Welcome to 8th SDS14

The main purpose of this workshop series is to put together researchers of different areas, in particular mathematicians and engineers, to give them the opportunity of discussing recent developments in computational and theoretical methods for Dynamical Systems and their applications. This edition follows seven previous editions held at the Hotel Villaggio Porto Giardino in 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012.

Each workshop addressed different topics such as dynamical systems on manifolds, smooth matrix decompositions, oscillatory dynamical systems, non-smooth dynamical systems. Both the theoretical and the numerical point of view have been considered.

SDS2014 will focus on Piecewise Smooth Dynamical Systems but topics such as numerical methods for ODEs/PDEs and mathematical models will be discussed as well.

The workshop begins on Tuesday morning, June 10, and ends on Friday afternoon, June 13. It will have a mix of 50-minutes long plenary lectures and of 20-minutes long contributed talks. There will be a total of 11 plenary lectures and 20 contributed talks. A poster session has been  organized as well.

Registration fees include two social events: an excursion to Alberobello on Wednesday afternoon and a Conference Dinner on Thursday evening. The dinner will be served on the Hotel terrace overlooking the sea, as long as the weather allows it.

SDS14 participants may also wish to consider submitting their papers to a special issue of the Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Elsevier, or to a special issue of Mathematics and Computer in Simulation, IMACS. The review processes will follow the same guidelines of the host journals.

A particular thank is due to the sponsors of this workshop:

- GNCS - Gruppo Nazionale per il Calcolo Scientico (I.N.D.A.M.)

- Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro

- Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica Ennio De Giorgi Università del Salento, Lecce

- Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dell'Informazione Politecnico di Bari,

- IAC-CNR, Istituto per le Applicazioni del Calcolo "M. Picone" Sez. di Bari

- Dipartimento di Matematica, Università degli Studi di Bologna,

- Regione Puglia

Their financial help was essential to the organization of this meeting.

We wish you all a great SDS 2014 !

The Scientific and Organizing Committee:

Luciano Lopez, Nicoletta Del Buono, Cinzia Elia, Roberto Garrappa (Dipartimento di Matematica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro),

Ivonne Sgura (Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica ``Ennio De Giorgi'', Università del Salento, Lecce), Tiziano Politi (Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dell'Informazione Politecnico di Bari), Fasma Diele, Carmela Marangi (IAC-CNR, Istit. per Appl. del Calcolo "M. Picone" Sez. Bari), Giulia Spaletta (Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Bologna)