Instructor:
Dr. Matthew Conroy
Office hours and email
Important Dates:
First project:
Proposal due: January 25
Project due: February 8
Presentations: February 11 , 13, 15
Second project:
Proposal due: February 22
Project due: March 8
Presentations: March 11, 13, 15
February 3, 2019
Comments on the Milgram-Travers paper writing assignment.
In the milgram paper, the network consists of
all people (or perhaps, everyone in the U.S.,
if we want to restrict the network that way), with edges defined by acquaintanceship:
two people have an edge between them if they are "acquaintances".
The experiment is an attempt to quantitatively measure some
aspect of this network.
In particular, the experiment described in the paper gave an estimate (however
poor) of the mean number of intermediary acquaintances
between any two (randomly selected) people.
The network exists, and we can posit that this mean value
exists, regardless of the methods used to measure the network, or
even if we make no attempt to measure the mean value.
The distance between people is not the distance of a particular
(or even possible!) chain of letters (though this gives an upper bound),
but the actual distance on the graph.
So, discussing how a Milgram-type experiment might proceed on
the Facebook network compared to how the experiment proceeded in the paper is
not really discussing differences in the networks themselves.
There is no need to use a Milgram-type experiment on the Facebook
network: with the right software, and access to the network data,
we can do this without any interaction with the people on the
network at all.
Some general writing comments: keep these in mind when writing your project paper!
-
Do not use the word "efficient". This is a much too vague word,
and always requires clarification. You should say
something more specific. Rather than say, for example,
"Method X was more efficient than Method Y", say
something like, "Method X resulted in a shorter connection path
than Method Y", or "Method X resulted in lower cost than
Method Y".
-
Do not say "it is obvious that" or "it is clear that".
It you want to state something that you think the reader
will agree with, simply state it.
Usually though, you should include some support for the statement.
Adding "obvious" or "clear" just makes the reader wonder
where the support is.
-
Be careful with pronouns ("it" in particular).
I often see complex sentences in which the word "it" is
used, the thing referred to by this pronoun is not clear.
If there is any doubt at all, do not use the pronoun.
Sometimes this can lead to awkward sentences
but the sentences will be more likely to say exactly what you want them to say.
January 4, 2019
Welcome to Math 381 A, Winter quarter 2019.
For those students looking for an add code, I do not overload my courses.
If there are opening in the first week, you can add yourself to the course.
No adds will be allowed after one week. There are no add codes.
The first writing assignment will be posted soon.
You will need to install lpsolve to solve LPs in this course.
You can start here.
The download site is here.