THE first ANNOUNCEMENT, Nov 2, 2003
KNOTS IN WASHINGTON XVII
 December 19-21, 2003
       The Seventeenth Conference on Knot Theory and its Ramifications
George Washington University, Washington, DC

You are cordially invited to attend and give a talk at our Knots in Washington XVII conference.
This regional conference is held every semester, in various locations in the Washington area
(see the main KIW page ).

The conference will take place at George Washington University.

We plan several survey talks - 50 minutes long, and 20-30 minutes long research talks.

You are cordially invited to participate in this and future meetings. We will start on December 19 , 1:30pm (Funger Hall 211).
If you plan to attend please contact one of the organizers. No registration fee! 

If you would like to give a talk please submit your abstract: The viewing page is at http://at.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/abstract/camw-01
The submission (of abstracts) page is at http://at.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/abstract/submit/camw-01

Speakers include: Marta M. Asaeda, Hans Asperger, Gefry Barad, Abhijit Champanerkar, Qi Chen, Mieczyslaw K.Dabkowski, Bill Goldman, Taek Jin, Slavik Jablan, Joanna Kania-Bartoszynska, Thomas Kerler, Mark Kidwell, Ilya Kofman, Laure Helme-Guizon, Jozef H.Przytycki, Yongwu Rong, Radmila Sazdanovic, Alexander Schumakovich, Adam S.Sikora, Yuka Taylor, Amir A. Togha, Tatsuya Tsukamoto,...

Directions to George Washington University:
http://www.gwu.edu/~map/
The reasonable hotels in the neighborhood are
State Plaza Hotel (2117 E St)
http://www.washington-dc-hotel.us/state-plaza-hotel.php
or Holiday Inn Rosslyn:
http://www.basshotels.com/h/d/hi/hc/waswp
For the hotels around Washington see:
http://www.180096hotel.com/cgi-bin/pickinput?SID=YDL&LKF=YDL&Dest=WAS

Schedule:
Talks take place in Funger Hall, room 221
Friday, December 19:
1:30 - 2:00 Coffee and refreshments
2:00 - 2:50 Adam S. Sikora (IAS and SUNY Buffalo)
Quantum invariants of knots and links
2:50 - 3:20 Coffee and refreshments
3:20-4:10 Thomas Kerler (U. Ohio)
The Block Property of Integral Bases for TQFT's and its Consequences
4:10 - 4:30 Coffee and refreshments
4:30 - 5:10 Mark Kidwell (Naval Academy)
Two Types of Amphichiral Links
5:20 - 5:50 Mieczyslaw K. Dabkowski (UTD)
Fundamental group of the double branch cover of S^3 along 2-bridge knots
6:00 - 6:30 Amir A. Togha (GWU)
Non-left orderable groups of 3-manifolds
6:40 - 7:10 Yuka Taylor (GWU)
Spherical Tetrahedra and a Semiclassical Invariant of Three-Manifolds

Saturday, December 20:
Talks take place in Funger Hall, 221
10:00 -- 10:30 breakfast: coffee and refreshments
10:30 -- 11:00 Alexander Shumakovich (Dartmouth College)
Torsion of the Khovanov Homology
11:10 -- 11:40 Alexander Shumakovich (Dartmouth College)
Computing the Khovanov Homology with KhoHo

11:50 -- 12:20 Slavik Jablan (Belgrade U.)
The program "LinKnot"-its theoretical background and experimental mathematics results obtained
12:30 -- 1:00 Radmila Sazdanovic (Belgrad U.)
KNOT THEORY PROGRAM "LinKnot"
1:00 -- 2:00 lunch
2:00 -- 2:30 Gefry Barad (GWU)
Gram determinant for type B Temperley-Lieb algebra
2:40 -- 3:10 Taek Jin (KAIST, Korea)
Superbridge index of knots
3:20 -- 3:50 Abhijit Champanerkar (Columbia U.)
Mahler measure of the Jones polynomial, part I
3:50 -- 4:10 Coffee and refreshments
4:10 -- 4:40 Ilya Kofman (Columbia U.)
Mahler measure of the Jones polynomial, part II
4:50 -- 5:20 Yongwu Rong (GWU)
A Kauffman bracket polynomial for legendrian links
5:30 -- 6:00 Marta M. Asaeda (U. Iowa)
Khovanov homology of links in $I$-bundles over surfaces
6:10 -- 6:40 Laure Helme-Guizon (GWU)
An analog of Khovanov Homology for graphs
6:50 -- 7:20 Jozef H. Przytycki (GWU)
My first and hundredth papers: from $Z_n$-actions on surfaces to periodicity of links and Khovanov homology

7:40pm A small party at Przytycki's house (100:50:25 celebration)

Sunday, December 21, Funger Hall, 221 (10:00am - 2:20pm)

10:00 -- 10:30 Breakfast: coffee and refreshments
10:30 -- 11:20 Bill Goldman (UMD),
Flat Lorentz 3-Manifolds
11:30 -- 12:00 Adam S.Sikora (IAS and SUNY Buffalo)
Skein theory for SU_n-quantum invariants
12:00 -- 12:30 Coffee and refreshments
12:30 -- 1:00 Joanna Kania-Bartoszynska (NSF and B.S.U)
Turaev-Viro invariants of 3-manifolds and normal surfaces
1:10 -- 1:40 Qi Chen (SUNY Buffalo)
On certain integral tensor categories and integral TQFTs
1:50 -- 2:20 Tatsuya Tsukamoto (Waseda U.)
Generalized Cochran sequence and a factorization of the Conway polynomial

Official end of the conference.

Possible afternoon activities:
2:20 Lunch, excursion to the National Galery of Art (East Building) for "TBA" exhibition. http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/exhibits.htm
2:20 -- 4:20
Informal discussion on Khovanov homology.

Conference Organizers:
Marta M. Asaeda (U Iowa), asaeda@math.uiowa.edu
Mietek K. Dabkowski (UTD), mdab@utdallas.edu
Jozef H. Przytycki (GWU), przytyck@gwu.edu
Yongwu Rong (GWU), rong@gwu.edu

The next conference, Knots in Washington XVIII; Khovanov homology, will take place in Spring (May 28-30) of 2004.