Archive | Events

Colloquium – Professor Tiina Roose, University of Southampton

Title: Multiscale image-based modelling in biology

In this talk I will describe a state of the art image based modelling in several seemingly different areas of biology. I show examples from biomedical (lymphatic, vascular and lung system) and agricultural problems of plant soil interaction. I will describe the workflow from imaging (X-ray CT, XRF, SEM-EDX, histology), image reconstruction, image segmentation, computation and how to utilize this work stream to synthesise new scientific knowledge. In particular I will also outline several challenges and bottlenecks in this process to hopefully encourage more mathematicians to get involved in the full pipeline.


Further information

The talk will be held in Tyndall Lecture Theatre, from 4pm – 5pm and will be followed by a drinks reception in the Maths common room.

The event is open to University of Bristol staff and students.

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Colloquium – Professor Bernd Sturmfels, University of California, Berkeley

Title: Varieties of signature tensors

We discuss recent developments in computational algebraic geometry that were motivated by the study of rough paths in stochastic analysis. Every path in a real vector space is encoded in a signature tensor whose entries are iterated integrals. As the path varies over a nice family we obtain an algebraic variety with interesting properties.

Further information

The talk will be held in Mott Lecture Theatre (G12), Physics, from 5pm – 6pm and will be followed by a drinks reception in the Maths common room.

The event is open to University of Bristol staff and students.

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Colloquium – Dr Miranda Mowbray, University of Bristol

Title: Predictive analytics: you can’t have it all

I will talk about limits to predictive analytics. The main application I’ll talk about is recidivism prediction – predicting whether a convicted criminal is likely to reoffend. However what I will say applies to predictive analytics more generally. As Alexandra Choldecova pointed out in the wake of a controversy about the COMPAS recidivism prediction algorithm, except in trivial cases, it is not mathematically possible to maximize the accuracy of recidivism prediction while meeting some fairness requirements for groups with different underlying recidivism rates. It is a policy choice whether or not to accept reduced accuracy, at least in the short term, in return for meeting fairness conditions. I will discuss this and some other limits to prediction that require policy choices. To make these choices, we need informed discussion and collaboration between techies, lawyers and policy makers. Just for fun, my slides will include 79 cats, a catbot, and Catwoman.

Further information

The talk will be held in Enderby Lecture Theatre (B16/B17), Physics, from 5pm – 6pm and will be followed by a drinks reception in the Maths common room.

The talk is open to all University of Bristol staff and students as well as the general public. We ask that all attendees please register in advance of the event.

Register to attend

 

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Professor Oliver Johnson – Inaugural Lecture

Shannon and group testing: finding needles in haystacks

Claude Shannon’s Information Theory bridges mathematics and engineering, and shows how well every communication and data storage system can perform.

In this lecture, Professor Johnson will describe his recent work applying these ideas to prove rigorous results about a search problem called group testing, which has applications to DNA and disease testing.

 


How to register

The talk is open to all University of Bristol staff and students as well as the general public. We ask that all attendees please register in advance of the event via Eventbrite.

Contact information

For practical information please email maths-conference-administrator@bristol.ac.uk.

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CMI-HIMR Summer School in Computational Number Theory

University of Bristol

Jennifer Balakrishnan, Boston University and Tim Dokchitser, University of Bristol

A postgraduate mathematics summer school jointly funded by the Clay Mathematics Institute and the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research. Student places are offered with accommodation, refreshments and subsistence allowance.

Please register your interest by completing the application form. N.B, A short supporting letter from your PhD supervisor will be required with your application. Closing date for registration is 1st March 2019. Successful applicants will be notified by 15th March 2019.

8 speakers have been invited to deliver 4 hours of lectures each with discussion workshops scheduled for each topic:

John Cremona

Celine Maistret

Adam Morgan

Steffen Mueller

Rachel Newton

Samir Siksek

Andrew Sutherland

John Voight

Week 1:
Celine Maistret: Computational aspects of the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture
Adam Morgan: Local arithmetic of curves and Jacobians
Rachel Newton: The Hasse norm principle
Samir Siksek: Explicit arithmetic of modular curves

Week 2:
John Cremona: Arithmetic statistics
Steffen Mueller: Rational points on curves
Andrew Sutherland: Zeta functions and L-functions of curves and abelian varieties
John Voight: Computing endomorphism rings of Jacobians

Please see here for the full programme.

For queries relating to practical information (application form, accommodation, subsistence, travel etc ), please contact heilbronn-coordinator@bristol.ac.uk

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Colloquium – Professor Yang Wang PhD, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Title: Can Mathematics Solve Mysteries in Literature?

There have been no shortages of controversies in literature, from old questions such as whether Cao Xueqin wrote all 120 chapters of “Dreams of Red Chamber”, widely known as the greatest work of Chinese literature, to new questions such as whether Obama actually wrote his autobiography “Dreams From My Father”.

For mathematicians, it is interesting to ask whether mathematics can be used to settle these controversies. In this talk, I will give an overview on how mathematics can be applied to analyze the “style” of an author and the related field of study called “stylometry”. I will show that mathematics can be used to almost definitively settle many such controversies.

Further information

The talk will be held in Mott Lecture Theatre (G12), Physics, from 3.30pm – 4.30pm and will be followed by a drinks reception in the Maths common room.

The talk is open to all University of Bristol staff and students as well as the general public. We ask that all attendees please register in advance of the event.

Register to attend
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Heilbronn Annual Conference 2018

SM1, Main Maths Building, University Walk, University of Bristol

The Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research welcomes a distinguished selection of speakers for the 2018 Annual Conference:

Mark Gross, Cambridge
Jacob Fox, Stanford
Martin Hairer, Imperial College London
Francis Brown, Oxford
Shekhar Khare, UCLA
Sarah Zerbes, University College London

Please register using the form .

Funding has been secured to support a limited number of PhD and Early Career Researchers. Please apply using the relevant section of the registration form. We also welcome applications for caring costs.* For further information email heilbronn-coordinator@bristol.ac.uk

*Applies to expenses incurred exceptionally as a result of attending the conference.

Annual Conference programme-2018

Titles and Abstracts 2018

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Women in Mathematics: Opportunities for the Future 2018

Enjoying your degree in mathematics? Interested in discovering where further study in maths can take you?

Join us for our annual Women in Mathematics event, 6th – 7th November 2018 – open to female and non-binary students in the UK and Ireland.

A PhD in mathematics can offer you independence, challenging problems and an inspiring job, as well as the chance to travel and the opportunity to make a difference.

This two-day event is aimed at encouraging female mathematics students, including those who self-define as women or whose gender identity includes “woman” or is non-binary, to consider continuing their studies to PhD level.

The event features talks from mathematicians working both in universities and industry, giving insight into their current roles and their careers to date. Even more importantly, there is ample time to talk in small groups to the other participants who are facing the same decisions, and to current PhD students who have recently faced the same questions.

Please note that the Wednesday afternoon session is open to all students.

The full programme and details on how to apply can be found below.

How to apply

Please note that registration for this year’s event has now closed.

Programme*

From 4pm on Tuesday 6th November – 12pm on Wednesday 7th November: To support female (including those who self-define as women or whose gender identity includes “woman”) undergraduates and masters students across the UK into further study in mathematics.

From 12pm – 5pm on Wednesday 7th November: To support all undergraduate and masters students.

 

Tuesday 6 November – supporting women in maths:

4:00pm Welcome and registration

from 4pm Networking in groups/meeting graduate students

5:00pm Small groups: what is PhD-level maths like?

7:00pm Dinner at Zero Degrees

 

Wednesday 7 November – supporting women in maths:

10:00am Question and answer session

10.30am Short talk by current graduate student

10:45am Tea and Coffee

11:00am Keynote speaker: Professor Tiina Roose, University of Southampton

 

Wednesday 7 November – open to all undergraduate and masters students:

12:00pm Lunch

12.45pm Panel with graduate students talking about their experiences and

how they came to do a PhD.

1:45pm Short talk by current graduate student

2:00pm Information from the Post Graduate team

2:45pm Tea and Coffee

Three practitioners of mathematics to speak about what they do and how they got there:

3:00pm Industry speaker:  Dr Lynsey McColl, Managing Director of Select Statistical Services

3:30pm Academic Speaker: Dr Viveka Erlandsson, University of Bristol

4:00pm Industry speaker: Amy

4.30pm Informal discussions

5:00pm Finish

 

*Programme may be subject to change

Contact information

Organising commitee: Olly Johnson, Emma Bailey, Louisa Bartoszewicz, Jasmine Trueman, Charley Cummings, Haeran Cho, Jonathan Rougier, Viveka Erlandsson and Fatemeh Mohammadi.

For practical information, please contact maths-conference-administrator@bristol.ac.uk

 

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Open lecture: Smart phones and statistics – where is the connection?

Benjamin Meaker visiting Professor: Peter Smith Date: 18 July 2018 Time: 2pm Location: Howard House, Level 4 Seminar Room Although we take them for granted, mobile devices such as smart phones are small miracles of engineering and electronics. These devices are constantly evolving and fundamental research and long term planning is always running in parallel […]

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Graduate student lecture: Random matrices in wireless communication systems

Benjamin Meaker visiting Professor: Peter Smith Date: 23 July 2018 Time: 2pm Location: Howard House, Level 4 Seminar Room This talk will outline the many applications of random matrices in communications. In particular, modern cellular systems where base stations communicate with many mobile users with smart phones are discussed. The modelling, design and analysis of […]

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