INTERDISCIPLINARY STOCHASTIC PROCESSES COLLOQUIUM

Monday November 13, room 334 Evans, 3.10 - 4.00pm

Speaker: Bernd Sturmfels (Mathematics, U.C. Berkeley)

 
Title: "Semigraphoids, Permutohedra, and Mice"

Abstract: Semigraphoids are combinatorial structures that arise in statistical
learning theory. They are equivalent to convex rank tests and to polyhedral
fans that coarsen the reflection arrangement of the symmetric group. This
lecture gives an introduction to this theory. It centers around our recent
answers to questions raised by Matus, Studeny, Postnikov, Reiner and Williams.
This represents joint work with R.Hemmecke, J.Morton, L.Pachter, A.Shiu and 
O. Wienand. The mice are in the title because everything started with the
analysis of microarray data in molecular biology.

Background reference:  Milan Studeny: Probabilistic Conditional Independence
Structures, Springer Series in Information Science and Statistics, 2005.