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  Special Activity:

Alumni Meeting

+

  Farewell Connie Cantrijn

July 5, 2012

To give the Eurandom alumni an opportunity to meet again, we are organizing a special activity on Thursday July 5. The morning will be filled with talks by alumni. Especially interesting for everyone who wants to stay in touch with Eurandom will be the tour we hope to get through the (almost) finished new building on campus "Metaforum". Eurandom will move to this building at the end of the summer, together with the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.

Not only will July 5 be intended for the alumni, we will also be giving attention to the upcoming farewell of our managing director, Connie Cantrijn. Connie is leaving Eurandom at the end of the summer and we want to let her know how much we have appreciated everything she has done for Eurandom in the past of the institute.
Connie has a passion for art and we have taken this as the theme for the afternoon programme. Several talks on "mathematics and art" by renowned speakers will be given.

The day will end with a reception in honour of Connie. Everyone is cordially invited!

ORGANIZERS

Remco van der Hofstad (Eurandom - TU Eindhoven)

Onno Boxma (Eurandom - TU Eindhoven)

Patty Koorn (Eurandom)

SPEAKERS

PROGRAMME (tentative)

PARTICIPATION

To make planning for catering etc. easier, we ask all participants to send an email to koorn@eurandom.tue.nl to confirm their presence and participation in the lunch and/or reception.

ABSTRACTS
 

Loe Feijs (TU Eindhoven)

Geometry and Computation of Pied-de-poule

We apply a variety of geometric and computational tools to improve our understanding of the Pied de poule pattern (also called Houndstooth). Although the pattern must have been known for centuries, it was made famous mostly by Christian  Dior and is still frequently used in many variations. It is a non-exhaustible source of inspiration for fashion designers. In fact, there is not a a single pattern, but Pied de Poule denotes a family of patterns.  We create computer programs generating the patterns, trying to capture the essence of Pied de poule in programs which are as compact as possible. We use these as tools to see what happens in the extreme cases of the coarsest and finest possible grids. We find for example that, in a precise sense, the English term “puppy-tooth” is more correct than the Dutch “molentjes” for the simplest possible pattern. We also explore how all patterns can be described by the Heesch-Kienzle theory of tilings (as are many works by M.C. Escher).

Peter Grünwald (CWI - Leiden University)

Updating Probabilities

A new look at paradoxes such as 3-doors, 3-prisoners and 2-children problems

How should we update a probability distribution when given new information? The standard answer is: "conditioning", but this is not always correct: as shown by examples such as the three prisoners problem, the Monty Hall (three cars, quizmaster) problem and the two-children puzzle, at least when applied in the common "naive" form, conditioning often gives the wrong answers. We give a detailed explanation of
this phenomenon and provide a radical solution: in a coherent approach to updating, updating on events drawn from certain sets should simply not be allowed. We might call such sets 'unconditionable'. This is analogous to the idea of an 'unmeasurable' set, which is of course broadly accepted.
 

Mark Holmes (University of Auckland)

Urn respect

Suppose we have two new treatments and we want to design clinical trials that administer the (unknown) best treatment to as many patients as possible. In this talk we’ll discuss what some simple variants of Polya’s urn have to say about this problem.
[Almost all of this talk is contained in Pemantle’s notes on “Random processes with reinforcement”.]

Johan van Leeuwaarden (TU/e)

Erlang C by Bernardo D

The Erlang C formula converges in the Halfin-Whitt regime to some limit. Some years ago it was conjectured that the C formula approaches this limit from above. Bernardo D'Auria, EURANDOM alumnus, settled the conjecture with a beautiful probabilistic proof.

Jan van der Lubbe (TU Delft)

Real or fake in art?

The important questions in art history concern the authenticity, dating and attribution of works of art. The last years computer and ICT play an increasing role in answering these questions. In this presentation we will pay attention to Karel Appel, Rembrandt and Vermeer among others. Sometimes we are looking for visual chararcteristics like texture, color usage and brushstrokes. In other cases we analyze the carrier; the paper or the canvas. Nevertheless, what all these methods have in common is that finally for a computer a work of art is nothing more than a set of numbers.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Conference Location
The workshop location is Eurandom,  Den Dolech 2, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, Laplace Building, 1st floor, LG 1.105.

Eurandom is located on the campus of Eindhoven University of Technology, in the 'Laplacegebouw' building' (LG on the map). The university is located at 10 minutes walking distance from Eindhoven railway station (take the exit north side and walk towards the tall building on the right with the sign TU/e).

For all information on how to come to Eindhoven, please check http://www.eurandom.tue.nl/contact.htm

CONTACT
For more information please contact Mrs. Patty Koorn,
Workshop officer of Eurandom

Last updated 06-07-12,
by PK