Multivariate Approximation 2013

The organizing committee of the workshop Multivariate Approximation 2013 discusses details and highlights of the meeting. 1 A short report On November 29-30, 2013, a two-day Workshop on Multivariate Approximation took place at the University of Verona in honor of the 60th birthday of Prof. Len Bos. There were a total of 12 talks and approximately 35-40 participants. From the list of talks, one can immediately realize the variety of Len’s mathematical interests. He has of course worked on many aspects of approximation theory, mainly in the multivariate setting, but he has made many contributions in other areas such as polynomial inequalities, (pluri-)potential theory, optimal interpolation points, and approximation by radial basis functions. At the beginning of his mathematical career, he proved results in computational geometry; and recently he has worked on applications to economics and the geosciences. Each of these aspects of Len’s lifelong mathematical contributions were represented in the talks given at the workshop. For the list of the talks and the corresponding abstracts, see the link http://profs.sci.univr.it/multiapp/speakers.html. Len, who is very modest, not surprisingly stated his preference to the organizers that the event be rather small in size. At the onset of the workshop he seemed extremely pleased with the turnout of so many of his friends and collaborators. Indeed, he insisted on expressing his happiness and appreciation in personally introducing each and every speaker, invariably spiced with amusing anecdotes. A particular highlight of the celebration was the conference dinner. This was organized in an exceptionally nice “hostaria” typical of Verona, featuring excellent food and wine. Due to his experience in Italy over the years, Len has become a connoisseur of fine wines – it is said that he is the only Canadian that knows the difference between the north Italian grapes Raboso del Piave and Friularo! After the meal there was a presentation entitled “A small photo-story of Len Bos,” a collection of some photos taken from 1996 onwards. Len appeared surprised, embarrassed, and, most importantly, very much appreciative of the tributes which he received. All of us who have had the opportunity to know Len over the years know that he so richly deserved every accolade. aDepartment of Computer Science, University of Verona, VERONA, Italy, marco.caliari@univr.it bDepartment of Mathematics, University of Padua, PADOVA, Italy, {demarchi,marcov}@math.unipd.it cDepartment of Mathematics, Indiana University, BLOOMINGTON, IN, USA, nlevenbe@indiana.edu Caliari · De Marchi · Levenberg · Vianello II Figure: Len in the Dolomites over Canazei (TN) ITALY, the wonderful place where since 2006 the Dolomites Workshops and Research Weeks on Approximation have taken place. The photo is from August 2008. The participants were invited to submit papers for a special volume of Dolomites Research Notes on Approximation. These submissions were refereed; the accepted papers appear below in order of acceptance. As organizers of the workshop and editors of DRNA, we would like to thank all participants and contributors for their efforts in making both the workshop and this volume a success. Finally, all of us – participants, contributors, organizers and editors – would like to thank Len for being such an outstanding mathematician, exemplary colleague, and wonderful friend. Dolomites Research Notes on Approximation ISSN 2035-6803