mathematics

Mark D. McDonnell

Mark D. McDonnell is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mark D. McDonnell rather than just read about it. In short: Mark Damian McDonnell (born 28 February 1975) is an Australian electronic engineer and mathematician, notable for his work on stochastic resonance and more specifically suprathreshold stochastic resonance. Education McDonnell graduated from the Salesian College, Adelaide.

Key takeaways

Mark D. McDonnell belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mark D. McDonnell to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mark D. McDonnell from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mark Damian McDonnell (born 28 February 1975) is an Australian electronic engineer and mathematician, notable for his work on stochastic resonance and more specifically suprathreshold stochastic resonance.

Education McDonnell graduated from the Salesian College, Adelaide. He received a BSc in Mathematical & Computer Sciences (1997), a BE (Hons) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering (1998), and a BSc (Hons) in Applied Mathematics (2001) all from The University of Adelaide, Australia. He received his PhD in Electrical & Electronic Engineering (2006), under Derek Abbott and Charles E. M. Pearce, also from the University of Adelaide, for a thesis entitled Theoretical Aspects of Stochastic Signal Quantisation and Suprathreshold Stochastic Resonance. During the course of his PhD, he was also a visiting scholar at the University of Warwick, UK, under Nigel G. Stocks.

Career McDonnell worked as a research assistant in electromagnetic propagation, ice-penetrating radar, and as a computer systems engineer, at the University of Adelaide. His main research interests are in the field of nonlinear signal processing, with applications in computational neuroscience, complex systems, and lossy compression, reliable communication, and coding of noisy signals.

Honors In 2002, McDonnell was awarded a D. R. Stranks Fellowship, and in 2003, he was awarded a Santa Fe Institute Complex Systems Fellowship, as well as the AFUW Doreen MacCarthy Bursary. In 2004 he was the recipient of an Australian Academy of Science Young Researcher's Award. He was awarded the Postgraduate Alumni University Medal for his PhD thesis. In 2007, he won a Fresh Science award, the Gertrude Rohan Prize, and an Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship that he took up at the University of South Australia.

Books by McDonnell Mark D. McDonnell, Nigel G. Stocks, Charles E. M. Pearce, and Derek Abbott, Stochastic Resonance, Cambridge University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-88262-0.

See also Stochastic resonance Suprathreshold stochastic resonance Stochastic Resonance (book)

Notes

External links McDonnell's homepage Mark D. McDonnell at the Mathematics Genealogy Project McDonnell's COSnet profile Stochastic Resonance McDonnell's FaceBook profile

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mark D. McDonnell

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mark D. McDonnell claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mark D. McDonnell before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mark D. McDonnell ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mark D. McDonnell

In research: Mark D. McDonnell appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mark D. McDonnell in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mark D. McDonnell is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1975 births, Australian electrical engineers, Australian mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mark D. McDonnell outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mark D. McDonnell in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mark D. McDonnell means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mark D. McDonnell out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mark D. McDonnell in simple terms?

Why does Mark D. McDonnell matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mark D. McDonnell?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mark D. McDonnell.