In this series of talks, I'll present the basics of combinatorial semigroup theory, starting with elementary results and ending in recent research using high-powered tools. I'll begin by giving an overview of the elements of semigroup theory, including the analogue of Cayley's theorem, eggbox diagrams, Green's relations, inverse semigroups, and a famous result due to Green & Penrose. In the subsequent talk, I'll present the elements of presentations of semigroups, free (inverse) semigroups, Munn trees, and rewriting systems, leading into the fundamental problem central to combinatorial semigroup theory: the word problem. In the next talk, I'll dive into a particular class of semigroups called "special" monoids, and give proofs via rewriting systems due to Zhang (1990s) of famous results due to Adian (1960s), giving a solution to the word problem in all monoids given by a single defining relation of the form w=1. In the final talk (if there is time) I will dip our toes into how rewriting systems can compute the (co)homology of a monoid, and give new proofs via the spectral sequence of certain rewriting systems (forthcoming) of homological results due to Gray & Steinberg (2023).

In this series of talks, I'll present the basics of combinatorial semigroup theory, starting with elementary results and ending in recent research using high-powered tools. I'll begin by giving an overview of the elements of semigroup theory, including the analogue of Cayley's theorem, eggbox diagrams, Green's relations, inverse semigroups, and a famous result due to Green & Penrose. In the subsequent talk, I'll present the elements of presentations of semigroups, free (inverse) semigroups, Munn trees, and rewriting systems, leading into the fundamental problem central to combinatorial semigroup theory: the word problem. In the next talk, I'll dive into a particular class of semigroups called "special" monoids, and give proofs via rewriting systems due to Zhang (1990s) of famous results due to Adian (1960s), giving a solution to the word problem in all monoids given by a single defining relation of the form w=1. In the final talk (if there is time) I will dip our toes into how rewriting systems can compute the (co)homology of a monoid, and give new proofs via the spectral sequence of certain rewriting systems (forthcoming) of homological results due to Gray & Steinberg (2023).

A normal projective surface with the same Betti numbers of the projective plane CP2 is called a rational homology projective plane (briefly Q-homology CP2 or QHCP2). People working in algebraic geometry and topology have long studied a Q-homology CP2 with possibly quotient singularities. It has been known that it has at most five such singular points, but it is still mysterious so that there are many unsolved problems left. In this talk, I’ll review some known results and open problems in this field which might be solved and might not be solved in near future. In particular, I’d like to review the following two topics and to report some recent progress: 1. Algebraic Montgomery-Yang problem. 2. Classification of Q-homology CP2 with quotient singularities. This is a joint work with Woohyeok Jo and Kyungbae Park..

In this series of talks, I'll present the basics of combinatorial semigroup theory, starting with elementary results and ending in recent research using high-powered tools. I'll begin by giving an overview of the elements of semigroup theory, including the analogue of Cayley's theorem, eggbox diagrams, Green's relations, inverse semigroups, and a famous result due to Green & Penrose. In the subsequent talk, I'll present the elements of presentations of semigroups, free (inverse) semigroups, Munn trees, and rewriting systems, leading into the fundamental problem central to combinatorial semigroup theory: the word problem. In the next talk, I'll dive into a particular class of semigroups called "special" monoids, and give proofs via rewriting systems due to Zhang (1990s) of famous results due to Adian (1960s), giving a solution to the word problem in all monoids given by a single defining relation of the form w=1. In the final talk (if there is time) I will dip our toes into how rewriting systems can compute the (co)homology of a monoid, and give new proofs via the spectral sequence of certain rewriting systems (forthcoming) of homological results due to Gray & Steinberg (2023).

In this series of talks, I'll present the basics of combinatorial semigroup theory, starting with elementary results and ending in recent research using high-powered tools. I'll begin by giving an overview of the elements of semigroup theory, including the analogue of Cayley's theorem, eggbox diagrams, Green's relations, inverse semigroups, and a famous result due to Green & Penrose. In the subsequent talk, I'll present the elements of presentations of semigroups, free (inverse) semigroups, Munn trees, and rewriting systems, leading into the fundamental problem central to combinatorial semigroup theory: the word problem. In the next talk, I'll dive into a particular class of semigroups called "special" monoids, and give proofs via rewriting systems due to Zhang (1990s) of famous results due to Adian (1960s), giving a solution to the word problem in all monoids given by a single defining relation of the form w=1. In the final talk (if there is time) I will dip our toes into how rewriting systems can compute the (co)homology of a monoid, and give new proofs via the spectral sequence of certain rewriting systems (forthcoming) of homological results due to Gray & Steinberg (2023).

The Lipshitz-Ozsvath-Thurston correspondence is a combinatorial way to describe the bordered Floer homology of a knot complement from the UV=0 coefficient knot Floer homology of the given knot. This is then used to compute the knot Floer homology of satellite knots. In this talk, we show that there is a "relative" version of this correspondence, between homotopy classes of type D morphisms of bordered Floer homology and locally symmetric chain maps of knot Floer complexes, modulo the "canonical negative class". This gives us a fully combinatorial process to compute knot Floer cobordism maps of satellite concordances in the UV=0 knot Floer homology.

A surface can be decomposed into a union of pairs of pants, a construction known as a pants decomposition. This fundamental observation reveals many important properties of surfaces. By forming a simplicial graph whose vertices represent pants decompositions, connecting two vertices with an edge whenever the corresponding decompositions differ by a simple move, we obtain a graph that is quasi-isometric to the Weil–Petersson metric on Teichmüller space. Meanwhile, topologists often study a structure called a rose, formed by attaching multiple circles at a single point. A rose is homotopy equivalent to a compact surface with boundary. Consequently, we can define a pants decomposition of a rose as the pants decomposition of a surface homotopy equivalent to it. In this talk, we will explore the concept of pants decompositions specifically in the context of roses.

In this talk, we will discuss about smooth random dynamical systems and group actions on surfaces. Random dynamical systems, especially understanding stationary measures, can play an important role to understand group actions. For instance, when a group action on torus is given by toral automorphisms, using random dynamics, Benoist-Quint classified all orbit closures. In this talk, we will study non-linear actions on surfaces using random dynamics. We will discuss about absolutely continuity and exact dimensionality of stationary measures as well as classification of orbit closures. This talk will be mostly about the ongoing joint work with Aaron Brown, Davi Obata, and Yuping Ruan.