CMSA E-Newsletter 23

CMSA E-Newsletter 23 (February 2007) INTRODUCTION:

Thanks to all CMSA members who have sent information for this newsletter. Please send news as soon as you have anything of possible interest to CMSA members and the Combinatorial Community, even if no newsletter is imminent! Please email the Newsletter Editor (Eyal Loz, University of Auckland, NZ) at: eyalloz at gmail.com

CLOSING DATE for Issue 24: June 30, 2007. (Please email items to the newsletter editor ONLY in plain text.)

CMSA WEB PAGE: http://www.maths.uq.edu.au/CMSA

NEWSLETTER WEB VERSIONS: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~eloz002/cmsa/

CMSA CONFERENCE HISTORY PAGE (all past conferences organised under the CMSA; thanks to Kevin McAvaney for starting this page) http://www.maths.uq.edu.au/cdmc/history.html

CONTENT:

   * Aims of the newsletter

   * Future workshop and conference announcements:

• Centre for Discrete Mathematics and Computing at the University of Queensland will hold a series of three Workshops on Combinatorial Design and Graph Theory, The first workshop is scheduled for April 2007.

• Combinatorics and Optimization 40th anniversary Conference The University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. June 18-23, 2007.

• International Workshop in Hadamard and Cocyclic Matrices and Applications The University of Seville, Seville, Spain. June 18-19, 2007.

• Design Theory of Alex Rosa., the Conference Center SUZA, Bratislava, Slovakia. 2-6, July 2007.

• The 2007 British Combinatorial Conference, the University of Reading 8th to 13th July 2007.

• Peter Cameron's 60th birthday conference, St Martin's College, Ambleside, England. 23–26 August 2007.

• 32nd ACCMCC, University of Otago, Dunedin, NZ, DECEMBER 3-7, 2007. (tentative dates)

• Workshop on Algorithmics, , Napier, New Zealand, 18-22 February 2008.

• A few useful conference webpages.

   * Recent news of CMSA members and others:

• Prof. Mirka Miller, won Leverhulme Visiting Professorship.

• Dr. Michael Giudici of the University of Western Australia has been awarded a 2006 Kirkman Medal and Australian Research Fellowship 2007-11.

• Prof. Cheryl Praeger of the University of Western Australia has been awarded the Australian Professorial Fellowship 2007-11.

• Dr. Sven Reichard of the University of Western Australia has been awarded the ARC Research Associate 2006-07.

• Prof. Chris Rodger of Auburn University has been named the Scharnagel Professor of Mathematical Sciences.

• Dr. John Bamberg has taken up a Marie Curie Fellowship at the University of Ghent, Belgium.

• Prof. Tim Penttila has taken up a position as Professor at Colorado State University, Fort Collins.

• The book `Hadamard Matrices and Their Applications' written by Prof. Kathy Horadam has just been published in the USA and Europe.

• Jing Xu, Scott Brown and Sophie Ambrose, completed their PhDs in 2006

   * Australasian Journal of Combinatorics

     AIMS of the newsletter:

• To promote combinatorics within Australasia.

• To provide a forum for sharing combinatorial and related information.

• To keep CMSA members informed and in touch with combinatorial and related matters.

     FUTURE WORKSHOP AND CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENTS
     The Centre for Discrete Mathematics and Computing will hold a series of three Workshops on Combinatorial Design and Graph Theory

     The first workshop is scheduled for April 2007, with invited speakers including Profs Mike Grannell and Terry Griggs from The Open University UK and Dr Nicholas Cavenagh from the University of New South Wales.

     The second workshop is scheduled for the last week of July with invited speakers including Prof Dean Hoffman from Auburn University, USA and Dr Sule Yazici from Koc University, Turkey and Dr Abdollah Khodkar from the University of West Georgia, USA.

     The third workshop is scheduled for the last week of November with invited speakers including Prof Ebad Mahmoodian from Sharif University of Technology.

     For more details and updates on invited speakers please see the website http://www.maths.uq.edu.au/~carloh/workshops2007/

     For additional information please contact Diane Donovan dmd at maths.uq.edu.au

     Combinatorics and Optimization 40th anniversary Conference,   the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

     June 18-23, 2007.

     In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the department, and the 50th anniversary of the university, the Department of Combinatorics & Optimization at the University of Waterloo is hosting a six day conference June 18-23, 2007. The theme is to focus on the six main research areas represented by the department: algebraic combinatorics; combinatorial optimization; continuous optimization; cryptography; graph theory; and quantum computing.

     Invited Speakers will include:

• George Andrews, Pennsylvania State University
• Dorit Aharonov, Hebrew University
• Noga Alon, Tel Aviv University/Institute for Advanced Study
• Eric Bach, University of Wisconsin
• Michael Ben-Or, Hebrew University
• Charles Bennett, IBM T.J. Watson
• Philippe Biane, Ecole Normale Supérieure Lyon
• Gilles Brassard, Université de Montréal
• Maria Chudnovsky, Princeton University
• Bill Cook, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Gérard Cornuéjols, Carnegie Mellon University/Marseille
• Claude Crépeau, McGill University
• Ronald de Wolf, CWI, Amsterdam
• Persi Diaconis, Stanford University
• Andras Frank, Eötvös Loránd University
• Bert Gerards, CWI and Eindhoven University of Technology
• Michel Goemans, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Mark D. Haiman, University of California, Berkeley
• Patrick Hayden, McGill University
• Julia Kempe, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris-Sud
• Neal Koblitz, University of Washington
• Adrian Lewis, Cornell University
• László Lovász, Microsoft Research/Eötvös University
• Colin McDiarmid, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
• Jorge More, Argonne National Labs
• Assaf Naor, Microsoft, Seattle
• Arkadi Nemirovski, Georgia Institute of Technology/Technion
• Yurii Nesterov, CORE - Université Catholique de Louvain
• Andrew Odlyzko, University of Minnesota
• Oded Regev, Tel Aviv University
• James Renegar, Cornell University
• Alexander Schrijver, CWI, Amsterdam
• Andras Sebö, IMAG
• Paul Seymour, Princeton University
• Peter Shor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Leonard J. Schulman, California Institute of Technology
• Alice Silverberg, University of California, Irvine
• Alan Sokal, New York University
• Richard Stanley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Benny Sudakov, Princeton University
• Eva Tardos, Cornell University
• Robin Thomas, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Carsten Thomassen, Technical University of Denmark
• Andrew Thomason, University of Cambridge
• Michael J. Todd, Cornell University
• Ravi Vakil, Stanford University
• Umesh Vazirani, University of California, Berkeley
• Hugh Williams, University of Calgary
• David Williamson, Cornell University
• Richard Wilson, California Institute of Technology
• Margaret H. Wright, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
• Steve Wright, University of Wisconsin
• Andrew Yao, Princeton University
• Yinyu Ye, Stanford University

     For more information: http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/CandO_Dept/Conference/40/Conference40.shtml

     International Workshop in Hadamard and Cocyclic Matrices and Applications.  The University of Seville, Seville, Spain.

     June 18-19, 2007.

     This workshop will be held in lovely Seville, Spain. It is the first workshop in an area that was born in Australia, cocyclic Hadamard matrices, and almost all of the scientific committee is Australian by birth, if not by current location.

     For more information: http://ma1.eii.us.es/miembros/valvarez/iwhcma/iwhcma.htm

     or contact: Dr. Victor Alvarez (U. Seville, Spain, Director)
     Email: valvarez at us.es

     Design Theory of Alex Rosa.  The Conference Center SUZA, Bratislava, Slovakia.

     The conference will take place during the week preceding the British Combinatorial Conference 2-6, July 2007.

     A meeting in celebration of Alex Rosa's 70th birthday organized by IAS, University of Washington, Tacoma; Mathematical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences; and Department of Applied Informatics and Information Technology, Slovak University of Technology.

     Invited speakers (all confirmed):

• Charles Colbourn, Arizona State University
• Jeff Dinitz, University of Vermont
• Pavol Hell, Simon Fraser University
• Curt Lindner, Auburn University
• Spyros Magliveras, Florida Atlantic University
• Eric Mendelsohn, University of Toronto
• Rudolf Mathon, University of Toronto
• Jaroslav Nesetril, Charles University
• Chris Rodger, Auburn University
• Vojtech Rodl, Emory University
• Gert Sabidussi, Université de Montréal
• Richard Wilson, Caltech

     For more information: http://www.d.umn.edu/%7Edfroncek/alex/index.htm

     The 2007 British Combinatorial Conference.  University of Reading, Whiteknights, UK.

     The 2007 British Combinatorial Conference will be held at the University of Reading from 8th to 13th July 2007.

     Invited lectures will be given by

• Béla Bollobás (University of Cambridge and University of Memphis)
• Richard A. Brualdi (University of Wisconsin)
• Darryn Bryant (University of Queensland)
• Maria Chudnovsky (Princeton University)
• Mike Grannell and Terry Griggs (Open University)
• Johan Håstad (Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm)
• James Hirschfeld (University of Sussex)
• Keith Martin (Royal Holloway, University of London)
• Stéphan Thomassé (University of Lyon)

     For more information: http://www.personal.rdg.ac.uk/%7Esmx05mj/bcc2007/

     The chair of the organizing committee is Anthony Hilton.
     Address: Department of Mathematics,
     University of Reading,
     Whiteknights,
     PO Box 220, Berkshire, RG6 6AX, UK.
     Email: a.j.w.hilton at reading.ac.uk

     Peter Cameron's 60th birthday conference,  St Martin's College, Ambleside, England
     This meeting will be held at St. Martin's College, Ambleside (Lake District), UK, from Thursday August 23 (afternoon) to Sunday August 26 (morning). As well as a celebration of Peter's mathematical interests, we hope to gather together as many as possible of his present and former students, collaborators, colleagues and friends. There will also be music, a celebration dinner on the Saturday. and a walk in the hills on the Sunday.

     The following have provisionally agreed to speak.

• Prof. R.A. Bailey (Queen Mary, University of London, UK)
• Prof. P.J. Cameron (Queen Mary, University of London, UK)
• Prof. P. Diaconis (Stanford University, USA)
• Dr. D.M. Evans (University of East Anglia, UK)
• Prof. D. Fon-der-Flaass (Novosibirsk, Russia)
• Prof. J.I. Hall (Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA)
• Dr. C.Y. Ku (Caltech, USA)
• Prof. E.S. Lander (MIT and Harvard, USA)
• Dr. P.M. Neumann (Oxford, UK)
• Prof. C.E. Praeger (University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia)
• Dr. C.M. Roney-Dougal (St. Andrews University, UK)
• Prof. J. Saxl (Cambridge, UK)
• Prof. A. Sokal (New York University, USA)
• Prof. S. Thomas (Rutgers University, USA)

     Registration for this meeting will start around March/April.

     If you hope to come, it would be helpful if you let us know now, via the conference e-mail address above.

     The organisers are:

     Dugald Macpherson (Leeds), Sarah Rees (Newcastle-upon-Tyne), Leonard Soicher (QMUL), and Robert Bailey (QMUL).

     Webpage:   http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~rfb/pjc60/
     Email:  pjc60 at maths.qmul.ac.uk

     32nd ACCMCC, 2007, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
     The 32nd ACCMCC (Australasian Conference in Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing) will be held at the University of Otago, Dunedin, NZ, during December 3-7, 2007 (these are tentative dates).

     Director for this conference:  Mike Atkinson
     Webpage:   http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/staffpriv/mike/HomePages/newhome.html
     Email:  mike at cs.otago.ac.nz

     It is hoped that the next CMSA International Conference will be in 2008.

     Workshop on Algorithmics, Napier, New Zealand 

     The NZIMA (New Zealand Institute of Mathematics and its Applications) will fund a six-month thematic programme "Algorithms - New Directions and Applications", with concentrated period of activity in January- June 2008. The programme directors are Charles Semple (University of Canterbury, Maths) and Mike Atkinson (University of Otago, CS), with Mark Wilson (University of Auckland, CS) as Associate Director. The themes of particular interest are randomized algorithms, approximation algorithms, probabilistic analysis of algorithms, and fixed-parameter algorithms.

     An initial workshop, with 6 principal invited international speakers, will be held in Napier, Feb 18-22 2008. Several other activities are planned.

     We welcome enquiries from anyone interested in participating in the programme.
     Webpage:   http://algo.otago.ac.nz/
     Email:  C.Semple at math.canterbury.ac.nz

     A few useful conference webpages and a few upcoming conferences:

     DMANET (Discrete Maths Net) and the TheoryNT List have lots of conferences listed in Combinatorics and Theoretical Computer Science respectively.

     http://www.combinatorics.org/Conferences/

     http://www.maths.qmw.ac.uk/~pjc/bcc/conferences.html

     Upcoming conferences in Coding, Cryptography and Effective Algebra:
     http://www-rocq.inria.fr/codes/Anne.Canteaut/annonces.html.

     RECENT NEWS OF CMSA MEMBERS and others

     Mirka Miller, Professor of Computer Science, University of Ballarat, has won the prestigious Leverhulme Visiting Professorship. The award enables a UK university to "host an internationally distinguished academic from outside the UK (chosen and invited by the host institution), for up to ten months, in order to enhance the research skills and work of the host institution.
     The Visiting Professor is expected to offer a short course of Leverhulme Lectures while in the UK."
     The list of recipients is not published, but it is believed that there are usually five awards given annually, across all disciplines, worldwide.
     In the past, several Nobel prize winners have received this award.

     Mirka plans to take up the award for 4 months, during June-September 2007, at the Kings College in London, working with Professor Costas Iliopoulos.

     More information is available at: http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/grants_awards/grants/visiting_professorships/

     Dr. Michael Giudici of the University of Western Australia, won a 2006 Kirkman Medal.

     The Kirkman Medal recognizes outstanding work by ICA members in their early research careers. At most 3 Kirkman medals per year may be given.

     Michael Giudici has also been awarded an Australian Research Fellowship 2007-11.

     Prof. Cheryl Praeger of the University of Western Australia, has been awarded the Australian Professorial Fellowship 2007-11.

     Cheryl Praeger was elected to a five year term 2007-11 on the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union: the first Australian-based mathematician on the executive to this international umbrella organization for Mathematics (both research and education), of which Australia is a member through the Australian Academy of Science.

     Dr. Sven Reichard of the University of Western Australia, has been awarded the ARC Research Associate 2006-07.

     Prof. Chris Rodger of Auburn University, USA, has been been named the Scharnagel Professor of Mathematical Sciences, a 3 year term recognizing contributions to research, teaching and outreach.

     Dr. John Bamberg has taken up a Marie Curie Fellowship at the University of Ghent, Belgium.

     Prof. Tim Penttila has taken up a position as Professor at Colorado State University, Fort Collins.

     The book `Hadamard Matrices and Their Applications' written by Prof. Kathy Horadam has just been published in the USA and Europe.
     Details are:
     Hadamard matrices and their applications / K.J. Horadam
     Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 2007
     Library of Congress: QA166.4 .H67 2007
     ISBN: 069111921X

     Jing Xu, Scott Brown and Sophie Ambrose completed their PhDs in 2006.

     Jing Xu "On closures of finite permutation groups" - supervisors Michael Giudici, Cai Heng Li and Cheryl Praeger; Jing is now a research fellow at Peking University.

     Scott Brown "Finite reducible matrix algebras" - supervisors Michael Giudici and Cheryl Praeger; Scott now works for Data Analysis Australia

     Sophie Ambrose "Matrix groups: theory, algorithms and applications" - supervisors Alice Niemeyer, Cheryl Praeger and Csaba Schneider; Sophie now works for SciTech in Perth.

     The AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF COMBINATORICS

     The web page for the Australasian Journal of Combinatorics is at http://ajc.math.auckland.ac.nz/.

     The Journal is now published three times per year, in February, June and October.   CMSA Members are entitled to a $10 discount per volume.

     There is a search facility for past authors and for keywords in the titles of papers.  Instructions to authors are also available at this web site.

     The contents of all volumes, 1 to 36, are listed at the above web page, and volume 37 is currently being posted out.
     We also now have free public access to the full papers in Volumes 1 to 26 inclusive.   All but the last four years are available free.

     Submissions to the Australas. J. Combin. may be sent to ajc at maths.uq.edu.au.  Electronic submissions are encouraged.  For paper submissions, please check the web page.

     The Australasian Journal of Combinatorics is published by the Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia Inc.

     REMINDER:
     Deadline for the next issue of this Newsletter:   June 30, 2007.
     Please email items to the newsletter editor ONLY in plain text format.

     EDITOR:

     Eyal Loz,
     Department of Mathematics,
     University of Auckland,
     New Zealand.
     Email:  eyalloz at gmail.com