ニュース

2018-06-29

Prof. Satoshi Aoki's one day lecture was held on June 26

On June 26, Professor Satoshi Aoki (Kobe Univ.) gave a series of lectures about "computational algebraic statistics and its applications". His lecture is about application of the Grobner basis to statistic theory. Lecture 1 was an introduction to ideal of polynomial rings and its relation to the Grobner basis. In Lecture 2, he explained Grobner basis in design of experiments. In Lecture 3, he explained Grobner basis in statistical hypothesis with contingency tables. There were more than 30 participants from inside and outside of RIKEN. Background of the participants are mathematics, statistics, physics, biology, information science and medical science. There were many questions from the participants on the mathematical and practical aspects of the Grobner basis, and the lively discussions continued at the time of lunch and coffee break. This lecture turns out to be a model case of having both mathematicians and practitioners together to discuss the power of mathematics and it applications.

2018-06-25

Self-introduction: Shun Furusawa

Hello, I am Shun Furusawa, a special postdoctoral researcher of iTHEMS. I received a PhD at Waseda University in September 2013 and then I worked at NAOJ and FIAS as a posdoc. My research area is Nuclear Astrophysics. I am interested in birth, life, and death of various stars and related nuclear physics. At present, I am working on death of massive stars and birth of quark stars. I am looking forward to chatting and discussing with the iTHEMS members.

2018-06-22

数理モデルによる細胞分裂期の染色体ダイナミクスを解析

理化学研究所 理論科学連携研究推進グループ階層縦断型理論生物学研究チームの境祐二特別研究員（研究当時）、開拓研究本部望月理論生物学研究室の立川正志専任研究員、望月敦史主任研究員らの研究グループは、細胞周期の分裂期に見られる染色体の形成と分離のダイナミクスについて数理モデルを用いて解析し、染色体の形成と分離において「コンデンシン」が果たす役割を理論的に解明しました。 本研究成果は、理論と実験のグループが協力することにより、長年の謎であった染色体の形成と分離のダイナミクスの完全解明に貢献すると期待できます。 今回、研究グループは、染色体凝縮に中心的な役割を果たすタンパク質複合体であるコンデンシンの機能を、クロマチンとの相互作用として表現する数理モデルを構築しました。そして分子動力学計算を用いてシミュレーションすることで、染色体の形成や分離のダイナミクスにコンデンシンが果たす役割について解析しました。その結果、染色体の形態と分離速度の間に強い相関があることが明らかになりました。これは、コンデンシンが棒状の染色体の形成を通して、染色体分離のダイナミクスを制御している可能性を示しています。

2018-06-18

The Journalist in Residence Workshop was held from June 1 to June 4

From June 1 to June 4, Journalist in Residence Workshop was held at Tambara Institute of Mathematical Sciences of the University of Tokyo, located in a high-plain nature park 1,200 meters above sea level and 140 kilometers north of Tokyo. The "Journalist in Residence (JIR)" program in Mathematics started in 2010 with the support of the Mathematical Society of Japan. By the program, journalists in a broad sense stay at major math departments and institutes in Japan and talk to people (professors, students, visitors, librarians), attend seminars and conferences. The program aims to enhance the relationships between mathematicians and the general public. Then Journalist in Residence Workshop started in 2011 aiming to exchange information of JIR in different institutes among the participants as well as among host institutions. The workshop also fuctions as outreach of institutions. RIKEN iTHEMS began hosting this workshop from last year. This year, there were 10 journarists and 11 participants from RIKEN, 6 from universities and 3 from others. Young participants of RIKEN iTHEMS mainly explained their recent important achievements to the nonspecialists and matured participants explained thier experiences on academic journalism. The whether during the JIR workshop of this year was very nice and the participants hiked together around the Tambara marsh and the Tambara lake. The disscussion among the participants continued with joy until late in the evening.

2018-06-18

Self-introduction: Genki Ouchi

I am Genki Ouchi, a SPDR of iTHEMS. I am a mathematician. My research field is algebraic geometry. In algebraic geometry, we study algebraic varieties, that is, spaces described by algebraic equations. Recently, I am interested in symmetry of algebraic varieties: infinite symmetry via complex dynamics and finite symmetry via finite groups. When I study such subjects, I often use mathematical notion related to string theory like derived categories of coherent sheaves, Bridgeland stability conditions and elliptic genera etc. I would like to find interesting geometric phenomena inspired by outside of algebraic geometry. Moreover, I am happy if there are application of algebras (or mathematics) to other research fields.

2018-06-11

iTHEMS Colloquium was held on June 7

Prof. Yasumasa Nishiura gave a lecture at iTHEMS Colloquium which was taken place June 7th. His lecture was entitled "On the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic instabilities of spatially localized patterns" and various patterns emerge from rather simple sets of differential equations were introduced. According to the lecture, spatially localized dissipative structures are observed in various fields, such as neural signaling, chemical reactions, discharge patterns, granular materials, vegetated landscapes, binary convection and block copolymer nanoparticles. Now, while these patterns are much simpler than single living cells, yet they seem to inherit several characteristic "living state" features, such as generation of new patterns, self-replication, switching to new dynamics via collisions and adaptive morphological changes to environments. Prof. Nishiura explained that these behaviors stem from an interplay between the intrinsic instability of each localized pattern and the strength of external signals. The global geometric interrelation amongst all relevant solution branches of a corresponding system with approximate unfolding parameters was explored. He argued that a global geometric structure formed by all relevant solution branches gives us much more insight rather than conventional PDE approaches. The theme of the lecture was most pertinent to iTHEMS colloquium and the audience was fascinated by the power of the mathematical insight applied to varied subjects and phenomena.

2018-06-11

Self-introduction: Ade Irma Suriajaya

Hello! My name is Ade Irma Suriajaya but people usually call me simply Chacha. I am originally from Indonesia and I made the nickname from my Chinese name, another name I have which is not officially registered, except in my college documents. I went to Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China after graduating from high school in Indonesia to pursue undergraduate study in Aeronautical Engineering. I was attracted to Mathematics in just my first month, thanks to the very interesting Calculus class I had back then. I got my first opportunity to study pure mathematics two years later when I got a scholarship for a one-year academic exchange program in Nagoya University in Japan. However I could not do that without sufficient Japanese proficiency, but I was finally able to take basic pure mathematics courses (designed for third semester students) the next semester, and I made up my mind to change my major to Mathematics. Nevertheless, there was no pure mathematics major in my home university in China and during the last year of my undergraduate study, I was taking only mathematics classes offered by the applied mathematics major (the official name was not Applied Mathematics). I managed to come back to Japan the year after, soon after I got my bachelor degree to finally, officially start my path in mathematics. This year marks the seventh year I work in analytic number theory. My main research interest is the analytic properties of zeta functions and L-functions such as, location of zeros and distribution of values of these special functions. I am very delighted to be a part of iTHEMS where I get to easily communicate with other theoretical scientists. I used to be more into Physics and Chemistry when I was in middle school and high school and I am very happy to get to know lots of new things, not only in those fields, but also in other fields of science. Furthermore, I am mostly excited to be able to collaborate with other scientists and hopefully apply my (still very very limited) knowledge in mathematics and also probably, the more limited knowledge in engineering or applied mathematics.

2018-06-05

中性子の寿命の仕組みを垣間見る

理化学研究所（理研）仁科加速器科学研究センター理研BNL研究センター計算物理研究グループのエンリコ・リナルディ理研BNLセンター研究員、数理創造プログラムのチアチェン・チャン研究員（ローレンス・バークレー国立研究所 研究員）らの国際共同研究グループは、世界最高性能のスーパーコンピュータを複数用いて、中性子の寿命を決めている「軸性電荷gA」の最も精密な計算を実現し、これまでの実験値とほとんど矛盾しないことを示しました。 今後、さらに計算の高精度化を進めることで、理論計算と実験結果に差異が生じれば、それは素粒子物理学の標準理論を超える新しい物理学の兆候となるか、あるいは原子核内の世界に対する私たちの理解を根本的に変えることとなります。 中性子は原子核内では安定ですが、原子核外に取り出されると15分程度で陽子に転換してしまいます。「ベータ崩壊」と呼ばれるこの転換は、中性子を構成する素粒子のクォークやグルーオンと、標準理論における弱ゲージボソンの相互作用によって引き起こされます。通常の電荷が光と物質の相互作用の強さを表すように、gAは弱ゲージボソンと物質の相互作用の強さを表します。近年、gAと中性子寿命は二つの実験手法で非常に精密に測定されていますが、両手法で得られた中性子寿命の間には約9秒の差があり、この差は私たちの知らない崩壊モードの存在の可能性を示しています。 今回、国際共同研究グループは、スーパーコンピュータと最新の計算アルゴリズムを用いて、中性子寿命を決めるgAに対して、「量子色力学」に基づく精密な理論計算に成功し、実験値とほとんど矛盾しない結果を得ました。 本研究は、英国の科学雑誌『Nature』の掲載に先立ち、オンライン版（5月30日付け：日本時間5月31日）に掲載されます。

2018-06-04

Self-introduction: Tomoki Ozawa

I am Tomoki Ozawa, a senior research scientist at iTHEMS. I am originally from Japan. I finished my PhD in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US, and then spent five years as a postdoc at the BEC Center (Bose-Einstein Condensation Center) at the University of Trento in Italy. Then, after spending three months in Brussels, Belgium, I came back to Japan and joined RIKEN iTHEMS this April. My main research interest is in the intersection between condensed matter theory and AMO (Atomic, Molecuar and Optics) theory. In particular, I have been working on many-body and topological physics of ultracold atomic gases and photonics. My style of research is to try to understand target systems in as simple way as possible; this sounds rather trivial, but it often leads to something unexpected in the end. In iTHEMS, I hope to collaborate with people from various backgrounds and start something exciting together.

2018-05-28

Self-introduction: Masaru Hongo

I am Masaru Hongo, a theoretical physicist working on nonequilibrium physics. My main interest is hydrodynamics and its possible generalizations to more general nonequilibrium systems. Hydrodynamics universally describes a lot of phenomena seen in the world. Its application covers not only simple liquids in our daily life, but also the extremely high temperature plasma (the so-called quark-gluon plasma which reaches at several trillion Kelvin). Since our fluid is composed of atoms/molecules, or extremely elementary particles described by quantum theory, it is interesting to consider how we can understand the gap between two descriptions. I have studied to bridge this gap between hydrodynamics, which gives a macroscopic description of systems, and quantum field theories, which is a fundamental microscopic theory considered to be state-of-the-art atomism. Based on the recent development of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, I have provided a solid basis for relativistic hydrodynamics. I am now working on how we can describe the more general nonequilibrium systems. I am happy if we are interacting with each other, and have fruitful collaborations!

2018-05-24

新粒子「ダイオメガ」 －スパコン「京」と数理で予言するクォーク6個の新世界－

理研、京都大学、大阪大学、日本大学の研究者による共同研究グループ「HAL QCD Collaboration」は、スーパーコンピュータ「京」を用いることで、新粒子「ダイオメガ（ΩΩ）」の存在を理論的に予言しました。本研究成果は、素粒子のクォークがどのように組み合わさって物質ができているのかという、現代物理学の根源的問題の解明につながると期待できます。

2018-05-21

Self-introduction: Takashi Okada

I am Takashi Okada. I am a senior research scientist of iTHEMS from this spring. Previously, I was a postdoc researcher of Mochizuki Theoretical Biology Laboratory (April 2014 to March 2018). My original background is theoretical physics, and, before I came to Mochizuki Laboratory, I researched on particle physics and super string theory. Now, my main research subject is theoretical biology, and, especially, I am interested in biological networks, such as gene regulatory networks, metabolic networks, and signal transduction networks. I would like to understand how today’s biological networks arise through evolutionary processes. I think that iTHEMS is the best environment to study theoretical biology because life science is a very broad field that involves mathematics, physics, chemistry, statistics, and so on. I would like to learn a lot through interaction with iTHEMS members. Also, I am very happy if we can collaborate with each other.

2018-05-21

Graduate-Level Research in Industrial Projects for Students (GRIPS)-Sendai 2018

Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) at UCLA offers several versions of its Research in Industrial Projects for Students (RIPS) program, a summer research experience for students of math and related disciplines. Students work in teams on projects sponsored by industry. GRISP-Sendai 2018 on this summer will be held in Tohoku Univ. and iTHEMS cohosts this program. Contact: Hiroshi Suito (iTHEMS Senior Research Scientist and AIMR, Tohoku Univ.) ​hiroshi.suito@tohoku.ac.jp

2018-05-21

Catherine Beauchemin gave a short talk at Nerd Nite Tokyo on May 11

On Friday, May 11, Catherine Beauchemin gave a short talk at Nerd Nite Tokyo. She told the public that health science has serious issues with reproducibility of experiment results, and that the research culture incentivizes positive results rather than sound experiments. This is why you get reports in successive months about how eggs are unhealthy, then healthy. Or how a medical practice used for 20 years to reduce post-surgery infections actually makes them more likely. According to Catherine, if doctors and health scientists want to be trusted more, they need to better communicate the uncertainty of results, do fewer (but larger) experiments to produce more robust results, and accept that negative results are just as worthy of publication as positive results. She also talked about how health science has math problems. Too many people in that field don't understand math/statistics well, and blindly trust equations even when those equations are misapplied and give incorrect results. There is a big opportunity for scientists with a background in math to work with health scientists and improve the quality of research in a field that is important for everyone. She is already starting a project along these lines -- please join her to promote the goals of iTHEMS and health sciences! And if you want to speak at a future Nerd Nite about your own research, please contact Don Warren (donald.warren@riken.jp) for information.

2018-05-15

Science Frontier Lectures in the University of Tokyo by iTHEMS Reserchers

iTHEMS Researchers started to give a series of lectures "Frontiers in Physics Science: Universe, Matter, Life and Information" to the undergraduate students in Univ. of Tokyo on every Wed. (16:50-18:35) from this semester. April 11, 18, 25: Y. Inoue, "Blackholes and the history of our universe" May 2, 9: Y. Yokokura, "What is spacetime? - exploring from blackhole and information -" May 16, 23: M. Tachikawa, "Cell Biology from mathematical point of view" June 6, 13: J Fawcett, "Genome informatics" June 20, 27: T. Doi, "Looking into supercomputer and looking out from supercomputer" July 4, 11: M. Taki, "How deep leaning becomes smart." Contact: Takashi Tsuboi (iTHEMS Deputy Director) tsuboi@ms.u-tokyo.ac.jp

2018-05-14

Self-introduction: Yoshiyuki Inoue

Hello everyone. My name is Yoshiyuki Inoue. I am a senior research scientist at iTHEMS/RIKEN. Previously, I was a JSPS fellow at KIPAC/SLAC/Stanford, and then an International Top Young Fellow at ISAS/JAXA. My research is theoretical astrophysics which is closely connected to observations. I am interested in understanding the nature of supermassive black holes. Here at iTHEMS, I would like to link theory and observations more tightly. I am also hoping to broaden my research fields through interdisciplinary interactions at iTHEMS.

2018-05-11

Jeffrey Fawcett (Senior Research Scientist, iTHEMS) was mentioned in an article on theoretical genetics of racehorses by Prof. Hideki Innan (Graduate University for Advanced Studies)

Jefferey has been working closely on this subject with Hideki. The article is published in a book "Master of Paper Owner Game" (Complete Guide, 2018-2019).

2018-05-11

理研ニュース2018年5月号（p.02-05）に長瀧重博 副プログラムディレクターの記事「大質量星はなぜ爆発する?」が掲載されました

2018-05-09

AIMaPより研究集会提案の公募のお知らせ

2018-05-07

iTHEMS Colloquium was held on April 23

iTHEMS Colloquium was held on April 23rd, inviting Dr. Kazuhiro Sakurada, Deputy Program Director of RIKEN Medical Sciences Innovation Hub Program, also at Sony CSL, and Dr. Jun Seita, Unit Leader of AI based Healthcare and Medical Data Analysis Standardization Unit, RIKEN Medical Sciences Innovation Hub Program as the lecturers. Dr. Sakurada gave the lecture first, entitled "The Description of biological phenomena as open system." There, he explained his approach to describe the life-course changes of individual people by applying the discretization model and Markov chain model. Then followed Dr. Seita’s lecture, which is entitled "Every Biological Variable has a Different Dynamic-range." He introduced an open platform for objective gene expression profiling named Gene Expression Commons. Their lectures exhibited the power of the interdisciplinary research in the most perspicuous way.

2018-04-23

iTHEMS participated RIKEN’s open-day on April 21

For the first time, iTHEMS participated RIKEN’s open-day last Saturday. Six researchers from iTHEMS gave short lectures for the public at our seminar room in Japanese. Those were: Tomoki Ozawa on Mathematics bridges classical and quantum physics; Jeffery Fawcett on deciphering the enigma of life; Yuki Yokokura on physics of black holes; Yoshiyuki Inoue on the observation of black holes; Takashi Okada on the network in life science; Masato Taki on Do AIs dream of electric sheep? The event was huge success. Every lecture attracted more audience than we can fit in the seminar room. Next year, we should do the lectures in a larger room. Thank you all the lecturers, especially Taki-san and Yokokura-san who arranged the event.

2018-04-12

東京大学にて、iTHEMSの研究者が講義を行います

2018年4月-7月に、iTHEMSの研究者がゲスト講師として、東京大学の1、2年生向けに講義を行います。

2018-04-10

iTHEMS Starter Meeting for FY2018 on April 6, 2018

More than 50 researchers from various disciplines (biology, physics, astronomy, mathematics, information science, computational science) got together and self-introduced each other at the iTHEMS common room 246-248 on April 6 12:30-15:00. There were also participants from Kobe and Kyoto through internet. Great enthusiasm to interact with each other could be seen already in this starter meeting, which forecasts a bright future of iTHEMS!

2018-04-07

iTHEMS on Youtube!

2018-04-05

三好建正 副プログラムディレクターが読売テクノ・フォーラムのゴールド・メダル賞を受賞