All colloquia will meet on Friday at 3:30 in Science Building room 2, unless otherwise noted. Refreshments served.

Upcoming Talks This Semester

Friday 20 November 2009

How to Break Websites
An Introduction to Web Application Security

Sean Malone
University of Dallas

In order to build secure websites, we must first understand how an attacker can break into a website.  We will explore some of the most common web application vulnerabilities and show how easy it is to exploit them in order to gain access to restricted areas of a site.  We will analyze Cross-Site Scripting, Cross-Site Request Forgery, and Phishing attacks.  After demonstrating each exploit from the attacker's point of view, we will show how to effectively guard against them to keep your website secure.

Friday 27 November 2009

Thanksgiving Holiday, No Colloquium

Friday 4 December 2009

Dr. Brian Loft
Sam Houston State University

Previous Talks This Semester

Friday 11 September 2009

Putnam Problems
Dr. Paul Phillips
University of Dallas

Friday 18 September 2009

(K)not Polynomials

Dr. John Osoinach
University of Dallas

Abstract: Although knots have been used in art and engineering for millennia, the mathematical study of knots dates only to the 19th century. With the development of algebraic topology in the early 20th century, polynomials began to be used to help analyze knots. This talk will show how to use knot diagrams to construct one of the most important of the knot polynomials, the Jones polynomial.

Friday 25 September 2009

Mystery Topic
Dr. Paul Phillips
University of Dallas

Friday 2 October 2009

Synchronous versus Asynchronous Oscillations for an Antigenically
Varying Plasmodium falciparum Infection with Host Immune
Response
Jonathan L. Mitchell and Thomas W. Carr

presented by

Jonathan L. Mitchell
Southern Methodist University

Abstract: We consider a deterministic intrahost model for Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) malaria infection which accounts for antigenic variation between n clonal variants of PfEMP1 and corresponding host immune response. Specifically, the model separates the immune response into two components, specific and cross-reactive, respectively, in order to demonstrate that the latter can be a mechanism for the sequential appearance of variants observed in actual Pf infections. We show that this sequential dominance lengthens infection time and is, thus, considered a survival strategy for the parasite. We also incorporate a constant delay or time lag in the stimulation of immune response which represents the time between changes in the Pf population and production of corresponding immune effectors. We find two possible critical delay times which lead to an Hopf bifurcation, one for persistent synchronized oscillations while the other for persistent antiphase oscillations. Conditions for which case occurs “first” are given along with bifurcation behavior near the critical values.

Friday 9 October 2009

Ice is hot - Exploration and Research of the Polar Regions

Peter Burkett
Penn State

Friday 16 October 2009

Reading Day, No Colloquium

Friday 23 October 2009

Mendacious Math
A look at some fun false proofs

Peter McDonough
University of Dallas

The talk will just be an assembly of some common false proofs, like the 0=1 proof, and the idea that all the people in Canada have the same age.

Friday 30 October 2009

A Magical Mystery Tour of Graphs

Dr. Alison Marr
Southwestern University

This talk will begin with some basic definitions used in the study of graphs. Using our new found terminology, we'll then proceed to study the world of magic graphs. This exploration will include relationships to magic squares and some fun unsolved problems for you to ponder.

Friday 6 November 2009

The Low-Down on Dimension Reduction

Dr. David Andrews
University of Dallas

After a brief introduction to some necessary linear algebra, we explore the important idea of dimension reduction in statistics, wherein we try to capture in a few dimensions (1, or 2, or 3) the "interesting" bits of a high-dimensional (4 or more) data set.

Friday 13 November 2009

Solving Graph Theory Problems with Artificial Intelligence

Timothy Dean and Sean Malone
University of Dallas

We will introduce some common graph theory problems and examine several optimization algorithms used to solve these problems. After a brief overview of depth-first and breadth-first searches, we will demonstrate A* pathfinding with several different heuristics, and finish up with a demonstration of an ant colony optimization approach to solving the Traveling Salesman Problem.

Bring your laptops so you can try the interactive demonstrations for yourself!