News
Cryptology group news
CWI spin off Stokhos nominated for Computable Award: vote now!
CWI spin off Stokhos has been nominated for a Computable Award in the category 'Best ICT project in healthcare 2017'. You can vote for Stokhos as of now. The winning project is determined for 50% by jury and 50% by public voting.
Stokhos and LIS GmbH sign Letter of Intent in presence of state secretary Sander Dekker
On April 24 2017 CWI spin-off Stokhos and German software company LIS Leitstellen Informations System GmbH have signed a Letter of Intent in presence of State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science Sander Dekker. This happened at the Hannover Messe, the largest annual technology trade fair.
Rubicon grants for David de Laat and Alessandro Zocca
CWI researchers David de Laat and Alessandro Zocca both received an NWO Rubicon grant. De Laat will study new techniques to compute optimal packings at MIT for one year, and Zocca will study renewables and uncertainty in future power systems at Caltech for two years. NWO granted these subsidies to 22 young, highly promising research talents to gain international research experience at foreign top institutes.
CWI researcher makes higher turnover in hotel bookings possible
With a new mathematical method, hotels can receive on average 5% more turnover in the long term when taking online reviews into account. Dirk Sierag, PhD student of CWI, analysed with historical data the behaviour of consumers booking rooms. Based on the results he designed mathematical models that can support hotels in determining optimal prices of hotel rooms. The research results can also be applied on movies, concerts, sporting events and, for example, Uber taxi rides.
Rob van der Mei in TV programme Universiteit van Nederland
Stochastics researcher Rob van der Mei has made an appearance in an episode of the TV programme 'Universiteit van Nederland'. He contributed to a series of 5 episodes themed 'Disasters'. Rob's talk focuses on how the ambulance can get to your house even faster.
NWO Complexity grant for Stochastics researchers
A consortium led by CWI researcher Rob van der Mei (Stochastics) has been awarded a grant within the Complexity in Transport & Logistics programme. Elenna Dugundji of CWI is one of the co-applicants an project manager of the research project. In total 15 proposals were submitted, of which 7 were granted. The available budget for this programme is a maximum of € 3.5 million and is provided by the NWO divisions of Social Sciences (MaGW) and Physical Sciences (EW) and the NWO governing board.
CWI launches spin-off Stokhos Emergency Mathematics
Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) announces the foundation of its new spin-off Stokhos Emergency Mathematics. Stokhos provides software solutions which enable the proactive relocation of emergency services based on predictions of future demand.
Mathematical models for optimal coverage of emergency services
Providing proper care in time in emergency situations. This is what emergency services stand for. On 6 June mathematician Pieter van den Berg defends his PhD thesis at TU Delft. He developed models for optimising the logistics of emergency response vehicles.
Increased call center efficiency by identifying redialers
Call centers should base their staff planning on the number of unique callers instead of the total number of calls. Furthermore, introducing a system that gives redialers priority over fresh callers both reduces the average waiting time and improves the fairness of the system. This can be concluded from a study on call center management conducted by CWI.
Firefighters better in position with mathematical model
How could firefighters position themselves even better in a region? If multiple stations are busy fighting a major fire, where should vehicles of other fire stations go to for optimal coverage?
ERCIM News 105 on Planning and Logistics co-coordinated by Rob van der Mei
In April 2016, ERCIM News No. 105 was published: http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en105. This issue features a special theme on Planning and Logistics, coordinated by guest editors Rob van der Mei (CWI and VU) and Ariona Shashaj (SICS).
Improved throughput of sensor networks with maths
PhD student Martijn Onderwater (CWI and VU) optimized the throughput of ZigBee sensor networks with mathematical techniques. This is important, as the number of sensors is growing and their networks become more crowded.
Inaugural speech Marie-Colette van Lieshout
On Thursday 3 December 2015 dr. Marie-Colette van Lieshout (CWI and UT) held her inaugural lecture as a full professor of Spatial Stochastics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Twente. Her inaugural speech was titled 'Chances in Space and Time'.
Van Hemelrijk-prize for best master thesis
Rutger Kerkkamp has been awarded the Van Hemelrijk-prize for the best master thesis in 2014 in the field of Statistics and Operations Research in the Netherlands.
Bert Zwart receives Van Dantzig Prize
Researcher Bert Zwart of CWI has been awarded the Van Dantzig Prize. This prize is considered the highest Dutch award in statistics and operations research and is awarded once every five years.
Vici grant for Bert Zwart
Researcher Bert Zwart of CWI has been awarded a Vici grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for his proposal ‘Rare Events: Asymptotics, Algorithms, Applications’. With the 1.5 million euro grant, Zwart can develop his own line of research and research group in the next five years. It is one of the largest research grants in the Netherlands.
Bert Zwart appointed professor at TU/e
Bert Zwart has been appointed professor of Stochastic Operations Research at the Eindhoven University of Technology's (TU/e) department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Marie-Colette van Lieshout appointed professor in Spatial Stochastics
Starting 1 February 2015, Marie-Colette van Lieshout of CWI has been appointed Professor of Spatial Stochastics at the University of Twente, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science.
Arnoud den Boer wins Gijs de Leve prize
Arnoud den Boer, former PhD student of CWI, has been awarded the Gijs de Leve Prize. The prize was awarded last week at the annual congress of the LNMB, the Dutch Network on the Mathematics of Operations Research.
Rob van der Mei nominated for Huibregtsen Prize 2014
Rob van der Mei, researcher in the Stochastics group of CWI, is nominated for the Huibregtsen Prize 2014.
Modelling impatient Internet users
Impatience of Internet users is a major problem for its quality of service. A vast amount of data is wasted on transfers that are aborted before completion. CWI researchers have developed new models that incorporate this user impatience.
CWI in wetenschapsprogramma ‘De Kennis van Nu’
Ongelukken gebeuren niet random, daar zit een patroon in. Door gebruik te maken van historische data kunnen beschikbare ambulances slimmer worden ingezet.
Honorable mention Arnoud den Boer
Arnoud den Boer, former PhD student at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam) has received an honorable mention from the jury of the VVS/OR van Zwet Award for his thesis 'Dynamic Pricing and Learning'.
New models for improving service levels in large scale ICT systems
ICT systems, such as international on-line banking and social media, have evolved into global-scale service chains and have become increasingly complex.
Demeter Kiss defends thesis on percolation theory
CWI researcher Demeter Kiss presents in his thesis some new models and tools in percolation theory. He studied random networks which have a phase transition, a phenomenon similar to that when ice melts to water. He will defend his thesis on 3 July 2013 at the VU University Amsterdam.
CWI awarded three projects in NWO's Free Competition
ERCIM News on Mobile Computing published
In April ERCIM News No. 93 on Mobile Computing was published (pdf).
Best Paper Award at ICORES 2013
Researchers Nir Perel from Tel Aviv University, Jan-Pieter Dorsman (CWI and TU/e) and Maria Vlasiou (CWI and TU/e) won the Best Paper Award for their paper ‘Cyclic-type polling models with preparation times’ in the area Methodologies and Technologies at the 2nd International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems (ICORES 2013).
CWI starts research on police service optimization
Researchers of the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) and the VU University Amsterdam join forces with the Amsterdam-Amstelland police force to optimize the planning of police services. New techniques allow a more efficient capacity planning and quicker response times by matching available resources with the probable occurrence of incidents.
Higher revenue with dynamic pricing
With dynamic pricing, vendors can adapt retail prices on the fly in order to raise their revenue. This strategy is used in a variety of business domains, including tourism, entertainment and the airline industry. Arnoud den Boer, researcher at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam studied how to identify optimal pricing strategies to realize maximum revenue. On 7 February 2013 he will defend his thesis ‘Dynamic Pricing and Learning’ at VU University Amsterdam.