Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Four dimensions is unique in many ways. For examplen-dimensional Euclidean space has a unique smooth structure if andonly if n is not equal to four. In other words, there is only one wayto understand smooth functions on R^n if and only if n is not 4. Thereare many other way that smooth structures on 4-dimensional manifoldsbehave in surprising ways. In this talk I will discuss this and I willsketch the beautiful interplay of ideas (you got algebra, analysis andtopology, a little something for everyone!) that go into proving R^4has more that one smooth structure (actually it has uncountably manydifferent smooth structures but that that would take longer toexplain).

Oscillatory integrals arising as Fourier transforms of local and global height functions play an important role in the spectral analysis of height zeta functions. I will explain a general geometric technique which allows to evaluate such integrals. This is joint work with A. Chambert-Loir.

The immune system is a complex, multi-layered biological system, making it difficult to characterize dynamically. Perhaps, we can better understand the system’s construction by isolating critical, functional motifs. From this perspective, we will investigate two simple, yet ubiquitous motifs:state transitions and feedback regulation.Numerous immune cells exhibit transitions from inactive to activated states. We focus on the T cell response and develop a model of activation, expansion, and contraction. Our study suggests that state transitions enable T cells to detect change and respond effectively to changes in antigen levels, rather than simply the presence or absence of antigen. A key component of the system that gives rise to this change detector is initial activation of naive T cells. The activation step creates a barrier that separates the slow dynamics of naive T cells from the fast dynamics of effector T cells, allowing the T cell population to compare short-term changes in antigen levels to long-term levels. As a result, the T cell population responds to sudden shifts in antigen levels, even if the antigen were already present prior to the change. This feature provides a mechanism for T cells to react to rapidly expandingsources of antigen, such as viruses, while maintaining tolerance to constant or slowly fluctuating sources of stimulation, such as healthy tissue during growth.For our second functional motif, we investigate the potential role of negative feedback in regulating a primary T cell response. Several theories exist concerning the regulation of primary T cell responses, the most prevalent being that T cells follow developmental programs. We propose an alternative hypothesis that the response is governed by a feedback loop between conventional and adaptive regulatory T cells. By developing a mathematical model, we show that the regulated response is robust to a variety of parameters and propose that T cell responses may be governed by a simple feedback loop rather than by autonomous cellular programs.

The k-disjoint paths problem takes as input a graph G and k pairs of vertices (s_1, t_1),..., (s_k, t_k) and determines if there exist internally disjoint paths P_1,..., P_k such that the endpoints of P_i are s_i and t_i for all i=1,2,...,k. While the problem is NP-complete when k is allowed to be part of the input, Robertson and Seymour showed that there exists a polynomial time algorithm for fixed values of k. The existence of such an algorithm is the major algorithmic result of the Graph Minors series. The original proof of Robertson and Seymour relies on the whole theory of graph minors, and consequently is both quite technical and involved. Recent results have dramatically simplified the proof to the point where it is now feasible to present the proof in its entirety. This seminar series will do just that, with the level of detail aimed at a graduate student level.