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Hayden-Howard Lecture

Dr. Rekha Thomas

Title: Lifted Representations of Convex Sets
Abstract: A common theme in many areas of mathematics is to find a simpler representation of an object indirectly by expressing it as the projection of an object in some higher-dimensional space. In 1991 Yannakakis proved a remarkable connection between a lifted representation of a polytope and the nonnegative rank of a matrix associated to the polytope. In recent years, this idea has been generalized to cone lifts of convex sets, with applications in, and tools coming from, many areas of mathematics and theoretical computer science. This talk will survey the central ideas, results, and questions in this field.

About the Hayden-Howard lecture: The Hayden-Howard lecture was inaugurated in the spring of 2001 by a generous contribution from a friend of the Department of Mathematics. The lecture series was established in honor of mathematics professors Thomas Hayden and Henry Howard. Each year, the lecture series brings a research mathematician of international stature to the University of Kentucky.
 

Previous Hayden-Howard lecturers

  • 2019-20, Rekha Thomas, University of Washington
  • 2018-19, Laura DeMarco, Northwestern University
  • 2017-18, Mike Hill, University of Califormia, Los Angeles
  • 2016-17, Carlos Castillo-Chavez, Arizona State University and Yachay Tech University, Ecuador.
  • 2015-16, Yitang Zhang, University of New Hampshire
  • 2014-15, Robert Lazarsfeld, State University of New York at Stony Brook
  • 2013-14, Jill Pipher, Brown University
  • 2012-13, Michelle Wachs, University of Miami
  • 2011-12, Doug Ravenel, University of Rochester
  • 2010-11, Luis Vega, Universidad del Pais Vasco
  • 2009-10, David Eisenbud, University of California at Berkeley
  • 2008-09, Carlos Kenig, University of Chicago
  • 2007-08, Joachim Rosenthal, University of Zurich
  • 2006-07, John Neuberger, University of North Texas
  • 2005-06, Fang-hua Lin, New York University
  • 2004-05, Gang Tian, Princeton University and MIT
  • 2003-04, Doron Zeilberger, Rutgers University
  • 2002-03, Craig Huneke, University of Kansas
  • 2001-02, Craig Evans, University of California at Berkeley
  • 2000-01, Richard Stanley, MIT
Date:
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Location:
TBA
Event Series:

Hayden Howard Lecture - Mike Hill

Algebraic Topology: There are several different notions of what it might mean for a space to be "even" in algebraic topology, all of which have useful, increasingly algebraic proerties. Mike Hll will begin by describing some classical work due to Wilson, focusing on what sorts of things happen when we have only even cells or homotopy groups, and then he will describe more recent work (all joint with Hopkins), where building on geometric intuition, we construct a version of this that works also when there is an action of a finite group. 

Date:
-
Location:
110 Whitehall Classroom Building
Event Series:

Hayden-Howard Lecture

Title: Emergent and Re-emerging diseases: The case of Ebola, Influenza and Tuberculosis

Abstract: As we[1] noted recently, It is about two years since the official confirmation of an outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in West Africa. With new cases occurring at their lowest rate for 2015 with the end of the outbreak soon after in all three countries predominantly affected. The time to consider systematic approaches strategies to mitigate the impact of future outbreaks of re-emergent diseases like Ebola or Tuberculosis or Influenza; the result of changing complex social landscapes, is overdue. The recent Ebola outbreak, like many other emerging or re-emergent diseases, illustrates the crucial role of the ecological, social, political, and economic context within which diseases emerge[2]. In this lecture, I will explore what we have learned from dealing with emergent and re-emergent diseases including Tuberculosis in the past and in the era of HIV and the what we have learned from the recent out breaks of Influenza and Ebola.



[1] C Castillo-Chavez, R Curtiss, P Daszak, SA Levin, O Patterson-Lomab, C. Perrings, G. Poste and S. Towers - Beyond Ebola: lessons to mitigate future pandemics ,The Lancet Global Health, Volume 3, Issue 7, pages e354-e355, 2015.

[2] Perspectives on the role of mobility, behavior, and time scales in the spread of diseases C Castillo-Chavez, D Bichara, BR Morin - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016.

 

Date:
-
Location:
CB 110
Event Series:

Hayden-Howard Lecture

Title:  Singularities in algebraic geometry: how many times does a polynomial vanish at a point?

Abstract:  We all learn early on how to count the number of times a given number appears as a root of a polynomial in one variable. But for polynomials in several variables, the analogous question is much more interesting. The most naive generalization leads to the multiplicity of a singular point on an algebraic curve or hypersurface, and I will review this beautiful chapter of classical algebraic geometry. In recent years a more subtle invariant, defined via considerations of integrability, has come into prominence. I will conclude by discussing how this new invariant governs many analytic, arithmetic and geometric properties of a polynomial.

 

Date:
-
Location:
White Hall Classroom Building, room 110
Event Series:
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