User:Aly4

About Me

I am a freshman student of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. I plan to major in biomedical engineering. I'm from Florida (Tampa Bay Area) but both of my parents are from Shanghai, China. I have an older brother who is also a Duke student.

Name Pronunciation

In English, my family would pronounce my name, Andrew Yuan, as "AN-droo Yawn" (somehow my last name pronunciation changed into this when my parents came through immigration). Technically speaking, in Chinese, my last name would be pronounced "yoo-en," except as one syllable (English doesn't really have a comparable one-syllable sound). A fun fact is that my last name is similar to the unit of Chinese currency ("yuan") except it has a different Mandarin tone and is represented by a different Chinese character. I've seen suggestions for the pronunciation of Chinese currency as saying the abbreviation for United Nations (U.N.), except without the pause between the 'U' and the 'N' [1].

Interests

My favorite pastimes are playing basketball, watching movies, and playing videogames.

Grand Challenges

Can We Really Reverse-Engineer the Brain by 2030?, Kyle Munkittrick, Discover Magazine, created 24 August 2010, accessed 22 September 2010 (Reverse-Engineer the Brain)

Favorite MATLAB Demonstration

My favorite demonstration was of 3-D surface plots through Handle Graphics. This demonstration opened a window with adjustable menus that allowed the user to manipulate a plot of a 3-D surface. This was my favorite because it demonstrates the power of MATLAB as a plotting tool and visualizer for real-world applications. Most of all, it was both fun and easy to use.