Abstract: In 1934, Loewner proved a remarkable and deep theorem about matrix monotone functions. Recently, the young Finnish mathematician, Otte Heinävarra settled a 10 year old conjecture and found a 2 page proof of a theorem in Loewner theory whose only prior proof was 35 pages. I will describe his proof and use that as an excuse to discuss matrix monotone and matrix convex functions including, if time allows, my own recent proof of Loewner’s original theorem.

Symbolic dynamics is a tool that simplifies the study of dynamical systems in various aspects. It is known for almost fifty years that uniformly hyperbolic systems have ``good'' codings. For non-uniformly hyperbolic systems, Sarig constructed in 2013 ``good'' codings for surface diffeomorphisms. In this talk we will discuss some recent developments on Sarig's theory, when the map has discountinuities and/or critical points, such as multimodal maps of the interval and Bunimovich billiards.

Let X be a stationary Z^d-process. We say that X is a factor of an i.i.d. process if there is a (deterministic and translation-invariant) way to construct a realization of X from i.i.d. variables associated to the sites of Z^d. That is, if there is an i.i.d. process Y and a measurable map F from the underlying space of Y to that of X, which commutes with translations of Z^d and satisfies that F(Y)=X in distribution. Such a factor is called finitary if, in order to determine the value of X at a given site, one only needs to look at a finite (but random) region of Y.

Abstract: In this talk, we will discuss the notion of small extensions in its various incarnations, from torsors under abelian groups to square-zero extensions of algebras. We will then focus on the somewhat less familiar case of small extensions of ∞-categories. Our main goal is to make this abstract concept concrete and intuitive through a variety of examples. In particular, we will advocate the point of view that small extensions of  ∞-categories offer a unifying perspective in understanding many constructions appearing in obstruction, classification, and deformation theoretic problems

Abstract: In this talk I will discuss some suitable definable Bohr compactification of an ultraproduct of finite groups, and relate it to ultra quasirandom groups.

Abstract: Paul Larson proved that under Martin's axiom and large continuum there are no Laver ideals over aleph_1. He asked about weakly Laver ideals under some forcing axiom. We shall address two issues: 1. Under Martin's axiom and the continuum is above aleph_2, there are no weakly Laver ideals over aleph_1.. 2. Under Baumgartner's axiom, the parallel of Larson's theorem holds for ideals over aleph_2.

I'll show how the Vandermonde determinant identity allows us to estimate the volume of certain spaces of polynomials in one variable (or rather, of homogeneous polynomials in two variables), as the degree goes to infinity. I'll explain what this is good for in the context of globally valued fields, and, given time constraints, may give some indications on the approach for the "real inequality" in higher projective dimension.

I will review some recent results in the Borel reducibility on uncountable cardinals of the Helsinki logic group. Borel reducibility on the generalised Baire space \kappa^\kappa for uncountable \kappa is defined analogously to that for \kappa=\omega. One of the corollaries of this work is that under some mild cardinality assumptions on kappa, if T1 is classifiable and T2 is unstable or superstable with OTOP, then the ISOM(T1) is continuously reducible ISOM(T2) and ISOM(T2) is not Borel reducible to ISOM(T1).

It is a familiar fact (sometimes attributed to Ahlbrandt-Ziegler, though it is possibly older) that two aleph0-categorical theories are bi-interpretable if and only if their countable models have isomorphic topological isomorphism groups. Conversely, groups arising in this manner can be given an abstract characterisation, and a countable model of the theory (up to bi-interpretation, of course) can be reconstructed.