ERCIM News 73
April 2008
Special theme Maths for Everyday Life
Guest editors Jouko Väänänen (University of Amsterdam and University of Helsinki) and Ulrich Trottenberg (Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI)
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Keynote - Mathematics Everywhere
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by Marja Makarow, Chief Executive, European Science Foundation
The developed world is full of modern technology that we take for granted. Mobile phones, internet, credit cards and CD and DVD discs are only a few examples of innovations that have revolutionized everyday life in the past thirty years. Common to all these is that their functioning depends heavily on mathematics. Another thing to note is that in all these cases, the mathematics was not invented for the sake of the technological innovations - it had already been developed as pure mathematics and lay ready to be applied when the time was ripe.
Introduction to the special theme: Maths for Everyday Life
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by Jouko Väänänen and Ulrich Trottenberg
Mathematics saturates everyday life more and more. It is used not only in large applications running on huge computers to predict weather or to calculate parameters for an expensive industrial process or marketing strategy: it has now become ubiquitous in the more mundane aspects of our existence. A good example is the mobile phone. Mobile phone technology depends heavily on such fundamental areas of mathematics as analysis, algebra, and number theory.
Inverse Problems: Making the Unseen Visible with Mathematics
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by Mikko Kaasalainen and Lassi Päivärinta
Mathematical analysis can make visible the insides of objects such as our bodies, rivers or the Earth, and is revealing entire new worlds in space. It may also work in the opposite way in designing tricks that hide things from our view.
A Needle in the Brain
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by Albert Ali Salah
A surgeon about to operate on a small region within the brain has a difficult job. By listening to the sounds of voltage discharge patterns of single neurons, recorded with very fine needles inserted into the brain just prior to the operation, expert surgeons try to determine whether or not they are on target. Can real-time signal processing and analysis help the surgeon?
Mathematical Tools for Securing a Telemedicine Platform: Monitoring, Communication and Storage
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by Thierry Simonnet
Hidden Markov Models, Bayesian statistics, cryptography, relational algebra, signal filters, the Harris detector and wavelet transforms are among the mathematical tools necessary to set up a telemedicine platform developed by ESIEE-Paris (Ecole Supérieure d'Ingénieurs en Electronique et Electrotechnique). The platform offers medical and communication services to patients, especially for cases of pre-Alzheimer's disease.
The Analysis of Dynamical Diseases by Optimal Transportation Distances
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by Michael Muskulus and Sjoerd Verduyn-Lunel
Diseases influence the dynamics of normal physiological processes, and by analysing measurements of the latter it is possible to accurately and automatically detect and diagnose diseases. It is a fact that diseases with similar symptoms are sometimes incorrectly diagnosed and treated, but methods such as ours can help prevent this. The method itself is based on calculating abstract distances between time series of measurements.
Evolutionary Suicide
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by Mats Gyllenberg
The accelerating speed at which species are becoming extinct is of major and worldwide concern. Usually human activity is blamed, but while the destruction of natural habitat and the emission of greenhouse gases are certainly affecting the ecology of many species, are they the only causes of species extinction? Is it possible that natural selection could drive a species to extinction? A crude view is that evolution is a process with a certain direction: simple organisms evolve into more complicated ones, weaker individuals are selected against and thus evolution produces stronger and stronger populations. This view is simply false. Natural selection acts at the level of individuals (in fact, at the level of genes) and it is quite possible that what is advantageous for the individual turns out to be disastrous for the species.
Functional Analysis and Image Processing
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by Mario Arioli and Daniel Loghin
Image processing is ubiquitous in modern life. Digital cameras on cellular phones or other devices produce an incredible number of pictures that are normally stored and processed on PCs. In addition to normal family pictures, sources such as CCTV cameras, satellites and telescopes acquire from the earth and from the far reaches of the universe images that need some form of post-processing.
JPEG 2000 - Bringing Flexibility to Digital Cinema
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by Pascal Pellegrin, François-Olivier Devaux and Pedro Correa
After a long birth we can now safely assume that digital cinema is with us to stay, bringing the best picture quality to cinemas. Among the numerous changes required to revolutionize the cinema industry is the need for video compression. Despite the recognition of MPEG standards, JPEG 2000 has been chosen to fulfil this task thanks to its scalability and compression quality. Licence-free and based on the wavelet technology, this format is bringing flexibility to digital cinema.
WAGRIT: A Web-based Application for Agricultural and Environmental Monitoring
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by Umberto Amato, Maria Francesca Carfora and Paolo Colandrea
Recent results from the WAGRIT project (Web for AGRIculture and environmenT), funded by the Italian Space Agency, have seen the development of algorithms for the classification and segmentation of remotely sensed images. The goal is to provide a client-server Internet application for agricultural monitoring of cultivated areas, exploiting remotely sensed high spectral resolution images.
Mathematics Makes Waves
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by Argiris I. Delis, Serafim Poulos, Nikolaos A. Kampanis and Costantin E. Synolakis
Waves represent a driving force affecting coastal and urban areas. Mathematical models and their computational counterparts can provide simulation and forecasting tools that help us study their behaviour. FORTH-IACM is participating in European projects that are working to forecast the behaviour and effects of flood waves and tsunamis. This involves both exploiting and further developing existing simulation expertise and experience in field measurements and observation methods. These are envisaged to be a necessary complement to high-fidelity mathematical models.
Maths in Flood Protection
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by Jörg-Volker Peetz, Barbara Steckel and Norman Ettrich
The 2002 flooding of the Elbe River in Dresden, Germany, showed that apart from the obvious destruction caused by surface water, considerable damage was caused by groundwater and water from the sewer system. Groundwater levels can rise quickly due to overflowing sewers or above-ground flow, causing basement flooding and structural damage to houses. Thus, a coupled simulation of the three components - surface water, groundwater and the sewer system - is important for flood risk management.
Clouds by Chance: Improving Atmosphere Models with Random Numbers
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by Daan Crommelin
The performance of numerical models that simulate atmosphere and oceans is essential to weather prediction and climate research, both of which are topics of obvious societal relevance. In the past, the quality of weather forecasts and climate simulations has increased thanks to several developments. Increases in computer power, more detailed observations concerning the state of the atmosphere and oceans, and theoretical advances in the formulation of numerical models have all contributed to the better performance of weather and climate simulations.
Maths Improves Quality of Life: An Early-Warning System for Environmental Effects on Public Health
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by Panagiotis T. Nastos, Nikolaos A. Kampanis, George Kochiadakis, Panagiotis Vardas and Kostas I. Strataridakis
Air pollution and weather have an impact on public health through their effects on the respiratory and cardiovascular system. An early-warning system can be operated where mathematical simulations, forecasting and statistical tools are able to exploit measurements and observations. It is expected that our system will cooperate with the weather-monitoring network of the Natural Disasters & Risk Assessment Facility of the Region of Crete. A pilot study has been initiated by IACM-FORTH and the cardiology department at the University Hospital of Crete.
Computational Methods for More Fuel-Efficient Ships
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by Barry Koren
The flow of water around a ship powered by a combustion engine is a key factor in the ship's fuel consumption. The simulation of flow patterns around ship hulls is therefore an important aspect of ship design. While lengthy computations are required for such simulations, research by Jeroen Wackers and Barry Koren has shown that these computations can be conducted with much greater speed.
Challenges for Societal Logistics
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by Rob van der Mei
Over the past few decades, information and communication technology has affected everyday life and changed our society dramatically. Today, our service-oriented economy largely depends on the proper planning of societal processes, including for example healthcare logistics, traffic and railroad planning, and capacity planning of communication systems. This has created the need for in-depth knowledge about societal logistics, the proper planning of societal processes.
Interactive Optimization with DesParO
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by Daniela Steffes-lai, Clemens-August Thole, Igor Nikitin and Lialia Nikitina
Product optimization is an important step in the process of product development. How does the behaviour of a product change when certain parameters are varied? The answer is given by the optimization environment DesParO.
Who Rated What? A Recommender System Benchmark Winner Report
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by András A. Benczúr and Miklós Kurucz
Recommender systems suggest products, movies, books or news articles based on earlier behaviour such as the known ratings of users. The recommender system of the Data Mining and Web Search Group of SZTAKI recently won a major recommender benchmarking competition, Task 1 of the KDD Cup 2007.
Trading Sugar Beet Quotas - Secure Multiparty Computation in Practice
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by Ivan Damgård and Tomas Toft
Information is a valuable resource in modern society and confidentiality is thus an important issue. However, it is often possible to obtain significant added value by combining information from different sources. A fascinating question is whether it might be possible to obtain the advantages of sharing information without the costs of unwanted leakages. Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is yes, and the solution involves a combination of computer science, mathematics and information economics. We present the first real application of techniques from the Danish research project Secure Information Management and Processing (SIMAP), in which the authors have been involved.
Mathematics and Social Science: A Statistical Mechanics Approach to Immigration
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by Pierluigi Contucci and Cristian Giardina
Is modern science able to study social matters like those related to immigration phenomena on solid mathematical grounds? Can we for instance determine cultural robustness and the causes behind abrupt changes from cultural legacies? Can we predict, cause or avoid swings? A novel approach is under investigation using the statistical mechanics formalism devised for the study of phase transitions in physics.
The Future of Mathematics Education in Europe
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by Olga Caprotti and Mika Seppälä
The level of education of their workforces determines the success of nations in global competition. Quantitative reasoning and the ability to apply mathematical methods in general will be the most important components in the skill set of tomorrow's workforce, meaning mathematics education has great strategic importance. The question of how to educate more people in mathematics, preferably with fewer resources, is an equation that cannot be solved by mathematics alone: computer science and linguistics are also needed. The WebALT eContent project has developed solutions that automate parts of mathematics instruction. Automation is the only way to improve the delivery of education, and to offer the opportunity to learn to everybody.
Mathematics is Accessible!
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by Juha Oikkonen
All mathematicians know that mathematics is accessible - for themselves. But how about other people?
The success of our children in their mathematics studies is not always satisfactory. It is also widely known that many obstacles prevent the recruitment of new students into mathematics courses and hinder them in getting started with their studies. (An international survey group is looking at this situation and will report at the next International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME) to be held this year in Mexico.)
The Continuum Hypothesis: A Mystery of Mathematics?
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by Matteo Viale
The continuum is arguably the most fundamental object in all of mathematics. It is the concept behind virtually all measurements. But how many real numbers are there? How many points are on a line in Euclidean space? This is one of the great mysteries of mathematics, and it can be proven to be a mystery: by the work of Cohen in 1963, the methods sufficient for 'everyday mathematics' are inadequate for solving this problem. Here we report recent progress on this question.
Towards a Cooperation with the European Mathematical Societey
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by Keith Jeffery
With the jointly edited special theme of this issue on 'Mathematics for Everyday Life', ERCIM and the European Mathematical Society are publicly launching a relationship that is expected to evolve into a joint programme of activities, and also to strengthen the 'M' in ERCIM.
Evol@Mons 2008 - Doctoral Research Seminar on Software Evolution
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by Tom Mens and Lionel Seinturier
In February and March 2008, two ERCIM member institutes, INRIA and FNRS, organized a doctoral research seminar on software evolution and adaptive middleware. The seminar, held under the auspices of the ERCIM Working Group on Software Evolution, was targeted at Belgian and French PhD students with a strong interest in software engineering.
Facilitating and Fostering ICT Cooperation between Europe and India
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Announcement
ERCIM is participating in the 'Euro-India ICT Cooperation Initiative' (EuroIndia), a European project addressing strategic goals to identify and sustain European Union and Indian research and technology development (RTD) potential. Key objectives include the mapping of ICT research and innovation activities across India, a survey of Indian ICT R&D players, and the dissemination of European funding opportunities to Indian ICT players through information days.
IM2IM Working Group Workshop on Modelling and Simulations in Health
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by Marc Thiriet
The annual workshop of the ERCIM Working Group 'IT and Mathematics applied to Interventional Medicine' (IM2IM) was held on 21-25 October 2007 at the National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei, Taiwan.
Novel Database for Genetic and Epigenetic Mechanisms in Colon Cancer
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by Heather Ruskin, Ana Barat and Ludmila Sarbu
In research on cancer development, alterations in genetic regulatory pathways have attracted more attention than less well-known epigenetic modifications, (eg in DNA methylation, imprinting and chromatin). All are common in cancer, and cause altered gene expression in neoplastic events. Current literature on genetic-epigenetic interactions is largely qualitative and lacks systematic organisation. A novel database is being designed and implemented to provide a way to organise expanding knowledge on genetic-epigenetic interactions, to address key biomedical questions.
An Agent-Based Approach to Modelling Microbial Ecosystems
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by James T. Murphy, Ray Walshe and Marc Devocelle
A parallel agent-based model of bacterial population growth, called Micro-Gen, has been developed to simulate the complex interactions between individual bacterial cells and antibiotics within a microbial colony. It represents a unique quantitative tool that has the potential to inform the development of antibiotic treatment strategies against harmful microbial pathogens such as MRSA.
Web Services for Accessing Explicit State Space Verification Tools
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by María del Mar Gallardo, Christophe Joubert, Pedro Merino and David Sanán
Formal verification tools generally require users to deal with tedious and time-consuming installation, licensing issues, configuration, documentation, frequent updates and other hardware-related issues. This is the case even if all that is required is a quick check of a tool's adequacy for solving specific a problem. A current joint effort inside the ERCIM Working Group on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems (FMICS) is promoting the use of an electronic tool integration (ETI) platform that allows remote connection through Web services to widespread and numerous verification toolboxes, among them Construction and Analysis of Distributed Processes (CADP).
Plug and Play with FMICS-jETI: Beyond Scripting and Coding
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by Christian Kubczak, Tiziana Margaria, Ralf Nagel and Bernhard Steffen
The aim of new technology in software analysis is to save time and money and to help organizations and businesses carry out their core topics and processes more effectively. Whether compliance, governance, auditing, risk management or optimization, any theme that targets quality and efficiency in businesses and organizations relies on software and IT platforms to ensure a fast and accurate response. The FMICS-jETI platform makes this as easy as a plug-and-play solution.
Assisting the Design of an Industrial Groupware System by Model Checking
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by Maurice ter Beek, Stefania Gnesi, Diego Latella, Mieke Massink, Maurizio Sebastianis and Gianluca Trentanni
Researchers from the Formal Methods and Tools group of ISTI-CNR and think3, Inc. are collaborating on the application of formal modelling and verification techniques to enhance think3's Product Data Management (PDM) groupware application.
A Banking Server's Display on your Key Chain
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by Michael Baentsch, Peter Buhler, Reto Hermann, Frank Höring, Thorsten Kramp and Thomas Weigold
Hackers are becoming increasingly inventive in their schemes to attack financial transactions on the Internet. Internet banking systems are a particularly attractive target, so it is mainly this application at which work in the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory is aimed, with the invention and implementation of 'ZTIC', the Zone Trusted Information Channel. Its success is the result of establishing a secure channel between a server and a ZTIC connected to a user's PC.
MeshLab: an Open-Source 3D Mesh Processing System
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by Paolo Cignoni, Massimiliano Corsini and Guido Ranzuglia
MeshLab is a free and open-source general-purpose mesh processing system designed to assist in the management of not-so-small, unstructured 3D models that typically occur in the pipeline when processing 3D scanned data in the context of Cultural Heritage. MeshLab provides a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering and converting the resulting meshes.
Real-time Tracking of Sound Parameters in a Multimedia System
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by Graziano Bertini, Gianfranco Lucia, Simone Lunardi and Massimo Magrini
Modern multimedia performances and presentations offer innovative methods for user interaction, in order to be more appealing to the audience. Following this trend and in collaboration with VIS S.r.l. (an SME in Rome), the Institute of Information Sciences and Technology (ISTI-CNR) has developed a system called Pandora, which controls real-time video effects applied to filmed or synthesized scenes by means of parameters extracted from sound signals. The system can be used both for artistic interactive multimedia performances and also for other non-artistic applications
RubberEdge: Improved Interaction with Mobile Devices via Elastic-Edged Touchpads
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by Géry Casiez and Daniel Vogel
By adding an elastic input area near the edge of input devices such as touchpads, RubberEdge enhances their performance. This helps users to select objects more quickly that are beyond the reach of a single finger movement on the touchpad surface.
Towards the Creation of a Robust Search Index for Digitalized Documents
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by László Kovács, Máté Pataki, Tamás Füzessy and Zoltán Tóth
The simultaneous support of electronic and paper-based document handling is a natural demand of current filing and document management systems. To support the better management of search and retrieval functions and to reduce the high costs of digitizing, the Department of Distributed Systems of SZTAKI analysed the different kinds of error that emerged during the digitization process of Hungarian documents, and examined how these errors affect the searchability of the digitized items. For this reason, a testbed was set up that was suitable for the automatic analysis of digitized texts in a large corpus, and the conclusions and statistics obtained from the analysis were employed in the development of new content management products. The primary beneficiaries of these are civil service and higher-education bodies.
Enhanced, Ubiquitous and Dependable Broadband Access using MESH Networks
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by Vasilios Siris, Ioannis G. Askoxylakis, Marco Conti and Raffaele Bruno
The reduction of network deployment and operation costs and the integration of wireless access networks with fixed broadband access technology are crucial to allowing small and medium-scale enterprises to enter the high-growth potential mobile broadband access market, and for the introduction of innovative services that require pervasive broadband access.
This is the focus of the thirty-month EC-funded project EU-MESH (Enhanced, Ubiquitous and Dependable Broadband Access using MESH Networks), which commenced in January 2008 and is targetting the objective 'Network of the Future' of ICT's 'Pervasive and Trusted Network and Service Infrastructures' challenge.
Establishing the First European Research WiMAX Testbeds
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by Kostas Pentikousis, Marilia Curado, Pedro Miguel Neves and Marcos Katz
The WEIRD (WiMAX Extension to Isolated Research Data Networks) project is unique in the European R&D scene: by the end of May 2008, WEIRD will deliver not one but four WiMAX testbeds, all interconnected via GEANT2, the pan-European research and education network. By combining theoretical methods with empirical research and prototype development, the project identifies and addresses the needs arising from a variety of scenarios, ranging from environmental monitoring to telemedicine. WiMAX has been much touted (and criticized) during the last years. The WEIRD testbeds are instrumental in separating hype from reality.
Car-Recycling SME Network with Agent-Based Solutions
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by György Kovács and Géza Haidegger
Given that they are crucial in achieving global sustainable development through the saving of primary materials and in diminishing global pollution, the processes of industrial recycling and reuse urgently need advanced ICT networking technology. In the frame of the E-Mult project, the Computer Integrated Manufacturing Laboratory of SZTAKI and its cooperating partners have devised a set of advanced multi-agent solutions and an appropriate methodology with which to support the establishment and operation of dynamic networks of car-recycling SMEs.
Bridging the Gap between Distributed and Multi-Core Computing, and SOA and Grid Computing
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by Géraldine Cabannes
ActiveEon is a spin-off company from INRIA that provides support for the ProActive Parallel Suite® solution. Open and non-intrusive, this parallel computing solution can accelerate and scale up distributed applications, enabling greater business agility at lower cost. The solution provides a uniform parallel computing interface, independent of the underlying virtualized infrastructure, for better utilization of existing investments in PC desktops, multi-cores, servers, clusters and grids. ProActive is currently being used in INRIA's AGOS (Architecture Grid-Oriented Service) project.
EPOCH Final Event
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by Franco Niccolucci
The final event of the EPOCH European Network of Excellence in Open Cultural Heritage, held in Rome, 25-26 February, presented the main achievements of the project during its four years of activity.
SOFSEM 2008 Report
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by Viliam Geffert and Gabriel Semanisin
The 34th international SOFSEM 2008 conference was held in Nový Smokovec, High Tatras Slovakia on 19-25 January. It brought together professionals from academia and industry working in various areas of computer science and provided them an ideal framework for discussions, exchanging knowledge and practical experience and establishing personal contacts.
Scientific Collaboration between CWI and INRIA
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Announcement
CWI and INRIA already have well-established relations, notably through ERCIM. In October 2007 associations were strengthened when the two research institutes signed a special cooperation agreement. In 2008 they will start joint research projects in the fields of software service evolution and learning and computational economics. Typical problems that will be investigated are transformation of existing software to trustworthy software services and the optimalization of cost-benefit analysis in for instance patient planning. CWI researchers in Amsterdam will closely work together with INRIA researchers based at the new research centre INRIA Lille-Northern Europe. The projects will initially be carried out at CWI, but as things progress the cooperation could be extended to joint projects in France as well.
Adam Dunkels receives Chester Carlson Prize
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Dr. Adam Dunkels, senior scientist at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science, has been awarded the 2007 Chester Carlson Prize, the most prestigious prize for the information sciences in Sweden, for his prominent work on network-connectivity for small, low-cost embedded systems. The Chester Carlson Prize was founded in 1985 in memory of Chester Carlson, the Swedish-American inventor of the copying machine and founder of the Xerox Corporation. The prize winner is selected by Xerox and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. The prize sum is 100,000 SEK (Euro 10,600).
Günter Ziegler wins the Communicator Prize 2008
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Günter Ziegler from TU Berlin received the Euro 50.000 award of the Donors' Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities in Germany (Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) for his outstanding achievements in relating his work (discrete mathematics) to the public.