Professor of Mathematics, Montana State University
(406) 994-5354

westy at math dot montana dot edu

EDUCATION: Ph.D., Mathematics, University of Wisconsin, 1973. M.A., Mathematics, University of Wisconsin, 1967.
B.A., Mathematics, Oberlin College, 1966.
 

PUBLICATIONS:

BOOKS:

Precalculus, sixth edition (2011) Pearson, ISBN 0-536-08358-4

Precalculus Concepts (1996) Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-261-694-7

ARTICLES:

"Double Radiate Fractions of the Tetrarchy from the Cyzicus Mint: Metallurgical Analysis and Compendium of Known Examples," to appear Numismatische Zeitschrift. (Joint with Ronald Bude and John Mansfield.)

"The geometric model for estimating the number of dies," in F. de Callataÿ and E. Lo Cascio (eds.), Quantifying monetary supplies in Graeco-Roman times, Pragmateiai 21, Bari, (2011) 1-16

“How to estimate the original number of dies and the coverage of a sample.” Numismatic Chronicle, volume 166 (2006) 359-364. The Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society.

“Teaching about inverse functions,” AMATYC Review, Spring 2005, 4-10. (Also on-line at amatyc.org)

“Statistical analysis of hoard data in ancient numismatics,” in Proceedings of the XIIth International Numismatic Congress, Madrid, 2003 (2005) 173-177.

“The box-percentile plot” (joint with Jeff Banfield) in Journal of Statistical Software, 8 (2003), http://www.jstatsoft.org/   14 pages plus software files.

“Statistics in Numismatics,” in Survey of Numismatic Research, 1995-2001, International Association of Professional Numismatists, Special Publication (2003) 921-927.

“The Assessment of Mathematical Logic: Abstract Patterns and Familiar Contexts” (joint with Anne Teppo and Kay Kirkpatrick), Psychology of Mathematics Education (Proceedings of the 27th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education), 2003, 283-290.

“A Die Study of Some Silver Coinages of Sinkiang, China” (with David Spencer Smith), The American Journal of Numismatics.

“Mathematical Contexts and the Perception of Meaning in Algebraic Symbols” (with Anne Teppo). The Future of the Teaching and Learning of Algebra, volume 2, Ed. Helen Chick, Kaye Stacey, Jill Vincent, and John Vincent, 2002

“Learning Precalculus Concepts Using Graphing Calculators and Emphasizing Symbolic Language” in Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics.  Ed. Gail Goodell, Addison Wesley Longman, Reading, MA (2002)

“Teaching Precalculus now that calculators can do many traditional problems,” in Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, Ed. Gail Goodell, Addison Wesley Longman, Reading, MA (2001) pp. 105-109.

“We know calculators can do math, but how can they teach math?,” in Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, Ed. Gail Goodell, Addison Wesley Longman, Reading, MA (2000) pp. 112-116.

"What do we need to teach about algebra now that 'Calculators can do it all'?", Proceedings of the Tenth International
Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, Ed. Gail Goodell, Addison Wesley Longman, Reading, MA (1999) pp. 137-141.

"Statistics in numismatics," Survey of Research in Numismatics, 1990-1996, International Association of Professional
Numismatists, Special Publication 13, Berlin (1997) 817-823

"Understanding mathematics using graphics calculators," Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Technology
in Collegiate Mathematics, Goodell (1998) 154-158.

"Grade assignment based on progressive improvement," (with Anne Teppo), reprinted in Emphasis on Assessment, NCTM
(1996) 45-47.

"Mathematical contexts and the perception of meaning" Psychology of Mathematics Education: Proceeding of the 17th
annual meeting, (1996) 147-151.

"Algebraic thinking, language, and word problems, 1996 NCTM Yearbook, Communication in Mathematics, (1996) 45-53
(with Anne Teppo).

"Problem solving using arithmetic and algebraic thinking," Psychology of Mathematics Education: Proceedings of the 16th
Annual Meeting. (with Anne Teppo, senior author) (1995) 24-30.

"A general-education course emphasizing mathematical language and reasoning," FOCUS - on Learning Problems in
Mathematics, 16.1 (1994) 13-35 (with Anne Teppo).

"The distribution of the numbers of coins struck by dies," American Journal of Numismatics, the publication of the American
Numismatic Society, Second Series 3-4 (1991-1992) 165-186 (Giles Carter is secondary author).

"Language concepts of mathematics," FOCUS - on Learning Problems in Mathematics, 14.4 (1992) 31-55.

"Grade assignment based on progressive improvement," Mathematics Teacher, 85.8 (November 1992) 616-618 (with Anne
Teppo). Also reprinted in Emphasis on Assessment, NCTM (1996) 45-47, and also posted on the web by The Eisenhower National Clearing House for Mathematics Education.

"Votes or competitions which determine a winner by estimating expected plurality," Journal of the American Statistical
Association, 418 vol. 87 (June 1992) 373-375.

"Rates and taxes," Mathematics Teacher 85.5 (May 1992) 376-379.

"The least common denominator," Arithmetic Teacher, in its featured "One Point of View" column (Dec. 1991) 6-7.

"The contribution of surface-silvering to silver content," Numismatic Chronicle (1991) 226-228, the journal of the Royal
Numismatic Society.

"Finding the points of intersection of polar-coordinate graphs," Mathematics Teacher.September 1991, 472-477.

"The theory of linkage," Numismatic Chronicle (1990) 205-222, the journal of the Royal Numismatic Society.

"Percentile plots and other methods for graphing coin weights," Numismatic Chronicle (1989) 135-148, the journal of the
Royal Numismatic Society.

"A stochastic death process with elimination by pairing," Journal of Applied Probability, 24 (1987) 241-245 (with Malcolm
Faddy).

"Estimating the size of a coinage: A survey and comparison of methods." Numismatic Chronicle, 146 (1986) 185-215, the
Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society.

"The efficiency of Good's nonparametric coverage estimator," The Annals of Statistics, 14 (1986) 1257-1260.

"A model for fluctuations in the fraction of a bacterial population harboring plasmids," Theoretical Population Biology, 30
(1986) 111-124 (with R. Vincent Miller and David C. Sands).

"A Simpson's rule version of the Spearman-Karber estimator," Proceedings of the Montana Academy of Sciences, 45
(1985) 78-90.

"Another look at daily lotteries," American Statistician, 39 (1985) 118-119.

"Estimation of the number of classes in a population and the coverage of a sample," Mathematical Scientist, 10 (1985) 41-50.

"Asymptotic distribution theory of statistical functionals: The compact derivative approach for robust estimators," Annals of the
Institute of Statistical Mathematics, 37 (1985) 109-129 (with R.M. Gillette, M.A. Hamilton, D.C. Taylor).

"Confidence intervals for an occupancy problem estimator used by numismatists," Mathematical Scientist, 9 (1984) 111-115.

"Sclerotium size maximizes the number of successful offspring," Theoretical Population Biology, 26 (1984) 68-76.

"Estimating the size of a coinage," Numismatic Chronicle, 144 (1984) 180-183, the journal of the Royal Numismatic Society.

"A normal limit law for a nonparametric estimator of the coverage of a random sample," Annals of Statistics, 11 (1983)
905-912.

"Confidence intervals for the coverage of low coverage samples," Annals of Statistics, 10 (1982) 190-196.

"Ancient portraits of mathematicians," Historia Mathematica, 6 (1979) 437-441.

"On survival of branching processes in random environments," Mathematical Biosciences, 43 (1979) 181-186 (with S.
Durham).

"Estimation problems in branching processes in random environments," Annals of Statistics, 7 (1979) 680-685 (with J.P.
Dion).

"Diffusion limits of critical branching processes conditioned on extinction in the near future," Journal of Applied Probability,
13 (1976) 247-254.

"The reverse Galton-Watson process," Journal of Applied Probability, 12 (1975) 574-680.

"Critical age-dependent branching process diffusions," Stochastic Processes and Their Applications, 3 (1975) 209-220.

"Critical age-dependent branching processes," Annals of Probability, 3 (1975) 49-60.
 
 

OTHER PUBLICATIONS:

Book review of “Grade Inflation: A Crisis in College Education,” by Valen E. Johnson, in The Montana Professor, 14.2, Spring 2004, 44-47.

Book review of Essentials of Statistical Methods (History and Archaeology) by T. P. Hutchinson, reviewed in Review
Numismatique, 1998.

"Provide homework answers?" letter in Mathematics Teacher, 90.3 (March 1997) 180.

"Appropriate Terminology," letter in Mathematics Teacher, 88.3 (March 1995) 184.

"On the coverage of observed varieties," Numismatic Circular (1979) 341.

"Estimation of the number of dies used in a coinage when the sample has few duplicates," Numismatic Circular (1978) 302.

"Algebra readiness for the middle grades" The Montana Mathematics Teacher (1990) 27-36 (with Lyle Andersen).

"The alloy of the 'XI' coins of Tacitus," Numismatic Chronicle (1993) (with Dick Smith and Nancy Equall).

"What is exact," letter in Mathematics Teacher, 86.8 (Nov. 1993) 699.

"More on finding points of intersections of polar coordinate graphs," letter in Mathematics Teacher, 86.3 (March 1993) 195.