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Titles and Abstracts

program

Alessio Corti,
Imperial College, London
The LMS-MARM-NCRST lectures on  "From the Integrals of elementary functions to the monodromy of the Picard-Fuchs Equations"  or  "a friendly interdisciplinary introduction to Algebraic Geometry"

Notes
Why is so easy to express the integral of (x3-x2)-1 in terms of elementary functions while is so hard to find the same with (x3-x)-1? Following the Arianna thread to solve the enigma of this exciting yellow drama will surprisingly provide a friendly introduction to algebraic geometry, from a truly interdisciplinary point of view. The course is divided in four lectures of  fifty minutes each, as follows

Summary
  • Integrals and elementary functions
  • Plane algebraic curves: conics and cubics
  • Elliptic integrals and parametrizations of plane cubics
  • The complete elliptic integral and the Picard–Fuchs equation. The global monodromy of the Picard–Fuchs equation



Marina Marchisio,
Università di Torino,
Italy






The LMS-MARM-Pupkewitz Lectures on  "Teaching and learning Mathematics in the Digital Era"

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated a process of substantial renewal of teaching with technologies. In this new perspective teachers were required to make an educational investment that is increasingly capable of innovating and differentiating teaching strategies to make them more suitable for the current era and the needs of learnerss, taking advantage of the digital skills.
The mini-course is focused on the key role of the Digital Learning Environments in the teaching and learning processes of Mathematics and other STEM disciplines, the methodologies and theoretical approaches that they allow to introduce and to empower like adaptive teaching, problem posing and solving, automatic formative assessment, collaborative learning and team working. The use of Learning Analytics and Open Educational Resources will also be discussed and finally some examples of good practices will be presented. During the mini-course the participants will be invited to reflect on the challenges of the new hybrid post-covid scenario and will be guided in the design of teaching activities. The course is devoted to both students and scholars professionally interested in mathematical training as well as to math teachers in the High school who wants to explore new teaching ways to be implemented with their own learners, who are  also warmly encouraged to actively participate to the lectures.

Summary



Sandile Motsa
University of Eswatini
The MARM-NARM Lectures on "Block hybrid methods for solving dynamical systems"

Mathematical models with applications in Engineering and Science are best cast in differential equations form. The differential equations that closely approximate real-life phenomena include non-linear dynamical systems that do not have closed-form solutions. A myriad of numerical methods for solving different types of non-linear dynamical systems can be found in the literature. The choice of numerical methods to be used depends on many factors including the preference of the researcher, the complexity of the problem and the nature of the differential equation. The aim of these lecturers is to introduce the audience to block hybrid methods that can be used to solve basic to very complex initial value problems, including stiff equations. The lectures give an introduction to the development, analysis and application of hybrid block methods in the solution of non-linear initial value problems. Examples from population dynamics, chemical reaction kinetics, and fluid mechanics will be considered for numerical experimentation using Mathematica and Matlab.

Summary



Luigi Preziosi, Politecnico di Torino,
Italy
The Politecnico di Torino Lectures on "Mathematical modelling for biomedical, environmental sciences and more"

The aim of the lectures is to teach how to conceive mathematical models for specific applications stating from the related phenomenological observation of the phenomena involved. The basic mathematical tools will then be explained. So, with the aim of pairing mathematical frameworks and application the following topics will be covered:

Summary


Martin Mugochi

University of Namibia



The LMS-MARM Lectures on  "Presenting Frames"


This talk is a 3-part lecture series in which we present frames as distributive lattices satisfying the so-called infinite distibutive law. On one hand frames are viewed as Heyting algebras, on the other as generalized lattices of “opens”. The latter view enables one to revisit many classical results of general topology - an exercise dubbed as “doing topology without points”, “pointfree topology” or “pointless topology” - with the benefit, sometimes, of not having to rely heavily on choice principles.
Keywords and phrases: complete lattice, frame, locale, sober space, spatial locale, sublocale




Samuel Nuugulu

University of Namibia

The Namibia Lectures on  "Stock Markets Predictions using Supervised Machine Learning Techniques"

Stock markets are driven by many factors, these factors are either based on the fundamental or the technical aspects of the market. The advent of financial technology, led to the propagation of high volume of trading data. The veracity of such data makes it almost impossible for market participants to draw any rational investment/trading insights at face value. This talk serves to explore how supervised machine learning (ML) techniques can be used in synthesising market news narratives, technical indicators and actual stock price data to draw insights on possible future market movements. Features such as polarity of news, aggregate sentiment, numerous stock price information, current trend as well as relative strength index (RSI) were used to train the models, with future stock trend as the target variable. Among the fitted models, the Gradient Boosting Regressor model came out superior with the highest $R^2$ and least negative mean squared error in all three considered stocks, namely, Facebook, Tesla and Twitter.



Ursula Zich,
Politecnico di torino

The LMS-MARM-AngloAmerican Lectures on "A journey from the visual to the Geometric thinking through Origami spectacles"

Origami is the ancient japanese art of paper folding creating elegant and often news geometric models. Just by playing with paper, which will be provided by the organization along the course, the young audience of learners/students and possibly professionals in mathematical teaching,  will be introduced in the marvelous world of geometrical thinking via a visual thinking. A model is a representation of an idea, an object or a process and is used to describe and analyze a transformation. Origami involves both spatial and emotional intelligence. Its  models have tangible properties that make them privileged laboratories for learning and teaching geometry. The outcome of the modeling is part of the process but not necessarily the goal. The modeling process is an opportunity to learn the geometric language and see the relationships between the figures that are created. In short, this course is a friendly, gentle introduction to geometry aimed to dig up the young mathematicians hidden in the girls and boys who will attend the lectures. We thanks the  Namibia AngloAmerican Foundation, especially careful with the needs of young learners, which has suggested and inspired the course.

Summary
  • Physical models to visualize geometry and learning geometric language: why origami?
  • Origami to discover geometry
  • Origami to show geometry
  • Geometry to design origami

picture by Ursula Zich


 Special General Lecture by Alberto Conte, Accademia delle Scienze, Torino (Italy)


Field Medals

This talk is aimed for a general audience, even of not professional mathematicians, with a special focus to young people imaging a future as scientists.
    The Fields Medal is the most important prize in Mathematics. It is awarded every four years, on the occasion of the International Congress of Mathematicians, to two, three or four mathematicians under 40 years of age for "Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics". The first medals were awarded in 1936 and the following continuously from 1950 up to 2022.
    We will survey the scientific work of the most important of the 68 medallists and how it influenced the development of Mathematics from the middle of 20th Century up to now.