Resources

The following is an ever-growing list of resources/programming packages with which you might want to consider taking the time to familiarize yourself (or select members of your team). We want to emphasize that it is not necessary to use any of these resources to win the MCM, and these certainly aren't the only packages you can use.

Please email Ephrat if you know of any other resources that should be listed here!

LaTex:

LaTex is a free text formatting language that caters to scientific/mathematical paper writing. It is relatively easy to learn and formats your paper nicely. There are many flavors of LaTex editors available online; if you want one, we suggest or PCTeX, but the easiest thing to do is probably just to try the "latex" or "tex" command on any UNIX machine from the CS department.

Some tutorials you might want to check out:

• http://www.tug.org.in/tutorials.html

• http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/info/beginlatex/html/intro.html#intro - this one covers information that the first one did not cover as well.

Here is a sample LaTex file: exampleTex.tex , and its corresponding pdf: exampleTexPDF.pdf .

Lindo/Lingo:

Lindo is a linear programming package that solves (large) linear programs; in other words, given a linear max/minimization objective function subject to a set of linear constraints, this solver will find the optimal solution as well give you sensitivity analysis data on the decision variables. This package is also free and extremely easy to use.

• Download free trial version from: http://www.lindo.com/

• Check out Linear Programming FAQ, an extensive guide to linear optimization.

Decision Analysis by TreeAge (DATA):

DATA is a decision analysis package that easily solves complex decision problems under uncertainty. Decision analysis is the study of systematic approaches to decision-making problems; it requires at least a basic understanding of probability. It is not as likely that you will need to use this, but knowledge of general decision-making strategies and problem formulation is beneficial.

Download: DATA student version

• Ungzip and untar the file, winzip should be able to do this.

• Double-click on setup.exe

If you would like to learn more about formulating and solving such problems, feel free to contact Ephrat, or check out the following:

• Probability review (pdf)

• Decision Tree Primer

Coming up:

Information on Python, an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language and relevant libraries that lend themselves to fast and easy simulations and statistical analysis. For now, check out the links below:

• http://www.scipy.org

• http://simpy.sourceforge.net

• http://wwww.pfdubois.com/numpy/