Syllabus

MAE 501/MSE 501 Linear Algebra in Engineering – Fall 2019

Tuesday/Thursday 6:00pm-7:15pm EDC117

Instructor: Yulia Peet, Email: ypeet@asu.edu

Office Hours: Thursday 2-4 pm, Friday 2-3 pm
Location: ERC 379

TA: Fengrui Zhang, Email: fzhang82@asu.edu

Office Hours:
§ Monday 2-4pm ECA 219
§ Wednesday 6-8pm CDN 62
§ Thursday 10:05-11:55am PSH 433

Grader: TBA

Textbook: Gilbert Strang “Introduction to Linear Algebra”, 5th edition, Wellesley-

Cambridge Press, ISBN 9780980232776, 2017. Required.

Grade: 40%-Homework, 5%-Class Participation,

25%-Midterm Exam (one), 30%-Final Exam

Midterm exam: TBA, in class, based on theory (“pencil and paper”)

Final exam: TBA, 24-hr take-home final exam, based on theory and MATLAB

Course description: graduate-level class covering basic concepts of linear algebra and
their application in engineering. Emphasis is both on the fundamental mathematical
concepts as well as their implementation via programming in MATLAB.

Course Schedule:
• Vector Spaces and Subspaces (Chapter 3): Week 1
• Orthogonality (Chapter 4): Weeks 2-3
• Determinants (Chapter 5): Week 4
• Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors (Chapter 6): Week 5
• Singular Value Decomposition (Chapter 7): Weeks 6-7
• Linear Transformations (Chapter 8): Week 8
• Applications: Graphs and Networks (Chapter 10.1): Week 9
• Applications: Fourier Transform (Chapter 10.5): Week 10
• Applications: Linear Programming (Chapter 10.4): Week 11
• Applications: Proper Orthogonal Decomposition: Week 12
• Numerical Linear Algebra and Matrix Computations (Chapter 11): Weeks 13-14
• Review and Discussion: Week 15

Enrollment Requirements
Prerequisite: Graduate Engineering students only, credit only for MAE 501 or MSE 501.
Class Piazza

Link to enroll: piazza.com/asu/fall2019/2019falltmae501mse5017114674849 (will also

be e-mailed to you)

• Post all questions concerning course material, homework etc. on class Piazza
• Students can answer (encouraged to) answer other students questions
• Instructors will not answer any questions within the first 30 minutes of posting (to
allow students answer the questions first)
• TA or Instructor can endorse correct answers
• Facilitates communication between students, builds confidence and speeds up the
learning process
• Questions about the course material or homework via e-mail are discouraged
(prohibited) – in a sense that they will not be answered
• Personal questions such as requests for an appointment, notification of sickness or
discussion of ones’ progress in class are allowed over e-mail. However, note that
appointments outside of office hours are not guaranteed

Homework

Homework will be assigned weekly of bi-weekly. Homework should be submitted

through Gradescope. All work must be submitted on the due date and time. No late
homework will be accepted. Please note that the due date/time are hard system cut-
off times. If you have not finalized your submission on Gradescope by the exact due
date/time, the submission system will not accept your submission and you will
automatically receive a score of zero for the entire assignment. Note: since
submission is electronic, being sick (even with a valid doctor’s note) does not excuse the
students from timely homework submission. If sickness is such that the student is
hospitalized, an instructor must be contacted in advance of the homework submission
date. If sickness is persistent and strongly interferes with a student’s performance in
class, per ASU policy, the class must be dropped.

Please, get a scanner app for your iPhones/iPads etc. If you just take pictures of your
work and submit, it can result in illegible pages that might not be able to be graded due to
a poor quality of images. Homework will contain “pencil and paper” problems as well as
MATLAB problems. Each student must prepare and submit his/her own assignment.
Group submissions or submissions that are essentially identical between the students, will
be returned without grading. You are allowed to discuss the problems between each other
but not to show your own solutions to other students.

Regular homework assignments, in-class participation and exams are the only way to
demonstrate your performance in class. No make-up work or extra assignments will be
given to students who wish to improve their grade.
The lowest homework grade will not be dropped in this class.

No questions about the homework will be answered on a day it is due. Questions are also
not guaranteed to be answered if posted after 6pm on the day prior to the day the
homework is due. Instructor or TA do not have a capability of looking over the
MATLAB codes that the students write at any time before the homework is due.

If you wish to contest your homework score or ask for re-grading, all re-grading
requests must be submitted via Gradescope within one week after the homework is
graded. All such requests will be handled by a Grader, and thus he/she will be your
primary point of contact for all regarding issues for the homework.

Participation points

During most of the lectures, the worksheets will be distributed for the group problem
solving exercises. These worksheets with your work will be collected at the end of the
class (please take a picture of it if you want to have it for your records). Some of these
worksheets will be graded for participation points, but it will not be announced a-priori
which ones will be graded and which will not be graded. Out of the graded worksheets,
you are allowed to miss 30% of them. For example, if 7 will be graded and you submitted
5, you won’t lose any points.

Midterm exam policy

If a student is sick during the midterm exam, 1) instructor must be notified prior to the
exam, 2) a valid doctor’s note must be submitted within 5 days of the exam. The
respective exam will then be excluded from the student’s grade calculation - exam re-take
will not be offered.

Final exam policy

If a final exam is missed for any reason, the student will not be able to complete this
class.

Collaboration policy
Collaboration is allowed for homework assignments in a form of discussion. Students are
not allowed to solve problems together or share/copy their solutions from each other.
Absolutely no collaboration are allowed on midterm exam and a take-home final. Any
collaborations during the exams will be considered as a violation of the ASU Academic
Integrity Policy (see below). All submitted take-home final exams will be run through a
plagiarism check.

ASU Academic Integrity Policy

Academic integrity is mandatory, and any form of plagiarism will not be tolerated. Please
see ASU’s Student Academic Integrity Policy for details. Per the policy, all academic
integrity violations must be reported to the Dean of Academic & Student Affairs. The
first violation results in a punishment affecting the current class (zero for the
homework/project, reduction of a letter grade, E or XE for the class, depending on the
severity of the violation); second violation might result in an expulsion from ASU.

What is considered academic integrity violation/cheating/plagiarism in this class?

- Submitting a solution created by anyone else other than a student.

- Any form of collaboration, talking or discussing the problems during the midterm
and take-home final.
- Copying or consulting other student’s solutions or programs for the homework or
exam.
For assignments that include MATLAB:
- Submitting a plot with your program that does not correspond to your program
results (such as taken from the Internet, constructed from a manually modified
data or copied from another student).
- Use of MATLAB built-in functions when it is instructed not to do so.
- Uplifting the code (i.e. copying the code from the Internet, book or posted
examples and submitting it as your own). If a student is studying a code found in
the book, Internet or examples, he/she should do it solely for the purpose of
understanding. After all aspects of the code are understood, the student should
write his/her own code, different from the one in the book, Internet or posted
examples.

Absence Policy
Attending every lecture is mandatory, although no checks/sign-in sheets will be used
(exceptions are the worksheets that will be collected during some lectures to receive
participation points). Excused absences related to religious observances/practices are in
accord with ACD 304–04, “Accommodation for Religious Practices”. Excused absences
related to university sanctioned events/activities are in accord with ACD 304–02,
“Missed Classes Due to University-Sanctioned Activities”.

Expected Classroom Behavior Policy

The use of pagers, cell phones, laptops, and recording devices is not allowed in the
classroom during class times, unless advised for use by instructor to participate in
classroom activities.

Policy against Threatening Behavior

The policy against threatening behavior, per the Student Services Manual, SSM 104–02,
“Handling Disruptive, Threatening, or Violent Individuals on Campus” applies.

Accommodation for a Disability

Students requesting accommodation for a disability must be registered with the Disability
Resource Center (DRC) and submit appropriate documentation from the DRC.

Grading policy
Common grading policy for ASU classes is
A: 100%-90%, B: 89%-80%, C: 79%-70%, D: 69%-60%, E: below 59%