Graph-based semi-supervised learning (SSL) algorithms have been widely studied in the last few years. Most of these algorithms were designed from unconstrained optimization problems using a Laplacian regularizer term as smoothness functional in an attempt to reflect the intrinsic geometric structure of the datas marginal distribution. Although a number of recent research papers are still focusing on unconstrained methods for graph-based SSL, a recent statistical analysis showed that many of these algorithms may be unstable on transductive regression. Therefore, we focus on providing new constrained methods for graph-based SSL. We begin by analyzing the regularization framework of existing unconstrained methods. Then, we incorporate two normalization constraints into the optimization problem of three of these methods. We show that the proposed optimization problems have closed-form solution. By generalizing one of these constraints to any distribution, we provide generalized methods for constrained graph-based SSL. The proposed methods have a more flexible regularization framework than the corresponding unconstrained methods. More precisely, our methods can deal with any graph Laplacian and use higher order regularization, which is effective on general SSL taks. In order to show the effectiveness of the proposed methods, we provide comprehensive experimental analyses. Specifically, our experiments are subdivided into two parts. In the first part, we evaluate existing graph-based SSL algorithms on time series data to find their weaknesses. In the second part, we evaluate the proposed constrained methods against six state-of-the-art graph-based SSL algorithms on benchmark data sets. Since the widely used best case analysis may hide useful information concerning the SSL algorithms performance with respect to parameter selection, we used recently proposed empirical evaluation models to evaluate our results. Our results show that our methods outperforms the competing methods on most parameter settings and graph construction methods. However, we found a few experimental settings in which our methods showed poor performance. In order to facilitate the reproduction of our results, the source codes, data sets, and experimental results are freely available. / Algoritmos de aprendizado semissupervisionado baseado em grafos foram amplamente estudados nos últimos anos. A maioria desses algoritmos foi projetada a partir de problemas de otimização sem restrições usando um termo regularizador Laplaciano como funcional de suavidade numa tentativa de refletir a estrutura geométrica intrínsica da distribuição marginal dos dados. Apesar de vários artigos científicos recentes continuarem focando em métodos sem restrição para aprendizado semissupervisionado em grafos, uma análise estatística recente mostrou que muitos desses algoritmos podem ser instáveis em regressão transdutiva. Logo, nós focamos em propor novos métodos com restrições para aprendizado semissupervisionado em grafos. Nós começamos analisando o framework de regularização de métodos sem restrições existentes. Então, nós incorporamos duas restrições de normalização no problema de otimização de três desses métodos. Mostramos que os problemas de otimização propostos possuem solução de forma fechada. Ao generalizar uma dessas restrições para qualquer distribuição, provemos métodos generalizados para aprendizado semissupervisionado restrito baseado em grafos. Os métodos propostos possuem um framework de regularização mais flexível que os métodos sem restrições correspondentes. Mais precisamente, nossos métodos podem lidar com qualquer Laplaciano em grafos e usar regularização de ordem elevada, a qual é efetiva em tarefas de aprendizado semissupervisionado em geral. Para mostrar a efetividade dos métodos propostos, nós provemos análises experimentais robustas. Especificamente, nossos experimentos são subdivididos em duas partes. Na primeira parte, avaliamos algoritmos de aprendizado semissupervisionado em grafos existentes em dados de séries temporais para encontrar possíveis fraquezas desses métodos. Na segunda parte, avaliamos os métodos restritos propostos contra seis algoritmos de aprendizado semissupervisionado baseado em grafos do estado da arte em conjuntos de dados benchmark. Como a amplamente usada análise de melhor caso pode esconder informações relevantes sobre o desempenho dos algoritmos de aprendizado semissupervisionado com respeito à seleção de parâmetros, nós usamos modelos de avaliação empírica recentemente propostos para avaliar os nossos resultados. Nossos resultados mostram que os nossos métodos superam os demais métodos na maioria das configurações de parâmetro e métodos de construção de grafos. Entretanto, encontramos algumas configurações experimentais nas quais nossos métodos mostraram baixo desempenho. Para facilitar a reprodução dos nossos resultados, os códigos fonte, conjuntos de dados e resultados experimentais estão disponíveis gratuitamente.

A aeroelasticidade estuda a interação mútua entre os efeitos aerodinâmicos e estruturais. É sabido que essa relação muitas vezes se comporta de maneira não linear, causando diversos problemas, tais como flutter, oscilações em ciclo limite, bifurcações e caos. Tais fenômenos são difíceis de serem diagnosticados, podendo causar problemas graves à estrutura das aeronaves e também inviabilizar as suas operações. Dentre as principais fontes de não linearidades em sistemas aeroelásticos, pode-se citar as de origem aerodinâmica e estrutural. As de origem estrutural, por sua vez, podem ter caráter distribuído ou concentrado. Sabe-se que os efeitos estruturais concentrados denominados enrijecimento e folga são os de maior impacto na aeroelasticidade não linear. Desse modo, o objetivo desse trabalho é estudar a interação não linear entre duas não linearidades estruturais, ou seja, o enrijecimento associado à rigidez em torção e a folga presente nas articulações das superfícies de controle de seções típicas aeroelásticas. Experimentos em túnel de vento são realizados utilizando um dispositivo que permite variar a intensidade do efeito de enrijecimento e do tamanho da folga na articulação da superfície de comando. O modelo numérico de seção típica aeroelástica também é utilizado e validado com dados experimentais. Análises por meio de diagramas de bifurcação de Hopf e técnicas baseadas em espectros de potência são utilizadas. Todas as respostas aeroelásticas foram caracterizadas através de ferramentas de análise nos domínios do tempo e da frequência, como técnica de reconstrução de espaço de estados e os espectros de alta ordem (HOS), os quais são importantes na identificação dos tipos de acoplamentos não lineares. Resultados indicam que a combinação dos efeitos de enrijecimento e folga são responsáveis pelo comportamento subcrítico das bifurcações de Hopf e que a intensidade do enrijecimento tem influência direta nas amplitudes de ciclo limite. / Aeroelasticity is the field of engineering that deals with the mutual interaction between the aerodynamic and structural dynamics effects. It is known that this relationship often shows nonlinear behavior, causing various problems such as flutter, limit cycle oscillations, bifurcations and chaos. Such phenomena are difficult to predict and can cause serious problems to the aircraft structure and also they can jeopardize their operations. The unsteady aerodynamic and structural dynamics provide the main sources of nonlinearities in aeroelastic systems. Structural nonlinearities can be treated as distributed or concentrated effects. It is know that the nonlinear concentrated structural effects referred as hardening and freeplay have a significant impact on nonlinear aeroelasticity. The objective of this work is to analyze an aeroelastic system under the influence of combined structural nonlinearities, i.e., the hardening nonlinearity in the pitch airfoil motion and the freeplay nonlinearity in the control surface hinge. Wind tunnel experiments are carried out using one device that allows to vary the intensity of the hardening effect and the size of the freeplay gap in the control surface hinge. The numerical model of the typical aeroelastic section is also used and validated with experimental data. All aeroelastic responses are characterized by analytical tools in time and frequency domains. It was used the state space reconstruction technique and the higher order spectral analysis (HOS) to identify types of nonlinear couplings. The results indicate that the combination of hardening and freeplay effects are responsible for inducing the subcritical behavior on the Hopf bifurcations and that the intensity of the stiffness has a direct influence on the limit cycle amplitudes.

In this thesis we review literature about the coordination problem under an uncertainty. We set up a continuum player model of collective action, in which part of the population must coordinate on an action in order to achieve a mutual benefit. The complete information version of the model features multiple equilibria. We study the role of various sources of uncertainty in the model and compare them. We also examine the role of private and public information. We discuss particularly the global game, the coordination game of incomplete information in which agents received different but correlated signals about the state. We demonstrate that in the global game an unique equilibrium can be found by iterated elimination of dominated strategies. We compare the global game to related models and examine the consequences of relaxing the assumptions of global game. In addition we show some practical implication of the model for revolutions and currency crises.

We investigate the expressive power of different fragments of higher-order logics over finite relational structures (or equivalently, relational databases) with special emphasis in higher-order logics of order greater than or equal three. Our main results concern the study of the effect on the expressive power of higher-order logics, of simultaneously bounding the arity of the higher-order variables and the alternation of quantifiers.

<p>In recent years, there has been a great interest towards the higher order numerical methods for singularly perturbed problems. As compared to their lower order counterparts, they provide better accuracy with fewer mesh points. Construction and/or implementation of direct higher order methods is usually very complicated. Thus a natural choice is to use some convergence acceleration techniques, e.g., Richardson extrapolation, defect correction, etc. In this thesis, we will consider various classes of problems described by singularly perturbed ordinary and partial differential equations. For these problems, we design some novel numerical methods and attempt to increase their accuracy as well as the order of convergence. We also do the same for existing numerical methods in some instances. We &macr / nd that, even though the Richardson extrapolation technique always improves the accuracy, it does not perform equally well when applied to different methods for certain classes of problems. Moreover, while in some cases it improves the order of convergence, in other cases it does not. These issues are discussed in this thesis for linear and nonlinear singularly perturbed ODEs as well as PDEs. Extrapolation techniques are analyzed thoroughly in all the cases, whereas the limitations of the defect correction approach for certain problems is indicated at the end of the thesis</p>

This study focused on how teachers' planning and teaching methods changed after they acquired more confidence in applying differentiated strategies in their instructional units. Teachers were given a questionnaire about their skills, qualifications and teaching beliefs comparing teaching general education students and gifted education students within the typical classroom setting. Then teachers received several professional development opportunities within the school year exposing them to different forms of differentiation. Time was given between trainings so that teachers would have ample time to integrate what they learned into their planning and instructional design. At the end of the study, teachers were given another questionnaire, similar to the first one, where they had to rank themselves on skills, education, and teaching methods for general education students and gifted students after the professional development. Comparisons between the two questionnaires showed that teachers were more confident in how to meet individual students' needs through differentiation after the trainings than before the study. In fact, before the study, 50% of teachers reported that the needs of gifted students are not being met in the general classroom setting; but, after the study, that number dropped to only 6%. Because teachers felt more confident in their abilities to teach gifted students in the traditional classrooms, the students' needs were addressed.

A numerical method (SIMPLE DIRK Method) for unsteady incompressible viscous flow simulation is presented. The proposed method can be used to achieve arbitrarily high order of accuracy in time-discretization which is otherwise limited to second order in majority of the currently used simulation techniques. A special class of implicit Runge-Kutta methods is used for time discretization in conjunction with finite volume based SIMPLE algorithm. The algorithm was tested by solving for velocity field in a lid-driven square cavity. In the test case calculations, power law scheme was used in spatial discretization and time discretization was performed using a second-order implicit Runge-Kutta method. Time evolution of velocity profile along the cavity centerline was obtained from the proposed method and compared with that obtained from a commercial computational fluid dynamics software program, FLUENT 6.2.16. Also, steady state solution from the present method was compared with the numerical solution of Ghia, Ghia, and Shin and that of Erturk, Corke, and Goökçöl. Good agreement of the solution of the proposed method with the solutions of FLUENT; Ghia, Ghia, and Shin; and Erturk, Corke, and Goökçöl establishes the feasibility of the proposed method.

Higher Order Statistics (HOS) and Second Order Statistics (SOS) approaches have certain advantages and disadvantages in signal processing applications. HOS approach provides more statistical information for non-Gaussian signals. On the other hand, SOS approach is more robust to the estimation errors than the HOS approach, especially when the number of observations is small. In this thesis, HOS and SOS approaches are jointly used in order to take advantage of both methods. In this respect, the joint use of HOS and SOS approaches are introduced for online calibration of sensor arrays with arbitrary geometries. Three different problems in online array calibration are considered and new algorithms for each of these problems are proposed. In the first problem, the positions of the randomly deployed sensors are completely unknown except the two reference sensors and HOS and SOS approaches are used iteratively for the joint Direction of Arrival (DOA) and sensor position estimation. Iterative HOS-SOS algorithm (IHOSS) solves the ambiguity problem in sensor position estimation by observing the source signals at least in two different frequencies and hence it is applicable for wideband signals. The conditions on these frequencies are presented. IHOSS is the first algorithm in the literature which finds the DOA and sensor position estimations in case of randomly deployed sensors with unknown coordinates. In the second problem, narrowband signals are considered and it is assumed that the nominal sensor positions are known. Modified IHOSS (MIHOSS) algorithm uses the nominal sensor positions to solve the ambiguity problem in sensor position estimation. This algorithm can handle both small and large errors in sensor positions. The upper bound of perturbations for unambiguous sensor position estimation is presented. In the last problem, an online array calibration method is proposed for sensor arrays where the sensors have unknown gain/phase mismatches and mutual coupling coefficients. In this case, sensor positions are assumed to be known. The mutual coupling matrix is unstructured. The two reference sensors are assumed to be perfectly calibrated. IHOSS algorithm is adapted for online calibration and parameter estimation, and hence CIHOSS algorithm is obtained. While CIHOSS originates from IHOSS, it is fundamentally different in many aspects. CIHOSS uses multiple virtual ESPRIT structures and employs an alignment technique to order the elements of rows of the actual array steering matrix. In this thesis, a new cumulant matrix estimation technique is proposed for the HOS approach by converting the multi-source problem into a single source one. The proposed algorithms perform well even in the case of correlated source signals due to the effectiveness of the proposed cumulant matrix estimate. The iterative procedure in all the proposed algorithms is guaranteed to converge. Closed form expressions are derived for the deterministic Cram&acute / er-Rao bound (CRB) for DOA and unknown calibration parameters for non-circular complex Gaussian noise with unknown covariance matrix. Simulation results show that the performances of the proposed methods approach to the CRB for both DOA and unknown calibration parameter estimations for high SNR.

A numerical method (SIMPLE DIRK Method) for unsteady incompressible viscous flow simulation is presented. The proposed method can be used to achieve arbitrarily high order of accuracy in time-discretization which is otherwise limited to second order in majority of the currently used simulation techniques. A special class of implicit Runge-Kutta methods is used for time discretization in conjunction with finite volume based SIMPLE algorithm. The algorithm was tested by solving for velocity field in a lid-driven square cavity. In the test case calculations, power law scheme was used in spatial discretization and time discretization was performed using a second-order implicit Runge-Kutta method. Time evolution of velocity profile along the cavity centerline was obtained from the proposed method and compared with that obtained from a commercial computational fluid dynamics software program, FLUENT 6.2.16. Also, steady state solution from the present method was compared with the numerical solution of Ghia, Ghia, and Shin and that of Erturk, Corke, and Goökçöl. Good agreement of the solution of the proposed method with the solutions of FLUENT; Ghia, Ghia, and Shin; and Erturk, Corke, and Goökçöl establishes the feasibility of the proposed method.

During this thesis, a Boundary Element Method (BEM) has been developed for the solution of static linear elastic problems with microstructural effects in two (2D) and three dimensions (3D).The second simplified form of Mindlin's Generalized Gradient Elasticity Theory (Mindlin's Form II)has been employed. The fundamental solution of the 4th order partial differential equation, that describes the aforementioned theory, has been derived and the integral equations that govern Mindlin's Form II Gradient Elasticity Theory have been obtained. Furthermore, a BEM formulation has been developed and specific Boundary Value Problems (BVPs) were solved numerically and compared with the corresponding analytical solutions to verify the correctness of the formulation and demonstrate its accuracy. Moreover, two new partially discontinuous boundary elements with variable order of singularity, a line and a quadrilateral element, have been developed for the solution of fracture mechanics problems. The calculation of the unknown fields near the crack tip (or front) demanded the use of elements that could interpolate abruptly varying fields. The new elements were created in a way that their interpolation functions were no longer quadratic but their behavior depended on the order of singularity of each field. Finally, the Stress Intensity Factor (SIF) of the crack has been calculated with high accuracy, based on the element's nodal traction values. Static fracture mechanics problems for Mode I and Mixed Mode (I & II) cracks, have been solved in 2D and 3D and the corresponding SIFs have been obtained, in the context of both classical and Form II Gradient Elasticity theories. / Κατά τη διάρκεια της παρούσας διδακτορικής διατριβής, αναπτύχθηκε Μέθοδος Συνοριακών Στοιχείων (ΜΣΣ) για την επίλυση στατικών προβλημάτων ελαστικότητας με επιδράσεις μικροδομής σε δύο και τρεις διαστάσεις. Η θεωρία στην οποία εφαρμόστηκε η ΜΣΣ είναι η δεύτερη απλοποιημένη μορφή της γενικευμένης θεωρίας ελαστικότητας του Mindlin. Για τη συγκεκριμένη θεωρία ευρέθη η θεμελιώδης της μερικής διαφορικής εξίσωσης 4ης τάξης που περιγράφει τη συμπεριφορά των συγκεκριμένων υλικών και κατασκευών. Επίσης διατυπώθηκε η ολοκληρωτική εξίσωση των αντίστοιχων προβλημάτων και έγινε η αριθμητική εφαρμογή μέσω της ΜΣΣ. Επιλύθηκα αριθμητικά συγκεκριμένα προβλήματα συνοριακών τιμών και έγινε σύγκριση των αποτελεσμάτων με τα αντίστοιχα θεωρητικά. Στη συνέχεια αναπτύχθηκαν δύο νέα ασυνεχή στοιχεία μεταβλητής τάξης ιδιομορφίας με σκοπό την επίλυση προβλημάτων θραυστομηχανικής, ένα για δισδιάστατα και ένα για τρισδιάστατα προβλήματα. Συγκεκριμένα, επειδή τα πεδία των τάσεων απειρίζονται στην κορυφή μιας ρωγμής και περιέχουν συγκεκριμένων τύπων ιδιομορφίες δεν ήταν δυνατός ο ακριβής υπολογισμός των πεδίων αυτών κοντά στη ρωγμή με τα συνήθη τετραγωνικά συνοριακά στοιχεία. Ως εκ τούτου τα νέα στοιχεία κατασκευάστηκαν με τέτοιο τρόπο ώστε οι συναρτήσεις παρεμβολής τους να μην είναι τετραγωνικες, αλλά να εξαρτώνται από τον τύπο ιδιομορφίας του κάθε πεδίου. Έπειτα, έγινε ακριβής υπολογισμός του συντελεστή έντασης τάσης της ρωγμής με βάση τις τιμές του πεδίου των τάσεων κοντά σε αυτή. Τέλος επιλύθηκαν στατικά προβλήματα θραυστομηχανικής σε δύο και τρεις διαστάσεις και υπολογίστηκαν οι συντελεστές έντασης τάσης για ρωγμές σε υλικά με επίδραση μικροδομής.