Math Colloquium
Each semester the Department of Mathematics offers colloquium talks on a variety of mathematical topics. The department also hosts the Advanced Research Initiative series, featuring a distinguished guest speaker giving two talks. For upcoming Math Colloquia please see the Department of Mathematics Events Calendar.
- 2019 Spring
2019 Spring Math Colloquia
February 20
Jiyoon Jung (Marshall University)
Title to be announced
Smith Hall 516, 4:00pmAbstract: To be announced
March 20
Anna Mummert (Marshall University)
Title to be announced
Smith Hall 516, 4:00pmAbstract: To be announced
April 17
Michael Schroeder (Marshall University)
Title to be announced
Smith Hall 516, 4:00pmAbstract: To be announced
- 2018 Fall
2018 Fall Math Colloquia
September 19
Elizabeth Niese (Marshall University)
The RSK algorithm and applications
Smith Hall 516, 4:00pmAbstract: The Robinson-Schensted-Knuth (RSK) algorithm is a classical algorithm in algebraic combinatorics. It is a bijection between words and pairs of tableaux which has many interesting combinatorial properties. There are a number of distinct constructions equivalent to this algorithm, including the jeu-de-taquin and Viennot’s shadow lines construction. We will look at several of these constructions and their use in proofs of algebraic formulas.
October 17
Chloé Marcum (Marshall University)
Using polynomials to study knots
Smith Hall 516, 4:00pmAbstract: A knot is any closed loop in space. Two knots may be the same knot even though they appear to be different. A local move is a change to a small portion of a knot and the rest of the knot is assumed to stay the same. A local move may or may not change the knot. An invariant is a characteristic of a knot that help us tell the difference between knots. In our research, we studied certain polynomials that are knot invariants. We studied the effect of certain local moves on Homflypt and Kauffman polynomials. As a consequence, we discovered some new properties of these invariants.
This research was completed in summer 2018 as part of a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) at St Mary’s College of Maryland. At the end of the talk, I will share general information about REUs as well as my experience at St. Mary’s.
Knot theory is an area of math that is understandable without a lot of math background. All students interested in math are encouraged to attend.
November 28
Raid Al-Aqtash (Marshall University)
Title to be announced
Smith Hall 516, 4:00pmAbstract: To be announced
- 2018 Spring
2018 Spring Math Colloquia
February 21
Michael Otunuga (Marshall University)
Global stability for a (2n+1)-dimensional HIV/AIDS epidemic model with treatments
Smith Hall 518, 4:00pmAbstract: In this work, we derive and analyze a (2n+1)-dimensional deterministic differential equation modeling the transmission and treatment of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) disease. The model is extended to a stochastic differential equation by introducing noise in the transmission rate of the disease. A theoretical treatment strategy of regular HIV testing and immediate treatment with Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) is investigated in the presence and absence of noise. By defining R(0,n), R(t,n) and R(t,n) as the deterministic basic reproduction number in the absence of ART treatments, deterministic basic reproduction number in the presence of ART treatments and stochastic reproduction number in the presence of ART treatment, respectively, we discuss the stability of the infection-free and endemic equilibrium in the presence and absence of treatments by first deriving the closed form expression for R(0,n), R(t,n) and R(t,n). We show that there is enough treatment to avoid persistence of infection in the endemic equilibrium state if R(t,n)=1. We further show by studying the effect of noise in the transmission rate of the disease that transient epidemic invasion can still occur even if R(t,n)<1. This happens due to the presence of noise (with high intensity) in the transmission rate, causing R(t,n)>1. A threshold criterion for epidemic invasion in the presence and absence of noise is derived. Numerical simulation is presented for validation.
April 19
Carl Mummert (Marshall University)
The number TREE(3), and counting down in base infinity
Smith Hall 518, 4:00pmAbstract: The motivation of this talk is a peculiar situation from computer science. In some cases, we know that a program will eventually stop, but we have no way to concretely describe or even bound the number of steps the program will take. For one such program, the number of steps is a number TREE(3) so large that there is no concrete way to describe it or bound it from above.
This talk will introduce TREE(3) and the related result known as Kruskal’s theorem. We will look at some simpler versions of the theorem, leading us to a “base infinity” number system. This system is like base ten, but each digit can be arbitrarily large. We will see that counting down to 1 from a base infinity number is not as easy as it sounds.
The work on base infinity numbers is joint research with mathematics major Samantha Colbert.
- 2017 Fall
2017 Fall Math Colloquia
September 20
Matt Davis (Muskingum University)
Non-transitive dice: Constructions, Complications, and Questions
Smith Hall 509, 4:00pmAbstract: Non-transitive dice have been a source of fascination for mathematicians for over 50 years. We are given a set of dice which are numbered in strange ways. Each player chooses a die, rolls it, and the higher roll wins. Our intuition suggests that in any set of dice, one is the “best”. However, it turns out that it is relatively easy to construct a set of dice which are non-transitive – where most dice are strong against some opponents and weak against others. In this talk we will look at lots of examples of these fascinating objects, aiming for a goal of a single construction that allows us to create a set of dice in any desired configuration. We will also talk briefly about the much harder problem of finding the most efficient way to create such a set of dice.
October 18
Skye Smith (Service Pump & Supply, Huntington WV)
Three Things I Wish I Had Known When I Was a Math Major
Smith Hall 509, 4:00pmAbstract: Since graduating from Marshall University with an applied mathematics degree in 2014, I have used my degree in several various business roles. Each position has provided a new way to use my mathematics degree in a business setting and each role brought new lessons I wished I had considered throughout my time as an undergraduate student. In this presentation, I will discuss the three things I wish I had known while I was a mathematics major at Marshall University. Addressing these three observations will help guide mathematics students who are hoping to use their skill set in a business setting at a time when math minds are more important than ever to companies undergoing digital transformations and embracing the era of big data.
November 15
Avishek Mallick (Marshall University)
Statistical Modeling of Discrete/Count DataAbstract: In this talk, I will introduce the idea of Statistical modeling, especially in context of count data. We will look at different facets of data fitting like estimation techniques and criterion for assessing goodness-of-fit. A substantial part of the talk will be about modeling inflated count data. We will be looking at lots of real world examples. This talk is intended for a general audience and thus should be appropriate for Mathematics undergraduate and graduate students.
- 2017 Spring
2017 Spring Math Colloquia
January 16
Carl Mummert (Marshall University)
Mathematical Induction: Through Infinity and Beyond
February 16
John Asplund (Dalton State University)
Vertex Colouring Degeneracy and the Limits of Edge-Colouring Techniques
- 2016 Fall
2016 Fall Math Colloquia
September 21
Michael Schroeder (Marshall University)
A Survey of Graph Decompositions
October 24
Elizabeth Niese (Marshall University)
The combinatorics of symmetric polynomials
November 16
Scott Sarra (Marshall University)
Radial Basis Functions Methods and their Implementation
November 30
JiYoon Jung (Marshall University)
- 2016 Spring
2016 Spring Math Colloquia
January 26
Avishek Mallick (Marshall University)
A Look at Permuatation (a.k.a. Randomization) Tests
February 24
Carl Mummert (Marshall University)
Incompleteness in mathematics
March 7
Shubhabrata Mukherjee (University of Washington, Seattle)
Introduction to Genetic Epidemiology in GWAS era
March 8
Shubhabrata Mukherjee (University of Washington, Seattle)
Genetic analyses of late-onset Alzheimer’s Disease
April 6
Anna Mummert (Marshall University)
- 2015 Fall
2015 Fall Math Colloquia
September 2
Michael Schroeder (Marshall University)
Tournaments: Scheduling Them Fairly and More!
September 28
Nick Loehr (Virginia Tech)
Rook Theory 101
September 29
Nick Loehr (Virginia Tech)
Sweep Maps and Bounce Paths
October 21
Micheal Otunuga (Marshall University)
Stochastic Modeling of Energy Commodity Spot Price Processes
November 4
Martha Yip (University of Kentucky)
Coloring: the Algebraic Way
- 2015 Spring
2015 Spring Math Colloquia
February 4
Elizabeth Niese (Marshall University)
What do trigonometry and combinatorics have to do with each other?
February 17
David Cusick (Marshall University)
350 Years of Service … and Then Pffft!
March 4
Gregory Moses (Ohio University)
Clustering and Stability of Cyclic Solutions in the Cell Division Cycle of Yeast
March 27–28
MAA Ohio Section Meeting at Marshall University
April 14
Judy Day (University of Tennessee)
Modeling the host response to inhalation anthrax to uncover the mechanisms driving risk of disease.
April 15
Judy Day (University of Tennessee)
Determining the what, when, and how of therapeutic intervention strategies for controlling complex immune responses.
- 2014 Fall
2014 Fall Math Colloquia
September 3
Carl Mummert (Marshall University)
Is that a Prime Number?
September 17
Laura Adkins (Marshall University)
Interactive Regression Models with Centering
October 1
Michael Schroeder (Marshall University)
Latin squares and their completions
October 15
Xue Gong (Ohio University)
Clustering and Noise-Induced Dispersion in Cell Cycle Dynamics (No Link to Abstract)
November 5
Richard Brualdi (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
The Gale-Berlekamp Light-Switching Problem and a Permutation Variation
November 6
Richard Brualdi (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
All Things Bruhat: Matrix Bruhat Decomposition, Complete Flags, Bruhat Order of Permutations, (0,1) and Integral Matrices, and Tournaments
November 19
Bismark Oduro (Ohio University)
Designing Optimal Spraying Strategies for Controlling Re-infestation by Chagas Vectors
- 2014 Spring
2014 Spring Math Colloquia
March 10
Jeffry L. Hirst (Appalachian State University)
Alan and Ada’s Theoretical Machines
March 11
Jeffry L. Hirst (Appalachian State University)
Reverse Mathematics, Graphs, and Matchings
April 9
JiYoon Jung (Marshall University)
The topology of chain selected complexes of a poset PDF
April 11
Lingxing Yao (Case Western Reserve University)
Mathematical Modeling and Simulation for Biological Applications
April 14
Stephen Flood (University of Connecticut – Waterbury)
Path, trees, and the computational strength of a packed Ramsey’s theorem
- 2013 Fall
2013 Fall Math Colloquia
October 2
Lynne Yengulalp (University of Dayton)
Topological completeness
October 30
Roger Estep (Marshall University)
Filtered leapfrog time integration with enhanced stability properties
Robert Hughes (Marshall)
Agent-based modelin of pandemic influenza
November 18
Thomas Mathew (University of Maryland-Baltimore County)
The Assessment of Bioequivalence: A Statistical Overview
November 19
Thomas Mathew (University of Maryland-Baltimore County)
Methodology and Some Applications
- 2013 Spring
2013 Spring Math Colloquia
January 30
Elizabeth Niese (Marshall)
A family of Catalan objects
February 20
Anna Mummert (Marshall)
Unit costs in optimal control of epidemics
April 24
Carl Mummert (Marshall)
If 1+1=9, does 2+2=7?
- 2012 Fall
2012 Fall Math Colloquia
October 3
John Drost (Marshall)
What is Strategic Voting and What Can Be Done About It?
- 2012 Spring
2012 Spring Math Colloquia
January 25
Michael Schroeder (Marshall)
Cyclic Matching Sequencibility of Graphs
Feburary 22
Anna Mummert (Marshall)
Studying the recovery procedure for the time-dependent transmission rate in epidemic models
March 7
Matthew Sedlock (Johns Hopkins University)
Percolation models
March 9
Avishek Mallick (University of New Hampshire)
Inferential procedures based on samples with nondetects from normal and related distributions
March 12
Myung Soon Song (University of Pittsburgh)
An unconventional approach to likelihood of correlation matrices
April 2
Sharad Silwal (Kansas State University)
Image quality assessment methods
April 6
JiYoon Jung (University of Kentucky)
The topology of restricted partition posets PDF
- 2011 Fall
2011 Fall Math Colloquia
November 8
Carl Mummert (Marshall)
Two examples from infinitary combinatorics
- 2011 Spring
2011 Spring Math Colloquia
April 5
Suman Sanyal (Marshall)
Stochastic Dynamic Equations
April 8
Elizabeth Niese (Virginia Tech)
Macdonald polynomials and the hook-length formula for standard Young tableaux
April 15
Andrew Oster (École Normale Supérieure)
A laminar model for the development of the primary visual cortex
April 18
Michael Schroeder (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Phi-symmetric Hailton cycle decompositions of graphs
April 20
Remy Friends Ndangali (University of Florida)
Bound states in the radiation continuum and nonlinear effects in photonic structures
April 22. Paul Shafer (Cornell)
Coding arithmetic in the Medvedev degrees and its substructures
- 2010 Fall
2010 Fall Math Colloquia
September 8
Anna Mummert (Marshall)
Get the News Out Loudly and Quickly: Modeling the Influence of the Media on Limiting Infectious Disease Outbreaks
October 13
Carl Mummert (Marshall)
The axiom of choice in mathematics and computability
November 9
Suman Sanyal (Marshall)
Stochastic Process Indexed by Time Scale
- 2010 Spring
2010 Spring Math Colloquia
February 10
Anna Mummert (Marshall)
Parameter sensitivity analysis for mathematical modeling
April 14
Suman Sanyal (Marshall)
Stochastic dynamic equations and their applications
April 21
John Drost (Marshall)
Inheritance, bankruptcy, and the Talmud
- 2009 Fall
2009 Fall Math Colloquia
September 16
Carl Mummert (Marshall)
Gaming around with topology
October 15
Sydney Thembinkosi Mkhatshwa (Marshall)
Super-spreading events
November 11
Duane Farnsworth (Marshall)
Approximation Numbers and Ideals of Operators
- 2006 Fall
2006 Fall Math Colloquia
October 19
Peter Saveliev (Marshall)
Low level vision through topological glasses
- 2005 Spring
2005 Spring Math Colloquia
February 22
Norah Esty (University of California – Berkeley)
Topological Properties of Orbit Sets for Groups of Homeomorphisms
February 24
Elmas Irmak (Michigan State University)
Mapping Class Groups
March 3
Akhtar Khan (Michigan Technological University)
An inverse problem in elasticity
April 8
Judith Silver
Conics in Projective Geometry
April 22
Bonnie Shook
Topological Approaches to Fingerprint Identification
Nathan Cantrell
Cubical Homology in Medical Imaging
April 29
Arthur Porter (Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto)
Manchester University’s Contributions to Analog and Digital Computing
- 2004 Fall
2004 Fall Math Colloquia
September 24
Alfred Akinsete
The winning probability and ranking models for teams in soccer tournaments
October 8
Ralph Oberste-Vorth
From Chaos to Stability: Dynamic Equations Parameterized by Time Scales PDF
October 22
John L. Drost
What is the opposite of a prime number?
November 5
Elizabeth Duke and Kelli Hall
Time Scale Calculus and Dynamical Systems
November 19
Christopher Johnson and Peter Saveliev
Topological Proteomics: Pure Mathematics in Life Sciences
- 2004 Spring
2004 Spring Math Colloquia
January 23
Yulia Dementieva
Statistical approaches to gene mapping
February 6
Linda Hamilton
Robotics of the Mars Station Program
February 19
Basant Karna (Baylor University)
Eigenvalue Comparison for Multipoint Boundary Value Problems
February 24
John (Matt) Matthews (Duke University)
Granular Materials: An Introduction & Application to Hopper Flows
February 27
Mohamed Elhamdadi (University of South Florida)
On knot invariants
March 5
Scott Sarra
Scattered Data Approximation with Radial Basis Functions
April 2
John L. Drost
Arrow’s Theorem or Why we all just can’t get along
- 2003 Fall
2003 Fall Math Colloquia
September 26
John L. Drost
Addition Chains
October 10
Peter Saveliev
From slot machines to topology through calculus
October 24
Kelli Hall
Escher’s Tilings and Ribbons
November 7
Judith Silver
The Spherical Metric Project
December 5
Bonita Lawrence
Time Scales: A Snappy Link between Continuous Processes and Discrete Processes
