美国数模竞赛题目历届

2008 MCM ProblemsPROBLEM A: Take a BathConsider the effects on land from the melting of the north polar ice cap due to the predicted increase in global temperatures. Specifically, model the effects on the coast of Florida every ten years for the next 50 years due to the melting, with particular attention given to large metropolitan areas. Propose appropriate responses to deal with this. A careful discussion of the data used is an important part of the answer. PROBLEM B: Creating Sudoku PuzzlesDevelop an algorithm to construct Sudoku puzzles of varying difficulty. Develop metrics to define a difficulty level. The algorithm and metrics should be extensible to a varying number of difficulty levels. You should illustrate the algorithm with at least 4 difficulty levels. Your algorithm should guarantee a unique solution. Analyze the complexity of your algorithm. Your objective should be to minimize the complexity of the algorithm and meet the above requirements.2007 MCM ProblemsPROBLEM A: GerrymanderingThe United States Constitution provides that the House of Representatives shall be composed of some number (currently 435) of individuals who are elected from each state in proportion to the state’s population relative to that of the country as a whole. While this provides a way of determining how many representatives each state will have, it says nothing about how the district represented by a particular representative shall be determined geographically. This oversight has led to egregious (at least some people think so, usually not the incumbent) district shapes that look “unnatural” by some standards.Hence the following question: Suppose you were given the opportunity to draw congressional districts for a state. How would you do so as a purely “baseline” exercise to create the “simplest” shapes for all the districts in a state? The rules include only that each district in the state must contain the same population. The definition of “simple” is up to you; but you need to make a convincing argument to voters in the state that your solution is fair. As an application of yourmethod, draw geographically simple congressional districts for the state of New York.PROBLEM B: The Airplane Seating ProblemAirlines are free to seat passengers waiting to board an aircraft in any order whatsoever. It has become customary to seat passengers with special needs first, followed by first-class passengers (who sit at the front of the plane). Then coach andbusiness-class passengers are seated by groups of rows, beginning with the row at the back of the plane and proceeding forward.Apart from consideration of the passengers’ wait time, from the airline’s point of view, time is money, and boarding time is best minimized. The plane makes money for the airline only when it is in motion, and long boarding times limit the number of trips that a plane can make in a day.The development of larger planes, such as the Airbus A380 (800 passengers), accentuate the problem of minimizing boarding (and deboarding)time.Devise and compare procedures for boarding and deboarding planes with varying numbers of passengers: small (85–210), midsize (210–330), and large (450–800).Prepare an executive summary, not to exceed two single-spaced pages, in which you set out your conclusions to an audience of airline executives, gate agents, and flight crews.Note: The 2 page executive summary is to be included IN ADDITION to the reports required by the contest guidelines.An article appeared in the NY Times Nov 14, 2006 addressing procedures currently being followed and the importance to the airline of finding better solutions. The article can be seen at:/2006/11/14/business /14boarding.html2006 MCM ProblemsPROBLEM A: Positioning and Moving Sprinkler Systems for IrrigationThere are a wide variety of techniques available for irrigating a field. The technologies range from advanced drip systems to periodic flooding. One of the systems that is used on smaller ranches is the use of "hand move" irrigation systems. Lightweight aluminum pipes with sprinkler heads are put in place across fields, and they are moved by hand at periodic intervals to insure that the whole field receives an adequate amount of water. This type of irrigation system is cheaper and easier to maintain than other systems. It is also flexible, allowing for use on a wide variety of fields and crops. The disadvantage is that it requires a great deal of time and effort to move and set up the equipment at regular intervals.Given that this type of irrigation system is to be used, how can it be configured to minimize the amount of time required to irrigate a field that is 80 meters by 30 meters? For this task you are asked to find an algorithmto determine how to irrigate the rectangular field that minimizes the amount of time required by a rancher to maintain the irrigation system. One pipe set is used in the field. You should determine the number of sprinklers and the spacing between sprinklers, and you should find a schedule to move the pipes, including where to move them.A pipe set consists of a number of pipes that can be connected together in a straight line. Each pipe has a 10 cm inner diameter with rotating spray nozzles that have a 0.6 cm inner diameter. When put together the resulting pipe is 20 meters long. At the water source, the pressure is 420 Kilo- Pascal抯 and has a flow rate of 150 liters per minute. No part of the field should receive more than 0.75 cm per hour of water, and each part of the field should receive at least 2 centimeters of water every 4 days. The total amount of water should be applied as uniformly as possiblePROBLEM B: Wheel Chair Access at AirportsOne of the frustrations with air travel is the need to fly through multiple airports, and each stop generally requires each traveler to change to a different airplane. This can be especially difficult for people who are not able to easily walk to a different flight's waiting area. One of the ways that an airline can make the transition easier is to provide a wheel chair and an escort to those people who ask for help. It is generally known well in advance which passengers require help, but it is not uncommon to receive notice when a passenger first registers at the airport. In rare instances an airline may not receive notice from a passenger until just prior to landing.Airlines are under constant pressure to keep their costs down. Wheel chairs wear out and are expensive and require maintenance. There is also a cost for making the escorts available.2005 MCM ProblemsPROBLEM A: Flood PlanningLake Murray in central South Carolina is formed by a largeearthen dam, which was completed in 1930 for power production. Model the flooding downstream in the event there is a catastrophic earthquake that breaches the dam.Two particular questions:Rawls Creek is a year-round stream that flows into the Saluda River a short distance downriver from the dam. How much flooding will occur in Rawls Creek from a dam failure, and how far back will it extend?Could the flood be so massive downstream that water would reach up to the S.C. State Capitol Building, which is on a hill overlooking the Congaree River?PROBLEM B: TollboothsHeavily-traveled toll roads such as the Garden State Parkway , Interstate 95, and so forth, aremulti-lane divided highways that are interrupted at intervals by toll plazas. Because collecting tolls is usually unpopular, it is desirable to minimize motorist annoyance by limiting the amount of traffic disruption caused by the toll plazas.Commonly, a much larger number of tollbooths is provided than the number of travel lanes entering the toll plaza. Upon entering the toll plaza, the flow of vehicles fans out to the larger number of tollbooths, and when leaving the toll plaza, the flow of vehicles is required to squeeze back down to a number of travel lanes equal to the number of travel lanes before the toll plaza. Consequently, when traffic is heavy, congestion increases upon departure from the toll plaza. When traffic is very heavy, congestion also builds at the entry to the toll plaza because of the time required for each vehicle to pay the toll.Make a model to help you determine the optimal number of tollbooths to deploy in a barrier-toll plaza. Explicitly consider the scenario where there is exactly one tollbooth per incoming travel lane. Under what conditions is this more or less effective than the current practice? Note that the definition of "optimal" is up to you to determine.2005 ICM ProblemPROBLEM C: Nonrenewable ResourcesSelect a vital nonrenewable or exhaustible resource (water, mineral, energy, food, etc.) for which your team can find appropriate world-wide historic data on its endowment, discovery, annual consumption, and price.The modeling tasks are:ing the endowment, discoveries, andconsumption data, model the depletion or degradation of the commodity over a long horizon using resource modeling principles.2.Adjust the model to account for futureeconomic, demographic, political and environmental factors. Be sure to reveal the details of your model, provide visualizations of the model’s output, and explain limitations of the model.3.Create a fair, practical"harvesting/management" policy that mayinclude economic incentives or disincentives, which sustain the usage over a long period of time while avoiding severe disruption of consumption, degradation or rapid exhaustion of the resource.4.Develop a "security" policy that protects the resource against theft, misuse, disruption, and unnecessary degradation or destruction of the resource. Other issues that may need to be addressed are political and security management alternatives associated with these policies.5.Develop policies to control any short- or long-term "environmental effects" of the harvesting. Be sure to include issues such as pollutants, increased susceptibility to natural disasters, waste handling and storage, and other factors you deem appropriate.pare this resource with any otheralternatives for its purpose. What new science or technologies could be developed to mitigate the use and potential exhaustion of this resource? Develop a research policy to advance these new areas.2004 MCM ProblemsPROBLEM A: Are Fingerprints Unique?It is a commonplace belief that the thumbprint of every human who has ever lived is different. Develop and analyze a model that will allow you to assess the probability that this is true. Compare the odds (that you found in this problem) of misidentification by fingerprint evidence against the odds of misidentification by DNA evidence.PROBLEM B: A Faster QuickPass System"QuickPass" systems are increasingly appearing to reduce people's time waiting in line, whether it is at tollbooths, amusement parks, or elsewhere. Consider the design of a QuickPass system for anamusement park. The amusement park has experimented by offering QuickPasses for several popular rides as a test. The idea is that for certain popular rides you can go to a kiosk near that ride and insert your daily park entrance ticket, and out will come a slip that states that you can return to that ride at a specific time later. For example, you insert your daily park entrance ticket at 1:15 pm, and the QuickPass states that you can come back between 3:30 and 4:30 pm when you can use your slip to enter a second, and presumably much shorter, line that will get you to the ride faster. To prevent people from obtaining QuickPasses for several rides at once, the QuickPass machines allow you to have only one active QuickPass at a time.You have been hired as one of several competing consultants to improve the operation of QuickPass. Customers have been complaining about some anomalies in the test system. For example, customers observed that in one instance QuickPasses were being offered for a return time as long as 4 hours later. A short time later on the sameride, the QuickPasses were given for times only an hour or so later. In some instances, the lines for people with Quickpasses are nearly as long and slow as the regular lines.The problem then is to propose and test schemes for issuing QuickPasses in order to increase people's enjoyment of the amusement park. Part of the problem is to determine what criteria to use in evaluating alternative schemes. Include in your report a non-technical summary for amusement park executives who must choose between alternatives from competing consultants2003 MCM ProblemsPROBLEM A: The Stunt PersonAn exciting action scene in a movie is going to be filmed, and you are the stunt coordinator! A stunt person on a motorcycle will jump over an elephant and land in a pile of cardboard boxes to cushion their fall. You need to protect the stunt person, and also use relatively few cardboard boxes (lower cost, not seen by camera, etc.).Your job is to:•determine what size boxes to use•determine how many boxes to use•determine how the boxes will be stacked•determine if any modifications to the boxeswould help•generalize to different combined weights(stunt person & motorcycle) and different jump heightsNote that, in "Tomorrow Never Dies", the James Bond character on a motorcycle jumps over a helicopter. PROBLEM B: Gamma Knife Treatment Planning Stereotactic radiosurgery delivers a single high dose of ionizing radiation to a radiographicallywell-defined, small intracranial 3D brain tumor without delivering any significant fraction of the prescribed dose to the surrounding brain tissue. Three modalities are commonly used in this area; they are the gamma knife unit, heavy charged particle beams, and external high-energy photon beams from linear accelerators.The gamma knife unit delivers a single high dose of ionizing radiation emanating from 201 cobalt-60 unit sources through a heavy helmet. All 201 beams simultaneously intersect at the isocenter, resulting in a spherical (approximately) dose distribution at the effective dose levels. Irradiating the isocenter to deliver dose is termed a “shot.” Shots can be represented as different spheres. Four interchangeable outer collimator helmets with beam channel diameters of 4, 8, 14, and 18 mm are available for irradiating different size volumes. For a target volume larger than one shot, multiple shots can be used to cover the entire target. In practice, most target volumes are treated with 1 to 15 shots. The target volume is a bounded, three-dimensional digital image that usually consists of millions of points.The goal of radiosurgery is to deplete tumor cells while preserving normal structures. Since there are physical limitations and biological uncertaintiesinvolved in this therapy process, a treatment plan needs to account for all those limitations and uncertainties. In general, an optimal treatment plan is designed to meet the following requirements.1.Minimize the dose gradient across the targetvolume.2.Match specified isodose contours to the targetvolumes.3.Match specified dose-volume constraints of thetarget and critical organ.4.Minimize the integral dose to the entire volumeof normal tissues or organs.5.Constrain dose to specified normal tissuepoints below tolerance doses.6.Minimize the maximum dose to criticalvolumes.In gamma unit treatment planning, we have the following constraints:1.Prohibit shots from protruding outside thetarget.2.Prohibit shots from overlapping (to avoid hotspots).3.Cover the target volume with effective dosageas much as possible. But at least 90% of thetarget volume must be covered by shots.e as few shots as possible.Your tasks are to formulate the optimal treatment planning for a gamma knife unit as a sphere-packing problem, and propose an algorithm to find a solution. While designing your algorithm, you must keep in mind that your algorithm must be reasonably efficient. 2002 Mathematical Contest in ModelingThe ProblemsProblem AAuthors: Tjalling YpmaTitle: Wind and WatersprayAn ornamental fountain in a large open plaza surrounded by buildings squirts water high intothe air. On gusty days, the wind blows spray from the fountain onto passersby. The water-flow from the fountain is controlled by a mechanism linked to an anemometer (which measures wind speed and direction) located on top of an adjacent building. The objective of this control is to provide passersby with an acceptable balance between an attractive spectacle and a soaking: The harder the wind blows, the lower the water volume and height to which the water is squirted, hence the less spray falls outside the pool area.Your task is to devise an algorithm which uses data provided by the anemometer to adjust the water-flow from the fountain as the wind conditions change.Problem BAuthors: Bill Fox and Rich WestTitle: Airline OverbookingYou're all packed and ready to go on a trip to visit your best friend in New York City. After you check in at the ticket counter, the airline clerk announces that your flight has been overbooked. Passengers need to check in immediately to determine if they still have a seat.Historically, airlines know that only a certain percentage of passengers who have made reservations on a particular flight will actually take that flight. Consequently, most airlines overbook-that is, they take more reservations than the capacity of the aircraft. Occasionally, more passengers will want to take a flight than the capacity of the plane leading to one or more passengers being bumped and thus unable to take the flight for which they had reservations.Airlines deal with bumped passengers in various ways. Some are given nothing, some are booked on later flights on other airlines, and some are given some kind of cash or airline ticketincentive.Consider the overbooking issue in light of the current situation:Less flights by airlines from point A to point B Heightened security at and around airports Passengers' fearLoss of billions of dollars in revenue by airlines to dateBuild a mathematical model that examines the effects that different overbooking schemes have on the revenue received by an airline company in order to find an optimal overbooking strategy, i.e., the number of people by which an airline should overbook a particular flight so that the company's revenue is maximized. Insure that your model reflects the issues above, and consider alternatives for handling "bumped" passengers. Additionally, write a short memorandum to the airline's CEO summarizing your findings and analysis.2001 Mathematical Contest in ModelingThe ProblemsProblem A: Choosing a Bicycle WheelProblem B: Escaping a Hurricane's Wrath (An Ill Wind...)Problem A: Choosing a Bicycle WheelCyclists have different types of wheels they can use on their bicycles. The two basic types of wheels are those constructed using wire spokes and those constructed of a solid disk (see Figure 1) The spoked wheels are lighter, but the solid wheels are more aerodynamic. A solid wheel is never used on the front for a road race but can be used on the rear of the bike.Professional cyclists look at a racecourse and make an educated guess as to what kind of wheels should be used. The decision is based on the number and steepness of the hills, the weather, wind speed, the competition, and other considerations. The director sportif of your favorite team would like to have abetter system in place and has asked your team for information to help determine what kind of wheel should be used for a given course.Figure 1: A solid wheel is shown on the left and a spoked wheel is shown on the right.The director sportif needs specific information to help make a decision and has asked your team to accomplish the tasks listed below. For each of the tasks assume that the same spoked wheel will always be used on the front but there is a choice of wheels for the rear.•Task 1. Provide a table giving the wind speed at which the power required for a solid rear wheel is less than for a spoked rear wheel. The tableshould include the wind speeds for differentroad grades starting from zero percent to tenpercent in one percent increments. (Roadgrade is defined to be the ratio of the total rise of a hill divided by the length of the road. If the hill is viewed as a triangle, the grade is the sine of the angle at the bottom of the hill.) A riderstarts at the bottom of the hill at a speed of 45 kph, and the deceleration of the rider isproportional to the road grade. A rider will lose about 8 kph for a five percent grade over 100meters.•Task 2. Provide an example of how the tablecould be used for a specific time trial course.•Task 3. Determine if the table is an adequatemeans for deciding on the wheel configuration and offer other suggestions as to how to make this decision.Problem B: Escaping a Hurricane's Wrath (An Ill Wind...)Evacuating the coast of South Carolina ahead of the predicted landfall of Hurricane Floyd in 1999 led toa monumental traffic jam. Traffic slowed to a standstill on Interstate I-26, which is the principal route going inland from Charleston to the relatively safe haven of Columbia in the center of the state. What is normally an easy two-hour drive took up to 18 hours to complete. Many cars simply ran out of gas along the way. Fortunately, Floyd turned north and spared the state this time, but the public outcry is forcing state officials to find ways to avoid a repeat of this traffic nightmare.The principal proposal put forth to deal with this problem is the reversal of traffic on I-26, so that both sides, including the coastal-bound lanes, have traffic headed inland from Charleston to Columbia. Plans to carry this out have been prepared (and posted on the Web) by the South Carolina Emergency Preparedness Division. Traffic reversal on principal roads leading inland from Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head is also planned.A simplified map of South Carolina is shown. Charleston has approximately 500,000 people,Myrtle Beach has about 200,000 people, and another 250,000 people are spread out along the rest of the coastal strip. (More accurate data, if sought, are widely available.)The interstates have two lanes of traffic in each direction except in the metropolitan areas where they have three. Columbia, another metro area of around 500,000 people, does not have sufficient hotel space to accommodate the evacuees (including some coming from farther north by other routes), so some traffic continues outbound on I-26 towards Spartanburg; on I-77 north to Charlotte; and on I-20 east to Atlanta. In 1999, traffic leaving Columbia going northwest was moving only very slowly. Construct a model for the problem to investigate what strategies may reduce the congestion observed in 1999. Here are the questions that need to be addressed:1.Under what conditions does the plan forturning the two coastal-bound lanes of I-26into two lanes of Columbia-bound traffic,essentially turning the entire I-26 into one-way traffic, significantly improve evacuation traffic flow?2.In 1999, the simultaneous evacuation of the state's entire coastal region was ordered. Would the evacuation traffic flow improve under an alternative strategy that staggers the evacuation, perhaps county-by-county over some time period consistent with the pattern of how hurricanes affect the coast?3.Several smaller highways besides I-26 extend inland from the coast. Under what conditions would it improve evacuation flow to turn around traffic on these?4.What effect would it have on evacuation flow to establish more temporary shelters in Columbia, to reduce the traffic leaving Columbia?5.In 1999, many families leaving the coast brought along their boats, campers, and motor homes. Many drove all of their cars. Under what conditions should there be restrictions onvehicle types or numbers of vehicles brought in order to guarantee timely evacuation?6.It has been suggested that in 1999 some of thecoastal residents of Georgia and Florida, whowere fleeing the earlier predicted landfalls ofHurricane Floyd to the south, came up I-95 and compounded the traffic problems. How big animpact can they have on the evacuation trafficflow? Clearly identify what measures ofperformance are used to compare strategies.Required: Prepare a short newspaper article,not to exceed two pages, explaining the results and conclusions of your study to the public.Clearly identify what measures of performance are used to compare strategies.Required: Prepare a short newspaper article, not to exceed two pages, explaining the results and conclusions of your study to the public.。