Sissa Geometry Seminars

[Ugo Bruzzo]

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SISSA GEOMETRY SEMINARS
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Thursday, 4 March 2010
Room D, SISSA Main Building

2:30 pm Antonella Grassi (University of Pennsylvania)
Toric Weierstrass models

Abstract: We define a "natural" toric Weierstrass model for an
elliptic variety X which is a hypersurface in a Fano toric variety
and discuss some properties.

4:00 pm Julius Shaneson (University of Pennsylvania)
Invariants of manifolds and stratified spaces

Abstract: A basic problem in geometric topology is to try to classify  
spaces -
manifolds, varieties, stratified spaces - by computing suitable  
invariants,
especially characteristic classes. A basic problem in combinatorics/ 
analysis/
number theory is to sum functions over integral lattice points in a
region. This talk concerns the first problem and how the study of the
relevant invariants for toric varieties provides one approach to the
second problem.