Upcoming Events

Title: Information Based Complexity for High Dimensional Statistical Models

Abstract: I will introduce a coherent framework to quantify the complexity of high dimensional models that appropriately accounts for both statistical accuracy and computational cost and better understand the potential trade-off between the two types of efficiencies. As an example, I will use this notion of complexity to examine high-dimensional and sparse nonparametric problems to illustrate how this can lead to the development of novel and optimal sampling and estimation strategies, and in particular reveal the role of experimental design in alleviating computational burden.

COVID-19 has from the outset been a disrupter and will likely lead to permanent changes in a variety of areas from retail
markets to the use of commercial office space, the vitality of small businesses and the delivery of public services at the state and local level. In addition, Connecticut has the dubious distinction of having the 48th (out of 51) rank on income polarization in the country, with 18.8 times as much income going to the top 20% than reaches the bottom 20%.

Rather than think of “bouncing back” to the previous status quo, the crisis offers an opportunity to get beyond “business as usual” to carry out a paradigm shift for public service delivery, and to move forward on economic and social justice issues.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of advanced information technology at the state and local level and of moving forward to implement best practices across an array of service areas. It also exposed weaknesses in legacy systems that were not up to increased demand.
Panel 1: Bouncing Forward from the Pandemic: Next Steps for Public Services Delivery in CT
For more Info:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19-ATitHasm5ZsUMXUJFt-OKF3YbjkK76/view?usp=sharing

Presenting: Pieter Visscher, UConn Marine Sciences

Seminar Title: With a little help of my friends (viruses and arsenic): Living in an anoxic world.

Abstract: https://marinesciences.uconn.edu/seminar/seminar1208/

The Food Activities, Socioeconomics, Time-use, and Transportation Study: A New Approach to Food Environment Research and Preliminary Findings

Dr. Michael J. Widener, University of Toronto

Event link: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/onstage/g.php?MTID=eda20c1d56544be1456e3bc538bcf60fd

This talk will introduce the Food Activities, Socioeconomics, Time-use, and Transportation (FASTT) Study, a project which integrates concepts of time geography with theories from food and health geographies. In March 2019, time-use diaries, GPS trajectory data, and dietary questionnaires were collected from partnered-parents in households from two Toronto neighborhoods - one urban and one suburban. These data are used to explore questions about time pressure and dietary behavior, the division of food labor, and the role of the built environment in food shopping. Findings from two papers currently underway - one on coupled exposure to food retail and the other on how food-related time use patterns link to differing geographies - will be presented, and implications for future work discussed.

Dr. Michael Widener is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Transportation and Health in the Department of Geography & Planning and incoming Director of Health Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada. He received his Ph.D. in Geography at SUNY - Buffalo. He is primarily interested in topics related to health, transportation, and urban geography and planning. His current research projects explore the impact of the built environment on food access and dietary behaviors, how older adults’ mental health and well-being is affected by their mobility options, and the links between time use and health outcomes.


If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact Rich Mrozinski at mrozinski@uconn.edu (preferred method of contact) or 860-486-3788 by September 25, 2020.

Prof. M. Gai, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut

Oxygen Formation in Stellar Helium Burning

The Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS) at Avery Point (http://astro.uconn.edu), aka the Laboratory for Astrophysics, is engaged in research of several problems central to stellar Evolution theory. Today we shall discuss oxygen formation is stellar helium burning, that determines the C/O ratio in stars. This is an essential laboratory input to stellar evolution theory that for example determines the final fate of a Type II supernova (black hole or neutron star), as well as the light curve of a Type Ia supernova (that is used to measure distances to the end of the observable universe from which the accelerated expansion of the universe was recently discovered).

This presentation will involve our faculty at Avery Point (Gai) and in the UK (Smith) and the two graduate students (Stern and Schweitzer) who are working on experiments at Duke University in the USA, in Warsaw, Poland, and in a new facility constructed in Romania.

Join us for an informational session to learn more about our Graduate Certificate in Intraoperative Neuromonitoring and Masters in Surgical Neurophysiology programs. Dr. Radmila Filipovic and Dr. Payam Andalib will be providing potential students with an overview of the program along with a discussion about working in the field of Neuromonitoring. Attendees will also have a chance to ask specific questions.

Register here: https://connect.grad.uconn.edu/register/?id=eea4359b-2a9e-4494-bdbc-9e27cb0badb6

Join us for a talk by Lenore Blum (Carnegie Mellon) in the Logic Colloquium!

"What Can Theoretical Computer Science Contribute to the Discussion of Consciousness?"

We propose a mathematical model, which we call the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM), as a formalization of neuroscientist Bernard Baars’ Theater of Consciousness. The CTM is proposed for the express purpose of understanding consciousness. In settling on this model, we look not for complexity but simplicity, not for a complex model of the brain or cognition but a simple mathematical model sufficient to explain consciousness. Our approach, in the spirit of mathematics and theoretical computer science, proposes formal definitions to fix informal notions and deduce consequences. We are inspired by Alan Turing’s extremely simple formal model of computation that is a fundamental first step in the mathematical understanding of computation. This mathematical formalization includes a precise definition of chunk, a precise description of the competition that Long Term Memory (LTM) processors enter to gain access to Short Term Memory (STM)), and a precise definition of conscious awareness in the model. Feedback enables LTM processors to learn from their mistakes and successes and emerging links enable conscious processing to become unconscious. The reasonableness of the formalization lies in the breadth of concepts that the model explains easily and naturally. The model provides some understanding of the Hard Problem of consciousness, which we explore in the particular case of pain and pleasure. The understanding depends on the dynamics of the CTM, not on chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and so on. We set ourselves the problem of explaining the feeling of consciousness in ways that apply as well to machines made of silicon and gold as to animals made of flesh and blood. With regard to suggestions for AI, the CTM is well suited to giving succinct explanations for whatever high level decisions it makes. This is because the chunk in STM either articulates an explanation or points to chunks that do.

Please contact Marcus Rossberg for log-in information.

https://logic.uconn.edu/calendar/

Come participate and support this protest on October 2, 2020 at 6pm.

At the corner of Park St. and Washington St. in Hartford, CT.

Don't forget:
1. Masks
2. a candle or "torch"
3. your sign
4. We encourage everyone to wear the color purple

Come join us for our first Virtual Information Session with UConn to learn more about CIBC and our Summer 2021 Capital Markets Internships.

Please register through Handshake and join the event at the link provided on Monday, October 5th at 12:00pmET. We look forward to meeting you!

CIBC Capital Markets

CIBC is a leading Canadian-based financial institution with over 44,000 employees globally and annual revenue in excess of $15 billion. CIBC World Markets is the Capital Markets arm of CIBC, which provides a wide range of investment banking, global markets, credit, and research products and services to government, institutional, corporate and retail clients in North America and in key markets around the world.

CIBC World Markets employees work in highly disciplined cross-functional teams to leverage industry knowledge and deliver innovative capital solutions and advisory expertise across a wide range of sectors.

CIBC has a strategic growth initiative focused primarily in the U.S. and recently completed the ~US$5 billion acquisition of The PrivateBank, a publicly traded commercial bank, as well as the ~US$200 million acquisition of Geneva Advisors, a private wealth management company.

Capital Markets Internships

Our Capital Markets orientation and summer internship program provided incoming Analysts with important skills and a comprehensive view of our businesses. Two CIBC core lines of business, Capital Markets and Commercial Banking, both participate in this campus program. At conclusion of the program, interns have the opportunity to give a small group presentation to CIBC business leaders.

George Paul Meiu, John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University presents:
Queer Objects: Intimacy, Citizenship, and Rescue in Kenya
Co-sponsored with the Africana Studies Institute and the Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program

Colloquium Link: https://uconnvtc.webex.com/meet/anthrodept

Please join us for the Graduate Research Conference on Monday October 5th. Presentations will be from 1-4 (with some Zoom breaks built-in) and keynote will be 5-6.30.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5471211986?pwd=bFg0Rk4vbUtWbHZpZHRVdGxCZ0RhZz09

Meeting ID: 547 121 1986

Passcode: 901327

Dr. Semeon Valgushev, Brookhaven National Lab

Phase diagram of QCD and Lifshitz regime: how transverse thermal fluctuations might turn nuclear matter into quantum-spin liquid

We discuss dense cool QCD where a region with spatially inhomogeneous condensate might emerge. In that case, QCD phase diagram may exhibit a Lifshitz regime, which can appear either instead of, or in addition to Critical End Point. We study the Lifshitz regime using a combination of large-N expansion and numerical lattice simulations of an effective O(N) sigma model. We find evidence that quantum fluctuations disorder inhomogeneous condensate ("chiral spirals") and give rise to unusual quantum spin-liquid phase. We also discuss how this novel phase can be detected experimentally.

Zoom Meeting Link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8192648596?pwd=WFkzK1VXa2V4ZVRVNC90ZnM3NDdlQT09

Meeting ID: 819 264 8596

Passcode: 9lYjMG

Note: The seminar will start at 2:00PM, but participants are welcomed to join the meeting at 1:30PM for discussion.

Are YOU Looking for an Internship? How About a Full-time Job After Graduation? Then, come to Monday’s Internship Homecoming event, to hear how these five COMM interns and one recent COMM alumna, got to work at these great companies! REGISTER now through Nexus to receive the WebEx link to attend.

Feeling anxious before midterms? Join the Women's Center as we make virtual vision boards to de-stress and stay motivated!

https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=m45a5bff3c060388c462068e05eaeed1f

oin the Africana Studies Institute as our faculty discuss Ibram X. Kendi's latest book "How to be an Antiracist". We welcome you to a lively discussion!

October 6, 2020 12:00 pm

Discussants:

Dr. Melina Pappademos, Director and Associate Professor, Africana Studies and History

Dr. David Embrick, Associate Professor, Africana Studies and Sociology

Dr. Alexis Boylan, Acting Director of the Humanities Institute, Associate Professor, Africana Studies, Art and Art History

This will be an online event held on Webex. Please register for this event for the link to attend. (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-to-be-an-anti-racist-faculty-roundtable-book-disucssion-registration-121561163713?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&aff=escb&utm-source=cp&utm-term=listing)

"How to be an Antiracist" by Ibram X. Kendi is available for online access through UConn Libraries.

For information about the event contact : Prof. Shawn Salvant shawn.salvant@uconn.edu or Amanda Cannada Amanda.cannada@uconn.edu

For more information, contact: Africana Studies Institute at africana@uconn.edu

“The Feminization of Transgender Women in Prisons for Men: How Prison as a Total Institution Shapes Gender”

Public Talk by Valerie Jenness, October 6, 1:30-2:30pm EST


Valerie Jenness is Acting Vice Provost, Academic Planning & Institutional Research and Distinguished Professor, Criminology, Law & Society, the Department of Sociology (by courtesy), and the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing (by courtesy) at the University of California, Irvine


Valerie Jenness’ research has focused on prostitution, hate crime, and prison violence and grievances to explore the links between deviance and social control, the politics of crime control, social movements and social change, and corrections and public policy. She is the author of four books, including: Appealing to Justice: Prisoner Grievances, Rights, and Carceral Logic (with Kitty Calavita); Making Hate a Crime: From Social Movement to Law Enforcement Practice (with Ryken Grattet); Hate Crimes: New Social Movements and the Politics of Violence (with Kendal Broad); and Making it Work: The Prostitutes’ Rights Movement in Perspective.


She is also the co-editor of Routing the Opposition: Social Movements, Public Policy, and Democracy (with David Meyer and Helen Ingram) and the author of many articles published in sociology, law & society, criminology, and gender journals (e.g., American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Problems, Criminology, Law & Society Review, and Gender & Society).


Her research has been translated and reprinted in German, Greek, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish, presented at an array of professional conferences and universities in the U.S. and abroad (e.g., Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Columbia, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, and South Africa), as well as to the U.S. Congress, the National Academy of Sciences, judges and staff attorneys for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. Her research has been discussed in media outlets, such as National Public Radio in the U.S. and Australia, the NYT, The New Yorker, the Washington Post, the LA Times,

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88441718924?pwd=SkZSSFptRHJodjBuU3V0eVVoRXhnUT09

Meeting ID: 884 4171 8924; Passcode: 636278


For questions contact Professor Nancy Naples at nancy.naples@uconn.edu

TEST

A number field is monogenic (over $$\mathbb{Q}$$) if the ring of integers admits a power integral basis, i.e., a $$\mathbb{Z}$$-basis of the form $$\{1, \alpha, \alpha^2,\dots, \alpha^{n-1}\}$$. After outlining some of what is known about monogeneity generally, we will investigate the monogeneity of division fields of elliptic curves. This will culminate in two results: one describing non-monogeneity ``horizontally" and the other non-monogeneity ``vertically." We will finish with some of the difficulties of generalizing to abelian varieties of dimension greater than one, highlighting a partial generalization.

Please contact the organizer for the WebEx link.

This week: Lionel Shapiro, "Subject Naturalism and Liberal Naturalism"

A series of informal talks by philosophy faculty and graduate students. For a description and how to sign up, see http://philosophy.uconn.edu/brown-bags/.

Are you interested in pursing your creative writing education beyond UConn? Want to learn more about Master of Fine Arts programs in poetry, fiction, nonfiction and other genres? At this panel discussion by faculty and graduate students who hold MFAs in different creative writing fields, you’ll hear about basics: What can an MFA do for your writing? How do you apply? What kind of funding can you obtain? Are there MFA programs for people who work full time? There will be a Q & A after the panel for audience questions. (WebEx mtg # 120 835 9226 password uCkhnhwz296)

Hee Jung Chung, Ph.D.,
Associate Professor,
Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Urbana, IL

Talk Title: “Multiple pathogenic mechanisms underlying KCNQ2-associated epileptic encephalopathy”

Host: Dr. Anastasios Tzingounis

When A, B, and C are three points inside a circle and P is a point on the circle, draw successive lines from these points as follows: a line through P and A, which meets the circle at P', then a line through P' and B, which meets the circle at P'', then a line through P'' and C, which meets the circle at P''', and now repeat this process starting from P''' (through A, then B, then C, repeated). What happens? In this talk we'll see what the answer might be, by using hyperbolic geometry to study this question that is at first about Euclidean geometry.


Note: Join the meeting at https://uconnvtc.webex.com/meet/mathclub

El Voto Latino. Join Professor Charles Robert Venator and other panelists as they discussed the importance of el Voto Latino.
This event will be broadcasted on Facebook Live - https://fb.me./e/5OEN8HdrL

This event will be broadcast on Facebook Live, Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 7PM-8:30pm
Facebook Live Link: https://fb.me/e/5OEN8HdrL

The Latinx voter has transformed the US electoral landscape. As the number of constituents who identify as Hispanic grows, so do the questions surrounding fundamentally diverse groups become a voting block? Can it be considered a unified, nationwide constituency? Join our panel of experts: Prof. Benjamin Francis-Fallon of Western California University, Prof. Victoria DeFrancesco Soto of the University of Texas at Austin, Prof. José Cruz of SUNY Albany, and CT Reps. Cristopher Rosario and Geraldo Reyes of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, as they discuss the rise of Latino vote.

Moderated by Prof. Charles Venator Santiago of the UConn Department of Political Science.

This program is co-sponsored by UConn's El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin America Studies, and the Connecticut Democracy Center at Connecticut's Old State House.

THE CRITICAL LANGUAGE SCHOLARSHIP (CLS) PROGRAM is a fully-funded overseas language and cultural immersion program for American undergraduate and graduate students studying and mastering critical foreign languages. Languages include: Azerbaijani, Bangla/Bengali, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Punjabi, Turkish, and Urdu, Arabic and Persian, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian.

DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 17, 2020
THE BOREN AWARDS for undergraduate and graduate students provide up to $25,000 in funding for International Study & Research in Africa, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America and the Middle East. As National Security Education Program (NSEP) initiatives, the Boren Awards focus on countries, languages, and fields critical to U.S. national security, recognizing a broad definition that includes traditional concerns of protecting American well-being, as well as challenges of global society, such as sustainable development, environmental issues, disease, migration, and economic competitiveness. Summer Scholarships are available for undergraduate students in the STEM fields.
CAMPUS DEADLINE: January 3, 2021 @ 12:00 pm
NATIONAL DEADLINE: January 27, 2021 (grad); February 3, 2021 (undergrad)

CLICK ON THE DATE BELOW FOR THE MEETING LINK

Thursday, October 8, 2020, 12 noon – 1:00 pm
Wednesday, October 14, 2020, 6:00-7:00 pm

We review approaches to understanding the competition between energy production from different sources, that are based on game theory. The players in such games, ranging from fossil fuel producers, such as the OPEC nations, to renewables, are vastly heterogeneous, with differing costs, sustainability and emission levels. The past several years have seen new discoveries of fossil fuels facilitated by new technologies such as fracking, cheaper solar panels, as well as uncertain demand from major markets like China. The games studied are in continuous time and may be deterministic, stochastic with controlled jumps (random discoveries), finite player or of continuum mean field type. Some results can be derived analytically, and quantitative analysis comes from small parameter approximations and numerical PDE solutions. We also discuss a related mean field game model to study the question of how centralization of reward and computational power occur in Bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies.

Looking for a space to unwind and connect with others? Come visit the Women’s Center Virtual Lounge to play some online games and meet new people!

Join us at https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=m45a5bff3c060388c462068e05eaeed1f

Last year the Supreme Court held that some issues, like partisan gerrymandering, are beyond the reach of federal courts because they are “entrusted to one of the political branches or involve no judicially enforceable rights.” The political question doctrine raises important questions about the role of courts in our modern polarized political environment. This fall marks the 20th anniversary of Bush v. Gore in which the Court declined to sidestep a politically charged case and effectively determined the outcome of a presidential election. On the other hand, courts have recently signaled their hesitation about wading into the presidential impeachment process despite pressure by interest groups, members of Congress, and the general public. Please join the Connecticut Law Review for a symposium that aims to situate the jurisprudence of highly politicized issues in broader theories of judicial review and democratic accountability, looking back to the justifications and rationale that gave birth to the political question doctrine, while also looking forward to the important role that courts play in everyday American life. Our day will include a keynote address from Jamal Greene, Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

https://www.law.uconn.edu/calendar/event/2020/10/09/empires-or-umpires-political-questions-separation-powers-and-judicial

Join us for the online Logic Colloquium, this week with a talk from Sam Sanders (TU Darmstadt)!

"Brouwer, Plato, and classification"

Abstract: Classification is an essential part of all the exact sciences, including mathematical logic.
The program Reverse Mathematics classifies theorems of ordinary mathematics according
to the minimal axioms needed for a proof. We show that the current scale, based on
comprehension and discontinuous functions, is not satisfactory as it classifies many
intuitively weak statements, like the uncountability of $\mathbb{R}$ or properties of
the Riemann integral, in the same rather strong class. We introduce an alternative/
complimentary scale with better properties based on (classically valid) continuity
axioms from Brouwer’s intuitionistic mathematics. We discuss how these new
results provide empirical support for Platonism.

All welcome.

Please contact Marcus Rossberg for log-in information.

https://logic.uconn.edu/calendar/

Presenting: Jessica Lueders-Dumont, Princeton University

Seminar Title: Development of otolith-bound nitrogen isotopes as a new tool for reconstructing past marine food web structure

Host: Julie Granger

Abstract: https://marinesciences.uconn.edu/seminar/seminar1208/

A Panel featuring Vijay Prashad, Chip Berlet, Fred Lee, and Manisha Sinha

In recent years, there has been an ongoing narrative of political “polarization” as an intrinsic danger to democracy and the nation. When is “polarization” something that threatens to cross the line
into civil war, and when is it a sign that consensus/hegemony is being called into question in generative ways?

A data-science approach to simulating global spatiotemporal urban land expansion patterns throughout the 21st century

Dr. Jing Gao, University of Delaware

Event link: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/onstage/g.php?MTID=efd376d4e5c01d51518251bbfc3ec6276

Over the 21st century global environmental change may pose critical challenges for societies across the world. To understand its potential impacts, global long-term spatial projections of societal conditions (e.g. urbanization) are needed as well as those of physical environmental stressors. This talk presents a data-science approach using newly available time series of fine-spatial-resolution remote sensing observations of urban land spanning 40 years, along with spatial population, economic growth, and environmental variables, to develop a spatiotemporal simulation model of urban land, enabling studies of big-picture socio-environmental interactions needed for national and international assessments and decision making. The model makes future projections by allowing spatial entities of different scales (nations, regions, and grid cells) to organically evolve along and switch between different urbanization trajectories identified via mining past urbanization patterns. It was used in combination with Monte Carlo experiments to generate urbanization pathways reflecting narrative-based global socioeconomic scenarios. The approach is unique and improves existing large-scale spatial urban land modeling efforts through close calibration to historical time series data, explicit portrait of subnational, local spatial variations, robust long-term extrapolation, and integration of both quantitative and qualitative information. This work demonstrates challenges and rewards of applying data-science methods in studies of long-term large-scale human-environment interactions.

If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact Rich Mrozinski at mrozinski@uconn.edu (preferred method of contact) or 860-486-3788 by October 2, 2020.

Dr. Hossein Sadeghpour,
Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Quantum electron scattering

The second quantum revolution is upon us and atomic molecular and optical (AMO) physics is the discipline leading this revolution. Major advances in cooling and trapping of atoms and molecules in the last three decades now allow practitioners to create exotic many-body systems whose properties and behavior are predicated on fluctuations inherent in quantum systems. The ultracold AMO systems can be precisely and exquisitely interrogated and manipulated to engineer few-body interactions that “nature” may not naturally provide. I’ll draw on some fundamental physics concepts to elucidate a few of these quantum many-body features.

Dr. James Guillochon, Berkshire Gray

From Black Holes, to Data Science, to Robots: Tips & tricks for going into industry


The majority of physics/astronomy PhD recipients now leave the field for industry either immediately after graduation or after one or more postdoctoral stints. This has been driven by several factors, including the overproduction of PhDs relative to a declining pool of available tenure-track positions, greater freedom to choose where to live, and often significantly higher salaries. However, STEM graduates are increasingly finding that data science, the de facto refuge for former academics, is itself becoming somewhat saturated, with data on recent job listings suggesting that the majority of DS positions are now filled by bachelor's degree recipients rather than PhDs. In this talk, I will describe how I navigated this increasingly complicated landscape to find my current job, and share some pieces of advice I feel are generically useful to those who might be looking for jobs outside of academia in the next few years.

_______

Dr. James Guillochon received a PhD in astrophysics from the University of California Santa Cruz and then went on to hold prestigious postdoctoral fellowships, the Hubble and ITC fellowships, at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He developed a reputation as a world-renowned researcher in a range of topics, including black hole mergers, tidal disruption events, white dwarf accretion, and more. He is also well-known for his open-source contributions to the scientific community, including vox charta, open access astronomy catalogs, software, as well as maintaining a current list of US and Canadian astrophysics graduate program policies regarding the use of the physics GRE in graduate admissions decisions here.


In 2018 Dr. Guillochon transitioned to working in the industry as a Robotics Engineer in the Boston area. He is an outspoken advocate for positive transitions from academia to industry and will be joining us for a virtual colloquium on Friday to discuss his transition.

Dr. Viktor Mokeev, Jefferson National Laboratory

Advances in the Exploration of the Nucleon Resonance Spectrum and Structure in Experimentswith CLAS and CLAS12


Studies of nucleon resonances (N*) in experiments with electromagnetic probes offer unique information on many facets of the strong interaction in the regime of large (on the order of unity) QCD running couplings seen in the generation of the spectrum of N* states with different quantum numbers and structural features. The current status of the N* spectrum and structure studies for exclusive meson photo- and electro-production data with CLAS at Jefferson Lab will be presented in the talk. The extension of these efforts in the Jefferson Lab 12 GeV-era experiments with CLAS12 will be outlined.


WebEx Meeting: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=mb3e4c57467ee718677987ca3a427a21d

Scholars of maternal politics have traditionally characterized maternal
activism as a social movement, a performance, a form of protest, and, lately,
as a public expression of precariousness. In contrast, this chapter offers a
different approach to the study of maternal action by theorizing the
maternal contract as a bottom-up agreement subscribed to by the victims’
mothers to defend their children’s rights. In offering this interpretation, this
chapter shows how maternal activism in the Americas surfaces to remedy
state abandonment of marginalized citizens. In so doing, maternal activists
imagine, draft, and propose new rights, direct material resources to
vulnerable people, reclaim those women and men treated as foreign subjects
by their polity, and offer an alternative vision of society based on the
preservation of life. This chapter contributes to scholarly efforts to
decolonize our political concepts by formulating a bottom-up conception of
the maternal contract.

Elva Orozco Mendoza is an assistant professor of political science at Texas Christian University. Her research interests include extreme gender violence, democratic theory and practice, protest politics and political action in Latin America, critical approaches to state sovereignty, and comparative political theory.

Dafna Michaelson Jenet, (Colorado State House) on being a female candidate and being elected [Prof. Beth Ginsberg’s Women & Politics class guest speaker]

Scholarly talk with Prof. Alyx Mark (Assistant Professor Department of Government Wesleyan University)

October 13th at 12:15pm via Zoom (link will be posted)

The “1% effect:” adhocractic rule and content quality in online production systems

For more information: https://comm.uconn.edu/speaker-series/

The purpose of this panel discussion is to provide a forum to highlight the contributions of Latin America in the formulation of human rights as an international framework to address injustice; and to highlight some of the avenues Hispanic and Latinx communities can and have used to fight for a more just world. The panelists will address the history of Latin America's involvement in the development of human rights instruments, Latin American innovations in collective litigation, and, locally, human rights issues pertinent to communities in Connecticut ahead of the coming elections. Our passionate experts will highlight the past, present, and future implications of collective and democratic action within a human rights framework.

Meet the Panelists:
1. JAMES CAVALLARO JD, PH.D., Director
Stanford Human Rights Center
Former Commissioner and President, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

2. EMILY LUNA
Director of Scheduling
Office of Lieutenant Governor Bysiewicz

3. ANGEL OQUENDO JD, PH.D.
George J. and Helen M. England Professor of Law
UConn
Author, Latin American Law

Register here: https://www.events.foundation.uconn.edu/website/16336/

The evolution and development of leaves

(email Louise Lewis for online access information)

The race to (at least) 270 electoral college votes is set to be historic! Join the UConn Department of Political Science for a lively discussion about the 2020 race for the White House. Spend the evening with us discussing everything from the voting rights to media and polling data. This conversation will be moderated and led by Professor and Head of Political Science, David A. Yalof, Ph.D. and features an impressive panel of alumni experts.

Alumni Panel:
Stu Rothenberg '72 MA '77 PHD, Senior Editor, Inside Elections
Lydia Saad'97 MA, Director of U.S. Social Research, Gallup
Randy Serrano '08, Washington Correspondent, Telemundo

Please register at https://www.events.foundation.uconn.edu/election2020/

Time TBD Noted author Luis Alberto Urrea, hosted by Eastern Connecticut State University, will be reading from his book Into the Beautiful North via Zoom as part of the NEA’s Big Read series. Stay tuned for more information about talks and readings around this event.

Monthly department meeting

This week: Ahmad Jabar, "A Puzzle about 'Know'"

A series of informal talks by philosophy faculty and graduate students. For a description and how to sign up, see http://philosophy.uconn.edu/brown-bags/.

Chemistry Colloquium
"Precision synthesis of Nanocrystals for electrocatalysis"
Sen Zhang
University of Virginia
Host: Jie He

Join via Webex:
https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=me53f6b159302b9dce27c385d8fa34f7a

The Ford Foundation offers fellowships to increase diversity at predoctoral (early years of Ph.D. program), dissertation, and postdoctoral levels. Applicants must be preparing for academic careers and must be U.S. citizens, nationals, permanent residents, or individuals with DACA status. The information session will cover the mission of the Foundation and how your application can address it, the details of the application process, and the services and resources that the Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships offers to UConn applicants. This is an outstanding opportunity to apply for a prestigious fellowship that will admit you to the community of Ford Scholars.

There will be a panel Ford Fellowship reviewers as well a Ford Fellow who will participate in the Q&A session.

For more information about this fellowship opportunity, please visit: https://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/FordFellowships/index.htm

WebEx Information:

https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=md86e42a0b7415a812acb0d2aa0f930a5

Meeting numer: 120 531 9253

Meeting password: 2YJkSeKMw26

Dr. Tracy Centanni from Psychology Department of Texas Christian University will be presenting her work.

Suppose you come across a parabola plotted in a big open field. Stand at the base of the parabola and cast your gaze up to the horizon: what do you see? In this talk we will answer this and other horizon inspired questions.


Note: Join the meeting at https://uconnvtc.webex.com/meet/mathclub

Join us at the next Connecticut Forum: Debating Immigration for a substantive, policy-driven conversation about immigration law, real-life challenges, and where we go from here. Moderated by political journalist Evan Osnos, panelists include Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, filmmaker, and immigration advocate Jose Antonio Vargas, former Attorney General under President Obama Loretta Lynch, and former White House Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Secretary under President Trump General John Kelly.

You may choose to join us for the cocktail reception only if you don't plan on attending the program. The cocktail reception is from 6:00-7:30 PM, the program begins at 7:30 PM.

Submit your questions to the panel here https://www.ctforum.org/events/submit-a-question-for-the-panelists?eventWebSlug=debating-immigration.

Register here: https://www.events.foundation.uconn.edu/ereg/index.php?eventid=523566&

THE CRITICAL LANGUAGE SCHOLARSHIP (CLS) PROGRAM is a fully-funded overseas language and cultural immersion program for American undergraduate and graduate students studying and mastering critical foreign languages. Languages include: Azerbaijani, Bangla/Bengali, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Punjabi, Turkish, and Urdu, Arabic and Persian, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian.

DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 17, 2020
THE BOREN AWARDS for undergraduate and graduate students provide up to $25,000 in funding for International Study & Research in Africa, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America and the Middle East. As National Security Education Program (NSEP) initiatives, the Boren Awards focus on countries, languages, and fields critical to U.S. national security, recognizing a broad definition that includes traditional concerns of protecting American well-being, as well as challenges of global society, such as sustainable development, environmental issues, disease, migration, and economic competitiveness. Summer Scholarships are available for undergraduate students in the STEM fields.
CAMPUS DEADLINE: January 3, 2021 @ 12:00 pm
NATIONAL DEADLINE: January 27, 2021 (grad); February 3, 2021 (undergrad)

CLICK ON THE DATE BELOW FOR THE MEETING LINK

Thursday, October 8, 2020, 12 noon – 1:00 pm
Wednesday, October 14, 2020, 6:00-7:00 pm

Join us for a discussion on the role monuments play in our community. We will examine three monuments from three different centuries to learn more about how America responded to each monument when it was conceived and how we respond to them today. The monuments we will examine are the Washington Monument in (dedicated 1885), the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (dedicated 1982) and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (opened 2018).

The panelists include:

endawnis Spears (Diné/ Ojibwe/ Chickasaw/ Choctaw)

Manisha Sinha, Ph.D.

Dana Miranda, Ph.D.

Hosted by the Connecticut Historical Society

For more information and a link to register, visit:
https://democracyanddialogues.dodd.uconn.edu/2020/10/09/10-14-20-monuments-and-democracy-in-a-historical-perspective/

In this ECOM Spotlight Series talk, Eno Agolli will be talking about "This might not be an expressivist position."

Talks will take place online. Please send an email to "aliyar.ozercan@uconn.edu" for the WebEx link.

For the detailed information about, please visit our website: https://ecomresearchgroup.com/speaker-series/

A panel of admissions representatives from select law schools will share their insight into what law schools are looking for in an application, and how this information informs their decision. The panel members will also discuss the unique problems facing those applicants applying to law school in the midst of a pandemic. Open Q&A will be offered during and after the session. Advance registration is strongly recommended at the following site: https://uconn.joinhandshake.com/events/581695

The event is located at the following link: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/onstage/g.php?MTID=e7d86fed639628b9d42cdb64d0b8a93e2

El Instituto invites you to a talk by Zoan Dávila Roldán and Shariana Ferrer‐Núñez, of La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, Thursday, 15 October 2020, 1‐3PM.

La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción is a grassroots feminist movement that brings together the student, anti‐ colonialism and LGBTTIQ struggle to oppose the racist and patriarchal colonial system and work towards achieving structural change. They are building a grassroots feminist movement which recognizes that the different manifestations of oppression (including sexism, cis‐sexism machismo, racism, xenophobia, and capitalism) are interrelated and need to be opposed collectively. Their political project comes from the tradition of Black feminism, articulating the fight against hetero‐patriarchy, anti‐Black violence, and capitalism.

Zoan Tanís Dávila Roldán is a Black feminist activist and lawyer from Puerto Rico, member and spokesperson of La Colectiva. An activist lawyer, Zoán has represented protesters affected by state and police repression, impoverished communities at risk of displacement and advocacy initiatives defending civil rights.

Shariana Ferrer‐Núñez is a Black queer feminist Puerto Rican activist, scholar and organizer, co‐founder of La Colectiva. Her political practice centers intersectionality as the forefront for dismantling systems of oppression and building movements for social justice through collective and popular power.

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://uoregon.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYpfu6hrz0jHtCf1AumPuWenfAbfSyeDhkS

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

COVID-19 has from the outset been a disrupter and will likely lead to permanent changes in a variety of areas from retail
markets to the use of commercial office space, the vitality of small businesses and the delivery of public services at the state and local level. In addition, Connecticut has the dubious distinction of having the 48th (out of 51) rank on income polarization in the country, with 18.8 times as much income going to the top 20% than reaches the bottom 20%.

Rather than think of “bouncing back” to the previous status quo, the crisis offers an opportunity to get beyond “business as usual” to carry out a paradigm shift for public service delivery, and to move forward on economic and social justice issues.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of advanced information technology at the state and local level and of moving forward to implement best practices across an array of service areas. It also exposed weaknesses in legacy systems that were not up to increased demand.

Panel 2: Bouncing Forward from the Pandemic: Economic Disparities,
School, Childcare, and Residential Integration 

For more Info:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19-ATitHasm5ZsUMXUJFt-OKF3YbjkK76/view?usp=sharing

The internet and much of the modern infrastructure relies on public key cryptosystems to remain secure. These, in turn, rely on hard mathematical problems. Classical systems rely on the difficulty of factoring large integers (RSA) or solving various discrete logarithm problems (Diffie-Hellman, ECC). In the mid-1990's Peter Shor explained how a quantum computer would be able to break all of these systems, which has led to the construction and study of so-called quantum-resistant cryptosystems, that is, systems for which there is no (known) fast quantum algorithm. In this talk I will give a brief history of pre- quantum cryptography, after which I will describe a hard lattice problems that lies at the heart of many quantum-resistant algorithms and give the details of one such cryptosystem called NTRU, which was constructed by myself, along with Jill Pipher and Joe Silverman.

The Long River Reading Series is a monthly event with featured readers and an open mic! Join us from 5-6:30 PM on the third Thursday of the month to hear work from featured undergrads, grads, faculty, and guests, and to share your own work with a friendly audience! You can find us HERE (WebEx mtg #: 120 210 2791, password LRRReading2020!).

Join Lois Lake Church (UCONN) and JT Torres (Quinnipiac University) for an interactive talk about expanding more traditional conceptualizations of attendance. The speakers will address the following questions:

• How might instructors resist recognizing oral participation as the only marker of engagement?

• How is deep listening a form of participation?

• How can engagement and participation be enacted by students and measured by instructors during and beyond synchronous sessions?

• How might instructors foster a sense of belonging and community to encourage participation when students and instructors never meet each other online or in person?

Join here:

https://quinnipiac.zoom.us/j/97948236327?pwd=MkxaZkZ1S1pYVytxS25WODdobHNrUT09

Meeting ID: 979 4823 6327 Passcode: 930435


More information at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rii_j3GVMqQDYSPGS_7shbSYI9RgBJ0f/view?usp=sharing

Presenting: Veronique Oldham, University of Rhode Island G.S.O.

Seminar Title: There and back again, A Redox Tale

Host: Rob Mason

Abstract: https://marinesciences.uconn.edu/seminar/seminar1208/

Prof. Erin Scanlon,
Department of Physics,
University of Connecticut

An Introduction to Physics Education Research

Physics education research (PER) is a subfield of physics that focuses on investigating questions such as: 1) how can we teach physics better?; 2) how do students learn physics?; and 3) how can we make the physics community more inclusive, equitable, and diverse? In this talk, we will give an introduction to PER, including common misconceptions, methods, and the PER happening at UConn.

Andrew Nevins is a Professor of Linguistics at University College London specializing in phonological and morphological theory. He will be presenting work conducted jointly with Paul Marty (UCL).

Abstract: We investigate into the semantics and pragmatics of the expression of paucity "a couple" in English addressing by experimental means the following two questions: what is the upper bound of "a couple" and where does this upper bound come from? Experiment 1 establishes that
"a couple" has a lower-bound meaning of ‘at least two’ akin to the lower-bound meaning of the bare numeral ‘two’, with no semantically effective upper bound. Experiment 2 provides evidence that "only a couple" patterns distinctly from only two, in that the latter sharply degrades after three. We contend that this is because "a couple" has different pragmatic competitors than two; while the two are quite similar semantically, the former pragmatically competes with expressions of abundance and is context- dependent, whereas the latter competes with numerals. Finally, Experiment 3 looks at the computation of implicature-based competition during a working-memory task, and finds no effect of an upper bound imposed on "a couple", unlike other scalar items in the task. We discuss how similar typological and methodological conclusions may potentially be extended to languages with inflectional paucals.

The law school admissions process is a multi-faceted one. Join us as we demystify each component of a law school application, and discuss timing, scholarships, and much more.

Abstract: Family history is usually seen as a significant factor insurance companies look at when applying for a life insurance policy. Where it is used, family history of cardiovascular diseases, death by cancer, or family history of high blood pressure and diabetes could result in higher premiums or no coverage at all. In this article, we use massive (historical) data to study dependencies between life length within families. If joint life contracts (between a husband and a wife) have been long studied in actuarial literature, little is known about child and parents dependencies. We illustrate those dependencies using 19th century family trees in France, and quantify implications in annuities computations. For parents and children, we observe a modest but significant positive association between life lengths. It yields different estimates for remaining life expectancy, present values of annuities, or whole life insurance guarantee, given information about the parents (such as the number of parents alive). A similar but weaker pattern is observed when using information on grandparents

Speaker's bio: Dr. Charpentier is a full professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He has broad research interests in risk & insurance, statistics & machine learning, mathematical economics, and other applications. Please visit his website for more information: https://freakonometrics.github.io/.

Webex Meeting link: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=m7a9a020fd3f0e4180a1186096fae5f01

Meeting number: 120 888 8449

Password: UConn

Host key: 783762

In this three-part series, the University of Connecticut's Office of Global Affairs and University of Nottingham’s Institute for Policy and Engagement will be hosting three online panel discussions, each with a focus on decolonizing education. Speakers will examine the role that universities have had in cultivating racism and (settler) colonialism, the present challenges they face in disbanding unequal and oppressive narratives, as well as the future opportunities to contribute meaningfully to an anti-racist and anti-colonial agenda. Register via: https://global.uconn.edu/?p=4784

Exploring how and why millions of 20th-century Americans mobilized for — and against — women’s suffrage, The Vote brings to life the unsung leaders of the movement and the deep controversies over gender roles and race that divided Americans then — and continue to dominate political discourse today.

*Please view the film prior to this discussion at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/vote/#part01

Join at https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=mab824d1ed931cb81783ce6fd15744469

Faith Hawolti Curry
Department of Sociology
University of Connecticut

MA Thesis Defense

Tuesday, October 20, 2020
11:00am - 1:00pm
Zoom Link

Committee Members
Dr. Elizabeth Holzer (Chair)
Dr. Manisha Desai
Dr. Bandana Purkayastha


Abstract

In the hopes of adding to the literature on Ethiopian subjectivity within the larger African experience of colonization. As well as its’ present locality as experiencing coloniality through the operations of development schemas. This study utilizes the coloniality of power framework to understand the ways in which coloniality exists within development schemas in the Ethiopian development project known as Koga Irrigation and Water Management Project. Which is an agricultural development schema that has been implemented in Amhara, Ethiopia through the cooperation of international and domestic investment since 2001. The study investigates the ways in which elite development industry operates within the Eurocentric epistemological grounding of modernity. My question guiding this study is how do farmers as development subjects experience development projects, and in what ways does KIWMP institutionalize Ethiopian farmers in the folds of the global agricultural system? Using institutional ethnographic methodology for data collection and analysis I investigate the ways that this project operates and is experienced by the local farming community.

Political Theory Workshop: Nina Hagel, (Wesleyan University), The Stakes of Authenticity Claims

MCB Seminar Series

Shawna Reed, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences
Quinnipiac University

Host: Ken Campellone

"Coxiella and the arms race between host and pathogen…"

Summary:
The bacterium Coxiella burnetii enters eukaryotic host cells uses at least 130 secreted bacterial proteins to modify the late endosome into an autolysosomal, highly fusogenic compartment, allowing massive bacterial replication while promoting host cell survival and inhibiting innate immune responses to infection. Using an insect larval model for multicellular infection, bacterial effectors which inhibit immune response, promote multicellular infection and modulate Coxiella vacuole formation were identified.

As a scientist, Dr. Reed is passionate about uncovering the molecular interactions between host cells and intracellular bacteria. She has studied Rickettsia and Listeria actin-based intracellular motility at UC Berkeley and Coxiella genetics and host interactions at Yale.

In her laboratory, she looks forward to creating research projects for undergraduates curious about intracellular pathogens, bacterial genetics, interactions with host immune sensing pathways, and how individual bacterial effector proteins might contribute to virulence by hijacking host cell functions.
To learn more about Dr Reed's work, view https://mbio.asm.org/content/7/4/e01127-16.long

and visit her website:
https://directory.qu.edu/Profile/188042

Seminar Link:
https://uconnvtc.webex.com/webappng/sites/uconnvtc/meeting/download/73b0482edc2d4296b538911b3923d6f4?siteurl=uconnvtc&MTID=mf888e1957a812a5c6b3968a2580b5f42

Chemistry Colloquium
"Metal Complexes as Diagnostics and Therapeutics"
Gilles Gasser
Chimie Paris Tech
Host: Alfredo Angeles

Metal complexes are currently playing a tremendous role in medicine. For example, the platinum complex cisplatin and its derivatives oxaliplatin and carboplatin are employed in more than 50% of the treatment regimes for patients suffering from cancer! Over the last years, our research group focused its attention on the development of novel metal complexes as imaging and therapeutic agents against cancer and parasitic diseases. During this talk, we will present our latest results, including in vivo results, on these topics.

Join via Webex Link: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/onstage/g.php?MTID=e60245d6e316224927488cd9d52ae9eea

Event number (access code): 120 133 6561

Event password: Fall2020

Join the audio conference only
+1-415-655-0002 US Toll

Mary Bugbee Ph.D. Student, University of Connecticut presents:
The end of ‘Seguro Popular’: examining health policy stakeholders’ perspectives on health care reform in Mexico

Colloquium Link: https://uconnvtc.webex.com/meet/anthrodept

This week: Heather Battaly, "Countering Servility through Pride and Humility"

A series of informal talks by philosophy faculty and graduate students. For a description and how to sign up, see http://philosophy.uconn.edu/brown-bags/.

Join us for the fall's first session of the Noether Dialogues in Modern & Italian History. This is a new series under the leadership of
Sergio Luzzatto, the Emiliana Pasca Noether Chair in Modern Italian History here at the University of Connecticut.

The first event this semester will be “What Is a Fascist? A Trans-Atlantic Issue” on
Wednesday, October 21, from 12:15-1:30 PM EST.

The keynote speaker will be Victoria de Grazia (Columbia University) and guest speakers include Moshik Temkin (Harvard University) and John Foot (University of Bristol). Professor Luzzatto will moderate the discussion.

Register in advance for this meeting:https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqf--opzssHNRkxCkscmXjXiZLVp5RIXpT

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Or use shortened link: https://tinyurl.com/noether-dialogues

Join your colleagues on October 21st for a conversation on the future of Sociology at UConn and in the Discipline. In these moments of multiple crises, local and global, where should we focus our energies in terms of research, teaching, public engagement, and climate? What do we hear from our various vantage points about these issues?

Rahul N. Kanadia, Ph.D.,
Associate Professor,
Department of Physiology & Neurobiology,
University of Connecticut,
Storrs, CT


Talk title:
"Minor spliceosome in evolution, development and disease”

Date: Wednesday, October 21st, 2020
Time: 4:00PM
Place: Virtual

What is the maximum number of points in an $$n \times n$$ grid such that no 3 points lie on a line? Here we mean not just vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines, but lines of any slope. Dudeney introduced this simple sounding problem in 1917, but it is still mysterious today.

We will discuss bounds for this problem and a conjectural answer due to Guy and Kelly. Along the way we will see ideas from number theory and algebraic geometry, and many directions to explore.


Note: Join the meeting at https://uconnvtc.webex.com/meet/mathclub

Speaker: Mauro Maggioni (Johns Hopkins University)

Title: Learning Interaction laws in particle- and agent-based systems

Abstract: Interacting agent-based systems are ubiquitous in science, from modeling of particles in Physics to prey-predator and colony models in Biology, to opinion dynamics in economics and social sciences. Oftentimes the laws of interactions between the agents are quite simple, for example they depend only on pairwise interactions, and only on pairwise distance in each interaction. We consider the following inference problem for a system of interacting particles or agents: given only observed trajectories of the agents in the system, can we learn what the laws of interactions are? We would like to do this without assuming any particular form for the interaction laws, i.e. they might be “any” function of pairwise distances. We consider this problem both the mean-field limit (i.e. the number of particles going to infinity) and in the case of a finite number of agents, with an increasing number of observations, albeit in this talk we will mostly focus on the latter case. We cast this as an inverse problem, and study it in the case where the interaction is governed by an (unknown) function of pairwise distances. We discuss when this problem is well-posed, and we construct estimators for the interaction kernels with provably good statistically and computational properties. We measure their performance on various examples, that include extensions to agent systems with different types of agents, second-order systems, and families of systems with parametric interaction kernels. We also conduct numerical experiments to test the large time behavior of these systems, especially in the cases where they exhibit emergent behavior.



Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/91502884627?pwd=aXlpTUkzZk44QjNDT1FnOFJ0N3ZWdz09



Meeting ID: 915 0288 4627

Passcode: JVuC98

The Structure of Ecological Networks Across Levels of Organization

(email carlos.garcia-robledo@uconn.edu for zoom link)

Graduate Student Seminar:
"Copper-Catalyzed Intramolecular Coupling of Trans Vinyldibromides with Alcohols: Insight into the Preference of 5-endo over 4-exo Closure"
Jason An
Howell Group, University of Connecticut

Join via Webex Link:
https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/webappng/sites/uconn-cmr/meeting/info/139068d71fa14ac0a13bb9d9e0954e3f?siteurl=uconn-cmr&MTID=m6a6c08c4a24428e7f4c1e1d7821040cf&meetingAuthToken=QUhTSwAAAASDVIxQp5pftEddDqmuEicZeJ1s9nFRmqvxd7WptebuMdYBZnu4nZ2KbsKjkHF5AheFA9fmtd9WXlrqc8%2BbS6wieIcM%2FMWP3P66SG1ppcVCFxRdmLIzSi2IMRT1IiuG6U4Vb0WtOcSU4yiriT2DWiozMUPt40HhpHU4yOp35cTyBN2UO12ckEA69QwrfdFbAWKZITt71ghOVMabo2stJmEEpxbjp2VHXHV8B6eodKbnWg%3D%3D

Looking for a space to unwind and connect with others? Come visit the Women’s Center Virtual Lounge to play some online games and meet new people!

Join us at https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=m45a5bff3c060388c462068e05eaeed1f

Policy for the People, a Harvard IOP program, is currently accepting applications for the Pandemic Policython!

From October 23rd-25th, you will have the chance to propose policy-based solutions to some of today’s most pressing challenges and submit your policy memos to policymakers.

We will have speakers sessions and mentors from academic institutions like the Harvard Kennedy School and organizations like the World Health Organization available remotely.

Visit our website https://policython.org/ for more info.

Italy in the Heart of a Traveler: The Risorgimento and American Writers

Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages

Please contact Dr. Wayne Franklin for WebEx invitation.

With Anne Yurasek, Principal of Fio Partners

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders like you have been grappling with numerous and unexpected challenges across their programs, workforce, finances, and more. The future is uncertain, but as we look ahead to the next year, it is clear that the pandemic and racial justice movements will continue to have a significant impact. It will be critical for leaders to continue to evolve their practices, build resolve, support their people, and plan for what’s next.
What you will learn?
This session will provide a range of models, tools, and approaches to support your organization over the coming year including:
Scenario planning and decision making to ensure leadership alignment
Supporting remote teams and tips for virtual facilitation
Strategies for self-care and renewal.
Attendees will have the opportunity to explore different approaches and discuss opportunities for implementation within their organizations.

For more Info:
https://dpp.uconn.edu/collaborative/leading-unclear-challenging-times/

Featuring William Richardson, Jr. (CLAS '16), news producer at CBS4 Indy. For WebEx link, register on Nexus: https://nexus.uconn.edu/secure_per/events/event_registration.php?ser=3174&rc=1022529157

Telling the Story Right: Explaining Support for Transgender and Non-Binary Rights

Kylar Schaad
Department of Sociology
University of Connecticut

M.A. Thesis Defense
Friday, October 23rd, 2020
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
WebEX link (details below)

Committee Members:
Dr. Christin Munsch, Chair
Dr. Nancy Naples
Dr. Mary Bernstein

Abstract
Over the summer of 2020, there has been a dramatic increase in attention to rights related to gender identity. For example, on June 15th, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its first ruling on transgender rights forbidding job discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression, just one week after the Trump Administration’s reversal of a policy prohibiting discrimination against transgender people in health care. Beyond the realm of political discourse, transgender and non-binary identities have begun to emerge in popular media. Both realms have immense influence on public opinion towards transgender and non-binary individuals, as well as shaping common understandings of these identities. In light of these developing cultural frames around what it means to be a transgender or non-binary person, my line of research explores how emerging gender scripts influence perceptions of legitimacy and public advocacy.
In this thesis, I conduct a vignette-based experiment to explore how three factors influence perceived legitimacy and subsequently willingness to politically advocate for transgender and non-binary persons: (1) gender assigned at birth (2) current gender identity and (3) adherence to or subversion of normative gender scripts (Simon and Gagnon 1986). Gender scripts, in this line of research, refers to stereotypical descriptions of a transgender childhood (e.g., “I knew ever since I can remember that I was actually a boy, not a girl”). Respondents were randomly assigned one of eight vignettes wherein these three variables were manipulated in order to examine their influence on perceptions of identity legitimacy and willingness to advocate. Given the significance of public opinion in social movement participation and policymaking, I examine the extent to which Americans support laws that allow for transgender and non-binary people to change the gender marker on their birth certificate and theorize that perceptions of gender legitimacy and the use of normative gender scripts underlie variation in support.

Presenting: Kelton McMahon, University of Rhode Island G.S.O.

Seminar Title: Atoms to Ecosystems: Molecular isotope approaches to studying of food web architecture in an age of global change

Host: Craig Tobias

Abstract: https://marinesciences.uconn.edu/seminar/seminar1208/

Matt McAdam of John’s Hopkins University Press discusses scholarly publishing.

Registration for this event is online via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/publishing-now-with-matt-mcadam-of-jhu-press-tickets-121072528191

Co-sponsored by the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute and the Digital Humanities and Media Studies initiative.

Understanding Our Changing Planet through the Lens of Satellite Imagery

Dr. Zhe Zhu, University of Connecticut

Event link: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/onstage/g.php?MTID=e3c617da5b074e679a6833660412ef463


Humans, as the only dominant species on Earth, have been changing the Earth's surface throughout its existence, which has greatly threatened the sustainability, biodiversity, and ecosystems of the Earth. Satellite remote sensing is one of the most powerful tools for observing the Earth’s surface because of its repeated synoptic collection of consistent measurements. The central theme of this talk is to use quantitative remote sensing methods to better understand how the world is changing based on time series of optical satellite data acquired during daytime and nighttime. Dr. Zhu will introduce and discuss the progress and findings of some of his current projects which study land disturbance, tidal wetland change, forest disturbance, beetle infestation, understory habitat mapping, and human activity changes.

If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact Rich Mrozinski at mrozinski@uconn.edu (preferred method of contact) or 860-486-3788.

Prof. Elena Dormidontova,
Department of Physics,
University of Connecticut


Soft Matter Physics: HPC Simulations and Theory


Soft matter includes a broad range of structurally different materials ranging from small molecules such as lipids and liquids crystals to macromolecules, biopolymers and colloids. These materials can self-assemble into different organized structures and possess properties which vary depending on external conditions. To be able to understand the principles of self-assembly, predict and direct the outcomes of it is highly desirable to gain fundamental insight into biological self-assembly and to be able to create new materials with desired properties for energy, photonic, nanoelectronics, nanomedicine, sensors and other advanced functional nanomaterials. Theory and molecular modeling play an increasingly important role in gaining fundamental insights into complex behavior of these systems, as it allows to achieve atomistic level details inaccessible experimentally or guide experimental material development by predicting self-assembly pathways depending on structural properties of the building elements and external conditions. Several examples of ongoing, recently funded and planned interdisciplinary research projects collaboration with experimental groups will be discussed in connection with corresponding computer modeling approaches and material applications.

Chelsea Mackaman-Lofland, post-doctoral fellow, Fosdick lab

Contact Christin.donnelly@uconn.edu for WebEx link.

For the Webex meeting link, register through Nexus: https://nexus.uconn.edu/secure_per/events/event_registration.php?ser=3158&rc=2915825949

Join us for a conversation about the challenges of (remote) teaching and the unveiling of the new History TA Handbook. This is an opportunity to share what strategies have worked for us, talk about the issues we’re still struggling with, and reflect on the semester so far.

WebEx Link:
https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=mf80c3a299d970b84b6090af8a3bcd361
Meeting number: 120 747 3932
Password: pwGvWARp563

Kamil Deen is a Professor and Department Chair of Linguistics at The University of Hawai'i at Manoa. He will give a talk entitled "Empathy and Reflexive Binding in Child Japanese" with his co-author Akari Ohba.

Japanese has a grammatical system of empathy, or perspective-taking, whereby the speaker must encode the perspective from which an event may be interpreted (Kuno 1973, 1987, Kuno and Kaburaki 1977, amongst others). For example, an event of transfer such as ‘give’ may be viewed from the perspective of the giver, or the perspective of the recipient. In Japanese, the verb ageru ‘give’ requires that the speaker take the perspective of the giver a (the subject), while the verb kureru ‘give’ requires that the speaker take the perspective of the recipient (the indirect object). The verb morau ‘receive’, like ageru, requires the speaker take the perspective of the giver (morau means ‘to receive’, so the giver is the indirect object). A Japanese listener, therefore, who is aware of these properties of the Japanese verbs of transfer may share in the perspective of the event that the speaker is taking.

This integral part of Japanese has rarely been studied in children. In this talk, we present a series of experiments that probe the sophistication of children’s knowledge of the empathy encoding properties of three verbs of transfer (ageru, kureru and morau) and we show that children express high levels of knowledge with respect to ageru and morau, but not kureru. This may suggest that empathy properties of kureru are delayed, but we probe further and find that children are able to obey the empathy restrictions placed upon reflexive binding for kureru, suggesting the deficit is not one of grammatical knowledge. We conclude that children in fact have full knowledge of the empathy properties of all three verbs of transfer, but that the apparent delay associated with kureru has as its source a combination of subject-orientation and children’s well-known difficulty with online revision.

Policy for the People, a Harvard IOP program, is currently accepting applications for the Pandemic Policython!

From October 23rd-25th, you will have the chance to propose policy-based solutions to some of today’s most pressing challenges and submit your policy memos to policymakers.

We will have speakers sessions and mentors from academic institutions like the Harvard Kennedy School and organizations like the World Health Organization available remotely.

Visit our website https://policython.org/ for more info.

This year's focus will be on the Structural Biology of Host-Pathogen Interactions. The latest developments on the frontiers of the field will be covered in lectures by distinguished invited speakers. The symposium will also feature a poster-session for students and post-doctoral fellows. Several posters will be promoted to short talks and prizes will be awarded for the best posters.

Plenary Speaker:
Ian Wilson Scripps Research Institute

Speakers:
Gaya Amarasinghe Washington University

Jorge Galan Yale University

Alexei Korennykh Princeton University

Jason McLellan University of Texas

Alexei Savchenko University of Calgary

Sandra Weller UCONN Health


Organizers:
James Cole
Melissa Caimano

Abstract Submission:

Abstracts for poster and oral presentations will be accepted until October 14, 2020. Enter your abstract during the registration process. You will be notified if your abstract is accepted to be presented at the conference.


Registration Fees:
Regular Registration: $30.00
Trainee Registration (student/post-doc): $15.00

Registration Deadline: Friday, October 23, 2020 at 5:00PM EST

Register at
https://uconnuecs.cvent.com/events/ness-2020-biomolecular-design-and-structure-prediction/event-summary-bdf7734a76ea41658b046b19615cc170.aspx

Policy for the People, a Harvard IOP program, is currently accepting applications for the Pandemic Policython!

From October 23rd-25th, you will have the chance to propose policy-based solutions to some of today’s most pressing challenges and submit your policy memos to policymakers.

We will have speakers sessions and mentors from academic institutions like the Harvard Kennedy School and organizations like the World Health Organization available remotely.

Visit our website https://policython.org/ for more info.

Alyx Marx (Wesleyan University),

"Goodnight, Status Quo: State Court Innovation in the Wake of Covid-19"

Alyx Mark, Assistant Professor of Government, Wesleyan University, will present a talk entitled: Goodnight, Status Quo: State Court Innovation in the Wake of Covid-19.

Meeting Link: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=m156ec4208eeae5fe301e99a0a9a4252b

Featuring Brianna Régine Walston (CLAS '17). For Webex meeting link, register on Nexus: https://nexus.uconn.edu/secure_per/events/event_registration.php?ser=3116&rc=0674405402

The upcoming U.S. presidential election has far-reaching
implications around the world. Join the Latin American Institute as three scholars of Latin American politics, hailing from Mexico,
Puerto Rico, and Brazil, discuss how the region’s future might look different under a second Trump administration or a Biden presidency.

Speakers:
1. Alejandro Diaz Domingez, Escuela de Gabierno y Transformacion Publica Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
2. Marco Cepik, Universidade Federal de Rio Grande de Sul, Brazil
3. Charles Venator-Santiago, University of Connecicut; Puerto Rico and the Caribbean


Register via Zoom:
https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qgjs2Ou0T6u6GTkGyfWiIw

The Sato$$--$$Tate distributions for genus $$2$$ curves (conjecturally) describe the statistics of numbers of rational points on the curves. In this talk, we explicitly compute the auto-correlation functions of Sato$$--$$Tate distributions for genus $$2$$ curves as sums of irreducible characters of symplectic groups. Our computations bring about families of identities involving irreducible characters of symplectic groups, which have interest in their own rights.

Please contact the organizer for the WebEx link.

Ashley Graham, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Connecticut presents:
When is it Acceptable to Vaccinate Pregnant Women? Risk, Evidence, and Politics of Governance in Epidemics.

Colloquium Link: https://uconnvtc.webex.com/meet/anthrodept

This week: Jessica Tizzard, "Better Understanding the Metaphysics of Pregnancy"

A series of informal talks by philosophy faculty and graduate students. For a description and how to sign up, see http://philosophy.uconn.edu/brown-bags/.

Chemistry Colloquium
"Synthesis of Biologically Relevant Bacterial Cell Wall Fragments"
Catherine Grimes
University of Delaware
Host: Mark Peczuh

Join via Webex:
https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/onstage/g.php?MTID=e172d28bf5e4cc8e6a0457f234fa6e37d

Event number:
120 871 0051

Event password:
dFw9KWukm24

ATTENTION GRAD STUDENTS:

On October 28 there will be a special “Careers in Chemistry” seminar at 4:30 pm. Connection details are at the end of this message. All interested graduate students are invited to attend the seminar.

Nicole Camasso is the managing editor of the Measurement Science Portfolio. The portfolio includes the following journals: ACS Sensors, Analytical Chemistry, and Journal of Proteome Research. Her seminar is geared toward grad students thinking about what jobs beyond research positions in industry and academe are available, with a specific focus on publishing.

Webex connection:
URL: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/onstage/g.php?MTID=e35945df4b5fe895c3c44236c7ac9822e

Event number: 120 603 4662

Event password: yXRAgMJW674

Brownian motion is used in many disciplines, such as mathematical physics, probability, and mathematical finance. We will look into the brief history of the development of Brownian motion, also referred to as the Wiener process, and its significance in mathematics. In addition, we will discuss some of its applications.




Note: Join the meeting at https://uconnvtc.webex.com/meet/mathclub

The dynamics of race, ethnicity and gender have long played central roles in U.S. electoral politics and are once again front and center in the upcoming November federal, state and local elections. Politicians and advocates seek to understand voter behavior across these categories to develop campaign strategies, and analysts seek to assess their impact on election outcomes. The significance of race, ethnicity and gender in American politics and elections has become even more salient in the current context of a health pandemic and most recent spate of state violence both of which have disproportionately impacted Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, and the social justice protests that have emerged in response. This panel will discuss the relationship and impact of these identities and issues on the upcoming elections and public policy-making for the next four years and beyond. We will reserve the last 30 minutes for questions from the audience.


Moderator
Jonelle Reynolds, Ph.D.
Director of Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
Office for Diversity & Inclusion


Panelists
Debo Adegbile, Esq.
Partner, Wilmer Hale
Government and Regulatory Litigation Group
Co-Chair of Anti-discrimination Practice


Glenn Magpantay, Esq.
Executive Director, National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance
Chair, LGBT Committee of the Asian American Bar Association of New York
Professor, Brooklyn Law School, Hunter College/ City University of New York and Columbia University.


Evelyn Simien, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science
Director of the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics (REP) Master's degree program
https://polisci.uconn.edu/person/evelyn-simien/


Doug Spencer, Ph. D.
Professor of Law and Public Policy
https://dpp.uconn.edu/person/doug-spencer/


Charles Venator-Santiago, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Political Science & El Instituto: Institute for Latina/o Studies
https://polisci.uconn.edu/person/charles-venator-santiago/


Janene Yazzie, M.A.
Co-Founder and CEO of Sixth World Solutions
https://retakeourdemocracy.org/meet-janene-yazzie-candidate-for-public-regulation-commission-district-5/


Register here: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/onstage/g.php?MTID=e7fabd548be9c2b687f7dd00e3afe7261

During the 19th and early 20th centuries a remarkable family of Armenian photographers, the Dildilians, captured a time and a way of life in Anatolia in central Turkey that was soon to disappear during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. "The Dildilians: A Story of Photography and Survival," the product of a unique collaboration between filmmaker Catherine Masud, Dildilian family historian Armen Masoobian, and a talented group of UConn students, tells the story of that lost community.

Learn more and register to receive the links for the event at https://tinyurl.com./y34qvrhs

Featuring alumni in sports comm, sales, and technology communications. For WebEx link, register on Nexus: https://nexus.uconn.edu/secure_per/events/event_registration.php?ser=3208&rc=8622366540

Join us for the online Logic Colloquium for a talk by Ethan Brauer, Øystein Linnebo, and Stewart Shapiro on:

Divergent potentialism: A modal analysis with an application to choice sequences

Modal logic has recently been used to analyze potential infinity and potentialism more generally. However, this analysis breaks down in cases of divergent possibilities, where the modal logic is weaker than S4.2. This talk has three aims. First, we use the intuitionistic theory of free choice sequences to motivate the need for a modal analysis of divergent potentialism and explain the challenge of connecting the ordinary theory of choice sequences with our modal explication. Then, we use the so-called Beth-Kripke semantics for intuitionistic logic to overcome those challenges. Finally, we apply the resulting modal analysis of divergent potentialism to make choice sequences comprehensible in classical terms.

Please contact Marcus Rossberg for log-in information.

https://logic.uconn.edu/calendar/

Presenting: Talea L. Mayo, Emory University

Seminar Title: Climate change impacts on hurricane storm surge risk

Host: Samantha Siedlecki

Abstract: https://marinesciences.uconn.edu/seminar/seminar1208/

Profs. Gerald Dunne and Jon Trump, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut

Black Holes: The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics

The Nobel Foundation has awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics to Roger Penrose “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity”, and to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy”.
See https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/summary/
We review the physics and the significance of these remarkable discoveries. There will be some technical detail but the talk is intended for a general audience.