The National Conference on Undergraduate Research is an annual student conference dedicated to promoting undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activity in all fields of study. Unlike meetings of academic professional organizations, this gathering of young scholars welcomes presenters from institutions of higher learning from all corners of the academic curriculum. This annual conference creates a unique environment for the celebration and promotion of undergraduate student achievement, provides models of exemplary research and scholarship, and helps to improve the state of undergraduate education.

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Title:  On the ground state of the magnetic Laplacian in corner domains

Abstract:  I will present recent results about the first eigenvalue of the magnetic Laplacian in general 3D-corner domains with Neumann boundary condition in the semi-classical limit.  The use of singular chains show that the asymptotics of the first eigenvalue is governed by a hierarchy of model problems on the tangent cones of the domain. We provide estimations of the remainder depending on the geometry and the variations of the magnetic field. This is a joint work with V. Bonnaillie-Nol and M. Dauge.

Title: Informatics and Modeling Platform for Stable Isotope-Resolve Metabolomics



Abstract: Recent advances in stable isotope-resolved metabolomics (SIRM) are enabling orders-of-magnitude increase in the number of observable metabolic traits (a metabolic phenotype) for a given organism or community of organisms.  Analytical experiments that take only a few minutes to perform can detect stable isotope-labeled variants of thousands of metabolites.  Thus, unique metabolic phenotypes may be observable for almost all significant biological states, biological processes, and perturbations.  Currently, the major bottleneck is the lack of data analysis that can properly organize and interpret this mountain of phenotypic data as highly insightful biochemical and biological information for a wide range of biological research applications.  To address this limitation, we are developing bioinformatic, biostatistical, and systems biochemical tools, implemented in an integrated data analysis platform, that will directly model metabolic networks as complex inverse problems that are optimized and verified by experimental metabolomics data.  This integrated data analysis platform will enable a broad application of SIRM from the discovery of specific metabolic phenotypes representing biological states of interest to a mechanism-based understanding of a wide range of biological processes with particular metabolic phenotypes.

Title:  Smoothness of isometries between subRiemannian manifolds

Abstract:  In a joint work with Enrico Le Donne (Jyvaskyla, Finland), we show that the group of isometries (i.e., distance-preserving homeomorphisms) of an equiregular subRiemannian manifold is a finite-dimensional Lie group of smooth transformations. The proof is based on a new PDE argument, in the spirit of harmonic coordinates, establishing that in an arbitrary subRiemannian manifold there exists an open dense subset where all isometries are smooth.

Title:  Higher-order analogues of the exterior derivative complex

Abstract:  I will discuss some earlier joint work with E. M. Stein concerning div-curl type inequalities for the exterior derivative operator and its adjoint in Euclidean space R^n. I will then present various higher-order generalizations of the notion of exterior derivative, and discuss some recent div-curl type estimates for such operators. Part of this work is joint with A. Raich.

Register at: http://craftwriting.as.uky.edu

This one day event will bring to UK brewers and professional writers from the craft beer industry. Craft beer, the annual production of under six million barrels of beer by small breweries, is one of the fastest growing areas of the food industry. According to the Brewers Association, craft beer provides over 108,000 jobs and its retail dollar value in 2012 was estimated at $10.2 billion. In the last twenty years, over 2,000 new breweries have come online, commanding almost 6% of the overall American beer market. These breweries have, in turn, helped revitalize city neighborhoods, generated new jobs in related industries, and played a key role in expanding digital and social media usage.

This event will showcase the professional writing – in print and digital media – that is dominant in the craft beer industry. Writing has played a major role in promoting the business of craft beer. Craft Writing will serve as an event that draws interdisciplinary attention to the ways industry utilizes writing – in various digital forms – to promote, inform, highlight, argue, market, brand, and foster relationships between products, consumers, and other relevant parties.

Featured Speakers:

Stan Hieronymus, author of For The Love of Hops, Brewing with Wheat, and Brew Like a Monk. Blogger at Appellation Beer and For the Love of Hops.

Julie Johnson, Co-owner of All About Beer, former Editor of All Bout Beer. Currently Technical and Contributing Editor.

Teri Fahrendorf, 25-year beer industry veteran, founder of the Pink Boots Society, author of beer related articles, 19 years brewmaster at Steelhead Brewing, Triple Rock Brewing and Golden Gate Brewing, and blogging gypsy “Road Brewer,”

Roger Baylor, owner of New Albanian Brewing, author of The Potable Curmudgeon.

Jeremy Cowan, owner of Shmaltz Brewing, author of Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah.

Mitch Steele, Brewmaster at Stone Brewing, author of IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes, and the Evolution of India Pale Ale.

Keynote speaker

Garrett Oliver, Editor of The Oxford Companion to Beer, author of The Brewmaster’s Table, regular contributor to All About Beer. Brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery

Title:  Universal wave patterns

Abstract:  A feature of solutions of a (generally nonlinear) field

theory can be called "universal" if it is independent of side conditions like initial data. I will explain this phenomenon in some detail and then illustrate it in the context of the sine-Gordon equation, a fundamental relativistic nonlinear wave equation. In particular I will describe some recent results (joint work with R. Buckingham) concerning a universal wave pattern that appears for all initial data that crosses the separatrix in the phase portrait of the simple pendulum.  The pattern is fantastically complex and beautiful to look at but not hard to describe in terms of elementary solutions of the sine-Gordon equation and the collection of rational solutions of the famous inhomogeneous Painlev\'e-II equation.

Title:  Automating and Stabilizing the Discrete Empirical Interpolation Method for Nonlinear Model Reduction

Abstract:  The Discrete Empirical Interpolation Method (DEIM) is a technique for model reduction of nonlinear dynamical systems.  It is based upon a modification to proper orthogonal decomposition which is designed to reduce the computational complexity for evaluating reduced order nonlinear terms.  The DEIM approach is based upon an interpolatory projection and only requires evaluation of a few selected components of the original nonlinear term.  Thus, implementation of the reduced order nonlinear term requires a new code to be derived from the original code for evaluating the nonlinearity.  I will describe a methodology for automatically deriving a code for the reduced order nonlinearity directly from the original nonlinear code.  Although DEIM has been effective on some very difficult problems, it can under certain conditions introduce instabilities in the reduced model.  I will present a problem that has proved helpful in developing a method for stabilizing DEIM reduced models.

Emancipation, New Sensibility, and the Challenge of a New Era: Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy. 

Sessions all day Thursday, Friday & Saturday in the UK Student Center with scholars and students from around the world.