Note: All talks will take place in Hutchinson Hall
8:30- 9:15 Registration and coffee
8:30- 1:00 Book Exhibits
9:15- 9:20 Welcome by Betty Barber, Dean of the School of Natural
Sciences, Nursing, and Mathematics, Kean College of
New Jersey
*9:20- 9:35 Music Recognition Using Fourier Techniques
Kyle Jamieson, Hopewell Valley Central High School
Presider: Chamont Wang, Trenton State College
*9:35- 9:50 Calculating the Capillary Forces Exerted by a Drop
Between Two Cylinders
Karen Almgren, Princeton High School
Presider: Jean Taylor, Rutgers University
9:50- 10:00 Remarks by the Chair of MAA-NJ
Kay Gura, Ramapo College of New Jersey
10:00- 10:50 What's Happening in Knot Theory
Joan S. Birman, Barnard College, Columbia University
Presider: Carol Avelsgaard, Middlesex County College
10:50- 11:35 Intermission (coffee and book exhibits)
11:35- 12:25 T-Colorings of Graphs and the Channel Assignment
Problem
Fred S. Roberts, DIMACS and Rutgers University
Presider: Sara Kuplinsky, Ramapo College of New Jersey
12:25- 12:40 Presentation of 1996 MAA-NJ Award for Distinguished
College or University Teaching of Mathematics
12:40- 2:00 Lunch in the Green Lane Facility
(Book exhibits end at 1:00)
2:00- 2:50 Mathematical Webology -
A Presentation on the World Wide Web
Cipher Deavours and Cathy Hannan, Kean College of New
Jersey
Presider: Francine Abeles, Kean College of New Jersey
2:50- 3:00 Intermission
3:00- 4:00 Contributed Papers
(Titles and Rooms to be Announced)
4:00- 4:15 Drawing of Door Prizes and
Announcement of Silent Auction Winners
(Must be present to win)
5:30 Dinner honoring distinguished teaching award recipient
and invited speakers. See Announcements for details.
* Student speaker
Program Organizers: Lawrence D'Antonio, Kay Gura, Ramapo College of New Jersey; Theresa C. Michnowicz, Jersey City State College; and Barry Arnow, Kean College of New Jersey; Judith Lenk, Ocean County College.
Program Committee: Francine Abeles, Isali Asina, and Pablo Zafra, Kean College of New Jersey; May Hamdan, Jersey City State College; Issam El-Achkar, Hudson County College.
What's Happening in Knot Theory
This talk will describe the knot problem and what it means to find a "knot invariant". There will be an exploration of the meaning of "finite type" invariants of knots, of why they work, and how they are computed.
Joan S. Birman is currently Professor of Mathematics at Barnard College, Columbia University. She earned a B.A. from Barnard, an M.A. (in physics) from Columbia. After a long interlude to raise three children she obtained her Ph.D. from the Courant Institute, New York University. Her research is in topology and knot theory. Professor Birman has received many awards including an honorary doctorate from the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), a Sloan Foundation Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A recent highlight in her distinguished career was receiving the MAA Chauvenet Prize for her article "New points of view in knot theory" (Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 28 (April 1993), p. 253-287). ProfessorBirman has held appointments at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Princeton University, the Technion, Hebrew University, and the Institute for Advanced Study.
Music Recognition Using Fourier Techniques
The purpose of this study was to convert a series of sound samples to musical notes using a PC. This conversion was accomplished in several steps. In the first phase, the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was applied to small sections of a sound file, yielding many small (1024 point) spectra. The frequency with the highest amplitude was chosen to represent each spectrum, and all these were packed into an array in computer memory. By a "harmonic-cancellation" algorithm, array values that represented overtones of a musical instrument were deleted. Next, the samples were matched to the real musical notes closest in time and pitch. Parts of this process were optimized for fast execution on a computer. Finally, the musical notes were outputted to the user on the screen.
Kyle Jamieson is a senior at Hopewell Valley Central High School. His interests include playing the cello in several different orchestras and quartets, rollerblading, and tennis. Active in both the school and the community, he has been involved in the spring musical, the Model United Nations Club, and the mathematics and science leagues.
Calculating the Capillary Forces Exerted by a Drop Between Two Cylinders
The Surface Evolver program was used to compute the surface energy of a drop of water placed between two touching cylinders, for a range of angles between the axes of the cylinders. At each angle, the numerical derivative of the energy with respect to angle was taken to get the torque exerted by the drop to make the cylinders line up. This was done for several different volumes to see how volume affects the torque. The mean curvature was measured by differentiating the energy with respect to volume. The force exerted by the drop to hold the cylinders together was calculated by computing energies for cylinders that do not quite touch and taking the numerical derivative with distance apart. This work was done under the direction of W. Craig Carter at the National Institute for Standards and Technology.
Karen Almgren is a senior at Princeton High School. She has received early admission to MIT (but may instead choose Stanford). She has taken several mathematics courses at Princeton University. In eighth grade she was a member of the New Jersey MathCounts team. She has been a candidate for the Presidential Scholars program, a semifinalist for a National Merit Scholarship, and also a volunteer for StreamWatch, Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association.
T-Colorings of Graphs and the Channel Assignment Problem
In assigning channels to radio or television transmitters, we try to assign different channels to transmitters that interfere. This problem is readily translated into a problem of coloring an appropriate graph. However, sometimes there are additional complications. In particular, we sometimes specify a set T of disallowed distances between channels that interfere. Then the channel assignment problem can be translated into a graph theory problem that is a generalization of ordinary graph coloring, the problem of T-coloring. This talk will describe the history of T-colorings from their introduction in the engineering literature by Hale in 1980, to the strange sets T that arose from UHF television, to the stimulus to graph theory that has led to five Ph.D. theses in recent years, and to some fascinating open questions that are easy to describe and remarkably nasty to solve.
Fred S. Roberts is currently a Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers University and a Fellow of RUTCOR (the Rutgers Center for Operations Research). He was recently made Director of DIMACS, having previously served as Associate Director. After completing his Ph.D. at Stanford University, he worked for the RAND Corporation and did postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania and the Institute for Advanced Studies before joining the faculty at Rutgers. He has held visiting positions at Cornell, AT&T Bell Labs, and has been the Robert G. Stone Visiting Professor at Northeastern. His major research interests are in mathematical modeling; graph theory and combinatorics and their applications; measurement theory; utility, decision-making, and social choice; and operations research. Professor Roberts has authored four texts and numerous scientific articles. A former Vice President of SIAM, his awards and honors include being CBMS-NSF Research Conference Lecturer at Colby College, a Humboldt Fellowship, and a University Research Initiative Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. MAA-NJ is very grateful to Professor Roberts for hosting two section meetings at DIMACS and for being a valuable resource person to the section.
MAA-NJ Governor: Barbara Osofsky, Rutgers University MAA-NJ OFFICERS Chair: Kay Gura, Ramapo College of New Jersey Past Chair: Theresa C. Michnowicz, Jersey City State College Vice Chair for Speakers: Lawrence D'Antonio, Ramapo College of New Jersey Innovations: Issam El-Achkar, Hudson Community College Two-Year Colleges: Jeannette O'Rourke, Middlesex County College Secretary: Thomas Ralston, Georgian Court College Treasurer: Nancy Maulding, Raritan Valley Community College Public Information Officer: Judith Lenk, Ocean County College
The MAA also wishes to thank Barry Arnow and the student members of the MAA Student Chapter at Kean College for their kind hospitality in hosting the meeting, and Roye-Ann Hargrove, Assistant Director, Office of College Relations, Kean College for her valuable assistance in overseeing planning.
MAA-NJ Fall 1996 Meeting - 40th Anniversary Meeting
The next meeting of the MAA-NJ, scheduled for Saturday, November 9, 1996, at Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs Innovations (formerly AT&T Bell Labs), Murray Hill, NJ, marks the 40th anniversary of the first MAA-NJ meeting held on November 3, 1956 at Rutgers University. Michael Garey, Director of Mathematical Sciences Research, will host this anniversary meeting.
Dinner Following the Meeting
The Section will honor the recipient of the distinguished teaching award and invited speakers at a Dutch-treat dinner following the meeting. The dinner will be at The Garden Restaurant in Union. To make reservations please contact Lawrence D'Antonio, (201) 529-7714 or e-mail:ldant@ramapo.edu.
Section Officer Elections
Section officers will be elected at the Fall 1996 meeting. Nominations are being accepted by the nominating committee which will present a slate of officers to the members at the November 9 meeting. The nominating committee consists of: Judith Lenk of Ocean County College at (908)255-0368, Kay Gura of Ramapo College at (201) 529-7554, or Naomi Shapiro of Georgian Court College at (908) 364-2200, ext. 338.
MAA-NJ Goes World Wide Web!
The MAA-NJ is putting up its own home page linked to the MAA Web site and can be accessed through the MAA site at http://www.maa.org and then linking to the New Jersey section page. If anyone has suggestions about the content of this page please contact Lawrence D'Antonio at Ramapo College, (201) 529-7714 or e-mail: ldant@ramapo.edu.
Graphing Calculator Conference
A Graphing Calculator Conference, jointly sponsored by the New Jersey Mathematics Coalition, Middlesex County College, and the Rutgers Center for Mathematics, Science, and Computer Education, will be held April 19-20, 1996, at Rutgers University, SERC Building. The TI-92 with 3-D and CAS capabilities and the TI-83 with new statistical graphing and testing features will be explored.
Student Talks at Spring '97 Meeting
Instead of our usual two student talks, at our Spring '97 meeting the MAA-NJ would like to sponsor an entire concurrent session devoted to undergraduate talks. Please be on the lookout for promising students to give such talks. Such experiences are extremely valuable for the student, their faculty sponsor, the college, and our organization. Anyone with suggestions or assistance for this project may contact Lawrence D'Antonio at Ramapo College, (201) 529-7714 or e-mail:ldant@ramapo.edu.
Math Awareness Week
Mathematics Awareness Week will be observed April 21-27. The theme will be Mathematics and Decision Making.
MAA-NJ Speakers Bureau
The MAA-NJ Speakers Bureau, which links New Jersey high school teachers with MAA members willing to visit their classes and mathematics clubs, is being coordinated by Carol Avelsgaard of Middlesex County College. To volunteer, please contact Carol at (908) 846-5253.
Congratulations
MAA-NJ congratulates Jacqueline Boyd-DeMarzio, Middlesex County College, on receiving a Fulbright award with an appointment in Africa. She has been the coordinator of the MAA-NJ Speakers Bureau.
Special Thanks
The MAA-NJ thanks the members of the Selection Committee for the 1996 MAA-NJ Distinguished Teaching Award: Sr. Stephanie Sloyan, Chair, Georgian Court College; Ronald Graham, AT&T Bell Labs; Marcia Guza, Bellcore; William H. Hausdoerffer, Trenton State College.
Listed are all current members of MAA-NJ who have been members of the MAA for 25 years or more as of January 1996. Those attending our Fall 1995 meeting were awarded certificates of recognition. If you are on this list but were unable to attend either that or the current meeting, please contact Kay Gura at (201) 529-7554.
Eastbound: Drive under Parkway, turn right onto Route 82 East. Continue toward Elizabeth. Campus is within two miles.
Westbound: Drive under Parkway; keep right and follow signs to Elizabeth. Turn right onto Morris Avenue. From Garden State Parkway
Northbound: Leave Parkway at Exit 140 onto Route 22 East. Turn right onto Route 82 East toward Elizabeth.
Southbound: Leave Parkway at Exit 140-A onto Route 22 West. Turn right onto Route 82 East. From US Routes 1-9
Northbound: Enter Elizabeth and turn left at Bayway intersection onto Route 439 West (Elmora Avenue). Continue to Morris Avenue (Route 82). Campus is on left.
Southbound: Entering Elizabeth, follow signs for local traffic (extreme right). Follow signs to North Avenue West (Route 439), turn right and continue to Morris Avenue (Route 82). Turn right. Campus is on left. From New Jersey Turnpike
Leave Turnpike at Exit 13A (Elizabeth). Follow North Avenue West sign onto Route 439 which intersects with Morris Avenue (Route 82). Make right onto Morris, College is on left.
Leave Turnpike at Exit 13 (Elizabeth). Follow signs for Route 439. Continue across Route 1-9 at Bayway intersection onto Elmora Avenue (Route 439). Continue to Morris Avenue (Route 82). Campus is on left.
Leave Turnpike at Exit 14 for Route 1-9 South. Entering Elizabeth, follow signs for local traffic (extreme right). Follow signs to North Avenue West (Route 439), turn right and continue to Morris Avenue (Route 82). Turn right. Campus is on left.
Once on the Kean campus. Go right after turning into Morris Avenue entrance and look for Hutchinson Hall. There is parking available adjacent to the building.
To help us plan for this meeting, please complete this form or a photocopy of this form and return (with check made payable to MAA-NJ, if appropriate) by March 18, 1996, to
Kean College of New JerseyNAME
ADDRESS (home and business)
PHONE (Home) (Business)
AFFILIATION (school or business)
E-MAIL ADDRESS
Check as many as apply:
I will attend the meeting.
I am a student. (No registration fee)
I am enclosing registration fee of $10.00.
(Registration fee $12.00 at the door.)
I will attend the luncheon.
I would like to request a vegetarian meal.
I am enclosing the luncheon fee of $10.00.
I am a 25+ year member of the MAA, but have not yet received my 25-year
certificate.
I am interested in becoming a committee member or officer of MAA-NJ.
My college/company is interested in hosting a future MAA-NJ meeting
There will a dinner at The Garden Restaurant following the meeting to honor the recipient of the distinguished teaching award and invited speakers. Please contact Lawrence D'Antonio, (201) 529-7714 or e-mail:ldant@ramapo.edu to make reservations.
For futher information send mail to Larry D'Antonio ldant@ramapo.edu