This is a chance for everyone in the Mathematics and Computer Science program to get together for an informal lunch. Join current and interested Math and CS majors, along with faculty for this week's Math/CS Chat. Be there or be squared...
Joe Rodgers, a senior computer science major will discuss his summer internship. Joe worked this past summer creating database applications for a company close to his home. He will discuss how he found the internship and the types of work he did.
Ryan Doherty, a senior mathematics and computer science major will discuss his summer internship. Ryan worked developing web based interfaces that access databases. He will talk about the technologies involved in these projects and the advantages and disadvantages of using a proprietary solution such as the Microsoft Visual tools.
There is nothing more frustrating than trying to prove something but
missing the result you need to get the proof to work. Reverse mathematics
takes care of this problem by asking, not what you can prove from a given
set of statements, but rather what set of statements you need to start with
in order to prove something. This sounds as if it is a cure for all
problems with proofs that have ever been proposed. What may be a little
more surprising is that reverse mathematics offers a way of breaking down
all of mathematics into building blocks. This talk will look at some of the
building blocks at the basis of mathematics and describe how they fit
together to produce some of the standard results which make up forward
mathematics as well.
David Stahl
Reuse of software is one important goal of object oriented methodology.
I will talk about what constitutes reuse of software and why reuse is
important to the discipline of computer science. I'll show some classic
examples of reuse, and demonstrate why reuse is difficult to do in
practice. I'll talk about how the Java language encourages reuse, and
how the paradigm presented in Java can help us write reusable code in
other computer languages. I will speculate on why application
frameworks are a popular software development topic. Finally, I'll
conclude with some techniques that have helped me practice creative
recycling in my own software development.
Phil Everson
When making statistical inference about a parameter, such as an underlying
population mean or rate, the classical (or frequentist) approach is to
treat the parameter value as being fixed and unknowable. Conclusions are
based on how likely (or unlikely) the observed data would have been for
various parameter values. In contrast, the Bayesian approach is to treat
the parameter as a random variable following some probability distribution.
This enables one to make actual probability statements about the parameter
value, having conditioned on the observed data. The Bayesian paradigm is
particularly satisfying when making projections based on partial data.
Examples from sports include predicting season batting averages for
baseball players, or rushing yardage for football players, based on data
from only a few games.
David Reed
Suppose you are in charge of a murder investigation. You have basic
knowledge at the beginning of the investigation, including rules (e.g.,
the killer must have means and motive) and facts (e.g., the butler hates
the victim). There are two approaches that you could take toward
finding the killer. You could work forwards from the known facts,
deducing new information that might eventually lead to the unveiling of
the killer. Conversely, you could work in a backwards direction,
starting from a specific suspect and building the case back to known
facts. Each of these approaches has its advantages and might be useful
in different scenarios.
Automated Reasoning is a branch of Artificial Intelligence research
concerned with the mechanization of human reasoning. In this talk, I
will discuss the role of directionality (forward vs. backward) in
automated reasoning, and the tradeoffs between the two. I will then
present a bidirectional reasoning system which is able to integrate both
types of reasoning and so maintain many of the advantages of both. This
system, known as SATCHMORE, is elegant and straightforward to implement,
yet surprisingly powerful. In fact, a variation of this system was used
to solve open problems in certain finite algebras.
10/4/99 - Student Internship Report
Joe Rodgers
Dickinson College
10/11/99 - Student Internship Report
Ryan Doherty
Dickinson College
10/25/99 - Scitamehtam = Reverse Mathematics
Thomas Drucker
11/8/99 - Talking about Reuse - Recycling in a Digital World
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Dickinson College
11/22/99 - Bayesian Projections for Baseball, Football, and Real Life
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Swarthmore College
WED: 12/8/99 - A Back-and-Forth Approach to Automated Reasoning
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Dickinson College
Chats from previous semesters:
[ Spring 1999
| Fall 1998
]
[ Math/CS Dept Home page
| Mathematics and Computer Science Society Home page
]