Workshop on Topology: Identifying Order in Complex Systems

Institute for Advanced Study
March 6, 2013 - 2:00pm

Cohomology in Homotopy Type Theory

Eric Finster
Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne; Member, School of Mathematics
March 6, 2013 - 11:00am

Derandomization of Probabilistic Logspace (The Nisan Variations)

Avi Wigderson
chool of Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study
March 5, 2013 - 10:30am

I will continue the exposition of different derandmization techniques for probabilistic logspace algorithms.


Quasirandom Hypergraphs

Dhruv Mubayi
University of Illinois at Chicago
March 4, 2013 - 11:15am

Since the foundational results of Thomason and Chung-Graham-Wilson on quasirandom graphs over 20 years ago, there has been a lot of effort by many researchers to extend the theory to hypergraphs. I will present some of this history, and then describe our recent results that provide such a generalization and unify much of the previous work. One key new aspect in the theory is a systematic study of hypergraph eigenvalues.


Formal Abstract Homotopy Theory

Jeremy Avigad
Carnegie Mellon University
February 28, 2013 - 11:00am

Semantics of Higher Inductive Types

Michael Shulman
University of California, San Diego; Member, School of Mathematics
February 27, 2013 - 11:00am

Derandomizing BPL?

Avi Wigderson
School of Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study
February 26, 2013 - 10:30am

I will survey some of the basic approaches to derandomizing Probabilistic Logspace computations, including the "classical" Nisan, Impagliazzo-Nisan-Widgerson and Reingold-Raz generators, the Saks-Zhou algorithm and some more recent approaches. We'll see why each falls short of complete derandomization, BPL=L, hopefully motivating further work on this basic problem.


Collective Phenomena, Collective Motion, and Collective Action in Ecological Systems

Simon Levin
Princeton University
February 25, 2013 - 2:00pm

Fundamental questions in basic and applied ecology alike involve complex adaptive systems, in which localized interactions among individual agents give rise to emergent patterns that feed back to affect individual behavior.


Polar Codes and Randomness Extraction for Structured Sources

Emmanuel Abbe
Princeton University
February 25, 2013 - 11:15am

Polar codes have recently emerged as a new class of low-complexity codes achieving Shannon capacity. This talk introduces polar codes with emphasis on the probabilistic phenomenon underlying the code construction. New results and connections to randomness extraction for structured sources are discussed.


pi_2(s^2) in HoTT

Guillaume Brunerie
School of Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study
February 20, 2013 - 11:00am