EURANDOM

Spain (3) and Austria (1). There was also a good mix in seniority and background (climate studies, statistics).
During this workshop, the presentations lead to fruitful discussions and interaction. People from climate
studies have learned about recent developments in the field of extreme value theory that are
highly relevant for them. People from statistics have learned about the statistical problems people in
climate research are confronted with. EURANDOM and KNMI see possibilities in starting joint projects
on statistical approaches to problems in climate studies.
Sponsors:
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), Mathematical Research Institute (MRI), Netherlands
Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Thomas Stieltjes Institute for Mathematics, NWO Earth and
Life Sciences (ALW).
June 8-10, 2010 (SIM)
Parameter Estimation for Dynamical Systems
Organizers:
Chris Klaassen, Universiteit van Amsterdam & EURANDOM
Shota Gugushvili, EURANDOM
Bart Bakker, Philips Research
Participants: 50
There were eight presentations by invited speakers, seven contributed talks, a poster session with eight
posters, and a panel discussion on present state and future of the field.
Systems of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) play an important role in modelling various phenomena
that arise in fields as diverse as biology, engineering, chemistry, meteorology, and many others.
Typically, these systems are nonlinear and depend on parameters. For instance, in biomolecular applications
these parameters describe interaction rates and initial concentrations of various molecules relevant
to a given biomolecular process. In order to obtain a model useful in practice, it is critical to know
these parameters. They have to be inferred from data related to the process at hand. Typically, the dimensions
of both the ODE system as well as the parameter space are high, while data are relatively
scarce. Hence estimation of parameters of ODE systems is a challenging problem that lies at an intersection
of several theoretical and applied fields. The workshop has been very successful in providing a
meeting place for researchers in the area, who reviewed different methods used to tackle the problem,
assessed the achieved progress, and identified future research directions.
Classical Least Squares Estimation was discussed by Piet Hemker, the Bayesian approach by Dave Lunn
and Dave Campbell, smoothing techniques by Jim Ramsay and former EURANDOM-postdoc Nicolas
Brunel, a nonlinear programming approach by Victor Zavala, and applications by Kim McAuley. A general
overview was given by Eberhard Voit. The contributed papers and posters also touched on several
of these topics. It was a good mixture of theoretical and more applied contributions for an audience
and by speakers with diverse backgrounds.
The workshop has drawn attention to this new field, has been very informative for the participants,
and has fostered collaboration by its pleasant and inspiring atmosphere.
Publication of proceedings in a journal is under discussion. A follow-up workshop might be planned in
two years.
Sponsors:
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre (NBIC),
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Philips.
June 25 & 26, 2009 (QPA)
SPOTNET meeting
Organizers:
Seva Shneer, EURANDOM
EURANDOM Annual Report 2009 27