Math Dept 2016-2017 Newsletter 17

Monday, 27 March 2017

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Past newsletters can now be reached via the department website.

[Click on “Read the Newsletter” in the bottom].

Newsletter is sent out when there is something new.

Please send entries by the end of the workweek  --Ed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MEETINGS AND SEMINARS IN THE DEPARTMENT 

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mondays

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Geometry & Topology Seminar 

Monday March 27

Speaker: Remi Ombolo.

Title:  POISSON STRUCTURES AND POISSON-LIE  STRUCTURES:

The Connection of Poisson-Lie Structures to the Classical Yang-Baxter Equations (CYBE) and Quantum Groups.

Time: 3:10PM-4:00PM

Place: ASB-B 213.

Coordinator:  Stanley M. Einstein-Matthews

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesdays

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Topological Semigroups and Ramsey Theory Seminar

The Seminar on Topological Semigroups and Ramsey Theory will meet

tuesdays from 11:10--12:00 in Annex III, room 231. 

On March 28 Kendra Pleasant will be rehearsing her thesis defense (see below).

Coordinator: Neil Hindman

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesdays 

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evolution Equations & Dynamical Systems seminar

1:10-2:00, in ROOM 213 OF ASB-B.

The seminar will cover all areas and subareas of evolution equations and dynamical systems 

as well as their applications.

Organizer: Toka Diagana

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Graduate Student Seminar

3.10 to 4pm, Graduate Student Office

Organizer: Kendra Pleasant

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday March 30

Thesis defense by Kendra Pleasant

Title: Some New Topics in Ramsey Theory

Advisor:  Neil Hindman

External Examiner:   Leon Woodson (Morgan State University)

Chair of the Dissertation Committee: Dennis Davenport

Other Committee Members:  Alexander Burstein, Francois Ramaroson

1:30 pm, Room 205 (Graduate School)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fridays

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Analysis, PDE and Applied Math Seminar.

Friday, March 31

Speaker: Louise Raphael

12:10pm - 1:00pm, ASB–B # 213

Title: A Gentle Introduction to Support Vector Machines

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mathematics Department Colloquium

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday, March 31

Christina Edholm, University of Tennessee/NIMBioS

Title TBA

4.10 to 5 pm, ASB-B 213

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluid dynamics seminar

Seminar takes place after colloquium, and does not take place if there is no colloquium.

Abstract:  (Neil Hindman)

Fluid Dynamics will be meeting as usual. 

The "Fluid" refers to soda and beer. 

The "Dynamics" refers to the topics of conversation, which is as likely as anything to deal with the Washington Football Club. 

Pizza, including a vegetarian option, and wings are provided.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TALKS AND WORKSHOPS OUTSIDE DEPARTMENT 

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Talitha Washington will present "The Mathematics of the 'Hidden Figures" at 10 am and 1 pm at the National Math Festival to be held on Saturday, April 22 at the Washington, DC Convention Center.

For more information, see: http://www.nationalmathfestival.org/dr-talitha-washington-howard-university-4207/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In past newsletters:

Data-Driven Modeling of Collective Behavior and Emergent Phenomena in Biology (DDM-Bio)

June 5-7, 2017 – SAMSI

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANNOUNCEMENTS

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. (thanks to Toka Diagana) Graduate School Honors for Alumni

In recognition of the University’s Sesquicentennial Celebration, during its Honors and Recognition Ceremony on May 11, 2017 at 2 p.m. in Cramton Auditorium, the Graduate School would like to honor four outstanding alumni from its programs who have made significant contributions to their fields of expertise, the community and the like. The awardees will represent one of the following categories: 1) Arts and Humanities, 2) Biological & Life Sciences, 3) Engineering & Physical Sciences and 4) Social Sciences. Please provide your recommendation(s) with a justification for this honor to lgjones@howard.edu by no later than March 31, 2017.

2. (from Talitha Washington) HU-Teach Initiative

The office of the Registrar encourages faculty to participate in this initiative, whose goal is

to encourage online teaching. Stipends will be awarded to developers of courses whose content is

at least 30% online. Applications must be submitted at http://www.cetla.howard.edu/hu-teach

by April 16. More information about the initiative can be found there as well.

3. (from Crepin Mahop) Annual Math Department Scholarship Day

Call for nominations

Following its tradition of encouraging academic excellence for its undergraduate mathematics majors, the Department of Mathematics is calling for Nominations of our best students for the 2016-2017 Scholarship Competition. The Scholarship Day will be held on April 7, 2017. I am writing to request that you kindly nominate by communicating to the Scholarship Committee (Jill, Dan and Crépin) the names of promising students in your present or past classes.

These scholarships are made available each year through endowment funds and/or gifts from the following generous donors: the Elbert F. Cox Scholarship Fund, the Solveig Espelie Foundation, the George H. Butcher, Jr. Prize Fund, the Margaret Bullock scholarship Fund, the James Donaldson Prize, and the Gerald Chachere Award for Excellence in Mathematics.

Competition procedure:

1. Nominations of candidates by faculty members and/or Self-Nominations;

2. Formal applications are received (letter of motivation & unofficial transcripts)

3. Recommendations (from Mathematics faculty members)

4. Selection of laureates

5. Distribution of awards.

IMPORTANT DATES

Application deadline: Friday, March 24, 2017

Scholarship Day Date: Friday, April 07, 2017

Time:                                       3:10PM

Venue:                                     ASB-B # 213

--------------------------------------------------------------------

In past newsletters

Open positions at Howard Math Department

Mathematica and WolframAlpha online access

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SCHOLARSHIP AND FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITIES (from various sources)

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Opportunities at various federal agencies

Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) Science Education & Internship Program - Oak Ridge, TN

Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management offers students and recent college graduates opportunities to learn about the mission of the DOE-EM office and to receive specialized training and practical experience on the safe cleanup of environmental projects stemming from five decades of nuclear weapons development and government-sponsored energy research.

Visit: http://orise.orau.gov/orem-internship/default.htm to read about the full opportunity and to apply.

U.S. citizenship (verification will be required if selected), and at least 18 years of age (no exceptions).

EPA Environmental Health Assessment Support Associate

The EPA Environmental Research and Business Support Program is looking for EPA Environmental Health Assessment Support Associate at the EPA facility in Arlington, VA. The Associate will assist the Integrated Risk Information System Division through technical, administrative, and communication duties.

For the full position description and to apply, visit our website: https://www.zintellect.com/Posting/Details/3181

Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program

The Intelligence Community (IC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program offers scientists and engineers from a wide variety of disciplines unique opportunities to conduct research in a wide range of topics relevant to the Intelligence Community. Information at: http://orau.org/icpostdoc/current-opportunities.aspx

Annual stipends range from $75,000 to $79,000, depending on research location

U. S. citizenship required;

Ph.D. received within 5 years of the application deadline

To learn more and to apply, please visit http://orau.org/icpostdoc

Deadline March 31, 2017

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In previous newsletters:

Department of Energy (DOE) summer internships (deadline March 20)

Higher Education Research Experiences (HERE) Program

Humboldt Research Fellowships for faculty

Budapest Semesters in Mathematics Education (BSME)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INTERESTING ARTICLES AND WEBSITES

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. (from Louise Raphael) Source for well-vetted, free, open-source textbooks

American Institute for Mathematics website

2. Some equations for life

From wordsmith.org, AWADmail issue 788, 3/19/17

Age of the person who claims to have walked to school in all kinds of weather:

A = M + |G| + S

M = # miles to the school

G = latitude

S = inches of snow

*bonus: add 10 if it was uphill both ways

Example: 1 mile to school plus 44 latitude plus 17” snow = 62 plus bonus uphill both ways 10 = 72.

-Chree Perkins, Leicester, Vermont (chreeperkins verizon.net)

Equation for calculating bliss:

C S

B = - + -

L T

Where C = cat, L = lap, S = strong light, and T = tome.

-Isabel Auerbach, Rohnert Park, California (yunhyunh yahoo.com)

Equation for predicting electoral success:

G x B x A

ES = ---------

H x I

Where

G = invocations of God

B = current Buzzwords

A = Appeals to worst instincts

H = Hard realities mentioned

I = evidence of Intellect

Note that if either H or I approaches zero, ES becomes infinite.

-Richard Kaplan, Farnborough, UK (r.kaplan ucl.ac.uk)

They’ll receive their choice of a signed copy of any of my books or a copy of the word game One Up!

Read on for honorable mentions:

SCHOOL

This one I had made up during my engineering college days. When we recline and study during exams, the amount of time in which we fall asleep (involuntarily) is given by

where

I = Interest in the subject

θ = Angle of reclination (from horizontal)

F = Amount of food consumed for dinner

D = Level of difficulty of the subject

I is exponential because it is of the utmost importance.

F is squared while D is square root because more consumption of food has a greater influence on inducing sleep than a more difficulty level (in fact, in a few exceptional cases, D goes up in the numerator -- more difficulty causes us to be awake and think more and consequently be awake for more time).

-Aditya Pathak, Bengaluru, India (apathak tce.co.in)

HOME

Success of marriage

S = (K × 5) + (E × 4) + (UWKYMS)²

K = Kindness

E = Empathy

UWKYMS = Understanding when to keep your mouth shut

-Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki, Tsukuba, Japan (tkach japan.email.ne.jp)

If F is the overall family happiness, then F = 0.1H + K + 10W

Where

H = Husband’s happiness

K = Kids’ happiness

W = Wife’s happiness

-Ted Palomaki, Salt Lake City, Utah (tdp eastontp.com)

My decluttering equation:

c = a/b

where a = likeliness of using a possession in the future, on a scale of 1-10

b = object size, on a scale of 1-10

c = score, items scoring below .7 should be gotten rid of

-Perry Saunders, Austin, Texas (xsoundx hotmail.com)

Noise in the house increases proportionally to the square of the number of children. Maybe N = C².

-Edna Litten, Altamont, New York (ejlitten hotmail.com)

Happy wife = Happy life

-Daniel Fisher, Managua, Nicaragua (mrdanfish gmail.com)

Number of bicycles one should own = n + 1

where n is the current number of bikes owned

Corollary:

Number of bikes needed for domestic tranquility = D - 1

where D is number of bikes which results in divorce

-Sam Joseph, Spokane, Washington (sgjoseph1 gmail.com)

BUSINESS

Real estate price = Q + L³

Where Q = quality

L = location

-Mike Carlson, Grand Marais, Minnesota (mhcnvc boreal.org)

1. Price for women’s shoes = 300 × distance in feet between shoes on display

For example, in Payless Shoes, the shoes are about 1/10th of a foot apart. So shoes in Payless cost 0.1 × 300 = $30/pair. In a Jimmy Choo display, the shoes are about 2 feet apart: 2 × 300 = $600/pair

2. Cost of retail staff per square foot of store space = $0.04/hour

In the US, you’ll find one clerk covering 500 square feet of floor space. That clerk earns about $20/hour. So the cost per square foot is 20/500 = 0.04/hour. In China, you will find 10 clerks covering the same territory. But they each get paid $2/hour. So (10×2)/500 = the same 0.04/hour.

-Bill Duncan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (wrd pmpartners.com)

WORK

Vm = 1/t where Vm is the value of a meeting and t is the length of time it takes. This can also be expressed in English as the value of a meeting is inversely proportional to its length.

-Andrew Marr, Shoreham-by-Sea, UK (am andrewmarr.com)

If A equals accomplishments completed at a meeting, then A = 1/x where x = number of people at the meeting.

-Rima Phillips, East Windsor, New Jersey (rimaphillips gmail.com)

Over time I developed a theory on the intelligence of committees. Simple observation shows being in a committee reduces the intelligence of its members. The resultant intelligence of the committee organism once a quorum is gained can be calculated in the same way as parallel resistance can be:

R total = (1/R₁ + 1/R₂ + 1/R₃...)

-Glm Mengel, Denver, Colorado (via website comments)

P = L² × A ± T

Popularity of music = Looks squared × Advertising ± Talent

-David W. Moore, Des Moines, Iowa (dwmoore businessolver.com)

POLITICS

Statesmanship = truth × fairness / (conspiracy × corruption × bigotry)

Dictatorship = 1 / statesmanship

-Alan Winson, Oakland, California (alan.winson gmail.com)

	(Acts of responsibility - Acts of blaming)² + (Decisions based on science - Decisions ignoring science)²
Presidential image =	--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	(Total words + Total tweets)

-Wren Hudgins, Seattle, Washington (ed258 icloud.com)

-Allan J Wager, Barcelona, Spain (wagbomb gmail.com)

Fake News + Alternate Facts = Stupid Solutions

-Thomas C. Perkins, Manville, Rhode Island (perkystp gmail.com)

The equation for Post Truth:

PT = (T-T) + BS

Where Post Truth equals Truth minus Truth (0) plus Bull*hit. There may be a Gullibility factor, but I’m not sure where to put it.

-Claudia Gaber, Townsville, Australia (CGWordsmith hotmail.com)

LIFE

If A is happiness in old age then A = X + Y + Z where

X is someone to talk to

Y is something to do

Z is something to look forward to

-Dr. Michael Smout, Summerstrand, South Africa (ma.smout mweb.co.za)

Happiness from a snow day H = 10/X² where X is the number of snow days in a season

-Richard Marriner, Augusta, Maine (richard.marriner maine.gov)

Given H = The size of a person’s “heart” (compassion, etc.)

M = That person’s total wealth

Therefore: H = 1/M (inverse proportion)

-Antonio Christopher Dittmann, Vashon, Washington (dittmann.antonio comcast.net)

H is happiness and

H = (m > s) + h + F + f

Where m = money, s = sufficient money, h = health, F = family and f = friends.

-Graham Heddle, UK (grahamheddle yahoo.com)

Good Time at a Party = Expectations + Conversation + Snacks + √(Alcohol) - Time Spent on your cellphone.

-Jordin Metz, Santiago, Chile (jordin.metz gmail.com)

If H is a successful three-way friendship, then H = (A + B + C) - G

where A, B, and C are the three parties involved and G is the gossip shared among any two parties about the third.

-Paul Many, Toledo, Ohio (paul.many utoledo.edu)

This equation ALWAYS works!

G = R/E

Where G is gratification, R is reality, and E is expectation.

-David Gluck, MD, New York, New York (dglucknyc yahoo.com)

My equation is the following:

Man = what-he-is / what-he-thinks-of-himself

based on this Tolstoy quotation: “A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.”

-Amel Bennaceur, Milton Keynes, UK (benamel gmail.com)

AGE

I cannot swear that this is originally my formula, but I’ll claim it for this purpose!

OldAge = 10 × √(CurrentAge)

Hence:

When you are 16, old people are 40;

When you are approaching 50, old people are 70; and

When you are 100, you know you’re old!

-Layne Marshal, Campbell River, Canada (laynemarshal gmail.com)

This one’s really pretty old-fashioned, and I apologise for that, but my mother once told me, quite tongue-in-cheek I’m glad to say, that the ideal ages for a man and woman to marry was given by the equation

X = Y/2 + 10,

where X is the woman’s age and Y the man’s. She didn’t couch it in such algebraic terms, but that’s what it boiled down to: the woman should be half the man’s age, plus ten years.

-Matt McNally, Grahamstown, South Africa (mattmcn telkomsa.net)

MISC.

I’ve created an equation based on my use of Groupons and the cost and wildly divergent value of things in London :)

IEx = Gr + le - LofAEBTD

Groupon + low-expectations - The-lack-of-anything-else-better-to-do = Improved Experience

-Denise Jones, London, UK (dj.jonestown gmail.com)

For crossword mavens:

orctar & parspin ≈ √r2

(carrot and parsnip soup is more or less a square root or two)

-Andrew Lloyd, Knockroe, Borris, Co Carlow, Ireland (knockroe gmail.com)

I’ve been with you since around 1998, and it never gets old. AWAD + a thought a day >> a day without.

-Matt Nash, Oak Harbor, Washington (mattanash live.com)

According to our dog Lucca, happiness is

H = S+K+3T-Rt-NPR+2C+(UBR×UBR)

Where

S = Shelter

K = Kibble

T = Treats

Rt = Relief Trips

NPR = National Public Radio, self-explanatory; he has to listen to it all the time we are at home, and he is increasing his knowledge base daily, but he would rather listen to country music

C = Cats to chase

UBR = Unlimited Belly Rubs

-Casimir Groblewski, Boston, Massachusetts (cgroblewski fantinigorga.com)