MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2006

APPLIED MATH/DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS AND COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE SEMINAR

TIME: 3:35 p.m. – 4:25 p.m.
ROOM: Ayres Hall 309A
SPEAKER: Dr. Heather Finotti
Visiting Assistant Professor
TITLE: “Analysis of a Darcy-Stokes System”.


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2006

ALGEBRA SEMINAR

TIME: 3:30 p.m.
ROOM: Ayres Hall 214
SPEAKER: Professor Marcos Zarzar
TITLE: Algebraic Coding Theory I
Interested graduate students are welcome to attend.

Abstract: Whenever information is transmitted or stored, errors are bound to occur. Error-correcting codes were created with the purpose of retrieving the original data whenever the data is corrupted. The purpose of this talk is to give an introduction to the subject of error-correcting codes, giving a special attention to the construction made by Goppa in the early 80's. Goppa introduced the concept of AG codes when he first constructed codes over algebraic curves. This talk will give a good background for next week's talk "Codes
over surfaces".

GRADUATE STUDENT TEACHING SEMINAR
Website: http://www.math.utk.edu/~eaton/Math598.htm, (for handouts and updated schedule of events)

TIME: 3:35 p.m. – 4:25 p.m.
ROOM: Ayres Hall 314
TITLE: Getting group-work to work for you, in-class and outside
Have you ever tried to implement group work and it failed horribly or it succeeded fantastically? What are some of the pitfalls you can avoid, and what does the literature say about group learning? How do you find time in class for group learning, and how can you make it work efficiently? We will discuss all of those topics and more!

ANALYSIS SEMINAR

TIME: 3:35 p.m. – 4:25 p.m.
ROOM: Ayres Hall 320
SPEAKER: Professor Mike Frazier
TITLE: Introduction to Wavelets II
ABSTRACT: We will continue our discussion of the Haar system, which leads us to Littlewood-Paley theory. This, in turn, leads to the Calderon formula, which we show to be a continuous analogue of the Harr expansion.


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2006

TOPOLOGY SEMINAR

TIME: 10:10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
ROOM: Ayres Hall 309B
SPEAKER: Assistant Professor Nikolay Brodskiy
TITLE: Property A for spaces

PROBABILITY SEMINAR

TIME: 11:15 a.m. – 12:05 p.m.
ROOM: Ayres Hall 309B
SPEAKER: Dr. Mark Shattuck
TITLE: Probabilistic Proofs of Some Combinatorial Identities


JUNIOR COLLOQUIUM
(The Junior Colloquium is aimed primarily at undergraduate students, but all are most welcome to attend.)

TIME: 3:30 p.m.
ROOM: Ayres Hall 214
SPEAKER: Dr. Michael Frazier
TITLE: Wavelets: fingerprints, submarines, and car rattles
ABSTRACT: Wavelets were created by pure mathematicians in the 1980s. Wavelets are small waves; that is, wiggly functions like the sine and cosine functions, but which die out instead of going on forever. In wavelet analysis, general functions are broken down into sums of wavelets, much like how general functions are broken down into sums of sines and cosines in Fourier analysis.

Since the 1980s, wavelets have found many applications, for example in the FBI’s computerization of their fingerprint files. We will explain why wavelets sometime provide a valuable alternative to traditional Fourier analysis methods in signal analysis. Also, the speaker will describe two personal experiences in wavelet applications: work in 1989-1990 on the detection of Russian submarines, and work in 2002-2003 with Ford Motor company on the analysis of car rattles.

Pizza will be served immediately before the talk.


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2006

TOPOLOGY SEMINAR

TIME: 10:10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
ROOM: Ayres Hall 309B
SPEAKER: Dr. Atish Mitra
TITLE: Gromov-Hausdorff convergence


COLLOQUIUM

TIME: 3:35 – 4:35 p.m.
ROOM: 214 Ayres Hall
SPEAKER: Professor Xiaowen Zhou
Cancordia University, Canada
TITLE: Levy risk model with dividend barrier
ABSTRACT: Levy processes are stochastic processes with stationary and independent increments. Theory of Levy processes has found many applications in the study of risk models for insurance. In this talk we will first introduce solutions to the exit problems for Levy processes. These results can be applied to study the risk model with dividend barrier. In particular, we will derive the Laplace transform for the ruin time of such a model. We will also obtain the Laplace transform for the present value of all dividends until ruin.

REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED IN AYRES HALL ROOM 119 AT 3:00 P.M.