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

In this talk we analyze superrosy division rings, i.e. division rings which admit a well-behaved ordinal valued rank function on definable sets that behaves like a rudimentary notion of dimension. Examples are the quaternions, superstable division rings (which are known to be algebraically closed fields) and more generally supersimple division rings which are commutative.

Weak Prediction Principles Speaker: Yair Hayut Abstract: Jensen's diamond is a well studied prediction principle. It holds in L (and other core models), and in many cases it follows from local instances of GCH. In the talk I will address a weakening of diamond (due to Shaleh and Abraham) and present Abraham's theorem about the equivalence between weak diamond and a weak consequence of GCH. Abraham's argument works for successor cardinals. I will discuss what is known and what is open for inaccessible cardinals. This is a joint work with Shimon Garti and Omer Ben-Neria.

We shall prove that there is a sequence of Boolean algebras for which the ultraproduct of the lengths divided by an ultrafilter is strictly less than the length of the product algebra. This is a joint work with Saharon Shelah.

Arbault sets (briefly, A-sets) were first introduced by Jean Arbault in the context of Fourier analysis. One of his major results concerning these sets,asserts that the union of an A-set with a countable set is again an A-set. The next obvious step is to ask what happens if we replace the word "countable" by א_1. Apparently, an א_1 version of Arbault's theorem is independent of ZFC. The aim of this talk would be to give a proof (as detailed as possible) of this independence result. The main ingredients of the proof are infinite combinatorics and some very basic Fourier analysis.

The notion of reflection plays a central role in modern Set Theory since the descovering of the well-known Lévy and Montague \textit{Reflection principle}. For any $n\in\omega$, let $C^{(n)}$ denote the class of all ordinals $\kappa$ which correctly interprets the $\Sigma_n$-statements of the universe, with parametes in $V_\kappa$.