Abstract not available. / text

This paper introduces a method to determine the pressure in a fixed thickness, smooth, periodic domain; namely a lead-over-pleat cartridge filter. Finding the pressure within the domain requires the numerical solution of Laplace's equation, the first step of which is approximating, by interpolation, the curved portions of the filter to a circle in the xy plane.A conformal map is then applied to the filter, transforming the region into a rectangle in the uv plane. A finite difference method is introduced to numerically solve Laplace's equation in the rectangular domain. There are currently methods in existence to solve partial differential equations on non- regular domains. In a method employed by Monchmeyer and Muller, a scheme is used to transform from cartesian to spherical polar coordinates. Monchmeyer and Muller stress that for non-linear domains, extrapolation of existing cartesian difference schemes may produce incorrect solutions, and therefore, a volume centered discretization is used. A difference scheme is then derived that relies on mean values. This method has second order accuracy.(Rosenfeld,Moshe, Kwak, Dochan, 1989) The method introduced in this paper is based on a 7-point stencil which takes into account the unequal spacing of the points. From all neighboring pairs, a linear system of equations is constructed, which takes into account the periodic domain.This method is solved by standard iterative methods. The solution is then mapped back to the original domain, with second order accuracy. The method is then tested to obtain a solution to a domain which satisfies $y=sin(x)$ at the center, a shape similar to that of a lead-over-pleat cartridge filter. As a result, a model for the pressure distribution within the filter is obtained.

In mathematical physics, Laplace's equation plays an especially significant role. It is fundamental to the solution of problems in electrostatics, thermodynamics, potential theory and other branches of mathematical physics. It is for this reason that this investigation concerns the development of some general properties of continuous solutions of this equation.

Cracked beam problem is an elliptic boundary value problem with singularity. It is often used as a testing model for numerical methods. We use numerical and symbolic boundary approximation methods and boundary collocation method to compute its extremely high accurate solution with global error $O(10^{-100})$. This solution then can be regarded as the exact solution. On the other hand, we vary the boundary conditions of this problem to obtain several related models. Their numerical solutions are compared to those of cracked beam and Motz problems, the prototypes of singularity problems. From the comparison we can conclude the advantage of each model and decide the best testing model for numerical methods.

No description available.

We consider three classical equations that are important examples of parabolic, elliptic, and hyperbolic partial differential equations, namely, the heat equation, the Laplace's equation, and the wave equation. We derive them from physical principles, explore methods of finding solutions, and make observations about their applications.

In binary Gaussian process classification the prior class membership probabilities are obtained by transforming a Gaussian process to the unit interval, typically either with the logistic likelihood function or the cumulative Gaussian likelihood function. Multiclass classification problems can be handled by any binary classifier by means of so-called binarization techniques, which reduces the multiclass problem into a number of binary problems. Other than introducing the mathematics behind the theory and methods behind Gaussian process classification, we compare the binarization techniques one-against-all and one-against-one in the context of Gaussian process classification, and we also compare the performance of the logistic likelihood and the cumulative Gaussian likelihood. This is done by means of two experiments: one general experiment where the methods are tested on several publicly available datasets, and one more specific experiment where the methods are compared with respect to class imbalance and class overlap on several artificially generated datasets. The results indicate that there is no significant difference in the choices of binarization technique and likelihood function for typical datasets, although the one-against-one technique showed slightly more consistent performance. However the second experiment revealed some differences in how the methods react to varying degrees of class imbalance and class overlap. Most notably the logistic likelihood was a dominant factor and the one-against-one technique performed better than one-against-all.

For the method of fundamental solutions(MFS), many reports deal with 2D problems. Since the MFS is more advantageous for 3D problems, this thesis is devoted to Laplace's equation in 3D problems. Since the fundamental solutions(FS) £X(x,y)=1/(4£k||x-y||), x,y∈R^3 are known, the location of source points is important in real computation. In this thesis, we choose a cylinder as the solution domain, and the source points on larger cylinders and spheres. Numerical results are reported, to draw some useful conclusions. The theoretical analysis will be explored in the future.

abstract: In blindness research, the corpus callosum (CC) is the most frequently studied sub-cortical structure, due to its important involvement in visual processing. While most callosal analyses from brain structural magnetic resonance images (MRI) are limited to the 2D mid-sagittal slice, we propose a novel framework to capture a complete set of 3D morphological differences in the corpus callosum between two groups of subjects. The CCs are segmented from whole brain T1-weighted MRI and modeled as 3D tetrahedral meshes. The callosal surface is divided into superior and inferior patches on which we compute a volumetric harmonic field by solving the Laplace's equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions. We adopt a refined tetrahedral mesh to compute the Laplacian operator, so our computation can achieve sub-voxel accuracy. Thickness is estimated by tracing the streamlines in the harmonic field. We combine areal changes found using surface tensor-based morphometry and thickness information into a vector at each vertex to be used as a metric for the statistical analysis. Group differences are assessed on this combined measure through Hotelling's T2 test. The method is applied to statistically compare three groups consisting of: congenitally blind (CB), late blind (LB; onset > 8 years old) and sighted (SC) subjects. Our results reveal significant differences in several regions of the CC between both blind groups and the sighted groups; and to a lesser extent between the LB and CB groups. These results demonstrate the crucial role of visual deprivation during the developmental period in reshaping the structural architecture of the CC. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Computer Science 2013

In this thesis the impact of inverted cones on a liquid surface is studied. It is known that with the right combination of velocity, geometry, and surface treatment, a cavity of air can be formed behind an impacting body and extended for a considerable distance. Other investigators have shown that the time and depth of the cone when this cavity collapses and seals follows a different power law for flat objects such as disks, then it does for slender objects such as cylinders. Intuitively it can be expected that a more slender body will have less drag and that the streamlined shape will not push the fluid out of it's way at impact to the same extent as a more blunt body, therefore forming a smaller cavity behind it. With a smaller initial cavity, the time and depth of it's eventual collapse can be expected to be less than that of a much more blunt object, such as a flat disk. To study this, a numerical model has been developed to simulate cones with the same base radius but different angles impacting on a liquid surface over a range of velocities, showing how the seal depth, time at cavity seal, and drag forces change. In order to ensure the numerical model is accurate, it is compared with experimental data including high speed video and measurements made of the force with time. It is expected that the results will fall inside the power law exponents reported by other authors for very blunt objects such as disks on one end of the spectrum, and long slender cylinders on the other. Furthermore, we expect that the drag force exerted on the cones will become lower as the L/D of the cone is increased. / Master of Science