Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica

In emergencies, such as cardiac arrest 🚑 or a fire, volunteers sometimes arrive faster on scene than professional first responders. CWI researcher Rob van der Mei is investigating how to optimally deploy volunteers in emergency situations. How many volunteers do you need and where do you need them the most? Rob works with Caroline Jagtenberg from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Pieter van den Berg from Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. They received a €500,000 grant from TKI DINALOG. In an earlier study that lead to this cooperation, Rob worked together with Brandweer Amsterdam-Amstelland, which has the ambitious plan to recruit 100,000 volunteers. This could cut the response time in an emergency 🚒 - eight minutes on average -🚒 by four minutes(!), Rob calculated. With half the number of volunteers the response time still drops with three minutes and 26 seconds ⏱. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 👉 https://bit.ly/4clL0FE

📣 Benjamin Sanderse and Nikolaj Takata Mücke of CWI's Scientific Computing group have been awarded a AiNed XS Europa funding for generative #AI for realistic physics simulations. In this project a physics-aware generative AI model capable of generating physics simulations will be developed in collaboration with the Imperial College London; I-X Centre for AI in Science and the Technical University of Munich (TUM); School of Computation, Information and Technology. 🔗 Read more about the awarded project on cwi.nl: https://lnkd.in/eC4WqHbb Clouds photo: Shutterstock/Issaro Prakalung

📢 We are thrilled to announce that Marcin Zukowski has been elected for our 2024 Dijkstra Fellowship! 🎉With this honorary title 🏅, CWI recognizes his pioneering role in the development of database management systems with great societal impact, and his successful entrepreneurial career. “Marcin is an excellent example of how to apply CWI's mission in practice. He used his PhD research at CWI to create versatile foundational software products that are now widely used, and shares his knowledge and experience with the public and in particular with young technology entrepreneurs”, CWI director Ton De Kok says. 📅 Save the Date: 𝗧𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝟮𝟭 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 📅 Join us as we celebrate Marcins achievements. Details about speakers and the program will be announced later this year. More information on Marcin and the Dijkstra Fellowship: https://bit.ly/45F3Wg4 #DijkstraFellowship #Innovation #DatabaseManagement

𝐔𝐧𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐱-𝐚𝐥𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐦 The most popular optimization method is an #algorithm, developed in 1947. Why is it still so successful? CWI researchers were able to shed some light on the matter. Despite decades of explosive growth in computing power, it is still this 1947 Simplex-algorithm that is the most successful for optimizing logistical problems. It is widely applied in areas ranging from manufacturing and transport to telecommunication. And the mystery is that no one can put their finger on theoretical reasons why this algorithm is so successful in practice. But over the past few years, CWI researchers have been able to shed some light on the matter, building on earlier work of American mathematicians. CWI researcher Daniel Dadush, leader of the Networks & Optimization group at CWI and professor at Utrecht University, realized that trying to shed some light on the mysteries of the Simplex algorithm was high risk, high gain research. But together with Sophie Huiberts, who worked first as a master student and later as a PhD student, he decided to take the risk, in the spirit of CWI’s long term mission. 🔗 Read more about how they put the puzzle together in the story on our website: https://lnkd.in/eesCT3Q6

Registration is open for the autumn school 🍁🍂 🏫 within the CWI Semester Program 'Uncertainty Quantification for High-Dimensional Problems'! Confirmed lecturers 📢 are Claudia Schillings (Freie Universität Berlin), Derek Groen (Brunel University London), Robert Scheichl (Universität Heidelberg), Elisabeth Ullmann (Technical University of Munich) and Wouter Edeling (CWI). It will be a hands-on autumn school with an accompanying #hackathon. Topics are: 🍃 (High-dimensional) forward uncertainty propagation 🍃 Inverse UQ and data assimilation 🍃 UQ software and HPC scalability More information and registration: https://bit.ly/4e2Dsc5

Tiny organisms called foraminifera 🔬 can tell us a lot about the effects of climate change. They are responsible for about 20% of global carbonate production and are found in coral reefs, for example. It was great that our Computational Imaging group and the FleX-ray lab were able to help Naturalis Biodiversity Center Nederland collect data on these single-celled organisms! #flexraylab #climatechange

Interested in learning about some of the results out of the Quantum Application Lab? Take a look here: https://lnkd.in/gtrnmrpg

Just out, the ComputerWeekly.com interview by Kim Loohuis with Jurgen Vinju and y.t. on why we need to invest in Cobol expertise: Cobol runs society's critical financial infrastructure, we need to keep it running, or design careful paths for migration. It's all about knowledge! /cc Alexandra van Huffelen, Frits Grotenhuis, VEReniging Software Engineering Nederland NWO (Dutch Research Council) https://lnkd.in/esvujgji

Postdoc Manel Slokom has won the first prize 🏆 in the 2024 IAOS Young Statisticians competition, congratulations 🎉! An international panel chose the paper she wrote together with Jel Vankan and Peter-Paul de Wolf out of 23 submissions from 21 different countries 🗺. Papers were assessed for their scientific/strategic merit, originality, applicability in statistical offices and quality of exposition. It is the first time the Netherlands won the first prize from the International Association for Official Statistics - IAOS. The winning paper is titled ‘From COACH to COACH+: Automating Output Checking with Human-in-the-Loop’. Slokom wrote it when working part time at CWI at the Human-Centered Data Analytics group and at Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek.

👀 👗From 26-28 June 2024, the social VR installation "Fashion Beneath the Skin", developed by partners of #5Dculture, will be on display at Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid (Sound & Vision) in Hilversum, The Netherlands. This installation immerses visitors into an innovative #VR experience. Together you view a virtual exhibition with digitized versions of garments from the archives of the Centraal Museum Utrecht, Kunstmuseum Den Haag and Zaans Museum, supplemented with archive material from the Sound & Vision collection. A highlight of this installation is its demonstration of advanced VR technology. Thanks to the volumetric video setup, developed by research institute Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (Distributed & Interactive Systems Group (DIS) | Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) led by Pablo César), two remote visitors can simultaneously explore the virtual exhibition. This setup uses several RGB-D cameras to create highly realistic #3D representations of participants in real-time, allowing them to view digitized garments in detail together. 🔗 Read more (in Dutch) on the website of Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid: https://lnkd.in/eCepjkR8