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Upcoming Seminars


MONDAY, March 31, 2008


        GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH SEMINAR           PSA 103   12:00 p.m.
        Trent Lalonde, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
          "Overdispersion in Generalized Linear Models"
        ABSTRACT: Normal linear model theory is very useful for
        situations with continuous response data. When response
        variables are discrete, normal models may not be appropriate.
        In this case it is common to apply generalized linear modeling
        techniques instead. These models for categorical data often
        come with an assumed relationship between the mean and the
        variance of the response, called the mean-variance
        relationship. When the actual variation in the response exceeds
        this assumed variance as a function of the mean, the data are
        overdispersed.
          This talk will motivate overdispersion in generalized linear
        models, explain sources of overdispersion, and describe some
        techniques commonly used to correct a model with overdispersed
        response data. Limitations of current approaches will be
        discussed, as well as possible extensions of overdispersion
        methods to hierarchical models.
                Bagels and juice will be served in PSA 103 at 11:50 a.m.

        COLLOQUIUM                                   PSA 206   3:40 p.m.
        Saul Abarbanel, Tel Aviv University
          "Nonlinear PML Equations for Time Dependent Electromagnetics
           in Three Dimensions"
        ABSTRACT: In this talk we present a new set of nonlinear PML
        equations for the multi-dimensional Maxwell's equations and
        show that they are strongly well posed and temporally stable.
        They are presented in vector form and so may be directly
        written in any set of orthogonal coordinates. Another virtue of
        this set of equations is that there is no need for nonphysical
        variables in the absorbing layer. This greatly reduces the
        number of equations that one solves numerically (from 12 to 6
        in the three dimensional case).
                Refreshments will be served in PSA 206 at 3:15 p.m.

TUESDAY, April 1, 2008


        COMPUTATIONAL AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS PROSEMINAR
                                                     PSA 206   3:15 p.m.
        Saul Abarbanel, Tel Aviv University
          "Long-Time Performance of Unsplit PMLs using Explicit Second
           Order Schemes"
        ABSTRACT: A gradual long-time growth of the solution in
        perfectly matched layers (PMLs) has been previously reported in
        the literature. This undesirable phenomenon may hamper the
        performance of the layer, which is designed to truncate the
        computational domain for unsteady wave propagation problems.
        For unsplit PMLs, prior studies have attributed the growth to
        the presence of multiple eigenvalues in the amplification
        matrix of the governing system of differential equations. In
        this talk we analyze the temporal behavior of the unsplit PMLs
        for some commonly used second order explicit finite-difference
        schemes that approximate Maxwell's equations. Our conclusion is
        that in addition to having the PML as a potential source of
        long-time growth, the type of layer and the choice of the
        scheme play a major role in how rapidly this growth may
        manifest itself and whether or not it manifests itself at all.

        APPLIED ANALYSIS AND PDE READING SEMINAR     PSA 546   3:00 p.m.
          For more information, contact Svetlana Roudenko.

WEDNESDAY, April 2, 2008


        MATLAB WORKSHOP                              PSA 206   1:30 p.m.
        Brett Shoelson, The MathWorks
          "Bioinformatics with MATLAB"
        AGENDA: This free technical session will demonstrate how you
        can use MATLAB as a flexible platform for technical computing
        and application development in engineering, math, and science
        curricula and research.

          1:30 p.m.          Registration Sign-in (walk-ins welcome)
          2:00 - 4:30 p.m.   Workshop

          * Introduction to MATLAB: Visualizing gene expression
             *Algorithm development
             *Function generation
             *Process automation
             *Report generation
             *GUI building
             *Deployment
          * Introduction to the Bioinformatics Toolbox
             *Phylogenetic tree example: comparing human and
              chimpanzee DNA
             *Data Mining (accessing and searching NCBI databases)
             *Microarray data analysis
          * Clustering tools
          * Interconnectivity of tools: using neural networks to
            classify pixels in an image
          * Automation and visualization: Atomic force microscopy and
            the notion of serendipity

          Target audience: Professors, researchers, and students.
          Registration at www.mathworks.com/seminars/asuapr08
          For more information contact Tim Mathieu, Account Manager in
        Education Department at the MathWorks:
        Tim.Mathieu@mathworks.com, phone 508-647-7016

        NUMBER THEORY SEMINAR                        PSA 308   1:40 p.m.
        Daniel Corral, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
          "A Connected Topology for the Integers, II"
        ABSTRACT: We resume our exposition of the paper "A Connected
        Topology for the Integers" by Solomon W. Golomb. As in the
        previous talk, let D denote the Golomb topology generated by
        the empty set and a certain type of arithmetic progression in
        the integers. In this talk we will discuss a theorem of Golomb
        which states that the Dirchlet theorem on arithmetic
        progressions is equivalent to the density of the primes in
        (\mathbf{Z}, D). It will also be shown that the set of primes
        has empty interior in (\mathbf{Z}, D). The final result in the
        Golomb paper is that the set of positive integers n, where 6n-1
        and 6n+1 are a prime pairing, is closed in a stronger topology
        than D. If time permits we will begin a discussion of a paper
        of A. M Kirch or present the related H. Furstenberg proof of
        the infinitude of primes.

THURSDAY, April 3, 2008


MATLAB WORKSHOP ECA 225 9:00 a.m.

        AGENDA: This free technical session will demonstrate how you
        can use MATLAB as a flexible platform for technical computing
        and application development in engineering, math, and science
        curricula and research.

          9:00 - 10:30 a.m.    Parallel Computing, Distributed Engine
          10:40 - 12:00 p.m.   Image Processing (with examples from
                               Bioinformatics)

          Target audience: Professors, researchers, and students.
          Registration at www.mathworks.com/seminars/asuapr08
          For more information contact Tim Mathieu, Account Manager in
        Education Department at the MathWorks:
        Tim.Mathieu@mathworks.com, phone 508-647-7016

        COLLOQUIUM                                   PSA 206   1:40 p.m.
        V. Sverak, McKnight University Professor,
                   School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota
          "PDE Aspects of the Navier-Stokes Equations"
        ABSTRACT: The solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations can
        exhibit a very rich variety of behaviors, from simple but
        illuminating text-book type examples, to complicated phenomena
        which remain mathematically unexplained. In this talk I will
        try to give some illustrations of this.
                Refreshments will be served in PSA 206 at 1:10 p.m.

        MATLAB WORKSHOP                              ECA 221   2:00 p.m.
        George Thiers, The MathWorks
          "Advanced MATLAB"
        AGENDA: This free technical session will demonstrate how you
        can use MATLAB as a flexible platform for technical computing
        and application development in engineering, math, and science
        curricula and research.

          2:00 p.m.          Registration Sign-in (walk-ins welcome)
          2:30 - 4:30 p.m.   Workshop

          * MATLAB and memory
          * Functions of all types
          * What's new in Release 2008a

          Target audience: Professors, researchers, and students.
          Registration at www.mathworks.com/seminars/asuapr08
          For more information contact Tim Mathieu, Account Manager in
        Education Department at the MathWorks:
        Tim.Mathieu@mathworks.com, phone 508-647-7016

        NATIONAL MATHEMATICS AWARENESS MONTH
        BARBEQUE SOCIAL
                Oasis Cantina Patio (south side of PSA Bldg)   5:00 p.m.
        Tickets can be purchased in PSA 211:
          $3 - advance tickets purchased before 12:00 p.m. on
               Wednesday, April 2;
          $4 - after 12:00 pm. on April 2 or at the event.
        Menu: Choice of Beef, Pork or Chicken barbeque sandwich with
              chips and soda.

        NATIONAL MATHEMATICS AWARENESS MONTH
        PUBLIC LECTURE                               MUR 201   7:30 p.m.
        Alan Taylor, Union College
          "The Mathematics of Voting"
        ABSTRACT: We will give a quick survey illustrating the kinds of
        mathematical questions and answers that arise from real-world
        voting systems. Many of these results assert that certain
        election-theoretic desiderata are impossible to attain.
        Examples include: a "simple" description of the US federal
        system, an equally good alternative to majority rule, a fair
        method of apportionment on which to base the electoral college,
        and voting systems for three or more alternatives in which
        honesty is the best policy. Along the way we'll see that
        sometimes (i) having a vote is just like not having a vote,
        (ii) a candidate can lose to an opponent that everyone likes
        less, and (iii) gaining a vote can lead to a loss.
                Refreshments will be served after the lecture.

FRIDAY, April 4, 2008


        NATIONAL MATHEMATICS AWARENESS MONTH
        SEMINAR                                      PSA 206   1:40 p.m.
        Alan Taylor, Union College
          "A Peculiar Connection between the Axiom of Choice and
           Predicting the Future"
        ABSTRACT: In the February issue of the Monthly, Chris Hardin
        and I had an article with the above title. There we showed that
        the axiom of choice implies that there is a strategy for
        predicting the values of an arbitrary function defined on the
        reals ~V based on its previous values ~V that is almost always
        correct. Specifically, given the values of f on {x: x < t} the
        strategy produces a guess for f(t), and for all t ~V except
        those in a countable, nowhere dense set ~V it is correct. This
        suggests the more general question: To what extent is a
        function's value at a point x of a topological space determined
        by its values in an arbitrarily small (deleted) neighborhood
        of x? For continuous functions, the answer is typically
        "always" and the method of prediction of f(x) is just the
        limit operator. With C. Hardin, we've generalized this to the
        case of an arbitrary function mapping a topological space to an
        arbitrary set. We show that the best one can ever hope to do is
        to predict correctly except on a scattered set. Moreover, we
        obtain a predictor whose error set is always scattered.

        MATH BIOLOGY SEMINAR                         ECG 237   3:40 p.m.
        Jean-Marc Fellous, University of Arizona
          "Is It Time for Spikes? Precision and Reliability of the
           Neural Code"