Microsurveys in Discrete Probability

June 2 - 6, 1997
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey

Organizers:

David Aldous, University of California - Berkeley, aldous@stat.berkeley.edu

Jim Propp, MIT, propp@math.mit.edu

Probabilistic aspects of algorithms and discrete mathematics, and discrete aspects of theoretical probability, form a broad and active field of contemporary research. The workshop is aimed at researchers seeking to broaden their familiarity with the field. The workshop will be centered on 10 focussed survey talks on diverse topics, intended as a cross-section of current activity. Of course, there will also be opportunity for participants to present their own recent research in short talks, with a focus on open problems and on possibilities for fruitful interchange with other conference participants.

The exact topics have not been fixed, but the following samples should give an accurate impression of the range of topics under consideration.

• Probabilistic analysis of self-organizing search.
• Probabilistic analysis of greedy matching algorithms
• What do we know rigorously about genetic algorithms?
• Random forests in the d-dimensional lattice
• Random spanning trees and exact sampling from Markov chains
• Probability distributions on partitions
• Giant components and general stochastic coalescents
• Non-reversible Markov chains for simulation

The following have tentatively agreed to speak. Other speakers will be announced later.

• David Aldous
• Richard Arratia
• Persi Diaconis
• Jim Fill
• Alan Frieze
• Anant P. Godbole
• Olle Haggstrom
• Ravi Kannan
• Harry Kesten
• Steve Lalley
• Laszlo Lovasz
• Russell Lyons
• Boris Pittel
• Jim Propp
• Gesine D. Reinert
• David Zuckerman

Next: Call for Participation

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