Abstract:
We will first discuss the general
context of a biodiversity problem from the Hirnantian Mass
Extinction and then we will look at different ways of
creating a composite section of several sections of taxa
from the Yangtze Platform in China derived from graphical
correlation methods. The main focus of the talk, however,
will be on simulated annealing techniques such as those
found in the NP-hard problems of the traveling salesman
airline scheduling. We will then demonstrate how a computer
algorithm operating under these concepts aided in
understanding the uncertainty associated with our data.
(Joint work with H. David Sheets, Michael J. Melchin,
Stanley C. Finney, and Charles E. Mitchell)