Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Diabetes is a disease of poor glucose control. Glucose is controlled by two hormones that work in opposite directions: insulin and glucagon. Pancreatic beta-cells release insulin when blood glucose is high, while pancreatic alpha-cells secrete glucagon when blood glucose is low. Both insulin and glucagon secretion are disregulated in people with diabetes. In these people, not enough insulin is secreted in response to elevated glucose levels, while the problem with glucagon secretion is two-fold: too much glucagon is secreted at high glucose levels, while not enough is secreted at low glucose levels. So far, the treatment of diabetes has focused solely on increasing insulin secretion from beta-cells. Therefore, understanding glucose regulated glucagon secretion may lead to new therapies for those with diabetes.There is an ongoing debate as to whether glucose suppresses glucagon secretion directly through an intrinsic mechanism, within the alpha-cell, or indirectly through an extrinsic mechanism. I developed a mathematical model of glucagon secretion in alpha-cells and use it to show that they can control their own secretion. However, experimental evidence shows that factors secreted by pancreatic beta- and delta- cells can also affect glucagon secretion. Therefore, I created the BAD model for pancreatic islets which contains one representative cell of each type and the cellular interactions between them. I use this model to show that these paracrine effects suppress alpha-cell heterogeneity and suggest that delta-cells play a more important role in this than beta-cells.

We survey some recent results by the speaker, Jason Metcalfe and Daniel Tataru for small data local well-posedness of quasilinear Schrödinger equations. In addition, we will discuss some applications recently explored with Jianfeng Lu and recent progress towards the large data short time problem. Along the way, we will attempt to motivate analysis of the problem with connections to problems from Density Functional Theory.

Let K be a complete, algebraically closed, non-Archimedean field, and let $\phi$ be a rational function defined over K with degree at least 2. Recently, Robert Rumely introduced two objects that carry information about the arithmetic and the dynamics of $\phi$. The first is a function $\ord\Res_\phi$, which describes the behavior of the resultant of $\phi$ under coordinate changes on the projective line. The second is a discrete probability measure $\nu_\phi$ supported on the Berkovich half space that carries arithmetic information about $\phi$ and its action on the Berkovich line. In this talk, we will show that the functions $\ord\Res_\phi(x)$ converge locally uniformly to the Arakelov-Green's function attached to $\phi$, and that the family of measures $\nu_{\phi^n}$ attached to the iterates of $\phi$ converge to the equilibrium measure of $\phi$.​

In joint work with Vera Vertesi, we extend the functoriality in Heegaard Floer homology by defining a Heegaard Floer invariant for tangles which satisfies a nice gluing formula. We will discuss theconstruction of this combinatorial invariant for tangles in S^3, D^3, and I x S^2. The special case of S^3 gives back a stabilized version of knot Floer homology.