Fall 2001

*Note the special time and place*

(Supported in part by the Systems Science and Engineering Research Center)

Seminar Schedule: <http://math.la.asu.edu/~tom/cognition/math+cogsched.html>

Our next meeting of the Mathematics and Cognition seminar will take place on
Tuesday, November 13, at 11:40 PM in GWC 510.    Our speaker will be Professor
Bill Fagan of the Department of Biology, who will speak on the topic:

"Cross-validation of Stochastic Processes in Population Dynamics"

Abstract.
In population biology, a key application of stochastic modeling
involves evaluation of extinction risks for endangered species. I will
discuss recent projects exploring the efficacy of extinction risk
modeling via diffusion-approximation methods. Specifically, I will
discuss a cross-validation approach with long-term population censuses
from 271 real time series representing 46 taxa, most of which were of
past or present conservation concern. A key feature of this work
involves application of a recent advance by E.E. Holmes that allows one
to partition process error from non-process error within a time
series. This new method yields quasi-extinction predictions that can
accurately match realized population minima evident in the time series.