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News & Events

Seminars & Workshops

 

The Department of Mathematical Sciences enjoys an active Colloquium series. There are also departmental research seminars in Analysis and Discrete Mathematics. All our events are open to students and the public, and are free to attend.

Fall 2009

Colloquium

  • Johann S. Brauchart, Vanderbilt University, Weighted Minimal Energy Problem on the Unit Sphere. Aug. 28.
    • Consider an isolated charged sphere in the presence of an external field exerted by a point charge over the North Pole. Point charges are thought to interact according to the Riesz s-potential 1 / r^s with d-2<s<d. (Here, d+1 is the dimension of the embedding space.) We present results from joint work with Peter Dragnev and Ed Saff concerning the weighted extremal measure solving this external field problem and its properties (support, representation, potential). PDF
  • N. Rao Chaganty, Old Dominion University, Analysis of Clustered and Longitudinal Binary Data. Sept. 4.
    • Clustered and longitudinal binary data occur in genetics, biomedical, and a wide range of scientific studies. These data are naturally dependent, and common measures of association for the study of dependence between the binary variables include correlations and odd ratios. In this talk I will discuss permissible ranges of these measures of association. I will present some examples to show that the generalized estimating equations method, a nonlikelihood and moment based method, ignores these ranges and gives misleading p-values and incorrect conclusions. A proper likelihood approach for the analysis of dependent binary, and in general discrete, data is based on copulas. If time permits, I will give a short introduction to copulas as well.

Pi Math Club

  • G. Petruska, IPFW Computer Science, Series and Products: Euler's Wizardry. Monday, Nov. 16, noon in KT 216.
    • The main topic of this talk will be Euler's famous summation formula (also known as the Euler-Maculaurin formula). Following Euler's path, we will deduce several interesting results, some of which go back centuries into the history of mathematics. Understanding the mathematical thinking and machinery of Euler's era, we will endeavor to apply these results to "obtain" more modern results, such as the famous Mertens' theorem.

Spring 2009

Colloquium

  • Debraj Chakrabarti, University of Notre Dame, CR Functions on Singular Hypersurfaces.
    • We consider the question: which functions on a hypersurface M in C^n ( n > = 2) arise as the boundary value of holomorphic functions? When M is smooth, the answer to the global version of this question is that the function on M is CR (Bochner-Hartogs theorem.) There are however obstructions to local extension of CR functions (non-minimality). We consider the local problem for a class of singular hypersurfaces (which includes the real analytic singular hypersurfaces) and describe some new phenomena which can occur only in the singular case.
  • David Benko, University of South Alabama, The Integrity of Graphs.
    • The integrity of a graph is a certain number which measures how difficult it is to break the graph into small components. This is a useful number to consider when designing networks. We calculate the integrity of "box-graphs" in dimension d (up to a constant factor). We also give an upper estimate on the integrity of planar graphs. Joint work with C. Ernst and D. Lanphier.

Analysis Seminar

  • Adam Coffman, CR singularities of real 4-manifolds in C3, part III.

Pi Mu Epsilon

  • John LaMaster, The fourth dimension.

Pi Math Club

  • Student Research Talks:
    • Garret Marshall, The confessions of tortured data
    • Richard Grzych, Relax, problem solved
    • Ryan Fritz and Chris Baber, How financial indicators compare with an economic indicator
  • L. Beineke, IPFW, Through the Lurking Graphs.
    • Behind many a game and puzzle there lies some graph theory. In this presentation, we will give some of the ABCs of the subject, such as Asteroid, Bridg-it, Curious Coins, and Dots-and-Boxes (and more). The talk will be accessible to students without a background in graph theory.
  • Peter Dragnev, School Districts on Mars, Fuel Depots on Jupiter, Inimical Dictators on Neptune?! Or How to Arrange Points on the Sphere.
    • Isn’t it interesting what connects the objects in the title? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all Schools were so perfectly located on Mars that no students in any School District had to walk “too much”? Or the Fuel Depots were so conveniently located that it was easy to ship fuel to all parts of Jupiter? And what about all these Dictators on Neptune, that hate each other so much, that we want them as far apart as possible?

      Now seriously, the “uniform” distribution of many points on the unit sphere is a highly non-trivial problem with applications throughout the whole spectrum of modern science. Whether one studies electrons in equilibrium from Physics, large fullerene compounds from Chemistry, orifices of pollen grain from Biology, or data encoding from Computer Science, one arrives at spherical arrangements of points that minimize some form of energy. So, tighten your seatbelts and prepare for a fascinating journey around the Galaxy of Minimal Energy Points.

  • Drew Swartz, IPFW undergraduate math major, An Investigation of the Structure Underlying Irreducible Divisors.
    • Interested in learning about a current area of mathematical research? This talk will discuss some of the work being done by undergraduates, like yourselves, at an undergraduate research program at Wabash College, funded by the National Science Foundation. Don't be deterred if you have not yet had a course in Abstract Algebra. Plenty of time will be allocated towards giving a general introduction to the topics at hand.
      A current trend in algebraic research is to utilize graph theory as a tool to analyze the algebraic properties of special sets of numbers, called "rings." In this talk we'll examine how the relatively new concept of the "irreducible divisor graph" allows us to better understand factoring within rings.

Fall 2008

Colloquium

  • Suresh M. Hegde, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India, Insights into Graph Labeling Problems and Applications.

Discrete Math Seminar

  • Matt Walsh, The paranoid watchman: a search problem in graphs.
  • Chip Vandell, Connected decycling.
  • Doug Weakley, Automorphism groups, determining sets, and distance determining sets for rook's graphs and queen's graphs.
  • Doug Weakley, Fixing sets and resolving sets for rook's graphs and toroidal queen's graphs.

Analysis Seminar

  • Yifei Pan, Unique continuation for ODEs.
  • Yifei Pan, Schwarz Lemma for holomorphic maps from a ball to a ball.

Pi Math Club

  • Adam Coffman, Packing ellipsoids.
  • David Erbach, IPFW Computer Science, Things, Symmetry, and Groups.

Spring 2008

Colloquium

  • Natalia Zorii, Institute of Mathematics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Can the 2-capacity of a space condenser be written in terms of Newton energies? A solution to a problem of F. W. Gehring.
  • Michael Bolt, Calvin College, Paint by number: a visualization of complex functions.
    • One challenge to understanding complex analysis is the difficulty one can have in forming an intuition for analytic functions. Frank Farris found a new way to visualize complex functions. The idea is to associate numbers with colors and to paint a domain with the values of the associated function. In this talk we describe different implementations of domain coloring and contrast it with the usual transformational approach. We also use domain coloring to illustrate some of the nice theorems in complex analysis.
    • paint by number

Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecture:

  • Edward B. Saff, Vanderbilt University, The Poppy-Seed Bagel Theorem: An easily digestible result on minimum energy points.

Sigma Xi brown-bag lecture series:

  • Adam Coffman, Geometry and Soap Bubbles.

Workshop

Alumni Event

Analysis Seminar

  • Adam Coffman, CR singularities of real 4-manifolds in C3, parts I, II.

Pi Math Club

  • Prof. Don Hooley, Bluffton University, Searching for Solutions in a Trans-Elliptic Haystack.
  • Student Talks: L. Hicks, R. Lucas, N. Pham, D. Swartz.
  • Prof. Michael Bolt, Calvin College, The mathematics of Escher's "Print Gallery".
    • One of Escher's more compelling works is "Print Gallery" in which a young man stands in an art gallery, viewing a print that contains the very gallery in which he is standing. At the center is a curious hole, blank except for the artist's signature. In 2000, Hendrik Lenstra discovered the mathematical structure behind "Print Gallery" and showed there is a unique solution for what belongs in the hole. In this talk, we'll see how a team of scientists filled in the hole and generated a number of images and animations that illustrate other versions of the picture. Along the way, we'll introduce all the complex analysis that is needed to generate images like Escher's. The mathematics should be understandable to anyone with a year of calculus.
    • click for larger Escher picture

Pi Mu Epsilon

  • Matt Walsh, According to their respective numbers: the politics and mathematics of apportionment.

 

 

 

Archive of Past Seminars, Colloquia, and Events (1997-2007)

 

Some other past events:

 

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