Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Before College Math, Roxane Elena Ronca

A Collection of Open Access Books and Monographs

Most math books for college students start out reviewing “rules” in an introductory chapter. The review usually goes like this: here are the “rules”, here are some examples of using those “rules” and here are 10 to 100 exercises where you will practice using those “rules” and then you’ll be tested on them.

The problem with that approach, even if it seems familiar and comfortable to you, is that people learn, in part, by connecting new ideas and perspectives to what they already understand, and correcting any previous misunderstandings. This process takes time and effort. Memorizing rules to quickly retrieve …

Modeling Distances Between Various Attractions And Nearest City Parks Using Exponential Distribution, Ashley Hall

Scholars Week

We examine the park data in Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (TCMA) to understand the distances between various attractions (water features, transit stops, bike paths, sport fields, etc.) and nearest city parks. We verify our research hypothesis that these distance variables are exponentially distributed using histograms and chi-squared goodness-of-fit test. Our findings suggest that most of the distance variables are indeed exponentially distributed except the one that measures the distance between the metropolitan area and the nearest city parks. Based on that, we further hypothesize that the locations of the various attractions relative to the nearest city parks follow the spatial …

Vibrations On Networks, Zachary Pontrantolfi

Scholars Week

Studying vibrations on networks helps inform our understanding of random processes on other networks with similar geometry. We discuss two physical models to build up intuition about their eigenvectors. We conclude with a hidden connection between the rate of convergence of random walks, and the ground state energies of molecules.

A Quantitative Assessment Of The Diabetes Self-Management Education Program, Grace Mcfarlane

Scholars Week

A Diabetes Self-Management Education (DSME) program offered in an inner-city health center run by the Cincinnati Health Department, which started in 2014, was created to help those in an underserved population learn how to manage their diabetes. Two key measurements, A1C (glycated hemoglobin) and BMI (body mass index), were taken over time to monitor their progress. In this study, we analyzed quantitatively whether or not there was a significant improvement in their BMI and A1C values over the course of two years since they joined DSME program as any improvement would imply a potentially healthier lifestyle in regards to their …

Do Men Matter? In Statistics, Probably, Michael Kelly

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

In statistical genetics, there are several parameters of a dataset which a researcher might, but which are difficult to estimate in practice. In this paper, we will be focusing on allele frequencies, null alleles, inbreeding coefficients and, to a certain extent, beta values. A common technique for obtaining these values, developed by Amy Anderson and her co-workers, is to jointly estimate all of them using an EM-algorithm and the method of maximum likelihood. Despite this technique being effective in general, it is currently unable to deal with males at X-linked markers. The purpose of this project is to modify the …