Statistics Seminar: STA 290
Friday September 6th, 2013 at 1:10pm, MSB 1147 (Colloquium Room)
Speaker: Samuel Gerber (Department of Mathematics, Duke University)
Title: "Visualization and regression of high-dimensional scalar functions using the Morse-Smale complex"
Abstract: High dimensional data arises in a variety of applications. In neurological studies, large data sets of diffusion tensor and magnetic resonance images, consisting of millions of measurements, are acquired. In climate science there is a growing demand to quantify the uncertainty in simulations, which are controlled by up to a hundred parameters. For scientists working with such data, it is often very difficult to gain a qualitative understanding to reason and hypothesize about the underlying process. Thus, data models that convey insights into structures present in the data are exceedingly important. This talk explores ideas from computational topology, in particular the Morse-Smale complex, for visualization and regression of high-dimensional scalar functions.