Q Club
The Q Club, short for "Quantitative Club," is the departmental student organization, boasting over fifty members. The Q Club sponsors activities such as Pi Day (on 3/14, of course), celebrates Euler's Birthday Party, and features a regular colloquium series. At these talks students speak on their research or share their internship and summer program experiences. Faculty members occasionally give talks as well, on topics ranging from "Math and Horror" to "An Outrageously Brief History of Mathematics." Pizza, beverages and cookies are served at Q Club events. All are welcome to join; please contact Shelley Kandola, club president, Dan Look, club advisor or Ivan Ramler, co-advisor.
Schedule of Q Club Activities, 2012 - 2013
2011-2012 are listed below.
The complete schedule of talks will be posted soon once it is finalized. Events take place approximately every other Friday from 1:00-1:30 in Valentine 205-206 unless otherwise noted. Additional events may be scheduled on short notice.
If you happen to know of students that might be interested in giving a talk during the semester, please let either Jessica Chapman or Ivan Ramler know.
Fall Semester 2012
12/7/2012 Dr. Heng Yin of the the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University will present on Android Malware Analysis.
The prevalence of mobile platforms, the large market share of Android, plus the openness of the Android Market makes it a hot target for malware attacks. Once a malware sample has been identified, it is critical to quickly reveal its malicious intent and inner workings. In this talk I will present DroidScope, an Android analysis platform that continues the tradition of virtualization-based malware analysis. Unlike current desktop malware analysis platforms, DroidScope reconstructs both the OS level and Java-level semantics simultaneously and seamlessly. To facilitate custom analysis, DroidScope exports three tiered APIs that mirror the three levels of an Android device: hardware, OS and Dalvik Virtual Machine. On top of DroidScope, we further developed several analysis tools to collect detailed native and Dalvik instruction traces, profile API-level activity, and track information leakage through both the Java and native components using taint analysis. These tools have proven to be effective in analyzing real world malware samples and incur reasonably low performance overheads.
11/9/12 Torrey Hayden will be speaking about her summer REU.
Modeling X-ray Studies of Catalytically Active Surface Sites on Nanocrystals
Abstract: Because x-rays have wavelengths around the length scale of an atom, x-ray diffraction is a useful tool determining distributions of atoms within a material. This can be used in a variety of areas, such as chemistry, materials science, physics and biology. It has been shown that changes in structure of a monolayer of tungsten oxide (WO3) on a bulk hematite (Fe2O3) material are discernible through the use of x-ray techniques. We created a computer model of x-ray kinematic diffraction that determines the intensity of diffraction off a nanocrystal from an incident x-ray beam. Using this tool, we simulated a similar experiment by determining the intensity readings a detector would pick up when x-rays are diffracted off of a hematite nanocrystal with tungsten oxide structures a face. When this crystal was used in the model, the diffraction pattern shifted depending on whether the tungsten oxide structures were in their reduced or oxidized states. Hence, we can predict that the changes in the structure of tungsten oxide during a redox reaction should be detectable.
11/2/12 Brian Thomas will be speaking about his summer REU.
Washboard: An Effective Anaerobic Exercise Game
Abstract: To date, researchers have focused on the intensity of exercise games (exergames) using aerobic workouts. It is important to balance workout programs with anaerobic exercises. Unfortunately, no research has investigated the effectiveness of exergames focusing on anaerobic workouts. Therefore, we have created Washboard. The purpose of Washboard is to perform sit-ups in order to pop balloons. Although our study is currently in progress, preliminary results suggest players are getting a hard to heavy workout, while perceiving an easy workout.
10/19/12 Michael Schuckers, Associate Professor of Statistics
Dr. Schuckers will speak about different summer research opportunities for students and the upcoming Senior Seminar for the Spring semester
10/5/12 Joey Kelley
"Evaluating Ridge Regression with Application to Fantasy Football Data"
Abstract: Ridge regression is a generalization of ordinary least squares regression that is sometimes useful for prediction. It is commonly used in cases of highly correlated (i.e. nearly linearly dependent) predictors. As part of a SLU Fellowship, we studied several estimators for ridge regression parameters. We evaluated their performance compared to ordinary least squares regression using simulated data. Using these results, we applied ridge regression to fantasy football data in order to make better player ratings.
9/21/12 Kevin Angstadt will be speaking about his SLU Fellow.
"Developing Interactive Web Tools for Statistics Students"
Abstract: Advances in computing and computer technology have had a profound effect on statistics and statistics education. These advances have made simulation methods a practical pedagogical tool for teaching basic concepts of statistical inference. For my SLU fellowship project, I worked alongside Professors Ed Harcourt, Patti Frazer Lock, and Robin Lock to develop web-based statistics programs, collectively known as StatKey.
9/7/12 Kerrin Ehrensbeck will be speaking about her SLU Fellow.
"Improving Plutonium Management at the Los Alamos National Laboratory"
Abstract: The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) located in Los Alamos, New Mexico controls and manages most of the remaining nuclear material in the United States. An extremely important job that requires the use of highly accurate measuring devices called calorimeter. A calorimeter is a type of heated water bath in which the heat deficit of the plutonium is measured. Unfortunately the plutonium is leaving behind a heat residual which, in turn correlates future plutonium to past measured items. During my SLU fellowship this summer, I explored possible solution for fixing this correlated data through the use of Bayesian Statistics.
Spring Semester 2012
This is the last Q club for the semester.
5/4/12 – Brent Underwood will be giving a presentation about his SYE.
“On the Occurrence of Integer Pairs in the Extended Wythoff Array”
In this talk, we will demonstrate an algorithm for locating integer pairs in any array whose entries are based on two-term linear recursion as well as the floor function of the irrational number characteristic of said recursion. We will also sketch the outline of the proof that every integer pair occurs exactly once in this type of array, whenever certain constraints are met. Some results concerning Beatty Sequences which were discovered over the course of this project will also be discussed.
In addition: Voting for next year's officers can be made on the voting ballot. All voting will close on Thursday night and an announcement of next years officers will be made at the Q-Club meeting.
Hope to see you there!
Prof. Ramler
4/20/12 – This week, Maryn Manning will be giving a presentation about her SYE in Bayesian Statistics.
"Is Your Country Better Than the Rest?"
How do you perceive your country compared to the hundreds of other countries in the world today? In order to quantify this curiosity, Newsweek ranked the top 100 countries in the world based on various statistics from 2008 including health index, population size, quality of life, and more. In an attempt to further understand and dissect this social and economic set of data, Bayesian statistics is used to model the overall ranking of each country. In this presentation I will describe the data used to model the rankings and give a brief introduction to Bayesian Statistics.
In additon: Ivan Ramler and Jessica Chapman will be asking for nominations for next year’s Q-Club officers (President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary). Self nominations are perfectly acceptable and if you’d like to be nominated but aren’t able to attend, feel free to email me by this Friday and I will add you to the list.
4/13/12 - Sarah Wilson
Sarah Wilson graduated from St. Lawrence University with a BS in Mathematics in 2003. After graduation, she was hired into the Cryptanalysis Development Program at the National Security Agency. She completed the development program in 2008 and has continued working at the NSA as a cryptanalalyst. Sarah will speak about job opportunities in Mathematics at the National Security Agency. She will provide information on various hiring programs and the day to day life of a mathematician. The talk will also include an introduction to public key cryptography.
3/23/12 Jeremy Moulton will be speaking about his SLU Fellow and its extensions into his SYE titled The Effectiveness of Home Education
Abstract: In 1999 the reported number of homeschooled students was 850,000, and in 2009 that number jumped to an estimated 3,000,000. With this rise in home education, there is a lot of research to be done on how effective it is. We will analyze a survey sent out to local homeschool alumni and determine relationships between different factors of home education, which will then give a better understanding of how well home education equips people not only academically but personally as well.
3/2/12 Dan Look will be speaking in Q-Club. As Dan describes himself as a little scattered he has prepared two talks and will decide which he is giving via a die roll at the start of Q-Club. Below are short abstracts for the two talks.
Math and Art: How has mathematics affected art and how has art affected mathematics? We will look at some examples of math as art, art as math, and math with art. There will be some fractals here, some tessellations, and some talk of perspective (linear and curvi-linear).
Mandelbrot Set: We will look at the Mandelbrot set and some of the more interesting images generated. At the end of the talk you will (hopefully) know what this set is and some of the basic insane properties it has.
2/17/12 Shelley Kandola will be leading a math and origami activity. Titled: Modualr Origame with PHiZZ Units
Abstract: For a h ands-on Q-Club experience, we will be learning about Modular origame (and why it works!), forcusing on PhiZZ Units. Students will be supplied paper and instructions on starting/making a variety of three-dimensional shapes.
2/3/12 Cassidy Griffin and Ricky Powell will be presenting on their SYE titled "Obtainability of Strong Orientations: Creating an Efficient Network of One-Way Streets"
Abstract: A strong orientation of a graph is a way to orient the edges so that the resulting directed graph is strongly connected, meaning it is possible to get from any vertex to any other vertex while following the arrows. In his book Graph Theory and Its Applications to Problems of Society, Fred Roberts describes a depth-first search algorithm (which we call the Roberts Algorithm) for putting a strong orientation on a graph. We call a strong orientation obtainable if it is possible to arrive at that orientation using some application of the Roberts Algorithm. We present results about obtainable and unobtainable orientations, including classes of graphs which have unobtainable orientations and classes of graphs for which all orientations are obtainable. In addition, we discuss relative efficiency of orientations which are obtainable or unobtainable, using four different ways to measure efficiency or optimality.
Fall Semester 2011
This will be the last Q club for the semester.
12/2/11 Caitlin McArdle will be presenting about her SYE titled "A New Perspective on Likert Data"
Abstract: Likert-style questions are commonly found on questionnaires, especially in the field of psychology. Likert questions typically have five responses; “strongly disagree”, “disagree”, “neither agree or disagree”, “agree”, and “strongly agree”. For data analysis these responses are then coded as numbers one through five. Oftentimes, this data is then analyzed in a way that does not correspond with what the responses actually represent. There is much debate over how to properly analyze data produced by Likert questions. This talk will discuss common methods for analyzing Likert data, as well as, describing a new method for investigating relationships between respondents and questions and identifying participants that are not responding in a typical pattern.
11/11/11 Lauren Stemler will be presenting about her summer REU project.
“The Representation Number of K_{n} – W_{m} and Other Graphs”
Description: According to Erdös and Evans a graph G has a representation modulo N > 1 if all its vertices can be assigned distinct labels from the set {0, 1, 2, . . . , N − 1} such that two vertices in /G/ are adjacent if and only if the difference of their labels is relatively prime to /N/ . Among all possible representation numbers of a graph /G/, we focus on the smallest N that satisfies these conditions for a graph /G/, called the representation number. This talk will discuss a couple different classes of graphs and then explain the general results found in this REU project, as well as highlighting some of the fun I had while exploring the representation number problem.
11/4/11 Kathryn Glowinski will be presenting about her summer REU project.
“Mobile Privacy: Creating a More Secure Android Browser.”
Description: While there are a plethora of security options for PC’s, mobile devices have not yet caught up to the same security standards. Smartphones, however, are used for the same types of vulnerable browsing as a standard computer. My research dealt with developing a new web browser for the Android operating system, which would alert the user to security concerns for a given web page.
Description: While there are a plethora of security options for PC’s, mobile devices have not yet caught up to the same security standards. Smartphones, however, are used for the same types of vulnerable browsing as a standard computer. My research dealt with developing a new web browser for the Android operating system, which would alert the user to security concerns for a given web page.
10/21/11 Professor Sam Vandervelde will present about "Wallis's Wonderful, Wacky Work, or Why One Times Zero Equals Pi/2." In this talk he will explore some of the curiosities that arise when working with products of infinitely many positive real numbers. We will confirm several bizarre looking identities computationally and then explain them mathematically.
10/7/11 Dan DeBernardi will be speaking about his “Summer Finance Internship at Société Générale”. During this talk his is going to speak about his summer internship at SG Equipment Finance. He will briefly cover how he got into the leasing world, what he learned, and how he applied skills that he learned at SLU to Finance.
09/30/11 Professor Ivan Ramler, Professor Jessica Chapman, and Professor Sam Vandervelde spoke about different summer research opportunities for students and the upcoming Senior Seminar topics for the Spring semester.
09/16/11 Will Weld will be speaking about his summer REU entitled "Iris Segmentation Using Non-Ideal Images." Iris segmentation plays a pivotal role in accurate iris recognition systems. Many iris segmentation methods rely on a controlled environment, wherein the subject may be required to submit themselves to have their eyes photographed in an ideal scenario. In unconstrained environments, however, iris segmentation becomes increasingly difficult to perform due to off-axis tilts, off-angles, and occlusion from reflections, eyelids, eyelashes, eye aids, and hair.
09/02/11 Shelley Kandola will be speaking about her summer SLU Fellowship entitled "Simple and Efficient Compact Graph Generation for Geochemical Data." The goal of her project was to write software that would facilitate viewing geochemical trends in large volumes of rock data.
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