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2013 Section Meeting Report

The 2013 Annual Meeting of the Rocky Mountain Section of the MAA was held on April 26 and 27, 2013 at Adams State University (ASU) in Alamosa, Colorado. The meeting organizers were Steve Aldrich and Matthew Iklé(ASU). Nearly 100 people attended the meeting, including more than 30 graduate and undergraduate students. Other participants included academic faculty members, K-12 teachers, and several members of the business and industry sector.

The meeting officially opened on Friday at 1:00 PM, with a welcome message from Dr. David Svaldi, president of ASU. The program then started with a keynote lecture by the 2012 Burton W. Jones Distinguished Teacher Award Recipient, Janet Nichols (Colorado State University– Pueblo), entitled Teaching at Colorado State University–Pueblo (aka USC)—The Road Well-Traveled.

Friday afternoon contributed paper sessions included History of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, General Mathematics, multiple student research sessions, Teaching Innovations, and a special session on developmental pathways organized and presented by the Colorado Community College System. On Friday evening, the meeting participants enjoyed a fabulous Mexican buffet at Calvillo's Mexican Restaurante. After dinner, Dr. Michael Pearson, MAA Executive Director, gave an entertaining talk entitled Stirling's Formula: A Monthly Habit.

The meeting resumed on Saturday morning with a sectional business meeting, followed by a second keynote by Michael Pearson, on Interpolation, Least Squares Approximations, Numerical Integration and Roots of Orthogonal Polynomials. The contributed paper sessions on Saturday morning included additional sessions on teaching innovations, history of mathematics, and applied mathematics, as well as additional sessions highlighting fascinating research by undergraduate and graduate students.

A book and software exhibit has operated throughout the meeting. We would like to acknowledge and thank the exhibitors who participated:

Janet Barnett	MAA Book Sales
Zim Olson	ZimMathematics

Finally, this meeting could not have been as successful as it was without the massive help of the faculty, staff and students of ASU and of the ACME (Adams Computer, Mathematics, and Engineering) club who catered the refreshments at Saturday's session. Many thanks to all those who helped organize this event.

Contributed Papers - 2013 Section Meeting

(G= Graduate Student, U = Undergraduate Student)

General Session

Mike Brilleslyper & Beth Schaubroeck , U. S. Air Force Academy
Looking for Zeros on the Unit Circle

William Cherowitzo , University of Colorado at Denver
Wikipedia and Mathematics

Bruce N. Lundberg , Colorado State University – Pueblo
Tegmark's Embarrassment: Probability in "Fine-Tuning" and "Multiverse" Proposals

History of Mathematics

Janet Heine Barnett , Colorado State University Pueblo
A Colorful Practitioner of Mathematics: Oliver Byrne, Esq.

Daniel Swenson , Black Hills State University
A very quick discussion of Hempel's Raven Paradox

George Heine , Math and Maps
Leonhard Euler's Contributions to Geodesy

Donald Teets , South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
Gauss's Computation of the Easter Date

Applied Mathematics

Ben Dyhr , Metropolitan State University of Denver
An Invariance Proof for 2-D Percolation

Hui Ma , Black Hills State University
Geometric Fitting of Quadratic Curves and Surfaces

Ana Vivas-Barber , Adams State University
Impacts of the Global Warming on the Spread of the West Nile Virus

Ivan Raykov , Colorado State University – Pueblo
Necessary and sufficient conditions for a minimum of optimization problems using Fitzpatrick functions

Shawn Robinson , Colorado Mesa University
An Algebro-geometric Approach to Unitary Space-Time Constellation Design

Andy Keck , Western State Colorado University
Starting Undergraduate Genomics Research

CCCS Developmental Math Pathways

Core Implementation Team (CIT) from the Colorado Community College System
The New Developmental Math Pathways at Colorado Community Colleges

Teaching Innovations

Shawn Robinson , Colorado Mesa University
A Guided IBL Introduction to Algebraic Geometry

Mona Mocanasu , Metropolitan State University of Denver
How Students Become Instructors: IBL Methods in Upper Division Math

Daluss Siewert , Black Hills State University
Transforming Developmental Mathematics Classes

Sue Norris , Northwest College
Comparing Performance in Developmental Math Classes: Computer Aided Instruction (ALEKS) versus Traditional Classroom

Bill Emerson , Metropolitan State University of Denver
Integration by Parts on my iPad

Student Research

Brandon Schoborg(U) , Western State Colorado University
Congruence Numbers and Elliptic Curves

Phil DeOrsey(G) , University of Colorado Denver
Polar Coordinates and Finite Projective Planes

Crystal Rodabaugh(U) , Adams State University
A Mathematical Model of the West Nile Virus in Colorado

Wes Shimamoto(U) , Adams State University
Modeling Ball Trajectory in Billiards

Mary Worthley(G) , Colorado State University
A mixed methods explanatory study of the failure/drop rate for freshmen STEM calculus students

Yehui He(U) and George Borleske(G) , Colorado State University
Snow surface roughness characteristics assessed through geometry and meteorology

Jared Wright(U) , Regis University
Sandpile Group of a Fused Cycle

Rebecca Roller(U) , Western State Colorado University
Knots, Links, and Polynomials

Melody Dodd(G) , Colorado State University
An Introduction to Electrical Impedance Tomography

Emily Rose Jackson(U) , Western State Colorado University
A Random Walk through Dimension: A Study in DLA

Charles Trintera(U) , Western State Colorado University
Modeling the Evolution of Haploid-Diploid Life Cycles

Jacob Powell(U) , Western State Colorado University
A method for using di-nucleotide frequencies in the detection of replication origins in bacteria

Joshua McNeely(U) , Adams State University
Modeling with Matlab to solve ##Real Problems## for an Ordinary Differential Equations Course

Jennifer Maple(G) , Colorado State University
Steady State Hopf Mode Interaction in Anisotropic System