In this issue of the bulletin, we feature an interview honouring Luís Sanchez, include an article about some surprising properties of conditioned simple random walks in two dimensions, present an article about generic behaviours of conservative dynamical systems, feature an interview with Sylvia Serfaty and, as usual, publish several summaries and reports regarding the activities partially supported by CIM during the last year.

Having lived in Moura, Alentejo, his first 18 years, Luís Fernando Sanchez Rodrigues entered the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon in 1966 to study Mathematics in the variant then oriented towards Pure Mathematics. During his pre-university education, which he completed at the Liceu de Beja, his mathematics teacher, of whom he speaks with high regard, gratitude and tenderness, was determinant in his decision to study Mathematics.

We define the two-dimensional conditioned simple random walk as the Doob’s h-transform of the simple random walk with respect to its potential kernel, and discuss some of its properties. This is a very brief exposition of some of the topics presented in [12].

The international conference on OPTIMIZATION 2022 – FRENCH-GERMAN-PORTUGUESE (FGP2022) was organized by a team of researchers from various Portuguese universities and research centers, in close collaboration with SYSTEC, Institute for Systems and Robotics, Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, and Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto.

Between the 7th and 11th of February it took place at ISEG (Lisbon School of Economics & Management) the international workshop New Trends in Lyapunov Exponents, also broadcasted via Zoom. The main topic of this event was the theory of Lyapunov exponents in their various manifestations in Dynamical Systems along with their applications to other areas of mathematics. 

The Sixth Workshop New Trends in Quaternions and Octonions (NTQO 2022) took place in November 25–26, 2022, at the University of Beira Interior (Covilhã, Portugal). The event was organized by the Centre of Mathematics and Applications of the University of Beira Interior (CMA-UBI), jointly with the Center for Research & Development in Mathematics and Applications (CIDMA-UA) and the Centre of Mathematics of the University of Minho (CMAT-UMinho).

The aim of the modern theory of dynamical systems is to describe the behaviour of typical trajectories, for typical evolution laws. Furthermore, when dealing with real-world systems, neither the initial data nor the evolution law are known exactly. For these reasons, one is most interested in properties that are stable, i.e., that are persistent under small perturbations of the evolution law.

Sylvia Serfaty is currently Silver Professor of Mathematics at the Courant Institute of New York University. Since obtaining her PhD from Université Paris-Sud in 1999, she has embarked on a stellar mathematical career in the fields of analysis, partial differential equations and mathematical physics. She has received many distinctions which include, among others, the European Mathematical Society Prize (2004) and the Henri Poincaré Prize (2012). Since 2019, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Between the 13 and 15 of July 2022, the event entitled Three Nonlinear Days in Coimbra: a CAMGSD-CMUC Workshop in nonlinear Analysis took place at the University of Coimbra. Jointly organised by the Centre for Mathematics at the University of Coimbra (CMUC) and the Centre for Mathematical Analysis, Geometry and Dynamical Systems (CAMGSD-IST), the workshop gathered international specialists working in the fields of nonlinear analysis, variational problems and methods, regularity theory for elliptic equations, free boundary problems, and other related topics. 

The Portuguese Meeting on Biomathematics is a biannual event, which aims to bring together national researchers interested in Biomathematics and, at the same time, to promote interaction between mathematicians working on models arising from the field of biology, with other researchers working in areas of biology and who use mathematics as an important tool in their investigation.

Last July took place in Porto the 17th conference of the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS) —IFCS 2022, Classification and Data Science in the Digital Age. The conference was a joint organization of the Portuguese Association for Classification and Data Analysis (CLAD) and the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto, and was supported by CIM.

We review the basics on admissible speeds of travelling waves to FKPP (Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovski-Piskounov) equations, starting from the classical setting and pointing out some changes needed to deal with nonlinear diffusion. Most of the material is based on elementary theory of ordinary differential equations (ODEs).

The conference 2nd Women in Mathematics Meeting was held at the School of Sciences of the University of Minho, Braga, from 7th through 9th September 2022.

As is well known, we are currently witnessing a rapid development in the forms of access to information and scientific publishing. The purpose of the workshop was to take stock of the situation in the area of Mathematics and discuss future prospects, including topics such as digital and physical access to national archives, coordination at national level, the inclusion of content on b-on, and FCT’s adoption of the Open Access initiative Plan S.

The Portugal-Italy Conference on Nonlinear Differential Equations and Applications (PICNDEA22) was held on July 4-6, 2022, at the University of Évora, Colégio Espírito Santo, Évora, Portugal, sponsored by CIMA (Centro de Investigação em Matemática e Aplicações) and CMAFcIO (Centro de Matemática, Aplicações Fundamentais e Investigação Operacional).

In the last week of October 2022, the IV International Workshop on Non-Associative Algebras in Covilhã was held at the University of Beira Interior (Covilhã, Portugal). The event was promoted and organized by CMA-UBI, in collaboration with CMUC, CMUP, and CIM.

From July 18 to 20, 2022 Tomar, with the high patronage of the President of the Republic of Portugal and a panel of speakers of enormous quality that included 8 ERC (European Research Council grant) recipients, was the stage for a meeting organized around SPM’s main pillars: research, teaching, history and outreach.