No Arabic abstract
We use the data of tenured and tenure-track faculty at ten public and private math departments of various tiered rankings in the United States, as a case study to demonstrate the statistical and mathematical relationships among several variables, e.g., the number of publications and citations, the rank of professorship and AMS fellow status. At first we do an exploratory data analysis of the math departments. Then various statistical tools, including regression, artificial neural network, and unsupervised learning, are applied and the results obtained from different methods are compared. We conclude that with more advanced models, it may be possible to design an automatic promotion algorithm that has the potential to be fairer, more efficient and more consistent than human approach.
We detail the rules and mathematical structure of Al-Jabar, a game invented by the authors based on intuitive concepts of color-mixing and ideas from abstract algebra. Game-play consists of manipulating colored game pieces; we discuss how these colored pieces form a group structure and how this structure, along with an operation used to combine the pieces, is used to create a game of strategy. We also consider extensions of the game rules to other group structures. Note: While this is an article for general readership originally published online by Gathering for Gardner in honor of Martin Gardners birthday (Oct. 2011), Al-Jabar has been played in university abstract algebra courses as a teaching tool, as well as by game enthusiasts, since its release. Moreover, the algebraic game structure described has sparked further work by other mathematicians and game designers. Thus, we submit this article to the ArXiV as a resource for educators as well as those interested in mathematical games.
Mathematicians have traditionally been a select group of academics that produce high-impact ideas allowing substantial results in several fields of science. Throughout the past 35 years, undergraduates enrolling in mathematics or statistics have represented a nearly constant rate of approximately 1% of bachelor degrees awarded in the United States. Even within STEM majors, mathematics or statistics only constitute about 6% of undergraduate degrees awarded nationally. However, the need for STEM professionals continues to grow and the list of needed occupational skills rests heavily in foundational concepts of mathematical modeling curricula, where the interplay of measurements, computer simulation and underlying theoretical frameworks takes center stage. It is not viable to expect a majority of these STEM undergraduates would pursue a double-major that includes mathematics. Here we present our solution, some early results of implementation, and a plan for nationwide adoption.
In its December 2019 edition, the textit{Notices of the American Mathematical Society} published an essay critical of the use of diversity statements in academic hiring. The publication of this essay prompted many responses, including three public letters circulated within the mathematical sciences community. Each letter was signed by hundreds of people and was published online, also by the American Mathematical Society. We report on a study of the signatories demographics, which we infer using a crowdsourcing approach. Letter A highlights diversity and social justice. The pool of signatories contains relatively more individuals inferred to be women and/or members of underrepresented ethnic groups. Moreover, this pool is diverse with respect to the levels of professional security and types of academic institutions represented. Letter B does not comment on diversity, but rather, asks for discussion and debate. This letter was signed by a strong majority of individuals inferred to be white men in professionally secure positions at highly research intensive universities. Letter C speaks out specifically against diversity statements, calling them a mistake, and claiming that their usage during early stages of faculty hiring diminishes mathematical achievement. Individuals who signed both Letters B and C, that is, signatories who both privilege debate and oppose diversity statements, are overwhelmingly inferred to be tenured white men at highly research intensive universities. Our empirical results are consistent with theories of power drawn from the social sciences.
The use of mathematical methods for the analysis of chemical reaction systems has a very long history, and involves many types of models: deterministic versus stochastic, continuous versus discrete, and homogeneous versus spatially distributed. Here we focus on mathematical models based on deterministic mass-action kinetics. These models are systems of coupled nonlinear differential equations on the positive orthant. We explain how mathematical properties of the solutions of mass-action systems are strongly related to key properties of the networks of chemical reactions that generate them, such as specif
Citation distributions are lognormal. We use 30 lognormally distributed synthetic series of numbers that simulate real series of citations to investigate the consistency of the h index. Using the lognormal cumulative distribution function, the equation that defines the h index can be formulated; this equation shows that h has a complex dependence on the number of papers (N). We also investigate the correlation between h and the number of papers exceeding various citation thresholds, from 5 to 500 citations. The best correlation is for the 100 threshold but numerous data points deviate from the general trend. The size-independent indicator h/N shows no correlation with the probability of publishing a paper exceeding any of the citation thresholds. In contrast with the h index, the total number of citations shows a high correlation with the number of papers exceeding the thresholds of 10 and 50 citations; the mean number of citations correlates with the probability of publishing a paper that exceeds any level of citations. Thus, in synthetic series, the number of citations and the mean number of citations are much better indicators of research performance than h and h/N. We discuss that in real citation distributions there are other difficulties.