New Colleagues Presentations



Session 1 - Salisbury Labs 104


8:00 - 8:15 Smoothing Properties of Dispersive Partial Differential Equations

Julie Levandosky, Framingham State College

We will look at a class of dispersive partial differential equations, showing the relationship between the decay of the initial data at infinity and the smoothness of the solution.

8:20 - 8:35 Solitary Waves of the Ostrovsky Equation

Steven Levandosky, College of the Holy Cross

The Ostrovsky equation is a model for the motion of internal waves in a rotating fluid. We show that as the rotation parameter goes to zero the solitary waves of the Ostrovsky equation converge to solitary waves of the Korteweg-deVries equation. This result is surprising since solitary waves of the Ostrovsky equation have zero mass, while those of the KdV equation have nonzero mass.

8:40 - 8:55 Estimating Optimum Helicopter Paths

Roger Bilisoly, Central Connecticut University. A helicopter with remote sensors can collect data under its flight path. We combine a spatial statistical method with global optimization to determine near-optimal paths.


Session 2 - Salisbury Labs 105


8:00-8:15 Group theory visualization

Nathan Carter, Bentley College Why are there no pictures in group theory? I introduce one of my projects, Group Explorer, visualization software for the abstract algebra classroom.

8:20-8:35 Combinatorics of Hermite Polynomials

Pallavi Jayawant, Bates College

I will discuss the graphs associated with the Hermite polynomials and show their use in coming up with new generating functions for these polynomials.


Session 3 - Salisbury Labs 123


8:00-8:15 Exact relations for 3D Hall effect

Hansun Theresa To, Worcester State College

We study the homogenization problem associated with propagation of long wave disturbances in active materials whose properties exhibit not only spatial but also temporal inhomogeneities and whose study was initiated by Lurie in his pioneering works of 1997. We compute all exact relations for 3D composite conductors exhibiting the Hall effect.

8:20-8:35 The amazing figure-eight orbit of the three-body problem

Gareth Roberts, College of the Holy Cross

Imagine three equal mass planets chasing each other around a figure-eight racetrack, equally spaced apart in time. We discuss analytic and variational techniques used to prove the existence and linear stability of this famous orbit.