How do grades influence, inspire, motivate, excite, and destroy us?  Would you work just as hard on something if you knew you were not going to receive a grade?  Why do we sometimes care more about our grades than about the material we are learning?  Where does the pressure to have originate (internally, externally, peers, graduate schools, parents)?

If you are interested in talking about how grades inhibit, coexist with, or improve learning, come to hear a panel of students and professors share their insights, followed by open discussions in the Rector Atrium from Noon-1pm on Thursday, December 1st.  Free pizza!!!

Frank Swetz, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, Penn State Harrisburg, will present our next Math/CS Chat on Tuesday, November 29th at Noon in Tome 115.  His talk is "An Examination of Chinese Claims for Priority in the Development of Mathematics".  Free pizza.  Everyone welcome.

Abstract:  With the intrusion of the West in the 19th century, China was forced to reconsider its age-old xenophobic beliefs.  The Middle Kingdom was under attack by "the barbarians" it so long held in contempt.  Imperial harmony was shattered.  Memorials were brought before the Throne offering solutions to stop the Western rampage.  One of the more intriguing of these supplied a basis for understanding the weapons and techniques of the Westerners.  To further encourage Imperial acceptance of such a reform, it was noted by Court scholars that "after all, mathematics originated in China and was copied by Westerners."  Is such a radical claim valid?  What was the state of mathematics in Traditional China and did it, in any way, influence Western accomplishments?  This talk will examine these issues and, in general, consider the place of mathematics in a society.

Dr. J. Brian Hall from the U.S. Army War College will present "A Reliability Growth Projection Model for One-Shot Systems" on Tuesday, November 15th at Noon in Tome 115.  Everyone welcome, free pizza!

Abstract: This talk will offer several contributions to the area of discrete reliability growth projection.  We present a new, logically derived model for estimating the reliability growth of complex, one-shot systems (i.e., the reliability following implementation of corrective actions to known failure modes).  Multiple statistical estimations procedures are utilized to approximate this exact expression.  A new estimation method is derived to approximate the vector of failure probabilities associated with a complex, one-shot system.  A mathematically-convenient functional form for the s-expected initial reliability of a one-shot system is derived.  Monte-Carlo simulation results are presented to highlight model accuracy with respect to resulting estimates of reliability growth.  This model is useful to program managers, and reliability practitioners who wish to assess one-shot system reliability growth.