Thursday, 27 December 2018 Erasmus+ open call for academic year 2019/2020 published
Erasmus+ open call for students is published. Applications are now open for exchanges for studies or traineeships in the period from1 June 2019 to 30 September 2020.
The application deadline is 23 January 2019.
The Open call and all necessary documentation (forms, instructions) are available on this link.
You are invited to apply!
Friday, 21 December 2018 8 new research projects with russian institutions
UP IAM Department of Mathematics has successfully obtained new funds through a public tender for co-financing scientific research cooperation between Slovenia and the Russian Federation. This means that until the end of December 2020, our researchers will strengthen the existing cooperation by hosting in the following Russian Universities and Research Institutions: Lomonosov Moscow State University, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Sobolev Institute of Mathematics, Moscow State University, Steklov Mathematical Institute, Russian Academy of Science, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Science.
Leaders of the eight approved projects are: dr. Ademir Hujdurović, dr. Martin Milanič, dr. Edward Tauscher Dobson, dr. Štefko Miklavič, dr. Istvan Kovacs, dr. Klavdija Kutnar, dr. Vito Vitrih and dr. Russel Stephen Woodroofe.
The list of all approved projects is available here.
Wednesday, 19 December 2018 Guest lecture: Dr. Marinka Žitnik (Stanford University): Deep Learning for Network Medicine
UP FAMNIT and UP IAM
Departments of Information Sciences and Technologies
are pleased to invite everyone to the lecture
»Deep Learning for Network Medicine«
which will be held by Dr. Marinka Žitnik (Stanford University, USA)
on Thursday, 20 December, at 13:30 in FAMNIT-VP1.
About the lecturer:
Marinka Žitnik is a postdoctoral research fellow in Computer Science at Stanford University where she works with Jure Leskovec and collaborates with biomedical research departments around the world. She is also a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub postdoctoral researcher.
Her research investigates machine learning for biomedical sciences, focusing on large networks of interactions between biomedical entities -- e.g., proteins, drugs, diseases, and patients. She leverages these networks at the scale of billions of interactions among millions of entities and develops new methods blending machine learning with statistical methods and network science.
She uses her methods to answer burning scientific questions, such as how Darwinian evolution changes molecular networks, and how data-driven algorithms accelerate scientific discovery; and she uses the methods to solve high-impact problems, such as what drugs and combinations of drugs are safe for patients, what molecules will treat what diseases, and how newborns are transferred between hospitals and how these transfers influence outcomes.
About the lecture:
Networks pervade medical research and practice. The primary challenge is how to learn on biomedical networks that involve rich interactions, spanning from the molecular scale all the way to the societal scale encompassing all human interactions. However, prevailing deep learning algorithms are designed for data with a regular, grid-like structure and cannot exploit rich interactions, the essence of biomedical networks.
In this talk, I will discuss methods that learn how to embed nodes in rich biomedical networks as points in a low-dimensional embedding space, where the geometry of this space is optimized to reflect the structure of interactions between the nodes. These embeddings methods are at the technical core of Decagon, the first approach for predicting side effects of drug combinations, not merely of individual drugs. Decagon composes a massive network describing how proteins in our bodies interact with each other and how different drugs affect these proteins. Decagon's deep embedding method uses the network to identify patterns in how side effects arise based on how drugs target different proteins. Today, in many cases, it is unknown what side effects might arise from adding another drug to a patient's personal pharmacy, and Decagon has the potential to lead to more effective and safer healthcare.
Friday, 7 December 2018 UP IAM and UP FAMNIT leading a new Research Programme in the field of Mathematics
Researchers of the University of Primorska have reached another important achievement: UP IAM and UP FAMNIT researchers have successfully obtained funds for a new research program from the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS). In the next six years, within the program “Mathematical modelling and encryption: from theoretical concepts to real-life applications”, new and innovative methods of research in the field of mathematics will be developed under the direction of Prof. Enes Pasalic, PhD, expert in symmetric-key cryptography and Head of the UP FAMNIT Center of Cryptography, who will work with an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers, doctoral and postdoctoral students working at our University and at the Institute InnoRenew CoE.
The core of this new program is mathematics at its purest with cryptology as a bridge to applied mathematics. »In cryptology, which has in recent years become deeply embedded in many aspects of society, the most abstract mathematical ideas find a fruitful reflection in real-life applications where security remains an imperative. This program addresses important research challenges, extending from pure mathematical problems to real-life applications such as the creation of safe, secure, and healthy built environments.« states Prof. Enes Pasalic, PhD, and underlines the innovative aspect of the programme: »Previous work linking applied mathematics to these areas will be extended as well. The interplay between encryption and discrete mathematics will open new areas of research, trigger the development of new approaches, and lead to ground-breaking progress in pure mathematics that will drive innovation in real-life applications of encryption and mathematics in general.«
(In 2018, Prof. Enes Pasalic, PhD, received the Scientific Excellence Award of the University of Primorska in the field of science and technology)
With modern technology to excellence
Therefore, the focus of the programme will be on scientific, technological and innovation excellence, which will be achieved with the help of modern equipment that will support advanced data collection, modelling, and analysis, as well as a modern IT environment, which will enable connected, interdisciplinary cooperation with the requisite data storage, handling, and computational power.
Concrete results will ensure secure communication with blockchain technology, the development of innovative, interdisciplinary data methodologies, simulations and modelling to generate exceptional results in various areas related to real-life problems, focusing on the topics of sustainable built environment. At the same time, research activity in the field of basic mathematics will be maintained and strengthened.
Transfer of knowledge to students and the economy
Students of all levels in the fields of mathematics, computer science, sustainable built environments and data science will have the chance to learn about the research work, becoming part of the needed critical mass of researchers and professionals who will be able to further develop the research area and transfer it to the industry. The use of mathematical knowledge will be essential for improving the development of ICT technologies in real environments, with key users of knowledge - from other researchers in the field of natural and technical sciences to industry. Through the participation in the design of new products, technologies and technological solutions and innovations, we will be able to detect, in the future, the impact of the program on the economic development. The exchange of technology and knowledge between the research and industrial world will introduce systematic innovations that will simultaneously increase the rate of discovery and development in related scientific fields while supporting economic and societal development.
You can read abou the new Research Programme on this website.
Congratulations to our researchers on the remarkable achievement!
Monday, 3 December 2018 Prof. Dr. Gretta Pecl (University of Tasmania) on climate changes in world’s oceans
We are glad to announce another guest professor visiting our Department of Biodiversity, Prof. Dr. Gretta Pecl, director of the Centre for Marine Socioecology at the University of Tasmania (Australia). Professor Pecl is among leading specialist in climate change ecology with publications in numerous prestigious scientific journals, including Nature and Science.
To understand the long term impacts of climate changes in world’s oceans, Dr. Pecl and her international colleagues, are working in global ocean hotspots that are the fastest warming ocean regions in the world. One such hotspot is on the east coast of Tasmania, a region that is warming at four times the global rate. Other hotspots she is working in include Madagascar, South Africa, India and Brazil. More info on Dr. Pecl work and publications is available at: http://www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/imas/Gretta-Pecl
Dr. Pecl will give a guest lecture on climate changes in the global oceans to our students. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, December 5th, from 13:00 to 15:00 h in the classroom Famnit VP-2.
All students are kindly invited to come!
