The investigator and his colleagues organize an international conference on Approximation Theory, to be held in San Antonio, TX on April 7-10, 2013. The meeting engages about 150 mathematical scientists from academia, industry, and government laboratories from around the world. It continues the tradition of triennial meetings in the subject which began in 1973, and which have been the premier comprehensive meetings in the area. The meeting features eight one-hour survey lectures on topics of current interest (including applications of radial basis functions in partial differential equations, isogeometric analysis, multivariate orthogonal polynomials, nonlinear approximation, rational interpolation, subdivision methods, and wavelets). The Seventh Vasil A. Popov Prize in Approximation Theory is awarded at the meeting, with the winner giving one of the plenary lectures. The conference runs for four days, and includes about 130 additional invited and contributed presentations. As with all of the previous meetings, a carefully reviewed and edited conference proceedings is planned.
Participants in this conference present recent advances in approximation theory, a field of mathematics that has had a major impact on science and engineering for well over 100 years, and that has enabled concrete technological advances in the United States. For example, the mathematics in this area has had significant impact on computer-aided design and manufacture (a key tool in the aircraft and automotive industries), animation and computer graphics (major tools in the video gaming and movie industries), data compression and processing (critical to information technology applications such as HDTV or medical imaging), geophysical problems (such as weather modeling and oil exploration), uncertainty quantification (which plays an important role in environmental and climate modeling as well as nanotechnology), and modeling in the business world. This conference brings together students, junior researchers, and leaders in the field from around the world, aids young researchers in advancing their careers, and attracts PhD students to work in the subject.
was held April 7-10, 2013, in San Antonio, TX. It was attended by 131 mathematical scientists from academia, industry, and government laboratories from around the world. The conference continued the tradition of holding a triennial meeting for workers in the field. Earlier conferences were held in Austin in 1973, 1976, 1980, 1992; College Station in 1983, 1986, 1989, 1995; Nashville in 1998; St. Louis in 2001; Gatlinburg in 2004; and San Antonio in 2007, 2010 (all of which were supported by NSF). These meetings have traditionally been the main general international conferences on this topic for 40 years. The meeting featured seven one-hour survey lectures on topics of current interest in this branch of mathematics. In addition, it provided a forum for the awarding of the Seventh Vasil A. Popov Prize in Approximation Theory.The winner, Andriy Bondarenko, also presented a one-hour survey lecture. The conference is resulting in a carefully reviewed and edited conference proceedings published by Springer, New York. The conference brought together researchers and graduate students for in-depth discussions on all aspects of Approximation Theory which has a long and rich history within the field of mathematics. Its current vitality is attested to by the large number of specialized conferences, new and well-established journals, and recently-founded research centers devoted to the subject. In addition to providing a forum for the exchange of ideas, the meeting also helped identify trends and areas for future research. The conference helped educate graduate students by exposing them to the latest research and helping them identify problems in approximation theory and related areas. Students, young researchers, minorities, and women had the opportunity to meet leaders in the field, as well as to present their own research. Two-thirds of the requested funding was devoted to supporting these groups, and senior researchers were asked to help identify candidates to participate. In recent years approximation theory has found more and more applications in such diverse areas as computer-aided geometric design, image and signal processing, geophysical and medical modelling, scientific computing, robotics, to name a few. These applications have resulted in the development of several new subject areas of approximation theory, and the subject has become more and more interdisciplinary. It is expected that research in this area will continue to have a major impact on science, engineering, information technology and medicine for years to come.
