Conference Proposal: Thirteenth International Conference on Continuum Models and Discrete Systems, July 21-25, 2014

该项目是为了部分支持将于2014年7月21日至25日在犹他州盐湖城犹他大学举行的第13届连续模型和离散系统国际会议（CMDS13）。CMDS系列会议已经举办了大约40年，这是第一次在美国举行。这些会议多年来具有相当的影响力，吸引了顶尖专家，并向年轻研究人员介绍了最前沿的发展。这些会议为数学家和科学家、实验家和理论家提供了一个独特的论坛，聚集在一起，就广泛的材料相关问题交换意见和结果。CMDS13会议的主要焦点是物理现象的离散和连续描述之间的相互作用。这种相互作用对于贯穿物理学、生物学、材料科学和工程学的一系列跨学科问题至关重要。这些方法对于复杂介质的研究至关重要，包括复合材料、多晶（如金属和冰）、生物材料、纳米结构和超材料，以及智能（形状记忆）合金、优化设计的复合微结构和许多其他相关系统。会议的主题包括复杂材料的双重离散-连续描述方法以及几个活跃的新领域，如具有极端或不寻常特性的复合材料（超材料），复杂结构的失效动力学，结构材料的设计和优化，具有多重平衡的亚稳态结构动力学，复杂流体，海冰模型，以及多尺度计算方法。会议的形式将包括11个全体会议和大约40个受邀演讲，以及一些贡献的报告。这次会议将促进科学家、工程师和应用数学家之间的跨学科和国际接触，这些科学家、工程师和应用数学家通常不会互动，从而增加未来突破性合作的潜力。组织者将尽量让年轻研究人员的参与最大化，从博士后到研究生和本科生，这为他们提供了职业发展机会。NSF的大部分支持将分配给学生、博士后、初级研究人员和来自代表性不足群体（包括女性）的参与者。

This project is to partially support the Thirteenth International Conference on Continuum Models and Discrete Systems (CMDS13) which is being held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, between July 21st and 25th, 2014. The CMDS meeting series has been running for about 40 years, and this is the first time it is being held in the U.S.A. Having become quite influential over the years, these meetings attract leading experts and introduce young researchers to cutting edge developments. The meetings provide a unique forum for mathematicians and scientists, experimentalists and theorists, to get together and exchange ideas and results on a wide range of materials-related problems. The main focus of the CMDS13 meeting is the interplay between discrete and continuum descriptions of physical phenomena. This interplay is of fundamental importance to a range of interdisciplinary problems throughout physics, biology, materials science and engineering. These methods are crucial for the study of complex media, including composites, polycrystals such as metals and ice, biomaterials, nano-structures, and metamaterials, as well as smart (shape memory) alloys, optimally designed composite microstructures, and many other related systems. The conference website is www.math.utah.edu/~cherk/CMDS13/cmds13-home.html The conference topics encompass methods for the dual discrete-continuous description of complex materials as well as several active new areas such as composites (metamaterials) with extreme or unusual properties, the dynamics of failure of complex structures, the design and optimization of structured materials, the dynamics of metastable structures with multiple equilibria, complex fluids, models for sea ice, and multiscale computational methods. The format of the conference will consist of 11 plenary talks and about 40 invited lectures together with some contributed presentations. The meeting will foster interdisciplinary and international contacts among scientists, engineers, and applied mathematicians who would not normally interact, thus increasing the potential for future ground breaking collaborations. The organizers will try to maximize the participation of younger researchers,from postdoctoral associates to graduate and undergraduate students, which provides career development opportunities for them. Much of the NSF support will be allocated to students, postdocs, junior researchers and participants from underrepresented groups, including women.