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The evolution of product development within the variable annuity (VA) business have sparked interest in quantitative investment management, particularly as most VA issuers have integrated volatility-controlled funds into their annuity portfolios. Despite the existence of empirical research on statistical analysis of extreme values in conventional investments, there has been a notable gap in research focus towards risk modeling in volatility-controlled funds.

This study contributes by analyzing and modeling the extreme values of investments in volatility-controlled funds, comparing them to conventional equity funds. The financial returns of S&P Dow Jones Indices (SPDJI) indices - SPXTR, risk control SPXT18UT, and managed risk …