Keynote speakers

Asgeir Sørensen, Professor and Director Centre for Autonomous Marine Operations and Systems at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He was Co-Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of  Marine Cybernetics AS. In 2012 and 2015 Sørensen became a co-founder of the NTNU spin-off companies Ecotone AS and Relume AS.

 TITLE: "Nothing is as practical as a good theory - From fundamental research to industry development".

The lecture covers selected examples on how mathematics have been used in mathematical modelling and control system design for various marine applications related to the blue economy associated with the oceans. The lecture will cover the steps from fundamental to applied research and further into innovations and technology spin-offs. Mathematical aspects touched upon are - linear algebra, functional analysis, dynamical systems characterized by ODE and PDE, numerical methods.

Kathrine Frey Frøslie is a researcher in bio-statistics at the University of Oslo. She has co-authored with Jo Røislien the book “Tall forteller” devoted to the popularization and teaching of statistics. She has contributed to numerous applied statistics research projects.

   TITLE: "Statistics as a weapon for improving women’s health"

Obesity and diabetes are world health problems. Pregnancy serves as a stress test for a woman’s metabolism, and women who develop gestational diabetes are at high risk of subsequent type 2 diabetes. Maternal body mass index and blood glucose levels are associated with neonatal characteristics, and may affect the child’s future metabolism and morbidity. 
Metabolic regulation is comprised of inherently continuous and temporal processes in the body. Data from such processes may provide insight in central biological mechanisms, provided that they are analysed by sufficiently advanced statistical methods. 
Functional data analysis (FDA) is a collection of statistical techniques specifically developed to analyse curve data. When applying FDA, the entire curve is used as the basic unit of information, instead of single measurements at specific time points, or simple summary measures. 
We used FDA to analyse glucose data from 1031 pregnant women. FDA was superior to traditional analyses of glucose data, in differentiating between women who did and did not develop gestational diabetes during pregnancy. The shape information from glucose curve data was also associated with birth weight, neonatal percentage of fat, and C-peptide in cord blood, demonstrating physiological relevance of temporal characteristics of maternal glucose curves. FDA may therefore contribute to the understanding of the metabolic changes during pregnancy, with improved women’s health as the ultimate goal.

Chris Budd, Professor at the University of Bath, is known for his contributions in numerical analysis of non-linear partial differential equations and their applications to industry. Budd is a passionate populariser of mathematics. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2015 for services to science and math education.

TITLE: "Does maths need industry or does industry need maths?"

Mathematical modelling plays a vital role in modern industry, with applications

as diverse as microwave cooking, computer graphics, telecommunications and

even the incubation of penguin eggs.

In this talk I will describe the process of applying maths in an industrial context,

with a light hearted look at the ups and downs of doing this. I will give many

examples from my own experience.

I will also try to show how the process of going out into industry can teach us

a lot of new maths and some ways to make this all possible.

Knut-Andreas Lie is chief scientist at SINTEF, the largest independent research organization in Scandinavia. He is leading the simulation group at the Department of Applied Mathematics in Oslo. He is an expert of partial differential equations, and he holds an adjunct Professor position at the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the NTNU.

TITLE: "So you can prove theorems - but can you code?”
Academic mathematics and contract research for industry often have somewhat different focus. In the talk, I will discuss some of the differences. In particular, I will try to highlight how mathematicians can and should contribute to software development.

Kjell Kristoffersen has a PhD in advanced signal processing and he was chief developer at Vingmed Ultrasound in the start-up phase of the company. He later become chief engineer in GE Healthcare with responsibility in ultrasound technology. He holds an adjunct Professor position at the Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging and at the Department of Physics at NTNU.

TITLE: "How to make 3-dimensional images of the heart in real time - on GE Vingmed and the ultrasound adventure in Norway.”

Ultrasound imaging is enabled by advanced signal processing, and the talk will cover selected application examples from this field. I will also discuss how multi-disciplinary cooperation with academia has been important for the Norwegian industrial activity.