[Mathreu] REU colloquium talk.

[Kevin James]

Hi all,

Dana Randall from GA-tech will be visiting us next week.  She will give 
a colloquium talk next Thursday (6/23) afternoon at 2pm in M101.  Her 
title and abstract are below.


-kevin

Mixing Rates of Markov Chains

In this tutorial, we introduce the notion of a Markov chain and explore
how it can be used to sample from a large set of configurations. Our primary
focus is determining how quickly a Markov chain ``mixes,'' or converges to
its stationary distribution, as this is the key factor in the running time.
We provide an overview of several techniques used to establish good bounds
on the mixing time.  The applications are mostly chosen from statistical
physics and combinatorics, although the methods are much more general.

In the second part of the talk we will discuss methods to show that certain
Markov chains are slowly mixing, and we will give a new application of the
methods.


  

-- 
Kevin James 
Assistant Professor 

Department of Mathematical Sciences 
Clemson University
BOX 340975
Clemson, SC 29634-0975

office:  O-21 Martin Hall      
email: kevja at clemson.edu     
phone: (864) 656-6766        
fax:   (864) 656-5230
web:   http://www.math.clemson.edu/~kevja/

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