The discrete minimum principle with application to the linear regulator problem

Discrete minimum principle to derive feedback control law for linear discrete-time system

The School Counselor as the School’s “Counselor”

Dr. Oliver addresses the role of the school counselor of attending to the psychological dimensions of the school experience

The unusual pulsation spectrum of the cool ZZ Ceti star HS 0507+0434B

We present the analysis of one week of single-site high-speed CCD photometric observations of the cool ZZ Ceti star HS 0507+0434B. Ten independent frequencies are detected in the star's light variations: one singlet and three nearly-equally spaced triplets. We argue that these triplets are due to rotationally split modes of spherical degree l=1. This is the first detection of consistent multiplet structure in the amplitude spectrum of a cool ZZ Ceti star and it allows us to determine the star's rotation period: 1.70 +/- 0.11 d. We report exactly equal frequency, not period, spacings between the detected mode groups. In addition, certain pairs of modes from the four principal groups have frequency ratios which are very close to 3:4 or 4:5; while these ratios are nearly exact (within one part in 10^4), they still lie outside the computed error bars. We speculate that these relationships between different frequencies could be caused by resonances. One of the three triplets may not be constant in amplitude and/or frequency. We compare our frequency solution for the combination frequencies (of which we detected 38) to Wu's (1998, 2001) model thereof. We obtain consistent results when trying to infer the star's convective thermal time and the inclination angle of its rotational axis. Theoretical combination-frequency amplitude spectra also resemble those of the observations well, and direct theoretical predictions of the observed second-order light-curve distortions were also reasonably successful assuming the three triplets are due to l=1 modes. Attempts to reproduce the observed combination frequencies adopting all possible l=2 identifications for the triplets did not provide similarly consistent results, supporting their identification with l=1.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 12 pages, 8 figure

College and Career Readiness

Dr. Oliver and Mrs. Kleinman address College and Career preparation in the January 2015 issue of IndianaGram

A SaTScan™ Macro Accessory for Cartography (SMAC) Package Implemented with SAS® Software

Background: SaTScan is a software program written to implement the scan statistic; it can be used to find clusters in space and/or time. It must often be run multiple times per day when doing disease surveillance. Running SaTScan frequently via its graphical user interface can be cumbersome, and the output can be difficult to visualize. Results: The SaTScan Macro Accessory for Cartography (SMAC) package consists of four SAS macros and was designed as an easier way to run SaTScan multiple times and add graphical output. The package contains individual macros which allow the user to make the necessary input files for SaTScan, run SaTScan, and create graphical output all from within SAS software. The macros can also be combined to do this all in one step. Conclusion: The SMAC package can make SaTScan easier to use and can make the output more informative

A SaTScan™ macro accessory for cartography (SMAC) package implemented with SAS(® )software

BACKGROUND: SaTScan is a software program written to implement the scan statistic; it can be used to find clusters in space and/or time. It must often be run multiple times per day when doing disease surveillance. Running SaTScan frequently via its graphical user interface can be cumbersome, and the output can be difficult to visualize. RESULTS: The SaTScan Macro Accessory for Cartography (SMAC) package consists of four SAS macros and was designed as an easier way to run SaTScan multiple times and add graphical output. The package contains individual macros which allow the user to make the necessary input files for SaTScan, run SaTScan, and create graphical output all from within SAS software. The macros can also be combined to do this all in one step. CONCLUSION: The SMAC package can make SaTScan easier to use and can make the output more informative