Call for contributions for an electronic book on

## Open Problems in Mathematical Systems and Control Theory

A unique opportunity to obtain a wide exposure with just a few pages describing a nice problem.
Minimal effort, maximal effects!

Editors:

Vincent Blondel , University of Louvain, Belgium
Alexander Megretski, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Associated editors:

Roger Brockett, Harvard University, USA
Jean-Michel Coron, University of Paris (Orsay), France
Miroslav Krstic, University of California (San Diego), USA
Anders Rantzer, Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden
Joachim Rosenthal, University of Notre-Dame, USA
Eduardo Sontag, Rutgers University, USA
M. Vidyasagar, Tata Consultancy Services, India
Jan Willems, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Call for submission:

You are kindly invited to contribute a short chapter in a book on "Open Problems in Mathematical Systems Theory and Control". The book will be widely publicized and is expected to attract the attention of the control community to interesting mathematical problems.
All means will be taken by the editors to ensure the widest possible diffusion and promotion of the problems of the book:
• A pdf version of the book will be available for free from the SIAM control website and from various other control related websites. This will be announced through several channels (eletter, mailing lists, SIAM News, conferences, etc.).
• We are negotiating simultaneous publication of a paper version of the book with major science publishers.
• Authors of problems will be automatically invited to present their problem at a special workshop on open problems in systems theory which will be held at MTNS 2002.
• The problems presented at MTNS 2002 will be collected in a booklet distributed for free to all participants of MTNS. These problems are expected to be discussed during the symposium.

Selection procedure:

In order to select the problems we will use a simplified review process. All problems received will be collected and will be sent to the 70 authors of problems contained in an earlier version of this initiative:

Open Problems in Mathematical Systems and Control Theory.
Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, 1999.
V. D. Blondel, E. D. Sontag, M. Vidyasagar and J. C. Willems.

These authors will all be invited to anonymously rank the problems. A final decision will be made by the editors based on these rankings. The list of accepted submission will then be made public.
Schedule:

Attention! Following a request from MTNS organizers, the deadline for submission has been extended from March 30, 2002 to April 20, 2002
May 30, 2002 : Notification of acceptance
August 1, 2002 : Publication of the book

Problems:

Problems can be easy or difficult, well-known or stated for the first time, long-standing or newborn. Problems may be multi-authored and authors may submit several problems.
• The problem should be well-stated mathematically. Submission in the spirit of "It would be nice to have a framework that links identification to Hinfinity" will not be accepted.
• What is meant by a "solution" should be clear from the way the problem is formulated. Submissions of conjectures are encouraged.
• The description of the problem should be self-contained and accessible to a large audience.
• The problem description should not be too long. A typical length is 2-4 pages.
• When appropriate, the description of the problem should include: a history of the problem, motivations, related results, references.

Latex file:

Your contribution should be written in Latex and should be sent by email to blondel@inma.ucl.ac.be.
• Provide your contribution in a single latex file with empty header;
• No figures;
• No user-defined macros and no user-defined style files;
• Use only the standard latex style files (amssymb, etc.).
You are kindly asked to strictly adhere to these guidelines. Submissions that do not follow the guidelines will not be considered for inclusion in the book.
Sample contribution:

\chaptermark{If your title is longer than 50 symbols, please type here a runningtitle of < 50 symbols}

{\Large John N. Tsitsiklis}\\
Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems\\
M.I.T.\\
Cambridge, MA 02139\\
USA\\
jnt@mit.edu\\

{\Large Vincent D. Blondel and Jacques Theys}\\
Division of Applied Mathematics\\
University of Louvain\\
Batiment Euler\\
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve\\
Belgium\\
blondel@inma.ucl.ac.be and theys@inma.ucl.ac.be

\addtocontents{toc}{\it Vincent D. Blondel, Jacques Theys, John N. Tsitsiklis, \\}

\section{Description of the problem}

\section{Motivation and history of the problem}

\section{Available results}

\begin{thebibliography}{1}

\bibitem{1} R.K. Brayton and C.H. Tong, Stability of Dynamical Systems: a Constructive Approach", {\it IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst.}, 26, pp. 224-234 (1980).

\end{thebibliography}

Webpage: http://www.inma.ucl.ac.be/~blondel/op/