From February 25 to March 1, the CMSA will be hosting a workshop on Growth and zero sets of eigenfunctions and of solutions to elliptic partial differential equations. Key participants of this workshop include David Jerison (MIT), Alexander Logunov (IAS), and Eugenia Malinnikova (IAS). This workshop will have morning sessions on Monday-Friday of this week from […]
Speaker: Michael Woodford (Columbia) Title: Optimally Imprecise Memory and Biased Forecasts Abstract: We propose a model of optimal decision making subject to a memory constraint. The constraint is a limit on the complexity of memory measured using Shannon’s mutual information, as in models of rational inattention; the structure of the imprecise memory is optimized (for a given decision problem and […]
Speaker: Ulrich Mueller (Princeton) Title: Inference for the Mean Abstract: Consider inference about the mean of a population with finite variance, based on an i.i.d. sample. The usual t-statistic yields correct inference in large samples, but heavy tails induce poor small sample behavior. This paper combines extreme value theory for the smallest and largest observations with a normal approximation for […]
Speaker: Richard B. Freeman (Harvard University and NBER) Title: Innovation in Cell Phones in the US and China: Who Improves Technology Faster? Abstract: Cell phones are the archetypical modern consumer innovation, spreading around the world at an incredible pace, extensively used for connecting people with the Internet and diverse apps. Consumers report spending from 2-5 hours a day […]
Due to inclement weather on Sunday, the second half of the workshop has been moved forward one day. Sunday and Monday’s talks will now take place on Monday and Tuesday. On January 18-21, 2019 the Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications will be hosting a workshop on the Geometric Analysis Approach to AI. This workshop will focus on […]
Speaker: Robert McCann (University of Toronto) Title: Displacement convexity of Boltzmann's entropy characterizes positive energy in general relativity Abstract: Einstein's theory of gravity is based on assuming that the fluxes of a energy and momentum in a physical system are proportional to a certain variant of the Ricci curvature tensor on a smooth 3+1 dimensional spacetime. The fact that […]
Just over a century ago, the biologist, mathematician and philologist D’Arcy Thompson wrote “On growth and form”. The book – a literary masterpiece – is a visionary synthesis of the geometric biology of form. It also served as a call for mathematical and physical approaches to understanding the evolution and development of shape. In the […]
Speaker: Robert Haslhofer (University of Toronto) Title: Recent progress on mean curvature flow Abstract: A family of surfaces moves by mean curvature flow if the velocity at each point is given by the mean curvature vector. Mean curvature flow is the most natural evolution in extrinsic geometry and shares many features with Hamilton’s Ricci flow from intrinsic geometry. In the […]
Speaker: Xiaoqin Wang (Johns Hopkins University) Title: Computational Principles of Auditory Cortex Abstract: Auditory cortex is located at the top of a hierarchical processing pathway in the brain that encodes acoustic information. This brain region is crucial for speech and music perception and vocal production. Auditory cortex has long been considered a difficult brain region to study and remained one of less […]
Speaker: Dusa McDuff (Columbia University) Title: The virtual fundamental class in symplectic geometry Abstract: Essential to many constructions and applications of symplectic geometry is the ability to count J-holomorphic curves. The moduli spaces of such curves have well understood compactifications, and if cut out transversally are oriented manifolds of dimension equal to the index of the problem, so […]
Speaker: Moon Duchin (Tufts) Title: Exploring the (massive) space of graph partitions Abstract: The problem of electoral redistricting can be set up as a search of the space of partitions of a graph (representing the units of a state or other jurisdiction) subject to constraints (state and federal rules about the properties of districts). I'll survey the problem and some […]
During Academic year 2018-19, the CMSA will be hosting a Program on Mathematical Biology. Just over a century ago, the biologist, mathematician and philologist D’Arcy Thompson wrote “On growth and form”. The book was a visionary synthesis of the geometric biology of form at the time. It also served as a call for mathematical and physical approaches […]