Suppose f is an n-variate polynomial with integer coefficients and degree d. Many natural computational problems involving the real zero set Z of f are algorithmically difficult. For instance, no known algorithm for computing the number of connected components of Z has complexity polynomial in n+d. Furthermore, no known general algorithm for deciding whether f has root over the p-adic has sub-exponential complexity. So it is worthwhile to seek families of polynomials where these questions are tractable.

Assuming f has n+2 monomial terms, and its exponent vectors do not all lie on an affine hyperplane, we prove that the isotopy type of Z can be determined in time polynomial in log d, for any fixed n. (This family of polynomials --- polynomials supported on circuits ---is highly non-trivial, since it already includes Weierstrass normal forms and several important examples from semi-definite programming.) We also show that a 1998 refinement of the abc-Conjecture (by Baker) implies that our algorithm is polynomial in n as well. Furthermore, the original abc-Conjecture implies that p-adic rational roots for f can be detected in the complexity class NP.

     These results were obtained in collaboration with Kaitlyn Phillipson and Daqing Wan.

In this talk, we shall discuss about some new results in the evaluation of some multiple zeta values (MZV). After a careful introduction of the multiple zeta values (Euler-Zagier sums) we point out some conjectures back in the early days of MZV and their combinatorial aspects.

At the core of our talk, we focus on Zagier's formula for the multiple zeta values, $\zeta(2, 2, \ldots, 2, 3, 2, 2,\ldots, 2)$ and its connections to Brown's proofs of the conjecture on the Hoffman basis and the zig-zag conjecture of Broadhurst in quantum field theory. Zagier's formula is a remarkable example of both strength and the limits of the motivic formalism used by Brown in proving Hoffman's conjecture where the motivic argument does not give us a precise value for the special multiple zeta values $\zeta(2, 2, \ldots, 2, 3, 2, 2,\ldots, 2)$ as rational linear combinations of products $\zeta(m)\pi^{2n}$ with $m$ odd.

To any point p on a smooth algebraic curve C, the Weierstass semigroup is the set of all possible pole orders at p of regular functions on C \ {p}. The question of which sets of integers arise as Weierstass semigroups is a very old question, still widely open. We will describe progress on the question, defining a quantity called the effective weight of a numerical semigroup, and describe a proof that all numerical semigroups of sufficiently small effective weight arise as Weierstrass semigroups. The proof is based on older work of Eisenbud, Harris, and Komeda, based on deformation of certain nodal curves. We will survey some combinatorial aspects of the effective weight, and various open questions regarding both numerical semigroups and algebraic curves.

The topic of this talk will be understanding the p-adic slopes of modular forms. Recently, Bergdall and Pollack, based on computer calculations, raised a very interesting conjecture on the slopes of overconvergent modular forms, which predicts that the Newton polygons of the characteristic power series of U_p are the same as the Newton polygons of another explicit characteristic power series, which they call ghost series. This conjecture would imply many well-known conjectures regarding slopes of modular forms, like Gouvea's conjecture, Gouvea-Mazur conjecture, and etc. The goal of our joint project is to prove this conjecture under some mild hypothesis, and to explore some further application.  I will report on the progress so far.