Rewarding Career in Math? Be an Actuary! (COLLOQUIUM - December 2, 2009)
Who:
Alison Northup
Location:
EH205 2:30
 The actuarial profession is a great career option for mathematics majors! However, it%u2019s hard to get a good feel for what an actuary actually does. Alison Northup, a Stetson math graduate, has been working in the actuarial field for several years, and will be explaining what the profession is like from the inside. She will also give examples of situations in which actuaries use mathematics to assess financial risk. |
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HOW DID THEY GET INTO MY NETWORK?!? (COLLOQUIUM - November 6, 2009)
Who:
Chris Goggans and Jeff Fay
Location:
Rinker Auditorium, LBC, 1:00
 Stetson is hosting two world-renowned cyber security experts in an informal talk with a question and answer session. They will share lessons learned from their years of experience in network and information security.
Chris Goggans is the VP of Technology for PatchAdvisor, Inc.He is an internationally recognized expert on information security with over fifteen years experience in network and information security. He has performed network security assessments for some of the world's largest corporations, including all facets of critical infrastructure, with work spanning 22 countries across four continents.
Mr. Jeff Fay is the founding President of PatchAdvisor Inc; a company that specializes in network security consulting. Mr. Fay has been professionally researching and testing information technology and network security since 1997. Mr. Fay has been performing penetration tests for commercial and government entities world-wide. The results of his continued research have been briefed to members of the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, and several professional Security Conferences. Mr. Fay holds a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Stetson University. |
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Dr. Hale wins teaching award (NEWS - October 27, 2009)
Who:
Dr. Margie Hale
 Professor Margie Hale has won the Florida section of Mathematical Association of America's 2009 Distinguished Teaching Award and will be the Florida 2010 nominee for one of the nations highest awards for a higher education math teacher. Award-winners must be widely recognized as extraordinary, effective and successful teachers whose teaching has influenced others beyond their own institution, and they must foster curiosity and generate excitement about mathematics in their students.
I try to ask good questions that start students thinking, Hale said of her teaching. I do not give quick answers, but support their thoughts and give them hints. In some classes I assign projects and let students propose ones that interest them. I sometimes ask off-beat, open-ended questions and award a golden Sacagawea dollar for good answers or significant progress. |
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Math/CS students win awards! (NEWS - April 30, 2009)
 Math and CS students Sarah Richardson, Matt Samuels, Ryan Rodgers and Kevin Heisler have all been honored! Sarah won the prestigious Ashcraft award given to the outstanding junior in the department. Matt was inducted into phi beta kappa, the top national academic honorary society, Ryan and Kevin won the awards for outstanding seniors. Sarah will spend the summer working on a National Science Foundation-sponsored research experience in robotics. Matt will be spending his summer doing further work on a development team to add features to the iPhone app his sophomore class created. Ryan is starting a PhD program, and Kevin will be looking to start as an actuary. |
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2008 Programming Contest (NEWS - November 25, 2008)
Who:
Ocoee HS
 Every year, the Math/CS department hosts a programming contest for high school students. We give away $3,000 in prizes and over $100,000 in scholarships to Stetson. This year the winners, pictured above, are from Ocoee High School: Aaron Fan, Robert Eisinger and Daniel Jackson.
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Credit Contagion or Credit Confusion? Evidence from Fixed Income Markets (COLLOQUIUM - November 6, 2008)
Who:
Jeff Hamrick
Location:
EH 205, 4pm
Are different slices of fixed income markets more dependent during times of crisis than during normal times? We call this increase in dependence during times of crisis credit contagion, and define this concept through a local correlation function very similar to the usual correlation coefficient. Surprisingly, an analysis of bond yield spreads, bond indices, credit default swap indices, and credit default swaps suggests that fixed income markets have not experienced credit contagion during crises like the 2007-2008 subprime mortgage credit crisis. Instead, these measures have tended to become less correlated or even conditionally uncorrelated---a concept we call credit confusion.
Refreshments will be served @ 3:30 in room 214 Eliz. |
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Congratulations Graduates! (NEWS - May 14, 2008)
Congratulations to our new graduates:
Derek Alexander,
Adriano Caloiaro,
Keri Hagerman,
Chris Hogg,
John Palmer,
Sam Romano
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Computer Security (COLLOQUIUM - April 25, 2008)
Who:
Jeff Fay and Vicky Ames
Location:
EH205 3:45
 Stetson CS/Math grad and Stetson Outstanding Young Alum Jeff Fay and Vicky Ames will be talking on computer security.
Jeff has been professionally researching and testing information technology and network security for almost ten years and is a respected authority on cryptography and vulnerability analysis. As President and CEO of PatchAdvisor, Jeff provides vision and direction for the company as well as oversees all technical innovations and product development. Jeff has written many papers on network security and cryptography and has been interviewed on the topics of network security and information warfare by CNN, Fox News and 60 Minutes.
Vicky Ames has been in the IT industry for over a decade and brings with her a wealth of experience from private industry and the Federal government. Vicky is responsible for customer service and support as well as the day-to-day operations of PatchAdvisor. Vicky holds CISSP and SANS GSEC certifications. |
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Sam Romano's research wins award (NEWS - April 16, 2008)
 Sam Romano's paper with his faculty advisor, Dr. Hala ElArrag, "A Quantitative Study of Recency and Frequency Based Web Cache Replacement Strategies" has won first prize at the 2008 Spring Simulation Multi-Conference's international Symposium on Communications and Network Simulation in Ottawa. Sam, a Stetson undergraduate Computer Science major, was competing against PhDs in the field. His research was sponsored by a Stetson Undergraduate Research (SURE) grant. |
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AI and Robotics: Theory, Practice, Applications, and Interesting Projects (COLLOQUIUM - April 9, 2008)
Who:
Dr. Claude Fennema
Location:
EH 205 - 3:30PM
 Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a research field full of interesting questions for philosophers, psychologists, cognitive scientists, linguists, and computer scientists. It has been a research enterprise filled with lively debate, controversy, and interesting spinoffs. In this talk, I will present my view of the AI enterprise, of which robotics is a very important part. I will talk about theoretical issues, work that has been done, applications, interesting work that my students have completed, and we can discuss ideas for future projects. Albert, my mobile robot, will be present and I will show a short movie of "him" in action. |
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Chain codes and Iterated 3-D Transformations (COLLOQUIUM - April 3, 2008)
Who:
Dr. Carl Weiman
Location:
EH210
Dr Weiman says: I have always had a deep emotional and intellectual affinity
for cellular automata, chaos, and fractals. I have stumbled into two
systems which involve interesting new aspects of all three areas, and
am eager to share-dissemminate to interested people capable of taking
the math and programming far beyond my abilities.
One of these is a chain code devised by a quantum physicist (Jerry
Rothstein) from the Manhattan Project to illustrate deterministic
chaos before a name for the subject had materialized. It was the
topic of my dissertation.
The second is the system of iterated 3-D transformations which
exhibits very interesting structures related to differential geometry,
topology, group theory, in math. In biology it applies to alpha and
beta structures in polymers such as protein, with explicit controls
for coiling and wave-like motions of structures such as cilia and
flagellae. In physics it perhaps relates to superstring
configurations in Calabi-Yau topologies. The java project I have
developed gives turnkey controls to non-programmers in all these
fields. I would like to demo it and the Rothstein Code java software
and give users access via jar or source code. |
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Solitons and the KdV Equation (COLLOQUIUM - April 3, 2008)
Who:
Dr. Tom Vogel
Location:
EH 205
Solitons are mathematical solutions to certain types of nonlinear partial differential equations. The first (recorded) observation of a naturally occurring soliton was in 1834 by John Scott Russell. It wasn%u2019t until 1895 that the mathematics of such solutions was understood. This talk will discuss solitons in both a historical and technical context. The first mathematical derivation of a soliton solution was in an equation governing waves on a shallow water surface. Today, this equation is known as the Kortweg-de Vries (KdV) equation. This talk will include derivation(s) of solitons of the KdV equation from both a conventional approach, as well as a more non-conventional variational approach. Systems including those which admit atmospheric, optical, and other physical solitons will also be discussed. |
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Website Being Moved (MISC - March 3, 2008)
Who:
Math CS Department
Location:
Internet
The new website is set to be moved soon. Please help us out by reporting any bugs or broken links to the following e-mail address: mathcs@stetson.edu.
In moving the website, there are still many unfinished ends. If you notice that an important form or part of the website missing, please contact us and we will get to it ASAP. |
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To Idle or Not to Idle: That is the Question (COLLOQUIUM - December 5, 2007)
Who:
Charles Reilly
Location:
EH 205
A mathematical model is suggested for finding the optimal block size under block queuing for a single-channel queue at a drive-through service facility. With block queuing, a queue is partitioned into an active section and a passive section, where drivers are asked to turn off their engines until the active section clears. Our model prescribes a block size, that is, the maximum number of vehicles in the active queue, that minimizes the expected amount of fuel consumed by vehicles in the queue. The model can assess the effects of traffic intensity, the service-time variance, and the proportion of compliant drivers in the passive queue on the optimal block size and on fuel consumption in the queue. |
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Web Site Redesign (MISC - December 1, 2007)
Who:
Austin, Sam and John
Location:
EH210
The new website is being redone with new dynamic settings and pages. Most of you won't notice this, but as a test, we have dynamically added this news event! Long Live CLB! Updates coming soon... |
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The Google File System (COLLOQUIUM - November 26, 2007)
Who:
Andrew Moedinger (Stetson Alum!), Software Engineer, Google
Location:
Rm 205 Elizabeth Hall
Ever wonder how Google stores petabytes of data and accesses it in real time? The answer is the Google File System: a scalable distributed file system that provides high performance and fault tolerance while running on inexpensive commodity hardware. This talk will discuss some of the technical details of the Google File System, as well as life at Google as a software engineer. Will begin at 2:30 pm |
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