Ph.D. Prelim Oral Exam: Ghazaleh Parvini, 2PM Virtual

Event
Speaker: 
Ghazaleh Parvini
Monday, May 25, 2020 - 2:00pm
Location: 
Virtual
Event Type: 

Phylogenetic Decisiveness, New Ideas and Boundaries

Suppose we have a set X consisting of n taxa and we are given information from k loci from which to construct a phylogeny forX. Each locus offers information for only a fraction of the taxa. The question is whether this data suffices to construct a reliable phylogeny. The decisiveness problem expresses this question combinatorially. A precise characterization of decisiveness is known and it has proven recently that the problem is Np-Complete. 

Decisiveness is related to a hypergraph coloring problem. We use this idea to (1) obtain lower bounds on the taxa participation needed to achieve decisiveness, (2) develop new reduction rules for the fixed parameter tractable algorithm to apply on real data, (3) devise a randomized algorithm for decisiveness and ideas to make it more efficient. 

Committee: David Fernandez-Baca (major professor), Pavan Aduri, Oliver Eulenstein, Giora Slutzki, Ryan Martin