# Fortnow to give tutorial on bounded rationality in finance

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:Bjoern Kjos-Hanssen, (808) 956-8595
Prof, Mathematics

Computer scientist Lance Fortnow will examine the role of bounded rationality in economics during a tutorial titled “Bounding Rationality With Computation,” as the keynote event of the 11th International Conference on Computability, Complexity and Randomness (CCR), January 4-8, 2016 on the UH Mānoa campus.

The tutorial is free and open to the public.

Fortnow is currently Professor and Chair of the School of Computing at Georgia Tech, a leading researcher in computational complexity, and winner of the 2014 Nerode Prize, awarded by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science and the International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation.

He is the author of The Golden Ticket: P, NP and the Search for the Impossible, a popular science book on the P versus NP problem published by Princeton University Press. The P versus NP problem, perhaps the most important open problem in mathematics, can be succinctly described as: Can every solved problem whose answer can be checked quickly by a computer also be quickly solved by a computer? A certain kind of affirmative answer to the problem may have great impact on computer security, breaking most existing cryptosystems.

Lance Fortnow’s work in economics includes game theory, optimal strategies, and prediction. The 2008 financial crisis highlighted the acute problem of bounded rationality. Financial securities such as CDOs (Credit Default Obligations) were packaged in such a way as to make it very difficulty for computers, and even more so humans, to evaluate their fair price and risk.

The CCR conference is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Association for Symbolic Logic, the Association for Women in Mathematics, and the Department of Mathematics in the College of Natural Sciences at UH Mānoa.

# Noncommutative dimension theories: connections and applications

The conference Noncommutative Dimension Theories: Connections and Applications will be held on November 22-25, 2015, on the campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

This conference will bring together researchers with wide-ranging interests and expertise, aiming to forge fresh directions and establish new collaborations. The goal of the event is to deepen analogies and uncover novel connections between noncommutative covering dimension (i.e., “nuclear dimension”), $K$-theory, coarse geometry, and dynamical systems. The conference program provides ample opportunity for graduate students, postdocs, and other young scientists to present their work.

The conference is supported by the NSF under Grant No. 1546917.

Pictured: an artist’s rendition of non-commutative space-time.

# Workshop on Formalization of Applied Mathematical Systems

There will be a meeting and workshop at UHM on September 25 to October 2.

This is part of the cooperative effort between our department and the math department at Chiba University.

A preliminary announcement can be found at:

http://math.hawaii.edu/~jb/workshop2/

Pictured: Profs. Monique Chyba and Manabu Hagiwara with students.