CAIMS*SCMAI E-News Volume 08 Number 4 ; June 14, 2008 Editor: Abba Gumel (gumelab@cc.umanitoba.ca) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS 1. Special Issue of IMU-Net: ``Citation Statistics" (International Mathematical Union) 2. News from the Fields Institute 3. Conference on the Effective Use of High Performance Workstations in Scientific Computing (Fields Institute) 4. Second Montreal Industrial Problem Solving Workshop (August 18-22, 2008) 5. CAIMS*SCMAI E-News Information = = = = = Item 1 = = = = = IMU-Net 29b: June 2008: Special issue on "Citation Statistics", a report analyzing impact factors and similar statistics based on citations Dear colleagues, This is the first special issue of IMU-Net. Today the IMU has released an important document, called "Citation Statistics", which we want to bring to your attention. IMU-Net 24 (July 2007) announced the creation of a committee on "Quantitative assessment of research" that was asked to investigate various aspects of impact factors and similar statistics based on citations. The committee was appointed jointly by the Executive Committees of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM), and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). It consisted of: - John Ewing (Providence, USA), chair, appointed by IMU - Robert Adler (Haifa, Israel), appointed by IMS - Peter Taylor (Melbourne, Australia), appointed by ICIAM. The terms of reference given to the committee can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/2007/Charge-ComOnQuantAssessmRes070521.pdf The committee has addressed this charge by reviewing and discussing current practices along with an extensive literature on the use of citations to evaluate research. Its report, written from the perspective of mathematical scientists, was submitted to the Executive Committees of IMU, ICIAM, and IMS, and all three endorsed the report. The three organizations are making the report "Citation Statistics" public today. The report can be found at the following URL: http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Report/CitationStatistics A press release that was mailed out today to journalists is at: http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/PressRelease/2008-06-11/CitationStatistics This effort was triggered by numerous requests from IMU member countries, mathematical societies, important mathematical institutions, and individuals who reported the increasing use (and misuse) of impact factors and similarly of other citation-based indicators to measure the quality of research of individuals, departments, or whole institutions. IMU suggests that the readers of IMU-Net not only read the report but also distribute it to administrators and decision-makers who are involved in the assessment of research quality, in order to give them a mathematical science perspective. IMU, ICIAM and IMS have agreed that, in order to assure as wide distribution as possible, journals, newsletters and similar publications that are interested in publishing this report will have the non-exclusive right to publish it in one of their issues. Please contact the newsletters/journals you are connected with and suggest publication of the report "Citation Statistics". All 3 organizations, representing the world community of pure, applied, and industrial mathematics and statistics, hope that the careful analysis and recommendations in this report will be considered by decision-makers who are making use of citation data in research assessment. Best regards L. Lovasz IMU President ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IMU-Net is a Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France Subscribe to IMU-Net via the website: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net ------------------------------------------------------------------------ = = = = = Item 2 = = = = = News from the Fields Institute Some of the upcoming events which might be of interest to CAIMS members are: Summer thematic programs at the Institute are being inaugurated by a program on Mathematical and Quantitative Oncology, running during the months of July and August, and organized by S. Sivaloganathan, (Chair,Waterloo & Fields Centre for Mathematical Medicine), L. Estrada (VICBC), M. Kohandel (Waterloo & CMM), I. Pressman (Carleton & CMM), and H.M. Zhu (York). Three workshops are scheduled: Workshop on Growth and Control of Tumors: Theory and Experiment, July 2-4. VICBC Summer School on Integrative Cancer Biology, Current Challenges in Oncology, through the Mathematical Looking Glass, August 2-6. Workshop on Quantitative Cancer Modelling: Mathematical Models, Imaging and Bioinformatics, August 25-27. The Coxeter Lecture Series associated with the program will be delivered by Martin Nowak on August 6-8. The first lecture will be accessible to a broad audience (i.e. basic scientists, clinicians and mathematical scientists) and the second and third will be of a more specialized nature related to the thematic program. Nowak is Professor of Biology and of Mathematics at Harvard University and Director of Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. As a Faculty member of the Systems Biology group at the Institute for Advanced Study during 1998-2003, he established their first program in theoretical biology. He works on the mathematical description of evolutionary processes including the evolution of cooperation and human language, the dynamics of virus infections and human cancer. At the moment he is working on ‘prelife’, which is a formal approach to study the origin of evolution. See http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/08-09/mathoncology/index.html for further information. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There will be a workshop on the Effective Use of High Performance Workstations in Scientific Computing during August 4-6. Confirmed speakers and their areas of expertise are Craig C. Douglas (U Kentucky) mathematical software for multicore architectures) Robert Enenkel (IBM Toronto) software support for CELL multicore workstations) Abba Gumel (U Manitoba) mathematical biology Peter Forsyth (U Waterloo) computational finance Paul Muir (St. Mary's U) user-friendly F90 codes for ODEs Ian Reid (The Numerical Algorithms Group) math libraries on multicore architectures and user-chosen environments Darren Scmidt (National Instruments) numerical software for simulations on current high performance workstations Van Snyder (Jet Propulsion Laboratories) data analysis software for large data sets Hongmei Zhu (York U) medical imaging See http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/08-09/highperformance/ for further information. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The second Fields-MITACS Industrial Problem-Solving Workshop will take place August 11–15 at the Fields Institute. Its objective is to connect industries with faculty, postdocs and graduate students who have expertise in industrial case-studies. This interaction is fostered in the specific context of a problem-solving session over 5 days. The case studies in question have a significant mathematical or statistical content. Participants will include between 36-50 academic experts (including mathematicians and statisticians), and experts from industry. On the first day, the industrial sponsors will present their problem statements. The academic experts will form teams of 6-10 people each, with one team assigned to each problem. Each team will spend the next 3 days collaborating on solutions to its problem, and will present its solution on the final day of the workshop. The academic experts make a presentation consisting of the problem restatement and their solution. This is a summary of results; and the teams will also prepare reports for the industrial sponsors. For further information, see http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/08-09/FMIPW/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 2008 Biomathematics & Biostatistics (BioM&S) Symposium will take place at the University of Guelph on September 3, 2008. It brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines; epidemiology, biology, mathematics, statistics and information technology. Each symposium has a theme and this year's theme is Nonlinear Methods for Parameter Estimation. James Hanley, from the Department of Epidemiology at McGill, will deliver this year's Gordon C. Ashton Biometric Lecture. For more information, see http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/08-09/bioms/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On September 18-20, there will be a conference on Non-linear Phenomena in Mathematical Physics at the Institute, dedicated to Cathleen Synge Morawetz on the occasion of her 85th birthday. There will also be a banquet in her honour on September 19. Please see http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/08-09/math-physics/ for further information. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 2nd Annual Pure and Applied Mathematics Graduate Student Conference will take place October 24-26, 2008 at McMaster University. This conference is an excellent opportunity for graduate students in all branches of mathematics to share and discuss their research and to meet and network with peers and potential collaborators in their fields. Graduate students from across Canada and the United States are encouraged to attend and share their research by presenting a 25 minute talk. Consult http://gradconference.math.mcmaster.ca/ for more information. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Future thematic programs: 2008 Fall Arithmetic Geometry, Hyperbolic Geometry and Related Topics 2009 Winter/Spring O-Minimal Structures and Real Analytic Geometry 2009 Fall Foundations of Computational Mathematics 2010 Winter/Spring Quantitative Finance: Foundations and Applications 2010 Fall Asymptotic Geometric Analysis See www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/ for links to these programs (and to other activities). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seminars The Fields Institute Colloquium/Seminar in Applied Mathematics is a monthly colloquium series for mathematicians in the areas of applied mathematics and analysis at the Fields Institute. See http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/06-07/applied_math/ for the current schedule. The Fields Industrial Optimization Seminar meets at 5pm on the first Tuesday of each month. Each meeting will comprise two related lectures on a topic in optimization; typically, one speaker will be a university-based researcher and the other will be a practitioner from the private or government sector. See http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/cim/06-07/optimization_seminar/ for up-to-date information. The Seminar Series on Quantitative Finance is held at 5pm on the last Wednesday of every month throughout the academic year. Each seminar is organized around a single theme with two 45-minute talks and a half hour reception. See http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/cim/financial_math/finance_seminar/07-08 The Toronto Quantum Information Seminar is held roughly every two weeks to discuss ongoing work and ideas about quantum computation, cryptography, teleportation, etc. bringing together interested parties from a variety of different backgrounds – including mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, and engineering – to share ideas as well as open questions. http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/07-08/QUINF The Actuarial Science & Financial Mathematics Group normally meets on Wednesdays from 2pm to 3:30pm in room 210 at The Fields Institute. The next speaker is Michael Ludkovski (Michigan) who will speak on Relative Hedging of Systematic Mortality Risk on September 14. http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/cim/07-08/actuarialmath --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some deadlines for proposals: Thematic programs: March 15. Workshops, seminars, conferences, summer schools: October 15. Distinguished Lecture Series in Statistical Sciences (nominations): October 1 The Distinguished Lecture Series (nominations): September 15. = = = = Item 3 = = = = Conference on the Effective Use of High Performance Workstations in Scientific Computing Fields Institute for Mathematical Science, Toronto, Canada, 4-6 August, 2008. Second Announcement and Call for Papers: http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/08-09/highperformance/ Important Dates: June 1 - Deadline for submission of titles and abstracts June 13 - Authors will be notified of accepted papers June 15 - Deadline for early registration July 1 - Deadline for application for travel support for students and PDFs In recent years, standard scientific workstations have become faster and more powerful and they now typically include multiple processors and high resolution displays. At the same time, the use of computer simulations and mathematical modeling has become an essential component of research in high-profile critical areas, such as computational biology, computational medicine and computational finance. The purpose of this conference is to bring together developers of numerical software and users in different application areas to explore the challenges and implications that are involved in developing, implementing and distributing effective numerical software that is easy to use and matches the requirements and expectations of the diverse community of potential users. CONFIRMED SPEAKERS (and their areas of expertise): - Craig C. Douglas, University of Kentucky (mathematical software for multicore architectures) - Robert Enenkel, IBM Toronto (software support for CELL multicore workstations) - Abba Gumel, University of Manitoba (mathematical biology) - Peter Forsyth, University of Waterloo (computational finance) - Paul Muir, St. Mary's University (user-friendly F90 codes for ODEs) - Ian Reid, The Numerical Algorithms Group (math libraries on multicore architectures and user-chosen environments) - Darren Scmidt, National Instruments (numerical software for simulations on current high performance workstations) - Van Snyder, Jet Propulsion Laboratories (data analysis software for large data sets) - Hongmei Zhu, York University (medical imaging) If you are coming from out of town, we recommend that you book your accommodation early, since the conference overlaps with a major festival (Caribana) in Toronto on the August 2-4 long weekend. For more details about the conference, registration, submission of titles and abstracts and application for travel support (for students and PDFs), please see http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/08-09/highperformance/ Local Organizers W.H. Enright, C.C. Christara and K.R. Jackson = = = = Item 4 = = = = Second Montreal Industrial Problem Solving Workshop (August 18-22, 2008) LA VERSION FRANÇAISE DE CE MESSAGE SE TROUVE CI-DESSOUS. Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce that the Second Montreal Industrial Problem Solving Workshop (August 18-22, 2008) will be held at the Centre de recherches mathematiques in Montreal. This workshop is sponsored by MITACS and organized by the CRM, ncm2 (Network for Computing and Mathematical Modelling), GERAD and CIRRELT. This year, most of the problems to be studied will fall within the scope of operations research. For further information, please consult the site http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/probindustriels2008/index_e.shtml . Best regards, Odile Marcotte, Deputy Director CRM Chers collègues, il nous fait plaisir d'annoncer que le Second atelier de résolution de problèmes industriels de Montréal se tiendra au Centre de recherches mathématiques du 18 au 22 août 2008. Cet atelier est parrainé par le réseau MITACS et organisé par le CRM en collaboration avec le rcm2 (Réseau de calcul et de modélisation mathématique), le GERAD et le CIRRELT. En 2008, la plupart des problèmes qui seront examinés pendant l'atelier relèvent de la recherche opérationnelle. Pour toute information supplémentaire, veuillez consulter le site http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/probindustriels2008/ . Sincèrement vôtre, Odile Marcotte = = = = = Item 5 = = = = = CAIMS*SCMAI E-News Information CAIMS*SCMAI E-News is distributed electronically several times a year by the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society/Societe Canadienne de Mathematiques Appliquees et Industrielles (http://www.caims.ca). Past issues are available on the web at http://www.caims.ca/Society/pub.html Submissions are welcome and should be sent in plain text format to: Abba Gumel, CAIMS-SCMAI Secretary, Email: gumelab@cc.umanitoba.ca. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the Board or Membership of CAIMS*SCMAI. The editorial policy of this publication is to encourage the discussion of issues and facilitate the dissemination of information relevant to Canadian applied and industrial mathematics. If you wish to have your name removed from the e-mailing list for the CAIMS*SCMAI E-News, please send an email message to Abba Gumel as above. -- ****************************************************************************** Abba Gumel Professor, Department of Mathematics, Director, Inst. of Industrial Mathematical Sciences, Tel: 204-4747486 University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2, Fax: 204-4747602 CANADA. Website: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~gumelab *****************************************************************************