Seminars and Colloquia by Series

On Cannon's conjecture

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, November 24, 2008 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Sa'ar HersonskyUniversity of Georgia
Cannon: "A f.g. negatively curved group with boundary homeomorphic to the round two sphere is Kleinian". We shall outline a combinatorial (complex analysis motivated) approach to this interesting conjecture (following Cannon, Cannon-Floyd-Parry). If time allows we will hint on another approach (Bonk-Kleiner) (as well as ours). The talk should be accessible to graduate students with solid background in: complex analysis, group theory and basic topology.

On the formation of adiabatic shear bands

Series
PDE Seminar
Time
Friday, November 21, 2008 - 16:05 for 1.5 hours (actually 80 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Athanasios TzavarasUniveristy of Maryland
We consider a system of hyperbolic-parabolic equations describing the material instability mechanism associated to the formation of shear bands at high strain-rate plastic deformations of metals. Systematic numerical runs are performed that shed light on the behavior of this system on various parameter regimes. We consider then the case of adiabatic shearing and derive a quantitative criterion for the onset of instability: Using ideas from the theory of relaxation systems we derive equations that describe the effective behavior of the system. The effective equation turns out to be a forward-backward parabolic equation regularized by fourth order term (joint work with Th. Katsaounis and Th. Baxevanis, Univ. of Crete).

Vizing's Independence Number Conjecture on Edge Chromatic Critical Graphs

Series
Combinatorics Seminar
Time
Friday, November 21, 2008 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Nick ZhaoUniversity of Central Florida
In 1968, Vizing proposed the following conjecture which claims that if G is an edge chromatic critical graph with n vertices, then the independence number of G is at most n/2. In this talk, we will talk about this conjecture and the progress towards this conjecture.

Multiple knots in a manifold with the same surgeries yielding S^3

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Friday, November 21, 2008 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Ken BakerUniversity of Miami
Lickorish observed a simple way to make two knots in S^3 that produced the same manifold by the same surgery. Many have extended this result with the most dramatic being Osoinach's method (and Teragaito's adaptation) of creating infinitely many distinct knots in S^3 with the same surgery yielding the same manifold. We will turn this line of inquiry around and examine relationships within such families of corresponding knots in the resulting surgered manifold.

Smoothed Weighted Empirical Likelihood Ratio Confidence Intervals for Quantiles

Series
Stochastics Seminar
Time
Thursday, November 20, 2008 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Jian-Jian RenDepartment of Mathematics, University of Central Florida
So far, likelihood-based interval estimate for quantiles has not been studied in literature for interval censored Case 2 data and partly interval-censored data, and in this context the use of smoothing has not been considered for any type of censored data. This article constructs smoothed weighted empirical likelihood ratio confidence intervals (WELRCI) for quantiles in a unified framework for various types of censored data, including right censored data, doubly censored data, interval censored data and partly interval-censored data. The 4th-order expansion of the weighted empirical log-likelihood ratio is derived, and the 'theoretical' coverage accuracy equation for the proposed WELRCI is established, which generally guarantees at least the 'first-order' accuracy. In particular for right censored data, we show that the coverage accuracy is at least O(n^{-1/2}), and our simulation studies show that in comparison with empirical likelihood-based methods, the smoothing used in WELRCI generally gives a shorter confidence interval with comparable coverage accuracy. For interval censored data, it is interesting to find that with an adjusted rate n^{-1/3}, the weighted empirical log-likelihood ratio has an asymptotic distribution completely different from that by the empirical likelihood approach, and the resulting WELRCI perform favorably in available comparison simulation studies.

Pebbling graphs of diameter four

Series
Graph Theory Seminar
Time
Thursday, November 20, 2008 - 12:05 for 1.5 hours (actually 80 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Carl YergerSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
Given a configuration of pebbles on the vertices of a connected graph G, a pebbling move is defined as the removal of two pebbles from some vertex, and the placement of one of these on an adjacent vertex. The pebbling number of a graph G is the smallest integer k such that given any configuration of k pebbles on G and any specified vertex v in V(G), there is a sequence of pebbling moves that sends a pebble to v. We will show that the pebbling number of a graph of diameter four on n vertices is at most 3n/2 + O(1), and this bound is best possible up to an additive constant. This proof, based on a discharging argument and a decomposition of the graph into ''irreducible branches'', generalizes work of Bukh on graphs of diameter three. Further, we prove that the pebbling number of a graph on n vertices with diameter d is at most (2^{d/2} - 1)n + O(1). This also improves a bound of Bukh.

Geometric Discrepancy and Harmonic Analysis

Series
Analysis Seminar
Time
Thursday, November 20, 2008 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Dmitriy BilykIAS & U South Carolina

Please Note: Note change in time.

The theory of geometric discrepancy studies different variations of the following question: how well can one approximate a uniform distribution by a discrete one, and what are the limitations that necessarily arise in such approximations. Historically, the methods of harmonic analysis (Fourier transform, Fourier series, wavelets, Riesz products etc) have played a pivotal role in the subject. I will give an overview of the problems, methods, and results in the field and discuss some latest developments.

Some game theoretic issues in Nash bargaining

Series
ACO Student Seminar
Time
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 13:30 for 2 hours
Location
ISyE Executive Classroom
Speaker
Lei Wang ACO Student, School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
Nash bargaining was first modeled in John Nash's seminal 1950 paper. In his paper, he used a covex program to give the Nash bargaining solution, which satifies many nature properties. Recently, V.Vazirani defined a class of Nash bargaining problem as Uniform Nash Bargaining(UNB) and also defined a subclass called Submodular Nash Bargaining (SNB). In this talk, we will consider some game theoretic issues of UNB: (1) price of bargaining; (2) fully competitiveness; (3) min-max and max-min fairness and we show that each of these properties characterizes the subclass SNB.

Flapping and Swimming Motions in Fluids

Series
Research Horizons Seminar
Time
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 12:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Silas AlbenSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
We examine some problems in the coupled motions of fluids and flexible solid bodies. We first present some basic equations in fluid dynamics and solid mechanics, and then show some recent asymptotic results and numerical simulations. No prior experience with fluid dynamics is necessary.

On Shock-Free Periodic Solutions for the Euler Equations

Series
PDE Seminar
Time
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 15:15 for 1.5 hours (actually 80 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Robin YoungUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst
We consider the existence of periodic solutions to the Euler equations of gas dynamics. Such solutions have long been thought not to exist due to shock formation, and this is confirmed by the celebrated Glimm-Lax decay theory for 2x2 systems. However, in the full 3x3 system, multiple interaction effects can combine to slow down and prevent shock formation. In this talk I shall describe the physical mechanism supporting periodicity, describe combinatorics of simple wave interactions, and develop periodic solutions to a "linearized" problem. These linearized solutions have a beautiful structure and exhibit several surprising and fascinating phenomena. I shall also discuss partial progress on the perturbation problem: this leads us to problems of small divisors and KAM theory. This is joint work with Blake Temple.

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