New methods for localising radiation treatment of tumours depend on estimating the spatial distribution of oxygen in the tissue. Oxford Mathematicians hope to improve such estimates by predicting tumour oxygen distributions and radiotherapy response using high resolution images of real blood vessel networks.
Systemic risk, loosely defined, describes the risk that large parts of the financial system will collapse, leading to potentially far-reaching consequences both within and beyond the financial system. Such risks can materialize following shocks to relatively small parts of the financial system and then spread through various contagion channels. Assessing the systemic risk a bank poses to the system has thus become a central part of regulating its capital requirements.
The International Congresses of Mathematicians (ICMs) take place every four years at different locations around the globe, and are the largest regular gatherings of mathematicians from all nations. However, as much as the assembled mathematicians may like to pretend that these gatherings transcend politics, they have always been coloured by world events: the congresses prior to the Second World War saw friction between French and German mathematicians, for example, whilst Cold War political tensions likewise shaped the conduct of later congresses.
In an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine in 1965, Bob Dylan was pushed to define himself: Do you think of yourself primarily as a singer or a poet? To which, Dylan famously replied: Oh, I think of myself more as a song and dance man, y’know. Dylan’s attitude to pigeonholing resonates with many applied mathematicians. I lack the coolness factor of Dylan, but if pushed about defining what kind of mathematician I am, I would say: Oh, I think myself more as an equation and matrix guy, y’know.
As part of our series of research articles deliberately focusing on the rigour and intricacies of mathematics and its problems, Oxford Mathematician Eduardo Casali discusses his work.
As part of our series of research articles deliberately focusing on the rigour and intricacies of mathematics and its problems, Oxford Mathematician David Seifert discusses his and his collaborator Catalin Badea's work.
Social media for health promotion is a fast-moving, complex environment, teeming with messages and interactions among a diversity of users. In order to better understand this landscape a team of mathematicians and medical anthropologists from Oxford, Imperial College and Sinnia led by Oxford Mathematician Mariano Beguerisse studied a collection of 2.5 million tweets that contain the term "diabetes".
If nations are to grow, both economically and intellectually, they must foster scientific creativity. To do that they must create scientific environments that stimulate collaboration. This is especially true of developing countries as they seek to prosper in a global economy.
Organometal halide perovskite (OMHP) is hardly a household name, but this new material is the source of much interest, not least for Oxford Applied Mathematicians Victor Burlakov and Alain Goriely as they model the fabrication and operation of solar cells.
Think of a mathematician and you might imagine an isolated individual fueled by coffee whose immaculate if incomprehensible papers may, in the fullness of time, via a decades-long dry chain of citations, be made use of by an industrialist (via one or two other dedicated mathematicians).
Mathematics is full of challenges that remain unanswered. The field of Number Theory is home to some of the most intense and fascinating work. Two Oxford mathematicians, Ben Green and Tom Sanders, have recently made an important breakthrough in an especially tantalising problem relating to arithmetic structure within the whole numbers.
This picture shows the "Z" machine at Sandia Labs in New Mexico producing, for a tiny fraction of a second, 290 TW of power - about 100 times the average electricity consumption of the entire planet. This astonishing power is used to subject metal samples to enormous pressures up to 10 million atmospheres, causing them to undergo violent plastic deformation at velocities up to 10 km/s. How should such extreme behaviour be described mathematically?
As part of our series of research articles deliberately focusing on the rigour and complexity of mathematics and its problems, Oxford Mathematician Gui-Qiang G Chen discusses his work on the Mathematics of Shock Reflection-Diffraction.
X-ray imaging is an important technique for a variety of applications including medical imaging, industrial inspection and airport security. An X-ray image shows a two-dimensional projection of a three-dimensional body. The original 3D information can be recovered if multiple images are given of the same object from different viewpoints. The process of recovering 3D information from a set of 2D X-ray projections is called Computed Tomography (CT).
Much has been written about the buy-to-let sector and its role in encouraging both high levels of leverage and increases in house prices. Now Oxford Mathematician Doyne Farmer and colleagues from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School and the Bank of England have modelled that impact.
Many elastic structures have two possible equilibrium states. For example umbrellas that become inverted in a sudden gust of wind, nanoelectromechanical switches, origami patterns and even the hopper popper, which jumps after being turned inside-out. These systems typically move from one state to the other via a rapid ‘snap-through’. Snap-through allows plants to gradually store elastic energy, before releasing it suddenly to generate rapid motions, as in the Venus flytrap .
Across the physical and biological sciences, mathematical models are formulated to capture experimental observations. Often, multiple models are developed to explore alternate hypotheses. It then becomes necessary to choose between different models.
For over a hundred years, when confronted by swelling in the brain, surgeons more often than not have resorted to decompressive craniectomy, the traditional route to reducing swelling by removing a large part of the skull. However, while this might be the standard procedure, its failure rate has been worryingly high, primarily because the consequences on the rest of the brain have been poorly understood.