The Stetson Reporter

http://reporter.stetson.edu R_..._,,,...,_ „___i.,..; eoorter issue 17 volume 114 Florida's Number One Private College Newspaper e LIFE: Vagina Monologues promotes women's issues page lb | JjUSIIJGSS team chooses stocks for investment OPINIONS: Theism and atheism subjected to same standards page 4a By Jeff Hamrick i GUEST WRITER The student managers of the Roland George Equity Portfolio have substantially outperformed market benchmarks over the past 12 months, the director of the Roland and Sarah Ipeorge Investments Institute announced recently. Dr. Jim Mallett, who has directed .the institute since 1985, said that the ^students posted a 20.4 percent return for the period from Nov. 2000 to Nov. 2001. The Standard and Poor's 500 Index, a benchmark against which equity performance is usually measured, dropped by over 13 percent during the isame period of economic malaise. "The students have continued their great performance from last year," said Mallett. "They have accomplished this feat despite taking less risk than the average stock portfolio manager." Mallett noted that the 20.4 percent return does not account for the equity portfolio's risk—which, in financial parlance, is the volatility of the market rvalue of the entire portfolio. : According to Todd Tarrance, a program participant, the equity portfolio's beta coefficient—a measurement of .volatility—is approximately 0.75. Beta coefficients less than one suggest that the Roland George Equity Portfolio was less volatile, on average, than the market during the past twelve months. , "If you think about it, it's really amazing that we produced these kinds of returns without relying on a bunch of volatile stocks," said Tarrance. "If "*' you make a mathematical adjustment to our returns to account for the risk, our risk-adjusted returns exceeded 35 percent." Tarrance, along with four other student participants in the Roland George Investments Program, will travel to I)ayton, Ohio, at the end of February to present the program's results at a national competition. The students will be judged not only on the portfolio's return, but also on their ability to articulate the portfolio's investment strategy and relate the class's actual stock positions to that investment strategy. "We are committed to buying stocks with unrecognized growth potential that are selling at a reasonable discount," said Laurie Harlan, who will also be representing the university at the Dayton meetings. "Over the past few years, this strategy has caused us '.o focus on the value stocks of fairly small companies." Last year, university students Michelle Dass, Katie Alday, Jack see INVESTMENT, page 2a I ^Reporter Corrections 1. "Student studying abroad dies in hit and run" NEWS, Issue 16. We apologize for stating that Martinez died in a hit and run in the article. The accident was not a hit and run. 2. "Workshop teaches 'Art of Kissing'" LIFE, Issue 16. In the article we spelled EJ Veneziano's name as Venezlano. Contact Us 421 N. Woodland Blvd. « 8409 DeLand, FL 32720-3751 386.822.7224 * FAX 386.822.7233 '■■-. 5. '■ .t ■ • reporvter@'sjgj;son.edu [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Students create model for contest By Amy Rigdon NEWS EDITOR Most students spend their weekends catching up on sleep and homework, hanging out with friends, or going home. Three students sacrificed their weekend to work for 96 hours on an international math modeling competition. The annual competition, named the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM), is sponsored by the Consortium on Mathematics and its Applications (COMAP), a national organization that fosters undergraduate mathematics. The MCM began as a national competition for undergraduate students only, but over the 18 years it has been in existence, it has evolved into an international contest for high school students and college undergraduates. Last year, 768 teams representing 238 institutions from 11 countries participated. The university's department of mathematics and computer science has participated in the MCM for- the last several years. The university's team for the MCM 2002 constituted senior math, history, and financial economics major and applied statistics minor Jeff Hamrick, junior physics major Paul Stuk, and junior math major and statistics minor Katie Spence. None of the participants had ever been in this competition previously. The MCM gives the teams (of two or three people) a choice between two open-ended, real-world questions that the students must analyze, create a solution Using mathematical models, and present their solution in a 15 to 20 page paper. "We were supposed to analyze one of the two word problems and by using numerical techniques come up with a solution," said Stuk. "It involved creating a model to generate a solution, analyzing the model, and writing a paper." Of the two questions for this year, one dealt with an ornamental fountain that sprays water in the air> which on windy days wets passersby. The team was asked to devise an algorithm to adjust the water-flow from the fountain as the wind changes so the water will not spray people. The second question involved airline overbooking and its effects on revenue for the airline industry in light of the current situation mm^mmmm^^r from terrorist attacks. The team was asked to build a mathematical model that finds.the best overbooking strategy where the company's revenue is maximized. "The question about the fountain at first seems very simple but becomes very complicated with the unknowns," said Hamrick. "I took math modeling taught by Dr. Coulter, and she had written a paper about this particular problem that I had studied DEBUG: The computer simulation underwent much scrutiny, photo by amy rigdon "Our code is like a working bathroom faucet with 400,000 extra parts— the least efficient code." TEAM: Paul Stuk, Jeff Hamrick, and Katie Spence collaborate on their solution for airline overbooking, photo by amy rigdon in class. We decided to do the airline problem because we already had a source for it and a starting point." The teams are allowed to use any inanimate source, but they cannot discuss the-problem with their team advisor, professors, or anyone else who is in a position to provide information. "We thought maybe it would seem unfair that we had Dr. Coulter's paper, but we found it published online, so we decided that everyone had a fair chance to access it," said Stuk. The team then went about solving the problem. "First we looked at airline overbooking and where you could maximize profit. We simulated a terrorist attack and the effects that it would have on airline overbooking. We had those effects die out overtime and saw where we could maximize the overbooking and profits," said Stuk. "Our model proved to be very stable." "Some of our assumptions could be called oversimplified, but when talking about something such as an airline network, you have to .^^-_—„ use assumptions to work the problem down to a workable size. If you bite off more than you can chew, you will fail," said Hamrick.. Each person in xss-s-Bs-sss— the university's team took upon themselves a particular role to solve the problem. Stuk and Spence worked on a computer program to simulate the team's model,, while Hamrick wrote the paper. They all agree that each teammate played a crucial part in solving the problem. "I have a large background in ap plied and physical mathematics, some programming too. Katie worked at analysis and helped me program; she debugged the program by hand—line by line, which consists of over a thousand lines. Jeff has statistics and a writing ability," said Stuk. The three students worked on the problem.for four consecutive days. The competition began at 8 p.mi Thursday, Feb. 8, and ended at 8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 11. "We worked from 8 p.m. until 11 p.m. Thursday night, then 8 p.m. until 4 a.m. Friday night, then 11 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. Saturday night, then 11 a.m. Sunday morning until 5:30 a.m. Monday morning, and then again 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., noon to 1 p.m., 2:30 to 5 p.m., and 7 p.m. until 8 p.m. Monday night when the competition ended," said Stuk. "We worked outside of these times, but these are the times when we all worked together in the computer lab." After 96 hours and much hard work, the team had completed their model and their paper. "Our team wasn't really good at coding properly. Our code is like a working bathroom faucet with 400,000 extra parts—the least efficient code. Katie and Paul are miracle workers, and our code works because they were able to band-aid it together," said Hamrick. "It wasn't until noon Monday that the model worked. I feel that we have a very strong model and strong paper," said Stuk. In addition to solving the problem, the team learned many things about themselves and each other. "I really enjoyed it and enjoyed working with my two favorite people," said Spence.,Overall, I think see MATH, page 2a Some university staff members enjoy springs through research By Javier Martinez guest writer Certain staff members of the university have been taking part an in opportunity that is available to everyone at the university community: an opportunity to research at Blue Springs. Dr. Kirsten Work, an associate professor in the biology department, welcomes anyone to participate regardless of subject major or staff position at the university. "We need all the help we can get," said Work. This research started in October of 2000, after an article was printed in the News-Journal about the new Aquatic and Marine Biology Program at the university. Rich Harris, the park biologist of Blue Springs, noticed the article and invited Work to Blue Springs so that Work could research at a local, biological site. ' As Work and Dr. Melissa Gibbs, a biology professor, observed previous studies of Florida springs. Work and Gibbs found that only a handful of biological studies had been done at Blue Springs, most of which appeared to concern the springs water formation, flow, and chemistry. The present primary participants of this program are Work, Gibbs, Dr. Ali-, cia Schultheis, a new faculty member, and night-shift supervisor for custodial services, Chris Lucier. This research team encourages everyone to come out and join them. While snorkeling the Blue Springs, one can observe the exotic creatures from the pacu (a relative of the pirahna) to stingrays and huge tarpon. There are also a variety of land creatures to observe at Blue Springs. Participants usually leave the university between 10:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. on Friday mornings and stay for most of the day. Participants can also meet at Blue Springs and are not required to stay for a long period of time. Any amount of time that one can offer is appreciated. Admission is free for those participating. Work advises that one needs to know how to swim and should expect cold water. Work can provide a limited amount of wet suits, but participants need to bring a bathing suit, towel, some type of aqua-socks, and a mask & snorkel set. If interested or have any questions for Work, she can be reached at 822- 8176 or kwork(aistetson.edu. Javier Martinez can be contacted at [email protected]. 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