Seminars

Davide Germani discusses how established field-theory techniques help interpret precise ATLAS and CMS measurements of heavy-quark systems. The first case concerns top–antitop states near their production threshold, drawing on recent calculations by Paolo Nason and collaborators. Topics include threshold resummation, nonperturbative QCD corrections, and the way the top quark’s short lifetime controls the formation and decay of quasi-bound states at collider energies. The second case examines whether X(3872) is a compact exotic hadron or a weakly bound neutral D-meson molecule. A comparison of the conventional Flatté parametrization with an effective field theory containing a reversed-sign kinetic term clarifies the physical meaning of that term and its relationship to a negative effective range. The seminar shows how adapting established methods can address new anomalies and structures in hadron spectroscopy.

Marcos Petrúcio Cavalcante connects geometric stability to physical examples involving soap films, bubbles and vibrating membranes. He first describes his route through differential geometry and the development of a research group and graduate programme in Maceió, Brazil. The scientific discussion concerns shapes that are critical points of a functional. Its second variation defines stability, while the Morse index counts independent directions of improvement. Through examples and pictures, the talk explains why stable configurations tend to have simple geometry and topology. Two results make this principle precise: a genus-dependent lower bound on the Morse index of compact constant-mean-curvature surfaces in Euclidean space, and a rigidity theorem for stable extremal domains of the first Dirichlet eigenvalue on the round sphere.

Ivo Düntsch presents an algebraic treatment of the ternary betweenness relation familiar from geometry. The talk introduces betweenness algebras and the logic K^#, which uses two complementary binary modalities. Its algebraic models are Boolean algebras equipped with two binary modal operators linked by a connecting condition. This extends unary mixed logic and increases the expressive power of classical modal logic. The presentation develops properties of these structures from joint work with R. Gruszczyński and P. Menchón at Nicolaus Copernicus University. Online via Chapman University GALAI Zoom. Wednesday 30 September 2026, 14:30 PDT (America/Los_Angeles; UTC−7). Use the current Zoom link at the top of the organizer’s seminar page. Organized by Peter Jipsen at Chapman’s Center of Excellence in Computation, Algebra and Topology. The usual seminar slot ends at 15:45; no event-specific end time is given. This listing advertises the remote option.

Apurba Bhatacharya discusses the intellectual and aesthetic rewards of organic synthesis: devising a retrosynthetic plan and then realizing it experimentally. The talk considers how the distinct chemical properties of elements allow synthetic chemists to construct complex molecular networks. It connects this molecular craftsmanship with academic innovation and the sustained practical work of synthesis, presenting beauty and simplicity as ways to understand its apparent complexity. Speaker: Dr. Apurba Bhatacharya, Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry, Texas A and M University–Kingsville. Hosted by the School of Math and Physical Sciences, Chemistry Seminar Series. Wednesday 30 September 2026, 15:00–16:00 America/Chicago (CDT). The university invites attendees to Nierman Hall, Room 251, Texas A and M University–Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas, USA. Those attending remotely can use the public Zoom link or Join Stream button on the official event page.

Marco Giustetto examines how synthetic higher category theory can extend the proof methods of homotopy type theory. Internal reasoning in an infinity-topos can establish classical results about spaces in a form suitable for machine verification. For the next categorical dimension, Riehl and Shulman introduced synthetic (infinity, 1)-categories: simplicial objects satisfying finitely many conditions, whose finiteness brings technical advantages. The talk considers the extension to (infinity, n)-categories, identifying which features of the n = 1 theory survive and which cannot generalize. The work is joint with Lyne Moser and Jonathan Weinberger.

Tsion Firew examines lessons from Rwanda’s Marburg virus response, focusing on how emergency-care systems support rapid multidisciplinary coordination and frontline leadership. The talk considers remdesivir post-exposure prophylaxis, experimental vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and advanced intensive care as parts of the response, including protection of healthcare workers and reported reductions in case fatality. It connects clinical and operational experience with resilience, ethical leadership and the development of emergency systems prepared for future epidemics. Speaker: Dr. Tsion Firew, Chair of Emergency Medicine at Africa Health Sciences University, Rwanda, and Associate Professor at New York University. Organized by the Global Emergency Medicine Academy of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. Wednesday 30 September 2026, 14:00–15:00 America/Chicago (Central Daylight Time). Online via Zoom. Follow Register on the official event page to the GEMA Grand Rounds: September 2026 registration form. SAEM states that its webinars are free for members; non-member pricing is not specified on this event page.

Cryopreservation constrains manufacturing and clinical delivery of immune cells such as NK and T cells. DMSO protects against freezing but becomes toxic at physiological temperatures; associated infusion morbidity can require washing or divided dosing that diminishes therapeutic effectiveness. This talk presents an alternative in which reversible, cytocompatible hydrogels encapsulate cells before freezing without DMSO. The speaker examines evidence that encapsulation cushions osmotic stress, suppresses kinetic and phase transitions, and reduces injury caused by extracellular ice growth and fusion. The discussion covers recovery efficiency, function after thawing, control of biological stress responses, and the challenges of extending the approach to clinical-scale cell preservation.

Ivo D. Dinov examines augmented intelligence as a partnership between people and computational systems. The talk traces the technical and philosophical development of neural networks, then introduces complex-time, or kime, representations and the inference methods they support. Applications include medical imaging, healthcare and economic forecasting. It also considers the academic mission, societal consequences of AI and tensions between rapid technical development and human values, framing mathematical AI methods as extensions of human reasoning. Free hybrid seminar hosted by Wayne State University's Institute for AI and Data Science, AIDaS: CAD Seminar Series. Wednesday 30 September 2026, 14:30–15:30 EDT (America/Detroit; UTC−4). Attend in Room 1146, Faculty/Administration Building, 656 W. Kirby, Detroit, MI 48202, USA, or use the Zoom link on the official event page. Researchers, practitioners, students and faculty are welcome; the organizer encourages in-person attendance.

Leonardo Fernandes Fraceto explores the development of nanoherbicides for more efficient, sustainable weed control. This Spanish-language webinar covers design strategies, interactions between nanomaterials and plants, controlled release, reduced herbicide doses and potential reductions in environmental impact. It examines how these principles could support more precise crop management and discusses the practical benefits, barriers and opportunities associated with adopting nanoherbicides in real agricultural systems. Speaker: Dr. Leonardo Fernandes Fraceto, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil. The registration page also lists Dr. Ingrid Montes, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras. Co-produced by ACS Webinars and Sociedad Química de México. Wednesday 30 September 2026, 14:00–15:00 America/New_York (EDT); the live registration page confirms 20:00 CEST. Online via Zoom Events, free registration required. Follow Regístrese Gratuitamente on the ACS event page to the verified Zoom Events registration page. A free ACS ID may be required. Slides are scheduled to be available on the webinar day.

Navid Azizan presents methods that make neural models obey physical, safety and operational constraints at deployment. Hard-constrained neural networks, or HardNets, enforce input-dependent constraints by construction while preserving universal approximation within the feasible function class. Applications include models of chaotic dynamics with bounded trajectories, energy-constrained operator learning, safe reinforcement learning and control with formal guarantees. The talk then turns to enforcing constraints during sampling from pretrained diffusion and flow-matching models. Formulating generation as trajectory optimization allows receding-horizon control to guide outputs toward feasibility without retraining or imposing excessive restrictions on the sampling process. Examples from fluid dynamics, robot planning and control, PDE control and language-guided image editing illustrate how constraints can define admissible behavior while retaining expressive learning and generation.

Sisi Zhou examines how quantum information methods can improve the precision of physical measurements. Qubit examples distinguish noise that quantum error correction can suppress from noise indistinguishable from the signal. The discussion extends to several qubits, phase estimation, many-body measurements and distributed sensors. A second part applies quantum-learning tools, including tomography, certification and purification, to estimation of several parameters. Because incompatible observables prevent all parameters from being measured optimally together, designing measurements is difficult. The talk presents practical protocols for several such sensing tasks that combine efficient implementation with sensitivity close to the optimum.

Nicolas Mathevon examines the evolution of vocal communication through an analysis of songs from more than 3,000 passerine species. The study organizes their acoustic diversity into eight basic motifs and relates motif use to social organization, morphology, mating systems and sound transmission. Tropical forest conditions favor simpler signals such as flat whistles that travel effectively through dense habitat. In temperate regions, dense populations, short breeding seasons and stronger sexual selection favor complex signals such as rapid trills, despite their greater degradation during transmission. The resulting global pattern reflects a changing balance between environmental constraints and selection for complex communication. Online on 30 September 2026, 17:00–18:00 CEST (Europe/Paris; UTC+2), with an optional 15-minute discussion afterward. Open worldwide through Zoom. Use the join information on the organizer's page; its optional registration form subscribes attendees to seminar updates. Organized by LINGUAE's Animal Linguistics Seminar, with Emmanuel Chemla, Lucie Ravaux and Philippe Schlenker. Online via Zoom; public joining instructions on the organizer’s seminar page.

Lenka Zdeborová introduces the Rules-and-Facts model, in which some observations follow a shared rule while others are isolated exceptions requiring memorization. The framework studies when a learner can acquire the rule and retain those exceptions simultaneously. Its results emphasize how capacity is organized and deployed, rather than capacity alone. The talk examines how regularization and the geometry of kernels or learned feature maps can reserve resources for memorization without undermining rule learning. It connects the balance between abstraction and memory to architectural and algorithmic choices, providing a theoretical account of neural networks that both generalize and recall specific facts.

UCL Department of Neuroinflammation Seminar by Professor Emad Moeendarbary (Professor of Cell Mechanics and Mechanobiology, UCL Mechanical Engineering) on how biophysical factors such as substrate stiffness and axon geometry regulate oligodendrocyte behavior and myelin formation, presenting the AxoMetic in vitro myelination platform for discovery of remyelinating therapies.

Charlie Wilson examines how artificial intelligence affects energy transitions and carbon emissions, from data centres to the wider economy. The talk evaluates evidence behind competing claims, identifies optimism bias in assessments extending beyond data-centre electricity use, and presents research quantifying AI’s effects on global emissions pathways to 2050. It considers how aligning AI development with climate action changes the feasibility and cost of meeting long-term climate targets. Wilson is Professor at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. Takeshi Kuramochi provides commentary; Naoko Shimazu moderates. Online via Zoom Webinar. Wednesday 30 September 2026, 14:00–15:00 JST (Asia/Tokyo; UTC+9). Public advance registration is required through the organizer’s event page. The lecture is in English with Japanese interpretation. Organized by Tokyo College, The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study.

Peter Meikle, Bernie Pope and Tingting Wang present the Australian Cardiovascular disease Data Commons (ACDC). Some heart attacks occur without established risk factors, and repeat events remain common despite optimal treatment. ACDC addresses this gap by securely pooling multi-omics, imaging and longitudinal outcomes from approximately 400,000 people in 18 Australian cohorts. The webinar explains cloud infrastructure, data harmonisation and federated standards based on Gen3; how integrated genomic, multi-omics and imaging cohorts support new risk markers and polygenic risk-score testing; and how the platform can move diagnostic research towards clinical practice. Meikle and Wang are at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute; Pope is at Australian BioCommons. Online via Zoom. Wednesday 30 September 2026, 12:00–13:00 AEST (Australia/Melbourne; UTC+10). Free, with advance registration through the official event page. Intended for life scientists, bioinformaticians, cardiovascular clinicians, data custodians and medical data scientists. Parts may be recorded; the Australian BioCommons Code of Conduct applies. Organized by Australian BioCommons.

MIT Biology Colloquium Series talk by Peter Koo (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), hosted by Yunha Hwang, on using AI to learn the gene regulatory code.

Mansi Chhajed examines how the move from home sleep patterns to disrupted hospital sleep relates to cognitive outcomes after surgery. The session combines longitudinal sleep measurements with clinical assessments of postoperative delirium to identify baseline markers of vulnerability and consider practical ways to improve recovery. It connects sleep architecture, biological and environmental influences, and preoperative risk with proactive, sleep-informed patient care. Chhajed is a Clinical Research Coordinator at Massachusetts General Hospital. Online via Zoom Webinar. Tuesday 29 September 2026 at 14:00 ET / 13:00 CT (America/New_York; EDT, UTC−4). Organized by the Sleep Research Society — Virtual Seminar Series. Follow Register Today on the organizer's page to the event-specific Zoom form, which requests name and email. The form is publicly accessible; advance registration supplies webinar access.

Haruki Ebina discusses the marked power spectrum as a two-point approach to non-Gaussian density information, reducing the data-vector and covariance challenges of direct bispectrum analysis while retaining perturbative modelling. Recent work incorporates survey geometry, bringing applications to observations closer. Time permitting, he will also cover high-redshift DESI Run 2 cosmology and perturbative modelling of fast-radio-burst dispersion measures. Samuel Goldstein presents new constraints on fundamental physics from the cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure: axions using Atacama Cosmology Telescope observations, primordial non-Gaussianity, multi-field inflation using DESI, and component-separated temperature, polarization, thermal Sunyaev–Zeldovich and kinetic Sunyaev–Zeldovich maps from early Simons Observatory data. Speakers: Haruki Ebina, UC Berkeley, and Samuel Goldstein, Columbia University. Organized by Stanford KIPAC. Tuesday 29 September 2026, 10:40–11:30 America/Los_Angeles (PDT). Online via Zoom using Join the zoom meeting on the official event page. The organizer lists the intended audience as Faculty/Staff, Members and Students. Only remote attendance is verified for this listing.

Sergio Pellegrino studies deployable composite shells for large space solar arrays, where lightweight construction and compact storage are essential. A design explored in Caltech's Space Solar Power Project uses slender cylindrical longerons formed from two circular-arc flanges bonded along an edge. Laminates thinner than 0.1 mm permit tight packaging but make bending behaviour sensitive to local geometric imperfections. The talk examines how the size, shape and distribution of those imperfections explain nonlinear moment–rotation measurements and determine overall bending stiffness, connecting detailed structural analysis with prototype observations. Online via Zoom. Tuesday 29 September 2026 at 12:00 EDT (America/New_York; UTC−4). Organized by ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute — Stability Committee. Researchers, practitioners and students can use Register for Zoom Link on the organizer's page; the event-specific form requests contact and affiliation details. Attendees must acknowledge the organizer's prohibition on unauthorized recording, transcription and meeting-assistant bots. Pellegrino is a professor at the California Institute of Technology.