Prof. Alicia Dickenstein will be talking about “Algebraic Geometry Tools in Systems Biology” on 25 October 2021 at 4pm PKST via Zoom. She is our esteemed speaker in the John Conway Spirited Seminar Series organized by the Department of Mathematics at SBASSE, LUMS. 

She will talk about some methods and concepts of algebraic geometry that are being used in recent years to analyze standard models in molecular biology. She will also discuss some of the mathematical challenges that arise from this application. 

Please join us virtually via zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/97379855766      

About the speaker:  

Prof. Alicia Dickenstein (University of Buenos Aires) is a 2019 Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, a prior Vice-president of the International Mathematical Union (2015–2018), and a 2015 recipient of The World Academy of Sciences prize. She is a recipient of the L'Oréal-Unesco International Awards For Women in Science-2021. 

Her research interests are focused on using Algebraic geometry and combinatorics to predict behaviors of biological systems without knowing precise parameters. She in conjunction with Mercedes Perez Milian has created a system called The MESSI System (named after the footballer, Lionel Messi) which stands for Modifications of the type-Enzyme-Substrate or Swap with Intermediates. This allows researchers to prove general results valid in certain network.

You can view the complete list of the John Conway Spirited Seminars Series here: https://sites.google.com/view/conway-spirited-math-seminars/home 

John Conway Spirited Mathematics Seminar Series invites you to a seminar on “Combinatorial G-Conjecture for Interval Subdivisions” by Drs. Imran Anwar & Shaheen Nazir on October 18, 2021, at 4:00 PM PKT (Monday).

This session is a part of the series organized by the Department of Mathematics at SBASSE, LUMS Lahore.  

About the Speakers: 

Dr. Imran Anwar & Dr. Shaheen Nazir’s main research areas focus on enumerative combinatorial commutative Algebraic, combinatorial algebraic geometry and Commutative Algebra.  

Aesthetic combinatorial proof of g-conjecture for interval subdivision 

There is beauty in simplicity, and there are very few things that can match the beauty of untangling some of the deepest mysteries of logic and rationale, than the mathematical ‘magic’ that a trained mathematician can perform. One such captivating yet elusive mysteries is the g-conjecture. Simply put, it is the art of deciphering meaning and logic from within patterns, that may seem too complicated at first glance. A trained mathematician will conduct a fine dissection, layer by layer, until they arrive at simpler, more comprehendible bits and will try to make sense from there on.

Please see the seminar series link below for details:  

https://sites.google.com/view/conway-spirited-math-seminars/home

Dr. Lukas Schimmer will be talking about “Variational Principles in Mathematical Physics: From Semibounded to Gapped Operators” in the next John Conway Spirited Seminar Series on 4th October 2021, Monday at 4pm PKST.

Dr. Lukas is currently working at Institut Mittag-Leffler, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Sweden.

You can view the schedule for all seminars here: https://sites.google.com/view/conway-spirited-math-seminars/home

Join us via Zoom meeting ID: 973 7985 5766

Professor Gil Kalai will be talking about “A World Without Quantum Computers” in the next session of the John Conway Spirited Seminar Series initiated by the Department of Mathematics at SBASSE LUMS. 

Professor Kalai belongs to the Einstein Institute of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The session will take place on Monday September 27, 2021 at 4pm PKST. 

Prof. Elisa Gorla will be our next guest in the "John Conway Spirited Mathematics Seminar Series" where she will be giving a presentation on "Multivariate Cryptography and the Complexity of Polynomial Systems Solving" on Monday, September 20, 2021 at 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM. She will talk about multivariate cryptography, introduce Groebner bases and discuss how to compute them. She will also introduce some invariants, which are used to estimate the complexity of computing a Groebner basis. 

About the speaker:

Elisa Gorla is a well-known expert of "Non-Linear Algebras". She did her PhD from University of Notre Dame, IN (USA), in 2004.  During her professional career, she got affiliated with Max Planck Institut fuer Mathematik - Bonn (Germany), Fields Institute, Toronto (Canada), University of Zuerich (Switzerland) under various role.  Currently, she is working as a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland. She is an Associate Editor in the SIAM Journal of Applied Algebra and Geometry. During the period 2013-2019 she was a member of the management team of CIMPA (International Centre for Pure and Applied Mathematics), a non-profit international organization whose aim is promoting international cooperation in higher education and research in mathematics for the benefit of developing countries. 

Please join us virtually via zoom: 

Zoom Meeting link: https://zoom.us/j/97379855766    

Meeting ID: 973 7985 5766; Passcode: 146928   

Date: September 13, 2021
Time: 4:00 pm (PKT)
Link: https://zoom.us/j/97379855766
Meeting ID: 973 7985 5766
Passcode: 146928

Professor Emanuel Carneiro (ICTP, Italy) will be speaking about “Fourier meets Riemann: Some Problems on the Interface between Analysis and Number Theory” in the next John Conway Spirited Seminar Series on September 6th, 2021, at 6pm PST. The seminar is organized by the Department of Mathematics at SBASSE LUMS.

Individuals interested in being part of the seminar can join via Zoom Meeting ID: 97379855766

Centre for Water Informatics & Technology at LUMS is pleased to announce the next talk of the "Best of Water Systems Research" seminar series. The talk will be delivered by Dr. Ariel Dinar of UC Riverside and is titled "Dealing with Water Scarcity and Salinity: Adoption of Water Efficient Technologies and Management Practices by California Avocado Growers". 

About the speaker: Dr. Ariel Dinar is a Distinguished Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy at the School of Public Policy, University of California, Riverside (UCR). His work addresses various aspects of economic and strategic behavior associated with management of water, land and the environment. Dr. Dinar received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since then he spent 15 years in the World Bank working on water and climate change economics and policy. In 2008, Dr. Dinar assumed a professorship at UCR. Dr. Dinar founded the Water Science and Policy Center, which he directed until 2014. Dr. Dinar is an International Fellow of the Center for Agricultural Economic Research of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel since November 2010; a Fulbright Senior Specialist since 2003; and was named a 2015 Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. He authored and co-authored nearly 250 publications in peer reviewed journals, policy outlets and book chapters. He co-authored and edited 29 books and textbooks. He founded two technical journals (Strategic Behavior and the Environment, and Water Economics and Policy) for the latter one he serves at present as an Editor-in-Chief. He founded and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the book series Global Issues in Water Policy.    
 
About the seminar series: The “Best of Water Systems Research” is a webinar series initiated by The Center for Water Informatics & Technology at LUMS. While our companion webcast series “Aab Beeti” is geared towards generating public awareness and meeting leading practitioners and opinion makers in Pakistan’s water sector, this new series (BWSR) is primarily meant for discussing serious scholarship on water resources. The series celebrates distinguished works in water systems research and is aimed towards researchers, practitioners, and technical experts in water-related areas. The list of speakers majorly consists of individuals who regularly deploy quantitative data-driven methods & systems thinking and have earned recognition via peer-reviewed research in top journals. Also, many of the speakers may or may not have a direct interest in the Indus or South Asia’s other basins.

The talks are (mostly) delivered bi-weekly on Wednesday evenings. A tentative schedule for the webinars can be found at https://wit.lums.edu.pk/BWSR2021 which also includes recordings of past sessions and information on future speakers.

A link for attending will be sent via email to registered individuals. Colleagues who register once can attend all future talks without the need to register again.
 

The Centre for Water Informatics & Technology at SBASSE, LUMS is extremely excited to announce the launch of a webinar series intended to celebrate distinguished works in ‘Water Systems Research’. The seminars will be targeted towards researchers and technical experts working in water resource systems and will be delivered by scientists who have produced acclaimed research in the field. Securing the future of our water resources is becoming less of a problem of scarcity and more of a problem of effective management of what we already have. We strongly believe that this can be achieved only by adopting a systems perspective on water that takes into account the intricate linkages connecting the water system with food, energy, technology, and society. 'Best of Water Systems Research' is aimed at propagating the science and techniques of exactly this approach to sustain our water resources. In this series, WIT will be inviting top researchers who have applied systems theoretic methods to address real problems in water resource management.

The first talk will be delivered by Dr. Andrew Bell from Boston University on his work on participatory irrigation management in Punjab, Pakistan. Other confirmed speakers include Dr. Murugesu Sivapalan from UIUC, Dr. Ariel Dinar from UC Riverside, Dr. Grey Nearing from UC Davis, and Dr. Michael Mitchell from CSU Australia. Many other esteemed researchers are (and will be) invited and we are very excited to be able to learn collectively from their wealth of experiences. 

The talks will (mostly) be delivered bi-weekly on Wednesday evenings. A tentative schedule for the webinars can be found at here, while you can register here. The webinars will be streamed via zoom with the opportunity to interact with speakers during the Q&A after the presentation ends. A link for attending will be sent via email to registered individuals. Colleagues who register once can attend all future talks without the need to register again. 

The first talk will be delivered by Dr. Andrew Bell from Boston University and is titled: "Finding the next steps forward for IBIS water governance". The talk is scheduled for 6:00-7:00 pm PKT on Wednesday, July 28, 2021 and will be moderated by Dr. Talha Manzoor, Assistant Professor, Center for Water Informatics & Technology. 

About the speaker: Andrew Bell studies livelihoods and resource decision-making. including domains of irrigation, pest management, ecosystem services, technology adoption and migration. Most of his work applies survey and experimental tools (games, high-frequency smart-phone based surveys) to identify and model behaviour; and agent-based models to understand what these behaviours imply for system-level outcomes under scenarios of environmental change. He received his PhD (2010) in Natural Resource Management from the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE, now SEAS), also MASc in Environmental Engineering from Waseda University and BASc in Environmental Engineering from the University of Waterloo. 

For more details and queries, contact Soban Hameed Saigol from WIT at soban.hameed@lums.edu.pk.

A workshop on the topic of “Mathematical Introduction to Reinforcement Learning” was organized by the Department of Mathematics, SBASSE from June 9th to 11th 2021.

The esteemed speakers of the workshop were: Dr. Andreas Daniel Matt from IMAGINARY, Berlin, Germany; and Dr. Jonathan Shock from University of Cape Town, South Africa.

The workshop was attended by national and international students, researchers and professionals. The fact that the event used theory mixed with simulators and interactive applets to introduce Reinforcement Learning (RL), every individual could relate RL to their own context. The discussion and ideas stemmed from various exciting areas of applications such as the use of RL in automating investment portfolios, flight/boat navigation, logistics and transport routing, etc. The event was a first of its kind to open an interactive floor for people to meet and talk about RL, and the future of RL.  

Selected participants will be working closely with some faculty members of the Department of Mathematics at SBASSE. The event has paved way for mathematicians to work with engineers, programmers, and skilled professionals. The event highlighted the needs of incorporating Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Reinforcement Learning into the future activities of Pakistan, especially in teaching, research, business, and IT sectors.