Lecture notes on stochastic control, part I

Stochastic control of diffusion processes, optimal linear filtering and prediction, and optimization of control for Markov chain

Students Revitalize Dorm Rooms with Antiques, Rainbows

An article clipping detailing how students go out of their way to personalize their dorm rooms. It outlines the Undormit contest wherein students make their dorms as personalized as possible.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/buildings/1180/thumbnail.jp

Storytelling & Business: Rewriting the Narrative

There is a reason that we know what happens to the pumpkin carriage at midnight, a reason we know that Toms donates one pair of shoes for every shoe bought, and that when an underdog commits to early morning practices and perseveres that more often than not, they succeed. The reason we know about the carriage, the shoes, and the underdog’s success is because of storytelling. Storytelling is the connective tissue that unites people across culture, language, generations, and so many other factors. The reason why storytelling is so impactful is that it is not merely words on a page or an expertly crafted marketing ruse trying to trick a consumer into a purchase, storytelling is real, raw emotions and experiences that allow individuals to relate through a shared understanding and truly seeing one another. Throughout the modern era of education, storytelling has been condemned to the English, art, and journalism departments of high education institutions. A quick Google search of “University of Arkansas storytelling” brings up a variety of different websites, all linking back to the Fulbright College of Arts and Science, otherwise known as the overarching college for the departments of English, art, and journalism. Storytelling has all but been told what it is and where it belongs. As technological advancements have allowed for the more accurate and in-depth capturing of data, storytelling has taken on a new role primarily within the realm of business. Phrases such as “converting analytics into insights” and “visualizing your story through data” have become prevalent within the classrooms of business colleges and boardrooms of companies across the country and globally (Andy Cotgreave). Entire institutions have been built around this idea and the proof can be seen in the existence of websites such as storytellingwithdata.com The idea that storytelling can exist outside the realm of English, art, and journalism is becoming more accepted, and yet, it is only done so when storytelling is viewed as a science. And there is no doubt that storytelling with data is effective, it is a practice that is being adopted more and more by companies and taught in universities, and yet, there is an argument that something is missing. This thesis will explore this argument. Storytelling through data takes away the emotion of a story. It takes away the connectivity that comes when an individual sees part of themself in a story and relates to the message it is trying to convey. Storytelling with data finds a generally understood truth, belief, or way of life within a target demographic and boils the truth, belief, or way of life down to a point in which analysts can look to it and say “this is why consumers who are within the age range 24-30 are millennials and 34% of them have a bachelor\u27s degree, 76% spend money on new tech products, and 30% feel loyal to brands” (Netzer). While it cannot be measured by a study, there is a reason why business people, engineers, lawyers and other professional industries do not like the emotional side of stories. The reason is because it has too much of what is often referred to by the 5th grade English teacher to her students as “fluff.” Fluff can be defined as the “unnecessary details in a text that are not useful to your audience (Grech). Flowery text, or “the writer\u27s opinion or extra information that prevents the article from coming to the point,” is another name by which this text can be defined (Grech). Those professions that focus on data as a means of storytelling argue that the fluff or flowery aspects of the story have no place and that only tangible, measurable information is relevant. The problem with this thinking is that as consumers are individuals and do not buy solely based on an analysis of our lives in a data driven way, we frequently buy based on emotion; we buy because we have a personal connection to a product, or an extreme hatred for a brand and thus we buy a competitor\u27s product, or because it’s what we watched a loved one buy and now that shopping habit is engrained in us. For the future of retail, CPG, and business as a whole, to continue to be effective, analysts cannot simply boil down shopping and thinking patterns. These industries must seek to tell stories and connect with people on a personal level rather than because they check four of the five key factors within a target demographic. Stories must be told. Fluffy, flower stories that to the analyst seem excessive and unnecessary and yet to the 63% of consumers who want companies to stand for a purpose that reflects their values and beliefs, are essential (Adams and Sweeney). Storytelling is the connective tissue that unites people across culture, language, generations, and so many other factors. And it is needed in order to connect the company\u27s purpose and passions to the consumer who cares as much about the story behind the product as the product itself. In order to understand how storytelling can be implemented in what will be referred to as its traditional form, those who work within the world of business will need to get back to the basics and understand what makes up a story and how it is effective—and not through the lens of data. Business must be formed with an emphasis on storytelling. From the initial thought that will eventually be transformed into a company, an understanding of the founder’s reason for creating the company as well as the purpose behind the business must be infused at every step of the planning and execution of the business. This process ensures that the business focuses on the values, beliefs, and needs that draw consumers in through the story that the company tells and the emotional connection consumers feel with their brand

Two Simple Algorithms For Displaying Orthographic Projections of Surfaces

Work reported herein was conducted at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Support for the laboratory's artificial intelligence research is provided in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense under Office of Naval Research Contract number N00014-75C-0643Two simple algorithms are described for displaying orthographic projections of surfaces. The first, called RELIEF-PLOT, produces a three-dimensional plot of a surface z = f(x,y). The second, called SHADED-IMAGE, adds information about surface reflectivity and source illumination to produce a grey level image of a surface z = f(x,y). Both algorithms demonstrate how a systematic profile expansion can be used to do hidden surface elimination essentially for free.MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agenc

Characterising Solar Wind Fluctuations at Ion-kinetic Scales

The availability of large in-situ datasets makes the solar wind an excellent astrophysical laboratory to probe kinetic processes in a collisionless plasma. As the solar wind turbulent cascade reaches ion-kinetic scales close to the proton gyro-radius, ρ_p, and inertial length, d_p, collective effects lead to interactions between electromagnetic fluctuations and particle velocity distributions. At these scales, wave-particle interactions can lead to the dissipation of turbulent fluctuations and instability growth, which in turn, moderates the macroscopic properties of the plasma. In this thesis, I use over a decade of magnetic field and ion measurements from the Wind spacecraft to investigate the physical processes ongoing at these scales. I make the first in-flight determination of the magnetometer noise-floor, enabling the most accurate interpretation of magnetic field fluctuations at these scales with Wind to date. I then conduct three detailed statistical analyses of the spectral properties of these fluctuations. I first show that the steepening of the power spectrum and a coherent signature in magnetic helicity at ion-kinetic scales are associated with the cyclotron resonance wave-number, k_c, providing evidence for ongoing wave-particle interactions at these scales. I then use magnetic helicity to characterise the polarisation properties of the fluctuations, identifying three populations at ion-kinetic scales: quasi-parallel propagating Alfvén-ion cyclotron and fast magnetosonic-whistler waves driven by proton temperature anisotropy instabilities, as well as highly-oblique kinetic Alfvén wave-like fluctuations from the turbulent cascade. Finally, I show that the KAW-like fluctuations are associated with steeper spectra and higher proton temperatures, suggesting damping of the turbulence. The results presented in this thesis indicate that wave-particle interactions play an important role in the energy transfer between the turbulent fields and ions in the solar wind, in the absence of collisions. I also show that proton heating in the solar wind depends on the polarisation properties of the fluctuations at ion-kinetic scales and the radial direction in the solar wind, in contradiction to the ergodicity hypothesis. Further investigative work is proposed to confirm these findings and identify specific dissipation mechanisms responsible for turbulent heating