Facial recognition has become increasingly important in recent years, due to the wide range of applications it has in fields such as security, surveillance, and human-computer interaction. Three popular methods for facial recognition are the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Karhunen-Loeve Expansions, which is fundamentally a continuous form of PCA but...
Combinatorics is a field of mathematics that concerns enumeration and existence, and its most notable applications are in computer science and statistics. Most students are introduced to combinatorics through counting problems, where they are tasked with determining the cardinality of a set of outcomes. Such problems are well-known for being...
We define an inner product on a vector space of adelic measures over a number field $K$. We find that the norm induced by this inner product governs weak convergence at each place of $K$. The canonical adelic measure associated to a rational map is in this vector space, and...
We introduce a numerical criterion which allows us to bound the degree of any algebraic integer having all of Galois conjugates in an interval of length less than 4. Using this criterion, we study two arithmetic dynamical questions with local rationality conditions. First, we classify all unicritical polynomials defined over...
There is high projected growth for STEM-based job fields; however, a significant barrier to students entering those fields is the requirement to take Introductory Calculus. This thesis summarizes the current research done to improve university level math education, specifically calculus courses. It then uses the MAA Instructional Practices Guide to...
In "Level Number Sequences for Trees" Flagotet and Prodinger investigate the problem of counting the number of level number sequences associated to binary trees of $n$ binary nodes. I convert this problem into terms of exterior nodes or "leaves" and leaf number sequences. "Polynomial representation" is then defined to address...
In 1979, for each signature for Fuchsian groups of the first kind, Bowen and Series constructed an explicit fundamental domain for one group of the signature, and from this a function on the unit circle tightly associated with this group. In general, their fundamental domain enjoys what has since been...
In 1956, Alder conjectured an integer partition inequality which generalized Euler’s partition identity, the first Rogers-Ramanujan identity, and a partition identity of Schur. Alder’s conjecture, proved in part by Andrews in 1971, followed by Yee in 2008, and finally completed by Alfes, Jameson, and Lemke Oliver in 2010 states that...
In biological models, advection is inherently a non-local process. Coupled with diffusion, it typically models chemotaxis, which is the response of bacteria to the presence of some chemo attractant. For example, E. coli cells use their flagella to probe their surroundings to determine where they should move. The advection-diffusion equation...
In this work we introduce some basic concepts within homotopy type theory (HoTT), a proposed alternative mathematical foundation to classical set theory. In particular, our discussion revolves around the Axiom of Choice (AC). In Part I, we introduce the classical AC and some of its most important equivalents. In Part...
Mathematics outreach typically consists of community events that show the exciting applications of mathematics, particularly to K-12 students. The goal of mathematics outreach events is to increase student interest and involvement in mathematics-related activities. Students start to develop a stigma against mathematics by the end of elementary school. Outreach events...
Machine learning models are powerful tools which may aid in the prediction of survival outcomes of cancer patients. This study evaluated eight classification models and eight regression models on their ability to predict survival outcomes on breast cancer and prostate cancer data sets from the SEER database. The most accurate...
Machine learning models are powerful tools which may aid in the prediction of survival outcomes of cancer patients. This study evaluated eight classification models and eight regression models on their ability to predict survival outcomes on breast cancer and prostate cancer data sets from the SEER database. The most accurate...
Living in the Pacific Northwest, we are acutely aware of the dangers posed by wildfires. Largely due to the worsening effects of climate change, this danger is only increasing. Along with causing property and economic damage to those communities affected by wildfires, exposure to the smoke generated by wildfires can...
Following the work of Asai, Kaneko, and Ninomiya for Faber polynomials associated to the modular group, and Bannai, Kojima, and Miezaki's partial proof for the case of the Fricke group of level 2, we show that the zeros of certain modular functions for some low-level genus zero groups associated to...
A fully-saturated poroelastic medium is confined by the sides of a cylinder, and the regions below and above the medium are filled with fluid at respective constant pressures. The filtration flow of fluid through the poroelastic medium and the small deformations of the medium are described by a quasi-static Biot...
This arts-based autoethnography explores the experience of a graduate student of mathematics at a mid-sized research university through a collection of collage, songwriting, and personal essays. This research identifies issues in the mathematics academic pipeline associated with gender, burnout culture, perfectionism, mental health, qualifying exams, and isolation. The present research...
In this dissertation, we consider two problems in number theory, both relating to modular forms. First we consider when a given modular form can be expressed as a quotient in Dedekind's $\eta$ function. Rouse and Webb \cite{RW} have determined the integers $N \leq 500$ such that the graded ring of...
Within this dissertation, we develop tools and techniques to demonstrate the feasibility of real-time optimization of a magnetohydrodynamics generator. To ease computational complexity, we work on the kinematic magnetohydrodynamic system, prescribing the fluid-flow and model the material response of the system through an updated Generalized Ohm’s law. We focus on...
Applied problems are a necessity for a well-rounded and rigorous education in mathematics. This thesis summarizes the literature about student engagement with applied problems in order to develop a set of criteria for what makes an engaging and meaningful applied mathematics problem. Based on a review of the literature, this...
We explore one numerical method for dealing with uncertainty quantification, stochastic collocation. We adapt this method for the uncertain kinematic magnetohydrodynamic system. We then demonstrate well-posedness of the uncertain forward problem. We also describe the method in detail, and perform an error analysis of the method, describing the necessary assumptions...
We discuss an efficient numerical method for the uncertain kinematic magnetohydrodynamic system. We include aleatoric uncertainty in the parameters, and then describe a stochastic collocation method to handle this randomness. Numerical demonstrations of this method are discussed. We find that the shape of the parameter distributions affect not only the...
We discuss the well-posedness of the forward problem for the magnetohydrodynamic system with the inclusion of the ion-slip parameter. We also demonstrate the convergence of a parameter estimation scheme. Focusing on power-generation, we implement and the validate a numerical model with an engineering multi-physics software, COMSOL, using ideal-power equations. We...
Constructions using only a straightedge and compass are basic tools in any geometer's toolbox. We show how to construct an elliptic straightedge and compass in the Klein Disk model of (single) elliptic geometry, using only a Euclidean compass and straightedge.
Given an initial opinion matrix in which every member of a population gives an opinion score of all the members in a population, natural questions to ask could be regarding what happens to those opinions over time, both in forward time and in backward time. While what happens over time...
Stein's method initially introduced in 1970 by C. Stein is a powerful technique for bounding the distance between the laws of two real-valued random variables. Stein's method has been used to prove distributional convergence to many standard probability distributions such as normal, multivariate normal, Poisson and Brownian motion approximation. In...
This paper explores some optimization methods such as the gradient descent method, Gauss-Newton method, and stochastic gradient method. Some examples of minimizing objective functions are given to validate the theories. Then we introduce a simple example of artificial neural networks, define its structure, and apply the optimization methods to it....
We now have broad consensus in the mathematics education research community that active, inquiry-based classrooms provide a wealth of learning benefits for students (Freeman et al., 2014; Laursen et al., 2014; Theobald et al., 2020). Classrooms that utilize inquiry throughout the entire structure of the course, as opposed to the...
Aggregation equations have been used to model phenomena such as insect swarming and chemotaxis. Previous work on aggregation equations in the area of analysis applied to PDE has proven well-posedness of certain classes of aggregation equations in Lebesgue spaces. We will prove local existence of solutions in H^1 to an...
The HyperLogLog (HLL) algorithm is used to estimate the cardinality of large sets. This thesis gives a novel analysis of the HyperLogLog algorithm by using techniques from statistics and probability. Initially, closed form bounds for the mean and variance of the max of n independent and identically distributed geometric random...
Many geophysical phenomena exhibit complicated dynamics that, due to a variety of factors, diverge quickly from physical models. The arrival of new observations allows researchers to combine the model estimate with measurements in a statistical process called data assimilation to produce a revised estimate of the phenomenon. This assimilation of...
In this dissertation we consider two application specific flow and transport models in porous media at multiple scales: 1) methane gas transport models for hydrate formation and dissociation in the subsurface under two-phase conditions, and 2) coupled flow and biomass-nutrient model for biofilm growth in complex geometries with biofilm, and...
The aim of this dissertation is to construct a virtual element method (VEM) for models in magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD), an area that studies the behavior and properties of electrically conducting fluids such as a plasma. MHD models are a coupling of the Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetics and models for fluid flow....
In this paper we explain at the theoretical level how discrete Morse theory can provide us a more efficient approach to compute persistent homologies. In achieving so we also provide a framework for discrete Morse theory to be applied to persistent homology for other purposes.
An important problem in computer graphics is to determine where contour lines and ridges appear in a surface constructed from a triangle mesh. In this presentation we will investigate a new answer to this problem – the horizon measure. The horizon measure determines the likelihood of contour lines to appear...
This dissertation explores mathematical theory of the 3 dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations that consists a set of partial differential equations which govern the motion of Newtonian fluids and can be seen as Newton's second law of motion for fluids. The main interest of this work focuses on how local perturbation...
In 1941, J.H.C. Whitehead posed the question of whether asphericity is a hereditary property for 2-dimensional CW complexes. This question remains unanswered, but has led to the development of several algebraic and topological properties that are sufficient (but not necessary) for the asphericity of presentation 2-complexes. While many of the...
Institutions of higher education have experienced a rapid increase in international student enrollment within a short period of time, especially in mathematics classrooms. It is therefore important for instructors to have the knowledge and skills to support international students in the learning of mathematics. There are few research studies of...
The topic of statistical mechanics has been studied for over a century, and it is one of the pillars of modern physics. This theory can be applied to the study of the thermodynamic behavior of large systems of interacting particles, in which case it is referred to as equilibrium statistical...
There is an underrepresentation of minority groups and women in the field of mathematics. With growing interest in equity and inclusion within the mathematics education community, it is important to look at how such concepts can be implemented in the classroom. Equitable and inclusive teaching practices have been shown to...
Enumerative combinatorics is an area of mathematics that is both highly accessible for students and widely applicable to other sciences and areas of mathematics (Kapur, 1970; Lockwood, Wasserman, & Tillema, 2020). One important class of problems in combinatorics is combinatorial proofs of binomial identities, which is a type of proof...
Mapper is a tool designed by Gurjeet Singh, Facundo Mémoli, and Gunnar Carlsson for Topological Data Analysis (TDA) that constructs a simplicial complex from a finite subset of a metric space, which has been met with great success. Due to the many moving parts of Mapper and the potential it...
In this dissertation, we use Fourier-analytic and spectral theory methods to analyze the behavior of solutions of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in 2D and 3D (with an eye towards better understanding turbulence). In particular, we investigate the possible existence of so-called ghost solutions to the Navier-Stokes Equations. Such solutions, if...
Let H be a cyclically-presented group on n generators with a single defining relator. Attempts have been made to classify such groups by their order, their status as a 3-manifold group, and the asphericity status of their presentations. For groups with a defining relator of length 3 these classifications are...
This is a program that searches for reduced spherical pictures over 1-generator, 1-relator relative group presentations with finite cyclic coefficient group. The search is depth-first and builds pictures face-by-face using a prescribed order. This program was written as part of Matthias Merzenich's PhD research. More details are available in the...
The theory behind magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is utilized to present a 3-D solution to how the induced magnetic field changes with respect to time. Several MHD-based assump- tions are made to simplify the coupling of Maxwell’s equations with two constitutive laws and Ohm’s law. The velocity field is assumed to be...
This paper concerns a question that frequently occurs in various applications: Is any dispersal coupling of stable discrete linear systems, also stable? Although it has been known this is not the case, we shall identify a reasonably diverse class of systems for which it is true. We shall employ the...
In the 1954 John Nash [1] showed, through use of an iterative scheme of approximate embedding maps, that the sphere S² could be isometrically embedded into a ball of any radius by a C¹ map. In the 1980's M. Gromov [2] generalized Nash's work to the h-principal and convex integration....
As industries relating to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in America continue to grow, employers will need more mathematicians and mathematically able workers than are currently graduating. Women are an underrepresented portion of these graduates, and researches say that this could be due to the difference between women’s and men’s...
There are three chapters of manuscripts in this dissertation and all of them are talking about a specific theme: stochastic control, but with completely different perspectives.
In the first manuscript, we solve the optimal barrier strategy for dividend distribution in a complicated Lévy system. In this system, the capital of...
Teachers may be attracted to the use of a game in a learning activity under the presumption that students will find the game experience to be more “fun” than typical classroom activities. The use of a game in a learning activity should help students attain important learning outcomes and engage...
In this dissertation, we use Fourier-analytic methods to study questions of equidistribution on the compact abelian group Zp of p-adic integers. In particu- lar, we prove a LeVeque-type Fourier analytic upper bound on the discrepancy of sequences. We establish p-adic analogues of the classical Dirichlet and Fejér kernels on R/Z,...
Junior level physics students are familiar with a few types of vector field derivatives, such as divergence and curl, but are typically unfamiliar with how to take a general derivative of a vector field. Three junior-level physics students were interviewed with the open-ended prompt, “How would you think about taking...
An almost torus manifold $M$ is a closed $(2n+1)$-dimensional orientable Riemannian manifold with an effective, isometric $n$-torus action such that the fixed point set $M^T$ is non-empty. Almost torus manifolds are analogues of torus manifolds in odd dimension and share many of the characteristics of torus manifolds. For example, both...
In this thesis we study mathematical and computational models for phenomena of flow and transport in porous media in the presence of changing pore scale geometries. The differential equations for the flow and transport models at Darcy scale involve the coefficients of permeability, porosity, and tortuosity which depend on the...
In 2013, Lemke Oliver created a list of all eta-quotients which are theta functions. Then in 2016, Folsom, Garthwaite, Kang, Swisher, and Treneer utilized this list of ``eta-theta'' functions along with Zwegers's construction of mock theta functions to create a set of mock modular forms which are also quantum modular...
Mathematics Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs) have a significant impact on the teaching and learning of mathematics in post-secondary contexts through their work as instructors of record, tutors, graders, and recitation, laboratory, or discussion leaders for mathematics courses. Perhaps more importantly, GSIs are future teachers of mathematics: more than 60 percent...
We describe two combinatorial problems in the theory of automorphism groups of compact Riemann surfaces of genus two or greater: enumerate the topological actions of a finite group on surfaces and determine the set of genera of surfaces admitting such a group action, called the genus spectrum. We illustrate results...
Consider a polygon lying in the Euclidean plane with labeled edge lengths. The moduli space of polygons is the space of all polygons with the same labeled edge lengths, modulo orientation preserving isometries. It is well known that this space is generically a smooth manifold. For certain combinations of edge...
In this work we consider a mathematical and computational model for biofilm growth and nutrient utilization. In particular, we are interested in a model appropriate at a scale of interface. The model is a system of two coupled nonlinear diffusion--reaction partial differential equations (PDEs). One of these PDEs is subject...
We propose a time dependent Eulerian model for sea surface entrainment, buoyancy transport and droplet dynamics of ocean oil. The model captures the microscale vertical oil mass exchanges in the neighborhood of the sea surface. This model is in turn part of an oil fate model designed to capture oil...
In this work, we consider a convexity splitting scheme for a coupled phase field and energy equation, a modification of Stefan problem. The Stefan problem is a free boundary value problem that models the temperature in a homogeneous multiphase medium. Each phase is modeled using a heat diffusion parabolic partial...
Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods may be used to determine normalizations and moments of distributions. However, these methods may perform poorly when starting from distributions that have little overlap with the target. We develop a homotopy based iterative process of incremental importance sampling to normalize distributions when observations can only...
Microbial ecology has been transformed by metagenomics, the study of the genetic in-formation in entire communities of organisms. In the following we develop metagenomic tools arising from the classic Wasserstein metric as applied to questions regarding the diversity between microbial communities. We provide a novel proof of the characteriza-tion of...
Malaria is a vector-borne disease that has affected humans and other animals for a long time and which has shown high prevalence among different populations. During the beginning of the 20th century, Sir Ronald Ross and George Macdonald developed a model that represents the spread of malaria through the interaction...
Generalization is a fundamental mathematical practice across all disciplines and content areas (Amit & Klass, 2005; Lannin, 2005; Pierce, 1902; Vygotsky, 1986; Ellis, Lockwood, Tillema & Moore, 2017). While a considerable amount of research has been conducted on students' generalizing activity in algebraic contexts (Amit & Klass 2005; Becker &...
In this project we study multiple approaches to modeling coupled flow and energy systems, with applications to geothermal fluid flow in geysers. We explore a model from a geophysical point of view, and discuss analysis of a related model. We then focus on our own model which features a free-boundary...
We present a method by which torsion-free groups of automorphisms of a 2-dimensional hyperbolic building which act simply transitively on the vertex set can be constructed, and prove that any such group can be obtained by this construction. The method produces groups defined by finite presentations with strong small cancellation...
This dataset contains the following:
1) A full list of the scaffolded presentations of the torsion-free vertex-regular lattices of Bourdon's building I55, classified up to isomorphism.
2) The source code for the programs used to construct these presentations in the software GAP 4.
3) The source code for the programs...
In this paper, we discuss two possible modifications to a numerical solution method for a model of microbiologically induced calcite precipitation (MICP). MICP provides a means to seal cracks in the surfaces of geological structures. From a mathematical and computational point of view MICP has very interesting features which make...
The height of an algebraic number A is a measure of how arithmetically complicated A is. We say A is totally p-adic if the minimal polynomial of A splits completely over the field of p-adic numbers. In this paper, we investigate what can be said about the smallest nonzero height...
In this dissertation, we begin by presenting the result of F. K. C. Rankin and Swinnerton-Dyer on the location of the zeros of the Eisenstein series for the full modular group in the standard fundamental domain. Their simple but beautiful argument shows that all zeros are located on the lower...
The introduction of an Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generator in coal energy plants could potentially allow a 30% increase of efficiency by transforming energy within the channels where exhaust flows. The MHD generator increases efficiency by transforming kinetic energy from the exhaust into electricity by generating a Faraday and Hall current, which...
In this work we will analyze branching Brownian motion on a finite interval with oneabsorbing and one reflecting boundary, having constant drift rate toward the absorbingboundary. Similar processes have been considered by Kesten ([12]), and more recently byHarris, Hesse, and Kyprianou ([11]). The current offering is motivated largely by the...
In 2014, W. Bogley identified a relation between the algebraic and geometric prop- erties of cyclically presented groups Gn (w) in the case where w = x0xkxl is a positive word of length three. Specifically, it was shown that the dynamics of the shift θG on the group G =...
In this dissertation, we introduce a family of fully discrete finite difference time-domain (FDTD) methods for Maxwell’s equations in linear and nonlinear materials. Onecategory of methods is constructed using multiscale techniques involving operator splittings. We present the sequential splitting scheme, the Strang Marchuk splitting scheme,the weighted sequential splitting scheme including...
We generalize overpartition rank and crank generating functions to obtain k-fold variants, and give a combinatorial interpretation for each. The k-fold crank generating function is interpreted by extending the first and second residual cranks to a natural infinite family. The k-fold rank generating functions generate two families of buffered Frobenius...
In this note, we generalize recent work of Mizuhara, Sellers, and Swisher that gives a method for establishing restricted plane partition congruences based on a bounded number of calculations. Using periodicity for partition functions, our extended technique could be a useful tool to prove congruences for certain types of combinatorial...
In this thesis I will look at a definition of computable randomness from Algorithmic Information Theory as defined by Andre Nies through the lens of Computable Analaysis asdefined by Klaus Weihrauch. I will show that despite the fact that these two paradigmsgenerate distinct classes of computable supermartingales, the class of...
The fact that measuring a quantum system reduces it to apparently classical behavior, eliminating the interference patterns that are a hallmark of quantumness, cries out for an explanation. That explanation has been provided by the recognition of decoherence,whereby the interference is destroyed by the very interaction that acquires information.We begin...
Markov chains have long been used to sample from probability distributions and simulate dynamical systems. In both cases we would like to know how long it takes for the chain's distribution to converge to within varepsilon of the stationary distribution in total variation distance; the answer to this is, called...
In this study, I seek to examine undergraduate STEM majors’ beliefs about and attitude towards mistakes in the context of counting. This is a particularly fruitful setting for such an investigation both because combinatorics is widely applicable to various fields such as physics, biology, chemistry, and computer science (Kapur, 1970),...
This dissertation investigates the structure and topological properties of cyclicallypresented groups. First, a family of groups called groups of type Z is considered. Withfew exceptions, the finiteness, asphericity, fixed point, and 3-manifold spine problemsare solved. Most groups of type Z have a central element of infinite order fixed by theshift....
The goal of this paper is to classify linear operators with octonionic coefficients and octonionic variables. While building up to the octonions we also classify linear operators over the quaternions and show how to relate the linear operators over the quaternions and octonions to matrices. We also construct a basis...
In this work we consider the dependence of solutions to a partial differential equations system on its data. The problem of interest is a coupled model of nonlinear flow and transport in porous media, with applications, e.g. to environmental modeling. The model of flow we consider is known as the...
We give a new characterization of elements in the Veech group of a translation surface. This provides a computational test for Veech group membership. We use this computational test in an algorithm that detects when the Veech group is a lattice (has co-finite area), and in this case computes a...
About twenty years ago, a large, rural, doctoral granting institution with an undergraduate population of approximately 24,000 in the pacific northwest of the United States established the Math Excel program. Students would attend lectures three times a week for 50 minutes like a traditional course, and they would also attend...
College Algebra is a prerequisite for calculus and is thus an important stepping stone in the careers of STEM-intending undergraduates. However, College Algebra has low pass rates across the United States, interrupting students’ pathways to success. To address this concern, a research-oriented university in the Northwest United States restructured its...
In this thesis, we will study certain generalizations of the classical Shannon Sampling Theorem, which allows for the reconstruction of a pi-band-limited, square-integrable function from its samples on the integers. J. R. Higgins provided a generalization where the integers can be perturbed by less than 1/4, which includes nonuniform and...
We model a fish population in a spatial region comprising a marine protected area and a fishing ground separated by an interface. The model assumes conservation of biomass density and takes the form of a reaction diffusion equation with a logistic reaction term. At the interface, in addition to continuity...
This paper is included in the Proceedings, Part 1, of the International Conference on Computational Science 2009 (ICCS 2009) held in Baton Rouge, LA, USA, May 25-27, 2009.
Humans move frequently and tend to carry parasites among areas with endemic malaria and into areas where local transmission is unsustainable. Human-mediated parasite mobility can thus sustain parasite populations in areas where they would otherwise be absent. Data describing human mobility and malaria epidemiology can help classify landscapes into parasite...
Translation surfaces can be viewed as polygons with parallel and equal sides identified. An affine homeomorphism φ from a translation surface to itself is called pseudo-Anosov when its derivative is a constant matrix in SL₂(R) whose trace is larger than 2 in absolute value. In this setting, the eigendirections of...