AIMS South Africa Newsletter November 2023

[African Institute for Mathematical Sciences]

ATLAS Experiment management team visits AIMS   On Thursday, November 23, AIMS was honoured by a visit of the management team of the ATLAS Experiment, the biggest detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider: Andreas Hoecker, who is the current ATLAS Spokesperson, David Francis, the Resource Coordinator and Benedetto Gorini, the Upgrade Coordinator (upgrade refers to the R&D and construction of the next generation of particle detectors). They were accompanied by James Keaveney, the ATLAS Group leader at UCT.   AIMS Resident Researcher in Machine Learning, Claire David, an active member of the ATLAS collaboration since 2011, welcomed the guests together with AIMS Director Ulrich Paquet.   "We, ATLAS management, have all been extremely impressed by what is done at AIMS, the energy and thoroughness you are putting [...], and the exceptional opportunities that are offered to the students." Andreas Hoecker noted.  The connections between ATLAS and AIMS are likely to deepen in the future, from ATLAS collaborators among the invited lecturers to showcase experimental particle physics to related AIMS projects to get students involved in the science done at CERN!   After a tour of the premises, the guests had a lively exchange with the students in the AIMS main building lobby. CIMPA School 2023       The Blockchain in Theory and Real Applications School was held at AIMS South Africa from 20 November to 1 December 2023.   The opening ceremony was held on 24 November and special guests included Prof. Barry Green, Mr Jesús Silva Fernández, the Spanish General Consul and Prof. David Holgate, Chair of the AIMS Council. Guests had the chance to enjoy a performance from the Dutch opera singer, Amira Willlighagen.   The opening ceremony was held on 24 November and special guests included Prof. Barry Green, Mr Jesús Silva Fernández, the Spanish General Consul and Prof. David Holgate, Chair of the AIMS Council.      Guests had the chance to enjoy a performance from the Dutch opera singer, Amira Willlighagen.   Read more HeiAIMS Partnership Activities         Dr Michael Winckler (back) and Ms Sarah Steinbach (far right), both from the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), Heidelberg University visited AIMS South Africa during November as part of the HeiAIMS partnership's programme of activities.         From 20 to 23 November, Dr Winckler presented an Optimisation Bootcamp for AIMS students.        He also hosted a fun board games afternoon with AIMS staff on 21 November.        He presented a talk titled: ‘One (wo)man - one vote: The mathematics of voting and elections’ at an AIMS Public Lecture held on 23 November. The talk offered thought-provoking insights into the election process. Attendees included members of the public and AIMS students.   Read more   Workshop on Topology and Topological Groups     The third edition of this workshop was hosted at AIMS South Africa from 16 to 17 November 2023. The workshop was collaboratively organized by the research group in ‘Topology, Algebra and Dynamical Systems' of the University of Cape Town and the ‘Topology for Tomorrow’ Research Chair project of the University of the Western Cape. The main topics touched interactions between Topological Group Theory and Lie Theory.      Participants included students, academics and colleagues and was by invitation only.   Click here to view abstracts and slides from the workshop.   Machine Learning and Ecology Group Updates   Ufuk Çakır, Lorène Jeantet, Joel Lontsi, Albert Agisha and Emmanuel Dufourq presented their ongoing research at the Journal Club held on 7 November titled ‘Evolutionary Spectrogram Optimisation’.      They also took the opportunity to celebrate their time with Ufuk who visited AIMS South Africa for two months and added a lot of value to AIMS and their research group.   Ufuk noted, "My two months stay at AIMS has been the most rewarding, valuable and enriching time of my life so far. Not only have I learned so much in the academic context, but I have also had the opportunity to meet outstanding people, especially the students, whom I am happy to call my friends now. AIMS has a special place in my heart and I am more than happy to come back soon again, to continue this exciting journey."       Lorène Jeantet participated in the EarthRanger User Conference 2023 held in Cape Town. On 2, 3 and 4 November, she presented ‘Exploring the power of Deep Learning for Wildlife Monitoring’ for the Machine Learning Research Group.         ChatGPT was disruptive, swarms of AI agents will be revolutionary     Bruce Bassett, Head of the Cosmology Group in the AIMS Research Centre was one of the authors of this article which was published in the Daily Maverick on 13 November 2023.   Read more Research Student Updates   From 30 October to 3 November, Rockefeller, a PhD student in the AIMS South Africa Research Centre had the opportunity to deliver a 30-hour training on Data Preprocessing and Feature Engineering Techniques at Ecole Superieure de la Finance, de l'Assurance et du Risque (ESSFAR) in Yaoundé, Cameroon.     On the 16 and 17 November 2023, he gave a talk at the International Conference on Electrical, Computer, and Energy Technology (ICECET) in Cape Town.       This came after the latest paper on ‘Wind Power Prediction with HCNNs for Turbines’, jointly written with Dr Bubacarr Bah, Dr Hans-Georg Zimmermann, and Prof. Vukosi Marivate had been accepted.     From 20 to 24 November, he participated in the Global Fellows Programme 2023 in Kigali, Rwanda. The programme brought together PhD students from AIMS and Imperial College London to work together in interdisciplinary and international groups, assisted by coaches, to develop professional, research, and collaborative skills as well as raise the intercultural awareness that is required to establish and continue successful collaborations.    The participants applied their skills and competencies to address topics under the program theme of ‘African Data Science Solutions’.   Journal Club     On 14 November, Professors Corinne Manogue and Tevian Dray, from Oregon State University shared their expertise and insights on effective and innovative teaching methods through a presentation titled: ‘Pedagogical Representation.’    They gave a second talk on 20 November where they presented their studies in particle physics with a talk titled ‘Using Octonions to Describe the Standard Model of Particle Physics.’ The presentation was designed to be accessible for non-experts in particle physics, providing a valuable opportunity to explore the mathematics applied in this field.     Student Updates     Students completed the following courses: Cryptography (Jorge Urroz , Universidad Politécnica de Madrid); Problem-Solving in Physics: The Geometry of Electromagnetism (Tevian Dray & Corinne Manogue, Oregon State University); Algebra (Jacques Rabie, UCT ); and Physics (David Aschman, UCT).   AI stream students completed: Reinforcement Learning (Mehrdad Ghaziasgar, UWC); Physics for Machine learning (Hugo Touchette, SU) and Computer Vision (Willie Brink, SU).   A new era of sharing common pedagogical practices in higher education spaces     On 16 November 2023, Prof. Corinne Manogue and Prof. Tevian Dray of Oregon State University met with Dr Sinobia Kenny of AIMS to exchange experiences of pedagogical practices within their respective higher education spaces.   Read more Pedagogical approaches and strategies post-COVID-19     Post-COVID-19, higher education shifted from online back to face-to-face teaching, posing challenges in adapting course materials for both formats. This situation demands innovative pedagogical strategies to enhance student learning in this new era. For insights into effective teaching approaches that maximise student potential in these changing times, contact sin...@aims.ac.za or visit us at 7 Melrose Road, Muizenberg for guidance on designing and sequencing learning activities.     Teaching tip for lecturers!     Have you ever wondered how to engage your students with the content of your work? One way of engaging students is to examine the types of questions you ask students. Do you often ask questions that are closed? In other words, questions that have a definite answer. Changing how we ask questions allows students to explore different possibilities. It also interrogates their thinking! Changing What is ... questions to What if …., Why did you …., Convince me that …, are all open-ended questions that inform lecturers how well their students understand the content.           ANNOUNCEMENTS     Potential supervisors of AIMS South Africa structured Master's students are invited to submit research project topics.   Proposal submissions close on 1 February, but are reviewed by AIMS staff as they are submitted and so may be released earlier.   Read more       AIMS is turning 20, the German Research Chairs in Africa are turning 10, and the (DST-NRF) Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (CoE-MaSS) is turning 10! For more information and updates visit www.siyakhula.aims.ac.za   Read more     Applications for the January 2024 intake of the AIMS Structured Master’s in Mathematical Sciences is now open to students following the South African academic calendar (January to December). Preference will be given to South African nationals. Applicants should hold, or anticipate completing by the start date of the AIMS course, a 4-year university degree in mathematics, or any science or engineering subject with a significant mathematics component.   Read more     📅 13 February 2024   ⏰14:00 PM - 16:00 PM  (Lecture, Panel Discussion & Refreshments)      🏛️AIMS Lecture Hall    📌6 Melrose Road, Muizenberg, Cape Town 7950   Read more   Click here to unsubscribe from our mailing list.