With the high volatility of the stock markets
in recent months, conventional methods for determining which stocks are
going to rise and fall are becoming obsolete. Stockbrokers are looking
more and more at the patterns in stock values to determine the strength
of a given stock. This presentation looks at some of the common methods
that are currently being employed. This information should allow
you to reevaluate your portfolio, and maximize the stocks that you invest
in.
Sara LaLumia - Mathematics at the Market
~~ Best Talk Award ~~
Stock price movements result from two forces-a
prevailing trend, and "noise" that obscures and distorts this trend.
The challenge is to distinguish the trend from the noise. I will
use methods based on derivative techniques, including the Black-Scholes
formula, to predict an interval in which a stock price will likely fall
in the month ahead.
Ben Jantson - Carving the Great Pumpkin
~~ Best Talk Award ~~
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful
biomedical rendering technique that allows layers of a patients body to
be analyzed. This procedure examines the water density of tissues
and other internal structures and ultimately creates a three-dimensional
array of shaded pixels, indicating water concentration. This presentation
will discuss the creation of an algorithm, for the 1998 COMAP Modeling
Competition, which projects the MRI date onto an oblique plane.
Jason Jantson - Fosomax, Miacalcin, or Didronel?
Fosomax, Miacalcin, and Didronel are three drugs used
to treat osteoporosis. In clinical studies, these drugs work very
well, but what about in real family practices? Clinical studies only
use people who have osteoporosis. We want to see which drugs works
well with people who have other medical problems or are on other medications.
This talk will explain some tools used to reach conclusions and report
preliminary results.
Teresa Selee - How does a Bouncy Ball Bounce?
~~ Best Talk Award ~~
This presentation will examine the results of
rolling a bouncy ball of a table at a given initial velocity. Series
will be used to describe time, distance, and length of the curve the ball
generates. An examination will follow as to whether the sums of the
series are finite and infinite.
Robert Shuttleworth - The Running of the Bulls; When Will it End?
The Internet has been around since the 1960s, but its affect upon our daily
lives has not been really realized until the late 1990s. With advances
in technology, email, ecommerce, and video, the Internet has continued
to expand and explode to magnificent proportions. Mathematical models
will be presented to predict when this explosion will end.
John Slanina - The Mathematics Behind Microscopic Temperature Sensors
To monitor the temperature of silicon during the manufacturing of microprocessors,
tiny sensors called T-MEMS are etched onto the water's surface. These
tiny devices resemble a small beam which changes its shape with temperature.
This presentation will provide insight into the numerical model describing
the performance ot the T-MEMS and the numerical methods used to approximate
the thermophysical properties of these microscopic sensors.
Tom Wakefield - The Goat and the Silo
The classic Goat and Silo problem from calculus concerns the amount of
grazing area available to a goat when tethered to a silo with just enough
rope to reach the opposite end. This talk will address some extensions
of this problem, as well as the determination of a grazing space with maximum
relative area.
