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Annual Research Report 2018 Foreword 3 IntelligentIntelligent solutions solutions for for complex complex problems problems AnnualAnnual Research Research Report Report 2018 2018 2 Cover figure: Snapshot of the spatial distribution of a malware (red) over an ad-hoc com- munication system with many susceptible (blue) and immune (green) devices. In this model, the green devices even act as “white knights”, i.e., they are able to transmit their goodware to neighboring infected devices, making them immune as well. Edited by Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik (WIAS) Leibniz-Institut im Forschungsverbund Berlin e. V. Mohrenstraße 39 D – 10117 Berlin Germany ISSN 2198-5898 Berlin 2018 Fax: + 49 30 20372 303 E-Mail: [email protected] World Wide Web: https://www.wias-berlin.de/ Annual Research Report 2018 Foreword 3 The Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics, Leibniz Institute in Forschungsver- bund Berlin e.V. (WIAS, member of the Leibniz Association), presents its Annual Report 2018. It gives a general overview of the scientific life, as well as an account of the scientific progress made in 2018. Following six selected scientific contributions written for a broader public that highlight some results of outstanding importance, in the second part, a general introduction to WIAS is given, followed by the report of the IMU Secretariat, the essential results of the research groups, and statistical data. After its successful evaluation in 2017, the Senate of the Leibniz Association certified in March 2018 that WIAS does an internationally outstanding work in its field and that it produces extraor- dinary research and publication results. Another important event in 2018 was the acceptance of the proposal of the Berlin mathematicians for the next-generation excellence cluster “MATH+: The Berlin Mathematics Research Center” in the competition within the Excellence Strategy of the Fed- Prof. Dr. Michael Hintermüller, Director eral Government and the Federal States of Germany. On September 27, 2018, we got the over- whelming official information that our proposal was among the successful ones. WIAS is proud to be among the five cooperation partners of MATH+. The cross-institutional and cross-disciplinary cluster of excellence concentrates on application-oriented basic mathematical research and ties in to the success of the Berlin Research Center MATHEON. The cluster will be supported by the Ger- man Research Foundation DFG for seven years and began its work in January 2019 with the WIAS Director Prof. Michael Hintermüller one of its spokespersons. WIAS has competed very successfully in the first round of project proposals within MATH+. As a consequence, 15 projects with PIs from WIAS started their research work in early 2019. MATH+ is one of the strategic scientific projects with a mid- to long-term impact. In particular, the Application Areas “Material, Light and Devices”, “Energy and Markets” and the Emerging Fields “Integrated Physics-based Imaging” and “Particles and Agents” relate to topics on our Institute’s long-term research agenda. Berlin remains the center of world mathematics because WIAS remains the headquarters of the Secretariat of the International Mathematical Union (IMU). In July 2018, the General Assembly of the IMU in Sao Paulo took the final decision to continue the Secretariat of the IMU at WIAS that has been there since 2011. The vote was overwhelmingly positive and, in a plenary presentation, Professor John Toland, the former Director of the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge and Mem- ber of IMU’s Executive Committee, praised the extraordinary quality of the Secretariat’s work and its importance for the proceedings of the IMU. Its Secretary General, Professor Helge Holden, rein- forced this statement also highlighting the political will in Germany to support this endeavor. In this framework, WIAS gratefully acknowledges the generous financial support provided by the Fed- eral Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and by the Berlin Senate Chancellery who sponsor the IMU Secretariat at equal parts. The newly implemented Flexible Research Platform allows WIAS to flexibly bring in and pursue new research ideas, to support young scientists to become leaders in their fields, and to improve the gender balance in science. In 2018, the independent Weierstrass Group WG 1 Modeling, Analy- sis, and Scaling Limits for Bulk-Interface Processes, headed by Dr. Marita Thomas, and the Focus Platform Quantitative Analysis of Stochastic and Rough Systems, headed by Dr. Christian Bayer and Prof. Peter Friz in RG 6 Stochastic Algorithms and Nonparametric Statistics worked under this umbrella. Annual Research Report 2018 4 Foreword Like the previous years, 2018 has proven to be a busy and fruitful year for the institute with 98 preprints in the WIAS Preprint Series, 117 articles in refereed journals, one monograph, and 3.6 million euros provided by grants. More details on this and further information can be found in the facts-and-figures part of this report. All important indicators of scientific productivity and quality again remained on a very good level, continuing WIAS’s successful track record. After the successful founding of the M4Sim GmbH, WIAS has again obtained an EXIST Business Start-up Grant by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany for three young scientists, Dr. Johannes Neumann (WIAS), André Wilmes, Ph.D., and Abeed Visram, Ph.D., (both Imperial College London), for their planned spin-off “rDesign – Robust Topology-Optimization for SME in Industry 4.0”. In the WIAS-coordinated Leibniz Network “Mathematical Modeling and Simulation” (MMS), now thirty-two institutes from all sections of the Leibniz Association work together. On February 28 to March 2, 2018, the 3rd Leibniz MMS Days took place in Leipzig, supported by the member insti- tutes TROPOS and IOM. Also the Leibniz MMS Summer School in September 2018 on Statistical Modeling and Data Analysis at the Mathematical Research Institute at Oberwolfach was a big suc- cess. The Weierstrass Institute is committed to the implementation of policies and standards to achieve the goal of gender equality. In 2018, WIAS again retained the “audit berufundfamilie” (audit job and family) quality seal. New goals in this area are pursued to maintain the high standards of WIAS as an employer who is paying particular attention to respecting a well-balanced work/life relation. Besides these important facts and events, WIAS continued its scientific work, further consolidat- ing its leading position in the mathematical community as a center of excellence in the treatment of complex applied problems. Several scientific breakthroughs were achieved, and the reader is cordially invited to follow the Scientific Highlights articles in this report. WIAS again expanded its scope into new applied problems from medicine, economy, science, and engineering. Besides the international workshops organized by the institute, the large number of invited lectures held by WIAS members at international meetings and research institutions, and the many renowned foreign visitors hosted by the institute, last year’s positive development is best reflected by the acquisition of grants: altogether, 45 additional co-workers (+ 9 outside WIAS; Dec. 31, 2018) could be financed from third-party funds. Fourteen international workshops organized by WIAS evidenced the institute’s reputation and its role as an attractive meeting place for international scientific exchange and collaboration. In addi- tion, WIAS members (co-)organized numerous scientific meetings throughout the world. In addition to these “global” activities, on the “local” scale WIAS intensified its well-established cooperation with the other mathematical institutions in Berlin, with the main attention directed toward the three Berlin universities. A cornerstone of this cooperation is the fact that, in 2018, altogether six leading members of WIAS, including the director and his deputies, held WIAS-funded special chairs at the Berlin universities. But the highlight in this respect was also in 2018 the joint operation of the Research Center MATHEON “Mathematics for key technologies” located at the Technische Universität Berlin and in 2018 still funded by the “Einstein Foundation Berlin” in the framework of the “Einstein Center for Mathematics” (ECMath). From 2019 onwards, it will be Annual Research Report 2018 Foreword 5 supported in the framework of MATH+ (see above). WIAS is committed to the success of the center by providing considerable financial and personal resources; several members of WIAS play key roles in the scientific administration of the MATHEON. Another success story of the Berlin mathematics is the Berlin Mathematical School (BMS), now sup- ported as BMS+ in the framework of MATH+. Here, collaborators of the mathematical institutions of Berlin supervise each year dozens of outstanding doctoral students from all over the world. Besides these major activities, and besides the cooperation with the universities through the man- ifold teaching activities of its members, WIAS initiated and participated in successful applications for Collaborative Research Centers (CRCs), Priority Programs, and Research Training Groups of the German Research Foundation. Three in one sweep: The CRCs 910 Control of Self-organizing Non- linear Systems: Theoretical Methods and Concepts of Application and 1114 Scaling Cascades in Complex Systems and the CRC/Transregio (TRR) 154 Mathematical Modeling, Simulation and Op- timization Using the Example of Gas Networks
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