Department of MathematicsNewsletter April 2016

http://www.semo.edu/math/Experience Southeast...Experience Success

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MCTM Elementary Math CompetitionsThe Department of Mathematics hosted

a qualifying and a regional elementary mathcontest sponsored by the Missouri Council ofTeachers of Mathematics (MCTM). Fourth,fifth, and six graders competed in four events.The Number Sense event emphasized mentalmath with no calculators or scratch paperallowed. The Sprint event emphasized accuracyand speed without the use of a calculator withpoints deducted for incorrect answers. Boththe Target and Team events focused on problemsolving skills. Approximately twenty faculty andstudents volunteered to help organize, proctor,and grade the tests.

On Saturday, February 20th, 131 fourth,fifth and sixth graders from eleven area schoolsattended the qualifying round at Dempster Hallon the campus of Southeast Missouri StateUniversity. Fifty students had scores on the teststhat qualified them for the regional competition.

The regional competition was held onSaturday, April 2nd with 123 students fromtwenty-seven schools in the southeast part ofMissouri competing in Dempster Hall, followedby an awards ceremony in Academic Audito-

rium. Ribbons were awarded to the top fivestudents from each grade in the Sprint, NumberSense, and Target events. School plaques andindividual ribbons were awarded to the top fiveteams, with the top team advancing to statecompetition. Each team was comprised of oneto four students from the same or differentgrade levels. The top ten overall winners fromeach grade level advanced to state competitionand were also awarded ribbons. Students fromfive regional competitions will participate in thestate competition to be held on Saturday May21st at Columbia College in Columbia, MO.

Ann Schnurbusch said, “It’s gratifying to seeyounger students excited about mathematics.Many students spend much of the year preparingfor these contests.” After the contest, onesponsor emailed that, “They absolutely lovedhaving the awards ceremony at Academic Hall.They felt like it added a feeling of importanceand excitement. It also allowed the kids to seemore of campus. This is the first time many ofmy kids have seen a college campus.”

Department of MathematicsNewsletter April 2016

http://www.semo.edu/math/Experience Southeast...Experience Success

About 615 Area Students Competed in 39th Annual Math Field DayOn April 14, 2016, the Department of

Mathematics host students from 29 area juniorand senior high schools to compete in the39th annual Math Field Day, in Academic HallAuditorium and the University Center.

Approximately 615 students competed in amultitude of areas, including algebra I, algebraII, geometry, trigonometry, word problems,sets and logic, exponential and log function-s, matrices and determinants, computationalmathematics, elementary data analysis, prob-ability, mental arithmetic, non-routine prob-lem solving, analytic geometry, number bases,number theory, hand calculators and calculus.

Area schools competing in this year’s contestare Anna-Jonesboro Community High School,Arcadia Valley R-II, Bell City R-2, Bernie

R-XIII, Bunker High School, Campbell HighSchool, Cape Central High School, ClarktonHigh School, Cobden High School, Eagle RidgeChristian School, Farmington High School,Fredericktown R-I, Gideon High School, HerrinHigh School, Leopold R-III High School, MaldenHigh School, Moberly High School, NashvilleCommunity High School, Naylor High School,New Madrid County Central, North St. FrancoisCounty R-I, Notre Dame Regional High School,Poplar Bluff High School, Richland R1 SchoolDistrict, Saxony Lutheran High School, ScottCity R-I, Ste. Genevieve High School, St.Vincent High School, and Zalma High School.

For more information about Math FieldDay, visit http://www.semo.edu/math/competitions.html.

Department of MathematicsNewsletter April 2016

http://www.semo.edu/math/Experience Southeast...Experience Success

Problem of the MonthThe Department of Mathematics started the Problem of the Month in October 2015. Problems

are picked from a variety of topics, but they are also accessible to a variety of people. For eachmonth, the number of participants and the list of winners are listed below.

• October 2015 (6 Participants) Winners: Andrew Crutcher, Jasmeet Singh Kukreja

• November 2015 (3 Participants) Winner: Andrew Crutcher

• December 2015/January 2016 (0 Participant)

• February 2016 (2 Participants) Winners: Andrew Crutcher, Paige Medlin

• March 2016 (2 Participants) Winners: Andrew Crutcher, Justin Thurman

Math@the.Movies in LaFerla Hall on October 12, 2015

Department of MathematicsNewsletter April 2016

http://www.semo.edu/math/Experience Southeast...Experience Success

Midterm Stress Reliever EventMidterm Stress Reliever Event was taken

place from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. on October 13,2015, in the science area in front of JohnsonHall. It was organized by the Department ofMathematics, SAME and the Math Club.

• Making chalk drawings

• Blowing bubbles

• Throwing frisbee

• Hoola hooping

Department of MathematicsNewsletter April 2016

http://www.semo.edu/math/Experience Southeast...Experience Success

2015 IL-MO Regional Undergraduate Mathematics ConferenceThe goal of the IL-MO Regional Under-

graduate Mathematics Conference is to providean opportunity for undergraduate students topresent mathematical research projects and ex-pository papers, to meet with more establishedmathematicians, and to network with theirfellow students.

On November 7, 2015, the Conference washeld in Johnson Hall, Southeast Missouri StateUniversity.

• Dr. Joshua Boone, Assistant Professor ofMathematics Lincoln Memorial University,gave an invited talk on ”The ProjectiveOrder of a 2*2 Matrix”.

• Brandon Bush and Jordan Culp, twostudents from Murray State University,gave a presentation on ”Perron-Frobenius

Theorem over Hypermatrices, a Max Al-gebra Approach”.

• Dalton Cowan, a student from SoutheastMissouri State University, gave a presen-tation on ”Statistics of Portfolio Theory”.

• John Fox, a student from SoutheastMissouri State University, gave a presen-tation on ”Antiderivatives of the Productof a Continuous Function and a PowerFunction”.

Department of MathematicsNewsletter April 2016

http://www.semo.edu/math/Experience Southeast...Experience Success

HighlightsThe 2016 Meeting of the Missouri Section

of MAA was hosted by Missouri Western StateUniversity during April 8-9, 2016. Four studentspresented at the meeting.

• John Fox presented on “Reduction ofPowers of Sine and Powers of Cosine”.

• Jamey Steed presented on “PermutationPattern Avoidance and the Catalan Num-bers”.

• Jerry Willette presented on “Study ofMortgage Default Before, During, andAfter the Financial Crisis of 2008 - 2009”.

• Kevin Wunderlich presented on “Esti-mating Healthcare Cost among Fragile andConflict Affected States: Risk Measures-Elastic Net Approach”.

The 2016 Joint Mathematics Meetings wereheld in Seattle, Washington, during January 6-9,2016. Four professors from Southeast MissouriState University presented at the conference.The titles of their presentations are listed below.

• Dr. Cheryl McAllister and Dr. CraigRoberts presented on “Recycling theBook: Adventures (and Misadventures) inTransforming an Undergraduate History ofMath Class Using OER”.

• Dr. Haohao Wang presented on“Implicit Equations and Rees Algebra”.

• Dr. Xiang-Sheng Wang presentedon “Asymptotic Analysis of DifferenceEquations”.

Dr. Ewelina McBroom presented a papertitled “A Dynamic Geometry-Centered TeacherProfessional Development Program and its Im-pact” with Zhonghong Jiang, Alexander White,M. Alejandra Sorto, and Alana Rosenwasser(all from Texas State University) at the annualmeeting of the North American Chapter ofthe International Group for the Psychology ofMathematics Education in East Lansing, MI inNovember 2015.

Dr. Yanping Xia gave a presentation of herresearch paper “Simple Closed-Form ConfidenceIntervals for a Two-Parameter Exponential Dis-tribution” at the 2015 Joint Statistical Meetings,Seattle, Washington, US: August 8-13, 2015.She was invited to give another talk, entitled“Generalized Pivotal Quantity (GPQ) Approachand Applications”, at the Third Finance andComputing Forum (FCF), Tianjin University ofFinance and Economics, Tianjin, China: July18-19, 2015.

Alayna Dillon-Cox gave a presentation atStudent Research Conference on April 21, 2016,entitled “Ramanujan’s Formulas on ContinuedFractions”.

Luoyi Zhong gave a presentation at Stu-dent Research Conference on April 22, 2015,entitled “Ebola outbreak in West Africa: real-time estimation and multiple-wave prediction”.Her paper was published in MathematicalBiosciences and Engineering 12 (2015), 1055-1063.