Speaker: Katie Ann Baldwin
Candidate for Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics
Time: 4:30 PM
Place: Trustee Hall 203
Supervisor: Dr. Cynthia Verjovsky Marcotte
Title: Applying Discrete Fair Division Methods to Land Division

Abstract: Disputes concerning the division of continuous or discrete goods have given rise to methods of dividing such goods fairly. Methods have been developed by many mathematicians such as Hugo Stienhaus, Martin Gardner, and Steven Brams. The goal of my research is to apply a discrete bidding procedure for bundled goods developed by Haake, Raith and Su to land division. The motivation for this was how to deal with features that should not or could not be divided. Continuous methods (such as moving knife and trimming algorithms) will not work under this constraint. The procedure can be adapted to this problem, but several issues arose. Can the procedure be modified to avoid having players win disconnected regions? How best to divide the land into parcels to be bid on? Into what number of parcels should the land be divided, as a function of the number of bidders?