A Still Simpler Way of Introducing the Interior-Point Method for Linear Programming

Linear programming is now included in algorithm undergraduate and postgraduate courses for computer science majors. We give a self-contained treatment of an interior-point method which is particularly tailored to the typical mathematical background of CS students. In particular, only limited knowledge of linear algebra and calculus is assumed.Comment: Updates and replaces arXiv:1412.065

Aligning Mathematics Curriculum to Create Potential for Active Learning in Pre-K Through Eighth Grade Teacher Education

In this paper, we consider some issues surrounding the teaching of mathematics to pre-service teachers. In particular. we look at the possibilities for teaching elementary mathematics from an advanced standpoint and alignments of curriculum that have the capacity to enhance student involvement in the making of the mathematics.The particulars of the James Madison University curriculum are used to illustrate many of the points

Alignment-free phylogenetic reconstruction: Sample complexity via a branching process analysis

We present an efficient phylogenetic reconstruction algorithm allowing insertions and deletions which provably achieves a sequence-length requirement (or sample complexity) growing polynomially in the number of taxa. Our algorithm is distance-based, that is, it relies on pairwise sequence comparisons. More importantly, our approach largely bypasses the difficult problem of multiple sequence alignment.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-AAP852 the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org