Author

Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Zhu, Xingquan

Abstract

Molecular dynamics is a computer simulation technique for expressing the ultimate details of individual particle motions and can be used in many fields, such as chemical physics, materials science, and the modeling of biomolecules. In this thesis, we study visualization and pattern mining in molecular dynamics simulation. The molecular data set has a large number of atoms in each frame and range of frames. The features of the data set include atom ID; frame number; position in x, y, and z plane; charge; and mass. The three main challenges of this thesis are to display a larger number of atoms and range of frames, to visualize this large data set in 3-dimension, and to cluster the abnormally shifting atoms that move with the same pace and direction in different frames. Focusing on these three challenges, there are three contributions of this thesis. First, we design an abnormal pattern mining and visualization framework for molecular dynamics simulation. The proposed framework can visualize the clusters of abnormal shifting atom groups in a three-dimensional space, and show their temporal relationships. Second, we propose a pattern mining method to detect abnormal atom groups which share similar movement and have large variance compared to the majority atoms. We propose a general molecular dynamics simulation tool, which can visualize a large number of atoms, including their movement and temporal relationships, to help domain experts study molecular dynamics simulation results. The main functions for this visualization and pattern mining tool include atom number, cluster visualization, search across different frames, multiple frame range search, frame range switch, and line demonstration for atom motions in different frames. Therefore, this visualization and pattern mining tool can be used in the field of chemical physics, materials science, and the modeling of biomolecules for the molecular dynamic simulation outcomes.

Extent

88 p.

Comments

Includes bibliography.|Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.

Identifier

FA00004212

Format

pdf

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