“Homological Tools for Data” (Wednesday)
Abstract: The past fifteen years has witnessed a dramatic burst of applications of topological thinking and theorems in the applied sciences, ranging from statistics to sensor networks, neuroscience, and more, to be surveyed here. Several challenges remain, including: (1) how to compute topological quantities efficiently; (2) how to extend the set of current applications and methods; and, perhaps most importantly, (3) how to educate end-users in the meaning and proper use of homological tools.
This talk will demonstrate why homology is one of the most exciting new tools in applied mathematics.
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“New Uses for Sheaf Theory” (Thursday)
Abstract: As ideas from algebraic topology diffuse over into applied domains, we see a recapitulation of the subject’s genesis. First, the use of Betti numbers; next, functoriality (cf. persistent homology); then, categorification (current work on stability and interleaving in topological data analysis).
What next? This talk will argue that sheaves and sheaf theory are a good candidate for the next toolbox for applied data science. The talk will give a gentle overview of this (intimidating) subject and provide details of a new class of sheaves useful in inference problems associated with sensor networks.