news 2016

In Nymphenburg on Friday, the ETH probabilist Wendelin Werner was awarded the Heinz Gumin Prize, the highest-value mathematics prize in Germany.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Reporting new research results involves detailed descriptions of methods and materials used in an experiment. But when a study uses computers to analyze data, create models or simulate things that can't be tested in a lab, how can other researchers see what steps were taken or potentially reproduce results? A new report by prominent leaders in computational methods and reproducibility lays out recommendations for ways researchers, institutions, agencies and journal publishers can work together to standardize sharing of data sets and software code.

The discovery of the shape and binding capability of epidermal cells could explain how skin maintains a barrier even when it is shedding. The discovery of the shape and binding capability of epidermal cells could explain how skin maintains a barrier even when it is shedding. Our study is also helping us to see how the cells that make up our skin can switch on a mechanism to make a kind of glue, which binds the cells together, ensuring that our skin maintains its integrity.

Mega-earthquakes (with a magnitude greater than 8.5) mainly occur on subduction faults where one tectonic plate passes under another. But the probability of such earthquakes does not appear to be even across these zones. In a study published on 25 November 2016 in the journal Science , researchers from the University of Oregon and Géoazur laboratory (CNRS/Université Nice Sophia Antipolis/Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur/IRD) show that mega-earthquakes mostly occur on the flattest subduction zones.

A unique two-year research project to better identify the cardiac function of monochorionic twins with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) has been unveiled by St Michael's Hospital and Bristol's Clinical Research and Imaging Centre (CRICBristol) today [Thursday 17 November]. Funded by The Capella Foundation , a charity that helps increase awareness of medical complications during pregnancy, the project will seek to find out how the syndrome develops and identify ways to improve survival outcomes.

An international research team led by Carnegie Mellon University has found that when the brain "reads” or decodes a sentence in English or Portuguese, its neural activation patterns are the same. Published in NeuroImage , the study is the first to show that different languages have similar neural signatures for describing events and scenes.

Research news For a long time, mathematical modelling of social systems and dynamics was considered in the realm of science fiction. But predicting, and at once influencing human behavior is well on its way to becoming reality. Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are currently developing the appropriate tools.

For observations based on sensory data, the human brain must constantly verify which "version" of reality underlies the perception. The answer is gleaned from probability distributions that are stored in the nerve cell network itself. The neurons are able to detect patterns that reflect acquired knowledge.

How does seeing work? What is a good image, and what is a bad image? How do we filter out the essential information from an image - the information we need to recognise what we see? These are key questions for brain researchers as well as computer scientists, such as Thomas Pock, who is always looking for international cooperation to achieve progress in image processing.

Researchers can now predict the odds of experimental drugs succeeding in clinical trials, thanks to a new data-driven approach developed by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists. The method detects toxic side effects that may disqualify drugs from human use, giving drug developers an early warning before initiating clinical trials, according to a new study published Sept.

The brain performs feats of math to make sense of the world Posted August 29, 2016; 10:20 a.m. by Bennett McIntosh for the Office of the Dean for Research Even if we find it difficult to calculate complicated probabilities on the spot, our brains constantly carry out these sorts of computations without our awareness — and they're remarkably good at it.

Mathematical models analysing the interplay between society and hydrological effects have been developed at TU Wien (Vienna).

The first step on a new path to quantum supremacy has been proposed by a mathematician from the University of Bristol. Quantum computers are a new type of computing device that use the principles of quantum mechanics to do things that standard computers cannot do. Large-scale quantum computers are predicted to dramatically outperform current supercomputers for tasks ranging from simulating quantum-mechanical systems to cracking cryptographic codes, and could be used to design new drugs and novel materials.

A scientist has shown mathematically that the dynamics that govern swarms and bird flocks may also govern the properties of things like magnets. The researcher from Imperial College London has developed a mathematical equation to understand more about motility. This phenomenon refers to the ability of individual birds, insects or cells to actively influence the overall shape of swarms, flocks and human tissue.

Random directions of growth yield flowers of the correct size and shape. Credit S. Tsugawa, Hokkaido University. An international team (Cornell University, Hokkaido University, Max Planck Institute, Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon / Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 / CNRS / INRA) unravels how random cell growth contributes to making organs reach the correct size and shape.

Under growing pressure to report accurate findings as they interpret increasingly larger amounts of data, researchers are finding it more important than ever to follow sound statistical practices. For that reason, a team of statisticians including Carnegie Mellon University's Robert E. Kass wrote "Ten Simple Rules for Effective Statistical Practice.

The tragedy of the commons , a concept described by ecologist Garrett Hardin, paints a grim view of human nature. The theory goes that, if a resource is shared, individuals will act in their own self-interest, but against the interest of the group, by depleting that resource. Yet examples of cooperation and sharing abound in nature, from human societies down to single-celled bacteria.

A new Research Training Group (RTG) comprised of mathematicians from Heidelberg University and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology will be exploring special questions in the field of geometry. Following a successful international expert evaluation, the German Research Foundation (DFG) has awarded the "Asymptotic Invariants and Limits of Groups and Spaces" RTG funding in the amount of approximately four million euros for a period of four and a half years.

Imagine, for a moment, you are a parent trying to limit how much dessert your sugar-craving young children can eat. "You can have cake or ice cream," you say, confident a clear parental guideline has been laid out. But your children seem to ignore this firm ruling, and insist on having both cake and ice cream.

First discovered by sailors, the masses of plastic debris floating at the center of vast ocean vortices called gyres are today under close scrutiny by scientists. To better understand the fragmentation of microplastics under the effect of light and abrasion by waves, researchers combined physico-chemical analyses with statistical modeling.