This is a talk on my personal experience on research for students in Tsinghua High School.

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General affine invariances related to Mahler volume are introduced. We establish their affine isoperimetric inequalities by using a symmetrization scheme that involves a total of 2n elaborately chosen Steiner symmetrizations at a time. The necessity of this scheme, as opposed to the usual Steiner symmetrization, is demonstrated with an example (see the Appendix).

For projective conifold transitions between Calabi-Yau threefolds X and Y, with X close to Y in the moduli, we show that the combined information provided by the A model (Gromov–Witten theory in all genera) and B model (variation of Hodge structures) on X, linked along the vanishing cycles, determines the corresponding combined information on Y. Similar result holds in the reverse direction when linked with the exceptional curves.

We study a nonlinear weighted least-squares finite element method for the Navier- Stokes equations governing non-Newtonian fluid flows by using the Carreau- Yasuda model. The Carreau-Yasuda model is used to describe the shear-thinning behavior of blood. We prove that the least-squares approximation converges to linearized solutions of the non-Newtonian model at the optimal rate. By using continuous piecewise linear finite element spaces for all variables and by appropriately adjusting the nonlinear weighting function, we obtain optimal L2-norm error convergence rates in all variables. Numerical results are given for a Carreau fluid in the 4-to-1 contraction problem, revealing the shear-thinning behavior. The physical parameter effects are also investigated.