In the late 1880's Goursat investigated what we now call rigid local systems, classically described as linear differential equations without accessory parameters. In this talk I will discuss some arithmetic and geometric aspects of certain particular cases of Goursat's in rank four. For example, I will discuss what are likely to be all cases where the monodromy group is finite. This is joint work with Danylo Radchenko.

3d N=2 Chern-Simons-matter theories have a large variety of boundary conditions that preserve 2d N=(0,2) supersymmetry, and support chiral algebras. I'll discuss some examples of how the chiral algebras transform across dualities. I'll then explain how to construct duality interfaces in 3d N=2 theories, and relate dualities *of* duality interfaces to "Pachner moves" in triangulations of 4-manifolds. Based on recent and upcoming work with K. Costello, D. Gaiotto, and N. Paquette.

In this talk, we shall provide a comprehensive variational principle that allows one to apply critical point theory on closed proper subsets of a given Banach space and yet, to obtain critical points with respect to the whole space.
This variational principle has many applications in partial differential equations while unifies and generalizes several results in nonlinear Analysis such as the fixed point theory, critical point theory on convex sets and the principle of symmetric criticality.

The tree amplituhedron A(n, k, m) is a geometric object generalizing the positive Grassmannian, which was introduced by Arkani-Hamed and Trnka in 2013 in order to give a geometric basis for the computation of scattering amplitudes in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. I will give a gentle introduction to the amplituhedron, and then describe what it looks like in various special cases. For example, one can use the theory of sign variation and matroids to show that the amplituhedron A(n, k, 1) can be identified with the complex of bounded faces of a cyclic hyperplane arrangement. I will also present some conjectures relating the amplituhedron A(n, k, m) to combinatorial objects such as non-intersecting lattice paths and plane partitions. This is joint work with Steven Karp, and part of it is additionally joint work with Yan Zhang.

The vast majority of the world's electricity is generated by converting thermal energy into electric energy by use of a steam turbine. Siemens are one of the worlds leading manufacturers of such
turbines, and aim to design theirs to be as efficient as possible. Using an internally built software, Siemens can estimate the efficiency which would result from a turbine design. In this presentation, we present the approaches that have been taken to improve turbine design using mathematical optimisation software. In particular, we focus on the failings of the approach currently taken, the obstacles in place which make solving this problem difficult, and the approach we intend to take to find a locally optimal solution.