Special Events
Archive

Spring 2008

January

01/24

Theoretical Neuroscience Journal Club

Is the Brain like a computer? To what extent can we model the brain with a set of mathematical equations? Can we model some specific brain functions? Has the brain found an optimal solution to some computations? How does the brain represent space and time?

If you are intrigued by these questions and want to (actively) know more, please join us for an informal biweekly journal club on theoretical neuroscience every other Thursday at 5 pm in the Mathematics building. We will go over some specific themes such as 'decision making', 'learning with neurons', 'computing with oscillations', 'neurobiologically inspired computer vision', 'brain machine interfaces' and much more. Students who sign up are expected to present one or two papers relevant to the topic. Each paper is 'mentored' by one faculty. Some mathematical background is preferable. No neuroscience background is required.

Sponsored by the Program in Applied Mathematics Jean-Marc Fellous, Michael Frank, Chuck Higgins, Tony Lewis and Kevin Lin Please reply to Jean-Marc Fellous (fellous@email.arizona.edu), check the website (emotion.nsma.arizona.edu/jclub.html) or just attend the first meeting Thursday Jan 24th , 5pm, in Math 402, if you are interested.

01/28
Marcel Rattunde
Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Festkörperphysik, Freiburg, Germany

Special ACMS Seminar

Optically pumped semiconductor disk lasers (OPSDLs) combine the wavelength versatility and efficiency of diode lasers with the capability of a high output power emitted in a circular, nearly diffraction-limited beam which is generally attributed to solid-state lasers. This favorable combination of properties has stimulated considerable current research and development activities in this class of lasers - mainly focused on GaInAs-based OPSDLs that emit at wavelengths around 1 um or in the visible spectral range. However, at wavelengths between 2 and 3 um there is also considerable demand for compact and versatile high-brightness lasers, e.g. for medical applications, material processing or security applications.

The (AlGaIn)(AsSb) materials system is considered best suited to realise OPSDLs in this wavelength range, and in this presentation, an overview of recent development and achievements for 2.Xum OPSDLs will be given. Both barrier pumped OPSDL (using 980 nm laser diodes as pump source) and in-well pumped OPSDL (using 1.96 um pump radiation) have been fabricated and characterized. Using diamond or as an alternative SiC intracavity heatspreader, multiple-watt CW-output powers have been achieved (e.g. >3W at 2.3 um and >5W at 2.0 um), with power efficiencies in the range of 18 % - 25 %. For an optimised resonator setup, the beam profile is close to the diffraction limit with M^2 values around 1.2; and even for the highest power levels, M^2 is in the range of 2-5.

February

02/05
Maxim Shkarayev

PhD Final Oral Dissertation Defense

April

04/16
Roald Sagdeev, University of Maryland; Pierre Deymier, Alan Newell, and Vladimir Zakharov, The University of Arizona

Miniworkshop on Waves in Plasmas, Oceans, and Metamaterials

Roald Sagdeev has made significant contributions to modern plasma theory, including the areas of collisionless shocks, stochastic magnetic fields, ion temperature gradient instabilities, quasi-linear theory, neoclassical transport, and weak turbulence theory. He is the former director of the Russian Space Research Institute, the Soviet equivalent of NASA, and he was also a science advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev. He is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He has received many awards and is a member of many other national academies including the Vatican Academy of Sciences. Since 1989 he has been working at the University of Maryland where he is a Distinguished University Professor.

For a complete schedule please see the website for the workshop, at math.arizona.edu/~nrw/MiniWorkshop2008.html

May

05/16
1st Year Students

Term Paper Workshop

10:00 John Pate (Advisor: Juan Restrepo): Asymptotic & Numerical Analysis of Brillouin Precursors in Lorentz Media

10:30 Darin Comeau (Advisor: Shankar V.): The Mechanics of Euler's Disk

11:00 Kevin LaTourette (Advisor: Juan Restrepo): A comparison of the Levenberg-Marquardt method with standard optimization algorithms, in minimizing the Tikhonov-Total Variational functional

11:30-11:45 Break

11:45 Chris Rainey (Advisor: Shankar V.): A Derivation of the Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation

12:15 David Lyttle (Advisor: Hermann Flaschka): Stochastic Resonance in Neurobiology

12:45-2:00 Lunch Break

2:00 Bole Yang (Advisor: Hermann Flaschka): LRD of the fractional Brownian motion and the application in data network

2:30 Rebecca Stockbridge (Advisor: Hermann Flaschka): The Discrete Binomial Model for Option Pricing

3:00-3:15 Break

3:15 Stuart Kent (Advisor: Hermann Flaschka): Lagrangian Coherent Structures: Generalizing Stable and Unstable Manifolds to Non-Autonomous Dynamical Systems

3:45 David Love (Advisor: Juan Restrepo): A Brief Introduction to Parameter Estimation in the context of Parabolic PDEs

05/19
Joseph P. Stover
Program in Applied Mathematics
The University of Arizona

PhD Final Oral Dissertation Defense