90-Minute Symposium

090-152

The Mathematical Twists and Turns of Data Sets

Session Start/End Time:

Friday, Feb 13, 2009, 10:30 AM -12:00 PM

HRC Columbus GH

The ability to collect data has outstripped our capacity to visualize and interpret such, especially when the data are high-dimensional, nonlinear, and global. It is of fundamental importance that scientists possess the best tools available for managing large, complex data sets and to derive from such conclusions that carry the conclusive weight of rigor. Mathematics is limitless in its dual capacity for abstraction and incarnation and offers global solutions to the challenge of global data. Certain branches in the “tree” of mathematical inquiry are more distant from the epicenter of scientific inquiry. One such branch, distant from the consciousness of most scientists, is algebraic topology -- the mathematics that arises in the attempt to describe the global features of an object via local descriptions. Such classical tools are of surprising relevance in the face of dealing with large, high-dimensional data sets that can be neither seen nor sensed. This symposium provides a primer of mathematically and scientifically novel techniques for global data synthesis, in a cross-disciplinary context perfect for scientists.

Organized by:

Robert Ghrist, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Presentations:

  Symposium Organizer--Robert Ghrist, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

  Detecting Topological Structure--Shmuel Weinberger, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

  Persistence and the Shape of Data--Gunnar Carlsson, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

  Integration and Aggregation of Redundant Data--Robert Ghrist, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA