L1

The InFoMM CDT presents The Reddick Lecture Dr. Nira Chamberlain (Holland & Barrett) Modelling the Competition Friday, 15 February 2019 17:00- 18:00 Mathematical Institute, L1 Followed by a drinks reception

It can be argued that any market would not survive without competition. It is everywhere; you can't run away from it. Competition can cause a business to either thrive, survive or die. So one might ask, why is there a need to mathematically model the competition? Two quotes may help to answer this: "Business is a game played for fantastic stakes, and you're in competition with experts. If you want to win, you have to learn to be a master of the game" Anon. “You can't look at the competition and say you're going to do it better. You have to look at the competition and say you're going to do it differently." Steve Jobs In this talk, I wish to demonstrate how mathematical modelling can be used to "master the game" and "do things differently". I will be focusing on three real life examples: Bidding to provide service support for a complex communication asset - dynamic travelling repairman Increasing market share in the Energy Sector - Markov Chain Retail's shop Location Location Location Location - Agent Based Simulation

Teaching ethics to the mathematicians who need it most
For the last 20 years it has become increasingly obvious, and increasingly pressing, that mathematicians should be taught some ethical awareness so as to realise the impact of their work. This extends even to those more highly trained, like graduate students and postdocs. But which mathematicians should we be teaching this to, what should we be teaching them, and how should we do it? In this talk I’ll explore the idea that all mathematicians will, at some stage, be faced with ethical challenges stemming from their work, and yet few are ever told beforehand.
 

Thomas Prince The double life of the number 24.

The number 24 appears in a somewhat surprising result in the study of polyhedra with integer lattice points. In a different setting, the number 24 is the Euler characteristic of a K3 surface: a four (real) dimensional object which plays a central role in algebraic geometry. We will hint at why both instances of 24 are in fact the same, and suggest that integral affine geometry can be used to interpolate between the realm of integral polytopes and the world of complex algebraic geometry.

Mohit Dalwadi A multiscale mathematical model of bacterial nutrient uptake

In mathematical models that include nutrient delivery to bacteria, it is prohibitively expensive to include many small bacterial regions acting as volumetric nutrient sinks. To combat this problem, such models often impose an effective uptake instead. However, it is not immediately clear how to relate properties on the bacterial scale with this effective result. For example, one may intuitively expect the effective uptake to scale with bacterial volume for weak first-order uptake, and with bacterial surface area for strong first-order uptake. I will present a general model for bacterial nutrient uptake, and upscale the system using homogenization theory to determine how the effective uptake depends on the microscale bacterial properties. This will show us when the intuitive volume and surface area scalings are each valid, as well as the correct form of the effective uptake when neither of these scalings is appropriate.