Welcome to my portfolio!

Below, you can find some of my work in Python and Matlab, as well as articles and reports I have written. You can also access my CV here.

Matlab Projects

1. Recurring Digits Finder - this project is based on number theory, specifically the decimal expansions of fractions. It aimed to quickly and efficiently find their repeating digits and the period length.

2. Fox and Rabbit Problem - this project uses Matlab to solve a system of coupled PDEs. The scenario describes a rabbit running towards its burrow and a fox that is trying to catch the rabbit before it reaches safety while avoiding obstacles on the way. The motion of the fox is deeply connected with the position of the rabbit and the barrier at any given point in time. The application of Matlab here can be widely used for many real-world dynamic scenarios.

3. Big Data Analysis - this project employs some of the techniques useful in analysing big data sets. It uses a large, imaginary set containing information (date, price, variety etc.) about natural products in order to present some key facts which could be used to make ‘business decisions’. Naturally, these techniques are highly applicable in both scientific and business analysis.

Python Projects

1. Finding the Width and Mass of a Z-Boson - this script analyses data sets of decays across differing energies. It assumes the process can be described as a first-order Feynman diagram of an electron-positron pair annihilating into a Z-Boson, which then decays into a new particle-antiparticle pair. Notably, it uses tkinter package to display a GUI from which the user can explore different options and perform the analysis. Object-oriented programming is employed to simplify the construction of the main loop of the GUI. The program is quite versatile in that it allows the user to:
   • change the decay products
   • provide external data sets using finder
   • display multiple plots
   • save the data and plots to a desired location

2. Bouncy Ball - a simple script calculating the number of bounces of a ball with a certain ‘bounciness’ coefficient above a preselected minimum height. It allows for customisation of all values involved in the problem, inputting an unlimited amount of scenarios at once and plotting the height-time graph for the ball. The data for multiple scenarios is aggregated and handled using the pandas module - very commonly employed in data analysis. At the end, the user can also choose to export the results to a csv file.

3. Leitner Flashcard System - a rather short program exploring the integration of SQL into python via SQLalchemy library. It allows the user to create their flashcards and then study them using the Leitner system. The flashcards are stored in a separate database file, with all crucial information stored alongside. In practice, this means the program can be closed at any point and then the user can resume learning from that same point.

4. Markov Chains Text Generator - this was a hobby script exploring the concept of Markov chains in language. It accepts a large txt file as input and then uses the Natural Language Toolkit module to tokenize it into separate words (punctuation marks are included as parts of those words). It then constructs chains of 2 consecutive words followed by various 3rd words and the corresponding frequency of these combinations. Finally, 10 sentences are generated based on the relations ‘learned’ from these chains. In practice, only 20% of generated can be said to make sense when used with a txt file 1GB in size. However, it is a nice proof-of-concept program. To make it better, one could possibly reinforce it with a more holistic ML model which tries to find relationships on the scale of sentences rather than individual words.

Equipment Database Guide for Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna

The following report was written at the end of a short project with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna. The overarching aim of the project is to build an efficient Oracle-based equipment database, similar to one employed in the ALICE experiment. It would help facilitate research both in JINR and its international partners. The main portion of our work was to write a thorough guide to the workings of the database, which could be used by the researchers and technicians. The report summarises this process and showcases the part of the guide written in the appendix.

Laboratory Work

1. Measuring Galactic Rotation Curve - a report on an experiment using the 7m Jodrell Bank telescope to measure the Doppler shift in the wavelength of emissions from the hyperfine transition in neutral atomic Hydrogen clouds in the Milky Way. From this data, the rotational velocity could be measured for clouds at different radii from the galactic centre (with some additional restrictions on the angles at which observation is useful for this method). Hence, a rotation curve can be plotted and compared with the Keplerian model, providing further evidence for the existence of dark matter.

2. Measuring Drag Force Acting on Free-Falling Objects - a report on an experiment trying to determine the coefficient of drag for two different shapes by measuring their behaviour in free-fall at differing masses. Even with heavy limitations due to no access to proper laboratory equipment and setting, the results are still very close to what would have been expected from the shapes selected. However, there was an interesting observation that if the falling object is porous, it seems to lower its drag coefficient compared to what would have been expected.

Essay on Use of Perovskite in Solar Panels

Marek Jozef M.