Grading policy

The final grade will be determined the evaluation of

• 4 group reports (in LaTex) 60% (15% each)
• class participation 15%
• report presentation 15%

Tentative Projects (Each project will occupy about 4 weeks and will require a team report.)

Project 1. Pattern recognition. We will develop the notion of low-dimensional pattern mappings and will use the singular-value decomposition as a prototype. Pattern classifiers will be introduced. Applications to Face Recognition and the Human Computer Interface will be considered.

Project 2. Game theory. A Beautiful Mind and John Nash have led to a resurgence in the interest of game theory. We will study game theory and each group will propose and implement a novel application.

Project 3. Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases. With West Nile impacting Colorado and the USA in an unprecedented fashion and the threat of bio-terrorism the mathematical modeling of the spread of infectious diseases is now an area of central national need. Students will explore what methods have been used and implement a method of their choice from techniques such as PDEs, cellular automata, difference and differential equations.

Project 4. Mathematical modeling competition past paper. Here groups will simulate the competition and write solutions to a competition question posed by COMAP. This project will occupy the last two weeks of the semester after the Thanksgiving break.

Groups

All work will be done in groups. The groups will be randomly selected for each project. Each group will receive a single grade for each project.

Reports

These will be written in a common format emphasizing the added value of the study. Use of Latex is required. A template report will be provided.

General Introduction to the Problem

• problem statement
• why is it interesting?

Mathematical theory and modeling approach

Results

Use Figures embedded in the text and cited in the text.

Interpretation

• Predictions, added value.
• Weaknesses of the approach

Conclusions and Summary

Answer the questions:

• what did you learn about this question that you could not have discovered without your mathematics?
• if you had 3 months to work on this problem what would you do?

Appendices

• Matlab Code
• Background information or theory