Constructing the genomic median of several given genomes is crucial in developing evolutionary trees, since the genomic median provides an estimate for the ordering of the genes in a common ancestor of the given genomes. This is due to the fact that the content of DNA molecules is often similar, but the difference is mainly in the order in which the genes appear in various genomes. The mutations that affect this ordering are called genome rearrangements, and many structural differences between genomes can be studied using genome rearrangements. In this thesis our main focus is on applying combinatorial optimization techniques to genomic median problems, with particular emphasis on the breakpoint distance as a measure of the difference between two genomes. We will study different variations of the breakpoint median problem from signed to unsigned, unichromosomal to multichromosomal, and linear to circular to mixed. We show how these median problems can be formulated in terms of problems in combinatorial optimization, and take advantage of well-known combinatorial optimization techniques and apply these powerful methods to study various median problems. Some of these median problems are polynomial and many are NP-hard. We find efficient algorithms and approximation methods for median problems based on well-known combinatorial optimization structures. The focus is on algorithmic and combinatorial aspects of genomic medians, and how they can be utilized to obtain optimal median solutions.

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While not accounting for a significant proportion of overall crashes, median crossover crashes in the state of Utah do account for a significant proportion of interstate fatalities. Due to the seriousness of median crossover crashes in the state of Utah, the need exists to evaluate the impact of median crossover crashes in the state, to identify locations where median crossover crashes may be occurring at particularly high rates, and to identify methods to help mitigate these crashes. Previous research has noted that median crossover crash rates appear to increase in the vicinity of interchanges. The purpose of this research, therefore, is to develop a strategy to mitigate median crossover crashes statewide and determine the role that the interchanges play in contributing to median crossover crashes. Fourteen years of crash data spanning the years 1992 through 2005 on Interstates 15, 70, 80, 84, and 215 were used to determine overall characteristics of median crossover crashes in Utah and determine the relationship between median crossover crashes and other types of crashes. Using a chi-square goodness of fit test, the distributions of median crossover crashes and all types of interstate crashes in the vicinity of interchanges were compared. Three-year median crossover crash rates spanning the years 2003 through 2005 for rural and urban areas were then used to identify which sections of Utah interstates are most prone to median crossover crashes. Finally, recommendations were made concerning appropriate median barrier installation for the 37 critical sections as identified by the three-year analysis.

Menopause is a natural transition heralded by the cessation of menstrual cycles and ovulation, and it occurs in all women at an average of about 50 years of age. While not a disease, menopause is often accompanied by symptoms that interfere with the quality of life and these symptoms are due to the relatively abrupt deprivation of E2 and P4 experienced during reproductive aging. Reproductive aging consists of changes in the synthesis and release of hormones from the hypothalamus, pituitary and gonad, which make up the HPG axis. Because gonadal hormones play critical roles in many systems throughout the body and brain, not just reproduction, treatment of menopausal symptoms to date largely involves hormone replacement therapy (HRT) with E2, P4 or their combination. While not intended to treat other neurobiological symptoms beyond hot flushes, HRT has the potential to exert widespread actions due to the abundance of hormone receptors throughout the nervous system. Thus, a fuller understanding of the neurobiology of menopause is badly needed. Although much of the research into the mechanisms that underlie reproductive aging focuses on ovarian failure and follicular atresia (cell death), there is evidence that there are significant alterations in the function of the neuroendocrine levels - the hypothalamus and pituitary - that also contribute to this process. As the mean age of the population increases, the number of post-menopausal women continues to grow with broad economic, healthcare and social costs. It is increasingly important to understand the complex mechanisms underlying reproductive aging and the effects of HRT. In this dissertation, I focus on the question of how the female non-human primate hypothalamus changes both with aging and in response to steroid hormone treatments. / text

Master of Science / Department of Statistics / Paul Nelson / Trimmed means are robust estimators of location for distributions having heavy tails. Theory and simulation indicate that little efficiency is lost under normality when using appropriately trimmed means and that their use with data from distributions with heavy tails can result in improved performance. This report uses the principle of equivariance applied to trimmed means sampled from a Cauchy distribution to form a discrepancy function of the data and parameters whose distribution is free of the unknown median and scale parameter. Quantiles of this discrepancy function are estimated via asymptotic normality and simulation and used to construct confidence intervals for the median of a Cauchy distribution. A nonparametric approach based on the distribution of order statistics is also used to construct confidence intervals. The performance of these intervals in terms of coverage rate and average length is investigated via simulation when the data are actually sampled from a Cauchy distribution and when sampling is from normal and logistic distributions. The intervals based on simulation estimation of the quantiles of the discrepancy function are shown to perform well across a range of sample sizes and trimming proportions when the data are actually sampled from a Cauchy distribution and to be relatively robust when sampling is from the normal and logistic distributions.

Donat un conjunt d'objectes, el concepte genèric de mediana està definit com l'objecte amb la suma de distàncies a tot el conjunt, més petita. Sovint, aquest concepte és usat per a obtenir el representant del conjunt. En el reconeixement estructural de patrons, els grafs han estat usats normalment per a representar objectes complexos. En el domini dels grafs, el concepte de mediana és conegut com median graph. Potencialment, té les mateixes aplicacions que el concepte de mediana per poder ser usat com a representant d'un conjunt de grafs. Tot i la seva simple definició i les potencials aplicacions, s'ha demostrat que el seu càlcul és una tasca extremadament complexa. Tots els algorismes existents només han estat capaços de treballar amb conjunts petits de grafs, i per tant, la seva aplicació ha estat limitada en molts casos a usar dades sintètiques sense significat real. Així, tot i el seu potencial, ha restat com un concepte eminentment teòric. L'objectiu principal d'aquesta tesi doctoral és el d'investigar a fons la teoria i l'algorísmica relacionada amb el concepte de medinan graph, amb l'objectiu final d'extendre la seva aplicabilitat i lliurar tot el seu potencial al món de les aplicacions reals. Per això, presentem nous resultats teòrics i també nous algorismes per al seu càlcul. Des d'un punt de vista teòric aquesta tesi fa dues aportacions fonamentals. Per una banda, s'introdueix el nou concepte d'spectral median graph. Per altra banda es mostra que certes de les propietats teòriques del median graph poden ser millorades sota determinades condicions. Més enllà de les aportacioncs teòriques, proposem cinc noves alternatives per al seu càlcul. La primera d'elles és una conseqüència directa del concepte d'spectral median graph. Després, basats en les millores de les propietats teòriques, presentem dues alternatives més per a la seva obtenció. Finalment, s'introdueix una nova tècnica per al càlcul del median basat en el mapeig de grafs en espais de vectors, i es proposen dos nous algorismes més. L'avaluació experimental dels mètodes proposats utilitzant una base de dades semi-artificial (símbols gràfics) i dues amb dades reals (mollècules i pàgines web), mostra que aquests mètodes són molt més eficients que els existents. A més, per primera vegada, hem demostrat que el median graph pot ser un bon representant d'un conjunt d'objectes utilitzant grans quantitats de dades. Hem dut a terme experiments de classificació i clustering que validen aquesta hipòtesi i permeten preveure una pròspera aplicació del median graph a un bon nombre d'algorismes d'aprenentatge. / Given a set of objects, the generic concept of median is defined as the object with the smallest sum of distances to all the objects in the set. It has been often used as a good alternative to obtain a representative of the set. In structural pattern recognition, graphs are normally used to represent structured objects. In the graph domain, the concept analogous to the median is known as the median graph. By extension, it has the same potential applications as the generic median in order to be used as the representative of a set of graphs. Despite its simple definition and potential applications, its computation has been shown as an extremely complex task. All the existing algorithms can only deal with small sets of graphs, and its application has been constrained in most cases to the use of synthetic data with no real meaning. Thus, it has mainly remained in the box of the theoretical concepts. The main objective of this work is to further investigate both the theory and the algorithmic underlying the concept of the median graph with the final objective to extend its applicability and bring all its potential to the world of real applications. To this end, new theory and new algorithms for its computation are reported. From a theoretical point of view, this thesis makes two main contributions. On one hand, the new concept of spectral median graph. On the other hand, we show that some of the existing theoretical properties of the median graph can be improved under some specific conditions. In addition to these theoretical contributions, we propose five new ways to compute the median graph. One of them is a direct consequence of the spectral median graph concept. In addition, we provide two new algorithms based on the new theoretical properties. Finally, we present a novel technique for the median graph computation based on graph embedding into vector spaces. With this technique two more new algorithms are presented. The experimental evaluation of the proposed methods on one semi-artificial and two real-world datasets, representing graphical symbols, molecules and webpages, shows that these methods are much more ecient than the existing ones. In addition, we have been able to proof for the first time that the median graph can be a good representative of a class in large datasets. We have performed some classification and clustering experiments that validate this hypothesis and permit to foresee a successful application of the median graph to a variety of machine learning algorithms.

Quantile is a basic and an important quantity of a random variable. In some distributions, their quantiles have closed-form expressions. However, for many continuous distributions, the closed-form expressions of their quantiles do not exist. Yu and Zelterman (2011) and Chang (2004) have proposed an approximation of quantiles. In this paper, we propose an improved method which is combined the Taylor expansion with Newton¡¦s method. Some examples are given to compare the computing time of the method we proposed with the methods in Yu and Zelterman (2011) and Chang (2004).

This research examines a new methodology for prospectively estimating the willingness of travelers to use a toll road by combining travel time saved with the income of the prospective customer base. The purpose of the research is to facilitate network level planning by allowing some reasonable predictions of acceptable toll rates from readily available data and estimation techniques. Methods of estimating user benefit resulted in simulated distributions of value of user time. Values of time are linked to census tract income data for the user population to produce value of time as a percentage of income as an indicator. As relevant literature acknowledges the tendency toward increased toll road usage at higher income levels, it is hypothesized that linking estimates of value of time directly to household income would produce a more useful indicator of the travel market than do conventional indicators. Techniques for prospectively estimating the travelshed of a toll road are compared with the actual travelshed, as reflected in user home census tracts, as a means of evaluating the efficacy of those techniques in estimating the market area of a prospective toll road. Results show that considering value of time as a percentage of census tract median income provides an improved portrayal of the toll road market, as usage of the toll road increases with increasing income. Using census tract median income as the income parameter has shortcomings, in that it produces anomalous results at very low population levels. Of the two methods of estimating the travelshed, the visual estimation approach was not satisfactory, leaving the analyst to use select link analyses instead.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System provides third-party verification for environmentally sustainable construction. LEED certified buildings often provide healthier work and living environments, however, it does not provide any direct economic incentives to the owners and developers. An early research suggested that there was a significant correlation between appraised unit value of a parcel and LEED sustainable site criteria for public transportation access. Moreover, the regression model for predicting appraised unit value of a parcel suggested that the coefficient of Number of Light Rail Stations was positive, while the coefficient of Number of Bus Stops was negative. This result contradicted our original expectation that both number of bus stops and light rail stations could have a positive effect on the appraised unit value. Hence it becomes important to conduct further research to explain this phenomenon. In this research, Pearson correlation was examined to determine whether there is a significant correlation between median household income and the number of bus stops and light rail stations for a given parcel that meet LEED sustainable site criteria for public transportation access. After confirming no significant correlation exists, multiple regression analysis was applied to establish a regression model for predicting unit value of a given parcel using number of bus stops and light rail stations for a given parcel that meet LEED sustainable site criteria for public transportation access, median household income and parcel area as the independent variables. Result of Pearson correlation indicated that there was no significant correlation exists between median household income and the number of bus stops and light rail stations for a given parcel which met LEED sustainable site criteria for public transportation access. Findings of multiple regression analysis suggested that all independent variables were significant predictors for unit value of a parcel. Besides, this regression model had a higher adjusted R- square value than that of the model which was established by Bhagyashri Joshi. It means that this regression model could better predict appraised unit value of an unimproved parcel.

Small to median enterprises have been played an important role in Taiwan¡¦s economic development. There are quite many studies about the characters of small to median enterprise in Taiwan these years. However, there is a common fact that has been ignored for a long time, which is the economic activity involving degree of boss¡¦s wives is fairly high. Not only the high participating rates, but also the influential roles they play in practical economic activities. There are still few studies talk about boss¡¦s wife from the managerial view. Therefore, to combine the related literatures, with the deep interviews with boss¡¦s wives, this thesis wants to draw a vivid picture of the managerial roles, managerial capacities and how do they really work of boss¡¦s wives in the small to median enterprise from the managerial angle. Besides, the studies about boss¡¦s wife are mostly general descriptions. There are no comparisons between different types of boss¡¦s wives. Hence, will boss¡¦s wives of different types play different roles in their own companies is also a topic that this thesis wants to discuss. Consequently, the following propositions are proposed in the terms of the inductive inference of interviewing with the fifteen boss¡¦s wives and reviewing the related literature extensively. Proposition 1¡GThe main tasks of the boss¡¦s wife in self-own company are financial management, key job management and internal affair management. To compare with business functions, those tasks are focused on partial produce management, human resource management and financial management. Proposition 2¡GThe division of labor of boss and boss¡¦s wife highlights the complementarity. Boss¡¦s wife helps boss with company affair. She always do the things that boss can not do or he doesn¡¦t want to do. Proposition 3:¡GThe content of tasks and roles of boss¡¦s wife in the small to median enterprise will change when the company is going to enlarge or become more stable. The tasks of boss¡¦s wife become simpler and more invisible. Boss¡¦s wives only focus on financial management and supervision then. Proposition 4¡GThe managerial roles of boss¡¦s wife in the small to median enterprise can be divided into two groups: apparent and invisible roles. The apparent roles are the authority possessor with no formal position, internal communication channel and parents who take care of employee. The invisible roles are substitute and adviser for boss. Proposition 5¡GDue to focusing on low professional skill activities, internal affair and employee management, the management capacities that boss¡¦s wife highlights are interpersonal skill, communication skill and conceptual skill. The weak point is technical skill. As to the managerial level, the high, middle and low level are all included in the managerial roles that boss¡¦s wife play in small to median enterprise. Proposition 6¡GThe boss¡¦s wife with related professional background has more participation in the core value related jobs. And the boss¡¦s wife with professional financial background has played the more influential role in the financial management. Proposition 7¡GAs to the decision making, boss¡¦s wife with related professional experiences has more right of participating and predominating. Boss¡¦s wife with financial professional has played the professional financial adviser for boss. And the boss¡¦s wife with no special background has no particular emphasis on tasks content and decision making. Proposition 8¡GAs to the usage of professional capacities, related background do help boss¡¦s wives with their jobs a lot. And the boss¡¦s wife with no related experiences needs to get more professional knowledge and skills through self-learning and groping.