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# News and Events

## EMALCA – Venezuela 2018, September 2-7, 2018

Universidad de Los Andes (ULA)

The EMALCA – Venezuela 2018 took place in the Universidad de Los Andes (ULA) from the 2nd September until the 7th September 2018 in Mérida, Venezuela. A total of 42 participants were registered: 28 undergraduate students, 10 graduate students, 2 postdoctoral fellows and 2 mathematics teachers from national universities, almost all from different cities of the country. The three scheduled courses were carried out as planned. Each course consisted of 7 sessions of 2 hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 am to 11 am, and Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 3 pm to 5 pm), Friday morning was dedicated to evaluation activities.
Course 1: Introducción a la solución numérica de ecuaciones no lineales.
Course 2: Programación Polar.
Course 3: Dinámica de cubrimientos del anillo.

For the scientific report go here.

## QUANTUM 60 - Colloquium on Algebras and Representations, December 10-14, 2018

Universities of Cordoba and La Plata

The Colloquium on Algebras and Representations Quantum 60 was held in the Casa Serrana Hotel, Huerta Grande, Córdoba from the 10. December until the 14. December 2018 in Córdoba, Argentinia. The meeting was in honour of Prof. Nicolás Andruskiewitsch 60th birthday, which motivated that many renowned mathematicians from Europe and the USA attended the colloquium. The lectures gave advanced, graduate and undergraduate students the opportunity to learn and familiarize with new contents in classical subjects in algebra as well as in diverse lines of research which are carried out by specialists. The “Quantum” meetings started in 1999, and since 2011 they take place every year in different locations of Argentina and, more recently, south America, such as the 2016 edition in Chile and 2014 in Brazil.

For the scientific report go here.

## WAMS-Control and Optimization with Industrial Applications, Iraq, December 19-29, 2018

West Asia mathematical Schools (WAMS)

The West Asia mathematical Schools (WAMS) organized the event “Optimization with Industrial Applications” from the 19. December until the 29. December 2018 in Erbil, Iraq. Optimal control is concerned with control laws which maximize a specified measure of adynamical system's performance. The course was a rigorous introduction to the classical theory of optimal control. The topics covered in this course included: optimization, the calculus of variations, Pontryagin's principle, dynamic programming, linear quadratic optimal control, delay differential equation and shape optimization. The school was inaugurated by a short opening session in which the University of Salaheddin was represented by Professor Herish, Dean of the College of Science. The session was followed by a conference of professor Nachaoui introducing many examples of industrial applications of optimal control and optimization. This motivated the introduction of various analysis tools for the study of these problems. The school's science program consisted of several one-and-a-half-hour sessions and several two hour practical sessions. Half-hour slots were also scheduled to allow participants who wished to present their work. Two talks were presented.

For the scientific report go here.

## NEW CALL OF THE BREAKOUT GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

NEW CALL OF THE BREAKOUT GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
OF THE IMU COMMISION FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The grants are addressed to students from developing countries that plan to complete a doctoral degree in mathematical sciences in a developing country. The 2019 call is open from February 11 to May 31 (9:00 am CET).

Thanks to a generous donation by the winners of the Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics – Ian Agol, Jean Bourgain, Simon Donaldson, Christopher Hacon, Maxim Kontsevich, Vincent Lafforgue, Jacob Lurie, James McKernan, Terence Tao and Richard Taylor – IMU with the assistance of FIMU (www.friends-imu.org) and TWAS (https://twas.org) is opening a new call of the IMU Breakout Graduate Fellowship program to support postgraduate studies, in a developing country, leading to a PhD degree in the mathematical sciences. The IMU Breakout Graduate Fellowships offers a limited number of complete grants, with duration of up to four years, for excellent students from developing countries to earn a doctoral degree.

Professional mathematicians are invited to nominate highly motivated and mathematically talented students from developing countries who plan to complete a doctoral degree in a developing country, including their own home country. Nominees must have a consistently good academic record and must be seriously interested in pursuing a career of research and teaching in mathematics.

For a nomination to be eligible, the country of citizenship of the student, the country of residency and the country where the study will take place must be contained in the list of Developing Countries as defined by IMU for the period 2016-2019. The complete list of countries can be consulted in https://www.mathunion.org/cdc/about-cdc/definition-developing-countries

More information on the program and the online nomination form can be consulted in
https://www.mathunion.org/cdc/scholarshipsgraduate-scholarships/imu-breakout-graduate-fellowship-program

*The International Mathematical Union (IMU) - www.mathunion.org - is an international non-governmental and non-profit scientific organization, with the purpose of promoting international cooperation in mathematics. The main objectives of the IMU are to promote international cooperation in mathematics, to support and assist the International Congress of Mathematicians and other international scientific meetings or conferences, and to encourage and support other international mathematical activities considered likely to contribute to the development of mathematical science in any of its aspects, pure, applied, or educational.

**The Friends of the IMU (FIMU) - www.friends-imu.org - is a non-profit corporation that supports the activities of the International Mathematical Union.

***The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) – for the advancement of science in developing countries – www.twas.org – is an autonomous international organization founded in Trieste, Italy, in 1983. TWAS represents the best of science in the developing world. Its principal aim is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable development in the South. Since 1986, TWAS has been supporting scientists and institutions in developing countries through a wide range of programmes that focus on scientific capacity building largely through South-South cooperation.

### INTERVIEW WITH THE FIRST PHD GRADUATE OF THE IMU-BGF PROGRAM

By Olga Gil-Medrano*.

Abebe Regassa Tufa is born in 1982 in Ethiopia. He graduated with Bachelor Degree in Mathematics at Bahir Dar University in 2004, where due to his excellent academic track was hired immediately afterwards as Graduate Assistant. His university has sponsored his formation in Addis Ababa University to obtain the MSc in 2008. Afterwards, he has been teaching as Lecturer again at Bahir Dar University until he decided in January 2014 to begin a research career entering the PhD program of the Botswana University. In 2016 he has been awarded the IMU Breakout Graduate Fellowship and in June 2018 he has obtained the PhD degree with a work entitled Approximating Solutions of Fixed Point, Variational Inequality and Hammerstein Type Equation Problems. The thesis has been developed in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Botswana, Gaborone and supervised by Prof. Habtu Zegeye Hailu (Botswana International University of Science and Technology) and co-supervised by Dr. Mosalagae Thuto (University of Botswana). Now he is back at the University of Bahir Dar where he is working as Assistant Professor.

Abebe R. Tufa is the first PhD graduate of the IMU-BGF program and I was willing to know more about his experience.

Olga Gil-Medrano: After ten years of teaching at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia, has it been difficult for you to take the decision of embark on a research career?

Abebe R. Tufa: No, it was not difficult for me to embark on a research career. After I joined the University of Botswana for my PhD study in 2014, I immediately engaged in research activities. The only problem was finance, which forced me to take part in teaching activities in the University, and made my project very slow in the first two years.

Why do you have chosen Botswana University for your PhD formation?

I have chosen University of Botswana because I wanted to do my PhD in fixed point theory under the supervision of Prof. Habtu Zegeye who I have known since 2003. He was my lecturer while I was undergraduate student at Bahir University and we were working together at the same University before he joined University of Botswana. Prof. Habtu is my role model and he is one of the prominent researchers in areas of fixed point theory in which I am very much interested. Moreover, University of Botswana is an international University, where researchers from the corners of the world are working together. These are the main reasons for me to choose University of Botswana.

During the two first years of PhD training it has been necessary for you to teach at the same time. After receiving the BGF you can work fulltime on research. Could you explain how this fact has influenced your results?

Yes, after I received the BGF, I was concentrating fully on my research work and able to finish my thesis project on time. From the thesis project, 5 papers were written after receiving the BGF fund. It was not possible for me to publish all this papers and to finish my PhD thesis on time if the BGF fund was not given to me.

You have finished your PhD last June. Which is your professional situation now and how do you think your expertise will benefit the mathematical development in your university and in your country, in general?

I am already back to Bahir Dar University and started working for the University as an assistant professor in the department of mathematics. Besides teaching, I will utilize the skills and the experience I got from the study to train and guide future professionals in the field of mathematical sciences. I am planning to supervise master’s students who are willing to pursue their study in my areas of specialization. Prof. Habtu Zegeye (my supervisor) and I are also planning to supervise PhD students in collaboration (Prof. Habtu as main supervisor and myself as co supervisor). Furthermore, I will work with research groups in mathematics and related fields to help my country through imparting the skills and the research experience that I have acquired during my PhD study. I will also organize workshops and conferences in different universities of the country in collaboration with research colleagues, so as to make the universities contribute to the scientific and technological development of the country.

How would you encourage Master students in developing countries to pursue a research path aiming for a PhD degree?

I think there are two main concerns for many Masters Students in developing countries to pursue a research path aiming for a PhD degree. The first one is the belief that PhD study is difficult. By the way, PhD study is a matter of having patience and commitment, besides identifying appropriate research area. Anyone can be successful in PhD study if she/he chooses the research project she/he is very much interested in and devoted to the study. To this end, students should believe that they can contribute to the scientific knowledge of the area they are interested in. The second concern is funding. This is a major concern for many students in developing countries. However, there are many types of funding available for graduate studies now days. So, students who are in need of funding for PhD study should look for and apply to many scholarships and fellowships to increase their chance of getting funds before they apply for admission to Universities.

The first cohort of BGF consists of two more students:  Do Thai Duong student at the Institute of Mathematics of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology and María Alejandra Rodríguez Luna student at Universidad del Valle, Colombia. By the beginning of 2019 IMU-CDC will open a new call to select the next awardees.

If you know an excellent student that you would like nominate for this fellowships you can find more information in https://www.mathunion.org/cdc/scholarships/graduate-scholarships/imu-breakout-graduate-fellowship-program

*O.G-M, retired Professor at the University of Valencia (Spain) is member of the Director’s Board of FIMU and Secretary for Policy of the IMU-Committee for Developing Countries.

### FROM THE IMU-Net 93: January 2019 Editorial: Breakout Graduate Fellowships

Editorial: Breakout Graduate Fellowships

We have been asked to report on the IMU’s relatively new Breakout Graduate Fellowships. These were an initiative of Ingrid Daubechies when she was President to support mathematics in developing countries. Mathematicians can play a vital role in the development of their countries, and Ingrid wanted to find a way that the IMU could foster the growth of a mathematically sophisticated workforce in these countries. This relies on having well trained mathematicians with research experience teaching in local universities. Training a research mathematician in the developed world is very expensive and increases the chance that he or she does not return to the developing world. On the other hand there are many places in the developing world that can provide a high quality education for PhD students at what is comparatively a very low cost. So Ingrid sought an endowment to provide fellowships for students from the developing world studying, perhaps elsewhere, in the developing world. It happened that the inaugural winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, the mathematics prize very generously funded by Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg, were simultaneously looking for a way to give a little back to mathematics and this seemed like a good match. Every winner of the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics has contributed to the Breakout Graduate Fellowship Fund, which has now raised $900,000. We very much hope that this tradition will continue, and indeed that the IMU and the Breakthrough Prize Foundation will find other ways to cooperate. It is not necessary to win a Breakthrough Prize to contribute! All contributions are greatly valued and can be sent to the Friends of the IMU: http://friends-imu.org/donate/. The fellowships can cover both living and tuition expenses, up to$10,000 a year for at most 4 years. The first competition was held in 2016 and awards were made to Do Thai Duong, who is studying complex analysis and geometry at Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology; Maria Alejandra Ramirez Luna, who is studying differential geometry at the Universidad del Valle, Colombia; and to Abebe Regessa Tufa an Ethiopian who studied analysis at the Botswana International University. In June 2018, Tufa became the first graduate from the fellowship program, when he was awarded a PhD for his thesis Approximating Solutions of Fixed Point, Variational Inequality and Hammerstein Type Equation Problems’. He has now taken up an Assistant Professorship at Bahir Dar University back in Ethiopia.

There will be a second competition this year with up to 3 further fellowships available. Candidates cannot apply themselves, but must be nominated by a senior mathematician. More details of the competition are given under item 2 of this newsletter.

We urge mathematicians around the world to support this program, either by nominating worthy candidates or by contributing to the fellowship fund.

Terry Tao (UCLA)
Richard Taylor (Stanford University)

## International School-Conference “Sobolev Readings”, Russia, December 10-16, 2018

Sobolev Institute of Mathematics

The International School-Conference “Sobolev Readings” was held from December 10 to December 16 in Novosibirsk. It continued a series of conferences dedicated to Sergei L’vovich Sobolev (1908-1989), the outstanding scientist of the 20th century, one of the founders of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk State University and Institute of Mathematics, which bears his name now. This year the school-conference was dedicated to the 110th anniversary of the birthday of S.L. Sobolev. The Sobolev Institute of Mathematics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Novosibirsk State University were the organizers of the conference. The preparation and holding of the school-conference were realized with the support of the International Mathematical Union, Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Regional Mathematical Center of Novosibirsk State University.

For the scientific report go here.

## 11th ICMMEDC 2018, Laos, 31. October - 4. November, 2018

National University of Laos

The 11th ICMMEDC is a stage of gathering Mathematicians of developed and developing countries to present their research on Mathematics, promote the collaboration of Mathematical side among ASEAN countries and others. This conference is the 11th, the first five times were organized in Cambodia and the last five times were held in Myanmar.

The aim of the conference was:

• To collaborate and exchange researcher's works
• To gain new knowledge for Lao mathematicians and researchers
• To create an international stage for Lao researchers to present their work
• To upgrade Lao mathematicians to approach international standard

For the report go here.

## ICM 2018 Satellite conference on Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations, Brazil, July 23-27, 2018

Universidade de São Paulo

The conference took place in Fortaleza - Ceará - Brazil, from 23 to 27 July 2018. The scientific program
had an excellent level with 33 plenary lectures (40 minutes each) and a poster session where 11 colleagues presented their work. The lectures brought new developments on the area of partial differential equations distributed among the following themes:

• Elliptic partial differential equations
• Parabolic partial differential equations
• Free boundary problems
• Fluid dynamics
• Regularity theory for partial differential equations

The conference was a great opportunity to the interaction among researchers, as well as graduate
students, in the area of partial differential equations. Graduate students and young Ph.d.’s had the
opportunity to present their work to a community of experts in the poster session.
The program of the meeting offered current and relevant topics in partial differential equations and also
the general direction in which some themes are developing or changing. The excellent physical structure
of Mareiro Hotel provided a pleasant environment for the exchange of scientific experiences among the
participants.
The meeting received 57 mathematicians, 29 of them working outside Brazil. Among the accomplishments
of this workshop we would like to highlight:

• New research themes and scientific collaboration among the participants
• Dissemination of the research areas in partial differential equations carried out in Brazil
• Contribution to the development of the research on partial differential equations carried out in

Brazil.

For a short scientific report go here.

## 2018 AMMSI-PHILLIP GRIFFITHS PRIZE WINNER

Since 2016, the AMMSI-Phillip Griffiths Prize is awarded annually to an African mathematician, living in Africa, who has made outstanding contribution to mathematics, application of mathematics or promotion of mathematics, as evidenced by research and impact of the work. In 2018, the AMMSI-Phillip Griffiths Prize has been awarded to Professor Khalil Ezzinbi from Université Cadi Ayyad, Faculté des Sciences Semlalia, Département de Mathématiques, Marrakesh, Morocco.

Professor Ezzinbi has made many significant contributions to the theory of ordinary differential equations, In addition, he has contributed to other areas of mathematics, including abstract harmonic analysis, dynamical systems and ergodic theory, partial differential equations, operator theory and control theory. His publications in these fields number upwards of 170.

He has, in particular, been cited for his important contributions to the theory of almost automorphic functions, introduced in the early 60's by Solomon Bochner. This class of functions turns out to generalize the concept of almost periodicity. Most of the periodic physical and environmental processes are not periodic, but periodic up to some bound ε.  Application of this theory to evolution equations has attracted many researchers ranging from theoretical mathematicians to biologists, economists, physicists, etc. In recent years the concept has been further generalized to the so-called weighted pseudo’ almost automorphic functions, but the fundamental problem of the completeness of the space of such classes remained open. A few years later Professor Ezzinbi introduced a new and powerful measure-theoretic method to resolve this open problem. Since then, this method has been used in various classes of evolution equations as well as stochastic differential equations. It has become a truly popular method.

Another significant contribution of Professor Ezzinbi is the use of the so-called subvariant functional method of Fink to prove the existence of compact almost automorphic solutions in certain settings. Here again he positively resolved difficult questions that go back to Amerio and Prouse in the early 60's.

Professor Ezzinbi remains highly respected within the international mathematical community. From his professional home in northern Africa, his works have inspired many researchers and influenced many publications in several countries around the world.  In addition, he has contributed to the future of mathematics in Africa by guiding Ph.D. students to successful careers in the African continent in a number of countries including Morocco, Senegal, Tchad, Nigeria, Cameroun, Burkina Faso, Tunisia and Algeria.

## International Conference HAA VII, Armenia, September 16-22, 2018

The 7th International Conference for Harmonic Analysis and Approximations (HAA, VII) was dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Alexandr Talalyan and held in Tsaghkadzor. The event was attended by 75 participants and covered the following fields of contemporary mathematics: Fourier series, wavelets, Polynomial interpolation and approximation, nonlinear approximation, applications to differential equations ets.T he Organizing and Program Committees have also organized Round Tables where they discussed perspectives of development of new directions of contemporary mathematics in Armenia and possibilities to establish new scientific contacts in order to integrate scientists from FSU countries with the international mathematical community. The conference promoted scientific links between the Armenian mathematicians and their colleagues from France, Russia, USA and other countries.

For the conference program go here.

## CIMPA Research School: Nonassociative algebras and applications, Uzbekistan, September 10-21, 2018

This CIMPA Research School was conducted by the Romanovsky Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan in Tashkent. The topics of the research school included various aspects of the theory of non-associative algebras, their representation theories and applications, including Lie algebras, Leibniz algebras, Jordan algebras and other classes of algebras and superalgebras. The purpose of the project was to conduct several mini-courses by leading world mathematician in nonassociative algebras for young researches from the regions of Uzbekistan and neighboring countries.

For the scientific report go here.