Special Session ``Von Neumann Algebras and Noncommutative Ergodic
Theory'', AMS meeting, Vanderbilt University, Oct. 16-17, 2004.

Organizers: Dietmar Bisch (Vanderbilt University), Sorin Popa (UCLA)

Schedule
========

Saturday, October 16, 2004

  7:30 -  4:00  Registration (AMS)

  8:50 -  9:30  Narutaka Ozawa, University of Tokyo & UCLA
                A Kurosh type theorem for type II$_1$ factors
  9:40 - 10:00  Florin Boca, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
                On the distribution of some sequences related to Farey 
                fractions
 10:10 - 10:50  Florin Radulescu, University of Iowa & Rome 2
                Non-commutative, analytic version of Hilbert's 17-th problem 
                in type II$_1$ von Neumann algebras

 11:00 - 11:10  Welcoming Remarks
 11:10 - 12:00  Invited Address (Room 103, Wilson)
                Sorin Popa, UCLA 
                Deformation, rigidity, and the classification of II_1 factors
  1:30 -  2:20  Invited Address (Room 103, Wilson)
                Peter Ozsvath, Columbia University 
                Holomorphic disks and low-dimensional topology

  2:30 -  3:10  Talia Fernos, University of Illinois at Chicago
                New examples of group pairs with Kazhdan's relative 
                property (T)
  3:20 -  3:40  Roman Sasyk, Purdue University
                Cohomology of actions of groups by Bernoulli shifts
  3:50 -  4:10  Jesse Peterson, UCLA
                A 1-cohomology characterization of property (T) in von 
                Neumann algebras
  4:20 -  5:00  Igor Mineyev, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
                Geodesic flows and symmetric joins of metric spaces
  5:10 -  5:30  Adrian Ioana, UCLA
                Stabilized non-amenable groups have infinitely many 
                non-orbit equivalent actions
  5:30 - 7:30   Reception in the Wilson Hall foyer


Sunday, October 17, 2004

  8:00 - 12:00  Registration (AMS)

  9:10 -  9:50  Dima Shlyakhtenko, UCLA
                Estimates for non-microstates free entropy dimension
 10:00 - 10:20  Remus Nicoara, Vanderbilt University
                A rigidity result for irrational rotation HT factors
 10:30 - 10:50  Marius Dadarlat, Purdue University
                On the topology of the Kasparov groups and its applications

 11:00 - 11:50  Invited Address (Room 103, Wilson)
                Ruth  Charney, Brandeis University 
                Artin groups, mapping class groups and automorphism groups
  1:30 -  2:20  Invited Address (Room 103 Wilson)
                Rudi Weikard, University of Alabama at Birmingham
                Inverse problems for Sturm-Liouville equations

  2:30 -  3:10  Nicolas Monod, University of Chicago
                Orbit equivalence rigidity
  3:20 -  3:40  Dietmar Bisch, Vanderbilt University
                Intermediate subfactors  
  3:50 -  4:30  Roger Smith, Texas A&M University
                The Pukanszky invariant and group von Neumann algebras