[Todos CMAT] noticias de la Union Matemática Internacional

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GRAID: A NEW IMU PROGRAM FOR GRADUATE ASSISTANTSHIPS IN
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

In an  <http://www.mathunion.org/imu-net/archive/2011/imu-net-045/>
editorial I wrote for IMU-Net six years ago, I pointed out that the
penetration of fast internet in cities in the developing world and the
willingness of mathematicians to post their research papers on openly
accessible internet servers had opened up new possibilities.

Mathematicians from developing countries who chose to return to their home
country after obtaining a promising Ph.D. degree at a high quality research
institution, used to find that it was virtually impossible to keep up with
their field - their isolation from new directions, the lack of libraries,
the high cost of travel to conferences or possible collaborators all too
often would lead to their mathematical research slowly atrophying. They
would remain on the lookout for talented students, foster their development,
and help them obtain a fellowship to do graduate work and obtain a Ph.D.
elsewhere. More often than not, they would then witness how those promising
young mathematicians had to face in their turn the same agonizing decision:
either not returning to their home country, so as to further develop their
budding mathematical career but be less close to their relatives and
culture, or go back but face the many obstacles that could end up slowly
suffocating their research aspirations.

Internet and its embrace by researchers have changed all that. Many
researchers post their findings online, even before they are published, to
share with the whole research community. Of course the level of interest,
novelty and even correctness of materials that can be found in open
repositories is uneven - but their availability makes it possible for
motivated youngsters, especially when working together and challenging each
other, under the guidance of a more experienced researcher, to build their
own intellectual landscape of what is "out there", learn to recognize the
most valuable parts and identify possible opportunities for further work of
their own. In short, it is now possible for cohorts of graduate students in
developing countries to reach mathematical levels achieved only rarely
outside major research centers. This has potentially far-reaching
consequences: as shown at the  <http://www.mathunion.org/cdc/menao/> MENAO
symposium, organized by the  <http://www.mathunion.org/cdc> IMU CDC just
prior to  <http://www.icm2014.org/> ICM 2014 in Seoul, Korea, higher
mathematical development in a developing country goes hand-in-hand with
building a more technological society and a stronger economy, lifting the
standard of living of the whole country.

This opportunity has been recognized by several organizations and
institutions, which have responded by organizing initiatives that make
graduate studies and research possible for eager, talented students in parts
of the world that previously provided no such access. IMU welcomes and
celebrates each of these initiatives: please, if you have a report about a
successful meeting, a call for participation in an upcoming meeting or
special semester, a fellowship program, consider letting the IMU CDC know so
they can help spread the news. As more high quality graduate study
opportunities are emerging in the developing world, there is often, however,
only very limited and in many cases no funding to provide stipends for
graduate students. The CDC recently launched the Breakout Fellowship
program, funded through the generous contributions of every one of the
winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics so far; last year saw the
first cohort of Breakout Fellows. The Breakout Fellowship program is open to
all students from a developing country undertaking their graduate study in a
developing country; we will hopefully be able to issue a new call next year.

GRAID: Starting on June 1, another CDC graduate stipend program will open,
aimed at students listed as
<http://www.mathunion.org/cdc/grants/cdc-definition-for-developing-countries
/> Priority 1 and 2 countries among the developing countries listed on the
CDC website. For descriptions of the program and the application procedure,
please refer to  <https://www.mathprograms.org/db/programs/480>
MathPrograms.Org  and
<http://www.mathunion.org/cdc/scholarships-and-capacity-building/graduate-as
sistantships-in-developing-countries/> this CDC website under the header
<http://www.mathunion.org/cdc/scholarships-and-capacity-building/>
Scholarships and Capacity Building.  The GRAID program will be funded
entirely by voluntary donations from individual mathematicians; those
interested in donating should check the
<http://friends-imu.org/graid-donation/> website of Friends of the IMU.
Generous donations from several individual mathematicians, the DonAuction
fundraising efforts at the 2014 ICM in Seoul (thanks again to everyone who
made that possible), combined with a joint donation from the organizers of
<http://www.icwm2014.org/> ICWM 2014 (thank you again!), provide the seed
fund that are making possible the launch of GRAID, the GRaduate
Assistantships In Developing countries. The stipends provided by GRAID will
be modest, not to exceed USD 3,500/year, and it is expected that priority
will be given to those regions where this modest amount would suffice to
support a graduate student and free him/her from the obligation to seek an
additional job to support themselves.

Please check the websites of CDC and Friends of the IMU to learn more about
the CDC GRAID Program!

                                Ingrid Daubechies (Duke)

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CEIC: NOTES AND COMMENTS

        The MathJax CDN is closing! So the news at
<https://www.mathjax.org/cdn-shutting-down/>
https://www.mathjax.org/cdn-shutting-down/  reads.

Which prompts many to ask one or more of the questions:

What is MathJax? What is the MathJax CDN? Where has it moved from/to? Why
has it moved? What's it got to do with me?

MathJax is an open source, JavaScript platform for display of mathematics
(including compatibility with screen readers). If you see mathematics
properly displayed on the web (other than through a PDF), then it's highly
likely this is via MathJax. Two examples would be the mathematics in
MathSciNet and zbMATH reviews, or abstracts of journal articles. See Mike
Doob's article in
<http://www.mathunion.org/imu-net/archive/2012/imu-net-052/> IMU-Net52.
Nothing about MathJax itself is changing.

The MathJax Consortium hosted a free CDN service (content delivery network)
at cdn.mathjax.org so that people can use MathJax without having to install
their own copy. This service shut down on 30 April 2017. There is currently
a redirect in place, which will last for 2017, but not indefinitely.

One place to find MathJax is at cdnjs: see the instructions at
<https://www.mathjax.org/cdn-shutting-down/>
https://www.mathjax.org/cdn-shutting-down/.  Another option, if you are a
MathJax-dependent publisher, is to host it yourself: see the same
instructions.

Mathjax has moved because the CDN's bill has become too great. In the last
six years the amount of data to be served has grown from 1.3TB/month to
70TB/month, which is a tremendous success story.

What's it got to do with me? If you're simply a mathematics-reading user,
probably nothing. But some mathematics that used to be pretty MAY cease to
be - in that case, rather than suffering in silence, you should draw this
article to the attention of the mathematics publisher. If you publish
mathematics, though your own website or blog, or more substantially, then
you may need to follow the instructions at
<https://www.mathjax.org/cdn-shutting-down/>
https://www.mathjax.org/cdn-shutting-down/ , even if nothing seems broken
now.

And finally, let's congratulate the folks at Mathjax for being such a
success, and thank their supporters, especially AMS and SIAM.

James Davenport (Bath) & Patrick Ion (MR)

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ICM 2018 TRAVEL GRANTS

The Organizing Committee has launched the "Open Arms program", which offers
550 travel grants for mathematicians, young and senior, from developing
countries to attend the Congress; 200 of those grants will be for
mathematicians working in Latin-American countries other than Brazil. The
program is sponsored by  <https://impa.br/en_US/> IMPA and the
<http://www.sbm.org.br/en/> Brazilian Mathematical Society, alongside with a
generous offer of 50 travel grants from the International Mathematical
Union.

Applications will be received until July 20, 2017. The list of grantees will
be published by September 04, 2017.
For further information, please check
<http://www.icm2018.org/portal/en/travel-grants-program>
http://www.icm2018.org/portal/en/travel-grants-program .

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AN INTERNATIONAL DAY OF MATHEMATICS?

At this year's annual meeting the Executive Committee of IMU decided to
investigate the feasibility of having  <http://en.unesco.org/> UNESCO
declare an International Day of Mathematics (IDM).

An International Day of Mathematics, devoted to a specific theme each year,
might be an opportunity for all mathematical communities around the world to
join forces in reaching out to schools and the public.  Clearly the success
of an IDM will depend on the activities organized locally.

A consultation with IMU members on the matter, both regarding exploring the
advantages of celebrating an IDM and choosing an appropriate date, is
presently being conducted.

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KOMARAVOLU S. CHANDRASEKHARAN (1920 – 2017)

Komaravolu Chandrasekharan, a mathematician from India, passed away on April
14, 2017 in Zürich.  He was a first rate mathematician, with important
contributions in analysis and analytic number theory. He was responsible for
the development of the School of Mathematics at the Tata Institute of
Fundamental Research, India into a leading international centre for
mathematics.

Chandrasekharan had a long and important association with the IMU, in
diverse roles: as a Member of the Executive Committee of the IMU
(1955-1978), as Secretary (1961-1966), and as President (1971-1974). He was
a member of the Consultative Committee for the Stockholm Congress (1962), a
member of the Fields Medal Committee for the Edinburgh Congress (1958) and
Chairman ex-officio for the Vancouver Congress (1974). He edited and
published, through the Tata Institute, the first three editions of the
``World directory of Mathematicians'', on behalf of the IMU, which was an
important resource in the pre-internet era. He was also a Member of the
first Constitutive Committee in New York in 1950 that prepared the Enabling
Resolution which led to the formation of the IMU in its present form, and
was involved in the drafting of the IMU statutes.

Komaravolu Chandrasekharan was born on November 20, 1920, at Machilipattanam
in Andhra Pradesh, and was educated in India, receiving a Ph.D. from the
University of Madras in 1943. He became an Assistant to Hermann Weyl at the
IAS, Princeton in 1946, and joined the Tata Institute in 1949. In 1965,
Chandrasekharan moved away from Bombay, taking up a Professorship at the
ETH, Zürich, where he remained until he retired.

He was an extraordinarily gifted organiser and administrator of Science.
Apart from his achievements at the Tata Institute, and his extensive
involvement with IMU, he was also a Vice-President of
<https://www.icsu.org/> ICSU (1963-66) and Secretary-General of ICSU
(1966-70); this helped to strengthen the relationship of IMU with ICSU. His
personal contacts with a large number of influential mathematicians from all
over the world and his administrative skills made the functioning of IMU
effective and strengthened it, especially during the cold war period. He was
one of the influences behind the IMU's increasing involvement with
Developing Countries.

``For decades he was a spiritus rector in the Union'', in the words of Olli
Lehto, in ``Mathematics Without Borders -- A History of the International
Mathematical Union''.

Vasudevan Srinivas (Tata Institute, Mumbay)