SAJDHM is at its first edition and is characterized to be restricted to a limited number of participants. These are mostly members of the
International Research Group in Topology, Algebra and Dynamical Systems
which has been recently restructured in 4 research groups: two are placed in South Africa, namely one in UCT and another in UWC. The third research group of IRGTADS is probably the youngest and is placed in Nigeria, while the fourth is placed in Italy. IRGTADS promotes systematically seminars, research periods, reading courses, staff exchanges and academic formation for PhD and MSc students. Its history is very long (see here) and has been financially supported by several institutions in the past years. We mention some of them, which currently support IRGTADS members at various levels:
JSPS (Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan) - JSPS Bilateral Collaborations Grant No. JPJSBP120256504
NRF (National Research Foundation of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa) - Grants No. CSRU180417322117 and RA201105572421
MAECI (Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale, Rome, Italy) - Grants No. ITAL22051410615 and ITAL170904261537
FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil) - Grant No. 021/05256-0
Specifically SAJDHM is the first of a series of meetings, which appear in the biennial project (supported by JSPS and NRF)
Title: Topological Data Analysis using A-homotopy Theory
South African research team: Principal Investigator: Yanga Bavuma
University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Japanese research team: Principal Investigator: So Yamagata
Fukuoka University, Fukuoka, Japan
Scientific board of SAJDHM: Yanga Bavuma (University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa)
Francesco G. Russo (University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy)
So Yamagata (Fukuoka University, Fukuoka, Japan)
In fact Topological Data Analysis (TDA) is one of the rapidly growing fields in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research, with numerous studies being conducted. It has been pointed out that there is often a connection between TDA and AI based on algebraic topology. In many processes related to data refinement, data point clouds and their deformations play crucial roles. These methods facilitate the visualization and analysis of large and complex datasets, motivating the use of homotopy theory and persistent homology (two classical branches of algebraic topology).
SAJDHM is designed as a first moment of interaction in form of a workshop for the IRGTADS members, in order to work properly on the aforementioned project. Preliminary activities have been planned via IRGTADS seminars in July 2025, while additional lectures (at a descriptive level) and scientific activities will be planned during the workshop. These will deal with algebraic topology, combinatorial topology and discrete homotopy theory, but always in the perspective of potential applications to TDA and AI. In particular, there will be additional collaborations with other experts in related fields during the week of SAJDHM.
The aim of the scientific activities is primarily devoted to illustrate the main ideas of the project to the youngest members of IRGTADS: they will be placed among the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.