Event details
MISG 2023 will bring together mathematicians, statisticians, engineers, computer scientists and modellers from across Australia and abroad to Monash University Clayton campus to spend a week with industry partners providing mathematical insights into their specific real-world problems.
MISG 2023 will take place from January 30th to February 3rd.
Registration for academics is free. We only ask that you make yourself available for the week and can provide your own travel to Monash University Clayton. We strongly recommend graduate academics from Professor to PhD student and the private sector to register. The projects will provide an opportunity to academics to gain exposure to mathematical problems faced by modern industry and to be involved in publishing the work where appropriate.
Please REGISTER NOW before January 20th on our Eventbrite page.
Event Schedule
Please click here for a PDF of the MISG Schedule.
Links for transport, accommodation, parking, and maps:
Buying/Set up myki (Melbourne’s public transport card)
Getting to Monash via public transport
Finding us at Clayton campus
We will use 9 Rainforest walk for most of the week but congregate in Lecture theatre S3 at 16 Rainforest walk as indicated on the map. To best orientate yourself, find Rainforest walk (sky blue walking track) which connects the North Car Park and the Monash Bus Station which visitors are likely to arrive at (circled).
Projects
Mathematical modelling of tomato greenhouse resource management
Costa group are a publicly listed grower, packer and marketer of fresh fruit and vegetables. One of Costa’s many growing locations around Australia is their 40 hectare glasshouse for growing tomatoes in Guyra, NSW. This glasshouse facility is almost entirely self-sufficient as it captures and recycles its own rainwater, generates power onsite for use in heating and lighting and utilises the biproducts of the power generation for producing carbon dioxide to grow the tomatoes. To optimise the use of carbon dioxide, the facility is capable of finely tuning vents which simultaneously cool and regulate the carbon dioxide content in balance with production rates and optimal plant uptake. In this project we will be formulating sensible models (predominately ODE models) to describe the relationship that exists between carbon dioxide demands and external solar radiation fluctuations for a benchmarking consistent and controlled conditions to grow tomatoes at a set quality. We shall be working with sample real high-resolution data from the Guyra glasshouse which will be used to calibrate the model/s. The model/s will be used to provide insight into optimal operating parameters from perspectives of yield and waste but also to guide planning for Costa in an environment of volatile energy costs.
The Costa facility can be further explored using the link HERE.
Costa Group project moderators:
Mr Tal Kanety (Costa rep.)
Dr Mark Flegg (Monash)
Prof. Mark McGuinness (VUW)
Dr. Jessica Crawshaw (Oxford)
Thermal performance of subsea power cables with marine growth
Sun Cable is developing the world’s largest solar energy infrastructure network. Their flagship project is the Australia-Asia PowerLink (AAPowerLink), which will harness and store solar energy from the Northern Territory for 24/7 transmission to Singapore via a high voltage subsea direct current transmission system. The AAPowerLink will be capable of supplying up to 15% of Singapore’s total electricity needs. The MISG project will be focusing on thermal considerations around the subsea cables and in the presence of marine growth.
Information about Sun Cable and the AAPowerLink can be found HERE.
Sun Cable project moderators:
Dr Joseph Bunton (Sun Cable rep.)
Dr Anja Slim (Monash)
Prof. Graeme Hocking (Murdoch)
Dr Edward Hinton (Melbourne)
Important note: Despite the recent news regarding the voluntary administration of Sun Cable, MISG is unchanged and will be pushing forward with this project offering.
Optimising hospital waitlist and operating theatre management
The NSW Central Coast Local Health District (CCLHD) provides public health services for the region between Sydney and the Hunter Valley. In the aftermath of COVID restrictions on planned and elective surgery, pressures in hospitals for beds and staff shortages have necessitated the need for careful management, scheduling and optimisation. This project will look at historical data of waitlists and operating theatre schedules and compare them to what could be achieved with alternative hospital policies and optimised schedules. This will require developing operating theatre scheduling (discrete optimisation) models and carrying out data analytics using the historical data. The results of the workshop are intended to provide NSW Health with insights on how their policies relating to the management of waitlists and operating theatres could be improved, and an indication of the opportunity for gaining efficiency by replacing manual scheduling with automated approaches.
The NSW CCLHD website can be found HERE.
NSW Health project moderators:
Ms Karen Berry (NSW Health rep.)
Dr Michael Lydeamore (Monash)
Prof. Andreas Ernst (Monash)
Dr Hamideh Anjomshoa (Melbourne)
Mathematically enhanced standards for a future of reliable renewable energy
The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) is the expert energy policy adviser to Australian governments. The AEMC makes and amends the National Electricity, Gas, and Retail Rules for the National Electricity Market, elements of the natural gas market and related retail markets to advance the long term interests of consumers. A key focus for the AEMC is to design a regulatory and market arrangement that addresses decarbonisation, technological change and market transformation, and the uncertainty that the interaction between these trends creates in the sector. This problem aims to identify mathematical approaches, tools and techniques that can be used to inform the selection of an enhanced reliability standard for a future low emission national electricity market dominated by high levels of energy limited plants such as variable renewable energy sources (wind and solar) and significant levels of battery and hydro power storage.
The AEMC webpage can be found HERE.
AEMC project moderators:
Mr Craig Oakeshott (AEMC rep.)
Dr Kihun Nam (Monash)
Prof David Hill (Monash/USyd/HKU)
Ms Ya Li (Monash)
Special industrial mathematics colloquium speaker
Mark McGuinness is (Adjunct) Professor of Applied Mathematics in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at Victoria University of Wellington. His research interests are driven by challenges presented at Mathematics in Industry workshops and by various geophysical, industrial, and biological applications, including steaming Surtseyan volcanic ejecta, modelling the freezing of sea ice, chaotic dynamics, fragmentation of volcanic rock, cooking crispy cereals, the use of microwaves to measure moisture content, and coal volatilisation. He enjoys using differential equations to model and explain the behaviour of heat and mass transport problems.
Mark is co-author of the book “Chaos”, published by Springer in 2019. Mark is also an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Limerick (UL). He often visits UL and the University of Oxford to collaborate, thanks to funding from Victoria University of Wellington’s Science Faculty, and from Science Foundation Ireland via the Mathematics Applications Consortium for Science and Industry at the University of Limerick. He also regularly hosts visitors from UL in Wellington. He was convenor and remains a member of the Mathematics in Industry New Zealand (MINZ) Reference Group, with responsibility for organising the annual MINZ Study Group that brings together selected industrial problems with academics and students to solve problems arising in New Zealand industry in a brainstorming week of amazing mathematics.
Mark is regularly asked to Moderate at the Mathematics in Industry Study Groups held annually in Australia and at MISG2023 he will be helping to moderate the project supplied by Costa Group. He has been Chair of ANZIAM, the over-arching group of industrial and applied mathematicians in Australia and New Zealand that also oversees the Mathematics in Industry Study Group held each year in Australia, and is currently Deputy Chair of ANZIAM. Mark is a Fellow of the New Zealand Mathematical Society, and has served as Treasurer and Council Member of that Society a number of times.
FAQs
Q: When and where should I be at the start of the event?
A: We will begin at 9am sharp in the Lecture theatre room S3 which is at 16 Rainforest walk. See the maps above for directions once you get to Monash Clayton campus. We will have signs and banners so it is easier for you to find us as you get close. You should aim to arrive early (between 08:30 and 09:00) to get a name tag and to make sure you have time to find the building.
Q: Should I bring a laptop?
A: In short yes. In groups there will be some that prefer to contribute with pen and paper (or the ample white board space we have in the rooms), but others will likely be contributing by writing and running code. It will depend on the needs of the project and the skills of the group. If you are good at coding, or even if you just would like access to the internet, you should bring your personal devices. Monash has a guest system for internet access which we can share with you when you get here.
Q: How much coding will be required for the workshop?
A: Again, this depends on the problem. Most of the problems come with some kind of data which bring the mathematical models and algorithms into real-world relevance and to handle the data in a computational setting most (if not all) projects will have a certain level of need for numerical coding. These skills will useful, that is for sure.
Please contact us if you have any questions about MISG as either a participant or an industry partner.
If you wish to learn about how mathematics and the MISG is used by industrial partners, or if you are just interested to know how MISG works, please see our industry page and browse past projects.