SADCO Newsletter - Issue 1 - July 2011

Recruitment

Up to 18 PhD and 7 postdoctoral fellowships will be funded by the EU 7th framework Marie Curie programme through the SADCO Initial Training network.

11 PhD students and postdocs have joined the SADCO project since January 2011.

The network currently welcomes applications for the following positions:

• PhD positions:

Multiscale optimal control and stochastic problems (University of Padova)

Differential Games and Robust Nonlinear Controller Design (Imperial College London)

Feedback controls and optimal trajectories (Inria, France)

• Postdoc positions:

First order conditions under state constraints(UPMC)

Control theory in classical mechanics (University of Padova) 

Higher order optimality conditions and numerical validation of local optimality (Imperial College London) 

Additional positions will be published in the coming months

Upcoming network-wide events

Network-wide activities are part of the SADCO programme and complement research and training activities carried out at member organisations. They include research workshops and conferences, industrial workshops and summer schools which. Unless otherwise specified, they are open to external participants.

• Invited Session "Control of Systems under State Constraints", 18th IFAC world congress, 28/08/2011-02/09/2011, Milan, Italy

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This session brings together researchers investigating control systems under state constraints by means of a range of modern methods (e.g. non-smooth analysis, differential games, viscosity solutions of Hamilton-Jacobi equations, level set methods). Papers presented in this session will reflect recent progress.
Organizer: Hélène Frankowska (UPMC), Co-organizer: Olivier Bokanowski (Paris Diderot University)

• SADCO Summer School and Workshop, 05-09/09/2011, London, UK

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This week-long Summer School in Optimal Control is primarily a training activity for participants in the SADCO Marie Curie ITN. But it is also aimed at benefiting the broader research community through transfer of knowledge, and will be open to a limited number of researchers not having a formal connection with SADCO.
The first three days will be devoted to tutorial courses in different areas of optimal control and related analysis. In the remaining two days, young researchers will have the opportunity to present their work and interact with their peers, and to hear a number of research level presentations by prominent members of the field.
Organizers: Richard Vinter (Imperial College), and Maria Rosario de Pinho (University of Porto).

Upcoming satellite events

Satellite events are events organised by one or several member organisations of the SADCO network in the main research fields of the SADCO project.

• CIME - Summer School "Hamilton-Jacobi equations: approximations, numerical analysis and applications", 29/08/2011 - 03/09/2011, Cetraro (Italy)

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Tutorials:
1. Models of mean field, Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman Equations and numerical methods (Yves Achdou)
2. First-order Hamilton-Jacobi Equations and Applications (Guy Barles)
3. Basic properties of viscosity solutions and some aspects of weak KAM theory (Hitoshi Ishii)
4. Idempotent/Tropical Analysis and the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman Equations (Grigory L. Litvinov)
5. Homogenization and Approximation for Hamilton-Jacobi equations (Panagiotis E. Souganidis)

Course Directors: Paola Loreti (Sapienza, Universita' di Roma); Nicoletta Anna Tchou (University of Rennes 1)

• INDAM workshop, Weak KAM, 11-17/09/2011, Cortona, Italy

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The aim of this workshop is to discuss the status, the perspectives and the applications of weak KAM theory including Hamiltonian dynamics, Hamilton-Jacobi equations, homogenization problems, stabilization problems, ergodic theory, mass transport.

Organisers : Albert Fathi (ENS Lyon); Antonio Siconolfi (La Sapienza-University of Rome) 

• 25th IFIP TC7 Conference on Systems Modeling and Optimization, Sept. 12-16 2011, Berlin, Germany

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Several minisymposia will be organized by participants to the SADCO network during the 25th IFIP TC7 Conference on Systems Modeling and Optimization held on Sept 12-16 2011 in Berlin, Germany.

• International Workshop "Metric Regularity Days", October 25th -26th 2011, UPMC, Paris

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Scientific Committee: A. Dontchev, H. Frankowska, M. Quincampoix

Other upcoming events of interest

• Austrian-French-German conference on Optimisation: September 19-23 2011, Toulouse, France

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The conference will consist of 9 invited plenary talks, 3 parallel contributed sessions, minisymposia and one poster session.

All aspects of optimization may be addressed. The special orientations of the AFG'11 are the following:

* optimization in aeronautical and space engineering,
* mathematical imaging,
* mathematics applied to economy.

• 50th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and European Control Conference and technical workshops, Dec. 11-15 2011, Orlando, Florida

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