ATRo and Some Related Theories

The main point of interest of this dissertation is to study theories related to the theory ATRo in the realm of second order arithmetic. It is divided into two parts. In Part I, the equivalence of several axiom schemas to (ATR) over ACAo is proven. In particular, so-called reduction principles – also known as separation principles – are discussed. Part I is then concluded with an analysis of set-parameter free variants of ATRo and related systems. In Part II we are interested in set-theoretic analogues of questions that were treated in Part I. To this end, a range of basic set theories featuring the natural numbers as urelements and induction principles on sets and the natural numbers of various strengths are introduced. To interpret set-theoretic objects within second order arithmetic, we adapt the method of representation trees introduced by Jäger and Simpson. Making use of representation trees, the effect on proof-theoretic strength when adding reduction principles to our basic set theories is discussed. Finally, the effect of adding Axiom Beta is examined

Labeling Schemes with Queries

We study the question of ``how robust are the known lower bounds of labeling schemes when one increases the number of consulted labels''. Let $f$ be a function on pairs of vertices. An $f$-labeling scheme for a family of graphs \cF labels the vertices of all graphs in \cF such that for every graph G\in\cF and every two vertices $u,v\in G$, the value $f(u,v)$ can be inferred by merely inspecting the labels of $u$ and $v$. This paper introduces a natural generalization: the notion of $f$-labeling schemes with queries, in which the value $f(u,v)$ can be inferred by inspecting not only the labels of $u$ and $v$ but possibly the labels of some additional vertices. We show that inspecting the label of a single additional vertex (one {\em query}) enables us to reduce the label size of many labeling schemes significantly

Fourier, Gegenbauer and Jacobi Expansions for a Power-Law Fundamental Solution of the Polyharmonic Equation and Polyspherical Addition Theorems

We develop complex Jacobi, Gegenbauer and Chebyshev polynomial expansions for the kernels associated with power-law fundamental solutions of the polyharmonic equation on d-dimensional Euclidean space. From these series representations we derive Fourier expansions in certain rotationally-invariant coordinate systems and Gegenbauer polynomial expansions in Vilenkin's polyspherical coordinates. We compare both of these expansions to generate addition theorems for the azimuthal Fourier coefficients

Optimization of Signal Significance by Bagging Decision Trees

An algorithm for optimization of signal significance or any other classification figure of merit suited for analysis of high energy physics (HEP) data is described. This algorithm trains decision trees on many bootstrap replicas of training data with each tree required to optimize the signal significance or any other chosen figure of merit. New data are then classified by a simple majority vote of the built trees. The performance of this algorithm has been studied using a search for the radiative leptonic decay B->gamma l nu at BaBar and shown to be superior to that of all other attempted classifiers including such powerful methods as boosted decision trees. In the B->gamma e nu channel, the described algorithm increases the expected signal significance from 2.4 sigma obtained by an original method designed for the B->gamma l nu analysis to 3.0 sigma.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

A Multi-variate Discrimination Technique Based on Range-Searching

We present a fast and transparent multi-variate event classification technique, called PDE-RS, which is based on sampling the signal and background densities in a multi-dimensional phase space using range-searching. The employed algorithm is presented in detail and its behaviour is studied with simple toy examples representing basic patterns of problems often encountered in High Energy Physics data analyses. In addition an example relevant for the search for instanton-induced processes in deep-inelastic scattering at HERA is discussed. For all studied examples, the new presented method performs as good as artificial Neural Networks and has furthermore the advantage to need less computation time. This allows to carefully select the best combination of observables which optimally separate the signal and background and for which the simulations describe the data best. Moreover, the systematic and statistical uncertainties can be easily evaluated. The method is therefore a powerful tool to find a small number of signal events in the large data samples expected at future particle colliders.Comment: Submitted to NIM, 18 pages, 8 figure

Robust Machine Learning Applied to Astronomical Datasets I: Star-Galaxy Classification of the SDSS DR3 Using Decision Trees

We provide classifications for all 143 million non-repeat photometric objects in the Third Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using decision trees trained on 477,068 objects with SDSS spectroscopic data. We demonstrate that these star/galaxy classifications are expected to be reliable for approximately 22 million objects with r < ~20. The general machine learning environment Data-to-Knowledge and supercomputing resources enabled extensive investigation of the decision tree parameter space. This work presents the first public release of objects classified in this way for an entire SDSS data release. The objects are classified as either galaxy, star or nsng (neither star nor galaxy), with an associated probability for each class. To demonstrate how to effectively make use of these classifications, we perform several important tests. First, we detail selection criteria within the probability space defined by the three classes to extract samples of stars and galaxies to a given completeness and efficiency. Second, we investigate the efficacy of the classifications and the effect of extrapolating from the spectroscopic regime by performing blind tests on objects in the SDSS, 2dF Galaxy Redshift and 2dF QSO Redshift (2QZ) surveys. Given the photometric limits of our spectroscopic training data, we effectively begin to extrapolate past our star-galaxy training set at r ~ 18. By comparing the number counts of our training sample with the classified sources, however, we find that our efficiencies appear to remain robust to r ~ 20. As a result, we expect our classifications to be accurate for 900,000 galaxies and 6.7 million stars, and remain robust via extrapolation for a total of 8.0 million galaxies and 13.9 million stars. [Abridged]Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures, to be published in ApJ, uses emulateapj.cl

Cascade Training Technique for Particle Identification

The cascade training technique which was developed during our work on the MiniBooNE particle identification has been found to be a very efficient way to improve the selection performance, especially when very low background contamination levels are desired. The detailed description of this technique is presented here based on the MiniBooNE detector Monte Carlo simulations, using both artifical neural networks and boosted decision trees as examples.Comment: 12 pages and 4 EPS figure