Students win Mathematics Jeopardy at MAA meeting
At the April 14 meeting of the Maryland-Virginia-DC Section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) held at the Owings Mills campus of Stevenson University, a team of four Goucher students (Robyn Edwards, Tamiro Villazon Schöler, Hugh Geller, and Yan Zhuang) competed in the Rapid Dash competition. Rapid Dash can best be described as “Mathematics meets The Amazing Race.” The nine entered teams were presented with a series of mathematical challenges of increasing difficulty. Halfway through the competition, the Goucher team found itself in fifth place, squarely in the middle of the pack. By the time the challenges were complete, Goucher finished in second place, closely behind the Roanoke College team, and winning recognition before the entire assembly of the meeting’s participants.
Earlier in the day, Villazon Schöler, Geller, and Zhuang competed against five other teams in a Mathematics Jeopardy contest. Off to a slow start, the Goucher team found itself in second place after the Jeopardy round. By the time Double Jeopardy had ended, Goucher was tied for first with the team from Hampden-Sydney. So it all came down to Final Jeopardy. This was the clue: ”During a certain span of days, it was observed that when it rained during the afternoon, it had been clear in the morning, and when it rained in the morning, it was clear in the afternoon. It rained on 9 days and was clear on 6 afternoons and 7 mornings. This is the number of days in the span.” The Goucher team wagered its entire assets and answered the question correctly (“What is 11?”). Hampden-Sydney answered the question incorrectly. So, Goucher won the Jeopardy competition by a very comfortable margin.
Professor Mckibben wins MAA award
Professor Mark McKibben was honored at the meeting of the Maryland-Virginia-DC Section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) held at the Owings Mills campus of Stevenson University on April 14 by being named recipient of the MAA Section’s 2012 John M. Smith Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching in Mathematics. This honor carries with it a certificate, a handsome plaque, a monetary award, and a place in the history of the MAA. This was the twenty-first time this prize has been awarded, and the second time it was claimed by a Goucher mathematician.
Student Team Advances to Finals!
On Saturday, October 1, five computer science majors (Ari Bornstein, captain; Avery Erwin-McGuire, alternate captain; Owen Lehmer; Tony Huckestein; and Anna Bialek) competed against other Maryland college teams in the second round of the inaugural Maryland Cyber Challenge Competition, hosted by UMBC. The team’s task in this round was to perform a “crime scene” forensic analysis of a computer that had been compromised, determining what had happened to the computer, who had mounted the attack against the computer, and what the attackers had done once they had circumvented the computer’s defenses. In addition, the team had to solve several “challenge” problems by finding and decrypting the scrambled contents of several files on the computer.
Goucher’s team is one of eight that has advanced to the final round, to be held at the Baltimore Convention Center on October 22 during the MDC3 Conference. The team will be competing against teams from Capitol College, UMBC, University of Maryland, Towson University, and University of Maryland University College in a “capture-the-flag” competition in which the team will attempt to infiltrate a target system, plant a virtual “flag” and perform remote system forensics to identify system artifacts confirming a successful infiltration.
The National Security Agency is providing $86,000 in scholarship money to help promote the competition. Each member of the winning team will receive $5,000 in scholarship money, while members of the second place team will each receive $2,000 in scholarship money. Members of the winning team will also have internship and full-time job opportunities with SAIC.
MDC3 Cyber Challenge Competition: http://www.mdc3.org/challenge.html
NSA Kicks in Scholarship Funds to Boost Cyber Challenge: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=239&sid=2580724
Tomorrow’s Cyberdefenders: http://mdmorn.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/923111/
Student Team advances in Cyber Challenge
For six hours on Sunday, Sept. 11, five computer science majors (Ari Bornstein, captain; Avery Erwin-McGuire, alternate captain; Owen Lehmer; Tony Huckestein; and Jeremy Schatten) competed against other Maryland college teams in the first round of the inaugural Maryland Cyber Challenge Competition, hosted by UMBC. The team’s task was to eliminate as many weaknesses as possible from two completely different computer systems — one running Windows 2000 and providing file service, and the other running Ubuntu Linux and providing the WordPress blogging service. These weaknesses were not disclosed to the team, which had to use its sleuthing skills to locate the weaknesses and eliminate them.
The team performed extremely well, comfortably making it into the second round of the competition, which will be held on Oct. 1. Eight college teams will emerge from the second round to compete against each other in the finals, which will be held on Oct. 22 at the Baltimore Convention Center.
Edible Turing Machines
The Theory of Computation class spent part of reading day making an edible Turing Machine out of cupcakes and decorating icing. Yumm..
ACM Programming Contest
Students Ari Bornstein, Julian Irwin, and Owen Lehmer participated in the regional ACM programming contest at Johns Hopkins University.
Kelley Moran presented talk “Modeling Gastric Emptying” at MathFest
On August 6, 2010, Kelley Moran ‘11 presented a talk entitled “Modeling Gastric Emptying” at MathFest, the national summer meeting of the Mathematical Association of America in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This project is part of Dr. Gretchen A. Koch’s biomathematics research program. Kelley presented her work in the Pi Mu Epsilon Student Paper Sessions and previously presented her work at the Landmark Conference at Juniata College.
Kelley received an American Mathematical Society/American Statistical Association Award for her presentation, an accomplishment honoring her hard work and dedication.
Pi Day Celebration: Pizza, Pi, and Pictures
Thursday, March 25, the MaCS Club will be hosting a belated Pi Day Celebration: Pizza, Pi, and Pictures. There will be pizza and soda!
The Use of Partial Differential Equations in Image Processing
Professor Patrick Guidotti, UCI
3/25 3:30pm HS 137
Abstract: In this talk I shall try to give insight into the use of partial differential equations as tools for image processing tasks such as de-noising and de-blurring. To simplify the presentation only the one-dimensional situation will be considered. A series of numerical experiments will be shown highlighting the main issues and motivating the developments in this dynamic area at the interface between mathematics and computer science.
2010 Writing Prize in Mathematics
Solve this problem:
There were 11 women and n men in a group hunting for mushrooms. Each of them found the same number of mushrooms, a total of n2 + 9n – 2 mushrooms. Which was greater, the number of women or the number of men in the group?
Any Goucher student is eligible. Deadline for submission is March 26 at 11:30 AM. Deliver entry to the office of Professor Robert Lewand (Hoffberger 130).
The purpose of the award is to foster good mathematical writing style. The prize will be awarded to the student whose solution is best written. Judges will be looking for correctness (mathematical and grammatical), neatness, and clarity of exposition. You may discuss the problem with other students but the written report must be original. You may refer to books, journals, or on-line resources. Write your name on a cover sheet but nowhere else on the paper. Enjoy!
Mid-Atlantic Regional ACM Programming Contest
Three Goucher computer science majors, senior Jon Simon, and juniors Russ Smith and A. J. Wax, participated in the Mid-Atlantic Regional of the ACM’s International Collegiate Programming Contest on Saturday, Nov. 8. They enjoyed the spirit of the competition and had a great time.
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