Past Events

Abstract: We consider a stochastic bistable two-species generalized Lotka-Volterra model of the microbiome and use it as a testbed to analytically and numerically explore the role of direct (e.g., fecal microbiota transplantation) and indirect (e.g...

Nonparametric density estimation is a challenging problem in theoretical statistics -- in general a maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) does not even exist! Introducing shape constraints allows a path forward. In this talk I will first discuss non...

Cell division is a vital mechanism for cell proliferation, but it often breaks its symmetry during animal development. Symmetry-breaking of cell division, such as the orientation of the cell division axis and asymmetry of daughter cell sizes...

Steklov eigenproblems and their variants (where the spectral parameter appears in the boundary condition) arise in a range of useful applications. For instance, understanding some properties of the mixed Steklov-Neumann eigenfunctions tells us why...

Cellular polarization plays a critical during cellular differentiation, development, and cellular migration through the establishment of a long-lived cell-front and cell-rear. Although mechanisms of polarization vary across cells types, some common...

Graphs with no odd circuits are well understood. In 1992, Maffray characterized all graphs whose odd circuits only have size three. Oxley and Wetzler generalized this result to binary matroids in 2016. We give a complete characterization of all...

What does mathematics, materials science, biology and quantum information science have in common? It turns out, there are many connections worth exploring. I this talk, I will focus on graphs and random walks, starting from the classical mathematical...

Mathematical biology presents very many exciting scientific challenges. In this talk I will focus on five: understanding the process of biological pattern formation, analysing the dynamics of spreading populations, assessing the emergence of...

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, the number 42 was revealed to be the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”. But he didn’t say what the question was! I will reveal that here. In fact it is a...

There are various iterative approaches for solving unconstrained optimization problems. Between them, the non-monotone technique is a popular approach for improving the iterative algorithms in optimization. The non-monotone technique not only can...