http://www.meetup.com/SF-Amateur-Mathematicians/events/191134062/

Let’s read a paper, get together, and talk about it! I found one I think is neat and pretty accessible.

Saerens, Fouss, Yen, & Dupont – PCA of a Graph, and its Relationships to Spectral Clustering 
(http://outobox.cs.umn.edu/PCA_on_a_Graph.pdf)

At minimum, just read the whole paper and bring a question relating to it, whether clarifying (“Why is it the case that X?”), exploratory (“Since Y, might it be that Z?”), or something else. If you get real stuck on something while reading the paper, write it down and move on, and then you’ll have your question to bring.

It would be extra awesome if everyone would also read something related — either from the citations, from this book I like called Spectra of Graphs by Brouwer and Haemers (http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/2WF02/spectra.pdf), or from somewhere else. That is, pick a train of thought from the paper and follow it out of the paper a little. If you find something interesting (even just a question to which you don’t have an answer), please bring it along.