Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences - PIMS

http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~jlafont/MoreliaConf.html

Northwest Probability Seminars are one-day
mini-conferences held at the University of Washington
and organized in collaboration with
the Oregon State University, the University of British Columbia,
the University of Oregon, and the Theory Group at the Microsoft
Research. There is no registration fee. Participants
are requested to contact Chris Burdzy
(burdzy@math.washington.edu
) in advance
so that adequate facilities may be arranged for.

The Scientific Committee for the NW Probability Seminar 2006
consists of Chris Burdzy (U Washington), Zhenqing Chen (U Washington),
David Levin (U Oregon), Ed Perkins (U British Columbia), and Ed Waymire
(Oregon State U).

The talks will take place in Savery 239 and 241.
See the map
of north-central campus for the location of Savery Hall and
Padelford Hall (the Department of Mathematics is in the Padelford Hall).
More
campus maps are available at the UW Web site.

The Twentieth Annual Pacific Northwest Numerical Analysis Seminar will be
hosted by the Department of
Mathematics at
Simon Fraser University.
The meeting will run from 10:00am to 5:00pm at the
IRMACS (Interdisciplinary Research in the
Mathematical and Computational Sciences) Center,
(maps,
directions)
followed by dinner at the Pink Pearl Restaurant.

The PNWNAS has been an annual event since 1987, held on a
Saturday each fall. Click here for
past meetings.

Organizers: Adam Oberman,
Steve Ruuth and
Bob Russell.

We consider a voter model on the integer lattice started with a single
one at the origin. In dimensions 2 and 3, we establish the precise
asymptotic behaviour of the probability for the voter model to hit a
distant point. We use the scaling limit of the voter model started from
a single one in terms of super-Brownian motion under its excursion
measure. This invariant principle was proved by Bramson Cox and Le
Gall, as a consequence of a theorem of Cox, Durrett and Perkins. We
also derive less precise estimates in dimension less than 4.

Stability plays an essential role in many branches of science and engineering,
including several aspects of fluid mechanics, high-speed transmission of
information, and feasibility of MHD fusion devices. The objective of the
workshop is to give an overview of current state-of-the-art methods for
examining stability, as well as to present some widely applicable new
techniques. The format will consist of four invited speakers giving a series of
lectures at a level aimed at graduate students but useful for
researchers from a variety of disciplines, such as mathematics, engineering,
biology, etc.

The Canadian Conference on Computational
Geometry (CCCG) focuses on the mathematics of discrete geometry from
a computational point of view. Abstracting and studying the geometry problems
that underlie important applications of computing (such as geographic information
systems, computer-aided design, simulation, robotics, solid modeling, databases,
and graphics) leads not only to new mathematical results, but also to improvements
in these application areas. Despite its international following, CCCG maintains
the informality of a smaller workshop and attracts a large number of students.

The second PIMS GIW will be held on the University of Calgary Campus in
August of 2006. Like the first event (2003), the purpose is to bring
together mathematicians and geophysicists to focus on a challenging
inversion theme. The theme of the 2006 meeting is "seismic imaging and wave
propagation". There are a number of invited speakers whose research has been
especially relevant to the event theme. A limited number of contributed
papers will also be accepted. Attendance at the GIW is open to all.

The Canadian Quantum Information Students' Conference (CQISC) offers
the ideal environment for graduate students interested in all areas of
Quantum Information Theory and Experiment to meet an collaborate.
Students of computer science, mathematics, philosophy, and physics from
across Canada and around the world are invited to attend.

All
delegates are encouraged to present a 30 minute talk on their area of
research. Previous topics have included topological quantum computing,
pseudo-telepathy & quantum game theory, measurement based quantum
computing, quantum chaos, optical lattices, nuclear magnetic resonance,
quantum authentication & cryptography, quantum error correction,
and much much more!

The conference will explore new research directions within the fields of
sequence design and algebraic error-correcting codes, including radar
applications of sequence design, algebraic constructions of space-time
codes, and pseudocodewords. We aim to bring together mathematicians and
engineers, and to increase the pool of early career researchers who
appreciate the power of discrete mathematics and the important role that it
plays in emerging engineering disciplines. We will also host a broad
forward-looking discussion that will address identification of outstanding
problems, the different forms of publication in constructive combinatorics,
and reward systems across industry and academia.

In parallel with the conference, Robert Calderbank (Princeton University)and Ingrid Daubechies (Princeton University) will each deliver a PIMS Distinguished Lecture.

Limited support is available, especially for students, postdoctoral fellows,
and other early career researchers.

The conference will take place the week after the
2006 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory in Seattle and the
9th meeting of the Canadian Number Theory Association in Vancouver.

The 2006 Western Canada Linear Algebra Meeting (WCLAM) will be held at the University of Victoria in room C112 of the David Strong Building on June 23-24, 2006. This is the seventh in a series of meetings that have been held since 1993; the previous meetings were held in Regina, Lethbridge, Kananaskis, Victoria, Winnipeg and Regina. WCLAM primarily provides an opportunity for mathematicians and other researchers in western Canada working in linear algebra and related fields to meet, present accounts of their research, and to have informal discussions. While the meeting has a regional base, it also attracts researchers from outside the geographical area, and everyone is welcome to attend and to give presentations.

This meeting will honour Pauline van den Driessche on the occasion of her sixty fifth birthday.

The conference is intended to cover recent
developments in the study of motives and
periods with an emphasis to the connections to
physics, arithmetic and algebraic cycles.
The conference has an instructional component
which consists of a series of survey
talks. The conference will provide an opportunity for
young speakers to present their results.
The organizers intend to pay special attention to the
support of women for this conference, at the senior level
as well as at the level of postdocs and graduate students.

The 34-th Annual Canadian Operator Symposium (COSy) will take place
at the University of Calgary campus from May 29th to June 2, 2006.

The meeting will be an occasion to celebrate the 65-th birthday of
Peter
Rosenthal, University of Toronto.

This will be the fifth of a sequence of conferences on Scientific Computing and
Applications held in the Pacific Rim region. All of them have the goal of bringing
together mathematicians, scientists and engineers working in the field
of scientific computing and its applications to solve scientific and industrially
oriented problems and to provide a forum for the participants to meet and
exchange ideas of common interest in an informal atmosphere.

The focus of this particular conference will be on the problems and methods
related to image processing, financial applications and modelling of
multiphase flows.
The goal of the conference is twofold.
The theoretical areas of interest include
fundamental methods and algorithms for solving PDE's and linear systems
of equations. On the other hand, it will try to attract the attention of
the applied community, in particular the oil sands industry, banking
and medical imaging, to present and discuss the applications of scientific
computing to practical problems. The theoretical topics of interest are
(but not limited to): Finite Element, Finite Volume Element and Finite
Volume Methods for partial differential equations, splitting techniques
and stabilized methods, iterative solvers and preconditioning techniques
for large scale systems, methods for systems with a special structure,
parallel algorithms and performance analysis.

MindRap uses an innovative learning process that involves technology, music, art, performing, writing, collaboration, culture, self-esteem, and mentoring. High school students learn how to create animated multimedia modules that include their own artwork, music, and stories to teach a basic math or science skill. Cultural information and achievements are used to motivate and inspire both the students who are creating the modules as well as those who are the intended audience. Throughout the process the students are guided by professional writers, artists, musicians, and educators. The student's creations are then published on a website portal that can be accessed by teachers and students all the over the world. The target of the after school program is at-risk inner city students. We will discuss this project and the various branches of work that have sprouted from its core.

On behalf of the University of Alberta, the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences invited the mathematical graduate student community to the 2006 Young Researchers Conference for Mathematical and Statistical Sciences.

Alejandro Adem (University of British Columbia)

A Stringy Product for Twisted Orbifold K-theory

Given an orbifold X with inertia orbifold LX, we construct a product for the twisted K-theory of LX which extends the orbifold cohomology product of Chen & Ruan. The twisting arises from the "inverse transgression" of elements in $H^4(BX, Z)$. This is joint work with Y.Ruan and B.Zhang.

Simon Brendle (Stanford University)

Global convergence of the Yamabe flow

Let $M$ be a compact manifold of dimension $n \geq 3$. Along the Yamabe flow, a Riemannian metric on $M$ is deformed such that $\frac{\partial g}{\partial t} = -(R_g - r_g) \, g$, where $R_g$ is the scalar curvature associated with the metric $g$ and $r_g$ denotes the mean value of $R_g$. It is known that the Yamabe flow exists for all time. Moreover, if $3 \leq n \leq 5$ or $M$ is locally conformally flat, then the solution approaches a metric of constant scalar curvature as $t \to \infty$. I will describe how this result can be generalized to higher dimensions. The key ingredient in the proof is a new construction of test functions whose Yamabe energy is less than that of the round sphere.

Jim Bryan (University of British Columbia)

Donaldson-Thomas and Gromov-Witten invariants of orbifolds and their crepant resolutions

A well known principle in physics asserts that string theory on an orbifold X is equivalent to string theory on Y, any crepant resolution of X. Donaldson-Thomas and Gromov-Witten theory are mathematical counterparts of type IIA and type IIB topological string theory and so it is expected that one can recover the Gromov-Witten or Donaldson-Thomas invariants of Y from those on X. We will mathematically formulate and discuss these correspondences and illustrate them with some examples.

Ben Chow (UC San Diego)

On the works of D. Glickenstein and F. Luo on semi-discrete curvature flows

Yong-Geun Oh (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Lagrangian currents, Calabi invariants and non-simpleness of the area-preserving homeomorphism group of S^2

In this talk, I will introduce the notion of `hamiltonian limits' of the Hamiltonian flows, and define the continuous Hamiltonian flows and their associated Hamiltonian functions, which I call `topological Hamiltonians'. I will give the proof of the uniqueness of the topolocgical Hamiltonian associated to continuous Hamiltonian flows. The uniquessness proof uses the method of geometric measure theory and some $C^0$ symplectic geometry. I will discuss some implication of this study in a well-known conjecture in the dynamical systems on the simpleness of the area preserving homeomorphism group $S^2$.

Gang Tian (Princeton University)

Kahler-Ricci flow and complex Monge-Ampere equation