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Description
The Experimental Data Processing (EDP) software is a C++ GUI-based application to streamline the process of creating a model for structural systems based on experimental data. EDP is designed to process raw data, filter the data for noise and outliers, create a fitted model to describe that data, complete a

The Experimental Data Processing (EDP) software is a C++ GUI-based application to streamline the process of creating a model for structural systems based on experimental data. EDP is designed to process raw data, filter the data for noise and outliers, create a fitted model to describe that data, complete a probabilistic analysis to describe the variation between replicates of the experimental process, and analyze reliability of a structural system based on that model. In order to help design the EDP software to perform the full analysis, the probabilistic and regression modeling aspects of this analysis have been explored. The focus has been on creating and analyzing probabilistic models for the data, adding multivariate and nonparametric fits to raw data, and developing computational techniques that allow for these methods to be properly implemented within EDP. For creating a probabilistic model of replicate data, the normal, lognormal, gamma, Weibull, and generalized exponential distributions have been explored. Goodness-of-fit tests, including the chi-squared, Anderson-Darling, and Kolmogorov-Smirnoff tests, have been used in order to analyze the effectiveness of any of these probabilistic models in describing the variation of parameters between replicates of an experimental test. An example using Young's modulus data for a Kevlar-49 Swath stress-strain test was used in order to demonstrate how this analysis is performed within EDP. In order to implement the distributions, numerical solutions for the gamma, beta, and hypergeometric functions were implemented, along with an arbitrary precision library to store numbers that exceed the maximum size of double-precision floating point digits. To create a multivariate fit, the multilinear solution was created as the simplest solution to the multivariate regression problem. This solution was then extended to solve nonlinear problems that can be linearized into multiple separable terms. These problems were solved analytically with the closed-form solution for the multilinear regression, and then by using a QR decomposition to solve numerically while avoiding numerical instabilities associated with matrix inversion. For nonparametric regression, or smoothing, the loess method was developed as a robust technique for filtering noise while maintaining the general structure of the data points. The loess solution was created by addressing concerns associated with simpler smoothing methods, including the running mean, running line, and kernel smoothing techniques, and combining the ability of each of these methods to resolve those issues. The loess smoothing method involves weighting each point in a partition of the data set, and then adding either a line or a polynomial fit within that partition. Both linear and quadratic methods were applied to a carbon fiber compression test, showing that the quadratic model was more accurate but the linear model had a shape that was more effective for analyzing the experimental data. Finally, the EDP program itself was explored to consider its current functionalities for processing data, as described by shear tests on carbon fiber data, and the future functionalities to be developed. The probabilistic and raw data processing capabilities were demonstrated within EDP, and the multivariate and loess analysis was demonstrated using R. As the functionality and relevant considerations for these methods have been developed, the immediate goal is to finish implementing and integrating these additional features into a version of EDP that performs a full streamlined structural analysis on experimental data.
ContributorsMarkov, Elan Richard (Author) / Rajan, Subramaniam (Thesis director) / Khaled, Bilal (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
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Description
The NFL is one of largest and most influential industries in the world. In America there are few companies that have a stronger hold on the American culture and create such a phenomena from year to year. In this project aimed to develop a strategy that helps an NFL team

The NFL is one of largest and most influential industries in the world. In America there are few companies that have a stronger hold on the American culture and create such a phenomena from year to year. In this project aimed to develop a strategy that helps an NFL team be as successful as possible by defining which positions are most important to a team's success. Data from fifteen years of NFL games was collected and information on every player in the league was analyzed. First there needed to be a benchmark which describes a team as being average and then every player in the NFL must be compared to that average. Based on properties of linear regression using ordinary least squares this project aims to define such a model that shows each position's importance. Finally, once such a model had been established then the focus turned to the NFL draft in which the goal was to find a strategy of where each position needs to be drafted so that it is most likely to give the best payoff based on the results of the regression in part one.
ContributorsBalzer, Kevin Ryan (Author) / Goegan, Brian (Thesis director) / Dassanayake, Maduranga (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
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Description
Covering subsequences with sets of permutations arises in many applications, including event-sequence testing. Given a set of subsequences to cover, one is often interested in knowing the fewest number of permutations required to cover each subsequence, and in finding an explicit construction of such a set of permutations that has

Covering subsequences with sets of permutations arises in many applications, including event-sequence testing. Given a set of subsequences to cover, one is often interested in knowing the fewest number of permutations required to cover each subsequence, and in finding an explicit construction of such a set of permutations that has size close to or equal to the minimum possible. The construction of such permutation coverings has proven to be computationally difficult. While many examples for permutations of small length have been found, and strong asymptotic behavior is known, there are few explicit constructions for permutations of intermediate lengths. Most of these are generated from scratch using greedy algorithms. We explore a different approach here. Starting with a set of permutations with the desired coverage properties, we compute local changes to individual permutations that retain the total coverage of the set. By choosing these local changes so as to make one permutation less "essential" in maintaining the coverage of the set, our method attempts to make a permutation completely non-essential, so it can be removed without sacrificing total coverage. We develop a post-optimization method to do this and present results on sequence covering arrays and other types of permutation covering problems demonstrating that it is surprisingly effective.
ContributorsMurray, Patrick Charles (Author) / Colbourn, Charles (Thesis director) / Czygrinow, Andrzej (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Physics (Contributor)
Created2014-12
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Description
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) in many ways are similar to more traditional closed-end mutual
funds, although thee differ in a crucial way. ETFs rely on a creation and redemption feature to
achieve their functionality and this mechanism is designed to minimize the deviations that occur
between the ETF’s listed price and the net

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) in many ways are similar to more traditional closed-end mutual
funds, although thee differ in a crucial way. ETFs rely on a creation and redemption feature to
achieve their functionality and this mechanism is designed to minimize the deviations that occur
between the ETF’s listed price and the net asset value of the ETF’s underlying assets. However
while this does cause ETF deviations to be generally lower than their mutual fund counterparts,
as our paper explores this process does not eliminate these deviations completely. This article
builds off an earlier paper by Engle and Sarkar (2006) that investigates these properties of
premiums (discounts) of ETFs from their fair market value. And looks to see if these premia
have changed in the last 10 years. Our paper then diverges from the original and takes a deeper
look into the standard deviations of these premia specifically.
Our findings show that over 70% of an ETFs standard deviation of premia can be
explained through a linear combination consisting of two variables: a categorical (Domestic[US],
Developed, Emerging) and a discrete variable (time-difference from US). This paper also finds
that more traditional metrics such as market cap, ETF price volatility, and even 3rd party market
indicators such as the economic freedom index and investment freedom index are insignificant
predictors of an ETFs standard deviation of premia. These findings differ somewhat from
existing literature which indicate that these factors should have a significant impact on the
predictive ability of an ETFs standard deviation of premia.
ContributorsHenning, Thomas Louis (Co-author) / Zhang, Jingbo (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Wendell, Licon (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
In the last decade, the population of honey bees across the globe has declined sharply leaving scientists and bee keepers to wonder why? Amongst all nations, the United States has seen some of the greatest declines in the last 10 plus years. Without a definite explanation, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

In the last decade, the population of honey bees across the globe has declined sharply leaving scientists and bee keepers to wonder why? Amongst all nations, the United States has seen some of the greatest declines in the last 10 plus years. Without a definite explanation, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) was coined to explain the sudden and sharp decline of the honey bee colonies that beekeepers were experiencing. Colony collapses have been rising higher compared to expected averages over the years, and during the winter season losses are even more severe than what is normally acceptable. There are some possible explanations pointing towards meteorological variables, diseases, and even pesticide usage. Despite the cause of CCD being unknown, thousands of beekeepers have reported their losses, and even numbers of infected colonies and colonies under certain stressors in the most recent years. Using the data that was reported to The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), as well as weather data collected by The National Centers for Environmental Information (NOAA) and the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), regression analysis was used to investigate honey bee colonies to find relationships between stressors in honey bee colonies and meteorological variables, and colony collapses during the winter months. The regression analysis focused on the winter season, or quarter 4 of the year, which includes the months of October, November, and December. In the model, the response variables was the percentage of colonies lost in quarter 4. Through the model, it was concluded that certain weather thresholds and the percentage increase of colonies under certain stressors were related to colony loss.
ContributorsVasquez, Henry Antony (Author) / Zheng, Yi (Thesis director) / Saffell, Erinanne (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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Description
In many systems, it is difficult or impossible to measure the phase of a signal. Direct recovery from magnitude is an ill-posed problem. Nevertheless, with a sufficiently large set of magnitude measurements, it is often possible to reconstruct the original signal using algorithms that implicitly impose regularization conditions on this

In many systems, it is difficult or impossible to measure the phase of a signal. Direct recovery from magnitude is an ill-posed problem. Nevertheless, with a sufficiently large set of magnitude measurements, it is often possible to reconstruct the original signal using algorithms that implicitly impose regularization conditions on this ill-posed problem. Two such algorithms were examined: alternating projections, utilizing iterative Fourier transforms with manipulations performed in each domain on every iteration, and phase lifting, converting the problem to that of trace minimization, allowing for the use of convex optimization algorithms to perform the signal recovery. These recovery algorithms were compared on a basis of robustness as a function of signal-to-noise ratio. A second problem examined was that of unimodular polyphase radar waveform design. Under a finite signal energy constraint, the maximal energy return of a scene operator is obtained by transmitting the eigenvector of the scene Gramian associated with the largest eigenvalue. It is shown that if instead the problem is considered under a power constraint, a unimodular signal can be constructed starting from such an eigenvector that will have a greater return.
ContributorsJones, Scott Robert (Author) / Cochran, Douglas (Thesis director) / Diaz, Rodolfo (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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Description
This paper will begin by initially discussing the potential uses and challenges of efficient and accurate traffic forecasting. The data we used includes traffic volume from seven locations on a busy Athens street in April and May of 2000. This data was used as part of a traffic forecasting competition.

This paper will begin by initially discussing the potential uses and challenges of efficient and accurate traffic forecasting. The data we used includes traffic volume from seven locations on a busy Athens street in April and May of 2000. This data was used as part of a traffic forecasting competition. Our initial observation, was that due to the volatility and oscillating nature of daily traffic volume, simple linear regression models will not perform well in predicting the time-series data. For this we present the Harmonic Time Series model. Such model (assuming all predictors are significant) will include a sinusoidal term for each time index within a period of data. Our assumption is that traffic volumes have a period of one week (which is evidenced by the graphs reproduced in our paper). This leads to a model that has 6,720 sine and cosine terms. This is clearly too many coefficients, so in an effort to avoid over-fitting and having an efficient model, we apply the sub-setting algorithm known as Adaptive Lass.
ContributorsMora, Juan (Author) / Kamarianakis, Ioannis (Thesis director) / Yu, Wanchunzi (Committee member) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
This paper attempts to introduce analytics and regression techniques into the National Hockey League. Hockey as a sport has been a slow adapter of analytics, and this can be attributed to poor data collection methods. Using data collected for hockeyreference.com, and R statistical software, the number of wins a team

This paper attempts to introduce analytics and regression techniques into the National Hockey League. Hockey as a sport has been a slow adapter of analytics, and this can be attributed to poor data collection methods. Using data collected for hockeyreference.com, and R statistical software, the number of wins a team experiences will be predicted using Goals For and Goals Against statistics from 2005-2017. The model showed statistical significance and strong normality throughout the data. The number of wins each team was expected to experience in 2016-2017 was predicted using the model and then compared to the actual number of games each team won. To further analyze the validity of the model, the expected playoff outcome for 2016-2017 was compared to the observed playoff outcome. The discussion focused on team's that did not fit the model or traditional analytics and expected forecasts. The possible discrepancies were analyzed using the Las Vegas Golden Knights as a case study. Possible next steps for data analysis are presented and the role of future technology and innovation in hockey analytics is discussed and predicted.
ContributorsVermeer, Brandon Elliot (Author) / Goegan, Brian (Thesis director) / Eaton, John (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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Description
Many forms of programmable matter have been proposed for various tasks. We use an abstract model of self-organizing particle systems for programmable matter which could be used for a variety of applications, including smart paint and coating materials for engineering or programmable cells for medical uses. Previous research using this

Many forms of programmable matter have been proposed for various tasks. We use an abstract model of self-organizing particle systems for programmable matter which could be used for a variety of applications, including smart paint and coating materials for engineering or programmable cells for medical uses. Previous research using this model has focused on shape formation and other spatial configuration problems, including line formation, compression, and coating. In this work we study foundational computational tasks that exceed the capabilities of the individual constant memory particles described by the model. These tasks represent new ways to use these self-organizing systems, which, in conjunction with previous shape and configuration work, make the systems useful for a wider variety of tasks. We present an implementation of a counter using a line of particles, which makes it possible for the line of particles to count to and store values much larger than their individual capacities. We then present an algorithm that takes a matrix and a vector as input and then sets up and uses a rectangular block of particles to compute the matrix-vector multiplication. This setup also utilizes the counter implementation to store the resulting vector from the matrix-vector multiplication. Operations such as counting and matrix multiplication can leverage the distributed and dynamic nature of the self-organizing system to be more efficient and adaptable than on traditional linear computing hardware. Such computational tools also give the systems more power to make complex decisions when adapting to new situations or to analyze the data they collect, reducing reliance on a central controller for setup and output processing. Finally, we demonstrate an application of similar types of computations with self-organizing systems to image processing, with an implementation of an image edge detection algorithm.
ContributorsPorter, Alexandra Marie (Author) / Richa, Andrea (Thesis director) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
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Description
Many programmable matter systems have been proposed and realized recently, each often tailored toward a particular task or physical setting. In our work on self-organizing particle systems, we abstract away from specific settings and instead describe programmable matter as a collection of simple computational elements (to be referred to as

Many programmable matter systems have been proposed and realized recently, each often tailored toward a particular task or physical setting. In our work on self-organizing particle systems, we abstract away from specific settings and instead describe programmable matter as a collection of simple computational elements (to be referred to as particles) with limited computational power that each perform fully distributed, local, asynchronous algorithms to solve system-wide problems of movement, configuration, and coordination. In this thesis, we focus on the compression problem, in which the particle system gathers as tightly together as possible, as in a sphere or its equivalent in the presence of some underlying geometry. While there are many ways to formalize what it means for a particle system to be compressed, we address three different notions of compression: (1) local compression, in which each individual particle utilizes local rules to create an overall convex structure containing no holes, (2) hole elimination, in which the particle system seeks to detect and eliminate any holes it contains, and (3) alpha-compression, in which the particle system seeks to shrink its perimeter to be within a constant factor of the minimum possible value. We analyze the behavior of each of these algorithms, examining correctness and convergence where appropriate. In the case of the Markov Chain Algorithm for Compression, we provide improvements to the original bounds for the bias parameter lambda which influences the system to either compress or expand. Lastly, we briefly discuss contributions to the problem of leader election--in which a particle system elects a single leader--since it acts as an important prerequisite for compression algorithms that use a predetermined seed particle.
ContributorsDaymude, Joshua Jungwoo (Author) / Richa, Andrea (Thesis director) / Kierstead, Henry (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05