Dynamics of Patterns

Spatio-temporal patterns strike the eye and trigger a wish to understand both the mechanisms that generate them as well as the impact they have on other aspects of the dynamics. The ideal would be to have a catalogue and a classification that enables us to unravel cause and effect, to identify for a multitude of observed phenomena the underlying mechanisms.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together both junior and senior biologists, chemists, physicists and mathematicians from the Netherlands that cherish this ideal. More precisely the aim is

-- to facilitate that insights and techniques from one discipline find their way to other disciplines

-- to catalyse interactions and collaborations between scientist with different backgrounds and thus contribute to building a Dutch community in applied nonlinear science

-- to formulate open problems, to brainstorm and to indulge in wishful thinking

An additional aim of the workshop is to make up a list of topics for tutorial lectures, including suggestions for lecturers. Indeed, as a follow-up of the workshop one or more one-day meetings are planned, devoted to tutorial lectures aiming at both beginning PhD students as well as interested more experienced researchers.

ORGANIZATION of the WORKSHOP

In order to pinpoint the essential difficulties of a problem one is interested in, it very often helps to explain the problem to other people. In that spirit, every morning there will be 4 introductions by participants to ongoing projects and/or open problems. These will take 30 minutes and each is followed by 15 minutes of questions, suggestions, remarks on related problems from the audience.

A number of senior scientists will be invited to play an especially active role as "moderator" at the workshop: they will not only stimulate discussions during the morning sessions, but will also help to bridge gaps between subdisciplines.

After lunch there is time till 16.00 h to brainstorm in smaller groups of variable size and composition - hopefully these form more or less spontaneously but if not the moderators and organizers may suggest topics and catalyse the group formation process.

Each day will be concluded with an exposition by one or two moderators, who will strive to put the problems presented in the morning in a larger framework and to list possible approaches and methods for their solution (in the form of brief sketches plus references to the literature and/or people). Most likely the larger perspective also brings additional open problems and discussion.

To structure the workshop, the organizers have identified three rather broad subjects

-- Biological interplay of pattern and dynamics

-- Complex patterns in fluids

-- Building blocks : fronts, pulses, spirals, defects and their interaction

REGISTRATION

In line with the workshop's aim to strengthen the research community in nonlinear science in the Netherlands, the workshop is open to all junior and senior researchers from the Netherlands with an interest in this field. In addition, several senior scientists from other countries will be invited to participate and act as "moderators". Researchers from outside the Netherlands with an interest in the workshop are encouraged to apply for participation: they are welcome if space permits.

Registration can be done directly at

http://www.lc.leidenuniv.nl/lc/web/2005/20051107/registration.php3?wsid=164

There are no registration costs; external funding has been applied for to cover the local housing of participants .

The organizers: Odo Diekmann, Arjen Doelman, Joost Hulshof, Bela Mulder, Wim van Saarloos and Willem van de Water