Beginning of the Semester Survey

Please fill out the survey at the link below by Tuesday, February 2.

Start of Semester Survey

Group Project - Part 1

Math 110(E) Group Project Spring 2016

In this project, you will be opening a business on campus, and looking to expand your business further.  You will be applying the material that we learn about graph theory, probability, statistics, and financial mathematics to model your project.  Your final project will be due in class April 21, 2016.  As a final project, you must type a report summarizing your findings for all the objectives.  Your report should read as one continuous document, not a piecing together of different ideas.   The report must also show all details necessary to answer each objective.  You will present your results in a 15-20 minute presentation in class on April 19, 2016 or April 21, 2016.  Your presentation should be aimed at potential investors in your company.  You will summarize what you’ve done so far to improve your business and explain why the investors should invest in you.  Give your ideas for the future of your business and why you would benefit from their investment.  You are strongly recommended to use PowerPoint to give your presentation.  You are also encouraged to bring any handouts to support your case. 

You will be working on this project in groups of three.  You will have until February 2, 2016 to select your own group.  After this date, anyone who has not signed up with me to be in a group will be given a group assignment.

Due: February 4, 2016: First, you must select a type of business to open.  You should choose one of the following businesses: (1) Pizza Joint, (2) Ice Cream Shop, (3) Cookie Company, (4) Coffee Shop.  As a group, select a business type and create a name for your business.

You will receive new objectives at the start of each unit. 

Graph Theory Objectives: Draft due February 16, 2016

Graph Theory Objective 1:  Your business on campus has been successful, and you want to start adding customers from the St Joseph community.  You have been assigned to take pamphlets door to door in a portion of the community.  See Dr. McCune for your assigned region.   (A sample region is pictured below.) Given your map, create a graph to represent the area you’ve been assigned.  Develop a route that minimizes the number of streets that you must repeat.  Can you visit all the streets without repeating any streets? Why or why not? Explain, using a theorem from class.  If you cannot do it without repeating streets, what method from class can you use to try to minimize the number of streets repeated?

Graph Theory Objective 2: Your pilot business on campus at MWSU has been successful.  You want to expand your customer base to include college students in the Kansas City area.  In particular, you want to advertise your business to students at William Jewell College, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Rockhurst University, Avila University, Johnson County Community College, and Park University.  Use google maps to find the distance between each of these schools and create a table to display the information.  Then create a graph to display this information.  You want to spend the day advertising your business to students at each school.  Using a concept from graph theory, find the best route to visit each school to advertise your business, beginning and ending at UMKC.   Be sure to show all of your work and explain why you used the method you chose.

Week 2: Graph Theory - Hamiltonian Paths and Circuits

This week we will be moving into Hamiltonian Paths and Circuits and weighted graphs.  A weighted graph is just a graph with numbers (weights) on the edges.  Our goal will be to use weighted graphs and Hamiltonian circuits to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem that we discussed last week.  We will see three algorithms for solving this: The Nearest Neighbor Algorithm, The Side-Sorted (or Best Edge) Algorithm, and the Repetitive Nearest Neighbor Algorithm.  We will also discuss how to solve this using Brute Force.  You will need to memorize each of these algorithms.  We will end the week with a discussion of trees and spanning trees. 

Don't forget to keep up with the homework on WebWork.

Challenge Problem: The picture below is the floor plan for a section of prison rooms.  If all the doors are open, is it possible for a guard to enter this section at the entrance, pass through each door locking it behind him, and then exit without ever having to open a door that has been previously locked?  Answer by turning this into a graph theory question.  You may describe your graph by giving the vertices and edges or post a picture of your graph in your blog.  Your solution should include a path in the graph you create.

How to Email Your Professor

Every semester, I receive an email that looks something like the following:


hey mrs. mccune.  what did we do in class today?  also, i don't know how to do number 2.


There are several issues with this email.  First, you should address your instructors as Professor or Dr.   to decrease your risk of insulting them.  (I am Dr. McCune.)   Second, if you must miss class, please acknowledge that you are responsible for the material covered in your absence.  I am happy to give a brief recap of what you missed, but please remember to first consult the syllabus and the notes before composing your email.

If you need help with a problem, please be clear about which problem you need help with.  For example, number two on the webwork Graph Theory set 1.  You should tell me what you've tried so far and specifically what part of the problem is giving you trouble.  It is often useful to include an attachment with a picture of your work so that I can best point you in the right direction to solve the problem.

Finally, be sure to sign your email with your name, course number, and section.  It is especially difficult to respond to an email if I don't know who the sender is.

Wikihow has a nice summary of how to email a professor, which you should apply when emailing any of your professors on campus.

How to Email a Professor

Welcome to MAT110(E) - Week 1: Graph Theory

Welcome to MAT110/MAT110E!  You should be enrolled in MAT110 if you have a 22 or higher on the ACT or passed the math placement exam (MPE) with a 70 or higher.  Otherwise, you should be enrolled in MAT110E and MAT099.  Keep in mind that if you fail MAT099, you will fail MAT110E as well, regardless of your exam and homework scores in MAT110E.  Hence, it is imperative that you attend and actively participate in your MAT099 section. 

Our semester will be broken into three units: Graph Theory, Financial Math, and Probability and Statistics.  I hope that you will enjoy learning a little bit about each of these topics and how they are used in your everyday life and the world around you. I'm looking forward to a great semester!

We will be kicking off the semester this week with an introduction to graph theory.  A graph is a collection of vertices (think dots) and edges (think lines) between the vertices.  We can use graphs to study many things in the world around us.  For example, a graph can represent streets and intersections from a map (see The Traveling Salesperson Problem), computer networks, social networks, or even be used to study DNA (see A Graph Theoretical Approach to DNA Fragment Assembly).  By the end of this week, you should know what a graph is and be able to describe several properties of a graph. 

A little bit about me: I am in my fourth year as an Assistant Professor of mathematics here at Missouri Western State University.  Before coming to MWSU, I spent a year as a visiting assistant professor at Ashland University.  I received my PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2011. (Go Big Red!)  My husband is also a mathematician at William Jewell College.  We have a 22-month old daughter who is a bundle of energy and absorbs all our free time and we are expecting a baby boy this April. This summer we took our daughter hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains where she hiked a mile on her own and got to see a black bear.

Please ask for help as soon as you are having trouble with this class.  You can visit me in my office (Agenstein 135K).  Peer tutoring is also available (for free) through the Center for Academic Support.

Challenge Problem #1: Sketch several examples of graphs.  Determine the degree of the vertices in each graph.  When you add the degrees of all the vertices, you will always get an even number.  Why is that?

Getting Started With Blogger

Starting your blog: 

1. Log in to www.blogger.com with your Missouri Western email.  

2. Click “New Blog” on the left hand side of the screen.  You may name your blog however you like.  

3. After creating your first blog entry (see below), send me an email with the subject line “’YOUR NAME’ BLOG”.  (For example, I would type “MCCUNE BLOG”) In the body of the email give me the URL for your blog. (For example, my blog is at www.math110mccunesp16.blogspot.com.)

Privacy Settings: 

You may decide whether you want your blog to be private or public.  The blog will default to public.  You can change the privacy settings by clicking on the settings icon to the left of the screen when you are in your blog.  Under “Basic”, choose click the “Edit” button next to Privacy to remove your blog from Blogger listings and to make it invisible to search engines.   You can scroll down to “Permissions” to limit your blog readers.  If you don’t want your blog to remain public, you must add me (lmccune@missouriwestern.edu) as a reader.  To do this, click on “Edit” next to “Blog Reader” and choose the option “Private – Only these readers”.  You may add my email to the list of readers.  You may also choose to limit your readers to only your classmates. 

Following Blogs: 

Go to www.blogger.com/home.  Scroll down to “Reading List” and click “add” on the left-hand side of the screen.  You should add my blog for this class: www.math110mccunesp16.blogspot.com.

Your first Blog entry: (Due Tuesday, January 26)

After creating your blog, you can create a new post in one of two ways: 

1.     From www.blogger.com/home, click on the orange button with the pencil to write a new post for your blog. 

2.     From your blog overview, click on the orange button labeled “New post” to create a new post. 

In your first blog post, tell me a little about yourself.  You should answer the following questions:  What was the last math class you had?  Why are you taking MAT110?  Our semester will be broken up into three topics: Graph Theory, Financial Mathematics, and Probability and Statistics.  What do you think each of these topics is about? What do you hope to learn in each of these topics? 

You will occasionally be asked to write more detailed blog posts.  Such posts may include solving a problem, researching a topic discussed in class more in depth and reporting on your findings, or responding to an article related to the mathematics discussed in class.  For these posts, you will be provided a prompt at www.math110mccunesp16.blogspot.com.

You are encouraged to read one another’s blogs and leave your comments.  Please remember to be respectful in your posts and comments.  You should follow the guidelines set out in the MWSU Student Code of Conduct available at https://www.missouriwestern.edu/studentaffairs/student-code-of-conduct/.