The University of Massachusetts Boston

Department of Mathematics

MA480-02: Introduction to Industrial Mathematics, Spring 2014

Instructor: Prof. Alfred Noël

Office : 3-175 Science Building

Phone : (617)-287-6458

Email : anoel@math.umb.edu

Url : http://www.math.umb.edu/~anoel

Time: Tuesday, Thursday 5:30 PM – 6:45 PM

Room: M02-0616

Conference Hours: Tuesday, Thursday 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM

Course Description:

This course introduces students to the formulation of mathematical models for solving real-word problems from Industry. This is a challenging task requiring not only technical skills but also the ability to synthesize imperfect (even dubious) information, a key step in scientific modeling. Most industrial problems are not well understood. The mathematician who has to deal with these problems must be capable of interacting with Engineers, Physicists, Chemists, Financial Quants, Administrators, Clients or with any other members of the interested parties. Such skills, of course, take time to acquire.

The main goal of this course is to provide students with ample opportunity to familiarize themselves with certain proven techniques that will help them speed-up their integration within groups involved in industrial research and development. A substantial number of problems could be tackled using known mathematics that will be discussed in class. Others may require new mathematical results. In any case the interaction between Industry and Academia benefits both and will continue to strengthen.

Besides the usual lectures, there will be presentations and seminars by invited guests from Industry.

Prerequisite: MATH 141, MATH 260 or Instructor’s permission.

Text: Industrial Mathematics A Course in Solving Real-World Problems by Avner Friedman and Walter Littman Pbl: SIAM ISBN-13: 978-0898713244

Additional Material to be covered: Handouts.

Students are expected to quickly familiarize themselves with the basics of MATLAB, Mathematica, Python, Sage or any other software they may need to use.

MATLAB Tutorial Resources:

http://www.mathworks.com/academia/student_center/tutorials/launchpad.html

Matlab tutorial - University of Florida

http://www.math.utah.edu/lab/ms/matlab/matlab.html

Assessment: There will be weekly homework assignments, and a final project. The homework assignments will deal with the theoretical part of the material and will include some small computational and programming exercises. Each student will have to complete a substantial project on an industrial problem that will be assigned at the beginning of the semester. The problem will be stated in a very succinct form in plain English. The student’s responsibility will be to develop a pertinent questionnaire in order to obtain the type of data amenable to mathematical modeling. The student will develop a mathematical model that he/she will submit to the class for evaluation and criticism. He/She should be able to defend his/her technical choices using sound mathematical and scientific arguments. The final report should include

1. Problem Statement

2. Data Gathering Process

3. Detail Mathematical Analysis

4. Model Validation

5. Comparisons with “known solutions/approaches” if necessary

6. Possible future work and extensions

7. Pertinent References

The report and all homework assignments should be written in LaTeX.

Grading Procedures:

Homework 50%: Attendance: 15 % Final Project 35%

STUDENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MATERIAL COVERED IN CLASS.