Research Event

Corporate Members Event

Event participants

Dr Yu Jie, Senior Research Fellow on China, Asia-Pacific Programme, Chatham House
David Lubin, Associate Fellow, Global Economy and Finance Programme, Chatham House; Managing Director and Head of Emerging Markets Economics, Citi
Jinny Yan, Managing Director and Chief China Economist, ICBC Standard
Chair: Creon Butler, Director, Global Economy and Finance Programme, Chatham House

18 February 2020

Research Event

Event participants

K. Anis Ahmed, Publisher, Dhaka Tribune and Bangla Tribune; Author of Good Night, Mr. Kissinger, Co-director, Dhaka Literary Festival
Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director, Human Rights Watch
Chair: Ed Cumming, Writer, The Independent

Invitation Only Research Event

Event participants

Dr Kurt Campbell, Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder, The Asia Group; Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 2009-13
Chair: Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, Director, US and the Americas Programme, Chatham House

Research Event

Event participants

James Crabtree, Associate Fellow, Asia-Pacific Programme
Will Hutton, Political Economist; Principal, Hertford College Oxford 
Chair: Champa Patel, Director, Asia-Pacific Programme, Chatham House

9 April 2020

17 April 2020

Research Event

Event participants

Yu Jie, Senior Research Fellow on China, Asia-Pacific Programme, Chatham House
Kerry Brown, Associate Fellow, Asia-Pacific Programme, Chatham House; Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of Lau China Institute, King’s College London

The colored "strings" you see represent air flow around the soccer ball, with the dark blue streams behind the ball signifying a low-pressure wake. Computational fluid dynamics and wind tunnel experiments have shown that there is a transition point between smooth and turbulent flow at around 30 mph, which can dramatically change the path of a kick approaching the net as its speed decreases through the transition point. Players taking free-kicks need not be mathematicians to score, but knowing the results obtained from mathematical facts can help players devise better strategies. The behavior of a ball depends on its surface design as well as on how it.s kicked. Topology, algebra, and geometry are all important to determine suitable shapes, and modeling helps determine desirable ones. The researchers studying soccer ball trajectories incorporate into their mathematical models not only the pattern of a new ball, but also details right down to the seams. Recently there was a radical change from the long-used pentagon-hexagon pattern to the adidas +TeamgeistTM. Yet the overall framework for the design process remains the same: to approximate a sphere, within less than two percent, using two-dimensional panels.

Sea ice is one of the least understood components of our climate. Naturally its abundance or scarcity is a telling sign of climate change, but sea ice is also an important actor in change as well, insulating the ocean and reflecting sunlight. A branch of mathematics called percolation theory helps explain how salt water travels through sea ice, a process that is crucial both to the amount of sea ice present and to the microscopic communities that sustain polar ecosystems. By taking samples, doing on-site experiments, and then incorporating the data into models of porous materials, mathematicians are working to understand sea ice and help refine climate predictions. Using probability, numerical analysis, and partial differential equations, researchers have recently shown that the permeability of sea ice is similar to that of some sedimentary rocks in the earth.s crust, even though the substances are otherwise dissimilar. One major difference between the two is the drastic changes in permeability of sea ice, from total blockage to clear passage, that occur over a range of just a few degrees. This difference can have a major effect on measurements by satellite, which provide information on the extent and thickness of sea ice. Results about sea ice will not only make satellite measurements more reliable, but they can also be applied to descriptions of lung and bone porosity, and to understanding ice on other planets. Image: Pancake ice in Antarctica, courtesy of Ken Golden. For More Information: "Thermal evolution of permeability and microstructure in sea ice," K. M. Golden, et al., Geophysical Research Letters, August 28, 2007.

Sea ice is one of the least understood components of our climate. Naturally its abundance or scarcity is a telling sign of climate change, but sea ice is also an important actor in change as well, insulating the ocean and reflecting sunlight. A branch of mathematics called percolation theory helps explain how salt water travels through sea ice, a process that is crucial both to the amount of sea ice present and to the microscopic communities that sustain polar ecosystems. By taking samples, doing on-site experiments, and then incorporating the data into models of porous materials, mathematicians are working to understand sea ice and help refine climate predictions. Using probability, numerical analysis, and partial differential equations, researchers have recently shown that the permeability of sea ice is similar to that of some sedimentary rocks in the earth.s crust, even though the substances are otherwise dissimilar. One major difference between the two is the drastic changes in permeability of sea ice, from total blockage to clear passage, that occur over a range of just a few degrees. This difference can have a major effect on measurements by satellite, which provide information on the extent and thickness of sea ice. Results about sea ice will not only make satellite measurements more reliable, but they can also be applied to descriptions of lung and bone porosity, and to understanding ice on other planets. Image: Pancake ice in Antarctica, courtesy of Ken Golden. For More Information: "Thermal evolution of permeability and microstructure in sea ice," K. M. Golden, et al., Geophysical Research Letters, August 28, 2007.

Sea ice is one of the least understood components of our climate. Naturally its abundance or scarcity is a telling sign of climate change, but sea ice is also an important actor in change as well, insulating the ocean and reflecting sunlight. A branch of mathematics called percolation theory helps explain how salt water travels through sea ice, a process that is crucial both to the amount of sea ice present and to the microscopic communities that sustain polar ecosystems. By taking samples, doing on-site experiments, and then incorporating the data into models of porous materials, mathematicians are working to understand sea ice and help refine climate predictions. Using probability, numerical analysis, and partial differential equations, researchers have recently shown that the permeability of sea ice is similar to that of some sedimentary rocks in the earth.s crust, even though the substances are otherwise dissimilar. One major difference between the two is the drastic changes in permeability of sea ice, from total blockage to clear passage, that occur over a range of just a few degrees. This difference can have a major effect on measurements by satellite, which provide information on the extent and thickness of sea ice. Results about sea ice will not only make satellite measurements more reliable, but they can also be applied to descriptions of lung and bone porosity, and to understanding ice on other planets. Image: Pancake ice in Antarctica, courtesy of Ken Golden. For More Information: "Thermal evolution of permeability and microstructure in sea ice," K. M. Golden, et al., Geophysical Research Letters, August 28, 2007.

Sea ice is one of the least understood components of our climate. Naturally its abundance or scarcity is a telling sign of climate change, but sea ice is also an important actor in change as well, insulating the ocean and reflecting sunlight. A branch of mathematics called percolation theory helps explain how salt water travels through sea ice, a process that is crucial both to the amount of sea ice present and to the microscopic communities that sustain polar ecosystems. By taking samples, doing on-site experiments, and then incorporating the data into models of porous materials, mathematicians are working to understand sea ice and help refine climate predictions. Using probability, numerical analysis, and partial differential equations, researchers have recently shown that the permeability of sea ice is similar to that of some sedimentary rocks in the earth.s crust, even though the substances are otherwise dissimilar. One major difference between the two is the drastic changes in permeability of sea ice, from total blockage to clear passage, that occur over a range of just a few degrees. This difference can have a major effect on measurements by satellite, which provide information on the extent and thickness of sea ice. Results about sea ice will not only make satellite measurements more reliable, but they can also be applied to descriptions of lung and bone porosity, and to understanding ice on other planets. Image: Pancake ice in Antarctica, courtesy of Ken Golden. For More Information: "Thermal evolution of permeability and microstructure in sea ice," K. M. Golden, et al., Geophysical Research Letters, August 28, 2007.

The collective motion of many groups of animals can be stunning. Flocks of birds and schools of fish are able to remain cohesive, find food, and avoid predators without leaders and without awareness of all but a few other members in their groups. Research using vector analysis and statistics has led to the discovery of simple principles, such as members maintaining a minimum distance between neighbors while still aligning with them, which help explain shapes such as the one below. Although collective motion by groups of animals is often beautiful, it can be costly as well: Destructive locusts affect ten percent of the world.s population. Many other animals exhibit group dynamics; some organisms involved are small while their groups are huge, so researchers. models have to account for distances on vastly different scales. The resulting equations then must be solved numerically, because of the incredible number of animals represented. Conclusions from this research will help manage destructive insects, such as locusts, as well as help speed the movement of people.ants rarely get stuck in traffic. Photo by Jose Luis Gomez de Francisco. For More Information: Swarm Theory, Peter Miller. National Geographic, July 2007.

The music of most hit songs is pretty well known, but sometimes there are mysteries. One question that remained unanswered for over forty years is: What instrumentation and notes make up the opening chord of the Beatles. "A Hard Day.s Night"? Mathematician Jason Brown - a big Beatles fan - recently solved the puzzle using his musical knowledge and discrete Fourier transforms, mathematical transformations that help decompose signals into their basic parts. These transformations simplify applications ranging from signal processing to multiplying large numbers, so that a researcher doesn.t have to be "working like a dog" to get an answer. Brown is also using mathematics, specifically graph theory, to discover who wrote "In My Life," which both Lennon and McCartney claimed to have written. In his graphs, chords are represented by points that are connected when one chord immediately follows another. When all songs with known authorship are diagrammed, Brown will see which collection of graphs - McCartney.s or Lennon.s - is a better fit for "In My Life." Although it may seem a bit counterintuitive to use mathematics to learn more about a revolutionary band, these analytical methods identify and uncover compositional principles inherent in some of the best Beatles. music. Thus it.s completely natural and rewarding to apply mathematics to the Fab 4 For More Information: Professor Uses Mathematics to Decode Beatles Tunes, "The Wall Street Journal", January 30, 2009..

With 468 stops served by 26 lines, the New York subway system can make visitors feel lucky when they successfully negotiate one planned trip in a day. Yet these two New Yorkers, Chris Solarz and Matt Ferrisi, took on the task of breaking a world record by visiting every stop in the system in less than 24 hours. They used mathematics, especially graph theory, to narrow down the possible routes to a manageable number and subdivided the problem to find the best routes in smaller groups of stations. Then they paired their mathematical work with practice runs and crucial observations (the next-to-last car stops closest to the stairs) to shatter the world record by more than two hours!

Although Chris and Matt.s success may not have huge ramifications in other fields, their work does have a lot in common with how people do modern mathematics research

* They worked together, frequently using computers and often asking experts for advice;
* They devoted considerable time and effort to meet their goal; and
* They continually refined their algorithm until arriving at a solution that was nearly optimal.
Finally, they also experienced the same feeling that researchers do that despite all the hours and intense preparation, the project .felt more like fun than work.
For More Information: Math whizzes shoot to set record for traversing subway system,. Sergey Kadinsky and Rich Schapiro, New York Daily News, January 22, 2009.
Photo by Elizabeth Ferrisi.
Map New York Metropolitan Transit Authority.
The Mathematical Moments program promotes appreciation and understanding of the role mathematics plays in science, nature, technology, and human culture.

A person needing a kidney transplant may have a friend or relative who volunteers to be a living donor, but whose kidney is incompatible, forcing the person to wait for a transplant from a deceased donor. In the U.S. alone, thousands of people die each year without ever finding a suitable kidney. A new technique applies graph theory to groups of incompatible patient-donor pairs to create the largest possible number of paired-donation exchanges. These exchanges, in which a donor paired with Patient A gives a kidney to Patient B while a donor paired with Patient B gives to Patient A, will dramatically increase transplants from living donors. Since transplantation is less expensive than dialysis, this mathematical algorithm, in addition to saving lives, will also save hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Naturally there can be more transplants if matches along longer patient-donor cycles are considered (e.g., A.s donor to B, B.s donor to C, and C.s donor to A). The problem is that the possible number of longer cycles grows so fast hundreds of millions of A >B>C>A matches in just 5000 donor-patient pairs that to search through all the possibilities is impossible. An ingenious use of random walks and integer programming now makes searching through all three-way matches feasible, even in a database large enough to include all incompatible patient-donor pairs. For More Information: Matchmaking for Kidneys, Dana Mackenzie, SIAM News, December 2008. Image of suboptimal two-way matching (in purple) and an optimal matching (in green), courtesy of Sommer Gentry.

A triple cork is a spinning jump in which the snowboarder is parallel to the ground three times while in the air. Such a jump had never been performed in a competition before 2011, which prompted ESPN.s Sport Science program to ask math professor Tim Chartier if it could be done under certain conditions. Originally doubtful, he and a recent math major graduate used differential equations, vector analysis, and calculus to discover that yes, a triple cork was indeed possible. A few days later, boarder Torstein Horgmo landed a successful triple cork at the X-Games (which presumably are named for everyone.s favorite variable). Snowboarding is not the only sport in which modern athletes and coaches seek answers from mathematics. Swimming and bobsledding research involves computational fluid dynamics to analyze fluid flow so as to decrease drag. Soccer and basketball analysts employ graph and network theory to chart passes and quantify team performance. And coaches in the NFL apply statistics and game theory to focus on the expected value of a play instead of sticking with the traditional Square root of 9 yards and a cloud of dust.

A triple cork is a spinning jump in which the snowboarder is parallel to the ground three times while in the air. Such a jump had never been performed in a competition before 2011, which prompted ESPN.s Sport Science program to ask math professor Tim Chartier if it could be done under certain conditions. Originally doubtful, he and a recent math major graduate used differential equations, vector analysis, and calculus to discover that yes, a triple cork was indeed possible. A few days later, boarder Torstein Horgmo landed a successful triple cork at the X-Games (which presumably are named for everyone.s favorite variable). Snowboarding is not the only sport in which modern athletes and coaches seek answers from mathematics. Swimming and bobsledding research involves computational fluid dynamics to analyze fluid flow so as to decrease drag. Soccer and basketball analysts employ graph and network theory to chart passes and quantify team performance. And coaches in the NFL apply statistics and game theory to focus on the expected value of a play instead of sticking with the traditional Square root of 9 yards and a cloud of dust.

Once a problem only in the developed world, obesity is now a worldwide epidemic. The overwhelming cause of the epidemic is a dramatic increase in the food supply and in food consumption not a surprise. Yet there are still many mysteries about weight change that can.t be answered either inside the lab, because of the impracticality of keeping people isolated for long periods of time, or outside, because of the unreliability of dietary diaries. Mathematical models based on differential equations can help overcome this roadblock and allow detailed analysis of the relationship between food intake, metabolism, and weight change. The models. predictions fit existing data and explain such things as why it is hard to keep weight off and why obese people are more susceptible to further weight gain. Researchers are also investigating why dieters often plateau after a few months and slowly regain weight. A possible explanation is that metabolism slows to match the drop in food consumed, but models representing food intake and energy expenditure as a dynamical system show that such a weight plateau doesn.t take effect until much later. The likely culprit is a combination of slower metabolism and a lack of adherence to the diet. Most people are in approximate steady state, so that long-term changes are necessary to gain or lose weight. The good news is that each (enduring) drop of 10 calories a day translates into one pound of weight loss over three years, with about half the loss occurring in the first year. For More Information: Quantification of the effect of energy imbalance on bodyweight, Hall et al. Lancet, Vol. 378 (2011), pp. 826-837.

Many of today.s most striking buildings are nontraditional freeform shapes. A new field of mathematics, discrete differential geometry, makes it possible to construct these complex shapes that begin as designers. digital creations. Since it.s impossible to fashion a large structure out of a single piece of glass or metal, the design is realized using smaller pieces that best fit the original smooth surface. Triangles would appear to be a natural choice to represent a shape, but it turns out that using quadrilaterals.which would seem to be more difficult.saves material and money and makes the structure easier to build. One of the primary goals of researchers is to create an efficient, streamlined process that integrates design and construction parameters so that early on architects can assess the feasibility of a given idea. Currently, implementing a plan involves extensive (and often expensive) interplay on computers between subdivision.breaking up the entire structure into manageable manufacturable pieces.and optimization.solving nonlinear equations in high-dimensional spaces to get as close as possible to the desired shape. Designers and engineers are seeking new mathematics to improve that process. Thus, in what might be characterized as a spiral with each field enriching the other, their needs will lead to new mathematics, which makes the shapes possible in the first place. For More Information: .Geometric computing for freeform architecture,. J. Wallner and H. Pottmann. Journal of Mathematics in Industry, Vol. 1, No. 4, 2011.

Nazareth Bedrossian talks about using math to reposition the International Space Station.

Despite the considerable variety among cities, researchers have identified common mathematical properties that hold around the world, regardless of a city.s population, location or even time.

Lydia Bourouiba talks about surface tension and the transmission of disease

Researcher: Christopher Butson, Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, University of Utah. Christopher Butson talks about work he's done to help treat Parkinson's disease.

Researcher: Jackson Cothren, University of Arkansas
Moment Title: Scanning Ancient Sites
Description: Jackson Cothren talks about creating three-dimensional scans of ancient sites.

Researcher: Cristina Stoica, Wilfrid Laurier University
Description: Cristina Stoica talks about celestial mechanics.

Researcher: Andy Andres, Boston University Moment: http://www.ams.org/samplings/mathmoments/mm136-baseball.pdf Andy Andres on baseball analytics.

Dear Shareholders, As Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board, I am contacting you personally today in advance of the Annual General Meeting to ask for your continued trust and support.

euromicron AG, a medium-sized technology group and specialist for the digital support of business processes through secure infrastructures, is pooling its digital expertise at KORAMIS GmbH, the group subsidiary that specializes in cyber security and automation. With focus on digital platforms and services KORAMIS’ portfolio will also cover the areas Smart IoT, Smart Building as well as Data Management in the future. For this step the management of KORAMIS GmbH was extended by Andreas Schmidt.

euromicron AG, a medium-sized technology group and expert on the digital networking of business and production processes, has now fully placed the capital increase it resolved on July 10, 2019.

euromicron AG, a medium-sized technology group and expert on digital networking of business and production processes, held its Annual General Meeting 2019 in Frankfurt/Main on August 29, 2019. 42 percent of the share capital was represented. At the Annual General Meeting, the Executive Board reported on the operating performance in fiscal year 2018 and in the first half of 2019 and gave an outlook on the current fiscal year. One focus was on the implementation of the measures initiated to focus on and further develop the business model.

ssm euromicron GmbH, a system house subsidiary of euromicron AG, is involved in a project to provide the technical equipment for the new building for the Institute of Geosciences at Kiel’s Christian Albrechts University. The seven-story new building is part of a campus-wide modernization initiative that is one of the largest public high-rise projects in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Final numbers for the first nine months match previously published figures Development of consolidated sales due to order postponements behind plan EBITDA (before IFRS 16) of €2.0 million and so slightly up year over year Capital increase completed successfully in the third quarter of 2019 Guidance for the whole of 2019 adjusted

Hydel, despite trailing their rivals for two straight days, easily retained their title

Kingston Tigers' wicketkeeper batsman, Chadwick Walton, continued his fine form this season

From the moment he became a trainer, Frederick Watson says his dream was to win the Derby.

GIVEN the financial position of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), John Barnes had resigned

Located in a global hotspot for biodiversity, Los Angeles County is home to more than 4,000 distinct species of plants and animals, including 52 endangered species - more than any county outside of Hawaii. And with 1 million animal and plant species facing extinction due to human activity, according to the United Nations, efforts to better understand the factors that shape biodiversity in Los Angeles could help shape global conservation efforts.

Researchers at Western and Suncor are teaming up to use algae as a way to produce serological test kits for COVID-19 - a new process that overcomes shortfalls of existing processes while saving money.

In a ground breaking study, an international team of 21 scientists led by Sean Hoban, Ph.D., Conservation Biologist at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, evaluated five genera spanning the plant tree of life (Hibiscus, Magnolia, Pseudophoenix, Quercus and Zamia) to understand how much genetic diversity currently exists in collections in botanical gardens and arboreta worldwide.

In these unprecedented times, we are all spending much more time at home and in our gardens. And, now that spring has well and truly arrived, it's the perfect time to get reacquainted with one of our country's busiest workers - the bee.

A new way of looking at marine evolution over the past 540 million years has shown that levels of biodiversity in our oceans have remained fairly constant, rather than increasing continuously over the last 200 million years, as scientists previously thought.

Do biodiversity losses aggravate transmission of infectious diseases spread by animals to humans? The jury is still out but several scientists say there is a "biodiversity dilution effect" in which declining biodiversity results in increased infectious-disease transmission.

Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve is one of China's most popular tourist attractions, drawing more than five million visitors per year to the sparsely populated mountains of north-western Sichuan. The reserve has been home to farmer-herders for thousands of years, but to conserve the biodiversity and scenic quality of the reserve, park policies prohibit residents from farming, herding and wood cutting.

The good thing about BirdLife is that, as a truly global organisation, we're already great at staying connected, even when we're thousands of miles apart. Here are just a few of the ways our work will carry on over the coming months, even if it's from our living rooms.

In these unusual and tragic times, I am indeed grateful that we are able to connect virtually to continue the business of environmental governance. While the efforts of all your capitals are correctly focused on preventing human suffering, as parts of the world move slowly towards recovery, the environmental agenda remains one of our most powerful insurance policies in preventing future global pandemics like COVID-19.

"Pollinators were the key," says Edgar Mora, reflecting on the decision to recognise every bee, bat, hummingbird and butterfly as a citizen of Curridabat during his 12-year spell as mayor.