Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems

The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems (MASCOS) has the following research themes:

• Risk Modelling
• Critical Phenomena
• Dynamical Systems
• Complex Networks

Professor Ian Sloan of UNSW is Deputy Director.

MASCOS Chief Investigators within the School are Associate Professor Gary Froyland in dynamical systems and optimization, and Professor Ian Sloan in the area of quasi-Monte Carlo Methods. Innovative collaborative projects in the above theme areas are positively encouraged: please contact one of the MASCOS researchers.

The success of the industry arm of MASCOS led to the creation of the Australian Centre for Commercial Mathematics (ACCM) within the School in early 2011. The ACCM's mission is to conduct projects with industry to solve complex problems using advanced mathematics and statistics.

Breakfast Briefing: Making the right decisions in Transport and Logistics

On 8 June 2010 in the MLC Tower, the heart of Sydney’s business centre, MASCOS and Industry and Investment NSW (I&INSW - NSW State Government) partnered in a Breakfast Briefing on, ‘Making the right decisions in Transport and Logistics’. Over 60 attended the Briefing from industry, government and academia. This was the first in our joint Industry Breakfast Briefing series 2010, and focussed on Transport and Logistics due to our increasingly complex world bringing enormous challenges to the sector in NSW. 

Keynote speakers were: Mr David Shteinman - Industry Projects Manager, MASCOS; Mr Fraser Johnson -Manager, Network Performance Development, Traffic Management, RTA; Mr Christian Chong-White - Traffic Algorithm Development Manager, Traffic Management, RTA; and Associate Professor Gary Froyland - School of Mathematics and Statistics, UNSW.

Macquarie Bank Linkage Grant on Financial Risk

MASCOS researcher Ian Sloan and his group held a Linkage Grant with Macquarie Bank for research into computational methods to improve the calculation of financial risk. See the news story for more about this joint venture.

Inaugural AMSI/MASCOS Industry Forum, July 21 2005

A major forum in Sydney on July 21 2005 brought together mathematicians and industry partners on the theme of the benefits of using the mathematical sciences to manage risk, resources and health. The key speaker was Professor Arvind Gupta (pictured left, with Ian Sloan at UNSW), Scientific Director of the very successful Canadian centre MITACS, and the Forum was opened by the federal Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Ian Macfarlane. At a reception hosted by the Canadian Consul-General, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed on collaboration between MITACS, MASCOS and AMSI.

Agreement with German Center and visit of Martin Groetschel

The German Research Center for Mathematics of Key Technologies (Matheon) and MASCOS signed a collaborative agreement in Berlin on Nov 1, 2004. As part of the agreement, the Director of the German Center, Professor Martin Groetschel (right, with Ian Sloan) visited Australia. He was in Sydney Feb 6-9, 2005, and a major event was held on Tuesday Feb 8. He also spoke at UNSW.

Under the agreement, Matheon provided personnel to assist a pilot project based at UNSW on port container unloading with Patrick. Thorsten Koch and Nicole Megow of Matheon visited UNSW. Thorsten presented a seminar at a reception at DSRD on 13 Sept 2005.

Past events

• Francois Ghoulmie on 'Agent-based market modeling', Mar 31, 2009
• Pablo Amster on 'Resonant problems and degree theory', Apr 29, 2008
• Oleg Davydov on 'Scattered data fitting on surfaces and manifolds using projected splines', Dec 11, 2007
• Ingo Mueller, AMSI-MASCOS Distinguished Lecturer, on 'Thermomechanics of Shape Memory Alloys - Phenomena, Simulation and Applications', Nov 20, 2007
• Pavel Shevchenko on 'Modelling operational risk, Oct 18, 2006
• Kostya Borovkov on 'Arbitrage-free pricing theory', Mar 12-15, 2006

Associate Investigators: UNSW

Dr Josef Dick
Dr Frances Kuo
A/Prof John Roberts
Benjamin Waterhouse
A/Prof Rob Womersley

Other investigators: UNSW

Dr Johann Brauchart (Research Fellow)
Dr Quoc Thong Le Gia (Research Fellow)
Dr Bernard Kachoyan (Industrial Fellow)
Amirah Abd Rahman Siti (PhD student)
Andrew Chernih (PhD student)
Shaun De Roza (PhD student)
Michelle Dunbar (PhD student)
Timothy Glass (PhD student)
Stephen Maher (PhD student)
Daniel Mansfield (PhD student)
James Nichols (PhD student)
Ognjen Stancevic (PhD student)
Robyn Stuart (PhD student)
Louise Wilkinson (PhD student)

The Centre gratefully acknowledges the support of the New South Wales Department of State and Regional Development.