Optimal transport :
Theory and Applications
to cosmological Reconstruction and Image
processing
Supported by the Lewiner Institute for Theoretical Physics, Technion, the Embassy of France in Israel, the French National Research Agency (project ANR–07–BLAN–0235 OTARIE), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 07–01–92217 CNRSL-a), CEREMADE, the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur (Nice, France) and Laboratoire J.-V. Poncelet (Moscow, Russia)
At the interface of dynamical and statistical cosmology and transport optimization
International workshop, Technion, Haifa, Israel, March 22–26, 2009
Organizers:
On this page you will find a list of participants, the program, and some practical information regarding the venue, accommodation, getting around, and social activities during the meeting.
A workshop poster (A4, pdf) is available here.
Please check also the web page of our workshop at the Lewiner Institute for Theoretical Physics!
& U. California, Irvine 
| Sun 03/22 | Mon 03/23 | Tue 03/24 | Wed 03/25 | Thu 03/26 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00–09:30 | — | Wake-up coffee | |||
| 09:30–10:15 | Welcome coffee Introductions |
Desjacques | Stepanov | Santambrogio | Naoz |
| 10:20–11:05 | Nusser | Adler | Brenier | Salomon | Thomas |
| 11:05–11:20 | More coffee | ||||
| 11:20 12:05 | Kreinovich | Myers | Prigozhin | Andrievsky | Keselman |
| 12:05–13:15 | Lunch | ||||
| 13:15–14:00 | Wolansky | Sokoloff | Branchini | Zheligovsky | Fun in Akko |
| 14:05–14:50 | Phelps | Dekel | Shandarin | Oliker | |
| 14:50–15:00 | Inspirational coffee | ||||
| 15:00–17:00 Discussion (moderator) |
Probing the mass distribution (Nusser) |
Statistics of the cosmic web (Dekel) |
Clumpiness in simulations and reality (Shandarin) |
Mathematics of the weak lensing (TBA) |
|
All talks will last 45 min including discussion.
The workshop will take place at the Lewiner Institiute for Theoretical Physics (LITP) at Technion, Israel's oldest university (est. 1924). The LITP is located at the 4th floor of the Taub building, adjacent to the computer center and the physics building. For the campus map and directions scroll down to the “Getting around” below; the Taub building is marked 550 (F3).
Most Technion premises, including in particular the conference room and lobby where coffee will be served during the breaks, are equipped with WiFi that will be freely avaliable to the participants. The conference room is equipped with a chalk greenboard, an overhead projector and a video projector.
Your local contacts are Professor Adi Nusser
(tel +972-4-8293576, email adi@physics.technion.ac.il) and Conference Coordinator
Liz Youdim (tel +972-4-8292831,
+972-4-8293551, email liz@physics.technion.ac.il; office hours 7 a.m. to
3 p.m. local time); email contact is of course strongly preferred
It is also a
good idea to copy your email to Dr Andrei
Sobolevski (ansobol@gmail.com)
Participants coming from abroad will be accommodated at two locations:
A small guesthouse on the Facutly Center's second floor (just above ground). Dairy buffet style breakfast; an alternative “continental” breakfast (coffee + croissant) is available at your own expense in a café in the Computer Science building nearby. The Faculty Center is marked 270 (D3) on the campus map.
Breakfasts included. Transportation from the hotel to Technion arranged by the organizers. WiFi at additional charge. Tel +972-4-8302020. Website of the hotel is available here. Attention: there are three Dan hotels in Haifa, so please make sure you give the full name Dan Gardens (Ganei Dan) to a taxi driver.
If you come to Israel from abroad, please check this web page with immigration and customs details.
Haifa is a one and a half hour ride from the Ben Gurion International airport. Instructions on how to get to Haifa are available at this web page of the Technion physics department; available options include buses, an hourly train service, and individual or shared taxis.
Most participants are coming on Saturday March 21, which is a special day in Israel (Shabbat), stricter than a European weekend, and which leaves less transport options. In particular, the train service from the airport to Haifa resumes only 2 hours after the sunset. In our case this means 7.30 p.m. local time, after which trains run all night (see a train schedule here). The Haifa destination is the Hof Hacarmel station, that is, the first Haifa station, where you will have to take a taxi if you come in the night. Beware that the night/Shabbat taxi fares are higher than usual!
It is also possible to go all the way to Haifa on Saturday by a taxi. Please use only taxi services approved by the airport. An individual taxi will cost around 400NIS ($100). There is also a shared taxi service (sherut) operated by the Amal company (tel. +972-4-8662324) which costs 65NIS. This may actually be the cheapest option, even compared to trains, because you can instruct the driver to drop you off at the hotel or take to the Technion campus, and the Amal taxis run all night. A downside is that there is no regular schedule and you will have to wait until the taxi is full. (Sometimes passengers split the cost of emtpy seats between them if they want to get going quickly.) Still it seems wise to recommend this option to all participants who do not have other means of transport.
In Terminal 3 the train station is underground (level S), the taxi stand is on the ground floor (level G), and the Amal taxi stand is “right in front of the terminal and clearly signed” according to what they told us. An interactive map of the terminal is available on this web page of the Israeli Airport Authority. There is also a 24/7 tourist information desk in the entrance hall (tel. +972-3-9754260, email doritk@tourism.gov.il).
The Technion campus map in PDF (2 MB) can be downloaded by clicking here. The LITP is located at the 4th floor of the Taub building, marked 550 on the map (F3). The Forchheimer Faculty Center and guesthouse is marked 270 (D3).
Although this is not directly related to our workshop, it is worth noting that on Wednesday March 25 at 17:00 the Fields prize winner Terence Tao will give at Technion the Elisha Netanyahu memorial lecture entitled Recent Progress in the Spectral Distribution of Random Matrices. The abstract is available in pdf here.
The social dinner is planned at the neighbouring small city of Akre (Akko). A walking tour in the newly restored citadel of Akre will precede the dinner. The social program is scheduled for afternoon of Thursday, March 26.