Seminars and Colloquia by Series

From Gibbs free energy to the dynamical system with random perturbation

Series
SIAM Student Seminar
Time
Friday, November 13, 2009 - 13:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Yao LiSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
Gibbs free energy plays an important role in thermodynamics and has strong connection with PDE, Dynamical system. The results about Gibbsfree energy in 2-Wasserstein metric space are known recently.First I will introduce some basic things, so the background knowledge isnot required. I will begin from the classic definition of Gibbs freeenergy functional and then move to the connection between Gibbs freeenergy and the Fokker-Planck equation, random perturbation of gradientsystems. Second, I will go reversely: from a dynamical system to thegeneralized Gibbs free energy functional. I will also talk about animportant property of the Gibbs free energy functional: TheFokker-Planck equation is the gradient flux of Gibbs free energyfunctional in 2-Wasserstein metric.So it is natural to consider a question: In topological dynamical systemand lattice dynamical system, could we give the similar definition ofGibbs free energy, Fokker-Planck equation and so on? If time allowed, Iwill basicly introduce some of my results in these topics.

Extremal graph theory and related areas

Series
ACO Colloquium
Time
Thursday, November 12, 2009 - 16:30 for 2 hours
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Miklos SimonovitsAlfred Renyi Institute, Budapest, Hungary
In my talk I will give a survey on the rise and early development of Extremal Graph Theory, one of the large areas in Discrete Mathematics.I will give a description of the asymptotic solution of extremal graph problems for ordinary graphs, describe the stability method and expose the difficulties connected to hypergraph extremal problems.I will expose several unsolved problems in the field, and move on to some new results.I will also describe the connection of the field to several other areas of Discrete Mathematics, like to Ramsey Theory,Random graphs, Regularity lemma, Quasi-randomness, etc.I will also mention some applications of extremal graph theory. The lecture will be a non-technical one.***Refreshments at 4PM in Skiles 236.***

Estimation, Prediction and the Stein Phenomenon under Divergence Loss

Series
Stochastics Seminar
Time
Thursday, November 12, 2009 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Gauri DataUniversity of Georgia
We consider two problems: (1) estimate a normal mean under a general divergence loss introduced in Amari (1982) and Cressie and Read (1984) and (2) find a predictive density of a new observation drawn independently of the sampled observations from a normal distribution with the same mean but possibly with a different variance under the same loss. The general divergence loss includes as special cases both the Kullback-Leibler and Bhattacharyya-Hellinger losses. The sample mean, which is a Bayes estimator of the population mean under this loss and the improper uniform prior, is shown to be minimax in any arbitrary dimension. A counterpart of this result for predictive density is also proved in any arbitrary dimension. The admissibility of these rules holds in one dimension, and we conjecture that the result is true in two dimensions as well. However, the general Baranchik (1970) class of estimators, which includes the James-Stein estimator and the Strawderman (1971) class of estimators, dominates the sample mean in three or higher dimensions for the estimation problem. An analogous class of predictive densities is defined and any member of this class is shown to dominate the predictive density corresponding to a uniform prior in three or higher dimensions. For the prediction problem, in the special case of Kullback-Leibler loss, our results complement to a certain extent some of the recent important work of Komaki (2001) and George, Liang and Xu (2006). While our proposed approach produces a general class of predictive densities (not necessarily Bayes) dominating the predictive density under a uniform prior, George et al. (2006) produced a class of Bayes predictors achieving a similar dominance. We show also that various modifications of the James-Stein estimator continue to dominate the sample mean, and by the duality of the estimation and predictive density results which we will show, similar results continue to hold for the prediction problem as well. This is a joint research with Professor Malay Ghosh and Dr. Victor Mergel.

A topological separation condition for attractors of contraction mapping systems

Series
Analysis Seminar
Time
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Sergiy BorodachovTowson University
We consider finite systems of contractive homeomorphisms of a complete metric space, which are non-redundanton every level. In general, this condition is weaker than the strong open set condition and is not equivalent to the weak separation property. We show that the set of N-tuples of contractive homeomorphisms, which satisfy this separation condition is a G_delta set in the topology of pointwise convergence of every component mapping with an additional requirement that the supremum of contraction coefficients of mappings in the sequence be strictly less than one.We also give several sufficient conditions for this separation property. For every fixed N-tuple of dXd invertible contraction matrices from a certain class, we obtain density results for vectors of fixed points, which defineN-tuples of affine contraction mappings having this separation property. Joint work with Tim Bedford (University of Strathclyde) and Jeff Geronimo (Georgia Tech).

Derived functors and Cech cohomology

Series
Other Talks
Time
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - 13:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Farbod ShokriehGa Tech
We will show that the construction of derived functors satisfy the required universal property.I will then show that, for any ringed space, the abelian category of all sheaves of Modules has enough injectives. We achieve this by first characterizing injective abelian groups (Baer's theorem).The relation with Cech cohomology will also be studied. In particular, I will show that the first Cech and Grothendieck sheaf cohomology groups are isomorphic for any topological space (without using spectral sequences).

Topological aspects in the theory of aperiodic solids and tiling spaces

Series
Research Horizons Seminar
Time
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - 12:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 171
Speaker
Jean BellissardSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
An assembly of atoms in a solid phase will be described through the notion of Delone sets and related to tilings. The Hull and the tiling space wiill be defined. It will be shown that the tiling space and the Hull can be constructed through an inverse limit of CW-complexes built out of the tiles and of the local patches. From then various cohomologies can be defined and allow to distinguish between these atomic distributions. The question of whether these topological invariant can be seen in experiments will be addressed.

Single neurons with multiple activities

Series
Mathematical Biology Seminar
Time
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Gennady CymbalyukGeorgia State University, Neuroscience Institute and Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Bursting, tonic spiking, sub-threshold oscillations and silence are basic robust regimes of activity of a single neuron. The talk will be focused on the co-existence of regimes of activity of neurons. Such multistability enhances potential flexibility to the nervous system and has many implications for motor control and decision making. I will identify different scenarios leading to multistability in the neuronal dynamics and discuss its potential roles in the operation of the central nervous system under normal and pathological conditions.

Classical Solutions of Two Dimensional Inviscid Rotating Shallow Water System

Series
PDE Seminar
Time
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - 15:05 for 1.5 hours (actually 80 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Chunjing XieUniversity of Michigan, Ann Arbor
In this talk, we will discuss the global existence and asymptotic behavior of classical solutions for two dimensional inviscid Rotating Shallow Water system with small initial data subject to the zero-relative-vorticity constraint. One of the key steps is a reformulation of the problem into a symmetric quasilinear Klein-Gordon system, for which the global existence of classical solutions is then proved with combination of the vector field approach and the normal forms. We also probe the case of general initial data and reveal a lower bound for the lifespan that is almost inversely proportional to the size of the initial relative vorticity. This is joint work with Bin Cheng.

Seip's Interpolation Theorem in Weighted Bergman Spaces

Series
Analysis Working Seminar
Time
Monday, November 9, 2009 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Brett WickGeorgia Tech
We are going to continue explaining the proof of Seip's Interpolation Theorem for the Bergman Space. We are going to demonstrate the sufficiency of these conditions for a certain example. We then will show how to deduce the full theorem with appropriate modifications of the example.

On the Legendrian and transverse classification of cabled knot types

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, November 9, 2009 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Bulent TosunGa Tech
In 3-dimensional contact topology one of the main problem is classifying Legendrian (transverse) knots in certain knot type up to Legendrian ( transverse) isotopy. In particular we want to decide if two (one in case of transverse knots) classical invariants of this knots are complete set of invariants. If it is, then we call this knot type Legendrian (transversely) simple knot type otherwise it is called Legendrian (transversely) non-simple. In this talk, by tracing the techniques developed by Etnyre and Honda, we will present some results concerning the complete Legendrian and transverse classification of certain cabled knots in the standard tight contact 3-sphere. Moreover we will provide an infinite family of Legendrian and transversely non-simple prime knots.

Pages