Canadian delegation visit

Inside this issue:

Canadian delegation visit

1

Research and 1 Innovation meeting

Research Centre updates

2

Journal Club

2

Visiting researchers

2

Visits to South 2 African universities

Student updates

3

On 19 October 2015, a Canadian delegation from the Government of Ontario Province visited AIMS South Africa. They were taken on a tour of the facilities, given a presentation by Prof Barry Green, Prof Jeff Sanders and tutor, Ms Carime Umulisa, an AIMS alumnus from Rwanda. The delegation comprised: Dr Reza Moridi, Minister of Research and Innovation and Minister of Training, Colleges & Universities, Dr Cory Mulvihill, Chief of Staff, Ministry of Research and Innovation and Ministry of Training, Colleges & Universities, Mr Bill Mantel, Assistant Deputy Minister, Ministry of Research and Innovation, and Mr Lee Marsden, Senior Policy Advisor, Ministry of Research and Innovation and Mr Bradley Belanger, from the Canadian Embassy in Pretoria.

Mr Marsden, Dr Mulvihill, Mr Belanger, Dr Moridi, Prof Green, Prof Sanders, Mr Heerden (Director AIMS Industry Initiative) and Mr Mantel.

AIMS Research and Innovation Meeting AIMSSEC installs interactive whiteboards

3

FaSMeD update

3

Public lectures

3/4

Announcements

4

www.aims.ac.za

This meeting was held at AIMS South Africa from 5 to 9 October. The main purpose of the meeting was to develop a strategic plan for AIMS Research and the five year vision. Members of the AIMS Research and Innovation Committee who attended the meeting were: Prof. Barry Green, Prof. Jeff Sanders, Prof. Mama Foupouagnigni (Academic Director, AIMS Cameroon) Prof. Francis Allotey (President, AIMS Ghana), Prof. Mark Roberts (Rector, AIMS Tanzania) and Prof. Moustapha Fall (Endowed Humboldt Research Chair, AIMS Sénégal and Dr Rosita Yocgo (Research Manager, AIMS-NEI).

They were joined by Prof. Bruce Bassett, (Senior Resident Researcher, AIMS South Africa), Dr Wilfred Ndifon and Dr Gaston Mazandu (IDRC-funded Junior Research Chairs, AIMS South Africa/AIMS Ghana), Dr Simukai Utete (Senior Resident Researcher,

AIMS South Africa) Ms Lynne Texeira (Research Manager; AIMS South Africa), Ms Saleema Khimji (Business Development Analyst; AIMS), Mr Mark Heerden (Director, AIMS Industry Initiative) and Mr Michael Kateregga (Research Assistant, AIMS-NEI).

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Research Centre updates New postdoctoral fellows AIMS South Africa welcomed two new postdoctoral fellows: Dr Solomon Akaraka Owerre, an AIMS alumnus, whose research field is quantum condensed matter. This is a joint postdoctoral fellowship with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (1 year), the National Institute for Theoretical Physics (6 months) and AIMS South Africa (6 months). Dr Siyabonga Chule, is the new postdoctoral fellow in Financial Mathematics.The focus of Dr Chule's research is on the incompleteness of financial market models. He will be studying the risk - minimization hedging strategies and the numerical computations of the strategies under the Heston's stochastic volatility model.

Journal Club On 5 October 2015, Dr Maria Vivien Visaya, Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics, University of Johannesburg, gave a talk in the Journal Club titled: “Dynamics from Binary Multivariate Longitudinal Data.” Dr Visaya

On 6 October, Prof Karl-Dieter Crisman, Gordon College, gave a general talk to students and researchers titled: “Information from Graphs in Voting Theory.” Prof. Crisman

New PhD student Ms Elsa Zekeng a PhD student affiliated to the University of Liverpool will be based at AIMS South Africa for two days a week. She is completing an internship jointly with Dr Gaston Mazandu, IDRC Junior Research Chair in the AIMS Research Centre and Dr Nicola Mulder at UCT.

Visiting Researchers Visiting Research Fellow, Dr Serge Yanga, affiliated with the Felix Houphouet-Boigny University in Abidjan will be visiting AIMS South Africa from 15 October until 15 December 2015. Dr Yanga is a member of the "Environmental Fluids Dynamics" Research Team of the Mechanics' Lab at the University. The team focuses on Mathematical and Numerical models dealing with numerous environmental problems that African countries encounter. Mr Zacharie Djoufack, affiliated with the University of Yaounde, Cameoon, started his visit on 21 October. He is working on research titled "Quantum Signatures of Breathers in an Anisotropic Ferro Magnet with Octuple-Dipole and nearest and next-nearest neighbours Interactions." Mr Djoufack also has research experience in phase transition in binary alloys and conception and realisation of web applications in telecommunications. He will be here until 17 November 2015.

On 20 October 2015, Mr Evans Otieno Ochiaga, AIMS, gave a talk in the Journal Club titled: “Occupancy and Scaling Diversity.” Mr Ochiaga

On 27 October 2015, Mr David Sena Attipoe, AIMS, gave a talk in the Journal Club titled: “Numerical Techniques for Pricing American Put Options.”

Mr Attipoe

Visits to South African universities

Seminar On 8 October 2015, Prof. Moustapha Fall, the Endowed Chair in Mathematics and its Applications at AIMS Sénégal, funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Founation, gave a seminar to the students titled “Optimal shapes in nature and their applications.”

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Prof. Sanders with students at the University of Venda

From 12 to 14 October, Prof Jeff Sanders, Academic Director at AIMS South Africa went on a tour of some South Africa

universities to give talks to students about AIMS. He spoke at the following universities: Wits, Limpopo and Venda.

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Student news

FaSMeD update The Formative Assessment in Science and Mathematics Education (FaSMEd) project is an international research project funded by the European Union. It involves eight European partners and one African partner, AIMSSEC, and runs from January 2014 to December 2016 (three years).

Students with lecturers in the entrepreneurial skills course.

The August intake have completed the following skills courses: Experimental Mathematics with Sage (Karl-Dieter Crisman, Gordon College) and Statistics and Probability (Madeleine Cule, Google) and Mathematical Problem Solving (Stephan Wagner and Dimbinaina Ralaivaosaona, Stellenbosch University).

The August and January intake also completed the Entrepreneurial Skill course given by Jonathan Marks (GIBS) and Mark Heerden (Director, AIMS Industry Initiative). The January intake submitted their research projects on 30 October 2015.

During 2015 the main focus of FaSMEd's work in South Africa has been on working with teachers to develop and try out new approaches to teaching mathematics. These would generally be described as 'active learning' or 'student-centred' approaches and in most cases within this project they involved learners working in small groups or pairs to match or sort small cards. Most of the 20 participat-

ing teachers taught three of these lessons, and afterwards the researchers interviewed them to gather their responses to the lessons. FaSMEd sees teachers as expert collaborators and their responses to the novel lessons they were asked to teach will be used in developing a toolkit of classroom resources and professional development materials. Over the 2015 school year, the teachers and the AIMSSEC team met once a term, after the lessons had been tried out in classrooms, to discuss the emerging themes and lessons learnt. The third and final cluster meeting was hosted at Fairmount Secondary School in Grassy Park on 15 October 2015.

Participants at the third and final cluster meeting which was hosted at Fairmount Secondary School in Grassy Park.

Public lectures Madeleine Gule

Stephan Wagner

AIMSSEC installs an interactive whiteboard With the rampant growth of digital learning AIMSSEC continues to strive to be the epitome of excellence in education through the integration of the latest technologies in global education. Following the recent partnership with North West University AIMSSEC has just installed an Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) full house system. Running on the latest edition of the Smart Technology Software, Smart Notebook 15, this system will mainly serve the teacher training distance learning programme and will go a long way in bringing out the classroom interactivity and learner-

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centred approach AIMSSEC stands for. The IWB is a step-up to the telematic broadcasts since it allows for two-way communication, and it allows for teachers to use the Smart Technology Software to engage with mathematics, not only the lecturer. We look forward to working alongside many teachers to use and demonstrate this excellent tool. MacDonald Chapwanya, a lecturer at AIMSSEC is leading on the project and delivered the first training session on 23 October 2015 to the AIMSSEC team.

AIMS South Africa in association with the Muizenberg Festival and the Zandvlei Trust hosted two public lectures. The first on 7 October was by Dr Ian McCallum, a psychiatrist, analytical psychologist, adjunct professor at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Graduate School of Business in Port Elizabeth and an honorary lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cape Town. His talk was titled: “Zandvlei – The Geography of Identity.” On 8 October, Ms Loubie Rusch, a landscape designer by trade, passionate about indigenous food, gave a talk titled: “Growing a taste for Veldkos getting to know, grow and use indigenous food plants.”

Dr McCallum

Ms Rusch

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Public lectures continued... On 27 October 2015, Prof. Alan R Kay, Dept. Biology, University of Iowa gave a talk titled: “Biology & Mathematics the unbreakable link.” Prof Kay discussed how verbal accounts of biological processes, however detailed, often remain incomplete and unsatisfactory. But mathematical models can go beyond what can be said in words. He used the example of cell size regulation to explore this further.

Workshops Prof Kay

Announcements German Research Chair in "Mathematics with Specialization in Data Science" of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation - at AIMS South Africa The call addresses highly qualified academics from any country who conduct application-related research in the field of mathematics with specialisation in data science, have experience in training students and doctoral candidates and possess recognisable leadership potential. There will only be one call for the research chair at AIMS South Africa. The deadline for application is15 January 2016. Applications received late can only be considered subject to prior agreement. For more information and to apply please visit https:// www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/research-chair-aims-southafrica.html Fellowships for visiting researchers The AIMS South Africa Research Centre offers a variety of fel-lowships for visiting researchers. Interested researchers may apply to visit for short (2-week) or longer periods. Research fel-lows may conduct their own research at AIMS, participate in the teaching programmes and give talks in the journal club. Visits to local universities can be arranged. For more information please visit https://www.aims.ac.za/en/research-centre/fellowships Resident Researcher in Mathematical Finance AIMS South Africa Research Centre AIMS South Africa is seeking to appoint a Resident Researcher in Mathematical Finance, who will contribute to the growth and development of this exciting area. The successful candidate will have a doctorate in the mathematical or physical sciences, a solid, growing research record and a good international profile, as well as the ability to supervise and communicate with students and young researchers. Enquiries: AIMS Research Manager, Ms Lynne Teixeira [email protected] For more details and information on how to apply please visit https://www.aims.ac.za/en/opportunities/vacancies/residentresearcher-in-mathematical-finance

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Project Accountant AIMS South Africa is seeking to appoint a Project Accountant, who will be responsible for the day-to-day performance and monitoring of project accounting functions, to ensure that grants are managed and accounted for in an effective and sustainable manner, in accordance with organisational policy and procedures, and donor requirements. This is a full-time, one-year contract position with the possibility of extension. Closing date for applications: 13 November 2015 For more information please visit https://www.aims.ac.za/en/ opportunities/vacancies/project-accountant

Workshop on Quadratic Differentials 4-8 January 2016 This workshop will be hosted at AIMS South Africa and is being done in partnership with the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI). Holomorphic differentials on Riemann surfaces have long held a distinguished place in several areas of low dimensional geometry, dynamics and representation theory. More recently they have emerged in intriguing ways in the study of billiards in polygons, special (so-called Hitchin) components of representation varie-ties, stability conditions on Fukaya-type categories, spectral net-works, and asymptotic properties of Higgs bundle moduli spaces. This workshop will bring together a small number of experts at the forefront of these diverse areas to explore common themes and in particular to investigate the use of techniques that could potentially cross disciplinary boundaries. For more information please visit https://www.aims.ac.za/en/ research-centre/workshops-conferences/currentfuture/quadraticdifferentials-workshop The 9th Summer School in Mathematical Finance will bring to South Africa several leading academic exponents of the fast-growing field of Mathematical Finance, and presents a unique opportunity to local practitioners, academics and students to interact with international leaders in research on topics and modelling techniques current in the South African and international financial markets. It will be hosted at AIMS South Africa from 18 to 20 February 2015. Confirmed Speakers: Prof. Erik Schlögl, Dr John Schoenmakers, Prof. Michael Sørensen For more information and to register please click here Global change impact on diseases and alien species expansion workshop This capacity building workshop will be held at AIMS South Africa from 2 to 6 May 2016. The workshop is mostly aimed at young researchers and postgraduate students, with a majority coming from Africa. International experts from around the world will give the minicourses and lectures and will lead the working groups. There will be a limited number of contributed talks and a poster session. For more information and to register please click here. Applications: are now open. Please click here to complete the form. Administration and logistics: Rene January [email protected] Programme or scientific queries: [email protected]

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