## Seminars and Colloquia by Series

### The 15th International Conference on Random Structures and Algorithms

Series
Other Talks
Time
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - 08:00 for 8 hours (full day)
Location
Emory University
Speaker
Conference on Random Structures and AlgorithmsEmory University
The 15th International Conference on Random Structures and Algorithms (RS&A) 2011 will be held at Emory University, May 24-28 (Tuesday-Saturday) 2011 and is co-organized by Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology and Adam Mickiewicz University. The conference, organized biennially since 1983, brings together probabilists, discrete mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists working in probabilistic methods, random structures and randomized algorithms. The program will consist of one-hour plenary addresses by the invited speakers and parallel sessions of 25-minute contributed talks. It will begin on Tuesday morning and end on Saturday afternoon. The list of plenary speakers includes: Béla Bollobás [University of Cambridge and University of Memphis]; Jennifer Chayes [Microsoft Research New England, Cambridge]; Fan Chung [University of California, San Diego]; Jacob Fox [Massachusetts Institute of Technology]; David Gamarnik [Massachusetts Institute of Technology]; Jeff Kahn [Rutgers University]; Subhash Khot [Courant Institute]; Eric Vigoda [Georgia Institute of Technology]; Nick Wormald [University of Waterloo].

### SHARP MIXING TIME BOUNDS FOR SAMPLING RANDOM SURFACES

Series
Other Talks
Time
Monday, May 23, 2011 - 11:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
KLAUS 1116W
Speaker
Fabio MartinelliUniversity of Rome 3, Rome, Italy
We analyze the mixing time of a natural local Markov Chain (Gibbs sampler) for twocommonly studied models of random surfaces: (i) discrete monotone surfaces in Z3 with almostplanar" boundary conditions and (ii) the one-dimensional discrete Solid-on-Solid (SOS) model.In both cases we prove the first almost optimal bounds O(L^2 polylog(L)) where L is the natural size of the system. Our proof is inspired by the so-called mean curvature" heuristic: on a large scale, the dynamics should approximate a deterministic motion in which each point of the surface moves according to a drift proportional to the local inverse mean curvature radius. Key technical ingredients are monotonicity, coupling and an argument due to D.Wilson in the framework of lozenge tiling Markov Chains together with Kenyon's results on the free Gaussian field approximation of monotone surfaces. The novelty of our approach with respect to previous results consists in proving that, with high probability, the dynamics is dominated by a deterministic evolution which, apart from polylog(L) corrections, follows the mean curvature prescription. Our method works equally well for both models despite the fact that their equilibrium maximal deviations from the average height profile occur on very different scales (log(L) for monotone surfaces and L^{1/2} for the SOS model).This is work in collaboration with PIETRO CAPUTO and FABIO LUCIO TONINELLI

### Concentration of measure and optimal transport

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, May 20, 2011 - 15:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Nathael GozlanUniversity of Paris, Marne La Vallee
The aim of this talk is to present recent results obtained in collaboration with C. L\'eonard, C. Roberto and P.M Samson. In the first part, I will give a necessary and sufficient condition for Talagrand's inequality on the real line. In the second part, I will explain the links between Talagrand's inequality and the dimension-free Gaussian concentration phenomenon. This will lead us to a new proof of Otto-Villani Theorem. Finally, in the third part, we will show that Talagrand's inequality is equivalent to a variant of the log-Sobolev inequality, called the inf-convolution log-Sobolev inequality. This theorem will enable us to prove a general perturbation result for Talagrand's inequality.

### Graduate Student Probability Conference 2011

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, April 29, 2011 - 09:00 for 8 hours (full day)
Location
Klaus 1116
Speaker
Graduate Students Probability ConferenceSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech

Please Note: Other organizers include: Ruoting Gong, Huy Huynh, Jinyong Ma, Ruodu Wang, and Linwei Xin.

Georgia Tech School of Mathematics will host the 5th Annual Graduate Student Probability Conference (GSPC) from April 29 - May 1, 2011. The conference is open to all graduate students and post-doctoral fellows interested in probability. We will host two keynote speakers: Professor Nathalie Eisenbaum (Université Pierre et Marie Curie) and Professor Philip Protter (Columbia University). The conference will begin at 9:00 AM Friday, April 29 and end at noon on Sunday May 1.

### Atlanta Lecture Series in Combinatorics and Graph Theory III

Series
Other Talks
Time
Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 13:00 for 4 hours (half day)
Location
Klaus 1456
Speaker
Atlanta Lecture SeriesSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia State University will host a series of 9 mini-conferences from November, 2010 - April 2013. The conferences will stress a variety of areas and feature one prominent researcher giving 2 fifty minute lectures and 4 outstanding southern researchers each giving one fifty minute lecture. There will also be several 30 minute lecturers by young researchers or graduate students. The featured speaker is Maria Chudnovsky, Columbia University. The lectures begin at 1:00 PM Saturday, April 16 and end at noon on Sunday, April 17.

### FoSoM Panel Discussion

Series
Other Talks
Time
Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 16:00 for 3 hours
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Math AlumniSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech

Please Note: Refreshments will be served at 3:30.

The Friends of the School of Mathematics present a panel discussion on "Non-Academic Careers: Opportunities and Challenges for Students" A distinguished panel of alumni of the School will present their views on opportunities and challenges for students as they prepare for non-academic careers. The panelists will also answer questions from the audience. Graduate students and undergraduate majors in Mathematics are especially encouraged to attend.

### Club Math - From Flapping Birds to Space Telescopes - The Mathematics of Origami

Series
Other Talks
Time
Monday, April 11, 2011 - 17:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Student Success Center, Clary Theater
Speaker
Robert LangAlamo, California

Please Note: Robert J. Lang is recognized as one of the foremost origami artists in the world as well as a pioneer in computational origami and the development of formal design algorithms for folding. With a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Caltech, he has, during the course of work at NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Spectra Diode Laboratories, and JDS Uniphase, authored or co-authored over 80 papers and 45 patents in lasers and optoelectronics as well as authoring, co-authoring, or editing 9 books and a CD-ROM on origami. He is a full-time artist and consultant on origami and its applications to engineering problems but moonlights in physics: from 2007-2010 as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.

The last decade of this past century has been witness to a revolution in the development and application of mathematical techniques to origami, the centuries-old Japanese art of paper-folding. The techniques used in mathematical origami design range from the abstruse to the highly approachable. In this talk, I will describe how geometric concepts led to the solution of a broad class of origami folding problems – specifically, the problem of efficiently folding a shape with an arbitrary number and arrangement of flaps, and along the way, enabled origami designs of mind-blowing complexity and realism, some of which you’ll see, too. As often happens in mathematics, theory originally developed for its own sake has led to some surprising practical applications. The algorithms and theorems of origami design have shed light on long-standing mathematical questions and have solved practical engineering problems. I will discuss examples of how origami has enabled safer airbags, Brobdingnagian space telescopes, and more. From 3:30pm-4:30pm, Informal Folding Session will take place in Skiles 236

### Robert J. Lang - Origami Informal Folding Session

Series
Other Talks
Time
Monday, April 11, 2011 - 15:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 236
Speaker
Robert LangAlamo, California
Robert Lang is recognized as one of the foremost origami artists in the world as well as a pioneer in computational origami and the development of formal design algorithms for folding. Join him for an informal folding session before his presentation.

### Southeast Geometry Seminar

Series
Other Talks
Time
Sunday, April 10, 2011 - 09:00 for 8 hours (full day)
Location
Emory University
Speaker
Southeast Geometry SeminarEmory University
The Southeast Geometry Seminar is a series of semiannual one-day events focusing on geometric analysis. These events are hosted in rotation by the following institutions: The University of Alabama at Birmingham;  The Georgia Institute of Technology;  Emory University;  The University of Tennessee Knoxville.  The following five speakers will give presentations on topics that include geometric analysis, and related fields, such as partial differential equations, general relativity, and geometric topology. Borin Rubin (Louisiana State Univ);  Joseph Fu (Univ of Georgia);  Paul Yang (Princeton U);  Robert Gulliver (Univ of Minnesota);  Ken Stephenson (U of Tennessee).

### Research in Mathematics Educational Technology - Current Trends and Future Demands

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, April 8, 2011 - 10:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
CEISMC, 760 Spring St.
Speaker
Robert Ronau and Christopher RakesUniversity of Louisville and Institue for Education Sciences
This systematic review of mathematics educational technology literature identified 1356 manuscripts addressing the integration of educational technology into mathematics instruction. The manuscripts were analyzed using three frameworks (research design, teacher knowledge, and TPACK) and four supplementary lenses (Data sources, outcomes, NCTM Principles, and NCTM Standards) to produce a database to support future research syntheses and meta-analyses. Preliminary analyses of student and teacher outcomes (i.e., knowledge, cognition, affect, and performance) suggest that graphing calculator and dynamic geometry technologies have been abundantly studied, but the strength of the evidence measures (i.e., validity and reliability) may be lacking. More specifically, research on mathematics educational technology appears at first glance to be ubiquitous, the usefulness of this research to practitioners and researchers is limited by lack of attention to research design and validity, reliability, and threats to validity (Rakes et al., 2011). Additionally, much of the research appears to be unorganized, with topics such as graphing calculators studied often, while other topics such as virtual manipulatives understudied (Ronau et al., 2010).