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Ortiz, Arturo
Mexican Petroleum Institute
Mexico City, Mexico
 
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Throughout his life, Arturo Ortiz-Tapia has found that doing mathematics is not only about developing the subject itself, but also about communicating it to people who are not necessarily mathematics colleagues. There are several periods in his life where he worked as a science popularizer in general, and as mathematical expositor in particular.

Arturo first read about Martin Gardner’s magical mathematics when he was only eight years old. Ever since, he’s been convinced that explaining how you arrive at a brilliant mathematical conclusion is as important as the conclusion itself. The cognitive scaffolding matters. He has been inspired by many science popularizers: Carl Sagan, Hannah Fry, Stephen Hawking, Marcus du Sautoy, and Julieta Fierro, to name just a few. The inspiration he got from them led to his commitment to becoming a better expositor in education (especially now, as a high school teacher). At this point in his life, Arturo is embracing his desire to become a full-time teacher.

Most of Arturo’s working life has dealt with the development of systematic modeling, in particular mathematical modeling of deterministic and/or stochastic systems. As a scientific researcher at the Mexican Petroleum Institute (IMP) for over 16 years, he applied systematic modeling to several problems concerning flow and transport in porous media, that is, multi-physics problems. Thus, even though the research conceptually started with physical phenomena, most of his time was spent applying mathematics in one way or another. He often manipulated data for further analysis, including the computational implementation of the numerical models. Although primarily concerned with research, the results were aimed at given projects, and thus he could do data and modeling analysis targeted to a given purpose.

Arturo teaches, tutors, and mentors mostly, but not exclusively, in mathematics. His first assistant professor position was at the Technological Institute of Celaya teaching linear algebra. He is occasionally invited by local high schools to give a conference on a requested subject. Arturo has directed two engineering dissertations and advised more than 20 student projects. He believes teaching is more than just knowing the subject; it is also knowing the cognitive processes that students undergo, in order to pinpoint any difficulties they might have.

In 2001, Arturo received his PhD in physics from Czech Technical University in Prague. He has been a reviewer for Computing Reviews since 2007, with more than 50 reviews.

 
 
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   Sparse modeling: theory, algorithms, and applications
Rish I., Grabarnik G., CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, FL, 2014. 253 pp.  Type: Book (978-1-439828-69-4)

The authors themselves admit in several instances that the literature about sparse modeling is so vast that a single book cannot possibly encompass its entirety. However, this book is written in a way of a reasonably ample review, with...

May 22 2015  
  Probability models (2nd ed.)
Haigh J., Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated, London, UK, 2013. 279 pp.  Type: Book (978-1-447153-42-9)

“Modeling is meant to help your decision-making process, not substitute it.” This is one of many clever pedagogical observations contained in this book, which covers the application of many probability techniques an...

Nov 12 2013  
  ATP and presentation service for Mizar formalizations
Urban J., Rudnicki P., Sutcliffe G. Journal of Automated Reasoning 50(2): 229-241, 2013.  Type: Article

Mizar is a formal language used to write mathematical definitions and proofs that are as close as possible to vernacular. One can profit from Mizar by using it as: an integrated library (linked within itself) containing proofs generate...

Apr 18 2013  
   Physics and partial differential equations, volume 1
Li T., Qin T., SIAM, Philadelphia, PA, 2012. 259 pp.  Type: Book (978-1-611972-26-9)

In this unique work, tensor analysis and linear algebra are presented as fundamental tools of description for the most common fields for the application of partial differential equations (PDEs), namely, electrostatics, magnetostatics, ...

Mar 11 2013  
   Universal logic: an anthology : from Paul Hertz to Dov Gabbay
Béziau J., Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, 2012. 428 pp.  Type: Book (978-3-034601-44-3)

The quest for common ground in the expression of logical statements--regardless of the given syntax, semantics, or grammar--has taken the best efforts of notable logicians throughout the 20th century. This book gather...

Jul 9 2012  
   Proving program termination
Cook B., Podelski A., Rybalchenko A. Communications of the ACM 54(5): 88-98, 2011.  Type: Article

For decades, the best approach to attacking the decision problem (proving whether a given program will terminate in a finite amount of time) has been to use monolithic ranking functions. These are usually a combination of a conditional...

Jul 8 2011  
   Computing versus human thinking
Naur P. Communications of the ACM 50(1): 85-94, 2007.  Type: Article

Peter Naur’s radical view of some aspects of modern psychology and historical philosophy, with regard to the inner workings of the human mind, is presented in a perfectly understandable, and a daringly new, way. Whether we sh...

Feb 23 2007  
 
 
 
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