There is an urgent and unmet need to formally analyze, design, develop and deploy advanced methods and algorithms that can scale in statistical and computational efficiency to the size of modern data sets and the complexity of contemporary mathematical models. Addressing this need will require a holistic approach involving new foundational theory, algorithms, and programming language design.

The emerging research theme of Probabilistic Scientific Computing (PSC) or Probabilistic Numerics lies at the nexus of these overlapping directions. It aims to improve statistical quantification of uncertainty, improve computational efficiency, and build more effective and scalable numerical methods for statistical models by leveraging the natural correspondence between computation and inference.

The primary goal of the workshop is to introduce recent results and new directions in probabilistic scientific computing to the US research communities in statistics and machine learning, in numerical... (more)

This event is sponsored and organized by the Brown University Physics Department.

The conference will promote a broad discussion of current topics in Non-Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics. Talks will focus on theoretical frameworks (or the desire for such) and on specific systems from wide-ranging fields such as astrophysics, atomic physics, biology, chemistry, climate physics, condensed matter, fluid mechanics, geophysics, and high-energy physics. There will be a mix of experimental, computational, and theoretical perspectives.

This is the third in a series of Conferences made possible by a generous bequest from the estate of Tony and Pat Houghton. Tony, who was a theoretical condensed matter physicist, chaired the Brown University Department of Physics from 1992 to 1998.

The theory of water waves has been at the forefront of mathematics for over two centuries. In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in the subject. This workshop will bring together researchers contributing to all aspects of water waves: experiments, computation and analysis. Currently active topics in water waves include the effects of viscosity, surface tension, vorticity, surface wind and bottom topography on both time-dependent and steady waves. However, the workshop will range well beyond these topics.

Water wave problems often require specific computational tools, and computations often inform the search for theoretical results. This workshop will bring both of these aspects together. Topics to be discussed include methods and results for steady and unsteady waves, including boundary integral, conformal maps and Euler truncations, with applications to capillary, gravity, flexural, vortical, electro-hydrodynamic, and geophysical waves. Computational questions in water waves have inspired research for over 60 years. In particular, the conference will celebrate the work of Jean-Marc Vanden-Broeck, who has been making important contributions in the field since the 1970s.

This conference will explore several themes: (a) physical and computer experiments on the formation of singularities in fluids through state-of-the-art simulations and high speed, high resolution imaging of droplets, filaments, jets, splashes, jumps, and vortical structures, and (b) the development of theoretical models for the analysis of such phenomena. Our principal goal is to stimulate the interaction between analysts, modellers and experimentalists in the area, especially since much of the experimental work remains to be explained.

Most of the scientific interest in incompressible fluid dynamics is, in one way or another, associated with the dynamics of small scales. In particular, the generation and amplification of small-scale motions is at the heart of the analysis of instabilities, of the problem of finite-time singularities, of fluid-structure interaction and of the study of both onset and fully developed turbulence. This topic has a long history and remains very active today. As the mathematical toolbox increases and with the improvement of high-speed computing, it has seen considerable progress in recent years. In this workshop we will focus on exploring this point-of-view while showcasing recent results and encouraging new collaborations.

Incompressible fluids are an abundant source of mathematical and practical problems. The question of global-in-time regularity versus finite-time singularity formation for incompressible fluids, governed by the Navier-Stokes or Euler equations, has been one of the most challenging outstanding problems in applied PDE. There have also been new developments in the study of the onset of turbulence due to linear and nonlinear instabilities in incompressible fluids. Interfacial and surface water waves are physical phenomena that, in addition to the challenges outlined above, involve the evolution of free boundaries. These problems embody many of the mathematical challenges found in studies of nonlinear PDEs.

Progress on these topics is possible because of advances in analysis, numerical computations and physical experiments. In addition, ocean field observations provide a reality test to all conclusions and invite new problems to be addressed. In this program, we provide a venue for... (more)

The purpose of the topical workshop is to gather leading experts, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students, to present exciting new developments in the field of mathematical fluid dynamics. The focus of the meeting will be placed on current research on regularity, instabilities, and the onset of turbulence in fluid flow, from a theoretical and from a computational perspective. Despite their long and fruitful history, to date these topics continue to enchant and inspire mathematicians, physicists, and computational scientists: in part due to their ubiquitous applications in areas from aeronautical engineering to medicine, and in part because the basic mathematical questions are still open. Among these are global in time existence of solutions to the equations describing motion of inviscid and viscous fluids in three spatial dimensions, and the conjectured relation between the phenomenological theories of turbulence and the statistical properties of solutions to the underlying... (more)

This program will focus on phase retrieval, a research area introduced by Pete Casazza (one of the organizers of this program) and others. Phase retrieval originates from harmonic analysis, where one wants to recover a function from the magnitude of its Fourier transform without any phase information. The phase retrieval problem has a natural generalization to finite dimensional Hilbert spaces. A finite dimensional signal is sought to fit the magnitudes of its linear measurements. Phase retrieval in this finite dimensional setting has become one of the growing research areas in recent years. The techniques from the finite dimensional setting are promising to become indispensable in many imaging techniques such as x-ray crystallography, electron microscopy, diffractive imaging, astronomical imaging, x-ray tomography etc. It also has other important applications in optics, communication, audio signal processing, and more.

Many challenging and fundamental problems in phase retrieval... (more)