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Monday, January 28, 1530-1630 |
SPEAKER :
John MacNamara, University of Bristol and
Erlanderprofessor GU.
TITLE : The importance of individual differences in conflict and the evolution of cooperation.
ABSTRACT :
Animals are often in competition with other members of the
same population. They compete over access to resources such as food,
mates and breeding sites. Even parents compete with each other over who
should provide care for their common young. When there is competition
the fitness of one member of the population usually depends on the
behavioural strategies adopted by others. In such circumstances the
evolutionary endpoints can be characterised using evolutionary game
theory. I first present a brief outline of this theory as it is usually
formulated and used. However, uses often ignore differences between
individuals. Using a series of examples I will demonstrate that such
differences are not innocuous noise, but can fundamentally change the
nature of a game. Difference can completely reverse the direction of
evolution in a simple prisoner's dilemma game, and can interact with
lifespan to determine how cooperative parents are with each other.
Finally, differences in personality promote the need to be socially
sensitive; and once individuals are socially sensitive, this can lead to
the maintenance of differences.
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Monday, February 18, 1530-1630 |
VIDEO PRESENTATION (presented by Torgny Lindvall)
TITLE : On Wolfgang Doeblin and the fate of a manuscript.
ABSTRACT :
Wolfgang Doeblin (1915-1940) is one of the
founding fathers of modern probability theory,
with Markov chains and processes as his
main fields. Considering the shortness of his
career, it is remarkable that he published
13 papers; all of interest, several of profound
importance.
At this colloquium, we will watch a documentary
(55 minutes) about the stunning fate of one of
Doeblin's manuscripts. The story is intertwined
with gripping aspects of his life. The spoken languages
are French and German, but there are English subtitles.
The documentary, published by Springer, is intended
for a wide audience, including all of our students,
of course. Much attention is paid to Brownian motion
and stochastic calculus.
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Monday, February 25, 1530-1630 |
SPEAKER :
Olle Häggström, Chalmers MV.
TITLE : Using unacknowledged probabilistic assumptions is a lousy habit.
ABSTRACT :
Rule number one in applied mathematics is, or ought to be, that all
calculations need to be preceded by model specification. This is often
overlooked by researchers who lack specialized training in mathematics -
and sometimes even by those who have it. A particularly common special
case seems to be arguments that, unbeknowst to the researcher him- or
herself, require probabilistic assumptions about some key quantity being
uniformly distributed. In this talk I will go through a series of examples
where far-reaching and in some cases spectacular conclusions are drawn
based on such assumptions. Once the assumptions are noticed, we may go on
to discuss whether they can be justified.
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Monday, March 17, 1530-1630 CANCELLED !! |
SPEAKER :
CANCELLED !!.
TITLE :
ABSTRACT :
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Monday, April 28, 1530-1630 |
SPEAKER :
Edward Witten, Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton, USA .
TITLE : Electric-magnetic duality on a half space
ABSTRACT :
To be announced.
OBS! This will be a repitition of Witten's
Crafoord lecture, to be delivered
in Stockholm on April 24.