Dutch-Japanese bilateral seminar on kinetic geometric networks

April 27th - May 3rd, 2016

Topic and goal

Networks occur in many as fields of science and every-day life. Oftentimes they are used as a tool to model social, physical or biological interactions or structures. Some more concrete example are computer and sensor networks; social networks such as Facebook or LinkedIn; biological networks such as herd interactions or the workings of various cell-systems; and physical networks, such as self-assembling nano-particles or mechanical structures. Though the domains for these networks are completely different, their underlying structure is the same. That is why they are processed, stored, visualized and analyzed in a similar way.

When these networks are small they can be analyzed easily by domain experts inspecting various representations of the networks. However, in many cases the networks are much too large to create a clear representation of the whole network. As such, it becomes very hard to obtain useful information or otherwise work with the network. To alleviate this problem powerful algorithms and tools are needed that can process larger networks. This is where computer science comes into play, by first designing good measures and structures that help to define and find various useful properties of the networks, and then providing algorithms and data structures to compute these. The goal of the seminar will be to develop a basis for such algorithms and data structures for kinetic geometric networks.

Venue and practical info

Registration fee. 20.000 yen for regular registration and 10.000 yen for student registration. This includes banquet (5000 yen), shuttle bus and coffee breaks.

Time and location. The workshop will be held at the Zao center plaza in Zao Onsen. The workshop will start early afternoon on April 27th and end in the morning of May 3rd. To get to and from Zao Onsen there will shuttles from Sendai station in the morning of the 27th of April and to Sendai and Yamagata on the 3rd of May.
Weather and clothing. Zao is a mountain and a ski-resort during winter. In April / May most of the snow will have melted, but it is not impossible that there is some snow left higher up on the mountain. So for hiking excursion on Friday it would be good to bring waterproof shoes that you can comfortably walk on. In terms of temperature it shouldn't be terribly cold in the town, but temperatures could still range from 10 to 20 degrees celsius. Higher up on the mountain it'll of course be colder.
Travel and JR-east pass. Travel to Sendai is fairly easy. If you fly to Sendai airport, then there is a single train station and all trains go to Sendai station. If you fly to Tokyo (Narita or Haneda) then the easiest method is to take the Tohoku Shinkansen from Tokyo or Ueno station. If you take semi-long Shinkansen trips you might consider getting the JR-East pass (Tohoku area). This pass lets you pick 5 days within a 14-day period (you don't have to pick the days in advance) in which you travel for free by train in the north part of the country, including the Tokyo area and up more or less. Specifically this includes Shinkansen trips to Sendai from Tokyo and the price of the pass is less than a round trip to and from Tokyo. Information on the pass can be found here (the youtube video is surprisingly informative). For those that have bought the pass before, be aware that the old JR-east pass has been replaced by two passes in a slightly smaller area, but the Tohoku version covers everything from Tokyo to Sendai and further north.

Preliminary schedule

Tuesday, April 26th
- Arrival in Sendai
18:00 Welcome dinner (details will follow)

Wednesday, April 27th
10:00 Shuttle to Zao Onsen from Sendai station
12:00 Arrival and lunch at Zao Onsen
13:00 Welcome words
13:30 Invited talk
14:30 Presenting open problems
18:00 Banquet
20:00 - 22:00 Free discussion

Thursday, April 28th
9:00 Invited talk
10:00 Work on open problems
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Work on open problems
18:00 Dinner
19:30 - 22:00 Student presentations

Friday, April 29th
9:00 - 17:00 Work on open problems
11:00 - 17:00 Excursion (optional)
18:00 Dinner
20:00 - 22:00 Free discussion

Saturday, April 30th
9:00 Invited talk
10:00 Work on open problems
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Work on open problems
16:00 Progress report
18:00 Dinner
20:00 - 22:00 Free discussion

Sunday, May 1st
9:00 Invited talk
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Work on open problems
18:00 Dinner
20:00 - 22:00 Free discussion

Monday, May 2nd
9:00 Invited talk
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Work on open problems
16:00 Summary of results and closing words
18:00 Dinner
20:00 - 22:00 Free discussion

Tuesday, May 3rd
10:00 shuttles to Sendai and Yamagata (exact times to be decided)

Participants

Bettina Speckmann (TU Eindhoven)
Kevin Buchin (TU Eindhoven)
Kevin Verbeek (TU Eindhoven)
Irina Kostitsyna (TU Eindhoven)
Arthur van Goethem (TU Eindhoven)
Aleksandar Markovic (TU Eindhoven)
Marc van Kreveld (Utrecht University)
Maarten Löffler (Utrecht University)
Yoshio Okamoto (University of Electro-Communications)
Taichi Shiitada (University of Electro-Communications)
Ryuhei Uehara (JAIST)
Yota Otachi (JAIST)
Yushi Uno (Osaka Prefecture University)
Naoki Katoh (Kwansei Gakuin University)
Takashi Horiyama (Saitama University)
Kouichi Nakagawa (Saitama University)
André van Renssen (National Institute of Informatics)
Marcel Roeloffzen (National Institute of Informatics)
Chiu Man-Kwun (National Institute of Informatics)
Takeshi Tokuyama (Tohoku University)
Jinhee Chun (Tohoku University)
Matias Korman (Tohoku University)
Yago Diez Donoso (Tohoku University)
Atsushi Koike (Tohoku University)
Xiang Yu (Tohoku University)
Keisuke Sugawara (Tohoku University)
Huang Yilun (Tohoku University)
Aji Nugraha Santosa Kasmaji (Tohoku University)
Martin Nöllenburg (TU Wien)
Wouter Meulemans (City University London)
Frank Staals (MADALGO)
Wanbin Son (Center for Geometry and its Applications)

Scientific Organizers

Bettina Speckmann
Takeshi Tokuyama

Local Organizers

Jinhee Chun
Marcel Roeloffzen