Methods of Association Mining by Variable-to-Set Affinity Testing

Statistical data mining refers to methods for identifying and validating interesting patterns from an overabundance of data. Data mining tasks in which the objective involves pairwise relationships between variables are known as association mining. In general, features sought by association mining methods are sets of variables, often small subsets of a larger collection, that are more associated internally than externally. Methods vary in both the measure of association that is studied and the algorithm by which associated sets are identified. This dissertation discusses provide a generalized framework for association mining called Variable-to-Set Affinity Testing (VSAT). Unlike conventional techniques for clustering or community detection, which usually maximize a score from a dissimilarity or adjacency matrix, the VSAT approach is an adaptive procedure grounded in statistical hypothesis testing principles. The framework is adaptable to a broad class of measurements for variable relationships, and is equipped with theoretical guarantees of error control. This dissertation also presents in detail two new association mining methods built in the VSAT framework. The first, Differential Correlation Mining (DCM), identifies variable sets that have higher average pairwise correlation in one sample condition than in another. Such artifacts are of scientific interest in many fields, including statistical genetics and neuroscience. Differential Correlation Mining is applied to high-dimensional data sets in these two fields. The second method, Coherent Set Mining (CSM), is a novel approach to association mining in binary data. Dichotomous observations are assumed to derive from a latent variable of interest via thresholding. The Coherent Set Mining method identifies variable sets that are strongly associated in the latent measure, despite distortions in the association structure of the observed data due to the thresholding process. Coherent Set Mining is applied to problems in text mining, statistical genetics, and product recommendation.Doctor of Philosoph

AS-937-22 Resolution on New Degree Program for Masters of Science in Statistics

Approves the new degree program for final review by the Chancellor’s Office

Measurement of J/Psi and Psi(2S) Polarization in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV

We have measured the polarization of J/Psi and Psi(2S) mesons produced in p\bar{p} collisions at \sqrt{s} = 1.8 TeV, using data collected at CDF during 1992-95. The polarization of promptly produced J/Psi [Psi(2S)] mesons is isolated from those produced in B-hadron decay, and measured over the kinematic range 4[5.5] < P_T < 20 GeV/c and |y| < 0.6. For P_T \gessim 12 GeV/c we do not observe significant polarization in the prompt component.Comment: Revised version, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Production of Y(1S) Mesons from chib Decays in pp(bar) Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.8 TeV

We have reconstructed the radiative decays $\chi_{b}(1P) \to \Upsilon(1S) \gamma$ and $\chi_{b}(2P) \to \Upsilon(1S) \gamma$ in $p \bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 1.8$ TeV, and measured the fraction of $\Upsilon(1S)$ mesons that originate from these decays. For $\Upsilon(1S)$ mesons with $p^{\Upsilon}_{T}>8.0$ GeV/$c$, the fractions that come from $\chi_{b}(1P)$ and $\chi_{b}(2P)$ decays are $(27.1\pm6.9(stat)\pm4.4(sys))$ and $(10.5\pm4.4(stat)\pm1.4(sys))$, respectively. We have derived the fraction of directly produced $\Upsilon(1S)$ mesons to be $(50.9\pm8.2(stat)\pm9.0(sys))$.Comment: 13 Pages, 2 figure

QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories : challenges and perspectives

We highlight the progress, current status, and open challenges of QCD-driven physics, in theory and in experiment. We discuss how the strong interaction is intimately connected to a broad sweep of physical problems, in settings ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to strongly coupled, complex systems in particle and condensed-matter physics, as well as to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We also discuss how success in describing the strong interaction impacts other fields, and, in turn, how such subjects can impact studies of the strong interaction. In the course of the work we offer a perspective on the many research streams which flow into and out of QCD, as well as a vision for future developments.Peer reviewe

Unraveling hadron structure with generalized parton distributions

The generalized parton distributions, introduced nearly a decade ago, have emerged as a universal tool to describe hadrons in terms of quark and gluonic degrees of freedom. They combine the features of form factors, parton densities and distribution amplitudes--the functions used for a long time in studies of hadronic structure. Generalized parton distributions are analogous to the phase-space Wigner quasi-probability function of non-relativistic quantum mechanics which encodes full information on a quantum-mechanical system. We give an extensive review of main achievements in the development of this formalism. We discuss physical interpretation and basic properties of generalized parton distributions, their modeling and QCD evolution in the leading and next-to-leading orders. We describe how these functions enter a wide class of exclusive reactions, such as electro- and photo-production of photons, lepton pairs, or mesons. The theory of these processes requires and implies full control over diverse corrections and thus we outline the progress in handling higher-order and higher-twist effects. We catalogue corresponding results and present diverse techniques for their derivations. Subsequently, we address observables that are sensitive to different characteristics of the nucleon structure in terms of generalized parton distributions. The ultimate goal of the GPD approach is to provide a three-dimensional spatial picture of the nucleon, direct measurement of the quark orbital angular momentum, and various inter- and multi-parton correlations.Comment: 370 pages, 62 figures; Dedicated to Anatoly V. Efremov on occasion of his 70th anniversar

The Physics of the B Factories

This work is on the Physics of the B Factories. Part A of this book contains a brief description of the SLAC and KEK B Factories as well as their detectors, BaBar and Belle, and data taking related issues. Part B discusses tools and methods used by the experiments in order to obtain results. The results themselves can be found in Part C

Mapping the Indefinable: Designing a Social Network Analysis Shiny App to Explore the Influence of East-West Exchanges on Poland’s Political Transformation

Abstract of paper 0782 presented at the Digital Humanities Conference 2019 (DH2019), Utrecht , the Netherlands 9-12 July, 2019