Invited Speakers

Radmila Sazdanović

North Carolina State University
WSC 201, Witherspoon Student Center, 2810 Cates Ave, Raleigh, NC 27606, Main Campus

Data, Relations and Their Shape

Topological Data Analysis provides tools for discovering relevant features of data by analyzing the shape of the point cloud. In this context we develop tools for visualizing maps between high dimensional spaces with the goal of discovering relations between data sets with expected correlations. Examples include analyzing relations between numerical and polynomial invariants for knots and graphs, and applications to cancer genomics and materials science.

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Maarten Löffler

Utrecht University
EB2 1025, Engineering Building 2, 890 Oval Dr, Raleigh, NC 27606, Centennial Campus

Labeled & Unlabeled Reconfiguration by Compaction

We consider configurations of (labeled or unlabeled) objects on an integer lattice, and their behaviour under compaction operations: we may think of these as globally pushing all objects with a horizontal or vertical half-plane by one unit, where objects will also push other objects which are in the way. Under this model, the central question is: given two configurations of the same set of objects, is there a sequence of compaction operations that will transform the first configuration into the second. In this talk, we will consider both the characterization of such configuration pairs where the answer is yes, and the computational complexity of answering this question in general as well as in some special cases.

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