Extra Credit

Due Monday, Dec 7, 2009 at 5:00 p.m.

Each of the projects is worth 10 points. You can submit a maximum of two projects (20 points).

For the first two projects, please submit your project in the form of a report (DOC or PDF format) with the following:

Each report should be from 5-10 pages long.
  1. Write a matlab program to approximate the US Census Data since 1900.
    1. Approximate it by linear, quadratic and cubic functions.
    2. Explain whether polynomial approximations are good or not. [Hint: Use 1900-1960 data to fit curve, then extrapolate to 2000]
    3. Bonus: If you had Math 308, see if you can fit a logistic curve to the US population.

  2. Based on the matlab program transform_sound.m, extend the script file to interactively change the amplitude of fourier coefficients in ranges (like a graphic equalizer does), eliminate "hiss" and "pop" by killing certain high frequency components.
    1. Interactive means prompting for user input. Variables which should be provided by user are filename, length of file, frequencies (or ranges of frequencies) to zero out, etc.

  3. Exercise 5, on page 294 of the text.