In this presentation, some fundamentals of electrostatics in biology will be discussed with focus on the fact that most biological macromolecules including nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and proteins are negatively-charged. Electroneutrality […]
For centuries finding the determinant of a matrix was considered to be something that took $\Theta(n^3)$ steps. Only in 1969 did Strassen discover that there was a faster method. In this talk I'll discuss his finding, how the Master Theorem for divide-and-conquer plays into it, and how it was shown that finding determinants, inverting matrices, […]
Abstract: "We present a general Bayesian statistical model for discrete time, discrete state space stochastic processes. Applications include the modeling of recurrent and episodic disease processes, such as episodes of […]
An important question in classical representation theory is when the tensor product of two irreducible representations has another representation as a factor. In this talk, I will introduce a quantum generalization of this question and explain how we may relate this question to geometry of quotients of certain complex manifolds. This is joint work with […]
TOPIC: Graphs, matrices, and recurrences Abstract: In mathematics, we are often surprised to find that problems that look very different are actually the same problem in a different guise! In this seminar, we will build on the previous discussions about graph theory and describe how other areas of math are closely related to graphs. Specifically, […]
Abstract: Remember smoking? What’s the new public health problem? In the US, we are currently entangled within three converging and intertwined complex problems: Cancer, Obesity, Aging. There are over 16 […]
In this talk, I will try to give a fun introduction to tropical geometry and Hassett spaces, and show how tropical geometry can be used to compute the Chow rings of Hassett spaces combinatorially. This is joint work with Siddarth Kannan and Shiyue Li.
Abstract: Mathematical modeling is an effective resource for biologists since it provides ways to simplify, study and understand the complex systems common in biology and biochemistry. Many mathematical tools can […]
Quandles are algebraic structures that play nicely with knots. The multiplicative structure of finite quandles gives us a way to "color" knot diagrams, and the number of such colorings for a given knot and quandle is called the quandle coloring invariant. We strengthen this invariant by examining the relationships between the colorings, which are given […]
Linear evolution equations, such as the heat equation, are commonly studied on finite spatial domains via initial-boundary value problems. In place of the boundary conditions, we consider “multipoint conditions”, where one specifies some linear combination of the solution and its derivative evaluated at internal points of the spatial domain, and “nonlocal” specification of the integral […]
A triple of natural numbers (a,b,c) is an S-set if a+b=c. I. Schur used the S-sets to show that for n >3, there exists s(n) such that for prime p > s(n), x^p + y^p = z^p (mod p) has a nontrivial solution. A (p,q)-graph G is said to be vertex Ho-Lee-Schur graph if there exists a bijection […]
Abstract: In this talk, a conformal mapping approach to shape optimization problems on planar domains will be discussed. In particular, spectral methods based on conformal mappings are proposed to solve Steklov eigenvalues and their related shape optimization problems in two dimensions. To apply spectral methods, we first reformulate the Steklov eigenvalue problem in the complex domain […]
