On May 6, the results of the Mathematical/Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (MCM/ICM) were announced. The team from Tianjin University composed of Xu Yida, Zhang Hangrui, and Miao Yuheng won the highest award (top 0.15%) of the Outstanding Winner Award of the competition.
Under the guidance of Professor Mao Zhaofang, the team of these three undergraduates from the College of Management and Economics stood out from the fierce competition of 27,205 teams from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Harvard University, Princeton University, MIT, and other world-class universities.
The team is composed of students major in logistics engineering, finance and information management and information system, which reflects the outstanding advantage of the interdisciplines of management and economics. During the process, the topic selection in the early stage is most difficult. Due to the time difference between China and the United States, the team members had a vigorous discussion just after the issue was released in the early morning. After painstakingly screening, they finally selected Problem C with financial professional background. After a lot of literature combing and data comparison, the team finally chose matching transaction as the trading strategy of gold and Bitcoin.Through rigorous mathematical derivation, theoretical analysis and numerical simulation, the team members had a clear division of tasks and close cooperation. Although the team members participated for the first time, they completed the programming work and thesis writing in an orderly manner in their daily tasks, and completed the final submission version of the thesis in the process of continuous improvement.
“We have gained a lot from this competition.” Team members said. The first is to “learn from each other's strengths to make up for their weaknesses”. In team work, different disciplines can complement each other to go for a better solution. Second, it is "good planning". In the whole process of competition, the progress should be reasonably planned. The last is “timely response”. The team cooperates to solve the problems fed back by members in time, so as to avoid the waste of time when the work hits a plateau.
MCM/ICM was launched in 1985 and it is regarded as the Olympic Game of mathematical modeling attracting worldwide contestants from renowned universities every year. It is sponsored bythe Consortium for Mathematics and Its Application.The content of the competition involves many fields such as economy, management, ecology, medicine, among others.
By Zhu Jingxuan
Editor: Sun Xiaofang
