Monday April 14, at 3:45 pm in Roop 103; tea at 3:30


COMAP teams, JMU:
Global Warming
Sudoku
Health Care

PROBLEM A:   The Effects of Climate Change on the Floridian Coastline

           Ms Margaret Beckom, Mr. Andrew Chang, Mr. William Christmas

ABSTRACT: The world’s climate has always been in a state of fluctuation from the Medieval Climate Anomaly to mini ice ages.  These changes usually occur naturally through events.  The most recent changes have not been due to natural causes alone, however, and global temperatures have been slowly increasing.  The problem is what specifically would be the adverse effects from the melting of the north polar ice cap.  The effects on the coast of Florida, particularly Tampa, every ten years for the next fifty years were modeled. 

Two regression models were used to simulate the effects of global warming on Florida with the above assumptions applies.  The models were determined with the use of the statistical software R.  The first model determined the total land mass of Florida with respect to the difference in average global temperature.  The second model predicted future temperatures from 2005 to 2050 for every ten years.  From the regression models that were ran, it can be concluded that by the year 2050, Florida will lose over 100 square miles of land along the coast due to an increase in global climate.

PROBLEM B: Sudoku

          Mr. Jorge Luis Bruno, Mr. Matthew DiGiosaffatte, Mr. Benjamin Leard

ABSTRACT:  We present an algorithm that generates 2,903,040 Sudoku puzzles at a desired difficulty level. These puzzles are intended for human use, so trial-and-error solving techniques are unacceptable. Avoiding trial-and-error solving allows us to establish uniqueness of a solution. We also define a difficulty metric D that produces a difficulty value for a uniquely solvable puzzle in terms of any finite set of deterministic solving techniques. Metric analysis is given for the case where a puzzle can be solved using only the most simple deterministic technique, the Hidden One. We apply our algorithm to generate seven Sudoku puzzles of varying difficulty. These puzzles have unique solutions and are created using a short list of steps. This application illustrates the versatility and simplicity of our algorithm.
PROBLEM C: Applied Multivariate Statistical Techniques in Assessing, Comparing, and Improving Health Care Systems
 
            Ms Victoria Ellison, Ms Allison Fusco, Mr. Jefferson Livermon

ABSTRACT:  Deciding which type of health care system is the best and where changes should be made to improve the health care system has been a long debated topic with no definitive answers.  Two major types of health care systems exist:  public health care, which is funded primarily by the government, and private health care, where the majority of health care is not paid for by the government, but by the individuals or private insurance companies with government programs offering only some assistance. Most countries have government programs in place offering various amounts of coverage for medial and health-related services such as Medicaid in the United States, Medicare in the United States, Canada, and Australia, and KELA in Finland.  Different countries suffer from different health care problems depending on their developmental level.   Developing countries, such as Lesotho, suffer from problems such as Tuberculosis, high infant mortality, and low life expectancy.  Developed countries such as the United States suffer more from problems such as obesity, diabetes, and tobacco related diseases.  Countries are constantly exploring different ways to improve their health care system.  This can be solved by developing a method which objectively assesses the quality of health care. Using this method, countries are able to compare their system of health care to other countries and clearly measure where improvements need to be made.