# MSCS Seminar Calendar

Tuesday August 27, 2019
Organizational + discussion
Alex Furman (UIC)
4:00 PM in TBD
In this meeting we plan to discuss the topics for the semester, decide on the near future plans. My suggestions starts from Patterson-Sullivan theory, and several topics in manifolds of negative curvature. I will give some overview of some results that I propose to study in the seminar.
Wednesday August 28, 2019
Graduate Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
Organizational Meeting
Samuel Dodd (UIC)
3:00 PM in TBD
We will discus the direction of the seminar for this semester

Statistics Seminar
Organizational meeting
Statistics group (UIC)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
The Geometry of Hilbert's 13th problem
Jesse Wolfson (University of California Irvine)
4:00 PM in 427 SEO
Given a polynomial x^n+a_1x^{n-1}+ . . . + a_n, what is the simplest formula for the roots in terms of the coefficients a_1, . . . a_n? Following Abel, we can no longer take “simplest” to mean in radicals, but we could ask for a solution using only 1 or 2 or d-variable functions. Hilbert conjectured that for degrees 6,7 and 8, we need 2,3 and 4 variable functions respectively. In a too little known paper, he then sketched how the 27 lines on a cubic surface should give a 4-variable solution of the general degree 9. In this talk, I’ll review the geometry of solving polynomials, explain Hilbert’s idea, and then extend his geometric methods to get best-to-date upper bounds on the number of variables needed to solve a general degree n polynomial.
Thursday August 29, 2019
Louise Hay Logic Seminar
Organizational Meeting
Noah Schoem
4:00 PM in 427 SEO
Friday August 30, 2019
Departmental Colloquium
Braids, polynomials and Hilbert's 13th problem
Jesse Wolfson (University of California Irvine)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
There are still completely open fundamental questions about polynomials in one variable. One example is Hilbert's 13th Problem, a conjecture going back long before Hilbert. Indeed, the invention of algebraic topology grew out of an effort to understand how the roots of a polynomial depend on the coefficients. The goal of this talk is to explain part of the circle of ideas surrounding these questions. Along the way, we will encounter some beautiful classical objects - the space of monic, degree d square-free polynomials, algebraic functions, lines on cubic surfaces, level structures on Jacobians, braid groups, Galois groups, and configuration spaces - all intimately related to each other, all with mysteries still to reveal.
Tuesday September 3, 2019
Thesis Defense
Large-Scale Geometry of Knit Products
Jake Herndon
3:00 PM in TBS
A group $G$ is a knit product of subgroups $H$ and $K$ if $G=HK$ and $H\cap K=\{1\}$, or equivalently, if the group operation $G\times G\to G$ restricts to a bijection $H\times K\to G$. We will discuss knit products in the context of large-scale geometry.
Wednesday September 4, 2019
Statistics Seminar
Envelope-based Sparse Partial Least Squares
Zhihua Su (University of Florida)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Sparse partial least squares (SPLS) is widely used in applied sciences as a method that performs dimension reduction and variable selection simultaneously in linear regression. Several implementations of SPLS have been derived, among which the SPLS proposed in Chun and Keleş (2010) is very popular and highly cited. However, for all of these implementations, the theoretical properties of SPLS are largely unknown. In this paper, we propose a new version of SPLS, called the envelope-based SPLS, using a connection between envelope models and partial least squares (PLS). We establish the consistency, oracle property and asymptotic normality of the envelope-based SPLS estimator. The large-sample scenario and high-dimensional scenario are both considered. We also develop the envelope-based SPLS estimators under the context of generalized linear models, and discuss its theoretical properties including consistency, oracle property and asymptotic distribution. Numerical experiments and examples show that the envelope-based SPLS estimator has better variable selection and prediction performance over the existing SPLS estimators.

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
Open Mirror Symmetry of Landau-Ginzburg Models
Tyler Kelly (University of Birmingham, UK)
4:00 PM in 427 SEO
Mirror Symmetry provides a link between symplectic and algebraic geometry through a duality in string theory. In particular, it asserts a link from the symplectic geometry of a space M to the algebraic geometry of its mirror space W. One way we see this is now known as classical mirror symmetry: the Gromov-Witten or enumerative theory of a symplectic space is encapsulated by the Hodge theory / periods of the mirror algebraic space. In the 90s this was articulated just for Calabi-Yau varieties, but it has expanded even further to Fano varieties; however, the mirror space is now not an algebraic variety but a mildly non-commutative object known as a Landau-Ginzburg model. Recently, this notion has been developed even to articulate mirror symmetry between Landau-Ginzburg models. In this talk, we will explain what non-commutative Hodge theory / periods look like for a Landau-Ginzburg model and how they predict phenomena in open enumerative theories for the mirror.
Monday September 9, 2019
Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
Weighted cscK metrics and weighted K-stability
Abdellah Lahdili (Montreal)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
We will introduce a notion of a K\"ahler metric with constant weighted scalar curvature on a compact K\"ahler manifold $X$, depending on a fixed real torus $\T$ in the reduced group of automorphisms of $X$, and two smooth (weight) functions defined on the momentum image of $X$. We will also define a notion of weighted Mabuchi energy adapted to our setting, and of a weighted Futaki invariant of a $\T$-compatible smooth K\"ahler test configuration associated to $(X, \T)$. After that, using the geometric quantization scheme of Donaldson, we will show that if a projective manifold admits in the corresponding Hodge K\"ahler class a K\"ahler metric with constant weighted scalar curvature, then this metric minimizes the weighted Mabuchi energy, which implies a suitable notion of weighted K-semistability. As an application, we describe the K\"ahler classes on a geometrically ruled complex surface of genus greater than 2, which admits conformally K\"ahler Einstein-Maxwell metrics.

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
The supermoduli space of genus zero super Riemann surfaces with Ramond punctures
4:00 PM in 427 SEO

Analysis and Applied Mathematics Seminar
TBA
Shi Jin (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Wednesday September 11, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Stacey Tannenbaum (Astellas)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Friday September 13, 2019
Departmental Colloquium
A proof of the sensitivity conjecture
Hao Huang (Emory)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
In the $n$-dimensional hypercube graph, one can easily choose half of the vertices such that they induce an empty graph. However, having even just one more vertex would cause the induced subgraph to contain a vertex of degree at least $\sqrt{n}$. This result is best possible, and improves a logarithmic lower bound shown by Chung, Furedi, Graham and Seymour in 1988. In this talk we will discuss a very short algebraic proof of it.
As a direct corollary of this purely combinatorial result, the sensitivity and degree of every boolean function are polynomially related. This solves an outstanding foundational problem in theoretical computer science, the Sensitivity Conjecture of Nisan and Szegedy.
Monday September 16, 2019
Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
TBA
Michael Brandenbursky (Ben Gurion University)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
TBA
Hannah Larson (Stanford University)
4:00 PM in 427 SEO
Wednesday September 18, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Jun Li (University of Notre Dame)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Monday September 23, 2019
Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
TBA
Joanna Furno (Depaul University)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
TBA

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
TBA
Geoff Smith (Harvard University)
4:00 PM in 427 SEO
Wednesday September 25, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Dan Nettleton (Iowa State University)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Friday September 27, 2019
Departmental Colloquium
TBA
TBA (TBA)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
Monday September 30, 2019
Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
Trees, dendrites, and the Cannon-Thurston map
Elizabeth Field (UIUC)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
When 1 -> H -> G -> Q -> 1 is a short exact sequence of three word-hyperbolic groups, Mahan Mitra (Mj) has shown that the inclusion map from H to G extends continuously to a map between the Gromov boundaries of H and G. This boundary map is known as the Cannon-Thurston map. In this context, Mitra associates to every point z in the Gromov boundary of Q an ending lamination'' on H which consists of pairs of distinct points in the boundary of H. We prove that for each such z, the quotient of the Gromov boundary of H by the equivalence relation generated by this ending lamination is a dendrite, that is, a tree-like topological space. This result generalizes the work of Kapovich-Lustig and Dowdall-Kapovich-Taylor, who prove that in the case where H is a free group and Q is a convex cocompact purely atoroidal subgroup of Out(F_n), one can identify the resultant quotient space with a certain R-tree in the boundary of Culler-Vogtmann's Outer space.

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
Hodge-Riemann bilinear relations, Schur classes and ample vector bundles
Julius Ross (UIC)
4:00 PM in 427 SEO
Wednesday October 2, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Ning Hao (University of Arizona)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Wednesday October 9, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Jianfeng Zhang (USC)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
TBA

Statistics Seminar
TBA
Hira Koul (Michigan State University)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Friday October 11, 2019
Departmental Colloquium
TBA
Moon Duchin (Tufts)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
Monday October 14, 2019
Mathematical Computer Science Seminar
TBA
Qiang Zeng (CUNY)
3:00 PM in 427 SEO

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
TBA
Gavril Farkas (Humboldt University of Berlin)
4:00 PM in 427 SEO

Analysis and Applied Mathematics Seminar
TBA
Matthias Maier (Texas A&M University)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
TBA
Wednesday October 16, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Yixin Fang (AbbVie)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Monday October 21, 2019
Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
TBA
MurphyKate Montee (University of Chicago)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO

Analysis and Applied Mathematics Seminar
TBA
Fred Weissler (Universite de Paris Nord)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Wednesday October 23, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Wei Pan (University of Minnesota)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO

Statistics Seminar
TBA
Xianyang Zhang (Texas A&M University)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Wednesday October 30, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Minge Xie (Rutgers University)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Friday November 1, 2019
Departmental Colloquium
Midwest Dynamical Systems Conference
TBA (TBA)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
Monday November 4, 2019
Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
TBA
Benoit Charbonneau (Waterloo)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
Wednesday November 6, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Dr. Qing Jin (Northwestern University)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Wednesday November 13, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Anru Zhang (University of Wisconsin)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Friday November 15, 2019
Departmental Colloquium
TBA
Anand Pillay (Notre Dame )
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
Wednesday November 20, 2019
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Xiangrong Yin (University of Kentucky)
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
Monday November 25, 2019
Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
TBA
Xiaowei Wang (Rutgers)
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
Monday December 2, 2019
Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
No seminar
None
3:00 PM in 636 SEO
Wednesday April 15, 2020
Statistics Seminar
TBA
Xiaotong Shen (University of Minnesota )
4:00 PM in 636 SEO
UIC LAS MSCS > persisting_utilities > seminars > seminar calendar