Simulations in which the system of interest is essentially mimicked are termed explicit numerical simulations (ENS). Direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulence is a well known and long-standing example of ENS. Such simulations provide a basis for elucidating fundamentals in a way that is impossible experimentally and formulating and parameterizing engineering models with reduced experimentation. In this presentation, I will first outline the concept of ENS. I will then report a number of ENS-based studies of various multiphase fluid systems and flows in porous media. In the first of these studies, which is concerned with flow of suspensions in porous media accompanied by deposition, ENS is used to demonstrate the significant inadequacies of the classical trajectory models typically used for the study of such problems. In the second study, which is concerned with elucidating the change in binary droplet collision behaviour with Capillary number (Ca) and Reynolds number (Re), a range of collision scenarios are revealed as a function of Ca and Re and it appears that the boundaries between these scenarios in the Ca-Re space are not distinct but, rather, smeared. In the final study, it is shown that ENS an be used to predict ab initio the hydrodynamic properties of single phase flow through porous media from the Darcy to the turbulent regimes.

In the process of determining, amongst other things, the optimal strategy for playing a game show, and explaining the apparent persistence of a population that can be shown to die out with certainty, we will encounter a car, numerous goats, at least four doors, a frog, four lily pads, and some applied probability.

Classical gauge theories study sections of vector bundles and associated connections and curvature. The corresponding quantum gauge theories are normally written algebraically but can be understood as noncommutative geometries. This talk will describe one approach to the quantum gauge theories which uses braided categories.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has been an important tool in the analysis of multivariate data. The principal components summarise data in fewer than the original number of variables without losing essential information, and thus allow a split of the data into signal and noise components. PCA is a linear method, based on elegant mathematical theory. The increasing complexity of data together with the emergence of fast computers in the later parts of the 20th century has led to a renaissance of PCA. The growing numbers of variables (in particular, high-dimensional low sample size problems), non-Gaussian data, and functional data (where the data are curves) are posing exciting challenges to statisticians, and have resulted in new research which extends the classical theory. I begin with the classical PCA methodology and illustrate the challenges presented by the complex data that we are now able to collect. The main part of the talk focuses on extensions of PCA: the duality of PCA and the Principal Coordinates of Multidimensional Scaling, Sparse PCA, and consistency results relating to principal components, as the dimension grows. We will also look at newer developments such as Principal Component Regression and Supervised PCA, nonlinear PCA and Functional PCA.

Lecture Series by Dan Freed (University of Texas, Austin). Dirac introduced his eponymous operator to describe electrons in quantum theory. It was rediscovered by Atiyah and Singer in their study of the index problem on manifolds. In these lectures we explore new theorems and applications. Several of these also involve K-theory in its recent twisted and differential variations. These lectures will be supplemented by additional talks by invited speakers. For more details, please see the conference webpage: http://www.iga.adelaide.edu.au/workshops/WorkshopOct2010/

Animals typically search for food and mates, while avoiding predators. This is particularly critical for keystone organisms such as intertidal gastropods and copepods (i.e. millimeter-scale crustaceans) as they typically rely on non-visual senses for detecting, identifying and locating mates in their two- and three-dimensional environments. Here, using stochastic methods derived from the field of nonlinear physics, we provide new insights into the nature (i.e. innate vs. acquired) of the motion behavior of gastropods and copepods, and demonstrate how changes in their behavioral properties can be used to identify the trade-offs between foraging for food or sex. The gastropod Littorina littorea hence moves according to fractional Brownian motions while foraging for food (in accordance with the fractal nature of food distributions), and switch to Brownian motion while foraging for sex. In contrast, the swimming behavior of the copepod Temora longicornis belongs to the class of multifractal random walks (MRW; i.e. a form of anomalous diffusion), characterized by a nonlinear moment scaling function for distance versus time. This clearly differs from the traditional Brownian and fractional Brownian walks expected or previously detected in animal behaviors. The divergence between MRW and Levy flight and walk is also discussed, and it is shown how copepod anomalous diffusion is enhanced by the presence and concentration of conspecific water-borne signals, and is dramatically increasing male-female encounter rates.