Antonio Pino
Joined 25 March 2015
→Public application template
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[1] N.J. Higham. A New sqrtm for MATLAB. Numerical Analysis Report No. 336, Manchester Centre for Computational Mathematics, Manchester, England, January 1999. | [1] N.J. Higham. A New sqrtm for MATLAB. Numerical Analysis Report No. 336, Manchester Centre for Computational Mathematics, Manchester, England, January 1999. | ||
==Z: submitted proposal== | |||
(note: personal contact info. has been removed) | |||
'''Title''': Improving Matrix Functions in GNU Octave | |||
'''Organization''': GNU Project | |||
'''Abstract''': Matrix Functions are widely used to describe dynamical systems, this project aims at implementing those based on algorithms developed at the University of Manchester by Dr. Philip Davies and Matthew Smith, led by Prof. Nick Higham. Upon completion Gnu Octave should have a reliable working funm based on the Schur-Parlett algorithms by Higham et al., that calls to specific matrix functions if these have an instance of their own. | |||
Additional info: http://wiki.octave.org/User:Antonio_Pino | |||
'''Introduction''' | |||
I am Antonio Pino Robles, and if selected I will be working on the project for about 6-8 hours a day (8:00-16:00 UTC+0), with the exception of the first two weeks when I will be taking my final exams. Therefore, mine will be a soft start. As for IRC, I may be contacted anytime during the day at AntonioPino in the #octave channel at freenode, via a mobile connection. That work plan shall not be altered, as I don't plan to travel this summer. | |||
On the other hand, I am a fluent English speaker, hold a Cambridge CAE certificate and have taken several university courses taught entirely in the English language. Besides, I am an avid reader, with a passion for the English literature. What I mean is that I do not expect any problem communicating with the mentors or organizers, either in a written fashion or orally. | |||
'''Benefit-Deliverables''' | |||
The project's aim is to improve the existing implementations of Matrix Functions in Gnu Octave based on the algorithms developed by a team lead by Prof. Higham at the University of Manchester. At this point in time, in Gnu Octave there are the following: expm makes use of Padé approximant, logm uses a Schur-Parlett algorithm, and sqrtm using a variant of the algorithm in A New sqrtm for MATLAB[1]. On the other hand, in Octave-Forge there are funm and trigonometric and hyperbolic matrix functions. | |||
I believe this is of interest to Gnu Octave first, due to the goal of overall MATLAB compatibility and second, because more and more systems are being described by a matrix equation lately. | |||
funm shoud be ready by the mid-term. The rest will follow. The tentative time line can be read in the "Additional Info URL". | |||
'''Qualification''' | |||
Despite I consider myself an introvert person, I get most of my time when working with people, for example at study groups in university. I have been let down by harsh or ambiguous comments in the past, I still get an enormous benefit from properly filtered feedback, which I try to give when I think its necessary. | |||
On one side, I hope to learn how programming is done outside of the sand boxed problems I have done until now (at Uni) while contributing to free software. Besides, I have been following the FSF for a long time, and been a free software user for longer, so this is in fact a way of giving back. | |||
On the other, more and more dynamical systems can be approximated by a Matrix differential equation, and to have efficient Matrix Function implementations in Gnu Octave will help any free software user (including myself) approach these systems. | |||
Finally, I have been writing m-scripts for two years now, to solve specific engineering problems, a strong python background. I order to fulfill it I will have to refresh my C++ knowledge by becoming familiar with the source tree, and get used to mercurial (hg), the version control system used to manage Gnu Octave. | |||
[1] N.J. Higham. A New sqrtm for MATLAB. Numerical Analysis Report No. 336, Manchester Centre for Computational Mathematics, Manchester, England, January 1999. | |||
[[Category: Summer of Code]] | [[Category: Summer of Code]] | ||