# Faculty of Mathematics

Read CATAM News for up-to-date information about the Computational Projects and changes to the Desktop Services/Managed Cluster Service (DS/MCS) network facilities.

General | Part IB | Part II | Old Perennials

General items:

Part IB Projects:

08/10/17: Introductory Project: Lecture on 17 October 2017

2/10/17:Introduction to LaTeX: Lecture and Labs on 9 October 2017

06/08/17: Modifications to Part IB Project 2.2

05/08/17: Modification to Part IB Project 1.2

02/08/17: Part IB Manual online

Part II Projects

2/10/17:Introduction to LaTeX: Lecture and Labs on 9 October 2017

12/09/17: Minor correction to Part II Project 5.3

02/08/17: Part II Manual online

Less recent, but still relevant:

27/03/08: Warning - cached pages
31/01/07: Make sure you get through to the CATAM Helpline

22/04/04: File security

## Details

#### 8 October 2017: Introductory Project: Lecture on 17 October 2017

A lecture on the Introductory Project will be given by Dr Stephen Cowley for Part IB students at 12pm on Tuesday 17 October 2017 in Mill Lane, Lecture Room 3.

#### 2 October 2017: Introduction to LaTeX: Lecture and Labs on 9 October 2017

Part IB and Part II students are invited to attend a one-hour lecture by Dr Stephen Eglen, Introduction to LaTeX. LaTeX is a document typesetting system that excels at typesetting mathematical and scientific manuscripts. This lecture is to help those students who wish to use LaTeX to typeset their CATAM submissions. (Note: it is not compulsory to learn LaTeX -- you are free to choose your own program, such as Libre Office or Microsoft Word, for your CATAM submissions.)

Lab sessions will be held after the lecture to get hands-on experience with LaTeX. The lecture and labs are aimed at those who have no prior experience of LaTeX.

The lecture will be given in MR2 on the following date:

Monday 9 October 2-3pm

Further information is available here.

#### 12th September 2017: Minor correction to Part II Project 5.3

The first coefficient in the expression for $B$ in Equation (10) of Project 5.3 should read $7/48$, in place of $7/8$.

#### 6th August 2017: Modifications to Part IB Project 2.2

A number of relatively small modifications have been made to project 2.2, including equation numbering. In particular equation (14) at the end of section 2 has been amended.

#### 5th August 2017: Modification to Part IB Project 1.2

Equation (7) in Project 1.2 in the recently-published manual has been amended online, and now reads $Y_{n+1} = Y_{n} + h \left( -16 Y_n + 15 \left({\rm e}^{-h}\right)^n\right) \quad\mbox{with}\quad Y_0 = 0\,. ~~~~~ (7)$

#### 2nd August 2017: Part IB Manual online

The Manual containing the Part IB Projects for 2017-18 is now available online. If perchance you note any misprints, we would be grateful if you could draw them to our attention.

However familiar you already are with computing, you will need to read the Introduction to the Manual before starting either on the Introductory Project 0.1 (for which a solution will be posted early in the Michaelmas Term), or on the Core Projects 1.1 and 1.2 (which are due to be submitted at the beginning of the Lent Term). Please note that you are required to submit your project reports both as hard-copy and electronically. In particular you will be asked to submit your write-ups electronically in Portable Document Format (PDF) form. Please see the Introduction to the Manual for more details.

Please note that while there are no quality marks, i.e. alphas and betas, for CATAM, the maximum contribution to the final merit mark is roughly the same (averaging over the alpha weightings) as for a 16-lecture course.

Please also make sure you familiarise yourself with the section on Unfair Means, Plagiarism and Guidelines for Collaboration in the Introduction to the Manual.

#### 2nd August 2017: Part II Manual online

The Manual containing the Part II Projects for 2017-18 is now available online. If perchance you note any misprints, we would be grateful if you could draw them to our attention.

However familiar you feel you already are with the Computational Projects course, you will need to read the Introduction to the Manual. You are required to submit your project reports both as hard-copy and electronically. In particular you will be asked to submit your write-ups electronically in Portable Document Format (PDF) form. Please see the Introduction to the Manual for more details.

As was the case last year, while there are no quality marks, i.e. alphas and betas, for CATAM, the maximum contribution to the final merit mark is the same as the maximum for a 16-lecture course.

Please also make sure you familiarise yourself with the section on Unfair Means, Plagiarism and Guidelines for Collaboration in the Introduction to the Manual.

#### 27th March 2008: Warning - cached pages

When checking the latest online version of a project before finalising your write-up, ensure that your computer has not 'cached', and is therefore displaying, the previous version that you accessed.

#### 31st January 2007: Make sure you get through to the CATAM Helpline

When emailing the Helpline:

(2) If a project is involved, put it it the subject line: e.g., Part II Project 14.5. Otherwise make it clear how the email relates to CATAM, e.g. mention MATLAB.

(3) Include a clear message in the body of the email, making clear the relevance to CATAM: e.g. I have attached the electronic versions of my Part IB Core CATAM Projects.

(4) Discuss only one project and, ideally, only one question in each email.

If for good reason you cannot achieve (1), be particularly careful about (2) and (3).

At first sight the above may seen rather pedantic and unnecessary. However it is the cost of modern communications: the University estimates that it receives over 6 million messages per day of which at least 90% are spam. Most is filtered by the University's spam filter, which will remove emails with no message for example. What gets through to the Helpline still needs filtering, which is done ad hoc, mainly by reference to the sender's address and the subject line.

#### 22nd April 2004: File security

It is important that you keep backup copies of your project files on CD, memory stick or floppy disk to guard against loss by human error (accidental overwriting or deletion), or by hardware problems on your own computer or University/College fileservers.

Do not leave copies of your project files behind on the local hard disk of Managed Cluster Services (MCS) or College computers. If someone took a copy of your work and incorporated it in one of their own programs, you might be accused of unfair collaboration by the Project Assessors.

If you lose a memory stick or floppy disk containing your programs, please report it to the CATAM helpline.

The Computing Service publish these notes on file security on the MCS.