MDA 2012

 International Conference

Mathematics of Distances and Applications

July 2 - 5, 2012, Varna (Bulgaria)

Hotel "PANORAMA" in the resort St. Constantine & Helena.

MDA 2012 Abstracts

Click at the link below to see the MDA 2012 Book with abstracts:
MDA 2012 Abstracts

MDA 2012 Provisional Programme

Click at the link below to see the MDA 2012 Provisional Programme:
MDA 2012 Provisional Programme

Aims and Scope

The conference objective is to present and discuss current achievement in the fields of the Mathematics of Distances and Applications.

The concept of distance is basic to human experience. In everyday life it usually means some degree of closeness of two physical objects or ideas, i.e., length, time interval, gap, rank difference, coolness or remoteness, while the term metric is often used as a standard for a measurement. But here we consider, except for the last two topics, the mathematical meaning of those terms, which is an abstraction of measurement.

Distance metrics and distances have now become an essential tool in many areas of Mathematics and its applications including Geometry, Probability, Statistics, Coding/Graph Theory, Clustering, Data Analysis, Pattern Recognition, Networks, Engineering, Computer Graphics/Vision, Astronomy, Cosmology, Molecular Biology, and many other areas of science.

Devising the most suitable distance metrics and similarities, to quantify the proximity between objects, has become a standard task for many researchers. Especially intense ongoing search for such distances occurs, for example, in Computational Biology, Image Analysis, Speech Recognition, and Information Retrieval. Often the same distance metric appears independently in several different areas; for example, the edit distance between words, the evolutionary distance in Biology, the Levenstein distance in Coding Theory, and the Hamming+Gap or shuffle-Hamming distance.

The conference is dedicated to the broad issue of deeper understanding of Mathematics of Distances and Distance Design for applications.

Topics of interest

Topics of interest inlude but are not limited to:

Mathematics of Distances	General Definitions; Topological Spaces; Generalizations of Metric Spaces; Metric Transforms; Metrics on Normed Structures
Geometry and Distances	Distances in Geometry; Riemannian and Hermitian Metrics; Distances on Surfaces and Knots; Distances on Convex Bodies, Cones, and Simplicial Complexes
Distances in Classical Mathematics	Distances in Algebra; Functional Analysis; Probability Theory; Distances on Strings and Permutations, on Numbers, Polynomials, and Matrices
Distances in Applied Mathematics	Distances in Graph Theory; Coding Theory; Distances and Similarities in Data Analysis; Distances in Mathematical Engineering
Computer-related Distances	Distances on Real and Digital Planes; Voronoi Diagram Distances; Image and Audio Distances; Distances in Internet and Similar Networks
Distances in Natural Sciences	Distances in Biology; Physics and Chemistry; Geography, Geophysics, and Astronomy; Cosmology and Theory of Relativity
Real-world Distances	Length Measures and Scales; Distances in Applied Social Sciences;

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Program committee

Michel Deza (France)
Michel Petitjean (France)
Krassimir Markov (Bulgaria)

Tetsuo Asano (Japan)
Michael Baake (Germany)
Stefan Dodunekov (Bulgaria)
Ehtibar Dzhafarov (USA)
Ernst Gabidulin (Russia)
Uwe Grimm (UK)
Vladimir Gurvich (USA)
Sandi Klavzar (Slovenia)
Jacobus Koolen (South Korea)
Svetlozar Rachev (USA)
Egon Schulte (USA)
Sergey Shpectorov (UK)
Kokichi Sugihara (Japan)
Koen Vanhoof (Belgium)
Cedric Villani (France) (Fields Medal 2010)

Sessions and organizers

"Geometric complexity in aperiodic order" (Michael Baake and Uwe Grimm)
"Coding theory" (Stefan Dodunekov, Ernst Gabidulin).
"Applications of distances in behavioral and life sciences" (Ehtibar Dzhafarov)
"Discrete geometry, combinatorics, and distances" (Egon Schulte)  

Language

The official language of the conference is English.

Papers and Fees

To submit a paper use the ITHEA ISS Submission Web System: http://ita.ithea.org.
To see the deadlines, fees and rules for preparing the papers please click here.

Accomodation

Hotel "PANORAMA"in the resort St. Constantine & Helena, Varna, Bulgaria.
There are various three and four stars hotels in the complex St.Constantine, which are at walking distance to the hotel Panorama.
The preferred four stars hotels are:
- Azalia: http://www.azaliahotel.com/en.html
- Sirius beach :http://www.siriusbeach.com/
- Dolphin Marina: http://www.beachbulgaria.com/stellias/dolphinmarina.shtml
- as well as all other hotels from the Grand Hotel Varna Chain: http://www.grandhotelvarna.com/
NOTE: For these hotels participant have to make reservation and payment by himself.

Conference organizers

- ITHEA International Scientific Society
- Institute of Information Theories and Applications FOI ITHEA (Bulgaria)
- Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, BAS (Bulgaria)
- Hasselt University (Belgium)

General sponsor: FOI Bulgaria

Contacts:

Scope, topics of interests and program of the conference: Michel Deza , e-mail: michel.deza@ens.fr
Papers' review and acceptance: Michel Petitjean, e-mail:  petitjean.chiral@gmail.com
Papers' submission, publishing, and participation in the conference:  Krassimir Markov, e-mail: markov@foibg.com