Seminars for November 16-20, 2009
TUESDAY
Probability Seminar
NO SEMINAR
Discrete Math Seminar
2:00-3:00 PM Tuesday in 351 Avery
SPEAKER: Judy Walker, TBA
TITLE: Codes on Graphs: Shannon's Challenge and Beyond
ABSTRACT: This is my Polya Lecture, which I will give several times over the next two years at section meetings of the MAA. The intended audience is general
faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Whenever information is transmitted across a channel, errors are bound to occur. It is the goal of coding
theory to find efficient ways of adding redundancy to the information so that errors can be detected and even corrected.. Coding theory began in 1948 with Shannon's
groundbreaking result that efficient, reliable transmission of information is possible. This result was existential rather than constructive, however, and the challenge over
the past half century has been to actually find the codes that Shannon proved must exist. In the past 10-15 years, it has been shown that certain graph-based codes
come close to achieving Shannon capacity. Even with these recent advances, however, it is not clear whether Shannon's challenge has truly been answered. We will
discuss the current situation as well as what the next big problems are for the field of coding theory.
Dynamic Equations on Time Scales
2:30-3:20 PM Tuesday in 345 Avery
SPEAKER: TBA
TITLE: TBA
PDE (Partial Differential Equations)
2:30-3:20 Tuesday in 112 Avery
SPEAKER: Mohammad Rammaha, UNL
TITLE: Monotone Operators in PDE
GST (Groups-Semigroups-Topology Seminar)
NO SEMINAR - See Thursday GST Seminar
WEDNESDAY
Commutative Algebra Seminar
3:30-4:20 PM Wednesday in 351 Avery
SPEAKER: Silvia Saccon, UNL
TITLE: Direct-sum behavior over one-dimensional rings of infinite Cohen-Macaulay type II
ABSTRACT: Let (R,m) be a one-dimensional Noetherian local ring whose m-adic completion is reduced. The monoid C(R)of isomorphism classes of maximal Cohen-Macaulay
modules carries information about the direct-sum behavior of modules in C(R). The key to describing the monoid C(R) is to determine the possible ranks of indecomposable
maximal Cohen-Macaulay modules over the completion. I will discuss the structure of C(R) when all the analytic branches of R have infinite Cohen-Macaulay type.
Operator Algebra Seminar
3:30-5:00 PM Wednesday in 345 Avery
SPEAKER: Allan Donsig, UNL
TITLE: C*Algebras of Ultra-graphs
GSS (Graduate Student Seminar)
5:00-6:00 PM Wednesday in 108 Avery
SPEAKER: Sara Reynolds, UNL
TITLE: TBA
THURSDAY
Algebraic Geometry Seminar
11:30-12:30 PM Thursday in 351 Avery
SPEAKER: Rob Brase, UNL
TITLE: The Solution of the Problem of Integration by Elementary Functions
ABSTRACT: We will sketch the solution of the basic problem of freshman integral calculus. Namely, given an "elementary" function, how can we algorithmically find an
elementary antiderivative for it, or else prove that none exists? While this problem has been considered since the days of Newton and Leibniz, its complete solution is
relatively recent. We will describe in particular how results of Shimura and Weil concerning torsion in divisor class groups paved the way for Risch (1969) and Trager (1984)
to give the first usable algorithms for the integration of algebraic functions, a problem which Hardy had believed to be unsolvable.
Integration in Function Space Seminar
1:00-2:20 PM Thursday in 345 Avery
SPEAKER: Ian Pierce, UNL
TITLE: TBA
Commutative Algebra Seminar
NO SEMINAR
Dynamic Equations on Time Scales
2:30-3:20 PM Thursday in 345 Avery
SPEAKER: TBA
TITLE: TBA
Math Biology Seminar
2:30-3:20 PM Thursday in 19 Avery
SPEAKER: Travis Hinkelman, School of Biological Sciences
TITLE: Area-restricted search by predators as a mechanism for indirect interactions between prey: A spatially-explicit simulation model in Netlogo
GST (Groups-Semigroups-Topology Seminar)
SPECIAL GST SEMINAR
4:00-5:30 PM Thursday in 351 Avery
SPEAKER: David Yetter, Kansas State University
TITLE: Deformations of monoidal categories and Vassilev Theory
Issues in Mathematical Education
NO SEMINAR
