We briefly review mathematical models of viscous deformable interfaces (such as plasma membranes) leading to fluid equations posed on (evolving) 2D surfaces embedded in $R^3$. We further report on some recent advances in understanding and numerical simulation of the resulting fluid systems using an unfitted finite element method.

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Reconstructing continuous signals based on a small number of discrete samples is a fundamental problem across science and engineering. In practice, we are often interested in signals with ``simple'' Fourier structure -- e.g., those involving frequencies within a bounded range, a small number of frequencies, or a few blocks of frequencies. More broadly, any prior knowledge about a signal's Fourier power spectrum can constrain its complexity.  Intuitively, signals with more highly constrained Fourier structure require fewer samples to reconstruct.

We formalize this intuition by showing that, roughly speaking, a continuous signal from a given class can be approximately reconstructed using a number of samples equal to the statistical dimension of the allowed power spectrum of that class. We prove that, in nearly all settings, this natural measure tightly characterizes the sample complexity of signal reconstruction.

Surprisingly, we also show that, up to logarithmic factors, a universal non-uniform sampling strategy can achieve this optimal complexity for any class of signals. We present a simple, efficient, and general algorithm for recovering a signal from the samples taken. For bandlimited and sparse signals, our method matches the state-of-the-art. At the same time, it gives the first computationally and sample efficient solution to a broad range of problems, including multiband signal reconstruction and common kriging and Gaussian process regression tasks.

Our work is based on a novel connection between randomized linear algebra and the problem of reconstructing signals with constrained Fourier structure. We extend tools based on statistical leverage score sampling and column-based matrix reconstruction to the approximation of continuous linear operators that arise in the signal fitting problem. We believe that these extensions are of independent interest and serve as a foundation for tackling a broad range of continuous time problems using randomized methods.

This is joint work with Michael Kapralov, Cameron Musco, Christopher Musco, Ameya Velingker and Amir Zandieh

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Given a nested pair X and Y of complex projective varieties, there is a single positive integer e which measures the singularity type of X inside Y. This is called the Hilbert-Samuel multiplicity of Y along X, and it appears in the formulations of several standard intersection-theoretic constructions including Segre classes, Euler obstructions, and various other multiplicities. The standard method for computing e requires knowledge of the equations which define X and Y, followed by a (super-exponential) Grobner basis computation. In this talk we will connect the HS multiplicity to complex links, which are fundamental invariants of (complex analytic) Whitney stratified spaces. Thanks to this connection, the enormous computational burden of extracting e from polynomial equations reduces to a simple exercise in clustering point clouds. In fact, one doesn't even need the polynomials which define X and Y: it suffices to work with dense point samples. This is joint work with Martin Helmer.

In this talk, I will work on a smooth projective threefold X which satisfies the Bogomolov-Gieseker conjecture of Bayer-Macrì-Toda, such as the projective space P^3 or the quintic threefold. I will show certain moduli spaces of 2-dimensional torsion sheaves on X are smooth bundles over Hilbert schemes of ideal sheaves of curves and points in X. When X is Calabi-Yau this gives a simple wall crossing formula expressing curve counts (and so ultimately Gromov-Witten invariants) in terms of counts of D4-D2-D0 branes. This is joint work with Richard Thomas. 

Materials made from a mixture of liquid and solid are, instinctively, very obviously complex. From dilatancy (the reason wet sand becomes dry when you step on it) to extreme shear-thinning (quicksand) or shear-thickening (cornflour oobleck) there is a wide range of behaviours to explain and predict. I'll discuss the seemingly simple case of solid spheres suspended in a Newtonian fluid matrix, which still has plenty of surprises up its sleeve.

It has long been known that many elliptic partial differential equations can be reformulated as Fredholm integral equations of the second kind on the boundaries of their domains. The kernels of the resulting integral equations are weakly singular, which has historically made their numerical solution somewhat onerous, requiring the construction of detailed and typically sub-optimal quadrature formulas. Recently, a numerical algorithm for constructing generalized Gaussian quadratures was discovered which, given 2n essentially arbitrary functions, constructs a unique n-point quadrature that integrates them to machine precision, solving the longstanding problem posed by singular kernels.

When the domains have corners, the solutions themselves are also singular. In fact, they are known to be representable, to order n, by a linear combination (expansion) of n known singular functions. In order to solve the integral equation accurately, it is necessary to construct a discretization such that the mapping (in the L^2-sense) from the values at the discretization points to the corresponding n expansion coefficients is well-conditioned. In this talk, we present exactly such an algorithm, which is optimal in the sense that, given n essentially arbitrary functions, it produces n discretization points, and for which the resulting interpolation formulas have condition numbers extremely close to one.

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One of the standard methods for the solution of elliptic boundary value problems calls for reformulating them as systems of integral equations.  The integral operators that arise in this fashion typically have singular kernels, and, in many cases of interest, the solutions of these equations are themselves singular.  This makes the accurate discretization of the systems of integral equations arising from elliptic boundary value problems challenging.

Over the last decade, Generalized Gaussian quadrature rules, which are n-point quadrature rules that are exact for a collection of 2n functions, have emerged as one of the most effective tools for discretizing singular integral equations. Among other things, they have been used to accelerate the discretization of singular integral operators on curves, to enable the accurate discretization of singular integral operators on complex surfaces and to greatly reduce the cost of representing the (singular) solutions of integral equations given on planar domains with corners.

We will first briefly outline a standard method for the discretization of integral operators given on curves which is highly amenable to acceleration through generalized Gaussian quadratures. We will then describe a numerical procedure for the construction of Generalized Gaussian quadrature rules.

Much of this is joint work with Zydrunas Gimbutas (NIST Boulder) and Vladimir Rokhlin (Yale University).

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