Events items teaser

Algebraic Graph Theory - Jane Breen
2023-11-06 11:30 (America/Toronto)
TITLE: Kemeny’s constant and random walks on graphs

SPEAKER:
Jane Breen

AFFILIATION:
Ontario Tech University

LOCATION:
Please contact Sabrina Lato for Zoom link.

ABSTRACT: Kemeny's constant is an interesting and useful quantifier of
how well-connected the states of a Markov chain are. This comes to the
forefront when the Markov chain in question is a random walk on a
graph, in which case Kemeny's constant is interpreted as a measure of
how `well-connected' the graph is. Though it was first introduced in
the 1960s, interest in this concept has recently exploded. This talk
will provide an introduction to Markov chains, an overview of the
history of Kemeny’s constant, discussion of some applications, and a
survey of recent results, with an emphasis on those that are
extensions or generalizations of simple random walks on graphs, to
complement Sooyeong’s talk from two weeks ago.
