Iowa State University Mathematics Colloquium
Fall 2006

 

 Schedule of Fall 2006 Talks

Time: 4:10-5p.m.  204 Carver Hall

Date

Speaker

Title (Click on the title of a talk for the abstract if available)

Sep. 5

Umesh Vaidya, ECE department

Iowa State University

Stability analysis of non-equilibrium behavior in nonlinear dynamical systems

Sep. 12

Alexander Kostochka, UIUC

Equitable coloring of sparse graphs

Sep. 19

Torben Stender

University of Augsburg in Germany

Generalization of imaginary parts of eigenvalues: chain rotation numbers.

Sep. 26

Krishna Athreya

Iowa State University

Growth rates for random graphs via Markov chains

Oct. 10

Muthu Krishnamurthy, University of Iowa

Harmonic Analysis and Number Theory: The principle of functoriality

Oct. 17

Bei Hu

Notre Dame

Stability analysis for tumor models

Oct. 19

(1:10p.m. at 204 Carver)

Jayadev Athreya

Yale University

Counting problems for billiards and lattices

Oct. 24

Sung Y. Song

Iowa State University

Character tables of group-case commutative association schemes

Oct. 31

Markos Katsoulakis
University of Massachusetts

Mathematical strategies and error quantification in coarse-graining of extended microscopic systems

Nov. 7

Hailiang Liu

Iowa State University

Multi-valued Solution and Level Set Methods In Computational High Frequency Wave Propagation

Nov. 9, Thursday

Bo Li

UC, San Diego

Surface Relaxation versus the Ehrlich-Schwoebel Effect in Thinfilm Growth

Nov. 14

(305 Carver)

Sunil Kumar

Stanford University 

Dynamic Control of Queueing Systems via Diffusion Approximations

Nov. 21

Thanksgiving break

 

Nov. 28

Ivan Correa

Metropolitan university of CS of the Education

On an Albert's Problem in nonassociative algebras

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstracts:

Oct. 10, Tuesday Prof. Muthu Krishnamurthy, University of Iowa
Title:
Harmonic Analysis and Number Theory: The principle of functoriality
Abstract:  The principal of functoriality is one of the central questions in number theory. It is a conjecture of Langlands that emerged out of his attempt to classify number fields. The conjecture describes deep relationships among the spectral data on different groups. The spectral data arises from the theory of differential operators and group representations which also carries arithmetic information of fundamental importance. In this talk I will explain the conjecture and mention some known cases of functoriality.

Oct. 17, Tuesday, Prof. Bei Hu, University of Notre Dame
Title:  Stability analysis for tumor models
Abstract:
  We consider time-dependent free boundary problems modeling tumor growth. We prove that there exists a critical number L such that if some parameter is less than L, then the stationary solution is asymptotically stable, whereas if the parameter is bigger than L, then the stationary solution is unstable. This has implications on the aggressiveness of the tumor.

Oct. 19, Thursday, Prof. Jayadev Athreya, Yale University,
Title:  Counting problems for billiards and lattices.
Abstract:
We discuss the problem of asymptotics of counting closed trajectories for billiards in Euclidean polygons. We will be motivated by the case of the torus, which we will discuss in detail.

Oct. 24, Tuesday, Prof. Sung Y. Song, Iowa State University
Title: Character tables of group-case commutative association schemes
Abstract. 
The condition that a group-case association scheme is (primitive)  commutative is equivalent to the fact that a permutation group acts on the cosets of a (maximal) subgroup with multiplicity-free permutation representation. The works by many group theorists on the classification of maximal subgroups of finite simple groups (by using the classification of finite simple groups) provide us with many such group-case association schemes. The construction of character tables of known association schemes of this kind are important first step towards the classification of commutative association schemes. The progress which has been made in this research direction points out interesting connections  between association schemes, groups, and classical geometries. In this talk we will discuss some of these connections.

Oct. 31 Tuesday Prof. Markos Katsoulakis, University of Massachusetts
Title: Mathematical strategies and error quantification in coarse-graining of extended microscopic systems
Abstract:
In this talk we discuss recent and on going work in obtaining coarse-grained
stochastic approximations of extended microscopic systems. Examples of such models include stochastic lattice dynamics, as well as more complex off-lattice models of macromolecules (e.g. polymers) that have internal degrees of freedom.
Computational comparisons of coarse-grained and microscopic simulations along with accompanying rigorous estimates on the loss of information between the coarse-grained and microscopic probability distribution functions (pdf) highlight the validity regimes and the limitations of the method. Furthermore we discuss spatial adaptivity for microscopic simulations constructed using the coarse-graining tools we have already developed. The adaptivity criterion is based, in analogy to PDE finite element methods, on a posteriori estimates on the loss of information between the coarse-grained and the microscopic pdf.

Nov. 9, Thursday Prof. Bo Li, UC San Diego
Title: Surface Relaxation versus the Ehrlich-Schwoebel Effect in Thinfilm Growth
Abstract:
The surface of an epitaxially growing thin film often exhibits a mound-like structure with its characteristic lateral size increasing in time. In this talk, we consider two competing mechanisms for such a coarsening process:   (1) surface relaxation described by high-order gradients of the surface profile; and (2) the Ehrlich-Schwoebel (ES) effect which is the upper-lower terrace asymmetry in the adatom attachment and detachment to and from atomic steps.
        We present a theory based on a class of continuum models that are mathematically gradient-flows of some effective free-energy functionals describing these mechanisms. This theory consists of two parts: (1) variational properties of the energies, such as ``ground states'' and their large-system-size asymptotics, showing the unboundedness of surface slope and revealing the relation between some of the models; (2) rigorous bounds for the scaling law of the roughness, the rate of increase of surface slope, and the rate of energy dissipation, all of which characterize the coarsening process. Predictions on scaling laws made by our theory agree well with experiments.

Nov. 14, Tuesday  Professor Sunil Kumar, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.
Title: Dynamic Control of Queueing Systems via Diffusion Approximations
Absttract:
Queueing systems are natural models of congested systems in many applications. One way to design control policies for queueing systems is as follows. First, one obtains optimal control policies for a diffusion approximation of the system. This usually involves solving a singular stochastic control problem. Then the optimal control for the diffusion approximation is used to construct a control for the queueing system, and this control is shown to be asymptotically optimal in some suitable asymptotic regime. This approach provides a tractable way to construct asymptotically optimal admission control, routing and scheduling policies for queueing systems.
            In this talk we study an application of this method to a problem of interest in services. We study admission control into a queue handled by a single server that is populated by impatient customers. We construct an approximating diffusion control problem. We solve this singular control problem by iteratively constructing a solution to the associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. We use this solution to construct a simple threshold admission control for the queueing system. In the regime where the arrival rates and service rates are equal and increasing to infinity, the so-called heavy traffic regime, we establish that our control is asymptotically optimal using weak convergence methods.

 


 

 

Contact Information:

boushaba@iastate.edu or linglong@iastate.edu