The Workshop on Control of PDEs was held at the Center for Applied Mathematics (CAM) on August 2-4, 2017， which had over 30 participants. This workshop was the first event sponsored by CAM after the renovation of Building 6 and was proposed by Professor Enrique Zuazua. Professor Zuazua is a professor of applied mathematics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain; a member of Academy of Europe; and an honorary member of Jakiunde, the Basque Academy of Sciences, Letters and Humanities. He has visited China numerous times and had many collaborations with Chinese mathematicians. He remarked that he was impressed by the beautiful environment, adequate facilities and the efficient management of the center. He believes that the workshop was highly successful and that CAM will have an excellent future.
Professor Bill Chen, director of CAM, delivered a welcome address at the opening ceremony of this workshop. He first gave a brief introduction to the founding of Tianjin University.
“Tianjin University was founded in 1895 as Peiyang University in the Qing Dynasty. This was before the Revolution, and this was the year when X-rays were discovered by the German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. Peiyang University has been considered as the first university in China, which was proposed by Xuanhuai Sheng （盛宣怀）, the Chief of Tianjin Customs, and officially approved by Emperor Guangxu （光绪）.
The first president of Peiyang University was a renowned American educator Charles Daniel Tenney, who had a Chinese name Jiali Ding（丁家立）. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and he got his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the Dartmouth College. Tenney came to Tianjin in 1886 and became a tutor to the sons of Hongzhang Li（李鸿章）, a prominent and influential Chinese politician, general and diplomat that pioneered the modernization of China’s industry and military. During Tenney’s term as president of Peiyang University, he recruited 44 teachers: ten came from abroad, seven of which were from the United States. This made Peiyang University the initial university in China to appoint faculty from abroad. Many notes written by students at that time were in English and are well-preserved at the museum of Tianjin University. The handwritings of these notes are so beautiful and remarkable that people are consistently impressed and awestruck upon seeing them.
Tenney paid careful attention to selecting excellent students and giving them financial assistance to obtain an education in the West. Every time he went back to the United Sates, he brought some select students with him, where most of them went to study in prestigious institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Brown, Cornell and MIT.
During the invasion of the Eight-Power Allied Forces, the German army destroyed Peiyang University. After Peiyang Minister Shikai Yuan received nothing after several negotiations with the Allied army, Jiali Ding went to Berlin to request compensation and brought back fifty thousand Liang silvers for the reconstruction of Peiyang University.”
Professor Chen added that, “Mathematics has been included on the list of the key disciplines at Tianjin University, with a strong emphasis on elevating the subject and ensured financial support. Furthermore, the Tianjin Municipal Government provides strong financial supports for CAM.”
At last, Professor Chen greatly appreciated every peers’ concerns and support. He offers his sincere gratitude to Professor Zuazua and everyone involved with organizing and supporting this workshop.
Professor Enrique Zuazua from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain gave a talk titled “Control of PDEs involving non-local terms.”
Professor Xu Zhang from Sichuan University, China gave a talk titled “Introduction of control theory of stochastic distributed parameter systems.”
Professor Gengsheng Wang from Wuhan University, China gave a talk titled “Exact controllability of impulse controlled ODEs and its application to heat systems.”
Professor Genqi Xu from Tianjin University, China gave a talk titled “Necessary condition of linear distributed parameter systems with exact controllability.”
Professor Zhongjie Han from Tianjin University, China gave a talk titled “Stability analysis for mixed-types thermoelastic systems.”
Dr. Yubiao Zhang from Tianjin University, China gave a talk titled “Observability and unique continuation inequalities for the Schrödinger equation.”
