The inherent variability or 'variance' of growth rate measurements is critical to the development of accurate predictive models in food microbiology. A large number of measurements are typically needed to estimate variance. To make these measurements requires a significant investment of time and effort. If a single growth rate determination is based on a series of independent measurements, then...

Written language is a complex communication signal capable of conveying information encoded in the form of ordered sequences of words. Beyond the local order ruled by grammar, semantic and thematic structures affect long-range patterns in word usage. Here, we show that a direct application of information theory quantifies the relationship between the statistical distribution of words and the se...

Estimating the illumination and the reflectance properties of an object surface from a few images is an important but challenging problem. The problem becomes even more challenging if we wish to deal with real-world objects that naturally have spatially inhomogeneous reflectance. In this paper, we derive a novel method for estimating the spatially varying specular reflectance properties of a su...

Modeling the statistical distributions of cosmogenic exposure dates from moraines P. J. Applegate, N. M. Urban, K. Keller, and R. B. Alley Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16801, USA now at: Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden Received: 3 November 2009 – Accepted: 12 Novem...

This paper deals with the problem of evaluating and optimizing a stochastic measure that integrates flexibility and reliability in multiproduct batch plants. It is assumed that uncertainties in the product demands are given in terms of statistical distributions, and that expected failure rates of the equipment are given in terms of discrete probabilities. Based on recent work by the authors (St...

Various theories about the evolution of complex characters make predictions about the statistical distribution of genetic effects on phenotypic characters, also called the genotype-phenotype map. With the advent of QTL technology, data about these distributions are becoming available. In this article, we propose simple tests for the prediction that functionally integrated characters have a modu...

Bumps and other types of dynamic failure have been a persistent, worldwide problem in the underground coal mining industry, spanning decades. For example, in just five states in the U.S. from 1983 to 2014, there were 388 reportable bumps. Despite significant advances in mine design tools and mining practices, these events continue to occur. Many conditions have been associated with bump potenti...