The Activities of the Network implemented in the second part of the year were financed by UNESCO-BRESCE under Contract No. 875.854.7. The whole program was proposed and implemented through four main actions:

  • Network meetings: SEENET-MTP School in Kragujevac-Serbia SEENET-MTP Balkan Workshop in Kladovo-Serbia (Action 1)
  • SEENET-MTP Exchange Program and Mobility (Action 2)
  • Hosting and maintaining of the SEENET-MTP web server, administration and overheads (Action 3)
  • Promotion of sciences for undergraduate students and gifted high school pupils, public lectures, awards in books and popular scientific journals (Action 4)

ACTION 1 – Network meetings

  • SEENET-MTP School

The first event within the Program of the Southeast European Network in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics (SEENET-MTP) in the year 2007/8 was School of Quantum Information and Quantum Computation (SQIQC 07), held in Kragujevac, Serbia, 23-31 May 2007. It was the first school of that kind in Serbia. Even this activity was symbolically supported by the SEENET-MTP Network. This support was important for the success of the meeting and in particular for future collaboration with the Kragujevac node. Тhe two prominent lecturers and about 30 participants took part in this event. More details are available at official web page.

  • SEENET-MTP Workshop

The central event within the Program of the SEENET-MTP in 2007 year was the SEENET-MTP Balkan Workshop: The 3rd Southeast European Workshop Challenges Beyond the Standard Model (BW2007), held in Kladovo, Serbia, 2-9 September, 2007. It was the third workshop of that kind in Serbia. This workshop was of a very high scientific level and very important for further development of the Network structure and its promotion. About 63 participants from more than 20 countries all over the world took part in the “traditional“ Balkan workshop. About 40 talks were given at the workshop and more than 30 articles have been accepted for the publication in the special Volume of the Fortschritte der Physik, one of the leading European journals in Physics. A detailed report concerning the meting is presented in Appendix A and attached documentation.

ACTION 2 – SEENET-MTP Exchange Program and Mobility

  1. Prof. Goran Djordjevic (Nis) visited Faculty of Physics, University of Craiova and University of Bucharest, Romania (January 2008). He presented his scientific work, gave one talk and discussed collaboration with Professors M. Visinescu, R. Constantinescu and O. Saliu. He visited UNESCO-CEPES office in Bucharest and Romanian National Commission for UNESCO. During this visit he presented the Network and got full support for the proposed program. Joint programs for the gifted pupils and promotion of science in Serbia and Romania were also considered.
  2. Prof. Goran Djordjevic (Nis), coordinator of the SEENET-MTP, visited UNESCO-IBSP Office in Paris, France (February 2008). He had the official meeting with Prof. M. Nalecz and informed him and his collaborators about the history, results, open problems and perspectives of the SEENET-MTP. The Results of the Network were highly evaluated. Prof. Djordjevic was invited to visit the Headquarters of the UNESCO in the forthcoming months and present experience of collaboration in the Balkan region and proposal for a permanent or long range UNESCO program in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics.
  3. Dr. Ljubisa Nesic (Nis) visited Faculty of Physics and Ministry of Science, Belgrade, Serbia. He discussed and presented the projects: Promotion of science and Special Class for gifted pupils in Physics. Both projects are accepted by the National Ministry and will be financed in part by already approved UNESCO project.
  4. Dr. Marija Dimitrijevic (Belgrade) visited Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Zagreb, Croatia (February 2008). The aim of this visit was to continue the scientific collaboration with Dr. L. Jonke at the Institute Rudjer Boskovic. One of the main subjects of their discussions was the problem of symmetries in noncommutative field theories. Dr. Dimitrijevic also gave the talk “Deformed Symmetries in Noncommutative Field Theories“.
  5. Prof. Boyka Aneva (Sofia) visited Faculty of Science, Nis, Serbia (February 2008). During her stay she gave three lectures under the joint title “Symmetries of Integrability of Many-Body Systems“. Prof. Aneva, as the main organizer of the Second School in Mathematical Physics in Varna, informed Prof. Djordjevic about preparation of the School. A list of invited lecturers and a sketch of the budget for this event were considered.
  6. MSc Dragoljub Dimitrijevic (Nis) visited Instiute of Physics, Belgrade, Serbia (February 2008). He did a tutorial job on tachyons with colleagues from the Institute.
  7. Prof. G. Lalazissis (Thessaloniki) visited The Faculty of Science, Zagreb, Croatia. During his visit he presented his recent research in the aim of theoretical nuclear physics and settle future collaboration with the colleagues from the Nuclear Theory Group. (September 2008).
  8. Prof. Lj. Nesic (Nis) visited Sofia and Varna and participated in two events “II International School on Modern Trends in Mathematical Physics” and “IV. EU RTN FU Workshop” in Varna, Bulgaria (September 2008).
  9. Prof. G. Djordjevic (Nis) visited Sofia and Varna and participated in two events “II International School on Modern Trends in Mathematical Physics” and “IV. EU RTN FU Workshop” in Varna, Bulgaria and gave talks “Quantum Cosmology and Tachyons” and “SEENET-MTP fellowships and mobility program” (September 2008).
  10. Prof. R. Constantinescu (Craiova) visited PMF, Nis. The purpose of the visit was to improve cooperation Craiova-Nis under aegis of the SEENET-MTP Network. Prof. Constantinescu also employed his visit to present the partners University and its experience in “Bologna process’s”, and propose a bilateral contract, accepted and signed in April 2009 (October 2008).
  11. MSc D. Dimitrijevic (Nis) visited the West University of Timisoara, Romania. During his visit he participated at the “Physics Conference TIM-08” (http://tim.uvt.ro/) and gave a talk “On tachyonic like mechanism in physics and cosmology” (November 2008).

Despite some delay in approval of the SEENET-MTP project by UNESCO-BRESCE (May 2007) and payment (September 2007), support of the UNESCO BRESCE was extremely useful and important for the Network. Several researchers were not able to realize previously announced exchange but majority of them were replaced with their colleagues from the same node. Already accepted but slightly postponed visit of Prof. G. Lalazissis to Zagreb was not realized and Prof. M. Milekovic from Zagreb cancelled visit to Belgrade and Nis. We hope this will not cause further problems and attenuation of collaboration with Zagreb node.

We do hope that UNESCO, in particular UNESCO-BRESCE, will continue to support this Network and exchange in the future.

ACTION 3 – Hosting and maintaining of the SEENET-MTP web server, administration and overheads

  • Hosting and maintaining of the SEENET-MTP web server

The web server for the Network activities was provided in November 2005. The new web presentation at www.seenet-mtp.info (also reachable at http://seenet-mtp.pmf.ni.ac.rs)  was activated and promoted at the same time.

Additional hardware was bought in 2007 and at the beginning of 2008 the upgrading of some services at the web server including wireless for guests and students was enabled. Continual upgrading of software implemented by web master Milan Milosevic provided fast and efficient access to the Network data base and fast distribution of information. New hardware has been useful to the web master and to the secretary of the Network, MSc D. Dimitrijevic in maintaining the web server and permanent refreshing of the web pages by new information.

Hosting and maintaining: the web server is located in the building of the Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics in Nis. The web presentation of the Network was visited about 200 000 times during this year, almost twice as that in the previous year. This web presentation represents a good source of information for colleagues in the region. Full statistics can be provided at request. The leaflet of the SEENET-MTP was issued in February 2008 and will present a good way to advertise and promote Networking and UNESCO support in the regional collaboration in stile very fragile region of the South-East Europe.

We are repeating our request for increasing financial resources so that the web presentation should be maintained properly. This is a demanding and time consuming work.

  • Administration and overheads

Administrative and bank expenses are presented separately as an item in the financial report. The growth of the Network and numerous activities demand more care, financing and professional engagement to provide a continual development of the Network. Practically, all administrative activities have been realized by volunteers this year as well.

ACTION 4 – Promotion of sciences for undergraduate students and gifted high school pupils, public lectures, awards in books and popular scientific journals

Action 4 consists of several activities with the same aim – to promote science and attract and encourage gifted pupils to study science.
One important part of the activities was organization of attractive public lectures in Serbia. The way of dealing with the modern topics in physics, cosmology, biology-genetics and related topics were adjusted for high school pupils. Some of the lecturers and lectures (in Serbian) were very attractive and gathered the audience of hundreds of people (http://tesla.pmf.ni.ac.rs/pop-science). One book and two CDs were issued and in part supported by the Network.

List of the guest lecturers:

  1. Prof. Aleksandar Bogojevic (Institute of Physics, Belgrade)
  2. Prof. Milutin Blagojevic (Institute of Physics, Belgrade)
  3. Prof. Djordje Sijacki (Serbian Academy of Art and Science)
  4. Prof. Marko Ninkovic (Institute for Nuclear Science, Vinca)

Over 50 books and journals on mathematics and physics were bought and most of them were donated to the best pupils in the Special class for gifted pupils in physics in Nis (a complete list is presented in Appendix B). Some of the books will be used by teachers for everyday activities in high school classes for pupils with special abilities in physics and sciences. It is our pleasure to notice that pupils in this class achieved excellent results in competition, first of all in mathematics and physics, at regional, national and international level (Appendix C). Majority of the results are still available in Serbian only (www.pmf.ni.ac.yu/f_odeljenje). This year pupils from this class got one Bronze medal at the International Olympiad (Tamara Djordjevic) and a special award at the International Physics Olympiad in Iran (Vladan Pavlovic).

This class attracted more and more gifted pupils during the last four years and the fifth generation is also very good. This pilot project is officially proposed by the Commission of Serbian Ministry of education to be accepted as a permanent program in Serbia, at its last meeting February 25th, 2008. Very promising contacts have been established with similar classes in Romania (Item 11. Action 2). It has been also discussed that joint contests and the preparation for the Physics Olympiad should take place in May, 2008, with a possibility of including participant pupils from Hungary and Moldova as well.

Teachers who have been engaged in teaching the best pupils for competitions in Physics and Mathematics and who prepared comparative tests for class evaluation, their implementation, evaluation and its forthcoming publication in English were symbolically awarded. We would like to emphasize the activities within the program “School of Physics“ (http://tesla.pmf.ni.ac.yu/f%5Fodeljenje/skola%5Ffizike) and “Winter Camp of Physics“ (http://tesla.pmf.ni.ac.yu/f%5Fodeljenje/skola%5Ffizike/kamp.htm). School of Physics has attracted about 100 pupils every Saturday who enjoyed physics, did exercises, experiments and followed public lecturers. “Winter camp of physics“ had its second edition and assembled about 80 pupils from elementary schools from Serbia and Montenegro. Even though support of the Network was more than symbolic, the result and impact of this support tremendously increased interest of pupils, parents and teachers in physics and science. The support from local sources is increasing and we expect that this activity will be stable in the long run.

Part of all these results will be presented at the Meeting of the IBSP Scientific board and offered to UNESCO for further dissemination. UNESCO-BRESCE and SEENET-MTP support was always visible and kindly acknowledged in all public presentations and publications.