Course Information
M113 - Contemporary Mathematics

Introduction:

The information and materials presented here are intended to provide a description of the course goals for current and prospective students as well as others who are interested in our courses. It is not intended to replace the instructional policies and course materials presented in class.

Every effort is made to update this information on a routine basis. However, if you have questions about enrollment, purchasing materials, and prerequisite skills, please check with your advisor or instructor.

Online Catalog Course Description Link: http://primus.nss.udel.edu/CourseDesc/info.action?rml=Y&searchKey=2010|MATH113

Current Sections Link: http://primus.nss.udel.edu/CoursesSearch/search-results.jsp?course_sec=MATH113

Additional Course Description:

  • How can I save time delivering an advertisement to all houses in a development
  • How does mathematics assist in developing a plan to schedule priorities in a hospital emergency room?
  • How can statistics be used to describe the variation in income among college graduates?
  • How can mathematics assist in planning election strategy?

This course is designed to help answer these questions (and others) and prepare students in non-technical majors for their college work, for their careers, and for the challenges of life in general. Its goal is to help students understand the mathematical skills and concepts used in a variety of topics and issues, from a variety of social science fields. The course will provide some basic mathematical strategies to analyze issues encountered in everyday life.

The course consists of three modules:

Management Science: Techniques to model complex activities and determine optimal solutions through analysis of various models (Chapters 1, 2, 3)

Statistics: Descriptive and inferential statistics with real world applications, and probability to link descriptive and inferential (Chapters 5-8)

Social Choice and Decision Making: Mathematical methods for decision making, weighted voting systems (Chapters 9, 11)

Course goals are:

  1. To apply the scientific method to investigate real-world phenomena
  2. To construct, read and interpret graphs and other displays of data
  3. To read, interpret and communicate information using appropriate mathematical language
  4. To appropriately use technology to solve mathematical problems.

Course Content:

The following list illustrates the topics intended for coverage in a typical semester. Your instructor may cover these topics in a different order or may add topics if necessary.

Management Science

  1. Skills Check
    Basic Concepts
    Euler Circuits
    Eulerization and Squeezing
  2. Skills Check
    Hamiltonian Circuit
    Counting Problems
    Traveling Salesman Problems
    Trees and Spanning Trees
    Scheduling
  3. Skills Check
    Scheduling Using the List-Processing Algorithm
    Independent Tasks and Other Issues
    Bin Packing
  4. Coloring Problems and Conflict Resolution

Statistics

  1. Skills Check
    Displaying Distributions: Histograms
    Displaying Distributions: Stemplots
    Describing Center: Mean and Median Quartiles, the Five-Number Summary, and Boxplots
    Describing Spread: The Standard Deviation
    Normal Distribution and teh 68-95-99.7 Rule
  2. Skills Check
    Scatterplots
    Regression Lines
    Correlation
    Least Squares
    Interpreting Correlation and Regression
  3. Skills Check
    Sampling
    Bad Sampling Methods
    Simple Random Samples
    Cautions about Sample Surverys
    Experiments
    Thinking About Experiments
    Inference: From Samples to Populations
    Confidence Intervals
    Chapter Review
  4. Skills Check
    Probability Models and Rules
    Discrete Probability Models
    Equally Likely Outcomes
    Continuous Probability Models
    The Mean and Standard Deviation of a Probability Model
    The Central Limit Theorem

Social Choice and Decision Making

  1. Skills Check
    Other Voting Systems for Three or More Candidates
    A Better Approach? Approval Voting
  2. Skills Check
    How Weighted Voting Works
    Shapley-Shubic Power Index
    Banzhaf Power Index
    Comparing Voting Systems

Current Syllabus: Spring 2008 Syllabus+

Minimum Math Placement Test Level: 1

Additional Prerequisite Discussion: In order to succeed in this course, students must have some basic arithmetic skills. For instance, students should know how to work with fractions and percents.

Textbooks: The following are the textbooks typically used in this course. Other University of Delaware campuses may use different textbooks. Students should wait until the first day of class to ensure the appropriate textbook and other course materials are purchased.

Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications (COMAP), For All Practical Purposes: Mathematical Literacy in Today's World, 8th edition.

Calculator Requirement: A calculator is required. You will need a calculator with basic arithmetic operations, and exponential (exp) and logarithm (log) functions. Also, it must be able to determine mean, median, and standard deviation on a data set. Older graphing calculators such as the TI-81 would be sufficient. Graphing calculators such as the TI-83 or TI-83 plus are optional.

Course Format:

Fall/Spring semester: This course is offered in fall and spring semesters. In most cases, the course meets three hours per week in either a MWF or Tues./Thur. course format. Course enrollments are usually at most 30 students per class with some very small classes (less than 20).

Assessment activities generally include tests, quizzes, group and individual work and projects. The number of exams can vary but generally three common exams and a final exam are administered. Common exams may be administered during the evenings and the final exam is cumulative. An example can be found in the sample or current syllabus.

Tutorial Resources

: Academic Enrichment Center: Located at 148-150 South College Avenue, this site provides a number of different course resources for students. Please visit their web site for more information: http://ae.udel.edu/

Satellite Campus Information: Students enrolled at other campuses should contact the math faculty for the specific campus for additional information about this course.

Dover Campus:
Carla C. Morris - cmorris [at] udel [dot] edu

Georgetown Campus:
Nancy S. Hall - nhall [at] udel [dot] edu
Norman Passmore - passmore [at] udel [dot] edu

Wilmington Campus:
John Anderson - jandersn [at] udel [dot] edu
William Boyer - 06127 [at] udel [dot] edu