Dear colleagues, I would like to announce a talk of my guest, Prof. Peter Hansbo (Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden) Time: Tuesday, 24.03, 16 c.t. Place: Room 610 (We6) Title: "Discontinuous finite element methods: where are the benefits?" Abstract: The interest in Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods has increased over the last few years. But of what use are they ? Discontinuous approximations do not enhance the approximation power compared to continuous approximations of the same polynomial degree, but they do introduce a large number of extra unknowns. In this talk I will give my view of the possible benefits of DG methods with applications in solid mechanics and electromagnetics. Please feel free to forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested in. Best regards, Alexey Chernov