[ont.events] U of Toronto Computer Science activities, Jan. 25-29

clarke@csri.toronto.edu (Jim Clarke) (01/18/88)

         (SF = Sandford Fleming Building, 10 King's College Road)
              (GB = Galbraith Building, 35 St. George Street)
               (WB = Wallberg Building, 184 College Street)

SUMMARY:

NUMERICAL ANALYSIS SEMINAR, Tuesday, January 26, 10 am, WB242 -- John Butcher:
     "Singly-Implicit Methods"

A.I. SEMINAR, Tuesday, January 26,  2 pm,  SF1105 -- Robin Cohen:
     "Implementing a model for understanding goal-oriented discourse"

NUMERICAL ANALYSIS SEMINAR, Friday, January 29, 3 pm, GB220 -- James Demmel:
     "The Probability that a Numerical Analysis Problem is Difficult"

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       NUMERICAL ANALYSIS SEMINAR, Tuesday, January 26, 10 am, WB242

                          Professor John Butcher
                        The University of Auckland

                         "Singly-Implicit Methods"

For an implicit multistage method, such as a Runge-Kutta method, for which
$A$ denotes the matrix showing the dependence of the internal stage values
on the derivatives at these stage values, the implementation costs depend
heavily on the cost of solving a linear system based on a matrix of the
form $I-hAJ$.  In the case of an $s$-stage method and an $N$ dimensional
problem, the linear algebra costs go up like $s sup 3 N sup 3$.  To avoid
the factor $s sup 3$, diagonally-implicit methods are often proposed but
these have some limitations.  A more general approach is considered here,
in which $A$ is constrained only by the requirement of having a 1-point
spectrum.  Advantages and disadvantages of this generalization will be dis-
cussed and prospects are assessed for the construction of efficient algo-
rithms based on singly-implicit methods.

             A.I. SEMINAR, Tuesday, January 26,  2 pm,  SF1105

                           Professor Robin Cohen
                          University of Waterloo

     "Implementing a model for understanding goal-oriented discourse"

        NUMERICAL ANALYSIS SEMINAR, Friday, January 29, 3 pm, GB220

                             Dr. James Demmel
                             Courant Institute

     "The Probability that a Numerical Analysis Problem is Difficult"

Numerous problems in numerical analysis, including matrix inversion, eigen-
value calculations and polynomial zero finding, share the following pro-
perty: the difficulty of solving a given problem is large when the distance
from that problem to the nearest "ill-posed" one is small.  For example,
the closer a matrix is to the set of noninvertible matrices, the larger its
condition number with respect to inversion. We show that the sets of ill-
posed problems for matrix inversion, eigenproblems, and polynomial zero
finding all have a common algebraic and geometric structure which lets us
compute the probability distribution of the distance from a "random" prob-
lem to the set. From this probability distribution we derive, for example,
the distribution of the condition number of a random matrix. We examine the
relevance of this theory to the analysis and construction of numerical
algorithms destined to be run in finite precision arithmetic.
-- 

Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
              (416) 978-4058
{allegra,cornell,decvax,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!clarke