Professor Chantal Buteau will be giving the keynote presentation at the research colloquium of the APTICA (L’Association pour l’avancement pédagogique des technologies de l’information et de la communication en Atlantique) 2017 annual congress taking place at University of Moncton on October 30 to November 4, 2017. Professor Buteau’s presentation is titled “Pensée informatique et mathématiques”. See http://www.aptica.ca/congres/colloque-en-recherche/.
News and events
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Congratulations to Sarah Bax
The Department of Mathematics and Statistics would like to congratulate our graduating MSc student, Sarah Bax, for being recognized with the Brock University Board of Trustees Spirit of Brock Medal at convocation. For more details, please see the story in the Brock News. Congratulations Sarah!
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Symposium: Computational Thinking in Mathematics Education
Professor Buteau is organizing a 3-day symposium, titled Computational Thinking in Mathematics Education, on October 13-15, 2017. The event, funded by the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, will be hosted at UOIT and is organized together with Dr Namukasa (UWO), Dr. Gadanidis (UWO), Dr. Kotsopoulos (Huron College), and Dr. Hughes (UOIT). A ‘Maker Day‘ workshop for prospective and in-service teachers will be hosted during the day on October 13, 2017 prior to the symposium. See the poster or ctmath.ca for more details or contact Professor Buteau.
Live Streaming of Keynote speeches at CT in Math Ed Symposium, UOIT, Oshawa, October 12- 15, 2017.
1. Live Streaming of Lyn English’s Keynote.WatchOrKeynote Speaker Lyn EnglishLearning Innovation in STEM Education10/13/2017 7:00:00 PM1:30:002. Live Streaming of Michelle Wilkerson’s keynoteorKeynote Speaker Michelle WilkersonComputational Integration to Support Expression, Refinement, and Collective Knowledge in Classroom Communities10/14/2017 4:00:00 PM1:30:00 -
Seminar: Prof. Andries Engelbrecht
When: Wednesday, September 20, 2017 – 11:00am – 12:00pm
Brock University Computer Science Department Seminar Series
presents
Prof. Andries Engelbrecht
University of Pretoria
Pretoria, South Africa
Heterogeneous Particle Swarm Optimizers: Scalability,
Self-Adaptive Behaviors, and Dynamic EnvironmentsAbstract: Particles in the standard particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, and most of its modifications, follow the same behaviours. That is, particles implement the same velocity and position update rules. This means that particles exhibit the same search characteristics. Heterogeneous PSO (HPSO), on the other hand, allow particles to follow different search behaviours selected from a behaviour pool, thereby efficiently addressing the exploration–exploitation trade-off problem.
This talk will provide an overview of very simple HPSO algorithms, and will provide empirical results to show that they are more efficient than the homogeneous PSO algorithms making up the behaviour pool of the HPSO algorithm. The talk will also discuss the HPSO scalability properties, and will present approaches to self-adaptive behaviour selection. The talk will end with an illustration of the performance of simple HPSO algorithms in dynamic environments.
Professor Andries Engelbrecht is the South African Research Chair of Artificial Intelligence in the Computer Science Department, University of Pretoria
Location of your event: H313
Cost: $0.00Categories: Events -
Mahsa Daneshmandmehrabani thesis defense
When: July 17, 2017 – 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Ms. Mahsa Daneshmandmehrabani will defend her M.Sc. on Monday July 17, 2017 at 1:00 PM in Mackenzie Chown C206.
Abstract: We develop a recommendation algorithm for a local entertainment and ticket pro-vider company. The recommender system predicts the score of items, i.e. event, for each user. The special feature of these events, which makes them very differ-ent from similar settings, is that they are perishable: each event has a relatively short and specific lifespan. Therefore there is no explicit feedback available for a future event. Moreover, there is a very short description provided for each event and thus the keywords play a more than usual important role in categorizing each event. Moreover, we provide a hybrid algorithm that utilizes content-based and col-laborative filtering recommendations. We also present an axiomatic analysis of our model. These axioms are mostly derived from social choice theory.
Location of your event: MCC206
Cost: $0.00Categories: Events -
Congratulations to Dr. Kihel
Congratulations to Dr. Omar Kihel, who was the recipient of the Faculty of Mathematics and Science Award for Excellence in Teaching at today at Convocation. For more details, please see this article about the Convocation ceremony this morning in the Brock News.
Congratulations Dr. Kihel!
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Congratulations to Ramona Rat
On May 22, 2017, our former Statistics MSc Student Ramona Rat started a position as a Digital Analyst at Burberry’s headquarters in London, United Kingdom. Congratulations Ramona!
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Congratulations to Chi Ho Alex Cheung
Our former Statistics MSc student Chi Ho Alex Cheung successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, ANALYSIS OF FLUID QUEUES USING LEVEL CROSSING METHODS, on May 26, 2017 at the University of Windsor. Alex has been hired to a full time position of Senior Data Scientist at the Precima company in Toronto starting in July of 2017. Congratulations to Alex!
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Physics and Mathematics Seminar: Are there trajectories in phase space of quantum systems?
When: March 28, 2017 – 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Ole Steuernagel (University of Hertfordshire and Brock University) will be giving a seminar entitled Are there trajectories in phase space of quantum systems? The talk will take place at 2:00 pm on Tuesday, March 28, 2017 in Mackenzie-Chown H-block room 313.
Abstract:
Phase-space dynamics in classical mechanics is described by transport along trajectories. It is thought by some that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle does not allow for trajectories in phase space: that is incorrect. Here, I will explain what a phase space trajectory is. Then I show that e.g. harmonic oscillator dynamics can be described with trajectories.But anharmonic quantum mechanical systems do not allow for a trajectory-based description of their phase-space dynamics. This invalidates some approaches to quantum phase-space studies.
An abstract plausibility argument against phase space trajectories in general is given. Then an explicit proof for all quantum phase-space distributions with negative values follows. This proof shows that the generation of coherences in anharmonic quantum mechanical systems is responsible for the occurrence of singularities in their phase-space velocity fields, explaining the numerical problems repeatedly reported in the literature. Our investigation provides deeper insight into the nature of quantum phase-space dynamics.
Location of your event: MCH 313
Cost: $0.00Categories: Events -
Jeffrey Regier defends Chemistry Thesis
When: January 10, 2017 – 9:00am – 12:00pm
The Faculty of Math & Science announces Mr. Jeffrey Regier (Chemistry) Master of Science video conference thesis defence. Mr. Regier’s defence is scheduled for Tuesday, January 10th, 2017; at 9:00; in WH147. His thesis is titled Ligand Design for Metal-Organic Frameworks and Single-Molecule Magnets. His examination committee members are: Dr. Michael Bidochka, Chair; Dr. Stephen Loeb (University of Windsor), External Examiner; Dr. Melanie Pilkington, Supervisor; Dr. Theocharis Stamatatos and Dr. Paul Zelisko, Committee Members.
Cost: $0.00
Sponsor: Faculty of Mathematics and Science
Contact: Beulah Alexander, 3115Categories: Events
