Title: Between Yes and No: making decisions under uncertainty. Speaker: Ami Radunskaya, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Pomona College Abstract: Often we attempt to answer a question with a “yes” or a “no” by developing predictive models (“Will the small remaining population of axolotls survive outside of their native wetlands?”) or by implementing binary classifiers (“Is this […]

Title: How do mathematicians believe? Speaker: Brian P Katz (BK), Department of Mathematics and Statistics, CSU, Long Beach Abstract: Love it or hate it, many people believe that mathematics gives humans access to a kind of truth that is more absolute and universal than other disciplines. If this claim is true, we must ask: what makes the […]

Title: Human Computers in Astronomy: Women Astronomers at Mount Wilson Observatory during the Early Twentieth Century Speaker: Eun-Joo Ahn, Department of History, UC Santa Barbara Abstract: Mount Wilson Observatory was founded by astrophysicist George Ellery Hale in 1904 with funding from the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Since then, it has become one of the most prominent […]

Title: Frequentist Model Averaging in the Generalized Multinomial Logit Model Speaker: Tonia Zeng, Applied Business Sciences and Economics, University of La Verne Abstract: The generalized multinomial logit (GMNL) model accommodates scale heterogeneity to the random parameters logit (RPL) model. It has been often used to study people's preferences and predict people's decisions in many areas, […]

Title: Packing lines, minimizing energy, and applications to communications Speaker: Josiah Park, Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University Abstract: Structured geometric point sets play important roles in coding theory, mathematical biology, computational chemistry, wireless communications, compressed sensing, and 'big data' applications due to their often desirable statistical properties for measurement and transmission. Best packings of […]