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Department of Mathematical Sciences : Seminars

 

Mathematics of OR Seminar

 
 
Purpose:  To provide a forum for a community of common interest in which faculty and cadets can share and discuss research in the areas of optimization, simulation, and probability and statistics, enabling extensions to ongoing research and fostering future collaborative efforts.
 
Sessions are held roughly biweekly, offset from CFD (Center for Faculty Development) seminars, on Wednesday from 1400-1445.  The target audience includes, but is not limited to, faculty with an advanced degree in operations research or a related field, military faculty who are classified within FA49 (Operations Research/Systems Analyst), and cadets who are majoring in operations research.  The primary candidates for speakers are:
  1. D/MathSci faculty and cadets conducting ongoing research, whether sharing it in-progress or as a precursor to a presentation at a professional conference, e.g., the MORS Symposium or INFORMS Annual Meeting.
  2. D/MathSci faculty presenting research from a recently completed M.S. thesis or Ph.D. dissertation.
  3. Cadets conducting MA491 or MA498/MA499 research.
  4. External speakers.

This series is jointly coordinated by Professor William Pulleyblank and LTC Brian Lunday.

 
Fall 2012 Schedule
 
Date Speaker Title Location ​
12 September LTC Jake LaPorte Evolutionary Algorithms & Simulation  TH144​
19 September LTC Lamar Adams  Developing Quantative Assessment Mechanisms for Teacher Effectiveness Evaluations  Math Library​
3 October

1. Dr. Chris Arney & NSC colleagues

Research Opportunities in the Network Science Center

 Math Library​
2. MAJ Nick Clark​ Research Opportunities in the Center for Data Analysis & Statistics
17 October LTC Mike Yankovich  Parametric Estimation of the Value of a Statistical Life: Evidence from Variation in Occupational Hazards and Military Retention Bonuses  Math Library​
31 October  MAJs Seidel & Bjerkaas ORSA Assignments at TRAC (Leavenworth & WSMR)  Math Library​
14 November LTC Doug McInvale  Operational Assessments (OEF)  Math Library​
 
Spring 2012 Schedule
 
Date Speaker Title
11 January -- (postponed due to scheduling conflict)
25 January MAJ Charles Levine OR Challenges with Evolving Army Applications
8 February MAJ James Starling Prioritizing Unaided Human Search in Military Simulations
22 February MAJ Benjamin Hung Optimization-based influencing of Village Social Networks in a Counterinsurgency - part I
07 March CPT Nick Howard Optimization-based influencing of Village Social Networks in a Counterinsurgency - part II
28 March MAJ Natalie Vanatta A Method to Analyze Network-centric Capabilities for Agile C2 for Force Sustainment Supporting Soldiers in Southwest Asia
25 April Allison Chang, Doctoral Candidate, MIT O.R. Center Integer Optimization Methods for Machine Learning
09 May MAJ Chris Eastburg An Examination of Financial Risk and Reward in Real Estate
 
 
 

Mathematics Research Seminar

 
 
Purpose: To provide faculty and cadets an opportunity to listen to new advances within the field of mathematics developed by current faculty and outsiders.
 
Date Speaker Title: abstract
14 September Dr. Craig Lennon A Heuristic Approach to the Sailor Problem
21 September Dr. Johann Thiel Arrangements of Stars on the American Flag: The Jack of the United States, or Union Jack, is the top left corner of the American flag that contains one star for each state. With the potential addition of Puerto Rico as the 51st state, the United States faces the trouble of adding a new star to the flag. Garibaldi created a program which gives “nice” arrangements of stars on the Union Jack for 1 to 100 stars, with three exceptions. Using some deep results of Ford on a problem of Erdos, we will discuss how rare these exceptions really are for large numbers of stars. This is joint work with Dimitris Koukoulopoulos.
12 October MAJ Natalie Vanatta The Secrets of VANATTAmatics... Revealed!!!:

Double, Double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Round about the cauldron go;
In the combinatorics throw.
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Finite graphs that hold the log,
Algebra for algebra’s sake,
In the cauldron boil and bake.


What happens when you throw algebra, combinatorics, and graph theory into the pot and stir? Come check it out. This talk will give the background of my research and how am I using elements of these three mathematical fields to solve a special system of equations. So, if you have ever asked me how my research is going – come check it out.
06 DEC, 1215-1315 Dr. Ming-Wen An Bottleneck in the Drug Pipeline? The Need for Alternate Endpoints in Phase II Cancer Clinical Trials: In the final stages of a long and costly drug discovery process, a drug compound is introduced into humans as part of a clinical trial. A clinical trial is a research study with a pre-defined protocol and is conducted in different phases. In oncology, as many as 60% of drug compounds that reach the last phase (Phase III) fail this final step, which occurs after significant amounts of costs have already been incurred and presents a major obstacle to the drug discovery process. This high failure rate may reflect the process by which compounds are usually evaluated in Phase II trials, in which the primary endpoint is the response rate (i.e. the proportion of patients whose tumors achieve a complete or partial response). This motivates the need to search for alternate Phase II endpoints. In this talk, we will introduce clinical trials and survival analysis to contextualize the problem. Then we will describe some preliminary work and future directions to address this bottleneck in the drug discovery process.
 

CFD Seminar

 
 
Purpose:
 
Spring 2012
 
Date Speaker(s) Title Abstract
12 Jan​ ​Dr. Hilary Fletcher, MAJ Lee Evans, MAJ Jeremy Riehl ​​Ideas from the Teaching Professor Conference ​ ​​Abstract
19 Jan​ ​​Dr. Inderpal S. Bhandari ​​Managing Large Data Sets in the Healthcare Industry to Improve Care and Reduce Costs ​ ​​Abstract

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