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Upcoming Talks

  • November 7: Marco Morazan
  • November 21: Manfred Minimair on "Basis-Independent Polynomial Division Algorithm Applied to Division in Lagrange and Bernstein Basis"; also Career Services
  • December 5: Student talks

Recent Departmental Talks/Events

Unless otherwise listed, all talks start at 1pm in AS 106.

  • November 7, 2008:: Marco Morazan
  • Oct 31, 2008: The Father and the Babe - who IS the greatest baseball player of all time? Gehrig? Mantle? Williams? ARod? Fr. Gabriel Costa, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Seton Hall University and Professor at the United States Marine Academy presents a talk on sabermetrics on Friday, October 31st at 1:00 PM in Arts and Sciences Hall Room 106. Fr. Costa promises to raise a few spirits this Halloween with some statistical modeling and amusing stories. He will be joined by some very special surprise visitors for a lively panel discussion at the end.

    Students wearing their favorite baseball team hats or shirts will be entered into a drawing for a prize. So if you don't love the Phillies or the Rays, baseball season doesn't have to be over yet. It can be "like déjà vu all over again." Just be there or you're Out!


    Father Costa with Babe Ruth's grand daughter
  • Oct 24, 2008: Jennifer Wilson of the Eugene Lang College for Liberal Arts at the New School will be giving a talk entitled "The Mathematics of the Democratic Presidential Primary" or Why Hillary Isn't the Candidate
  • Oct 17, 2008: John T. Saccoman & Michelle Houck on recent results in Graph Theory
  • Oct 3, 2008: Tom Marlowe from Seton Hall University, talking about recent results in Software Engineering
  • Sept 26, 2008: Nathan Kahl from Seton Hall University, talking about recent results in Graph Theory
  • Sept 16, 2008: Olivier Danvy from the University of Aarhus, Denmark
    This talk is in Jubilee Hall, Rm 132, at 4:00pm
    Abstract: Defunctionalization is a program transformation introduced by John Reynolds 25 years ago to "firstify" an interpreter. The goal of this work is to illustrate how defunctionalization is useful in other areas of functional programming than writing interpreters, and to present its left inverse, refunctionalization. Together, defunctionalization and refunctionalization connect the usual first-order style of writing programs and the seemingly more complex higher-order style of writing functional programs. This talk will be illustrated by simple and (one hopes) telling examples. This presentation is based on joint work with Lasse R. Nielsen and Kevin Millikin.
  • April 18, 2008: Michelle Houck and Sarah Smith from Seton Hall
    Sarah Smith (Manfred Minimair): Determinants of Modular Macauley Matrices We present ongoing work on an optimized C++ software developed for computing determinants of modular Macaulay matrices. By modular matrices we mean matrices whose entries are integer remainders modulo a given prime number. Macaulay matrices are particular matrices that arise in many applications of science and engineering when solving systems of polynomial equations. The algorithm for computing determinants is based on Gaussian elimination. This work is part of the NSF project CCF-0430741 under direction of M. Minimair

    Michelle Houck: Surgeries on Threshold Graphs: Preliminary Report: A graph is a collection of nodes and edges connecting some of these nodes. Spanning trees of graphs are of interest because they dominate the all terminal reliability (ATR) of the network represented by the graph for certain probabilities of edge failure. In this model, nodes (or stations) are assumed to be perfectly reliable, and edges (or links) fail independently with equal probability. Bogdanowicz (1985) and Hammer/Kelmans (1996) and Bleiler/Saccoman (2005) have developed formulas for the spanning trees of a special class of graphs called threshold graphs , and they are believed to provide a lower bound on the All-Terminal Reliability (ATR) of all graphs in the same class (i.e., having the same number of nodes and edges). We are exploring a surgery that transforms a special type of threshold graph into a lower bound graph, the lollipop graph.

  • Mar. 30, 2007: Nate Shank from Moravian College on Random Graphs:
    Many different varieties of random graphs have been studied, and the resulting models have been connected with many different areas including networks, biology, sociology, and even forensics. In this talk some random graphs and Euclidean graphs will be introduced, and multiple examples of these graphs will be discussed along with different properties and their applications.
  • March 3, 2007:: Dan Gross and JT Saccoman on results in Graph theory.
    Dan Gross: Bounds for Component Order Edge Connectivity: (with Frank Boesch, L. William Kazmierczak, Charles Suffel, Antonius Suhartomo - Stevens Institute Of Technology) The component order edge connectivity parameter, [IMAGE] , is defined as the minimum number of edges that must be deleted from a graph so that all components of the resulting subgraph have order less than k , where k is a predetermined threshold value. Formulas for [IMAGE] have been derived for paths, cycles, stars, and complete graphs; but no formula has been found for an arbitrary graph G . In this work we look at several bounds that can be applied to find the range of possible values for any graph. We then derive from these bounds formulas for [IMAGE] of the fan and the wheel.
    JT Saccoman: A formula for the number of spanning trees for certain non-threshold split graphs (with J. Michewicz) A graph G is a split graph if its node set can be partitioned into a clique and an independent set. Threshold graphs are split graphs with an added neighborhood property. While there is a formula for the number of spanning trees of threshold graphs, none exist for non-threshold split graphs. We present a formula for the eigenvalues of a certain type of split graph which we call Ideal Proper Split (IPS) graphs. IPS graphs have c nodes of equal degree in the independent set and a clique on n-c nodes in which each node is adjacent to exactly one member of the independent set. After finding the eigenvalues for the Laplacian matrix for such graphs, a corollary to Kirchhoff's well-known Matrix-Tree Theorem leads to the number of spanning trees for these graphs. The eigenvalue formula for IPS graphs is shown to yield a formula for the number of spanning trees for a related split graph as well.

  • April 21, 2006: Junior/Senior Seminar presentations by student majors
  • April 14, 2006: no talk scheduled yet
  • April 7, 2006: no talk; Good Friday
  • April 5, 2006: Prof. Lewis, Mathematics Department, Fordham University, NY, will give a talk at our department on Wed, 4/5/06, 4.30pm (room TBA).
    Abstract: He will talk on a computer algebra problem arising when studying the geometry of molecules in chemistry. Prof. Lewis has also written a computer algebra system (similar to Maple, but specialized on polynomials). So, if you are interested in efficient implementations of computer algebra algorithms, this talk might be for you.
  • March 31, 2006: Charles Franke Memorial Lecture given by Dr. Ed Sandifer (title TBA)
  • March 24, 2006: Sara Bleiler (title to be announced)
  • March 17, 2006: no talk scheduled yet
  • March 3, 2006: Dr. Steve Masticola of Siemens Corp.(TBA)
  • Feb. 24, 2006: N. Kahl on Topics in Graph Theory (title TBA)

  • Feb. 17, 2006: B. Wachsmuth on "Teaching Mathematics with Tablet Technology such as Journal and DyKnow
    • Abstract: This informal talk is geared towards all Science faculty whether they use a Tablet or a regular laptop. We will explore different ways in which the Tablet PC can be used to teach Mathematics and other sciences more effectively:
    • we will explain how to use the Tablet as a substitute for blackboard (or whiteboard) work
    • we will use the Tablet to show how to collaboratively work on problems with students during class
    • we will convert hand-written complex formulas to type-set mathematics
    • we will show a calculator that understands hand-written calculations and symbolic mathematics
    We will also discuss the current Seton Hall Tablet PC pilot projects and talk about possible future directions of Tablet Computing at Seton Hall and beyond. Time permitting, we may also briefly show Maple 10 - all faculty who attend will be able to upgrade Maple to version 10 after the talk, if they wish. If you every wished that chalk was truely "dust-free", or that markers would never dry up, or why your expensive computer can't be as simple as your cheap yellow writting pad, this talk is for you.
  • Nov 16, 2005 (at 5:15pm in Nursing 113): Manfred Minimair from Seton Hall University on Polynomial Equations and Modeling
    Abstract: The talk gives a tutorial introduction to parameter identifiability for compartmental models of biology. Compartmental models are used to model the flow of fluids between different compartments in biological systems. The problem of determining parameter identifiability is to decide if there are unique parameter values such that parametric model equations describe the behavior of a given biological system. The talk showcases symbolic computation techniques developed by Magiara, Roccomagno, Chappel and Wynn for deciding identifiability.
  • Fri, Nov 11, 1pm, AS 106: Students Sarah Bleiler and Dan McDonald on Two Problems in Graph Theory: the Maximal Independent Set Problem and Short Path with Minimal Cutsets Problem.
  • Oct 7, 2005:: John T. Saccoman from Seton Hall University on a correction in the formula of Hammer and Kelmans for the number of spanning trees in threshold graphs
  • Sep 30, 2005: Manfred Minimair from Seton Hall University on "Cayley-Dixon Resultant Matrices of Multi-Univariate Composed Polynomials"

  • May 3, 2005: Arno van den Esse from University of Nijmegen,Netherlands on "Hesse, the Jacobian Conjecture, and the Laplace Operator"
  • April 22, 2005: The Junior Seminar (Andrea Berkman, Sarah Bleiler, Joe Dilauri, Pat Farley, Tania Garofalo, Monica Makowski, Jennifer Michewicz, Robert Michniewicz, Rachel Nowetner, Christina Rajsz, Anne Ryan, Lauren Sunshine, Deborah Thomas, and Ewa Zielonka) presents their research on Graph Theory (part 2)
  • April 15, 2005: The Junior Seminar (Andrea Berkman, Sarah Bleiler, Joe Dilauri, Pat Farley, Tania Garofalo, Monica Makowski, Jennifer Michewicz, Robert Michniewicz, Rachel Nowetner, Christina Rajsz, Anne Ryan, Lauren Sunshine, Deborah Thomas, and Ewa Zielonka) presents their research on Graph Theory (part 1)
  • March 14, 2005 Ismael Rodríguez from Complutense University of Madrid, on "A Formal Mechanism for Implementing Private Vickrey Auctions"
    Abstract: Many different types of auctions can be applied to determine selling prices. Among them, Vickrey auctions are specially interesting due to the fact that they disallow strategic behaviors of the bidders. In fact, they have the interesting property of eliminating any incentive for bidders to bid values that are different from their reserve prices (i.e., the true value they give to the item being auctioned). That is, the dominant strategy for each bidder consists in bidding his reserve price. However, somebody has to collect all the bids.

    For several reasons, it is desirable that bidders keep private their reserve price. In particular, if either a bidder or the auctioneer knows the reserve price of some bidders then he could modify his behavior consequently in forthcoming auctions to take advantage of that knowledge.

    We will present a method to overcome this problem. In particular, we will present a protocol to implement Vickrey auctions where privacy of all the bidders is kept as much as possible. Its main feature is that bids are kept private for both bidders and the auctioneer without the necessity of any trusted third party. In particular, after the auction is finished, only the value of the second highest bid and the identity of the highest bidder are publicly revealed.

    We will study in detail several questions regarding the practical applicability of the protocol. Some implementation results will be presented, and the risks of collusion of bidders will be analyzed.

  • March 7, 2005 Brandy Rapatski from U. of Maryland

  • Feb. 21, 2005 Brandilynn Stigler from

  • Feb. 16, 2005 Nathan Kahl from Stevens Institute of Technology

  • Nov. 10, 2004: Dr. Michale Miniere, Middlesex County College on Monodromy Groups of Transcendental Functions

  • Oct 29 & Nov 1, 2004, at 8pm at the Theatre in the Round, University Center: The Seton Hall Theatre Council presents Proof, a play about the "unknowability of love and the mysteries of mathematics", written by David Auburn and directed by Geo Frank.
    One of the most acclaimed plays of recent seasons, Proof explores the unknowability of love as much as it does the mysteries of mathematics. On the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, Catherine, a young woman who has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, Robert, must deal not only with his death but with the arrival of her estranged sister, Claire, and with the attentions of Hal, a former student of her father's who hopes to find valuable work in the 103 notebooks that Robert left behind. As Catherine confronts Hal's affections and Claire's plans for her life, she struggles to solve the most perplexing problem of all: How much of her father's madness - or genius - will she inherit?
  • Oct 29, 2004, at 1pm: Dr. Marlowe, Seton Hall, will talk about "Scheduling Multimedia Communication for Virtual Meetings"
    This talk is based on joint work of Dr. Marlowe with Dr. Sanjoy Baruah of the University of North Carolina, as presented at the Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems, San Francisco, September 2004, Special Session on Game Theoretic and Artificial Intelligence Techniques.

  • October 8, 2004: Departmental Pizza Party

  • Dec 12, 2003, 1 PM: Christian Aldea, one of our seminar/project course students, will be giving a presentation of his course results (title to be announced).

  • Nov 21, 2003, 1 PM: Prof. Dan Gross, Seton Hall University, will be giving a seminar talk on graph theory (title to be announced)

  • Nov 14, 2003, 1 PM: Carol Marlowe, Rahway Library will be giving a workshop/talk on searching the internet, both for Math/CS topics and for jobs opportunities; there can be a "hands-on" component if the participants desire it and bring in laptop computers,

  • Nov 7, 2003, 1pm: Dr. Dave Perry, National Security Agency (NSA) will speak on "The Coming of the Enigma".

    Abstract: The Enigma was an encryption machine used by the Germans during World War II, a seemingly impregnable terminus of a millennia-long battle between codemakers and codebreakers. This talk covers the history of that battle and of the Enigma, explaining how the machine worked and why it was thought to be secure.

  • Friday, Oct 31, 2003, 1 PM: Prof. Tuck Washburn's seminar talk on the Jacobian Conjecture

  • Oct 27 (Monday), 2003, 12 noon: Dr. Dmitry Khavinson, University of Arkansas, will speak on "The Main Theorem of Algebra: Is There Room for the Unknown?" (see abstract). Dr. Khavinson is an active researcher and has published over 60 papers in the field of complex analysis. He also was the program director for the Mathematics Division at the National Science Foundation for two years.

    Abstract: The well known and loved Main Theorem of Algebra states that every polynomial p(z) (z=x+iy denotes a complex number) of degree n has precisely n complex roots, i.e., solutions of the equation p=0. It was first rigorously proved by C. F. Gauss in early 1800s . (Gauss in fact returned to this theorem on many occasions during his life and has given altogether 5 different proofs of the theorem.)

    In the last decade, many people initiated study of polynomials more general than analytic polynomials p(z), for example so-called harmonic polynomials g(z) + h(z*), where z*=x-iy denotes a conjugate complex variable and g,h are polynomials.

    In particular, it was conjectured in 1992 by T. Sheil-Small and A. Wilmshurst that the polynomials z* + p(z), have at most 3n-2 complex roots, where n is the degree of p.

    In this talk we discuss this conjecture and its recent proof (2001) based on the methods of complex dynamics. Also, we survey many open questions and problems that still remain unsolved.

  • Oct. 24, 2003, 1PM: Prof. Marco Morazan, Seton Hall University, will give a talk entitled "DVM-Friendly First-Class Functions for Functional Languages". All faculty and Math/CS club members are strongly encouraged to attend.

  • Oct 10, 2003, 1pm: Dr. J.T. Saccoman, Seton Hall University, talks about Spanning Tree Bounds for Graphs and Multigraphs: Too Tight, Too Loose?" in AS 106, as usual. Everyone is encouraged to attend.

Last Modified: Feb 2005
Maintained by: Math/CS @ SHU.edu (bgw)