The tensor theory is a branch of Multilinear Algebra that describes the relationship between sets of algebraic objects related to a vector space. Tensor theory together with tensor analysis is usually known to be tensor calculus. This thesis presents a formal category treatment on tensor notation, tensor calculus, and differential manifold. The focus lies mainly on acquiring and understanding the basic concepts of tensors and the operations over them. It looks at how tensor is adapted to differential geometry and continuum mechanics. In particular, it focuses more attention on the application parts of mechanics such as; configuration and deformation, tensor deformation, continuum kinematics, Gauss, and Stokes' theorem with their applications. Finally, it discusses the concept of surface forces and stress vector.

The aim of the Master's thesis was to study contemporary methods for human pulse detection from standard video and suggest a method, which can be used to detect the pulse. Approaches of detecting miniature changes between frames of a video are presented. Position changes of the feature points or changes in colour of some part of an image are detected. It capitalize on the fact that those changes are caused by the pulse of blood. The method for color changes magnification is selected as a base for pulse detector. Face regions of interest are analyzed to detect frequency of changes of intensity between frames. 1D signal is gained and its analysis leads to heart rate. Approach to create heat map of frequency changes is also presented.

We develop a general method to construct subsets of complete Riemannian manifolds that cannot contain images of non-constant harmonic maps from compact manifolds. We apply our method to the special case where the harmonic map is the Gauss map of a minimal submanifold and the complete manifold is a Grassmannian. With the help of a result by Allard [Allard, W. K. (1972). On the first variation of a varifold. Annals of mathematics, 417-491.], we can study the graph case and have an approach to prove Bernstein-type theorems. This enables us to extend Moser’s Bernstein theorem [Moser, J. (1961). On Harnack's theorem for elliptic differential equations. Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics, 14(3), 577-591.] to codimension two, i.e., a minimal p-submanifold in $R^{p+2}$, which is the graph of a smooth function defined on the entire $R^p$ with bounded slope, must be a p-plane.

We investigate extreme studentized and normalized residuals as test statistics for outlier detection in the Gauss-Markov model possibly not of full rank. We show how critical values (quantile values) of such test statistics are derived from the probability distribution of a single studentized or normalized residual by dividing the level of error probability by the number of residuals. This derivation neglects dependencies between the residuals. We suggest improving this by a procedure based on the Monte Carlo method for the numerical computation of such critical values up to arbitrary precision. Results for free leveling networks reveal significant differences to the values used so far. We also show how to compute those critical values for non‐normal error distributions. The results prove that the critical values are very sensitive to the type of error distribution. / Wir untersuchen extreme studentisierte und normierte Verbesserungen als Teststatistik für die Ausreißererkennung im Gauß-Markov-Modell von möglicherweise nicht vollem Rang. Wir zeigen, wie kritische Werte (Quantilwerte) solcher Teststatistiken von der Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung einer einzelnen studentisierten oder normierten Verbesserung abgeleitet werden, indem die Irrtumswahrscheinlichkeit durch die Anzahl der Verbesserungen dividiert wird. Diese Ableitung vernachlässigt Abhängigkeiten zwischen den Verbesserungen. Wir schlagen vor, diese Prozedur durch Einsatz der Monte-Carlo-Methode zur Berechnung solcher kritischen Werte bis zu beliebiger Genauigkeit zu verbessern. Ergebnisse für freie Höhennetze zeigen signifikante Differenzen zu den bisher benutzten Werten. Wir zeigen auch, wie man solche Werte für nicht-normale Fehlerverteilungen berechnet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die kritischen Werte sehr empfindlich auf den Typ der Fehlerverteilung reagieren.

Derivatives have a large and significant role on the financial markets today and the popularity of options has increased. This has also increased the demand of finding a suitable option pricing model, since the ground-breaking model developed by Black & Scholes (1973) have poor pricing performance. Practitioners and academics have over the years developed different models with the assumption of non-constant volatility, without reaching any conclusions regarding which model is more suitable to use. This thesis examines four different models, the first model is the Practitioners Black & Scholes model proposed by Christoffersen & Jacobs (2004b). The second model is the Heston´s (1993) continuous time stochastic volatility model, a modification of the model is also included, which is called the Strike Vector Computation suggested by Kilin (2011). The last model is the Heston & Nandi (2000) Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity type discrete model. From a practical point of view the models are evaluated, with the goal of finding the model with the best pricing performance and the most practical usage. The model´s robustness is also tested to see how the models perform in out-of-sample during a high respectively low implied volatility market. All the models are effected in the robustness test, the out-sample ability is negatively affected by a high implied volatility market. The results show that both of the stochastic volatility models have superior performances in the in-sample and out-sample analysis. The Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity type discrete model shows surprisingly poor results both in the in-sample and out-sample analysis. The results indicate that option data should be used instead of historical return data to estimate the model’s parameters. This thesis also provides an insight on why overnight-index-swap (OIS) rates should be used instead of LIBOR rates as a proxy for the risk-free rate.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The main motivation for nearly all empirical economic research is to provide scientific evidence that can be used to assess causal relationships of interest. Essential to such assessments is the rigorous specification and accurate estimation of parameters that characterize the causal relationship between a presumed causal variable of interest, whose value is to be set and altered in the context of a relevant counterfactual and a designated outcome of interest. Relationships of this type are typically characterized by an effect parameter (EP) and estimation of the EP is the objective of the empirical analysis. The present research focuses on cases in which the regression outcome of interest is a vector that has count-valued elements (i.e., the model under consideration comprises a multi-equation system of equations). This research examines the importance of account for nonlinearity and cross-equation correlations in correlated count regression systems from the perspective of causal estimation and inference. We evaluate the efficiency and accuracy gains of estimating bivariate count valued systems-of-equations models by comparing three pairs of models: (1) Zellner’s Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) versus Count-Outcome SUR - Conway Maxwell Poisson (CMP); (2) CMP SUR versus Single-Equation CMP Approach; (3) CMP SUR versus Poisson SUR. We show via simulation studies that it is more efficient to estimate jointly than equation-by-equation, it is more efficient to account for nonlinearity. We also apply our model and estimation method to real-world health care utilization data, where the dependent variables are correlated counts: count of physician office-visits, and count of non-physician health professional office-visits. The presumed causal variable is private health insurance status. Our model results in a reduction of at least 30% in standard errors for key policy EP (e.g., Average Incremental Effect). Our results are enabled by our development of a Stata program for approximating two-dimensional integrals via Gauss-Legendre Quadrature.

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The first part of my thesis is concerned with estimation for longitudinal data using generalized semi-parametric mixed models and multilevel generalized linear mixed models for a binary response. Likelihood based inferences are hindered by the lack of a closed form representation. Consequently, various integration approaches have been proposed. We propose a spherical radial integration based approach that takes advantage of the hierarchical structure of the data, which we call the 2 SR method. Compared to Pinheiro and Chao's multilevel Adaptive Gaussian quadrature, our proposed method has an improved time complexity with the number of functional evaluations scaling linearly in the number of subjects and in the dimension of random effects per level. Simulation studies show that our approach has similar to better accuracy compared to Gauss Hermite Quadrature (GHQ) and has better accuracy compared to PQL especially in the variance components. The second part of my thesis is concerned with identifying differentially expressed gene pathways/gene sets. We propose a logistic kernel machine to model the gene pathway effect with a binary response. Kernel machines were chosen since they account for gene interactions and clinical covariates. Furthermore, we established a connection between our logistic kernel machine with GLMMs allowing us to use ideas from the GLMM literature. For estimation and testing, we adopted Clarkson's spherical radial approach to perform the high dimensional integrations. For estimation, our performance in simulation studies is comparable to better than Bayesian approaches at a much lower computational cost. As for testing of the genetic pathway effect, our REML likelihood ratio test has increased power compared to a score test for simulated non-linear pathways. Additionally, our approach has three main advantages over previous methodologies: 1) our testing approach is self-contained rather than competitive, 2) our kernel machine approach can model complex pathway effects and gene-gene interactions, and 3) we test for the pathway effect adjusting for clinical covariates. Motivation for our work is the analysis of an Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia data set where we test for the genetic pathway effect and provide confidence intervals for the fixed effects.

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