Section NExT – Wisconsin Fall Conference 2020 Virtual in Webex Meetings Saturday, November 7, 2020 9:00 – 9:30 am: Conference Log-In, Social Hour, and (self-provided) Refreshments 9:30 – 10:00 am: Section NExT – Wisconsin Welcome Address and Introductions Wesley Hough, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater 10:00 – 10:55 am: Mastery Grading in Undergraduate Mathematics Jessica O’Shaughnessy, Shenandoah University Do you ever feel like students argue for points on a test, even though they don't fully understand the material? Or like your C students don't understand enough to be successful in a subsequent course? Mastery grading is a form of assessment that attempts to address some of these issues Mastery grading is a tool that gives students the opportunity to learn material deeply There are many flavors of mastery grading, and all forms require students to complete concepts to a very high standard On the flip side, students have multiple attempts throughout a semester to master any particular concept This encourages students to revisit material they not understand and rewards hard work and dedication from students In this presentation, we will look at implementing mastery grading in mathematics courses followed by a discussion on how to implement mastery grading in your own courses 10:55 – 11:05 am: Break 11:05 – 12:00 pm: Follow-Up Discussion to Keynote Presentation 12:00 – 1:00 pm: Break for Lunch 1:00 – 1:25 pm: Faulhaber’s Theorem and Power Sums Kyle Czarnecki, University of Wisconsin – Platteville For centuries mathematicians have studied power sums, i.e sums of the form S(m, n) = 1m + 2m + 3m + + nm for positive integers m and n In the early 1600’s, German mathematician Johann Faulhaber discovered relations between certain power sums Assuming only a basic knowledge of sequences and series, a proof of Faulhaber’s Theorem will lead us to interesting concepts like generating functions, the Bernoulli numbers/polynomials, and Appell sequences, as well as modern generalizations The talk will then conclude with a recent result from the speaker’s research involving the power sums Sχ(m, n; z) = χ(1) (1 + z)m + χ(2) (2 + z)m + + χ(n) (n + z)m for certain sequences {χ(n)} and complex z 1:30 – 1:55 pm: Dissecting the 2020 Stock Market Crash Min Shu, University of Wisconsin - Stout Beginning on 20 February 2020, the US stock markets turned the regime from a bull market to a bear market In the following five weeks, the three major U.S stock indices the S&P 500, the NASDAQ composite (NASDAQ), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) index, plunged dramatically, falling 33.9%, 30.1% and 36.7% respectively The worst decline since the Great Recession in 2008 announced that the bull market trend of the past 11 years starting from 09 March 2009 to 19 February 2020 had become history In this study, we perform a novel analysis of the 2020 Stock Market Crash by calibrating the Log Periodic Power Law Singularity (LPPLS) model The results show that the LPPLS model can readily detect the bubble behavior of the faster-than-exponential increase corrected by the accelerating logarithm-periodic oscillations in the 2020 Stock Market Crash, indicating that although the proximal origin of the 2020 stock market crashes are so diverse, the root cause of this collapse is the increasingly systemic instability of the financial market Joint work with Dr Ruiqiang Song, and Prof Wei Zhu at the State University of New York at Stony Brook Section NExT – Wisconsin Fall Conference 2020 Virtual in Webex Meetings Saturday, November 7, 2020 1:55 – 2:05 pm: Break 2:05 – 2:30 pm: Classification of Coincidence Isometries in Two and Three Dimensions Diana Thomson, Carthage College The crystalline structures in substances like pure metals, alloys, and diamond are characterized by the periodicity and symmetry of their atomic structure, which can be modeled mathematically using a three-dimensional lattice When two such lattices coincide, their common sites form a coincidence site lattice (CSL) if their intersection is a sublattice of each of the original lattices CSLs are useful in describing and classifying grain boundaries, a type of two-dimensional defect that occurs in crystalline structures We examine the conjugacy classes of structure matrices for two- and three-dimensional lattices Specifically, we determine conditions on the eigenvalues of the structure matrix under which a reflection on the lattice results in a CSL 2:35 – 3:00 pm: Undergraduate Mathematical Research and its Applications Wufeng Tian, UW-Eau Claire – Barron County In this talk, I will introduce you to some of the collaborative mathematical undergraduate research projects I have worked/mentored over the past two years These projects provide STEM students with an opportunity to apply mathematical research to practical real-word problems, such as the optimization of energy in the state of Wisconsin, or what goes into making a helpful Amazon review Participation in this research is a great way for undergraduates to prepare for industrial careers by learning and applying advanced math skills 3:00 – 3:30 pm: Member Discussion: Direction of Section NExT – Wisconsin 3:30 pm: Adjournment .. .Section NExT – Wisconsin Fall Conference 2020 Virtual in Webex Meetings Saturday, November 7, 2020 1:55 – 2:05 pm: Break 2:05 – 2:30 pm: Classification... learning and applying advanced math skills 3:00 – 3:30 pm: Member Discussion: Direction of Section NExT – Wisconsin 3:30 pm: Adjournment ... such lattices coincide, their common sites form a coincidence site lattice (CSL) if their intersection is a sublattice of each of the original lattices CSLs are useful in describing and classifying