Friday, Sept. 20, 2019, 8 p.m.
Presentation begins at 8 p.m. in John T. Tate Hall, 101; telescope observing around 8:30 p.m. in Tate 510
Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics Public Telescope Viewing
Join us every Friday night during the University’s Fall and Spring semesters for rooftop observing through our historic telescope in the dome of the John T. Tate Hall. There will be a presentation followed by outdoor observing (weather-permitting). You will have the chance to observe some of the same celestial objects that have inspired sky-gazers throughout history!
Afterwards, if weather allows, attendees have the opportunity to view the sky through multiple 8-inch reflecting telescopes, operated by the staff and provided by the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics. Additionally, we provide free star maps (e.g. www.skymaps.com) and are happy to show visitors how to use them. Throughout the evening, we encourage questions from the audience and enjoy discussing topics ranging from backyard astronomy to the latest scientific discoveries.
The presentation begins at 8:00pm in the Tate Laboratory of Physics, room 101. Telescope observing usually begins around 8:25-8:30pm upstairs in Tate 510.
The presentation and outdoor observing are free for all to attend!
Sign up for the MIfA outreach email
9/20/2019 Topic: Mars 2020 Rover
Monday, Sept. 23, 2019, 9 a.m. through Monday, Sept. 23, 2019, 3 p.m.
Institute for Engineering in Medicine Annual Conference
The event will open with plenary keynote talks by nationally recognized leaders, followed by an award ceremony and a lunch session in which IEM leaders will outline an overview of the Institute and options for engagement. The conference will end in the afternoon with a student poster session that highlights the research of faculty members and their groups, and a poster competition that will result in several awards being given for the best student posters.
IEM's Annual Conference shall offer rich opportunities for participants to develop interdisciplinary collaborations between health sciences and engineering, and form teams of collaborators responding to federal/external funding opportunities.
Online registration for UMN faculty, staff, students, and selected members of industry is open until September 16, 2019! On-site registration will be available on Monday, September 23, 2019.
Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019, 3:30 p.m.
Lind Hall, Room 305
ISyE Graduate Seminar Series: Staffing and Pricing in Co-Sourced Call Centers
Please join us for our next seminar of fall semester. This research-based seminar will feature Professor Jeffrey P. Kharoufeh from Clemson University who will discuss staffing and pricing in co-sourced call centers.
3:15 p.m. - Refreshments
3:30 p.m. - Graduate Seminar
Professor Jeffrey P. Kharoufeh
Department of Industrial Engineering
Clemson University
About the seminar
Increasingly, service organizations are electing to co-source some of their customer support functions, especially those handled by call centers. That is, rather than servicing requests exclusively with in-house agents, a portion of service capacity can be delegated to an external service provider. Indeed, the business of co-sourcing customer service centers has rapidly grown into a multinational, multibillion dollar industry. However, organizations must weigh the benefits (economic or otherwise) of co-sourcing against the potential costs of surrendering control of their primary source of direct customer support.
In this talk, Kharoufeh presents a joint queueing and stochastic programming framework to help call center managers decide how much of their demand should be co-sourced, and how much should be serviced in-house when faced with uncertain and dynamic call arrival rates. Before the arrival rate is realized, the call center responds to the external service provider's prices by setting its in-house staffing levels and choosing the number of co-sourced agents to place on call in order to minimize its expected total staffing costs. Once the arrival rates are realized, the call center activates the on-call agents to ensure that quality-of-service (QoS) requirements are met.
For its part, the external provider seeks to maximize expected total revenues over a finite contract period by setting per-agent holding and activation prices. Kharoufeh's team models the interplay between the call center and external service provider as a leader-follower game (formulated as a bilevel program) in which the call center, acting as the follower, solves a two-stage stochastic integer program with recourse. They show that the bilevel program can be reformulated as a quadratically-constrained linear program to obtain the contractor's optimal per-agent holding and activation prices, and that the optimal staffing problem yields a highly-tractable, closed-form solution for a common set of QoS constraints. A numerical study demonstrates that cost reductions can be achieved over other common staffing rules in the presence of imperfect and asymmetric information.
About the speaker
Jeffrey P. Kharoufeh is Professor and Chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering at Clemson University. His methodological areas of expertise are applied probability and stochastic modeling with applications in energy systems, queueing, reliability, and maintenance optimization. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other federal agencies.
Kharoufeh earned a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Pennsylvania State University, where he was an inaugural Weiss Graduate Fellow. He currently serves as an associate editor of Operations Research, area editor of Operations Research Letters and member of the editorial board of Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences. He is a Fellow of IISE and a professional member of INFORMS and the Applied Probability Society.
Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019, 5 p.m. through Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019, 8:30 p.m.
Bell Museum After Hours: Plants
Enjoy an evening at the museum! Curate your night from a host of activities, including sketching in the galleries, art-making activities, a show in the Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Planetarium, and stargazing on the Ruth and John Huss Observation Deck (weather permitting).
Sketching theme: Plants, draw from a selection of flowers, plants and seeds and collection sheets from University of Minnesota Herbarium.
Craft activity: Create beautiful, permanent flowers with crepe paper. These blooms will last through the winter!
Diorama Tours
Tours begin in Horizon Hall at 6:15 and 7:15 pm.
Dive deep into the dioramas with Tim Whitfeld, herbarium collections manager. Learn about how our native plants defend themselves against predators, amazing adaptations, and Minnesota’s biodiversity—and threats to it.
Artist Workshop
In the Nucleus from 5–8:30 pm.
Join Bell resident artist Anna Cerelia Battistini for an arts workshop focusing on plants, seeds, and fruits. Make a small paper ornament that you can add to a larger group sculpture or take home to enjoy!
Anna is a sculpture and fiber artist from St. Paul who specializes in large lanterns created in the tradition of British lantern festivals. Anna will have work in progress on display during tonight’s workshop. Come back in October to see the results of her residency, a series of large paper lanterns exploring extinct and threatened species in Minnesota.
Planetarium
6 pm: Seeing! A photon’s journey across space, time and mind
7 pm: A Planet for Goldilocks
Click here for tickets and availability.
Activities free with gallery admission. Planetarium ticket fees apply.
Advance tickets for planetarium shows are available up to three weeks ahead of time via the link above. If you are a current Bell member, please log in first, to receive your discounted tickets.
Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019, 3 p.m.
Tour of the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory
About this event
The St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL), located on the Mississippi River at the heart of Minneapolis, is an interdisciplinary fluid mechanics research and educational facility of the College of Science and Engineering at the UMN. We offer a FREE monthly public tour through our historic facility to showcase our experimental facilities and research projects (donations accepted online at https://makingagift.umn.edu/give/fund.html?id=22393).
You will receive an email 1-2 days before your scheduled tour with details of where to meet your tour group.
On the day of the tour:
• Please wear closed-toed shoes – no flip flops or sandals.
• Parking is reserved for SAFL personnel only (let us know if you require a handicap space). We ask that you park off-site at one of these locations:
o Garage: 212 SE 2nd Ave
o Metered street parking is available along SE Main St, portions of SE 3rd Ave, and 2nd St SE
o We also have bike racks.
Email bkb0811@umn.edu with questions.
Friday, Sept. 27, 2019, 8 p.m.
Presentation begins at 8 p.m. in John T. Tate Hall, 101; telescope observing around 8:30 p.m. in Tate 510
Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics Public Telescope Viewing
Join us every Friday night during the University’s Fall and Spring semesters for rooftop observing through our historic telescope in the dome of the John T. Tate Hall. There will be a presentation followed by outdoor observing (weather-permitting). You will have the chance to observe some of the same celestial objects that have inspired sky-gazers throughout history!
Afterwards, if weather allows, attendees have the opportunity to view the sky through multiple 8-inch reflecting telescopes, operated by the staff and provided by the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics. Additionally, we provide free star maps (e.g. www.skymaps.com) and are happy to show visitors how to use them. Throughout the evening, we encourage questions from the audience and enjoy discussing topics ranging from backyard astronomy to the latest scientific discoveries.
The presentation begins at 8:00pm in the Tate Laboratory of Physics, room 101. Telescope observing usually begins around 8:25-8:30pm upstairs in Tate 510.
The presentation and outdoor observing are free for all to attend!
Sign up for the MIfA outreach email
9/27/2019 Topic: Creation of the Solar System
Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019, 9 a.m. through Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019, Noon
Minnesota Computers for Schools
504 Malcolm Ave. SE, Suite 100, Minneapolis, MN
CSE Day of Service - Minnesota Computers for Schools
Kick off Homecoming Week by participating in the U of M Day of Service. CSE will be hosting service activities at Minnesota Computers for Schools. Volunteers will help with a variety of tasks, such as testing computers, installing memory and hard drives, sorting parts for recycling, and organizing inventory. Children 10 and older are welcome.
For additional details, visit the college's homecoming website.
REGISTER HERE!
Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019, 9:30 a.m. through Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019, Noon
Skynet Scholars: First Session
Advanced registration is required.
Skynet Scholars is a program for middle and high school students that puts them in the driver’s seat to conduct their own scientific explorations of the universe. Scholars learn how to access a global network of research-grade telescopes that serve professional astronomers and students alike over the internet. They will get to experience hands-on astronomy and STEM based activities including the use of robotic telescopes to take their own astronomical images.
Learn more about the national Skynet Jr. Scholars program & the Skynet Robotic Telescope Network.
See a sampling of our Skynet Scholars’ work here.
Chapter Meetings
The Bell’s Skynet Scholars chapter meets on select Saturdays from 9:30 am–12 pm in the Dr. Roger E. Anderson Education Wing.
Fall 2019 Session (Advanced registration is required.)
Sept 28
Oct 12 & 26
Nov 9 & 23
Dec 7 & 14
Register today
Registration for the fall 2019 session is now open. Email belltickets@umn.edu or call 612-624-4268 for more information. Scholarships are available for students who qualify for free/reduced lunch. Please email belltickets@umn.edu for more details.
$40–General
$30–Bell members
Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019, 10 a.m. through Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019, Noon
519 Hayden Lake Rd. E., Champlin, MN
CEMS Day of Service - Community Tree Planting
CEMS will host a U of M Day of Service site at Doris A. Kemp Park in Champlin. All ages are invited to assist Hennepin County and City of Champlin foresters for a community tree planting. Tools, trees, and instructions on how to plant them will be provided. Volunteers will receive a University of Minnesota drawstring backpack and special CEMS Centennial and Jubilee gifts.
For additional details, visit the college's homecoming website.
There is no charge to attend this event, but space is very limited and pre-registration is required. Register by Monday, Sept. 23.
Questions? Contact cemsdept@umn.edu
Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019, Noon through Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019, 2 p.m.
Bell Museum, Ruth and John Huss Observation Deck
Telescopes aren’t just for night observing. We’ll have a variety of our solar telescopes out on our observation deck for safe solar viewing as well as some hands-on interactive activities to better understand our nearest star, the Sun.
Solar Sundays are weather dependent—we need clear skies to see the Sun. If the weather does not allow for good viewing conditions, the activity will be canceled.
What you need
Dress for the weather, this includes sunscreen! It may be cold outside, but even then you can still get a sunburn. Always wear sunscreen when participating in outdoor activities.
Solar safety
Our telescope equipment utilizes safe Sun viewing methods; filtering the sunlight and projecting the sunlight.
Solar filters include white light filters that block 99.999 percent of incoming sunlight, safely allowing us to see any sunspots that might be visible.
H-alpha SolarMax II telescope filters out all the colors of sunlight except a specific red light (656nm) to allow us to see features such as solar prominences along the edge of the Sun.
Sunspotters use a different method to safely view the Sun. They utilize mirrors and lenses to project the Sun safely onto a screen (piece of paper). You can draw/trace your own Sun and sunspots to start our own solar data log.
TICKETS HERE!
Free with gallery admission