SIAM Student Chapter Seminar
- When: Most Friday at 11:30am
- Where: 901 Van Vleck Hall
- Organizers: Xiao Shen
- Faculty advisers: Jean-Luc Thiffeault, Steve Wright
- To join the SIAM Chapter mailing list: email [join-siam-chapter@lists.wisc.edu].
Fall 2019
| date | speaker | title | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sept. 27, Oct. 4 | Xiao Shen (Math) | The corner growth model | |
| Oct. 18 | Bhumesh Kumar (EE) | Non-stationary Stochastic Approximation | |
| Oct. 25 | Max (Math) | Coalescent with Recombination | |
| Nov. 8 | Hongfei Chen (Math) | Brownian swimmers in a channel | |
Abstracts
Sep 27, Oct 4: Xiao Shen (Math)
The corner growth model
Imagine there is an arbitrary amount of donuts attached to the integer points of Z^2. The goal is to pick an optimal up-right path which allows you to eat as much donuts as possible along the way. We will look at some basic combinatorial observations, and how specific probability distribution would help us to study this model.
Oct 18: Bhumesh Kumar (EE)
Non-stationary Stochastic Approximation
Abstract: Robbins–Monro pioneered a general framework for stochastic approximation to find roots of a function with just noisy evaluations.With applications in optimization, signal processing and control theory there is resurged interest in time-varying aka non-stationary functions. This works addresses that premise by providing explicit, all time, non-asymptotic tracking error bounds via Alekseev's nonlinear variations of constant formula.
Reference: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07759 (To appear in Mathematics of Control, Signals and Systems)
Oct 25: Max (Math)
Coalescent with Recombination
I will talk about the continuous time coalescent with mutation and recombination, with a focus on introducing key concepts related to genetic distance and evolutionary relatedness. The talk will be informal and accessible.
Nov 15: Hongfei Chen (Math)
Brownian swimmers in a channel
Abstract: Shape matters! I will talk about how their shapes affect their mean reversal time.
Dec 10: Nicholas J. Higham
Scientific Writing
I will discuss various aspects of scientific writing, including
• the craft of writing in general,
• aspects specific to mathematical writing,
• English Usage,
• workflow, and
• revising drafts and proofreading.
Plenty of examples and links to further information will be given. I will also discuss my experiences in preparing Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences (third edition, SIAM, 2020).