Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica

Do you have a #mathematics or #computerscience topic that deserves broader attention within the Dutch research community? Do you need more time and space to collaborate? A CWI Research Semester Programme might be just the opportunity that you are looking for! The Semester Programmes are unique in creating time and space to collaborate with colleagues on a topic of relevance to the Dutch mathematics and computer science communities. You can propose an idea 💡 for a coherent set of activities 📅; CWI provides the organizing support staff, PR and a budget 💰 for meeting facilities, travel 🚆 and accommodation 🏨. Interested? Take a look at the call for proposals and register for the Open Space workshop on June 11! You can submit proposals until June 27 and register for our workshop for co-developing topics until June 4. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eqW7vdmy

📣 On 27 & 28 May our Research Semester Programme themed "AI's impact on society, media & democracy" will take place. There are still a few days left to register (deadline 21 May)! 👉 During this event we will address how #AI is impacting the media and our democratic processes. What can be expected in the near future, and what measures need to be taken to ensure society at large benefits from these rapid developments? The emergence of powerful AI (like LLMs) is rapidly pervading our digital society and has the potential to profoundly transform people’s public and private lives. There is therefore an urgent need to explore how we can ensure that these developments are both enriching, beneficial and fair for society as a whole. ✔ Make sure you don't miss this unique event with renowned speakers from the Netherlands and abroad. Visit the website for more information on the programme and registration. https://lnkd.in/eYRtzpGy

CWI's Distributed and Interactive Systems group showcases its research results in eXtended Reality (XR) in four articles in the May 2024 issue of the European magazine ERCIM News. The topics are the results of national and international collaboration: VOXReality: Voice-driven Interactions in XR Spaces VR2Gather: A Platform for Adaptive Multiparty Social XR Communication Reaching Behind the Glass: Fashion Exhibition and Social Virtual Reality and TRANSMIXR: Enabling the Future of Media Experiences through Social XR. The described techniques can help providing better accessibility to museums, for, for instance, disabled people and people far away. #Week of the 13th Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) Recommended! See: https://lnkd.in/ey9njYhS

On Monday 3 June, CWI and the UvA organize the symposium ‘The Quantum Leaps of Harry Buhrman’. At the end of 2023, world-renowned quantum researcher Harry Buhrman moved from CWI‘s Algorithms and Complexity group to Quantinuum in London, while staying a part-time professor at the University of Amsterdam and QuSoft. The farewell symposium will celebrate the numerous contributions Harry has made to theoretical computer science and quantum computing during his 30+ years in Amsterdam, including his co-founding of the QuSoft research centre, together with Kareljan Schoutens. The programme includes talks by Lance Fortnow (Illinois Institute of Technology) and Gilles Brassard (Université de Montréal), as well as by many colleagues from Amsterdam. You are cordially invited to come. Participation only after registration: https://lnkd.in/dktEpvGZ

💡 No CT scanner? No problem! A team of international researchers led by CWI has developed a method to use existing X-ray imaging facilities for CT scanning. ❔ What if you could saw a wooden sculpture through to look at the tree rings? Could a clay sculpture be hollow? What type of instruments were used to craft art objects? These questions could be answered by X-ray imaging. In particular, CT-scans are useful to investigate historical art objects on the inside. The CT-scans that are suitable for this application are however not easily accessible for researchers and quite expensive to acquire. ⚡In the paper "Enabling 3D CT-scanning of cultural heritage objects using only in-house 2D X-ray equipment in museums" (Nature Communications, 14 May 2024) the authors use the in-house 2D X-ray imaging facilities in museums to create 3D CT images, using nothing more than a marker-based image acquisition protocol and sophisticated data-processing algorithms. The team implemented this approach in the The British Museum (London), the J. J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), and the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam). Their work paves the way for broad facilitation and adoption of CT technology across museums worldwide. Researcher Francien Bossema comments: ‘We can do something that was not possible before. CT scanning is an important imaging method for museums, because researchers can digitally cut open an object without damaging it. Our method makes it possible to further integrate this technique into research practices in the museum, without obtaining new hardware. We only use small metal balls of the type you also have in the pedals of your bike and algorithms specifically designed for this purpose. This means no extra investments are needed, while still providing an additional imaging technique.’ In this project CWI PhD student Francien Bossema collaborated with co-authors Willem Jan Palenstijn, Arlen Heginbotham, Madeline Corona, Tristan van Leeuwen, Robert van Liere, Jan Dorscheid, Dan O'Flynn, Joanne Dyer, Erma Hermens, and Joost Batenburg. 🔗 Read more in the news item on cwi.nl: https://lnkd.in/ga2MrxGE 🔗 Link to the article in Nature Communications: https://lnkd.in/gi5Nyf-w Francien Bossema will defend her PhD thesis on 23 May at Leiden University.

Meet Francien Bossema, Džemila Šero and Stacey Jeffery, researchers employed or formerly employed by CWI. In this short movie 📽 they talk about the importance of role models for women in science. 👉 https://bit.ly/4bpVH9b One of those role models was Constance van Eeden (1927-2021), who worked at CWI from 1954 to 1960 and was one of the first female PhD students in statistics in the Netherlands. To stimulate the recruitment of female PhD candidates, our institute launched the Constance van Eeden PhD Fellowship in 2022. #WomeninMathematicsday European Women in Mathematics

🤩 📅 We are counting down to 27 & 28 May when the event "AI's impact on society, media & democracy" will take place at CWI. We still have some spots left! What can you expect? 👉 We will discuss how AI is impacting the media and our democratic processes. What can be expected in the near future, and what measures need to be taken to ensure society at large benefits from these rapid developments? 👉 A stellar line-up of speakers like: Henriette Cramer (PaperMoon AI), Michiel Bakker (Google DeepMind), Rafik Hadfi (Kyoto University) and many more. 🔗 For the full programme and registration, please visit: https://lnkd.in/eYRtzpGy This is a joint effort by the CWI Intelligent and Autonomous Systems group, the Human-Centered Data Analytics group, and the Distributed & Interactive Systems Group (DIS) | Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) group. This program is supported by the larger AI, Media and Democracy Lab initiative.

Meet new Face of Science Tamara Florijn of our Intelligent and Autonomous Systems group! Faces of Science made this short video 📹, in which she talks about her research: teaching a computer 🖥 how to negotiate with multiple parties at the same time, giving each party the best deal. 👉 https://bit.ly/4aVbOfq

Did you hear or see the thunder and lightning 🌩 on Tuesday night? Several houses got hit by lightning ⚡ and caught fire 🔥. CWI group leader Ute Ebert explains on the NH Nieuws website why a house 🏠 can be struck by lightning, even if it is not the tallest building in the area. 👉 https://bit.ly/3y1kjXD (in Dutch) #thunder #lightning #lightningstrike

Are you a software engineering researcher or practitioner? Than we invite you to contribute to the SEN symposium, the national symposium for Dutch researchers in the field of Software Engineering! We welcome proposals for 'lightning talks', short but engaging presentations that last between 5 and 10 minutes. Do you have: 💠 Recently published results to share 💠Open research problems 💠A recently concluded PhD dissertation 💠A bachelor/master thesis you are working on 💠Recently started a research project 💠A 'call to arms' for the software engineering community? Submit a proposal before 17 May 📅 via this page 👉 https://bit.ly/3w6w4eR The SEN symposium is held at CWI on Friday 7 June. It is organized by VEReniging Software Engineering Nederland. Besides the lightning talks, the program will feature keynotes, invited presentations and a panel discussion on Generative AI in software engineering. More information on the program and registration 👉 https://lnkd.in/grCwbddV #SENsym #softwareengineering #software