Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

We discuss a problem of asymptotically efficient (that is, asymptotically normal with minimax optimal limit variance) estimation of functionals of the form $\langle f(\Sigma), B\rangle$ of unknown covariance $\Sigma$ based on i.i.d.mean zero Gaussian observations $X_1,\dots, X_n\in {\mathbb R}^d$ with covariance $$\Sigma$. Under the assumptions that the dimension $d\leq n^{\alpha}$ for some $\alpha\in (0,1)$ and $f:{\mathbb R}\mapsto {\mathbb R}$ is of smoothness $s>\frac{1}{1-\alpha},$ we show how to construct an asymptotically efficient estimator of such functionals (the smoothness threshold $\frac{1}{1-\alpha}$ is known to be optimal for a simpler problem of estimation of smooth functionals of unknown mean of normal distribution).

The proof of this result relies on a variety of probabilistic and analytic tools including Gaussian concentration, bounds on the remainders of Taylor expansions of operator functions and bounds on finite differences of smooth functions along certain Markov chains in the spaces of positively semi-definite matrices.

Constriction of blood vessels in the extremities due to traumatic injury to halt excessive blood loss or resulting from pathologic occlusion can cause considerable damage to the surrounding tissues with significant morbidity and mortality. Optimal healing of damaged tissue relies on the precise balance of pro-inflammatory and pro-healing processes of innate inflammation. In this talk, we will present a discrete multiscale mathematical model that spans the tissue and intracellular scales, and captures the consequences of targeting various regulatory components. We take advantage of the canalization properties of some of the functions, which is a type of hierarchical clustering of the inputs, and use it as control to steer the system away from a faulty attractor and understand better the regulatory relations that govern the system dynamics.EDIT: CANCELLED

We shall survey a variety of results, some recent, some going back a long time, where combinatorial methods are used to prove or disprove the existence of orthogonal exponential bases and Gabor bases. The classical Erdos distance problem and the Erdos Integer Distance Principle play a key role in our discussion.