Dynamics Days is an annual interdisciplinary conference designed to stimulate interactions among researchers in nonlinear science. Dynamics Days 2012 will cover a broad range of topics, including pattern forming systems, characterization and control of nonlinear systems, synchronization of nonlinear systems, and complex biological systems. The meeting will be hosted by the Department of Physics, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Institute for Physical Science and Technology and the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics of the University of Maryland, College Park. This year's schedule is designed to provide a broad overview of nonlinear dynamics and will include tutorial talks which will be geared toward introducing opportunities in nonlinear dynamics.
Dynamics Days has been very successful at providing a forum for bringing young scientists, especially graduate students and postdoctoral students, together with experts from a variety of fields. Although the regular attendees are primarily in the fields of mathematics and physics, the interdisciplinary field of nonlinear dynamics has continued to grow rapidly in recent years, expanding to other disciplines. Researchers from physics, mathematics, chemistry, engineering, biology, and the social sciences are expected to attend Dynamics Days 2012.
The NSF-funded International Conference on Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics: Dynamics Days 2012, which was held at the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland on January 4 – 7, 2012, was a tremendous success with over 220 registered participants from across the country and across the world. Dynamics Days is an annual conference whose purpose is to gather a variety of researchers with overlapping interests in topics in nonlinear dynamics. It has become well known in the field as a highly productive way for researchers with common interests but varied background to disseminate their own results and learn about recent developments in related areas. Though the regular attendees are primarily in the fields of mathematics and physics, the interdisciplinary field of nonlinear dynamics has continued to grow rapidly in recent years, expanding to other disciplines. This is in part due to the development of more sophisticated analytical and numerical techniques and more refined experimental procedures that permit the study of systems with greater complexity. Inviting speakers in the Dynamics Days Conference series include researchers in physics, mathematics, chemistry, engineering, fluid mechanics, biology, physiology and economics. This year’s set of invited speakers provided a broad overview over of nonlinear dynamics through research presentations and four tutorial talks, which were geared toward introducing opportunities in nonlinear dynamics. The single-session style of the conference resulted in a lively exchange between specialists working in very different areas of nonlinear science. The conference schedule (appended here) included 22 invited talks, an additional 17 contributed oral presentations, and over 170 posters. The sessions covered a broad range of topics, including pattern forming systems, characterization and control of nonlinear systems, synchronization of nonlinear systems, and complex systems.