Graduate-Level Research in Industrial Projects for Students (GRIPS)-Berlin 2014

June 29 - August 22, 2014

Sponsors and Projects

The Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) will partner with the Research Campus MODAL in Berlin, Germany. MODAL has existing industrial partners affiliated with their laboratories that provide their research groups with interesting and challenging research problems. The sponsors and projects for 2014 include:

1. SAP-Innovationszentrum (Biotech):

Company: Headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, with locations in more than 130 countries, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, developing innovations that help businesses run better. SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 248,500 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably.

Project: Building on SAP’s newest HANA database technology students will develop new machine-learning techniques to analyze medical massive data sets. First, students will learn the necessary biological foundation needed to successfully complete the project. They will then use data from a large clinical trial to model medical phenomena using latest network-of-networks theory.

2. Deutsche Bahn (German Railways):

Company: Deutsche Bahn (DB) is the main German railway company. It transports on average 5.4 million customers every day over a rail network that consists of 33,500 km of track, and 5,645 train station. DB operates in over 130 countries world-wide. It provides its customers with mobility and logistical services, and operates and controls the related rail, road, ocean and air traffic networks.

Project: This project will help develop new and optimized schedules. In general, there is a trade-off for complex systems between robustness and efficiency. The students will do simulations and develop analytic models to explore this trade-off.

3. Open Grid Europe (Gas Infrastructure):

Company: Open Grid Europe GmbH is Germany’s biggest gas transport operator (TSO), responsible for the efficient planning and operation of a highly advanced and intermeshed pipeline system of more than 10,000 km in length. The company provides its customers with natural gas transportation and all associated services, and gives assistance and advice on both grid access and pipeline network.

Project: There are several choices for possible projects:

  1. The gas is driven through the network by compressor stations consisting of complex sub-networks with several compressor machines. The aim of this project would be to improve the handling of compressor stations by the optimization code.
  2. Given a network and a flow scenario it is possible to derive improved bounds, flow directions, and further information. Implementing an advanced preprocessing system would be the goal of this project.
  3. Within the network planning system several modules exist to compute possible extensions of the network. This project would be about incorporating these modules in an iterative tool.

All work will be based on real-world data provided by the industry partner.