Description
Center for Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (CAMTP) was founded in June 1990 as a new research institute under the direction of Professor Dr. Marko Robnik and became an independent academic institution (member) of the University of Maribor in July 1991. Since the new University Law became effective (1 Jan. 1995) the Center as a research institute keeps the formal status of the associate member of the University of Maribor, and thus maintains its legal status and the independence. The financial support is provided entirely by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Slovenia. The research activities in the sense of pure research are intensely internationally oriented. The Center has a number of external collaborators and research visitors from among the leading scientists in Slovenia and in foreign countries, especially Germany, Japan, USA, France and Greece. The Center is also scientific and technical organizer of the very successful international summer schools/conferences "Let"s Face Chaos through Nonlinear Dynamics", which in the years 1993 and 1994 were held at the University of Ljubljana, whilst the third and the fourth were held at the University of Maribor in the periods 24 June - 5 July 1996 and 27 June - 11 July 1999. The participation (in 1999) was strongly international: 103 participants, including 37 invited lecturers, most of them scientific leaders worldwide, from all the continents (Europe, USA, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Israel, Egypt, Argentina, etc). The Japanese participation was very strong, as we were having 7 invited lecturers, 2 postdoctoral participants and one Ph.D. student. The participation of professors was financially fully supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), one work day, namely Friday 2 July 1999, was devoted entirely to the Japan-Slovenia symposium on chaos science (Japan-Slovenia Seminar on Chaos Science). The next, 5th summer school/conference will be held in June/July 2002 (two weeks), again (now traditionally) at the University of Maribor.
The Center also has a collaborative link in the framework of the French-Slovenian (bigovernmental) cooperation programme PROTEUS, with the group at Division de Physique Theorique, Institut de Physique Nucleaire, Orsay/Paris, headed by Professor Oriol Bohigas. The Center has also a billateral agreement with the Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD), Sankt Augustin/Bonn, Germany.
The theoretical research programme covers four dominant fields:
(1) Nonlinear Dynamics of classical and quantal nonintegrable systems,
(2) Fluid Dynamics and Plasma Theory,
(3) Computer Algebra, especially REDUCE programming language,
(4) Complex systems.
In the year 1996/7 a planned new research field has begun, namely the foundation of a new research group headed by Professor Dr. Igor Mozetič, covering the applied artificial intelligence, specifically the inductive logical programming for the purpose of analysis and determination of the three-dimensional (tertiar) structure of the protein molecules, which is a
strongly interdisciplinary project with the components in computer science, physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, pharmacology, and medicine. The start-up financial support, the basic infrastructure and the equipment has been provided by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
In the year 1999 the new (large-scale and long-term) Research Programme has been started, "Applied Mathematics, Theoretical Physics and Intelligent Systems", which is entirely supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Some cooperation with the researchers of the University of Bonn in the field of theoretical astrophysics is also included in the scientific activities of the Center.