Category: Uncategorized

Student Colloquium talk by Professor Dick Forrester of Dickinson College

Title: Assigning Students to Schools to Minimize Socioeconomic Variation between Schools: An Introduction to Optimization Modeling

Abstract: Numerous studies have found that a student’s academic achievement is as much determined by the socioeconomic composition of their school as their own socioeconomic status. In this talk we provide a methodology for assigning students to schools so as to balance the socioeconomic compositions of the schools while taking into consideration the total travel distance. Our technique utilizes a bi-objective general 0-1 fractional program that is linearized into a mixed 0-1 linear program which can be submitted directly to a standard optimization package. If you didn’t understand that last sentence, don’t worry, the purpose of this talk is to introduce you to optimization modeling.  As a test case for our approach we analyze data from the Greenville County School District in Greenville, South Carolina.

Quantum Games and Quantum Computing

Thursday, October 19, 12:00 P.M. ROOM 268 in the Olin Science Building

Abstract: What’s the shortest message you can send someone? It might seem like the answer is a single bit: a 0 or a 1.

But the world is much stranger than that! We can also send quantum bits (or qubits) that can be 0 or 1 or “both” 0 and 1 at the same time.

These quantum messages have surprising power for computing and sending information. I’ll talk about how we can better understand these strange quantum messages by studying games that use quantum messages instead of classical messages.

Leonardo of Pisa (a.k.a Fibonacci) has a remarkable connection with Bucknell, and to celebrate this fact we are holding an interdisciplinary conference on October 14. Featured speakers include:
Mario Livio – an astrophysicist and author of popular science books,
Keith Devlin – NPR’s “Math Guy” and the author of numerous popular mathematics books,
William Goetzmann – Director of the International Center for Finance, Yale University

This event will be in the Langone Center from 10:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.

Lunch tickets are available in Olin 380, or by writing to math@bucknell.edu

Learn more here.

Title: Efficiency Of Non-Compliance Chargeback Mechanisms In Retail Supply Chains

Abstract: In practice, suppliers fill retailers’ purchase orders to the fill-rate targets to avoid the non-compliance financial penalty, or chargeback, in the presence of service level agreement. Two chargeback mechanisms – flat-fee and linear – have been proven to effectively coordinate the supply chain in a single-period setting. However, the mechanisms’ efficiency, the incurred penalty costs necessary to coordinate the supply chain, have not been studied yet. Since retailers are often accused of treating chargeback as an additional source of revenue, this study compares the expected penalties resulted from the flat-fee or linear chargeback to shed light on the retailers’ choice of mechanisms. Using experimental scenarios consisting of various demand functions, demand variabilities, and fill-rate targets, the simulation results offer counter-evidence to the accusation.

Title: Mathematical biology under the microscope:  A study of cell motility

Abstract: Although physics and chemistry have long relied on mathematics as a descriptive and exploratory tool, biological systems were historically seen as too complex to be understood theoretically. However, advances in mathematics and computational capabilities now allow for the quantification of biological problems in a field called mathematical biology.
In this talk I will introduce a modern topic of mathematical biology: crawling cell motility. Cell motion plays a central role in wound healing and the immune response, e.g., to fight foreign bodies. We will present a partial differential equation model for cell motion proposed by Ziebert et al. (2011). The subsequent analytical and numerical studies give rise to surprising mathematical results as well as novel insights for biologists, including applications to directed cell motility and sorting. This talk will not require any prerequisite knowledge of partial differential equations or biology, though a calculus background will be helpful.