6th Crimean School and Workshops on Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Applications 15-26 May 2006

The two-workshop meeting on "Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos and Applications" was held at Hotel Mellas in Crimea, Ukraine on 15-26 May 2006. The workshops were mainly organised by Prof. Yuri Maistrenko (Kiev, Ukraine/Jülich, Germany), Prof. Arkady Pikovsky (Potsdam, Germany) and Prof. Peter Tass (Jülich, Germany).

Yuri Maistrenko (Kiev/Jülich), Hinke Osinga (Bristol), Oleksandr Popovych (Jülich), Arkady Pikovsky (Potsdam), Erik Mosekilde (Lyngby), and Peter Tass (Jülich) enjoy the beach party on Friday night, 19 May 2006.

The first workshop was on "Stochastic and Chaotic Dynamics in Action: from Laser to Brain, from Communication to Medicine" and took place 15-19 May 2006. The main emphasis was on applications of mathematical modelling and numerical investigation of systems of coupled oscillators, neural networks and on laser dynamics. The workshop was attended by more than 100 participants from around the world interested in computational and theoretical aspects of mathematical modelling applied to life sciences. The meeting was quite intense starting in the morning with lectures by invited speakers and finishing late evening with contributed presentations given by PhD students and postdocs. Despite this seemingly lengthy schedule it turned out to be a success, giving the possibility for young and promising researchers to present their work and discuss results with specialists in their field.

Group photo taken during the first workshop on Wednesday 17 May 2006.

The second workshop "Nonlinear Dynamics in Engineering and Nanotechnologies" took place the following week on 22-26 May 2006. This second workshop concentrated on a wider range of applications such as networks, time-delayed systems and spatio-temporal chaos. The last day of the meeting was fully dedicated to nanotechnologies. As the number of participants reduced to around 60, this allowed for a more relaxed schedule with a lot of time for scientific discussions. The informal atmosphere provided scientists from different backgrounds with an opportunity to communicate to each other and to establish new links and collaborations.

Hotel Mellas as viewed from the Black Sea.	Jonathan Rubin (Pittsburgh), Igor Belykh (Georgia State) and Vladimir Belykh (Nizhny Novgorod), and Leonid Shilnikov (Nizhny Novgorod) during the coffee break.

All in all, the workshops were very well organised and included a boat trip to Yalta, weekend excursions to different parts of Crimea, and various social events in the evenings. The conference location allowed many participants to enjoy mountain hiking in a very beautiful setting. A number of people attended previous meetings in the Crimean series and every time it is such an enjoyable experience that they come back time after time.

Watching dolphins in the Black Sea was a daily afternoon pastime.