Seminars and Colloquia by Series

The Arc Complex and Open Book Decompositions

Series
Geometry Topology Student Seminar
Time
Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 13:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Meredith CaseyGeorgia Tech
This is an expository talk on the arc complex and translation distance of open book decompositions. We will discuss curve complexes, arc complex, open books, and finally the application to contact manifolds.

Mathematics and the Foundations of Public Health

Series
Research Horizons Seminar
Time
Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 12:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Howie WeissGeorgia Tech, School of Math
After some brief comments about the nature of mathematical modeling in biology and medicine, we will formulate and analyze the SIR infectious disease transmission model. The model is a system of three non-linear differential equations that does not admit a closed form solution. However, we can apply methods of dynamical systems to understand a great deal about the nature of solutions. Along the way we will use this model to develop a theoretical foundation for public health interventions, and we will observe how the model yields several fundamental insights (e.g., threshold for infection, herd immunity, etc.) that could not be obtained any other way. At the end of the talk we will compare the model predictions with data from actual outbreaks.

Long-Run Analysis of the Stochastic Replicator Dynamics in the Presence of Random Jumps

Series
Mathematical Biology Seminar
Time
Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 11:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles Bld Room 005
Speaker
Andrew VlasicIndiana University
For many evolutionary dynamics, within a population there are finitely many types that compete with each other. If we think of a type as a strategy, we may consider this dynamic from a game theoretic perspective. This evolution is frequency dependent, where the fitness of each type is given by the expected payoff for an individual in that subpopulation. Considering the frequencies of the population, the logarithmic growth is given by the difference of the respective fitness and the average fitness of the population as a whole. This dynamic is Darwinian in nature, where Nash Equilibria are fixed points, and Evolutionary Stable Strategies are asymptotically stable. Fudenberg and Harris modified this deterministic dynamic by assuming the fitness of each type are subject to population level shocks, which they model by Brownian motion. The authors characterize the two strategy case, while various other authors considered the arbitrary finite strategy case, as well as different variations of this model. Considering how ecological and social anomalies affect fitness, I expand upon the Fudenberg and Harris model by adding a compensated Poisson term. This type of stochastic differential equation is no longer continuous, which complicates the analysis of the model. We will discuss the approximation of the 2 strategy case, stability of Evolutionary Stable Strategies and extinction of dominated strategies for the arbitrary finite strategy case. Examples of applications are given. Prior knowledge of game theory is not needed for this talk.

Topological methods for instability.

Series
Dynamical Systems Working Seminar
Time
Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - 16:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 06
Speaker
Rafael de la LlaveGeorgia Tech
We will present the method of correctly aligned windows and show how it can lead to large scale motions when there are homoclinic orbits to a normally hyperbolic manifold.

Entropy solutions of the initial-boundary value problems for degenerate parabolic-hyperbolic equations

Series
PDE Seminar
Time
Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Prof. Yachu LiShanghai Jiao Tong University
We study the Dirichlet and Neumann type initial-boundary value problems for strongly degenerate parabolic-hyperbolic equations. We suggest the notions of entropy solutions for these problems and establish the uniqueness of entropy solutions. The existence of entropy solutions is also discussed(joint work with Yuxi Hu and Qin Wang).

A parametrization method for invariant manifolds of periodic orbits, with applications to the restricted three body problem.

Series
CDSNS Colloquium
Time
Monday, January 28, 2013 - 16:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Maciej CapinskiGeorgia Tech and AGH Univ. Krakow
We present a method for the detection of stable and unstable fibers of invariant manifolds of periodic orbits. We show how to propagate the fibers to prove transversal intersections of invariant manifolds. The method can be applied using interval arithmetic to produce rigorous, computer assisted estimates for the manifolds. We apply the method to prove transversal intersections of stable and unstable manifolds of Lyapunov orbits in the restricted three body problem.

Symplectic structures on cotangent bundles of open 4-manifolds

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, January 28, 2013 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Adam KnappColumbia University
Given any smooth manifold, there is a canonical symplectic structure on its cotangent bundle. A long standing idea of Arnol'd suggests that the symplectic topology of the cotangent bundle should contain a great deal of information about the smooth topology of its base. As a contrast, I show that when X is an open 4-manifold, this symplectic structure on T^*X does not depend on the choice of smooth structure on X. I will also discuss the particular cases of smooth structures on R^4 and once-punctured compact 4-manifolds.

An algebraic proof of the Szemeredi-Trotter Theorem

Series
Combinatorics Seminar
Time
Friday, January 25, 2013 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Prof. Ernie CrootGeorgia Tech
This talk will be on an algebraic proof of theSzemeredi-Trotter theorem, as given by Kaplan, Matousek and Sharir.The lecture assumes no prior knowledge of advanced algebra.

Coordinate Gradient Descent Method and Incremental Gradient Method for Nonsmooth Optimization

Series
Applied and Computational Mathematics Seminar
Time
Friday, January 25, 2013 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Sangwoon YunSung Kyun Kwan Univ. (Korea)
In this talk, we introduce coordinate gradient descent methods for nonsmooth separable minimization whose objective function is the sum of a smooth function and a convex separable function and for linearly constrained smooth minimization. We also introduce incremental gradient methods for nonsmooth minimization whose objective function is the sum of smooth functions and a convex function.

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