The Study Group

Organisation of the Study Group
The Study Group runs from Monday to Friday. On Monday the representatives from industry describe their projects of industrial origin and outline what they think needs to be done. Mathematicians then work collaboratively with industry representatives on the problems from Tuesday to Thursday in separate project groups. MISGSA participants join groups and work on which ever project suits their interest and expertise. On Friday there is summing up and report back to industry on the results obtained by each group.

Local participants
All delegates at MISGSA are expected to participate to a high degree in the modelling and problem solving small group sessions.

Moderator
Each project will be managed by a moderator whose role will be to coordinate preliminary work including literature searches, outline any preliminary thoughts which need to be worked on, elicit contributions from all present, provide summaries throughout the workshop and assist in the preparation of a final technical report for the industrial participants. Moderators will be the leading authors in resulting publications. The travel expenses of moderators will be paid by MISGSA.

Moderators are not expected to be experts in the field. Potential moderators should be aware that everyone will help and that we are all somewhat out of our depth to start with. The invited guests will contribute to all the problems within their area of expertise. The initial contribution of a moderator is to put together some useful information before the start of MISGSA.

Sometimes it is useful for someone on the second day, Tuesday, to briefly fill in theoretical background and this need not necessarily be the moderator. Participants interested in doing this should contact the moderator.

Invited participants from overseas
Invited guests with considerable experience with Mathematics in Industry Study Groups will participate in the workshop. The invited guests are expected to maintain interest in the problems after the meeting and contribute to the writing of the reports for the proceedings.

Participants from outside South Africa

Invited talks
There will be several invited talks on the contribution of mathematics and mathematical modelling to solving problems in industry.

• Sanjeev Sabnis, Case studies involving statistical applications in Indian industry
  
  
• Tim Myers, Theory and applications of non-Newtonian thin film flow
  
  
• Sean Bohan, Organising a successful Graduate Industrial Mathematical Modelling Camp
  
  
• Jens Gravesen, Highlights from the Danish Study Groups
  
  The first Danish Study Groups was at Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in 1998 and since then it has been an annual event alternating between DTU and University of Southern Denmark (SDU).
  To illustrate the range of companies and problems that have been encountered the following four problems will be presented:
  
  
  • Danfoss: Optimisation of a scroll compressor, DTU 1998.
  • DSB: Roster planning at DSB S-tog A/S, SDU 2001.
  • Siemens: Electromagnetic Flow meters, DTU 2004.
  • Greenwood Engineering: The Bearing Capacity of Highways, SDU 2005.