The ETSU Math Department Seminar Schedule for
Spring 2008
DATE
Speaker
Title
Place and Time
January 28
Robert Davidson and Bob Gardner
Using the Three Stooges as a Data-Source for Motivation of Statistics Students
Sam Wilson Hall 202, 1:40
February 11
Michel Helfgott
A Type of Isoperimetric Problem
Gilbreath Hall 205, 1:40
February 18
Tracy Holt
The Circular Chromatic Number of K4-minor-free graphs
(Preliminary Thesis Presentation)
Gilbreath Hall 205, 1:40
February 25
Ivars Peterson (MAA)
MathMyth
Gilbreath Hall 205, 1:40
March 10
Yared Nigussie
Maximizing Dominating Color Classes Within Minimal Colorings
Gilbreath Hall 205, 1:40
March 17
Robert Jamison (Clemson University)
Chromatically Supremal Decompositions of Graphs
Gilbreath Hall 205, 1:40
March 24
Tracy Holt
The Circular Chromatic Number of K4-minor-free graphs
(Thesis Defense)
Gilbreath Hall 205, 1:40
April 21
Ivars Peterson (MAA)
How Math Becomes News
Gilbreath Hall 205, 1:40
April 21
Palaniappan Vellaisamy (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and Michigan State University)
Collapsibility and Its Extensions
Gilbreath Hall 205, 5:00

Abstracts of This Semesters Talks

Using the Three Stooges as a Data-Source for Motivation of Statistics Students
Robert Davidson and Bob Gardner
A common approach to engaging students in the undergraduate class room, is to present them with a topic from popular culture and to interpret the topic in light of the academic area at hand. The presenters will use films of the Three Stooges to provide data for students in a introductory statistics class (some version of which is offered in many disciplines). This will allow students to experience the difficulty in designing an experiment, the problems inherent to data collection, and the analysis of collected data. The presenters will give some Stooge history based on interviews of original members of the Three Stooges. This will allow them to pose a reasonable hypothesis concerning the level and target of violence in the Stooges films over the years. Parts of relevant films (which are widely available on Youtube) will then be viewed, the audience will participate in hands-on data gathering, and the difficulties of this experience will be discussed by the group. Finally, a data set based on the presenter's previously collected data collection will be given and the audience will have the opportunity to "crunch the numbers" on this data. In the conclusion of the presentation, the audience and presenters will discuss their impressions of the data collection, the interpretation experience, and possible applications of the Three Stooges as a data source in other academic areas. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

A Type of Isoperimetric Problem
Michel Helfgott
Isoperimetric problems have fascinated human beings since Zenodorus studied the subject more than 2,200 years ago. I will provide an overview of recent work of mine, done in collaboration with George Balaglou. My plan is to stress the historical and pedagogical aspects of the subject rather than the mathematical technicalities of it.

The Circular Chromatic Number of K4-minor-free graphs
Tracy Holt
We are considering the Circular Chromatic Number of K4-minor-free graphs with large odd girth. An upperbound for these graphs has been found and it has been proven that the upper bound cannot be improved. We have a shorter cleaner proof for the upper bound, and we have gone a step further and found graphs that actually have circular chromatic numbers equal to the upper bound.

MathMyth
Ivars Peterson (MAA)
Ponder the number of Eskimo words for snow, the tragic fate of lemmings, the golden ratio's mysterious pervasiveness, and other myths of the modern media age. How do such stories become widely accepted "truths"? Get the scoop on the Nobel prize for mathematics, bumblebee modeling, Galois' last hours, young Gauss' quick calculation, and more.

Maximizing Dominating Color Classes Within Minimal Colorings
Yared Nigussie (joint work with Teresa Haynes)
For any graph G, a parameter, (denoted by dc(G)) is introduced by Haynes et al. as the maximum number of dominating color classes over all minimal proper colorings of G. We show some preliminary results and present open problems.

Chromatically Supremal Decompositions of Graphs
Robert Jamison (Clemson University)
If G is a graph, a G-decomposition of a host graph H is a partition of the edges of H into subgraphs of H which are isomorphic to G. The chromatic index of a G-decomposition of H is the minimum number of colors required to color the parts of the decomposition so that parts which share a common node get different colors. We establish an upper bound on the chromatic index and characterize those decompositions which achieve it. The structurally most interesting of the decompositions with maximal chromatic index are associated with (v,k,1)-designs.

Collapsibility and Its Extensions
Palaniappan Vellaisamy (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and Michigan State University)
We start with collapsibility of contingency tables and briefly mention some recent works. Our focus will be mainly on the collapsibility of regression coefficients. Some basic results on simple linear regression and Poisson regression models will be analyzed. We then define and discuss a general concept, namely, (average) A-collapsibility. Some recent results on A-collapsibility for random coefficients of linear and logistic regression models will be discussed. Finally, collapsibility of distribution dependence will be pointed out. Some real-life applications may also be addressed.

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Last updated: April 16, 2008 by Bob Gardner.