ERCIM News No.26 - July 1996
INRIA - Bernard Larrouturou has become
the new president of INRIA following a decree by Jacques Chirac, the President
of France. Bernard Larrouturou takes over from Alain Bensoussan, recently
appointed president of the French space agency CNES. Bernard Larrouturou
has held a number of posts since graduating from France's prestigious École
Polytechnique in 1980. Most recently, he has been director of CERMICS, an
educational and research establishment created in 1990 specializing in modelling,
data processing and scientific computing. Associated with INRIA, CERMICS
was set up by the École nationale des ponts et chaussées,
where he also has an engineering degree. Member of Renault's scientific
advisory board and chairman of INRIA's evaluation committee, Bernard Larrouturou
began his career with INRIA in its Sophia Antipolis laboratory. In the course
of an outstanding scientific career, he has won many awards from national
and international bodies. These include the Prix Laplace and the Prix Blaise
Pascal from France's Académie of Sciences, the Prix de la fondation
Peccot from the Collège de France, joint first prize in Cray France's
1991 award and the prize for scientific computing from CISI Ingénierie.
INESC - Artur Pimenta Alves has recently been appointed Director
of INESC. He joined the University of Oporto in 1970, teaching in the area
of telecommuni-cations, and obtained his PhD in Electrical Engineering in
1981, from the University of Bradford. He joined INESC when its nothern
branch was launched in 1984, and since then he has been responsible for
several national and European projects in the areas of broadband networks
and services. His scientific interests are currently in the areas of digital
video and image communications. INESC's Board of Directors was completed
with two other new members, Luciano Tavares, representing the associated
Portugal Telecom, who is in charge of the Administrative area of Oporto,
and Agostinho Santos Silva, specialist in postal automation and information
systems, representing the Portuguese Post Office.
CWI - Gerard van Oortmerssen, General Director of CWI, has succeeded
Alain Bensoussan as vice-president of ERCIM. Van Oortmerssen came to CWI
in 1991 from the Dutch Maritime Research Institute MARIN, where he headed
the R&D division. Initially he filled the position of managing director.
After the retirement in 1994 of Cor Baayen, CWI's scientific director and
first president of ERCIM, Van Oortmerssen was appointed general director.
CNUCE-CNR - Luca Simoncini has been appointed as the
new director of CNUCE-CNR, Pisa. For Prof Simoncini, who holds a Chair in
Fundamentals of Computer Science at the department of Computer Engineering,
Pisa University, this is a return to CNR after 10 years full-time at the
University. Prof Simoncini's main research interests are in dependable and
fault-tolerant computing, system design for critical applications and design
environments.
CLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has held a second meeting
of its Internet Club (see ERCIM News 24 page 13). Whereas the first meeting
concentrated on technical issues associated with access, browsers and mail
clients, this meeting covered the topic of how the member companies could
make best use of the WWW for enhancing their business prospects. Dr Keith
Jeffery gave a talk on new and planned Web facilities whilst Dr Tim Pett
reported on the SMEs Forum held at the Fifth International WWW Conference
in Paris. There followed a useful discussion session during which the company
representatives were able to explore their concerns and requirements with
RAL staff. Although this Club was set up initially for a trial period of
one year, it is clear that the members feel it has been very useful and
would like to see it continue.
GMD - Achim Sydow, researcher in GMD's Institute for Computer
Systems and Software Technology, has been appointed Consulting Editor of
the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems for the field of General Systems
Modelling and Simulation with Application to Environmental Systems. The
publication is planned as encyclopedia comprising more than fifty volumes
and encompassing knowledge from research, technology and management aiming
at preserving and providing the natural resources such as water, energy,
environment, food as well as from agriculture. Achim Sydow will be supported
by an Editorial Board consisting of fifteen researchers from the United
States, various EU member states and Russia. Editor-in-Chief is Prof. Dr.
Darwish M.K. Al Gobaisi. Ten Novel prize winners and a great number of presidents
of US American and Japanese universites will participate in advisory committees.
Several thousand authors will be involved in this project.
CWI - L.A.A.M. Coolen, General Director of KPN Research
(KPN is the Royal Dutch PTT Company) was appointed chairman of SMC's new
Managing Board, which replaces the old Board of Trustees. This followed
a reorganization in May, in which SMC's National Activities in Mathematics
(research projects carried out at universities and administered by SMC)
now come under a separate foundation SWON. CWI is SMC's research institute.
GMD - Saso Dzeroski, ERCIM Fellow 1995, was awarded
the Jozef Stefan Golden Medal on 20th March 1996 in Ljubljana, Slovenia,
for his doctoral dissertation 'Numerical constraints and learnability in
inductive logic programming'. The Jozef Stefan Golden Medal is the only
dissertation prize in Slovenia and is awarded yearly since 1992 for dissertations
in the areas of natural and technical sciences defended in Slovenia. Saso
Dzeroski was an ERCIM Fellow at GMD-Institute for Applied Information Technology
from 1st May 1995 to 30th April 1996, and at FORTH-Institute of Computer
Science from 1st May 1996 to 30th October 1996. At GMD, he worked with Dr.
Stefan Wrobel and the machine learning group on further development of the
formalization of learning in first-order logic, as well as on practical
applications of machine learning and inductive logic programming for knowledge
discovery in pharmaceutical databases. At FORTH, Dzeroski will work with
Prof. Vassilis Moustakis, mainly on practical applications of machine learning
and inductive logic programming to knowledge discovery in databases.
GMD - Radu Popescu-Zeletin, Director of GMD's Institute
for Open Communication Systems, has been awarded the honory degree of doctor
by the University of Bucharest. Popescu-Zeletin, who also teaches at the
Computer Science Department of the Technical University Berlin, received
this award at the Rumanian "Politehnica" in Bucharest on February
19, 1996 for his research work in the field of communication technology
where he acquired international reputation in the area of open communication
systems. By this award the University of Bucharest honours one of its former
graduates.
CWI - Michiel Hazewinkel was appointed chairman of the Dutch Mathematical
Society. This happened at the annual congress of Dutch mathematicians, held
this time in Antwerp, Belgium, and organized jointly with the Belgian and
American Mathematical Societies. Hazewinkel is head of CWI's department
of Analysis, Algebra and Geometry and is, among other things, actively involved
in ERCIM's Digital Library Initiative.
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