Message from the DISC office
Starting DISC courses
Winter Course 2010
Carsten Scherer
NWO Talent Days for PhD's and Postdocs
NWO-Talent Classes Spring 2010
Staff news
PhD defences
Vacancies
Next issue of the Newsletter

Welcome to DISC Newsletter of February 2010. 

Message from the DISC office

There are several DISC activities upcoming that may ask for attention. The DISC Winter Course on Model Reduction that will be held in Groningen, the start of new regular DISC courses on March 8, and of course the registration for our yearly Benelux Meeting in Heeze.
Meanwhile the DISC Board has decided to prepare a revised proposal for submission to the NWO Graduate Programme (deadline 24 February). In the revision a more specific plan is going to be incorporated for starting a DISC Pre-PhD Track that can be applied for by MSc students starting in any of the MSc programs that DISC groups are involved in. This Special Track will incorporate a number of activities including getting to know the research from several of the DISC groups, possibly spending some (training/research) period in a different group, and finally a supervised trajectory to prepare a research proposal for a 4-year PhD project by the student. If the DISC application to the NWO Programme is successful, the best four student proposals will then be granted with a PhD position for 4 year. The ideas are still in a preliminary phase and a good subject for further discussions during the Benelux Meeting.

Best regards
Paul Van den Hof

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Starting DISC courses

On March 8, 2010 the following courses will start:
Design Methods for Control Systems
Systems and Control Theory of Nonlinear Systems
Be sure of a seat, don't forget to register.

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Winter Course 2010

Prof. Thanos Antoulas (Rice University) will teach a DISC winter course on Model reduction.
This years Winter Course will be held at the University of Groningen from February 22 to February 24.
For more details and abstract check the flyer,  the DISC website and register.

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Carsten Scherer

Professor Carsten Scherer (TUD-DCSC) has accepted a full professor position in the University of Stuttgart, Germany, in the scope of the Centre of Excellence in Simulation Technology. As a result of this he will move (back) to Germany as of 1 March 2010.
Carsten will be appointed on the chair "Mathematical Systems Theory" in the Institute of Mathematical Methods in Engineering, Numerics and Geometrical Modelling, with a clear link to the Institute for Systems Theory and Automatic Control, where Prof. Frank Allgöwer is the director.
We congratulate Carsten with this new position in his mother country, and acknowledge the major contributions that he has made to our DISC community over the last 17 years, not in the least by his DISC lectures on LMI's and by his role as member of the DISC board. 
Due to this change, the DISC teaching obligations of Carsten for the upcoming course "Design Methods for Control Systems" will be taken over by Dr. Siep Weiland (TUE-EE). We are very happy that Siep Weiland has been found willing to "step in" on this short notice.

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NWO Talent Days for PhD's and Postdocs

Just doing good research isn’t enough to make it within the scientific world. Your career also depends on other than technical skills, such as writing, networking and planning. The 'Talent Days' series at het Vechthuis in Utrecht- an initiative of the Dutch science foundation NWO - helps you developing those skills. If you’re a researcher at PhD or postdoc level you can register. The 2010 NWO-Talent Days will be held on Tuesday 23 March, 2010 and Tuesday 12 October, 2010. Registration for the 23 March Talent Day has started on 13 January 12.00 p.m. Discuss with your supervisor whether this is useful for you at this stage.
More information can be found here.

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NWO-Talent Classes Spring 2010

In spring 2010, NWO will organize Talent Classes on 13 April, 11 May, and 22 June.

The classes are in Dutch, unless indicated otherwise. If you don’t speak Dutch, but would like to participate in a Dutch-spoken workshop, send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . 

Detailed masterclass descriptions and information about requirements and deadlines are available on www.nwo.nl/verdieping. Registration has already started!!

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Staff news

University of Groningen

Hi folks, my name is Anup Menon. I joined the systems, control and
analysis group at the University of Groningen this January and will be
working with Prof. Kanat Camlibel on piecewise linear systems. I have
a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's degree in
systems and control engineering; the latter from IIT Bombay, Mumbai,
India. Prior to joining RUG I worked as a control engineer with Eaton
Corp. for 18 months. I enjoy listening to music and am learning to to
play the guitar. I also like playing chess and table tennis.
Started at RUG-IWI as PhD Student. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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PhD defences

Candidate: Satajit Wattamwar
Thesis: Identification of Low Order Models for Large Scale Processes
Supervisor: Dr. S. Weiland, co-promotor: Prof.dr.ir. A.C.P.M. Backx
Date: February 8, 2010
Location: Eindhoven University of Technology
Time: 16:00

Candidate: Joris Bierkens
Thesis: Long Term Dynamics of Stochastic Evolution Equations
Supervisor: Prof. S.M. Verduyn Lunel
Co-promotor: Dr. ir. O. van Gaans
Date: February 9, 2010
Location: Academiegebouw, Leiden
Time: 16:15

Candidate: Rostyslav Polyuga
Thesis: Model Reduction of Port-Hamiltonian Systems
Supervisor: Prof.dr. A.J. van der Schaft
Date: April 23, 2010
Location: University of Groningen
Time: 14:45

Candidate: Aneesh Venkatraman
Thesis: Control of Port-Hamiltonian Systems: Observer Design and Alternate Passive Outputs
Supervisor: Prof.dr. A.J. van der Schaft
Date: April 23, 2010
Location: University of Groningen
Time: 16:15

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Vacancies

University of Twente

PhD students in the project ‘BOBBIE’
Text of this vacancy is available here.

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Next issue of the Newsletter

The next issue of this Newsletter will appear in March 2010.

We encourage the contributors to provide essential information. In principle, we intend to publish any message offered. However, we reserve the right to edit certain parts of a submission.

Please send your contributions to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Send the articles preferable in the English language. 

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