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 http://home.gwu.edu/~przytyck/knots/index.html ).

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/amca/camw-01
The submission (of abstracts) page is at h ttp://at.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/amcaubmit/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
Abstract
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.