Urban air pollution dispersion model

Three-dimensional integrated puff model simulates smoke plume dispersion processes and estimates pollutant concentration during periods of low wind speed. Applications for model are given

Modular Decomposition and the Reconstruction Conjecture

We prove that a large family of graphs which are decomposable with respect to the modular decomposition can be reconstructed from their collection of vertex-deleted subgraphs.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Conformal Transformation of the Schr\"{o}dinger Equation for Central Potential Problems in Three-Dimensions

In a recent paper, it has been shown the Schr\"{o}dinger equation for the three-dimensional harmonic oscillator can be simplified through the use of an isometric conformal transformation. Here, it is demonstrated that the same transformation technique is also applicable to the Schr\"{o}dinger equation for the hydrogen atom. This approach has two interesting features. Firstly, it eliminates potential fields from the Schr\"{o}dinger equation. The Coulomb and harmonic binding terms are instead represented as imaginary parts of complex time. Secondly, the method leads to a general relationship between potential energy and ground state energy that encompasses both the hydrogen atom and the harmonic oscillator as special cases.Comment: 8 page

Local Warming

Using 55 years of daily average temperatures from a local weather station, I made a least-absolute-deviations (LAD) regression model that accounts for three effects: seasonal variations, the 11-year solar cycle, and a linear trend. The model was formulated as a linear programming problem and solved using widely available optimization software. The solution indicates that temperatures have gone up by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the 55 years covered by the data. It also correctly identifies the known phase of the solar cycle; i.e., the date of the last solar minimum. It turns out that the maximum slope of the solar cycle sinusoid in the regression model is about the same size as the slope produced by the linear trend. The fact that the solar cycle was correctly extracted by the model is a strong indicator that effects of this size, in particular the slope of the linear trend, can be accurately determined from the 55 years of data analyzed. The main purpose for doing this analysis is to demonstrate that it is easy to find and analyze archived temperature data for oneself. In particular, this problem makes a good class project for upper-level undergraduate courses in optimization or in statistics. It is worth noting that a similar least-squares model failed to characterize the solar cycle correctly and hence even though it too indicates that temperatures have been rising locally, one can be less confident in this result. The paper ends with a section presenting similar results from a few thousand sites distributed world-wide, some results from a modification of the model that includes both temperature and humidity, as well as a number of suggestions for future work and/or ideas for enhancements that could be used as classroom projects.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, to appear in SIAM Revie