Computational Methods and Data Analysis (fall 2002)


General Information

Computational Methods and Data analysis. It is allowed to work in couples on the homework assignments. Discussion of these assignments is per person. Final grade is at most one point different from the average of the homework assignments.


Program

  1. Computational Methods
    • Numerical differentiation
    • Root finding
    • Numerical integration
    • Ordinary differential equations with initial and boundary values
    • Approximation and interpolation of discrete data and functions
  2. Data analysis
    • Probability and statistics
      - interpretations, distributions, experimental design
    • Parameter estimation
      - maximum likelihood, least-squares (revisited)
    • Nonlinear methods
      - nonlinear and logistic regression, neural networks
    • Exploratory data analysis
      - dimension reduction, clustering, EM algorithms


Literature


MATLAB

Homework assignments as well as the final assignment can be made in any programming language, but use of MATLAB is highly recommended. MATLAB is a high-level scientific and engineering programming environment which allows easy visualization of data, has an extensive library of built-in functions for data manipulation, and is widely used in universities and research labs around the world.

There are many useful introductory MATLAB tutorials online. Probably the one from the University of Utah will suit your needs. This new tutorial (postscript, 1.7 Mb or zipped postscript, 280 Kb) is also highly recommended. Note also that once you start MATLAB and are within the MATLAB environment, you can simply type "doc" and a very extensive set of online documentation will come up in your Web browser.

Type "matlab -nojvm" when you start up MATLAB for shutting down the Java virtual machine, in case you like the simple command line interpreter better (as we do).


Questions

Do not ever hesitate to ask us any questions if at some point you are stuck with an assignment or need some help with the material otherwise. The following list indicates who can probably help you best, with a backup in case you cannot reach that person.


Exercise 1

Description
MATLAB files


Exercise 2

Description


Exercise 3

Description
Data file


Exercise 4

Description
Data file


Exercise 5

Description
Data file


Exercise 6

Description
Data file
M-files