Under construction

Start time: February 22, 2016

Ends on: March 4, 2016

Location: São Paulo, Brazil

Venue: IFT-UNESP

Organizers:

• Ubirajara van Kolck (IPN Orsay, France & University of Arizona, USA)
• Gastão Krein (IFT-UNESP, Brazil)
• Rafael Porto (IFT-UNESP & ICTP-SAIFR, Brazil)

Lecturers:

• Raphael Flauger (University of Texas- Austin, USA): EFT for strings
• Hans-Werner Hammer (Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany): EFT for cold atoms
• David Kaplan (University of Washington, USA): EFTs for strong interactions, nuclear physics, and fundamental symmetries
• Rafael Porto (IFT-UNESP & ICTP-SAIFR, Brazil): EFT for gravitational waves
• Leonardo Senatore (Stanford University, USA): EFT for cosmology – large scale structures
• Ira Rothstein (Carnegie Mellon University, USA): General introduction on concepts in EFT

Description:

Constructing an effective field theory (EFT) to exploit the hierarchy of length scales in a physical system has become an essential skill to be mastered by the modern theoretical physicist. EFTs play a prominent role in almost all branches of modern theoretical physics including particle physics, gravitation, general relativity and condensed matter. This school will provide an overview of the general concepts and principles underlying the construction of an EFT, illustrating these concepts and principles in concrete applications in different areas of physics. The school is intended for PhD students, postdocs and  young researchers who are seeking expertise in EFTs.  There is no registration fee and limited funds are available for local and travel support of participants.

Announcement

List of Confirmed Participants: Updated on Feb 22

Satisfaction Survey:

• Click here

Photos:

• Photos of school

School Program: PDF version updated on February 29

 Click on the name of the lecturers to watch the videos and on (PDF) or (notes) to download the lecture files. 

Additional Information:

Registration: ALL participants should register. The registration will be on February 22 at the institute from 9:00 to 09:45 am. You can find arrival instruction at http://www.ictp-saifr.org/?page_id=195

Accommodation: Participants whose accommodation has been provided by the institute will stay at The Universe Flat. Each participant, whose accommodation has been provided by the institute, has received the accommodation details individually by email.

Emergency number: 9 8233 8671 (from São Paulo city); +55 11 9 8233 8671 (from abroad), 11 9 8233 8671 (from outside São Paulo).

Ground transportation instructions: 

Ground transportation from Guarulhos Airport to The Universe Flat

Ground transportation from Congonhas Airport to the Universe Flat

Ground transportation from The Universe Flat to the institute

Lectures Summary:

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Raphael Flauger (University of Texas- Austin, USA): EFT for strings

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These lectures will be an introduction to effective field theory geared towards an understanding of the effective field theory description of string-like defects in quantum field theories such as cosmic strings or QCD fluxtubes. After a review of the concepts of effective field theory, I will review of the role of symmetries in quantum field theory, both linearly realized and non-linearly realized. I will in particular discuss the consequences of non-linearly realized symmetries for S-matrix elements. I will then review the linear and non-linear sigma model as an illustration before introducing the CCWZ construction and its extension to spacetime symmetries. This will allow us to derive an effective field theory for string-like defects. As an application, I will use this effective field theory, together with the observation that it is integrable at low energies, to compute energy levels of QCD fluxtubes.

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Hans-Werner Hammer (Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany): EFT for cold atoms

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Ultracold atoms have attained an increasing importance in many fields of physics over the last ten years. In addition to condensed matter physics these fields include statistical physics in nonequilibrium and the physics of strongly interacting quantum systems.  The natural connection between ultracold atoms and quantum field theory becomes manifest in few- and many-body systems with resonant interactions. In ultracold atoms, the strength of the interaction can be tuned using Feshbach resonances thus providing a unique test of quantum field theoretical models.

In these lectures, I will focus on the universal low-energy properties of  particles with strong interactions. Such systems occur in many areas of  physics, including ultracold atoms, adrons, and nuclei. In the unitary  limit of infinite scattering length, the two-body interactions do not  provide a length scale. Thus the effective field theory describing  such a system is scale invariant. In the three-body system, the scale invariance is broken to the subgroup of discrete scale transformations and the Efimov effect occurs. I will explain the general concept of effective field theories and give an overview of their application to ultracold atoms near the unitary limit.

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David Kaplan (University of Washington, USA): EFTs for strong interactions, nuclear physics, and fundamental symmetries

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I discuss the connection between singular interactions, renormalization and effective field theory, and discuss how to construct and use effective field theories for a wide range of physical systems including superconductivity, the interactions of pions and nucleons, and physics beyond the Standard Model.

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Ira Rothstein (Carnegie Mellon University, USA): General introduction on concepts in EFT

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I will begin by giving a broad introduction to the ideas behind effective field theory,emphasizing the underlying axiomatic reasons for its utility. I will then discuss applications of EFT’s to non-linear classical theories. In particular I will show how EFT can be utilized to attack the problem of black hole binary inspirals, as well as fluctuation induced forces on membranes. I will then introduce the  EFT of Fermi surfaces and show how such a theory can be generalized to study systems with van-Hove singularities.

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Leonardo Senatore (Stanford University, USA): EFT for cosmology – large scale structures

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During these lectures I will cover some recently developed Effective Field Theories that are useful in Cosmology. First I will introduce the so-called Effective Field Theory of Inflation, which describes Inflation as the theory of the Goldstone Boson of time translations, and I will explain the phenomenology of the resulting Lagrangian. Secondly, I will describe the so-called Effective Field Theory of Cosmological Large Scale Structures. In our current universe, perturbations are small at long distances and large at short distances. An effective field theory for the long fluctuations, which are prone to a perturbative treatment, is obtained after integrating out the non-perturbative short distance physics, in this case the galaxies. I will develop the formalism, explain why this might be useful for next generation experiments, and present the main results so far.

Reference: TASI 2012 lectures on inflation

Workshop and course discussed the development of softwares for scientific research in different areas

The ICTP-SAIFR held, between the 13^th and 30^th of April, an external event of ICTP-Trieste dedicated to advanced techniques in scientific computing. During this period, there was a two-week workshop aimed at researchers of different areas and a one-week course dedicated to Particle Physics. The event was organized with the Scientific Computing Center (NCC) of Unesp and included the presence of international speakers, such as Ivan Girotto from the ICTP-Trieste.

“One of our main objectives was to improve the understanding of software development for science,” says Girotto. “We wanted to spread the knowledge we have, especially with young researchers, as scientific computing is becoming increasingly important and is currently applied in different areas of science.”

Workshop       

The workshop was aimed at scientists of different fields who use scientific computing techniques in their research. Among the main examples of applications are the development of climate models and models in Biophysics and Particle Physics. The event had both theoretical lectures and practical classes, in which participants developed projects to apply the knowledge acquired throughout the course.

“Over the first two weeks, we tried to teach the participants the fundamental concepts of scientific programming using, among other tools, the Python programming language,” explains Gabriel von Winckler, one of the organizers of the event from the NCC. “Our goal was to enable them to build scientific applications using this language.”

Furthermore, the Workshop also stimulated cooperation between universities and researchers from different countries. The event has had two editions held in ICTP-Trieste and proved fruitful to encourage new partnerships and ideas.

“The participants continued to collaborate and work together on projects after the end of the events,” says Girotto. “The first edition of the workshop led to the creation of an independent event related to electronic structures, for example.”

Particle Physics

The course that followed the two-week workshop was dedicated to the application of scientific computing in Particle Physics. In this area, high performance computing is essential to simulate complex particle collisions made in large accelerators, and also to process all the information generated by the experiments. Part of the processing of the LHC data, the largest particle accelerator in the world which was recently reactivated, is done at SPRACE, a computing structure located in NCC.

Workshop e curso abordaram o desenvolvimento de softwares voltados para pesquisas científicas de diversas áreas

O ICTP-SAIFR realizou, entre os dias 13 e 30 de abril, um evento externo do ICTP-Trieste dedicado a técnicas avançadas em computação científica. Durante esse período, foi realizado um workshop de duas semanas, voltado para pesquisadores de diferentes áreas, e um curso de uma semana, dedicado à Física de Partículas. O evento foi organizado juntamente com o Núcleo de Computação Científica (NCC) da Unesp, e contou com a presença de palestrantes internacionais, como Ivan Girotto, do ICTP-Trieste.

“Entre os nossos principais objetivos estava melhorar a compreensão sobre o desenvolvimento de softwares para ciência”, diz Girotto. “Queremos disseminar o conhecimento que temos principalmente para jovens pesquisadores, pois a computação científica tem se tornado cada vez mais importante e é aplicada atualmente a diversas áreas da ciência”.

Workshop

O Workshop teve como alvo cientistas de diferentes áreas que utilizam técnicas de computação científica em suas pesquisas. Entre os principais exemplos de aplicação estão o desenvolvimento de modelos de previsão climática e modelos em biofísica e física de partículas. O evento contou com palestras e aulas práticas, no qual os participantes desenvolveram projetos para aplicar o conhecimento adquirido ao longo do curso.

“Ao longo das duas primeiras semanas, tentamos passar para os participantes conceitos fundamentais de programação científica utilizando, entre outras ferramentas, a linguagem de programação Python”, explica Gabriel von Winckler, um dos organizadores do evento, do NCC. “Nosso objetivo era fazer com que eles conseguissem construir aplicações científicas usando essa linguagem”.

Além disso, o Workshop também estimula a colaboração entre pesquisadores de diferentes universidades e países. O evento já teve duas edições realizadas no ICTP-Trieste e se mostrou frutífero para encorajar novas parcerias e ideias.

“Vemos que os participantes continuam conversando e trabalhando em projetos juntos após a realização dos eventos”, diz Girotto. “A primeira edição do Workshop levou à criação de um evento independente relacionado a estruturas eletrônicas, por exemplo”.

Física de Partículas        

O curso que seguiu as duas semanas de Workshop foi dedicado à aplicação da computação científica em Física de Partículas. Nessa área, a computação de alta performance é fundamental para realizar simulações complexas de colisão de partículas feitas em grandes aceleradores, e também para o processamento de toda a informação gerada pelos experimentos. Parte do processamento dos dados do LHC, maior acelerador do mundo que foi recentemente reativado, é realizado no SPRACE, uma estrutura de computação localizada no NCC.

Start time: January 11, 2016

Ends on: January 29, 2016

Location: São Paulo, Brazil

Venue: IFT-UNESP

Organizers:

• Marcus Aguiar (UNICAMP, Brazil)
• Nathan Berkovits (ICTP-SAIFR /  IFT-UNESP, Brazil)
• Roberto Kraenkel (IFT-UNESP, Brazil)
• Gabriel Mindlin (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Minicourse Lecturers:

• Vijay Balasubramanian (University of Pennsylvania, USA): The Maps Inside Your Head — Diversity and Self-Organization of Neural Circuits
• William Bialek (Princeton University, USA): Precision and emergence in the physics of biological systems
• Eberhard Bodenschatz (Max Planck Institute – Göttingen, Germany): Pattern Formation in Biological Systems – from oscillations to spiral waves
• Ulf Dieckmann (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis – IIASA, Austria): Complex Adaptive Systems at the Interface of Ecology and Evolution – Modeling Adaptation, Speciation and Biodiversity Dynamics
• Stanislas Leibler (IAS Princeton/Rockfeller University, USA): Microbial Population Dynamics
• Gabriel Mindlin (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina): Nonlinear dynamics and biomechanics
• Jorge M. Pacheco (U. Minho, Portugal): The evolutionary dynamics of hematopoiesis in health and disease
• Francisco C. Santos (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal): Cooperation and the Evolution of Collective Action 
• Gustavo Stolovitzky (IBM Research and Icahn School of Medicine, USA): Introduction to Systems Biology of Cancer

Seminar Speakers:

• Silvina P. Dawson (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina): Fluctuations and transport in cells and the information that can be extracted from optical experiments
• Celso Grebogi (Aberdeen University, UK): Compressive sensing based prediction of social and metabolic complex networks
• Flávia Maria Darcie Marquitti (IFGW – Unicamp, Brazil): Strategies in nature: using game theory to deal with different problems
• José N. Onuchic (Rice University, USA): From structure to function: the convergence of structure based models and co-evolutionary information
• Andre A. de Thomaz (IFGW -Unicamp, Brazil): Multimodal photonic platform to understand biological processes

Description:

Although 
new
 experimental 
technology 
is 
partly 
responsible 
for 
the
 current
 revolution 
in 
biological 
research,
 theoretical
 models
 developed
 by 

physicists 
are 
also 
playing
 an 
important
 role 
in 
changing
 the 
way 
biological 
research 
is 
being 
performed. The
 number
 of 
theoretical 
physicists 
migrating 
into 
biology
 has dramatically 
increased
 throughout 
the 
world,
 but 
South 
America 
still lags 
behind.

The three-week school on Physics Application in Biology will feature lectures by physicists who have made important contributions to different areas of biological research. This activity will include minicourses, seminars, discussion sessions and group projects on topics including neuroscience, evolutionary dynamics, biophysics, collective behavior, pattern formation and optimization. The school is intended for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the physical and biological sciences. There is no registration fee and limited funds are available for travel and local expenses.

This activity will be preceded by the ‘V Southern-Summer School on Mathematical Biology’. Candidates may apply either for one or both schools.

On January 20th at 15:00 there will be a Roundtable on Physics-Biology Interactions in South America.

Announcement

Satisfaction Survey:

• Click here

Photos:

• Photos of school

School Program: PDF version updated on January 24

 Click on the title of the lectures/seminars to watch the videos

*Prof. Leibler preferred not to have his lectures recorded.

Lectures Summary:

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Vijay Balasubramanian (University of Pennsylvania, USA): The Maps Inside Your Head — Diversity and Self-Organization of Neural Circuits
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How do our brains make sense of a complex and unpredictable world? In this series of lectures, I will discuss a physicist’s approach to the neural topography of information processing in the brain. First I will review the brain’s architecture, and how neural circuits map out the sensory and cognitive worlds. Then I will describe how highly complex sensory and cognitive tasks are carried out by the cooperative action of a great many specialized neurons and circuits, each of which has a simple function.   I will describe approaches towards a predictive theory of this diversity and its self-organization.  The examples will come from  circuits and systems at multiple scales in the brain that enable the senses of sight, sound, smell and place.

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William Bialek (Princeton University, USA): Precision and emergence in the physics of biological systems
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Life is more than the sum of its parts:  many of the most striking phenomena, from the spectacular aerial displays of flocking birds down to the beautiful choreography of cell movements in a developing embryo, emerge from interactions among hundreds if not thousands or even millions of components.  Perhaps less obvious is that life’s mechanisms can achieve extraordinary precision:  our visual system can count single photons, we can hear sounds that cause our eardrum to vibrate by the diameter of an atom, neurons can transmit information at rates close to the limit set by the entropy of their responses.  These lectures will explore the themes of precision and emergence as they play out in a wide range of biological systems. Central to the discussion will be the struggle to find the right balance between searching for general theoretical principles and engaging with the myriad details of experiments on particular systems.  I hope to convey the beauty of the phenomena, and the excitement that many of us feel about the opportunities for deeper theoretical discoveries.

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Eberhard Bodenschatz (Max Planck Institute – Göttingen, Germany): Pattern Formation in Biological Systems – from oscillations to spiral waves
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In my lectures I shall introduce concepts of pattern formation with special emphasis on instabilities (Turing, Reaction Diffusion, Rayleigh Benard,etc), normal form or amplitude equations, dislocation dynamics in pattern-forming systems, autonomous oscillations and  the discussion of spiral wave dynamics.

Please find some very complimentary lecture notes by Prof. Ehud Meron here in this link: http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/bidr/SIDEER/DSEEP/Ehud_Meron/Pages/reading.aspx
Please look at lecture 1-4

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Ulf Dieckmann (IIASA, Austria): Complex Adaptive Systems at the Interface of Ecology and Evolution – Modeling Adaptation, Speciation and Biodiversity Dynamics
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Understanding complex adaptive systems requires a marriage of population dynamics with adaptive dynamics. Adaptation in living systems cannot be understood without accounting for the rich embedding of populations. Conversely, predicting the future of populations, especially when exposed to strong anthropogenic impacts, requires accounting for the prospect of rapid adaptation. Providing a modern extension of classical evolutionary game theory, the theory of adaptive dynamics allows deriving the dynamic fitness landscapes governing adaptive evolution from the underlying ecological processes. This facilitates analyzing adaptation in quantitative traits under natural conditions, accounting for arbitrary forms of population structure and density regulation. Adaptive dynamics theory highlights the importance of non-optimizing evolution and contributes to understanding surprising evolutionary phenomena such as evolutionary branching, evolutionary slowing down, evolutionary suicide, and evolutionary cycling. This, in turn, enables innovative insights into life-history evolution, niche construction, and speciation, underscoring the need for integrative treatments of ecological and evolutionary dynamics. In particular, speciation is adaptive when it allows a population to escape from being trapped at a fitness minimum. That such trapping can occur – and that populations can indeed evolutionarily converge to such traps – is a counterintuitive consequence of the dynamics of fitness landscapes. For sexually reproducing species, the adaptive escape from a fitness minimum requires, and promotes, the evolution of reproductive isolation. These lectures will provide an overview of different modeling approaches linking ecological and evolutionary dynamics, ranging from evolutionary games, adaptive dynamics theory, and evolutionary reaction-diffusion systems to agent-based eco-genetic models tackling the complexities arising from the genetic, spatial, and demographic structure of real-world systems.

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Dieckmann U & Ferrière R (2004). Adaptive dynamics and evolving biodiversity. In: Evolutionary Conservation Biology, eds. Ferrière R, Dieckmann U & Couvet D, pp. 188–224. Cambridge University Press. http://www.iiasa.ac.at/~dieckman/reprints/DieckmannFerriere2004.pdf

Meszéna G, Kisdi É, Dieckmann U, Geritz SAH & Metz JAJ (2001). Evolutionary optimisation models and matrix games in the unified perspective of adaptive dynamics. Selection 2: 193–210. http://www.iiasa.ac.at/~dieckman/reprints/MeszenaEtal2001.pdf

Dieckmann U & Doebeli M (1999). On the origin of species by sympatric speciation. Nature 400: 354–357. http://www.iiasa.ac.at/~dieckman/reprints/DieckmannDoebeli1999.pdf

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Stanislas Leibler (IAS Princeton/Rockfeller University, USA): Microbial Population Dynamics
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I will describe recent experiments on: 1) behavior of individual microbes, and its non-trivial inheritance; 2) population dynamics of microbial ecosystems; 3) some general theoretical issues connected with the fitness value of information, the evolution of inheritance systems and the dimensional reduction observed in biological systems.

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Gabriel Mindlin (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina): Nonlinear dynamics and biomechanics
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Behavior emerges as a the result of a complex interplay between the nervous system and a set of bio-mechanical devices used to interact with the environment. These devices are in general nonlinear, and therefore capable of displaying complex dynamics even when subjected to simple instructions from the nervous system. In these lectures we’ ll explore the rich variety of behaviors that can emerge when the richness of nonlinear dynamics is at the disposal of the nervous system.

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Jorge M. Pacheco (U. Minho, Portugal): The evolutionary dynamics of hematopoiesis in health and disease

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In this series of lectures, I will review a unified mathematical model of hematopoiesis that I have helped developing over the last decade. This will allow me to introduce a simple model which is able to describe hematopoiesis in healthy as well as in a sick individuals, with particular emphasis placed on blood cancers. The model is intrinsically stochastic, but given the staggering number of blood cells that entail hematopoiesis, continuous limits will also be used at profit. Originating in allometric data on terrestrial mammals, I will also have a chance to establish the connection with blood cancers that happen in other mammals, at the same time answering fundamental questions such as: Are mice good model systems of humans ? At last, I will show how extensions of the model allow us to view cancer as an evolutionary game between competing species with conflicting strategies.

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Francisco C. Santos (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal): Cooperation and the Evolution of Collective Action
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The emergence and sustainability of cooperation, traversing areas as diverse as Ecology, Economics, Political Science or Psychology, is perhaps one the most paradigmatic open questions in complex systems and interdisciplinary research. Cooperation dilemmas occur at all scales and levels of complexity, from cells to global governance. In all cases the tragedy of the commons threatens the possibility of reaching the optimal solution associated with global cooperation. By combining game theory, stochastic population dynamics, and network science, I shall start by analyzing key aspects at the foundations of collective action from reciprocity, and reputations, to signaling, and the role played by the intricate nature of modern social networks. I will then move to more complex scenarios of public goods and N-person games, discussing in which way risk, uncertainty, small-scale agreements, sanctioning institutions or wealth inequality may influence cooperation at a global scale.

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Gustavo Stolovitzky (IBM Research and Icahn School of Medicine, USA): Introduction to systems biology of cancer
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Cells are fascinating systems to study from the perspective of dynamics, complexity and resilience. The study of cells in their cancer state adds to that fascination the urgency of dealing with a malignancy that is the second killer in the world, accounting for 1 out of every 4 deaths in the US only. The advent of fast and cheap sequencing technologies in the last decade brought with it the ability to probe cancer at the molecular level, giving researchers the opportunity to mechanistically explore carcinogenesis, tumor progression and tumor heterogeneity. Systems biology also blossomed during the last decade and a half, bringing a healthy dose of quantitation to the study of biology by leveraging contributions of diverse disciplines such as physics, mathematics, computer science and engineering. Systems Biology deals with the biological reality by embracing its complexity and looking at all the experimentally accessible components from where it formulates models and refutable predictions. The application of systems biology to cancer is pushing the boundaries in cancer research, by enabling cancer biologists and clinicians to develop better diagnosis, prognosis and treatments tools. In these lectures I will review the most important topics in the evolving field of cancer systems biology, highlighting open-ended areas where there are interesting opportunities for new discoveries.

Seminar Abstracts:

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Silvina P. Dawson (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina): Fluctuations and transport in cells and the information that can be extracted from optical experiments
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Cells are permanently interacting with their environment. This interaction usually involves the binding of molecules to receptors that are located on the plasma membrane inducing changes in a series of intracellular components that eventually generate an end response. Both the arrival of the external molecules and the cascade of events that the initial binding induces involve the transport of substances. Most often this transport includes the diffusion of relevant species that, on their way, also interact with various cell components. All these processes occur in a very fluctuating realm. Fluctuations set limits to the accuracy with which endogenous processes can occur. The physical principles that rule these limits also affect the experimental quantification of biophysical parameters in situ. The characterization of fluctuations, on the other hand, provides a way to quantify biophysical parameters. In this talk I will discuss the behavior of transport and fluctuations in cells and how the latter can be used to quantify certain parameters. To this end I will consider a simple system of reacting and diffusing species. I will introduce the idea of effective diffusion coefficients and will analyze what information is provided in such a case by optical experiments that are currently used to quantified concentrations and transport rates. I will finally discuss how these ideas can be extended to understand the time it takes for endogenous mechanisms to “read” concentration changes.

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Celso Grebogi (Aberdeen University, UK): Compressive sensing based prediction of social and metabolic complex networks
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In the fields of complex dynamics and complex networks, the reverse engineering, systems identification, or inverse problem is generally regarded as hard and extremely challenging mathematically as complex dynamical systems and networks consists of a large number of interacting units. However, our ideas based on compressive sensing, in combination with innovative approaches, generates a new paradigm that offers the possibility to address the fundamental inverse problem in complex dynamics and networks. In particular, in this talk, I will argue that evolutionary games model a common type of interactions in a variety of complex, networked, natural systems and social systems. Given such a system, uncovering the interacting structure of the underlying network is key to understanding its collective dynamics. Based on compressive sensing, we develop an efficient approach to reconstructing complex networks under game-based interactions from small amounts of data. The method is validated by using a variety of model networks and by conducting an actual experiment to reconstruct a social network. While most existing methods in this area assume oscillator networks that generate continuous-time data, our work successfully demonstrates that the extremely challenging problem of reverse engineering of complex networks can also be addressed even when the underlying dynamical processes are governed by realistic, evolutionary-game type of interactions in discrete time. I will also touch on the issue of detecting hidden nodes, on how to ascertain its existence and its location in the network, this being highly relevant to metabolic networks.

———–

Network reconstruction based on evolutionary-game data via compressive sensing, W.-X. Wang, Y.-C. Lai, C. Grebogi, and J. Ye, Phys. Rev. X 1, 021021 (2011)

Predicting catastrophe in nonlinear dynamical systems by compressive sensing, W.-X. Wang, R. Yang, Y.-C. Lai, V. Kovanis, and C. Grebogi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 154101 (2011)

Forecasting the future: Is it possible for adiabatically time-varying nonlinear dynamical systems? R. Yang, Y.-C. Lai, and C. Grebogi, Chaos 22, 033119 (2012)

Optimizing controllability of complex networks by minimum structural perturbations, W.-X. Wang, X. Ni, Y.-C. Lai, and C. Grebogi, Phys. Rev. E 85, 026115 (2012)

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Flávia M. D. Marquitti (IFGW – Unicamp, Brazil): Strategies in nature: using game theory to deal with different problems
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Individuals of many species present different strategies when interacting with other individuals. In mutualistic interactions, for instance, individuals of different species exploit each other, resulting in net benefits for both of them. However, sometimes one of the partners can present a strategy of overexploitation of the partner. In pollination, one of the most known forms of mutualisms, nectar robbers and nectar thieves act as cheaters of plant-pollination interactions, exploring floral resources such as pollen and nectar without pollinating the flowers. Mimicry is another strategy in which some preys cheat the predators displaying a fake dangerousness to them. Males of some lizard species have different strategies to attract females for reproduction, such as territorialist males, female-like males and sneaker males. All these strategies are characterized by costs and benefits associated with the interaction between partners. The interplay between the benefits and costs of the interactions may help us understand how different strategies can coexist and how a disadvantageous strategy can become predominant in a population. We used game theory as an unifying approach to deal with these different problems.

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José N. Onuchic (Rice University, USA): From structure to function: the convergence of structure based models and co-evolutionary information
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Understanding protein folding and function is one of the most important problems in biological research. Energy landscape theory and the folding funnel concept have provided a framework to investigate the mechanisms associated to these processes. Since protein energy landscapes are in most cases minimally frustrated, structure based models (SMBs) have successfully determined the geometrical features associated with folding and functional transitions. Structural information, however, is limited with respect to different functional configurations. This is a major limitation for SBMs. Alternatively statistical methods to study amino acid co-evolution provide information on residue–residue interactions useful for the study of structure and function. Here, we show how the combination of these two methods gives rise to a novel way to investigate the mechanisms associated with folding and function.

We will also show how this combined approach can be used to develop a procedure to predict the association of protein structures into homodimers. Coevolutionary contacts extracted from Direct Coupling Analysis (DCA) in combination with SBMs guide the simulations of dimerization. Identification of dimerization contacts using DCA is more challenging than intradomain contacts since direct couplings are mixed with monomeric contacts. Therefore a systematic way to extract dimerization signals has been elusive. We provide evidence that the prediction of homodimeric complexes is possible with high accuracy. The mean RMSD is 1.38 Å for the most accurate conformations of 11 structurally diverse dimeric complexes. This methodology is also able to identify distinct dimerization conformations as for the case of the family of response regulators, which dimerize upon activation.

* Supported by the NSF

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Andre A. de Thomaz (IFGW -Unicamp, Brazil): Multimodal photonic platform to understand biological processes
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The scientific community believes there is a great chance that the next technological revolution is coming from the control of biological processes. This revolution can change many aspects of our actual life, like the way we produce food and how we fight diseases. It is clear to our group that these changes will come only from the understanding of biology at its most basic unity: the cell. Moreover, only after we understand and control the chemical reactions inside the cell it will be possible to achieve these predictions. We believe that a multimodal photonic platform is the best tool to study biological processes because of its ability to follow processes in real time without any damage to the cells.   The techniques present in this platform are: 1 or 2 photon excited fluorescence, second or third harmonic generation, optical tweezers, fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) and Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET). In this seminar I will show how to assemble this integrated platform and its versatility with results from different fields of biology.

Additional Information:

List of Confirmed Participants: Updated on Dec 29

Registration: ALL participants should register. The registration will be on January 11 at the institute from 9:00 to 10:00 am. You can find arrival instruction at http://www.ictp-saifr.org/?page_id=195 Participants who have attended the previous school do not need to register again.

BOARDING PASS: All participants, whose travel has been provided or will be reimbursed by the institute, should bring the boarding pass upon registration, and collect an envelope to send the return boarding pass to the institute.

Accommodation: Participants whose accommodation has been provided by the institute will stay at The Universe Flat. Each participant, whose accommodation has been provided by the institute, has received the accommodation details individually by email.

Emergency number: 9 8233 8671 (from São Paulo city); +55 11 9 8233 8671 (from abroad), 11 9 8233 8671 (from outside São Paulo).

Ground transportation instructions: 

Ground transportation from Guarulhos Airport to The Universe Flat

Ground transportation from Congonhas Airport to the Universe Flat

Ground transportation from The Universe Flat to the institute

Start time: January 4, 2016

Ends on: January 10, 2016

Location: São Paulo, Brazil

Venue: IFT-UNESP

Organizers:
Marcel Clerc (Univ. Chile), Roberto Kraenkel (IFT-UNESP, Brazil), Paulo Inácio Prado (USP/SP, Brazil)

Lecturer:
Roberto Kraenkel (IFT-UNESP, Brazil) – Introduction to Population Biology

1)    single species dynamics
2)    interacting species I: competition
3)    interacting species II: predator-prey dynamics
4)    models in epidemiology
5)    spatial population dynamics

Lecturer´s Assistant:

Description:
This school is aimed at graduate students in Physics, Mathematics, Ecology and Epidemiology, having at least a basic knowledge of calculus and differential equations. Lectures cover the basics of population dynamics and are supplemented with modelling exercises addressing mainly problems in ecology, epidemiology and evolution. Undergraduate students with exceptional records are also encouraged to apply. Limited funds are available for travel and local expenses. There is no registration fee.

This activity will be followed by the ‘School on Physics Applications in Biology’. Candidates may apply either for one or both schools.

Please note that acceptance cannot be taken for granted, as we expect a much higher number of applications than the maximum number of participants. We advise the candidates to carefully complete the application form, providing enough information for the selection committee to take a decision.

In order to have an idea of the kind of activities that take place during the course, please visit the home-page of the first four editions of this school at http://www.ictp-saifr.org/mathbio, http://www.ictp-saifr.org/mathbio2, http://www.ictp-saifr.org/mathbio3 and  http://www.ictp-saifr.org/mathbio4.

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Photos:

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School Program: PDF version updated on December 14

 Click on the title of the lectures to watch the videos

Additional Information:

List of Confirmed Participants: Updated on Jan 6

Registration: ALL participants should register. The registration will be on January 4 at the institute from 9:00 to 10:00 am. You can find arrival instruction at http://www.ictp-saifr.org/?page_id=195

BOARDING PASS: All participants, whose travel has been provided or will be reimbursed by the institute, should bring the boarding pass upon registration, and collect an envelope to send the return boarding pass to the institute.

Accommodation: Participants whose accommodation has been provided by the institute will stay at The Universe Flat. Each participant, whose accommodation has been provided by the institute, has received the accommodation details individually by email.

Emergency number: 9 8233 8671 (from São Paulo city); +55 11 9 8233 8671 (from abroad), 11 9 8233 8671 (from outside São Paulo).

Ground transportation instructions: 

Ground transportation from Guarulhos Airport to The Universe Flat

Ground transportation from Congonhas Airport to the Universe Flat

Ground transportation from The Universe Flat to the institute

Maior acelerador de partículas do mundo foi ligado em abril e pretende começar nova etapa de coleta de dados em junho

Operadores do LHC confirmam a primeira circulação de feixes de prótons pelo acelerador após dois anos (Imagem: Maximilien Brice/CERN)

O Large Hadron Collider (LHC), maior acelerador de partículas do mundo, voltou a ser ligado nesse mês de abril após um período de dois anos de manutenção e aprimoramentos. Apesar de ainda não estar pronto para realizar colisões, no último dia 5 dois feixes de prótons circularam pelo equipamento com uma energia relativamente baixa. A previsão é que a coleta de dados comece no mês de junho, com uma energia de 13 TeV – o que superaria o recorde de 8 TeV estabelecido pelo próprio LHC.

Entre os principais objetivos dos pesquisadores para essa segunda etapa está aprofundar os estudos sobre o Bóson de Higgs e descobrir novas partículas que não pertençam ao Modelo Padrão.

Bóson de Higgs

Na primeira fase de experimentos do acelerador, o Bóson de Higgs foi descoberto – era a última partícula do Modelo Padrão que ainda não havia sido detectada. Sua massa foi calculada com uma boa precisão: 125 GeV, com um erro de 0,21 para mais ou para menos. Entretanto, ainda há muito para se descobrir sobre essa partícula.

“O LHC tentará fazer medidas mais precisas das propriedades do Bóson de Higgs e de como ele interage com outras partículas”, diz Gero von Gersdorff, pós-doutorando do ICTP-SAIFR. “A maneira como ele decai, por exemplo, pode trazer mais informações. Além disso, um grande problema em Física de Partículas é explicar por que a massa do Bóson de Higgs é tão pequena. Muitos físicos acreditam que a explicação para isso está em uma das teorias que tentam complementar o Modelo Padrão”.

Além do Modelo Padrão

Com o Modelo Padrão completo, qualquer nova partícula descoberta exigirá uma extensão do modelo. Entre as teorias mais estudadas atualmente que propõem essa extensão estão a Supersimetria e a Teoria do Higgs Composto. Na Supersimetria, todas as partículas do Modelo Padrão possuem uma partícula com massa e carga elétrica equivalentes, porém com spin diferente. Na Teoria do Higgs Composto, o Bóson de Higgs não é uma partícula fundamental, ou seja, ele é composto por outras subpartículas. Com energias mais altas, o LHC poderá detectar partículas com massas maiores e fornecer as primeiras evidências experimentais para uma dessas teorias.

“As partículas supersimétricas teoricamente mais fáceis de serem detectadas são os squarks e os gluínos, pares supersimétricos dos quarks e glúons, respectivamente”, diz Alberto Tonero, pós-doutorando do ICTP-SAIFR. “Na verdade, a detecção dessas partículas já era esperada na primeira etapa de experimentos do LHC. No modelo atual, então, a supersimetria não seria exata, pois as partículas que procuramos teriam uma massa maior. Caso elas sejam detectadas agora e sua natureza supersimétrica seja confirmada, apesar de não comprovar a teoria da Supersimetria, será um forte indício de que ela está correta”.

A segunda fase de experimentos do LHC será realizada até 2018, quando o acelerador será desligado novamente. Uma terceira fase já está confirmada, e deverá começar em 2020 ou 2021.

The world’s largest particle accelerator was turned on in April and is expected to start collecting data in June

LHC operators confirm the first circulation of beams in the accelerator after two years (Image: Maximilien Brice/CERN)

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest particle accelerator in the world, was turned on again this month after a two-year period of maintenance and upgrades. Although not yet ready to make collisions, on the 5^th of April two proton beams circulated in the equipment with relative low energy. Data collection is expected to homework writing begin in June, with an energy of 13 TeV – which would increase the LHC’s own record of 8 TeV.

Among the main objectives of the researchers for this second run is to further study the Higgs Boson and to discover new particles that are not predicted by the Standard Model.

Higgs Boson

In the first run of the accelerator the Higgs boson was discovered – it was the last particle of the Standard Model that had not been detected yet. Its mass was calculated with good precision: 125 GeV with an error of 0.21 for more or less. However, there is still much to learn about this particle.

“The LHC will try to make more precise measurements of the Higgs Boson properties look here http://samedayessays.org/buy-essay/and how it interacts with other particles,” says Gero von Gersdorff, postdoctoral at ICTP-SAIFR. “The way it decays, for example, can provide more information. Furthermore, a great problem in particle physics is why the mass of the Higgs is so small. Many physicists expect that this should be explained by a theory beyond the Standard Model”.

Beyond the Standard Model

With the Standard Model complete, any new particle that is discovered will require an extension of the model. Among the most studied theories that propose such extensions are Supersymmetry and the Composite Higgs models. In Supersymmetry, all Standard Model particles have a partner particle with the same physical properties, but with different spin. In Composite Higgs models, the Higgs Boson is not a fundamental particle, that is, it consists of other sub-particles. With higher energies, the LHC will be able to detect particles with larger masses and provide the first experimental evidence for these theories.

“The supersymmetric particles that are theoretically easier to detect are the squarks and gluinos, supersymmetric partners of quarks and gluons, respectively,” says Alberto Tonero, postdoctoral at ICTP-SAIFR. “In fact, the detection of these particles was expected in the first LHC run. That means that in the current model the supersymmetry wouldn’t be exact for paper editing writing, as the particles that we are looking for would have a bigger mass. If they are detected now and their supersymmetric nature is confirmed, although it will not prove Supersymmetry, it will be a strong evidence that it is correct.”

The second phase of LHC experiments will be held until 2018, when the accelerator will be turned off again. A third phase is already confirmed and should start in 2020 or 2021.

Pesquisador do IFT é um dos criadores do site Águas Futuras, que faz previsões sobre os níveis de água do sistema Cantareira

Roberto Kraenkel é físico e pesquisador no Instituto de Física Teórica da Unesp. Com o colega Paulo Inácio Prado, biólogo da USP, e o pós-doutorando Renato Mendes Coutinho, criou o site Águas Futuras, que faz previsões sobre os níveis de água do Sistema Cantareira. A página da Internet foi colocada no ar dia 14 de abril, e é muito mais do que um modelo matemático para saber se o volume do Cantareira irá aumentar ou diminuir nos próximos dias; é, também, uma tentativa de tornar mais qualificada a discussão sobre um gravíssimo problema que afeta a maior cidade do país, e de mostrar como a ciência pode contribuir para resolvê-lo, evitar novas crises e melhorar a gestão de recursos hídricos do estado e do país.

Conheça o site Águas Futuras: http://cantareira.github.io/

Ricardo Aguiar – Prof. Kraenkel, como surgiu a ideia de fazer esse projeto?

Roberto Kraenkel – Ao longo do ano passado, acompanhamos a grave crise de água que afetou, e ainda está afetando, a cidade e o estado de São Paulo. Percebemos que as discussões a respeito desse assunto eram extremamente desqualificadas. Queríamos entender melhor esse problema e tentar contribuir para tornar essa discussão pública mais qualificada.

Como trabalhamos com modelos matemáticos, buscamos entender a dinâmica de um reservatório de água – por exemplo, a taxa de absorção de água depende do volume do sistema naquele momento? Quais são os fatores mais importantes para prever e evitar crises como essa?

RA – Como funciona o modelo que criaram?

RK – Para construir o modelo usamos dados do Sistema Cantareira. O volume de água do sistema depende da quantidade de água que entra – a vazão afluente – e da quantidade de água que sai – a vazão efluente.

A quantidade que entra depende das chuvas, mas depende também do volume do sistema. Quando cheio, o sistema absorve mais água – a chuva cai diretamente na água do reservatório. Quando vazio, o sistema absorve menos água – a chuva cai também sobre o solo, que a absorve.

A quantidade que sai depende de quanta água a Sabesp retira por dia. Essa quantidade antes da crise era, em média, de 33m³/s. Com a crise, passou para 14m³/s. Embora não se fale em racionamento, fica claro que a Sabesp está enviando menos água para abastecer a cidade.

Para fazer as projeções, nos baseamos nas taxas de chuva de anos anteriores. Fizemos projeções baseadas em três cenários: com as chuvas desse ano se mantendo na média dos anos anteriores; com as chuvas desse ano ficando abaixo da média; e com as chuvas desse ano ficando acima da média. Desse modo, contemplamos desde o cenário mais pessimista até o cenário mais otimista.

RA – Como está a atual situação do Sistema Cantareira e quais as previsões mais otimistas e pessimistas?

RK – O Sistema Cantareira ainda não conseguiu recuperar o volume morto utilizado na crise.

O volume morto representa cerca de 22,6% do volume total do sistema. Atualmente, o Cantareira está com pouco mais de 15% de seu volume. Isso significa que precisamos subir mais 7 pontos percentuais para recuperarmos o volume morto.

Para manter nossas projeções precisas, fazemos previsões para no máximo 30 dias. No momento, a previsão mais otimista para daqui um mês é que o Sistema Cantareira esteja com 17,6% de sua capacidade. O mais pessimista é que esteja com apenas 12,9%.

Todas as outras projeções podem ser encontradas em nosso site.

RA – Como foi acessar os dados da Sabesp?

RK – Tivemos muita dificuldade para acessar os dados da Sabesp. Todas as informações estão disponíveis em uma página da Internet, porém não há links para essa página. Conseguimos achá-la através de contatos que temos, e se não fosse por isso não teríamos conseguido fazer o modelo.

Gostaríamos de usar esse modelo para fazer projeções para outros reservatórios também, mas é justamente pela dificuldade de acessar informações que ainda não conseguimos. Em outros estados, simplesmente não há dados disponíveis.

RA – Quais os próximos passos do projeto?

RK – Gostaríamos de elaborar um modelo que pudesse prever crises com antecipação.

O Cantareira tinha um sistema que previa crises. Até o início de 2014, esse sistema não indicava crise alguma. Hoje sabemos que ele estava errado e falhou.

Entretanto, volto a dizer que nosso objetivo é tornar a discussão pública sobre esse gravíssimo problema mais qualificada. Criamos um site, totalmente público, para que todos possam ter acesso a essa informação. Não queríamos simplesmente publicar mais um artigo científico; queríamos contribuir para a resolução de um problema na sociedade.