Carleton Finite Fields eSeminar - Summer 2021 Abstracts

School of Mathematics and Statistics
Carleton University


Organized by: Daniel Panario, David Thomson, and Steven Wang.
e-mail: finitefields@math.carleton.ca

Summer 2021 Abstracts

Date/Time: August 4, 2021
Speaker: Emina Soljanin (Rutgers University)
Title: Codes, Graphs, and Hyperplanes in Data Access Service
Abstract: Distributed computing systems strive to maximize the number of concurrent data access requests they can support with fixed resources. Replicating data objects according to their relative popularity and access volume helps achieve this goal. However, these quantities are often unpredictable. Erasure-coding has emerged as an efficient and robust form of redundant storage. In erasure-coded models, data objects are elements of a finite field, and each node in the system stores one or more linear combinations of data objects. This talk asks 1) which data access rates an erasure-coded system can support and 2) which codes can support a specified region of access rates. We will address these questions by casting them into some known and some new combinatorial optimization problems on graphs. We will explain connections with batch codes. This talk will also describe how, instead of a combinatorial, one can adopt a geometric approach to the problem. slides, video


Date/Time: July 7, 2021
Speaker: Alexander Pott (Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg)
Title: Relaxations of almost perfect nonlinearity
Abstract: abstract, video, slides.


Date/Time: June 2, 2021
Speaker: Gary McGuire (University College Dublin)
Title: Linear Fractional Transformations and Irreducible Polynomials over Finite Fields
Abstract: We will discuss polynomials over a finite field where linear fractional transformations permute the roots. For subgroups G of PGL(2,q) we will demonstrate some connections between factorizations of certain polynomials into irreducible polynomials over Fq, and the field of G-invariant rational functions. Some unusual patterns in the factorizations are explained by this connection.