DSpace Collection: Honors Theses http://hdl.handle.net/10288/15 Undergraduate Honors Research Papers The Collection's search engine Search the Channel search http://dspace.swem.wm.edu/simple-search Model-Assisted Pattern Search http://hdl.handle.net/10288/1601 Title: Model-Assisted Pattern Search<br/><br/>Authors: Siefert, Christopher M.<br/><br/>Description: Computer simulations of complex physical phenomena are used in many contexts, including that of engineering design. Increasingly scientists and engineers have also been trying to optimize problems defined by such simulations (e.g. to determine design parameters for a physical product). However, these problems often have several features that hinder the use of standard optimization techniques. The lack of derivative information and numerical error induced by the simulation can cause problems for derivative-based optimization methods. Likewise, extreme computational expense can make the use of direct search methods problematic. The Model-Assisted Pattern Search (MAPS) algorithm, which is the subject of this research, attempts to address the issue. While maintaining a pattern search framework, MAPS makes use of easily constructed surrogates to the objective function in order to speed the optimization process. Numerical results for MAPS and several other algorithms are presented here for a variety of different objective functions. Fugitives in Freedom: Recent Central American Immigration to the United States http://hdl.handle.net/10288/1592 Title: Fugitives in Freedom: Recent Central American Immigration to the United States<br/><br/>Authors: Hancock, Mattelynn Grace<br/><br/>Description: This thesis is not yet available online pending approval of the copyright holder. For nearly four centuries, immigrants have sought the land now thought of as the United States of America. To say that they have come in search of a better life belittles the lives they have left behind. Immigrants' reasons for coming to the United States are as varied as American responses to their arrival. Only by acknowledging and exploring those motivations and receptions can we understand the range of immigrant experience. Hideous Progeny: The Infusion of Gothic Form and Content into the Fiction of Mary Shelley http://hdl.handle.net/10288/1487 Title: Hideous Progeny: The Infusion of Gothic Form and Content into the Fiction of Mary Shelley<br/><br/>Authors: Whitney, Sarah Elizabeth Recognizing variability in eighteenth-century plantation diet through pattern analysis http://hdl.handle.net/10288/1486 Title: Recognizing variability in eighteenth-century plantation diet through pattern analysis<br/><br/>Authors: Fashing, Maria Therese<br/><br/>Abstract: To test the hypothesis that faunal remains from 18th century plantation sites reflect status and ethnicity through recognizable patterns, which can be used to infer status and ethnicity in a faunal assemblage of uncertain origin. It Was Honest: The Politics of Authenticity in the American Folk Revival and British Punk Subcultures http://hdl.handle.net/10288/1474 Title: It Was Honest: The Politics of Authenticity in the American Folk Revival and British Punk Subcultures<br/><br/>Authors: Bell, John Frederick<br/><br/>Description: The politics of authenticity in the American folk revival and British punk subcultures.