MATHEMATICS IS MOTHER OF ALL TECHNOLOGIES: CONFERENCE CONCLUDES
An International Conference on the occasion of Silver Jubilee of the Indian Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ISIAM) was organized during 29th -31st January 2016 at Sharda University, Greater Noida in the joint venture of Sharda University and ISIAM. However, Indian government agencies like NBHM, DST, INSA, DRDO, etc. and international agencies such as ICTP and CDC have provided financial assistance for this conference. Internationally reputed scientists, engineers and mathematicians namely, Prof. K.R. Sreenivasan (Ex-Director, ICTP, Trieste and now a senior functionary of New York University, USA), Prof. Leon O. Chua (University of Berkeley, renowned specialist of neural networks, chaos and non-linear circuits), Prof. Barbara Lee Keyfitz (Ohio State University, Former President ICIAM and Field Institute), Prof. Maria J. Esteban (CNRS, Paris and President ICIAM), Prof. Alistair Fitt (Vice Chancellor, Oxford Brooke University and Former Secretary ICIAM), Prof. R. Lozi (Nice, France, well known for Lozi Maps), Prof. Guenter Leugering (Vice President International Affairs Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany), Prof. Maria Skopina (Euler Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Saint Petersburg State University, Russia), etc. have participated and delivered lectures in this Conference. This Conference provided an opportunity for young scientists and engineers to learn systematic developments of those areas of mathematics which are essential for proper understanding of challenging problems of the contemporary times. It was clearly reflected in the Keynote Address of Prof. K.R. Sreenivasan and Prof. L. Chua, two renowned engineers known for their work in application of Mathematics. Prof. K.R. Sreenivasan highlighted the achievements of ISAM in the last 25 years and said applied Mathematics plays very vital role in solving real world problems. India should focus attention on these developments. Prof. Chua who is recipient of eight honorary doctorate degrees from different reputed universities of the world for his remarkable contribution in development of computer with brain explained his discovery.
ISIAM was established in 1990 to promote the teaching and research of those areas of mathematics which have great potential to solve problems of science, engineering, medical and social sciences. In the last 25 years, the Society has endeavored to achieve this goal. It has popularized this theme by organizing 12 international conferences in different institutions of India, publishing their proceedings with leading publisher like McMillan India, Longmann-Pitman Lecture Notes in Mathematics, Narosa, Kluwer Academic Publisher, Marcel Dekker, Taylor and Francis, American Institute of Physics, World Scientific Publisher, Springer. More than three dozen eminent scholars like Prof. I. Sloan (past President ICIAM), Prof. Peter Markovich (Newton Institute, Cambridge), Prof. Alain Arneodo (France), Prof. I.S. Duff (Director, Rutherford Laboratory of Numerical Analysis, London), Prof. M. Broakate (Technical University Munich, Germany) have delivered lectures in our earlier conferences. Very recently ISIAM has entered into an agreement with Springer to bring out a series on Industrial and applied Mathematics. Two books have already been published while several proposals of distinguished mathematicians of the world are under review by the Editorial Board.
The Conference was devoted to emerging themes of industrial and applied mathematics such as image processing with special focus on medical imaging, biometrics and tomography. It is not an exaggeration to say that these concepts have wide applications in oil industry, brain studies, seismology, and other branches of science and technology. A recent branch known as wavelet methods has been discussed by several experts attending this Conference. It is a refinement of Fourier analysis which is in practice since past 200 years.
Applications of Mathematical concepts to areas like National Security, Homeland Security & Law Enforcement, Enterprise and E-Government Services, Personal Information & Business Transaction, Brain like computers were discussed in detail during three days. Attempt should be made to popularize these applications.
India is well known throughout the world for its contribution to the ancient mathematics and even it is generally recognized by the good work in modern pure mathematics, especially by the work of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay and Central Universities. Several important conferences have been organized to promote and popularize the contribution of celebrated Indian mathematician, M.S. Ramanujan. It is well known that most of the educational institutions of higher learning in our country mainly focus on pure form of mathematics, definition, existence and uniqueness theorems, lemmas and corollaries. Generally problems are direct and well posed (solution exists which is unique and stable). In real world, most of the problems are not of this nature. Those problems which are not well posed and direct have been ignored for a long time. Illustration of mathematical problems with physical phenomenon or processes and interpretation of solutions and its visualization or formulation of physical phenomenon in appropriate mathematical concepts is not emphasized in the teaching of mathematics. The Society which is celebrating its 25 years of its existence was formed to provide training and research to solve the untouched problems which are quite challenging and related to many real world problems.
On the Silver Jubilee occasion of ISIAM, development of industrial and applied mathematics in India has been reviewed and the article based on it is published in the Souvenir of the conference. One can observe that India has produced brilliant applied mathematicians notably Nobel Laureate Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar, Prof. Srinivasan S.R. Vardhan, Abel Prize winner and recipient of US National Medal of Science, Prof. C.R. Rao (recipient of US National Medal of Science), Prof. Thomas Kailath (recipient of US National Medal of Science) and Prof. K.R. Sreenivasan (a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Academy of Science and Arts and former Director ICTP- a very prestigious UNESCO organization). Currently there is a strong group of applied mathematics at IIT-Bombay led by Prof. A.K. Pani. The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Centre of Applicable Mathematics, Bangalore and Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore is carrying substantial research work in industrial and applied mathematics. We are delighted to note that these three centers of industrial and applied mathematics were well represented in this Conference. In fact, ISIAM has honored during the Silver Jubilee celebration Prof. A.K. Pani, IIT-Bombay, Prof. G. Rangarajan, IISc Bangalore and Prof. G.D.V. Gowda, TIFR CAM Bangalore for their outstanding contribution in the field of industrial and applied mathematics. On this occasion Dr. Zakir Husain Award established by the Duty Society of Aligarh Muslim University has been presented to Prof. A. Adimurthi, TIFR, CAM, Bangalore and Prof. Mushahid Husain, Vice Chancellor, M.J.P. Rohilkhand University, Bareilly.
On this occasion- Silver Jubilee celebration of ISIAM 2016, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay organized a 5 days advanced level workshop on an emerging theme –Variational Inequality and Applications under national programme on Differential Equations: Theory Computation & Applications. Fifty brilliant research scholars & young faculty members from all over the country attended this workshop. Distinguished experts of this field from India & abroad delivered series of lectures between 24th and 28th of January, 2016.
It is not out of place to say few words about the institution hosting the Conference. The Sharda University was established in 2009 by untiring efforts of Mr. P.K. Gupta, Chancellor and Mr. Y.K. Gupta, Pro-Chancellor. Currently, Sharda University having highly qualified faculty members has students from more than 30 countries. It comprises of Schools of Basic Sciences & Research, Engineering and Technology, Medical Sciences and Research, Architecture and Planning, Art, Design and Media Studies, Law, Allied Health Science, Language and Culture, Nursing Science and Research. Its faculty members are publishing their research papers, books, monographs, conference proceedings with leading publishers of the world such as Springer, Taylor and Francis, American Institute of Physics, World Scientific Publisher, Elsevier, etc.
Although Sharda University is comparatively young Institution but determination of the Chancellor and Pro-Chancellor has made it possible to organize a conference of this magnitude and scale. Hon’ble Shri Rajnath Singh, Home Minister, Govt. of India who is Physicist by profession, very kindly squeezed time out of his extremely busy schedule and inaugurated Silver Jubilee Conference of ISIAM on 29th January 2016. He highlighted the contributions of the Indian mathematicians and said that “zero and decimal” is given by the India to the world. His also emphasized that vedic mathematics should also be brought into practice. He further highlighted that applied mathematics has played very vital role in scientific and industrial development. This shows his keenness to promote science and technology in the country.
Brief introduction of those who have been honored and received awards are given below:
Professor G. D. Veerappa Gowda, TIFR CAM, Bangalore: Dr. G. D. Veerappa Gowda is Professor at TIFR Centre for Applicable Mathematics, Bangalore. He has done fundamental work in the areas of Hyperbolic conservation laws, Control theory and Numerical approximation of conservation laws. Dr. Gowda obtained an explicit formula for the entropy weak solution of convex conservation laws with boundary conditions, extending the earlier work of Hopf and Lax for the initial value problem. Dr. Gowda has developed numerical schemes to solve problems arising in oil recovery and sand pile problem on a vertical source.
Professor G. Rangarajan, IISc., Bangalore: Dr. G. Rangarajan is Professor at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Prof. Rangarajan has done valuable research work in the areas like Granger Causality from Fourier and Wavelet Transforms, Granger Causality for Point Processes, Mitigating the Effects of Noise on Granger Causality, Synchronized Extinction of Species, Movement Prediction in Neuroscience, Comparison of Linear Causality Measures, Nonlinear Causality Measures, Neural Networks, First Passage Time Problems, Synchronization and Pattern Formation in Coupled Dynamical Systems, Processes with Long Range Correlations, A New Method for Computing Lyapunov Exponents, Symplectic Integration of Nonlinear Hamiltonian Systems, Representations of Sp(6,R) and SU(3), Fractal Analysis in Geophysics, Generalized Replicator Dynamics, Evolutionary Games with Two Time Scales, Moment Invariants, Time Series Analysis in Geophysics and Free-Electron Laser (FEL) Theory.
Professor Amiya Kumar Pani, IIT, Bombay: Dr. Amiya K. Pani is Professor at IIT, Bombay. He is well known for his research work in the area of numerical approximations of partial differential equations. His expertise includes construction, stability and convergence analysis of finite element methods, finite difference schemes, orthogonal spline collocation methods for free boundary problems, partial integro-differential equations, coupled equations in Oil Reservoir Studies, evolutionary variational inequalities and scientific computations for industrial applications.
Recipient of Dr. Zakir Husain Award (2013) Prof. A. Adimurthi TIFR CAM, Bangalore: Dr. A. Adimurthi is Professor at TIFR Centre for Applicable Mathematics, Bangalore. He is known for his remarkable contribution in the areas of Partial Differential Equations (PDEs), Variational Methods, Semi-linear Elliptic Partial Differential Equations, Hyperbolic Conservation laws and Numerical analysis. An important problem solved by Prof. Adimurthi is related to the existence in two dimensions of solutions of critical exponent problems, a major hurdle in PDEs because of its non-compact nature, especially in low dimensions.
Recipient of Dr. Zakir Husain Award (2014) Professor Mushahid Husain Vice Chancellor, MJP Rohilkhand University, Bareilly: Professor Mushahid Husain is Vice Chancellor of MJP Rohilkhand University, Bareilly. He is a distinguished Scientist, Senior Professor and founder Director of Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Jamia Millia Islamia (Central University), New Delhi. Professor Husain undertook a challenging initiative to establish Materials Research Laboratory which is recognized as a Training Centre in semiconductor by ICTP, Italy and NAM Centre, New Delhi. This training centre has provided training to a large number of scientists from SAARC countries. Professor Husain introduced various aspects of nanotechnology which are solved by the application of Applied Mathematics. A group of researchers under his leadership has worked on non-linear vibration of single wall carbon nanotubes.
The valedictory function was attended by distinguished scholars who were unanimous that interaction between mathematicians, engineers and physicists should be enhanced which will help to improve the quality of research in these disciplines. They are of the opinion that prosperity and development of any nation is directly related to the advancement in applied mathematics. Prof. U.P. Singh Chairman Silver Jubilee Programme Committee strongly feels that the community of Industrial and Applied Mathematicians should approach to the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to incorporate promotion of Industrial and Applied Mathematics in his agenda of Make in India. He suggested that a concrete proposal should be submitted at an earliest opportunity.
Prof. A. H. Siddiqi
Coordinator
International Conference on Silver Jubilee of Indian Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Mobile: +91-98 71 069944
Email: [email protected]
We regret to announce that Professor Abul Hasan Siddiqi, Professor Emeritus at Sharda University, Greater Noida, passed away suddenly on 20 January 2020, at the age of 77. He was an accomplished applied mathematician and played an important role in the development of the subject in India, mentored many young students in their research, and, besides his activities at Sharda University, was closely connected to his Alama Mater, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). He was for many years the Secretary of the Indian Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ISIAM) and was serving his term as its President at the time of his death. He will be missed by his family, his many friends and colleagues.