The American Mathematical Society recently published Braid Foliations in Low-Dimensional Topology, co-authored by UB Mathematics Professor William W. Menasco, and Western Illinois University Professor Douglas J. LaFountain. This book is a self-contained introduction to braid foliation techniques, which is a theory developed to study knots, links and surfaces in general 3-manifolds and more specifically in contact 3-manifolds. Professor Menasco is currently serving UB Math as Director of Graduate Studies. Learn more.

The architecture of each person’s brain is unique, and differences may influence how quickly people can complete various cognitive tasks. But how neuroanatomy impacts performance is largely an open question. To learn more, scientists are developing a new tool — computational models of the brain — to simulate how the structure of the brain may impact brain activity and, ultimately, human behavior. The research focuses on interconnectivity within the brain, looking at how different regions are linked to and interact with one another (traits that vary between individuals). A team led by Sarah Muldoon finds that this approach shows promise for understanding the interplay between brain structure and performance on language-related tasks. The research was published in PLOS Computational Biology on Oct. 17, 2018. Read more in the UB News Release.