# News

## Mushtaq Abd Al-Rahem Defense

A Multidimensional Technique for Measuring Consensus Within Groups via Conditional Probability

Abstract: A recent increase in the use of the term “consensus” in various fields has led researchers to develop various ways to measure the consensus within and across groups depending on the areas. Numerous studies use the mean or the variance alone as a measure of consensus, or lack of consensus. Most of the time, high variance is viewed as more disagreement in a group. Using the variance as a measure of disagreement is meaningful in an exact comparison cases (same group, same mean). However, it could be meaningless when it is used to compare groups that have different sizes, or if the mean is different. In this thesis, we establish the fact that the range of the variance is a function of the mean, we present a new index of disagreement and measure of consensus that depend on both, the mean and the variance, by utilizing the conditional distribution of the variance for a given mean. Initially, this new index is developed for comparison of data collected using a Likert scale of size five. This new measure is compared with the results of two other known measures, to show that in some cases they agree, but in other cases the new measure provides additional information. Next, to facilitate generalization, a new algorithmic method to determine the index using a geometric approach is presented. The geometric approach makes it easier to compute the measure of consensus and provides the foundational ideas for generalizing the measure to Likert scales for any n. Finally, a multidimensional computational technique was developed to provided the final step of generalization to Likert scales of any n.

Date: 4/10/2017
Time: 3:00PM-5:00PM
Place: 313 Armstrong Hall

All are welcome.

Date, Location:
2017-04-10

The Eberly College of Arts and Sciences has named two recipients of the 2016-17 Outstanding Researcher Award: Christina Duncan and Casian Pantea.

Congratulate Professor Pantea the next time you see him!

Date, Location:
2017-04-10

## Junior Math Competition

This competition will be open to all students grades 7-12. The questions will be at AMC difficulty level.

Casian Pantea: cpantea@math.wvu.edu
Charis Tsikkou: tsikkou@math.wvu.edu
Megan Henry: mhott1@mix.wvu.edu

Date, Location:
2017-04-08

## Janet Anderson Defense

A Study of arc strong connectivity of digraphs

Abstract: This dissertation studies the extremal, structural and minimax properties related to digraph arc strong connectivity. Motivated by the former researches by Mader and Matula, we defined the digraph arc strength of a digraph $D$ to be the maximum arc strong connectivity of subdigraphs of $D$, and investigate extremal conditions for a strict digraph that is saturated with respect to the condition that it digraph arc strength is bounded by a positive integer $k$. Extremal size of such digraphs are obtained and structural characterization of the extremal digraphs are also obtained. In addition, a minimax duality theorem to determine the digraph arc strength of a digraph is found. Similar minimax results on related desity functions of digraphs are also obtained.

Date: 4/7/2017
Time: 3:30PM-5:00PM
Place: 315 Armstrong Hall

All are welcome.

Date, Location:
2017-04-07

## Celebrating Einstein

When Black Holes Collide! Gravitational Waves and Other Tales from the Horizon

As part of the month-long Celebrating Einstein event here at WVU, Dr.  Zach Etienne  from Department of Mathematics will be giving a public lecture this Friday on black holes and gravitational waves.   A planetarium show on the top  floor of White Hall will follow immediately after  his lecture.   His talk is accessible to general audience and even kids may enjoy the talk and the show.

Abstract:What happens if you fall into a black hole? Einstein's theory of gravity provides us a means to answer questions that, like this one, fuzz the boundary between science fiction and science fact. But the equations behind this theory are extremely complex, and solving them to advance our scientific understanding--particularly now that gravitational waves have been discovered--usually requires the use of supercomputers. In a nutshell, this is my field of expertise. I will review my career path and present results from some of my latest supercomputer simulations, which have given us both deeper insights into the gravitational waves we have already observed, as well as important predictions for those we are likely to observe in the near future.

Immediately after the lecture, at 8:30PM, there will be a planetarium show on the top floor of White Hall.

Press Release

Official Poster

Television Commercial

Official Webstie

Date: 4/07/2017
Time: 7:30PM
Place: White Hall Room G09

All are welcome.

Date, Location:
2017-04-07

## 4th Annual Integration Bee

This will be an integration contest open to all WVU students.
All integrals can be solved by techniques of Math 156.

Website
Flyer

Charis Tsikkou: tsikkou@math.wvu.edu
Casian Pantea: cpantea@math.wvu.edu

Date, Location:
2017-03-01

## Mr. Xiangming Wu Dissertation Prospectus

A Comparative Study of Three Versions of Calculus I

Date: 1/20/2017
Time: 11:00AM-1:00PM
Place: 320 Armstrong Hall

All are welcome.

Date, Location:
2017-01-20

## Mr. Salah Hamad Dissertation Prospectus

Compactification and Asymptotics for Banach and Hilbert Spaces and applications.

Date: 12/14/2016
Time: 3:30PM-5:30PM
Place: 315 Armstrong Hall

All are welcome.

Date, Location:
2016-12-14

## Capstone Talks

Several of the December Math Graduating seniors will give their Capstone Talks. The titles of the talks and times are included below.
Please consider joining us to hear our senior math majors talk about their capstone projects.

Join the Department in congratulating our seniors for their accomplishment and hard work!

Date: 12/7/2016
Time: 1:30PM-3:30PM
Place: 422 Armstrong Hall

Alex Abrahamian: 1:30 - 2:00
Title of Talk "Regularization and the Bias-Variance Tradeoff in Prediction"
Bachelor of Science Candidate
From Martinsburg, West Virginia

Toriane Graal: 2:00 - 2:30
Title of talk "An Analysis of Active and Passive Learning in the Classroom."
Senior Mathematics Major
Bachelor of Arts Candidate
From Massillon, Ohio

Robert Orzewicz: 2:30 - 3:00
Title of Talk TBA
Bachelor of Industrial Mathematics and Statistics Candidate
From Havre de Grace, Maryland

Georgette Goodwin: 3:00 - 3:30
Title of Talk "Extreme Value Theory: An Application Related to Insurance Losses"
Bachelor of Arts Candidate
From Morgantown, WV

Date, Location:
2016-12-07

## Brittany Vincent Defense

First Semester Calculus Students’ Concept Definitions and Concept Images of the Tangent Line and How These Relate to Students’ Understandings of the Derivative

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how students define and think about the tangent line in first semester calculus and investigate the influence of these ways of thinking on their understandings of the derivative. Students’ conceptions of the tangent line were explored through four primary tasks: defining and constructing tangent lines, sketching the derivative, and graphically interpreting the formal symbolic definition of the derivative. The first two tasks were designed to access students’ knowledge of tangent lines, and the second two tasks drew upon their ability to apply this knowledge and connect the tangent line to the derivative. In this dissertation, I describe students’ responses in terms of overlap or lack of overlap with how the tangent line and derivative are formally defined. The Tangent Line Framework of this dissertation and the Derivative Framework developed by Zandieh (2000) were used to structure this knowledge. The frameworks present a diagrammatic way to illustrate the understandings evidenced by the students and graphically contrast these for the concepts of tangent line and derivative. The results of this analysis revealed ways in which students’ concept images of the tangent line and derivative relate.

Date: 11/17/2016
Time: 10:30AM-11:30AM
Place: 313 Armstrong Hall

All are welcome.

Date, Location:
2016-11-17