This project is engaged in optimalization of 3D polygonal models. Main automatic and also manual principles and methods used in the area of character model optimalization are introduced and discussed. Next the approach named geometry mapping, which was created as a part of the project and enables the creation of models with desired topology, is described.

Given a presentation of G, the word problem asks whether there exists an algorithm to determine which words in the free group, F(A), represent the identity in G. In this thesis, we study small cancellation theory, developed by Lyndon, Schupp, and Greendlinger in the mid-1960s, which contributed to the resurgence of geometric group theory. We investigate the connection between Van Kampen diagrams and the small cancellation hypotheses. Groups that have a presentation satisfying the small cancellation hypotheses C'(1/6), or C'(1/4) and T(4) have a nice solution to the word problem known as Dehn’s Algorithm.

<p>This thesis concerns itself with drawing out some interesting connections between the fields of group theory and formal language theory. Given a group with a finite set of generators, it is natural to consider the set of generators and their inverses as an alphabet. We can then consider formal languages such that every group element has at least one representative in the language. We examine what the structure of the language can tell us about group theoretic properties, focusing on the word problem, automatic structures on groups, and generalizations of automatic structures. Finally we prove new results concerning applications of languages of nested words for studying the word problem.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

Two ways of drawing cubes on dot paper connect students to life outside their classroom.

The objective of this research is to evaluate and introduce a new methodology regarding rural highway safety. Current practices rely on crash prediction models that utilize specific explanatory variables, whereas the depository of knowledge for past research is the Highway Safety Manual (HSM). Most of the prediction models in the HSM identify the effect of individual geometric elements on crash occurrence and consider their combination in a multiplicative manner, where each effect is multiplied with others to determine their combined influence. The concepts of 3-dimesnional (3-D) representation of the roadway surface have also been explored in the past aiming to model the highway structure and optimize the roadway alignment. The use of differential geometry on utilizing the 3-D roadway surface in order to understand how new metrics can be used to identify and express roadway geometric elements has been recently utilized and indicated that this may be a new approach in representing the combined effects of all geometry features into single variables. This research will further explore this potential and examine the possibility to utilize 3-D differential geometry in representing the roadway surface and utilize its associated metrics to consider the combined effect of roadway features on crashes. It is anticipated that a series of single metrics could be used that would combine horizontal and vertical alignment features and eventually predict roadway crashes in a more robust manner. It should be also noted that that the main purpose of this research is not to simply suggest predictive crash models, but to prove in a statistically concrete manner that 3-D metrics of differential geometry, e.g. Gaussian Curvature and Mean Curvature can assist in analyzing highway design and safety. Therefore, the value of this research is oriented towards the proof of concept of the link between 3-D geometry in highway design and safety. This thesis presents the steps and rationale of the procedure that is followed in order to complete the proposed research. Finally, the results of the suggested methodology are compared with the ones that would be derived from the, state-of-the-art, Interactive Highway Safety Design Model (IHSDM), which is essentially the software that is currently used and based on the findings of the HSM.

The obstacle avoidance navigation problem for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is a very challenging problem. It lies at the intersection of many fields such as probability, differential geometry, optimal control, and robotics. We build a mathematical framework to solve this problem for quadrotors using both a theoretical approach through a Hamiltonian system and a machine learning approach that learns from human sub-experts' multiple demonstrations in obstacle avoidance. Prior research on the machine learning approach uses an algorithm that does not incorporate geometry. We have developed tools to solve and test the obstacle avoidance problem through mathematics.

Consider two immersed surfaces M and N. A pair of points (p,q) in M x N is called a line bitangency if there is a common tangent line between them. Furthermore, we define the line bitangency submanifold as the union of all such pairs of points in M x N. In this thesis we investigate the dynamics of the line bitangency submanifold in a one-parameter family of immersion pairs. We do so by translating one of the surfaces and studying the wide range of transitions the submanifold may undertake. We then characterize these transitions by the local geometry of each surface and provide examples of each transition.

No description available.

No description available.

In this work we investigate the Weyl anomaly from a new perspective. Our goal is to identify a set-up for which the classical Weyl symmetry is not broken, at the quantum level by the usual arguments related to the Euler invariants, but rather by the impact of other geometrical obstructions. Therefore, we work, mostly, in three spatiotemporal dimensions, where general arguments guarantee the absence of trace anomalies. In par- ticular, our interest here is on whether various types of singularities, emerging in the description of the differential geometry of surfaces, could induce some form of quantum inequivalence, even though the classical symmetry is at work. To this end, we work with a very special three-dimensional metric, whose nontriviality is fully in its spatial two-dimensional part. The last ingredient we use, to clean-up the way from other com- plications, is to work with physical systems where no Weyl gauge field is necessary, to have the classical invariance. The system we focus on is then the massless Dirac field the- ory (that, as well known, enjoys local Weyl symmetry) in three-dimensional conformally flat spacetimes. With these premises, the research programme consists of three steps. The first step is to find the coordinate transformations that link the conformal factor identifying the...