Introduction
University of São Paulo – São Paulo – Brazil
Mathematics in Brazil has reached a high level of development hosting many world class Ph. D. and research programmes in the universities and research institutes. Nonetheless, this same level of excellence has not filtered through into industry. The use of mathematics as a tool to understand industrial processes and improve production is not as disseminated as in other western countries. This situation arose mainly due to the past academically-biased training of Brazil´s Post-graduate students, that did not emphasize mathematical modelling as an important practical tool; lack of knowledge from industry as to how mathematics could help improve their businesses is also a contributory factor. More recently this situation is beginning to change with several applied mathematics programmes now appearing and many industries including mathematical research in their laboratories and so hiring mathematicians.
This conference aims at bringing together mathematical modellers from academia and industry, highly experienced in working with mathematical problems for industry. The conference will be attended by students, academics and industrial staff involved with, or having an interest in mathematical modelling. The conference will be organized in the form of up to three parallel workshops, each taking a slot of three and a half hours and four talks. Each talk will last 45 minutes with 5 minutes for questions. Besides there will be five general talks delivered between the workshop sessions. The conference will be held between 30/11, 1 and 2/12/2011 at The Polytechnic School of Engineering of São Paulo University in the city of São Paulo. Talks should be delivered preferably in English.