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How do you obtain 3D concrete structures, the weight of a living turkey or optimal traffic flows? Complicated problems that mathematicians from all over the world will try to tackle during SWI 2019 from 28 January to 1 February 2019. This annual event of the Studygroup Mathematics with Industry is a combined industrial-academic weeklong workshop and treats complex mathematical issues submitted by companies from different industries. The event is hosted by Wageningen University & Research. Registration for participating mathematicians is now open.

Last year, the event was held in Eindhoven, tackling problems around gas drilling and football. Read more here.

Creative collaboration

The Wageningen WICC is the venue of SWI 2019 where industry and academic world meet and stimulate each other, varying from advanced level MSc students and PhDs to experienced professionals.

Following the original Oxford model, six companies present their problem on Monday after which the participants intensively work on the solution in smaller groups during the week. It promises to be a busy, inspiring, and creative week of brainstorming, analysing, simulating and (re)calculating within the specified frameworks. Each group presents its results on Friday.

“The participants’ fresh point of view helped companies with their problems in the past and even led to unexpected solutions”, the organisers claim. “For example, a considerable reduction of the scanning time of MRI’s. Mathematicians, who often work alone or in small groups, experience SWI as a great opportunity for collaboration with their peers.”

Traffic, turkeys and concrete

Sweco is one of the companies that has submitted a problem to the SWI 2019 programme. They want to know how traffic management on the Dutch road network can be optimized for a complete network of intersections, all based on their current “Smart” traffic control system that predicts individual arrival times of vehicles.

Animal breeding company Hendrix Genetics will use the knowledge of the mathematicians for a model that can accurately predict the weight of a turkey by means of a dynamic pressure plate measurement. This would make manually weighing of the birds on a scale superfluous.

Bruil beton & mix wants insight into the optimal construction and drying conditions for 3D printing of concrete so that one can predict whether certain shapes can be successfully printed.

All selected problems can be found on this website. Mathematicians can register for the weeklong workshop.

Source: WUR