News — CWI Amsterdam

Tackling messy blood vessels to fight cancer

With a Vici grant of 1.5 million euro, Roeland Merks (CWI and UL) looks for ways to fix messy and leaky blood vessels in tumours. To do so, he combines mathematical simulations and lab experiments in a unique way.

ADS & Insight PhD position at CWI

Amsterdam Data Science, in which CWI participates as a partner, recently announced that 3 PhD projects will shortly commence, fully funded by Science Foundation Ireland (an award of around 0.5M€).

MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization published

Recently, "MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization" edited by DIS members Pablo Cesar and Jack Jansen has been published by Springer.

Sander Bohté, professor by special appointment of Cognitive Neurobiology at UvA

Sander Bohté (1974) has been named professor by special appointment of Cognitive Neurobiology, specialising in Computational Neuroscience, at the University of Amsterdam (UvA)'s Faculty of Science. The chair was designated on behalf of the Science Plus Foundation (Stichting Bèta Plus). He will be combining his professorship with his position as senior researcher at CWI's Machine Learning group.

Vote for Tim Baarslag as ‘New Scientist Wetenschapstalent 2018’

CWI's Tim Baarslag has been nominated for the ‘New Scientist Wetenschapstalent 2018’ prize. This prize is awarded annually to a young researcher with a high scientific and social impact, who reaches a broad audience through his or her outreach activities.

CWI unveils real nature of Eilenberg-type correspondences

After almost forty years, a well-known theorem in algebra about 'Eilenberg-type correspondences' is finally fully understood. Julian Salamanca, PhD student at CWI in Amsterdam, made a unified theory that explained their real nature. He defends his thesis 'Coequations and Eilenberg-type correspondences' on 24 April 2018 at Radboud University in Nijmegen.

Arunachalam presents findings on quantum algorithms and machine learning

On 25 April 2018, CWI PhD student Srinivasan Arunachalam will defend his thesis at the University of Amsterdam. In his thesis, Arunachalam analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the quantum computer for a number of problems.

CWI researcher Monique Laurent elected as KNAW member

Researcher and MT member Monique Laurent from Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) was elected as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The KNAW announced this on 19 April 2018. KNAW members are prominent scientists who are nominated by fellow researchers within and outside the Academy.

CWI develops software that can manage itself

The increase of cloud technology has put a strain on developers and IT administrators to manually manage cloud software services and hardware infrastructure. Nikolaos Bezirgiannis (CWI) explored letting cloud software ‘manage itself’. He defends his PhD thesis 'Abstract Behavioral Specification: unifying modeling and programming' on 17 April 2018.

Peter Bosman appointed part-time professor Delft University of Technology

Recently, Peter A.N. Bosman, senior researcher in the CWI Life Sciences and Health (LSH) group, has been appointed part-time professor Evolutionary Algorithms in the department of Software Technology of the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) of Delft University of Technology.

Inaugural lecture Nanda Piersma: urban analytics for smart cities

On 17 April 2018, Nanda Piersma will give her inaugural lecture titled ‘Through the clouds, urban analytics for smart cities’. Piersma is part of CWI’s Intelligent and Autonomous Systems research group and professor by special appointment at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.

In memoriam MC pioneers Blaauw, Kriens and Verhoeff

In March 2018 three former colleagues sadly passed away: Gerrit Blaauw, Koos Kriens and Koos Verhoeff. They did pioneering research at the Mathematisch Centrum (MC) in Amsterdam, currently called CWI.

CWI researchers simulate how ‘coherent structures’ affect solar wind heating

CWI researchers have further developed our understanding of how solar wind particles get accelerated and heated. In particular, they discovered how ‘coherent structures’ in the solar wind, places where the magnetic fields and electrical currents are enhanced, affect the energy transfer responsible for heating. The results were published in Physical Review Letters on 19 March 2018.

DIS at CHI 2018

The Distributed and Interactive Systems group from Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) will be present at CHI 2018 showcasing their research on a case-study of developing a multi-sensory clubbing experience during Amsterdam Dance Event 2016, designing preproduction tools for multiscreen TV viewing, and classifying news media sympathy on Twitter after crisis events.

Better simulations for lightning and high-voltage technology

Until recently, it was not clear how lightning could start. CWI PhD student Casper Rutjes modelled and simulated the origin of lightning and ionizing radiation from storm clouds and explained the physics of these phenomena. On 15 March he defended his PhD thesis. His results are important for lightning research, high-voltage technology and nuclear medicine models.

Arrival of iconic Electrologica X8 computer celebrated with symposium

On 24 March Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, UvA, CWI and TU/e organize a public symposium around the Electrologica X8 computer from the sixties. The iconic X8 computer was developed and built entirely in the Netherlands by CWI's first spin-off Electrologica.

CWI research quality, relevance to society and viability rated ‘excellent’

An international evaluation committee has rated CWI as excellent, or world leading, in terms of its research quality, its relevance to society and its viability. The evaluation covered the institute’s work in the 2011-2016 period.

Vici grants for Nikhil Bansal and Roeland Merks

CWI researchers Nikhil Bansal and Roeland Merks have been awarded Vici grants from NWO. With the 1.5 million euro grant, Bansal and Merks can develop their own research lines in the next five years.

Radio telescope LOFAR shows how lightning grows

Dutch radio telescope LOFAR can observe the creation of lightning flashes at an unprecedented one-metre resolution, which may lead to better lightning protection. The results were published by an international scientific team with RUG, ASTRON, CWI, RU and VUB on 16 February 2018 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Computational Imaging group and Rijksmuseum project awarded with NICAS funding

The Netherlands Institute for Conservation, Art and Science (NICAS) has announced which proposals have been awarded in the call "An Integrated Approach to the Scientific Study and Conservation of Art", organised by NWO.

Energy Intranets project awarded by NWO

In the 'Energy Systems Integration & Big Data' round NWO has awarded six projects. CWI is in the lead of one programme and takes part in another.

Sterkenburg argues universal method of prediction is impossible

Is it possible to formulate a universal method of prediction? PhD candidate Tom Sterkenburg of CWI’s Machine Learning group argues in his thesis that it is not. He will defend his thesis on 18 January 2018.

Caroline Jagtenberg awarded Rubicon grant

Caroline Jagtenberg, who recently obtained her PhD at CWI, has been awarded an NWO Rubicon grant. With the grant, Jagtenberg will do research at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) for a period of two years.

Hardman new chair Amsterdam Data Science, Boncz joins Supervisory Board

As of January 2018, CWI researcher Lynda Hardman is the new chair of the management team of Amsterdam Data Science. Peter Boncz, CWI researcher and part of the CWI management team, will join the ADS Supervisory Board.

EU PROMETHEUS project started to develop quantum-safe cryptography

In January 2018 the international PROMETHEUS project has started – a new four-year European H2020 project to prepare ourselves for the threats of the post-quantum era. Dutch research partners in this international project are TNO and CWI.

Stochastics group leader Bert Zwart in 'Economentop 40' of 2017

Stochastics researcher and group leader Bert Zwart is selected to be part of the 'Economentop 40' of 2017, which lists the forty Dutch economists with the highest publication rate in peer reviewed magazines over the past five years.

Happy holidays!

CWI is closed from 23 December to 2 January. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Joint eScience and Data Science grant for CWI's Peter Bosman and AMC

Recently, a research proposal that is spearheaded by CWI was granted in the Joint eScience and Data Science programme that was organized jointly by the NWO Domain Science and Netherlands eScience Center (NLeSC). In all projects in this programme, researchers collaborate with eScience engineers of the NLeSC.

Proposal 'Inside the filter Bubble' granted

Recently, the project proposal "Inside the filter bubble" was granted in the JEDS call for cross-sectoral scientific challenges by NWO and the eScience Centre. In this project, Laura Hollink (CWI) collaborates with communication scientists at VU and UvA and Computational Linguists at VU to determine the existence and impact of filter bubbles in mobile news consumption.

Commit2Data grant for better, faster and real-time adaptable big data analysis

To improve parallel processing of big data, NWO granted the project ‘Evolutionary changes in Distributed Analysis’ (ECiDA) within their Commit2Data programme. The research partners in this project – CWI being one of them – will develop a platform to support 'evolving data-intensive application pipelines’, making big data analysis safer, better, faster and adaptable in real-time.