Simon Woodward from Whatawhata spent May-June in England, Scotland, the Netherlands and France meeting other researchers involved in grazed pasture modelling. He reports that agricultural modelling is dominated by computer simulation, which is especially strong at Wageningen Agricultural University and at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen. Simon attended the 1995 World Conference on Natural Resource Modelling held in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, again dominated by rangeland ecologists and computer simulators, although there were some fisheries mathematicians, agricultural economists, theoretical ecologists, and dynamical systems people, including one Graeme Wake.
Dr Asit Kumar Saha has joined the Modelling Group at Wallaceville for one year to work with Mick Roberts on the possum parasite and possum Tb modelling projects. Asit comes to us from the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta. His previous research work has been on models for reaction/diffusion systems and pattern formation (Mathematical Just-So Stories). Also joining the Wallaceville Group this week is Dr Rowland Kao from the Department of Physics, University of Guelph. It is a sign of the times that two new colleagues are arriving to take up positions funded by FRST contracts, and we are already completing the bids for the next funding period. Visitors at Wallaceville have included Professor Andrew Barbour and Christof Luchsinger, of the Institute of Applied Mathematics, University of Zurich; and Professor Andrew Dobson from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton. Professor Dobson's visit was part of an ongoing collaboration developing models for possums/Tb and parasites.
Mick Roberts
SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICAL & INFORMATION SCIENCES
Ivan Reilly visited Canada during July. At the University of Waterloo he
was a guest of Professor Jack Kalbfleisch, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics.
With Chris Wild (who also visited then), Ivan Reilly drafted a
document for a
possible exchange arrangement between their Faculty and our
School. He then visited Carleton University in Ottawa. From July 13th to 25th,
Ivan Reilly led the NZ team for the 36th International Mathematical Olympiad at
Waterloo. The group of leaders were unanimous in selecting question G5 as the
nicest question submitted this year, and the first question (of six) chosen for
the IMO tests. The proposers of the questions were then identified, and
question G5 had been proposed by Alastair McNaughton (Tamaki). Congratulations
to Alastair, on the equivalent of a gold medal for the best question of 1995!
The NZ team acquitted itself well, with James McGowan winning a silver medal
and Tim McLennan winning a bronze medal.
Ivan Reilly has been appointed as NZ Liaison Officer for the University of California Education Abroad Program (in succession to Professor Brian Davis). He attended an orientation program for such persons at the Universitywide Office of EAP at UC Santa Barbara late in October. He took the opportunity then to make professional visits to UC Berkeley and UC Davis.
The Student Resource Centre has been burgled, 4 times in 2 months! Those events have aroused considerable concern about the safety of people working in the Mathematics/Physics block at night. On the first occasion, the burglars went to much effort to remove a massive safe which was secured by stout bolts to the foundations of the building. Presumably they transported it to some remote place where they blasted it open - to reveal a completely empty safe!
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
Cris Calude and Douglas Bridges have lectured on randomness and on constructive mathematics, respectively, in Vienna, as guests of the Gödel Society (June). Cris Calude organized a Summer School entitled "Chaitin complexity and applications" at Mangalia on the Black Sea (27 June - 6 July), and he gave some invited lectures at the universities of Siegen and Hagen, in Germany.
The Fifth Joint Auckland/Waikato Colloquium was held on October 27th, with the following lectures: John Grundy, "Software environment support for integrated formal program specification and development"; Matt Humphrey, "A formalisation of Minard's Napoleonic visualisation"; John Cleary, "How to efficiently receive weather faxes while sailing"; Murray Pearson, "A virtual simulation of tree pruning", Bill Rogers, "Parsing two-dimensional expressions"; Ian Witten, "Building a digital library for computer science research"; Sally Jo Cunningham, "More bibliomania"; and Lloyd Smith, "Applications of music transcription".
Seminars
Dr Alfs Berztiss (University of Pittsburgh), "Design cliches for software safety".
Dr Gill Dobbie (VUW), "A foundation for deductive object-oriented database systems".
Professor Hubert L. Dreyfus (University of California at Berkeley), "From Socrates to expert systems: the limits and dangers of calculative rationality".
Achim Schneider (Hypermedia Unit), "Hypermedia support for university activities".
Dr Reinhard Klette (Technische Universität Berlin), "Surface from motion - without and with calibration", and "Surface reconstruction based on visual information".
Jenny Shearer, "Who owns the Internet?".
James Webb, "Probabilistic algorithms for solving combinatorial optimisation problems".
Dr Clarence S. W. Lau (Chinese University of Hong Kong), "A Cost-effective near-line storage server for multimedia systems".
Dr Kevin Novins (University of Otago), " Volume rendering".
Professor Hermann Maurer (Hypermedia Unit), "The future of the Web".
Dr Steve Reeves (University of Waikato), "Vernacular Program Derivation".
David Norman, "Emergence in Artificial Intelligence: a study of the properties of cellular automata and genetic algorithms".
Colleen Thornton (Software Consultants Ltd), "A day in the life of a software house".
Dr Jennifer Lennon (Hypermedia Unit), "Flexible link architectures in Hypermedia systems".
Ulrich Gönther, "T-Code synchronization",
Professor Zbigniew Michalewicz (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), "Heuristic methods for evolutionary computation techniques".
Dr T. Ahrndt, Dr R. Riederer and Dr J. Teiwes,
(Universität der Bundeswehr, Munich), "Computer systems for diagnosis and therapy of speech disorders".
A retirement ceremony for Ken Ashton was held on Friday July 28, with several colleagues giving brief lectures about mathematical topics related to his interests. Many other people then gave spoken tributes to him, with several former students telling how they had been inspired by his lectures. Ken celebrated his 60th birthday on November 4th.
[It is regretfully noted that Ken Ashton died on Sunday November 19th. - editor].
At the Tamaki Campus, Graeme Wake has arrived as the foundation Professor of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Dr Alex McNabb is a Research Fellow in Applied Mathematics, Dr Simon Watt is a Postdoctoral Fellow in applied mathematics, and Dr Kumar Vetharaniam is an AgResearch Postdoctoral Fellow.
John Butcher, Marston Conder, Vaughan Jones, Gaven Martin and Graeme Wake (jointly with Alex McNabb) have each received research grants in the first batch of Marsden Fund awards.
Dr Brent Everitt has gone to Aberdeen University, for a 1-year lectureship.
Margaret Morton has gone on leave, to the USA, Canada, Australia, China and the Philippines. John Butcher is on leave, in Europe and the USA. Boris Pavlov is on short leave, at the Solvay Institute in Belgium and at St Petersburg.
Colin Fox has gone to Scott Base, to continue his research on ice in the Ross Sea. David McIntyre and David Gauld attended a Summer Topology Course at Maine, in August. Stuart Scott was a Main Speaker at the Near-Ring Conference at Hamburg in August.
Gaven Martin has returned from leave, at many places around the world.
Recent visitors include Dr Paul Gartside (Oxford) as Post-doctoral Fellow, Professor Sergei Avdonin (St Petersburg State University), and Professor Roger Grimshaw (Monash), the NZMS Visiting Lecturer for 1995.
The 4th biennial conference of the New Zealand Association of Mathematics Teachers was held at The University of Auckland and The Aotea Centre from 27 to 31 August 1995. There were just on 600 participants from all levels, early childhood to tertiary, all bringing with them their particular mathematics education interests. The conference was a good mix of workshops, plenary addresses, forums, commercial displays and socialising. Feedback from teachers, invited speakers, workshop presenters, sponsors or those with commercial displays indicate that, in the main, it was a very successful conference from their point of view.
The conference theme, "The many faces of mathematics education" endeavoured to focus on both the challenges and possibilities for the future, as well as all that has already been achieved. That demanded a programme which would provide debate and discussion about mathematics education from many perspectives. However, the new school curriculum and the unit standards proposed by the Qualifications Authority were foci of attention.
The plenary sessions were very well attended, with invited speakers from Australia, England, The Netherlands and the USA addressing such issues as "Coping With change", "Learning Mathematics in a Social Context", " Curriculum Renewal in Upper Secondary Schools", " Tasks and Talk in Mathematics Classrooms" and "Student perspectives of the Mathematics Classroom". Two important international guests were Pierre van Heile, world-famous mathematics educator and theoretician; and Jan de Lange, Director of the Freudenthal Institute director and Professor of Utrecht University All keynote presentations have been published in the latest New Zealand Mathematics Magazine (Vol 32. No 3), and videotapes are available from NZAMT.
At the A. C. Aitken Centenary Conference, held at the University of Otago from August 28 to September 1, Garry Tee gave the Colloquium Address on "Alexander Craig Aitken, (1895-1967)". Contributed Talks were presented by:
Jianbei An, "The number of Sylow B-pairs of some finite groups".
John C. Butcher & Ying Mai, " High-order ODE methods for time-dependent PDEs".
Marston Conder, "Applications and adaptations of the low index subgroups process".
David B. Gauld, " Summer Workshop: Huia 1994 and Tolaga Bay 1996".
Sina Greenwood, "Volterra spaces".
Paul R. Hafner, "Some comments on the (7,6) cage".
David W. McIntyre, "Intervals in the lattice of topologies".
Alastair McNaughton, "How to diversify assessment of problem-solving skills in the Senior High School" and " The locus of the zeros of polynomials under closed-path integration".
Tim Marshall, "Homomorphisms of edge-coloured graphs".
Geoff Nicholls, "Specifying and sampling a distribution on triangulations".
Boris Pavlov, "New class of dissipative operators in mathematical physics quantum dynamics on a Markovian background and irreversibility".
Arkadii Slinko, " Coalgebraic Lie coalgebras".
Stephen Taylor, "Modelling and stabilisation of nonlinear beams".
Mavin K. Vamanamurthy, "Extremal rings and quasiconformal mappings".
Mark C. Wilson, "Primeness of enveloping algebras".
Seminars
Dr Paul Bonnington (Department of Mathematics), "A Nebesky-type formula for relative maximum genus".
Professor Petar Kenderov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), "A dynamical systems approach to the polygonal approximation of plane convex contacts".
Dr Norm Levenberg (Department of Mathematics), "An elementary problem in (one-variable) potential theory".
Professor John C. Butcher (Department of Mathematics), " Some numerical applications of real and complex analysis".
Professor Shangmin Cao (Liaocheng Teachers College, China), "Mathematics education in China".
Professor Ralph Stanton (University of Manitoba), " A discussion of one-designs".
Professor Jan de Lange (Freudenthal Institute, Utrecht), "Some developments in mathematics education".
Professor Boris Pavlov (Department of Mathematics), "Riesz bases of exponentials or reproducing kernels and nonstandard problems of spectral analysis",
Dr Brent Everitt (Department of Mathematics), "Recent applications of Schreier coset diagrams".
Dr Pierre van Hiele (The Netherlands), RSNZ Lecturer, "Difficulties with the introduction of a new topic and a new theory and their solution".
Professor Hans Schneider (University of Wisconsin, Madison) "Why did Frobenius hate graph theory?".
Professor Sergei Avdonin (St Petersburg State University), "Riesz bases from scalar and vector potentials, with applications to control theory".
Professor Jozef Siran (Bratislava, Slovakia), "Face 2-colourable triangular embeddings of complete graphs".
Dr Warren Moors, (Department of Mathematics), "l* does not admit an equivalent mid-point locally uniformly rotund norm".
Dr Sergei Federov (Department of Mathematics), "On the Nevanlinna-Pick interpolation problem in multiply-connected domains".
John MacCormick, "Rearranging the arithmetic Fourier transform algorithm".
Dr Andrew Reztsov, "On the relationship between packing problems, minimal lattice rules, and some extremal problems for trigonometric polynomials".
Dr Paul Gartside (Oxford University), "Topological consequences of algebraic structure" (3 parts).
Dr Kay Nieselt-Struwe (Department of Physics),
" Invariants of sequence space geometries".
Dr Michael Smyth (Department of Mathematics) "Some fixed-point free maps".
Jiling Cao (Department of Mathematics), "On completeness of quasiuniform function spaces".
Kerry Richardson (Department of Mathematics),
" Elementary models and subspaces".
Professor Bruce Gilligan (University of Regina, Saskatchewan), "The interplay between topology and complex analysis on homogeneous complex manifolds".
Professor Tony Michel (University of Notre Dame), "Associative memories via artificial feedback neural networks".
Professor Roger Grimshaw (Monash), "Solitary waves generated by flow interaction with topography".
Russell Millar has been appointed as Lecturer at Tamaki. His major research interest is marine statistics.
Alastair Scott has received a research grant in the first batch of Marsden Fund awards.
Robert Gentleman, Maxine Pfannkuch, Chris Triggs and Chris Wild received 4 of the 15 Distinguished Teaching Awards for 1995.
Kathy Edmunds is in hospital again.
Recent visitors include Professor Simo Puntanen (University of Tampere, Finland), Professor Bernard Flury (Indiana University), and Professor Raymond J.Carroll (Texas A&M University), winner of the COPS Medal (equivalent to a Nobel Prize) in 1988.
At the A. C. Aitken Centenary Conference, held at the University of Otago from August 28 to September 1, Contributed Talks were presented by:
Andrew Balemi & Alan J. Lee, "On the mean squared error of the sandwich estimator in Liang-Zeger estimation".
James Curran, "Statistical analysis of forensic glass evidence".
Robert Gentleman, "Statistical computing with R",
Alan J. Lee, "Standard error estimation using Liang-Zeger methods".
Mohammad M. Salehi & George A. F. Seber, "Two-stage adaptive cluster sampling".
Alastair Scott, " Fitting models to survey data".
Seminars
James Curran (Department of Statistics), "Statistical analysis of forensic glass evidence".
Andrew Balemi (Department of Statistics), "On the mean squared error of the sandwich estimator in Liang-Zeger Estimation".
Professor George A. F. Seber (Department of Statistics), "Estimating the prevalence of non-communicable diseases using capture-recapture methods".
Professor Peter Donnelly (Queen Mary College, London), "Statistical issues in DNA profiling" .
Professor Elizabeth A. Thompson (University of Washington, Seattle) "Monte Carlo likelihood in genetic analysis" .
Dr Malcolm Faddy (University of Queensland),
"More on extended Poisson process modelling and analysis of count data" .
Dr Geoff Nicholls (Department of Mathematics),
"A parametric model of coloured patterns and its sampler" .
Professor Bernard Flury (Indiana University), "Principal points and self-consistent approximations" .
Professor Simo Puntanen (University of Tampere, Finland), "How good is ordinary least squares?" .
Professor Raymond J. Carroll (Texas A&M University), "Functional estimation in measurement error models"
Garry J. Tee
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS
The department has received University approval to set up a Biomathematics Research Centre based around the expertise of a number of new and existing members of the department, and contacts with biologists, both here and overseas. James Sneyd and Mike Steel are co-directors of the centre.
Congratulations are due to all those listed below:
To David Robinson who remarried on 26 August. His new wife Sue brings with her two teenage boys.
To James Sneyd and Mike Steel who were recently awarded Marsden grants of approximately $30,000 each over three years for research and the funding of two PhD students (see advertisement in this newsletter).
To Julian Visch on the award of his Masters degree. His thesis entitled "Fuel consumption models for traffic modelling by the Canterbury Regional Council", was completed under the supervision of Easaw Chacko.
To Neil Watson on his NZMS Research Award.
To David Wall who has just been awarded a Swedish teaching exchange grant for 1996, from the Council for the Renewal of Undergraduate Education, which is part of the National Agency for Higher Education in Sweden. The exchange will be with Dr Peter Olsson, Division of Mechanics, Chalmers Institute of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden. David has just returned from Sweden where he spent a successful and substantial part of his current study leave.
To William Joyce who has been awarded an M.Sc. with distinction for his thesis "A one dimensional generalised autonomous homogeneous Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation", completed under the supervision of David Wall.
To Angéle Hamel who has been awarded a FORST postdoctoral fellowship for two years. She will be working with Professor Phil Butler in Physics.
Rick Beatson
Store of Science Information behind the Wall
Demolition of the Berlin Wall has opened up new scientific information for scientists all over the world, according to a Landcare Research scientist. Aroon Parshotam, a mathematical scientist working in biosphere processes at Manaaki Whenua-Landcare Research in Palmerston North, visited Britain and Europe on a British Council Higher Education Link exchange.
He is involved in joint research into soil carbon turnover modelling with scientists in Britain. While in Britain he took the opportunity to visit Denmark and East Germany to present lectures to modelling groups also working on joint projects with the historic Rothamsted Crop Research organisation in Britain.
He said his visit to Bad Lauchstadt in East Germany was the highlight of his trip. The area is the site for some of the oldest land and soil experiments in Europe, dating back about 180 years and for several decades hidden behind the Wall.
"They were fascinated that someone from New Zealand would visit their soil institute as no other scientists from NZ had visited them before. They have so much collected data. It made me realise that in the West we are playing a lot of computer games. In East Germany they have been collecting real information which is now open to the rest of the world" .
Aroon said although he and his German colleagues could not speak the same language, they were able to communicate through mathematics, using symbols rather than words. New Zealand had a high reputation amongst world scientists and was doing well in its scientific work. The work being done in Germany and New Zealand on the impacts of climate change on soils and land systems was similar in many aspects, and no other groups appeared to be working in this area using the same approach and methodology.
He said East Germans and Russians had some land experiment sites which went back hundreds of years, using data collected and recorded by monasteries. The information now becoming available would be very useful throughout the world, because they had been very thorough in detailing experiments through hundreds of crops using cheap labour in an industry which was able to feed a nation.
The main purpose of the trip was to visit the long term classical experimental sites at Rothamsted, which were established 150 years ago and now form the basis of much that is known about the effects of fertilisers on soils in New Zealand. He is involved in joint research with the experimental station on carbon turnover in soils and greenhouse gas exchanges between land and the atmosphere. He has also recently participated in a NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Evaluating Soil Organic Matter models using datasets from different land-use and Climate Conditions", Rothamsted, UK, as New Zealand's NZ/UK/Australia Tripartite representative on terrestrial ecosystems and climate change.
Soil changes influence the earth's carbon cycle, and consequently climate and Landcare Research scientists at Palmerston North have adapted concepts developed by British scientists with Dr Parshotam developing mathematical modelling techniques.
Aroon Parshotam
Inaugural Lecture:
On his return from a recent period of leave, Mike Hendy presented his Inaugural Professorial Lecture to about 120 staff on the subject of "Origins" detailing some of the work that he has been engaged in recently on the analysis of historical signals in DNA data.
Staff update:
Graeme Wake, Alex McNabb, together with post-docs Simon Watt and Kumar Vetharaniam, were farewelled on the eve of their departures to Auckland. Alex McNabb has subsequently been made an Honorary Research Associate of the Department.
Associate Professor Dean Halford has taken up a 2-year appointment as Head of the Department. Mike Carter has been appointed Associate Dean (PN) of the Faculty of Information and Mathematical Sciences, as well as Deputy Head of Department. Promotions with effect from 1996 have been awarded to Robert McKibbin (to Associate Professor), John Giffin, Charles Little and Bruce van Brunt.
Dr Mahyar Amouzegar has taken up his position as Lecturer. With interests in Operations Research, he is a valuable addition to our small OR team.
News of appointments to various other vacancies will be provided in the next Newsletter.
Staff travel/conferences:
Adrian Swift took a short period of overseas leave mainly to attend 2 conferences. He presented a paper at the large ICIAM'95 conference, held in Hamburg, Germany, which attracted nearly 4000 delegates, including 3 from NZ. After ICIAM, he travelled to Manchester to attend LAA'95, a small IMA-sponsored conference on linear algebra and applications. Before his return, he divided his time between enjoying the English summer and working at the University of Aston on some MATLAB ideas.
Robert McKibbin and PhD student Chris Palliser attended the 17th NZ Geothermal Workshop at the University of Auckland during November. Robert presented a paper on modelling the effects of non-condensible gases on hydrothermal eruptions, and was also elected as a member of the Board of Directors of the New Zealand Geothermal Association.
Professor Wolfgang Vogel received 3 invitations as an invited speaker at international conferences in Oberwolfach (Germany), Hanoi (Vietnam) and Nagoya (Japan). Moreover, he has invitations to visit the University of Hong Kong and the Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics. He is also now nominated for the Editorial Board of the New Zealand Journal of Mathematics.
Mike Hendy has returned from his sabbatical at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, followed by two young mathematicians from that university. Dr Daniel Huson will be spending 3 months at Massey, and then visiting Canterbury. Dr Sören Perrey has taken a 2 year FRST-funded Post Doctoral fellowship at Massey. Both will be working in collaboration with Mike and with Professor David Penny of the Molecular Genetics Unit, Massey. Daniel is accompanied by his wife Elke and son Marlon, and Sören is accompanied by his wife Marlies and son Samuel.
Seminars:
We enjoyed having a visit from Professor Elmer Rees of the University of Edinburgh as the 1995 Forder Lecturer. Professor Rees delivered lectures (see list below) and participated in various discussions with members of the Department. Other visitors and Massey staff contributed to our seminar series, which continues to provide variety.
Scholar update:
Shane Dye (a Mathematics PhD graduate currently doing post-doctoral work at the University of Trondheim in Norway) and his wife Philippa have produced a baby boy, Crispin.
Mrs Hee Kyung Kim has been awarded a Massey University Doctoral Scholarship. Mrs Kim comes from South Korea, where she earned an MSc, and is working with Bruce van Brunt on functional differential equations.
The Industrial Research Ltd Bursary in Applied Mathematics for 1995 has been awarded to Grant Redhead, who is currently investigating the fluid mechanics of the trumpet as part of his MSc studies, supervised by Robert McKibbin. The presentation was made by Dr Graham Weir, leader of the Applied Mathematics Group at IRL, at a special luncheon in July to celebrate the occasion.
One of our honours students, Nicholas Allsop, is a Visiting Scholar at Sydney University for six weeks over the summer.
ANZIAM'96: New Zealand is to host the next ANZIAM (Australia New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics) conference in Masterton in February 1996. Graeme Wake, who has also recently been elected for a term as President of ANZIAM (a division of the Australian Mathematics Society), is the Convenor of the meeting; Robert McKibbin and Adrian Swift are Secretary and Treasurer respectively. A conference notice can be found elsewhere in this issue.
1996 Mathematics Colloquium: Massey University is to host the 1996 Mathematics Colloquium on 1 to 4 July next year. Mike Hendy is the Convenor, with Gillian Thornley as Secretary, Peter Kelly as Treasurer and team members Marijcke Vlieg, Bruce van Brunt and Kee Teo. The topic for the Theme Day on the Thursday will be "Mathematical Physics". A notice appears elsewhere in this issue, and conference circulars will be forthcoming in due course, but put the dates in your new diaries now!
Charles Little and co-author Paul Bonnington (University of Auckland) have had their book "The foundations of topological graph theory" published by Springer (ISBN 0-387-94557-1). The work uses the concept of a 3-graph in an attempt to place topological graph theory on a purely combinatorial yet rigorous footing.
Moves are afoot to incorporate the use of MAPLE and MATLAB in many Mathematics courses here from next year, with numerical and algebraic computing being taught alongside analytical methods.
Seminars
Dr Graham Weir (Applied Mathematics Group, Industry Research Ltd) "Mathematical Framework for Crevice Corrosion" .
Dr Yuji Kamoi (Massey) "Semigroups, Gröbner basis and its applications" .
Professor Elmer Rees (University of Edinburgh) "Critical points, Lagrange multipliers and applications", "Areas, Volumes and Dissections" .
Kim Hee Kyung (Massey) "Finite Dimensional Operator".
Seung-Hee Joo (Massey) "On strongly Mori domain" , "Extensions of polynomial rings on Mori domains".
Kelvin H Watson (Massey) "Practical considerations for the Graph Theoretic Facility Layout problem" .
Fiona Taylor (Massey) "Heuristic approaches to determining Multiple Search Paths" .
Dr Charles Little (Massey) "3-Graphs".
Dr John Hudson (Computer Science, Massey) "Esher, hyperbolic geometry and critical pairs".
Dr Shaun Cooper (Massey, Albany) "Some generalizations of Euler's beta integral and Jacobi's triple product identity".
Robert McKibbin
Since the publication of the last Newsletter Jeff Hunter has been converted from an Acting Dean into a real one. With all uncertainty about its future removed, the Faculty of Information and Mathematical Sciences is busily polishing regulations for its new degrees, the Bachelor of Information Science and associated Diplomas and Masterate.
We had three visitors to shed brightness on the darker moments of the second semester. Despite our best efforts we were only able to persuade one, Govindaraju (Raj), to stay. Chuck Gates and Ann Mitchell have returned home. Raj is from Bharathier University in India. His interests (apart from keeping warm) are in statistical quality control and acceptance sampling. His wife and child are predicted to complete immigration formalities some time around the end of the year.
Our persuasive efforts have failed too with Charles Lawoko. He is leaving to become the statistical guru for the Business Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. Charles will be missed not only by the Department, but by Massey and Palmerston North.
Richard Barker has completed his PhD and is now working for Landcare in Christchurch.
More temporarily, Siva Ganesh has returned and Doug Stirling has gone. Doug has been at Wollongong writing the Models'n'Data book with David Griffiths, but is now on his way to Britain.
Seminars (individuals are from the Statistics Department unless otherwise stated)
Renate Meyer (Department of Statistics, Auckland University), "Nonlinear eigenvector algorithms for local optimization"
Bruce Dunning, "Use of statistical language"
Yu Hayakawa (ISOR, Victoria University), "Mixed Poisson-type processes with applications in software reliability"
Chin Diew Lai, "On the increase of the expected lifetime by parallel redundancy"
Bernard Flury, (Department of Mathematics, Indiana University) "Principal points and self-consistent approximations"
Charles Gates, (Texas A&M University) "Estimating Arribada size using a modified instantaneous count"
Ann Mitchell, (Imperial College, London) "Rao's distance measure"
K Govindaraju, "Fractional acceptance numbers"
Terry Moore, "Distributions for hazard data with bounded lifetime"
Shayle Searle, (Cornell University) "Notes on BLUP: A unifying derivation and some summing-to-zero properties"
Greg Arnold, "Trellis"
Richard Barker, "Multi strata mark-capture models with ancillary re-sightings"
Hugh Morton, "The effects of lane choice for 200 and 400 metre running"
Prof G Ferrari, (Department of Statistics, University of Florence) "On purchasing power parities calculation at the basic headings level and related topics"
Mark Bebbington, "Synthetic seismicity models"
Greg Arnold
MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS
As with most of you, I'm sure, early November finds us up to our ears in exams for marking etc. Consequently, the call for news is not readily heeded as minds are occupied with other matters. Nevertheless, we shall report the news from Otago, albeit cursorily.
First off I should mention that the Aitken Conference went off well, as many of you can confirm. The final number of participants (for all sections combined) exceeded two hundred and thirty. The proceedings will appear in the new year.
There will be a conference held here 24-28 June 1996 on "Decision Making and Risk Assessment in Biology". The conference is intended to bring together biomathematicians, ecologists, environmental scientists, resource managers and statisticians with a common interest in the application of quantitative methods to ecological and environmental problems. Contributed papers on any quantitative aspect of biological risk assessment may be presented at the conference. Abstracts are required by 1 March 1996.
While there have been seminars at regular intervals since the last news contribution, I am afraid that the details are not at hand. Suffice it to say that you guys really missed some beaut talks!
David Fletcher has just returned from nine months leave spent mainly in Sydney. He looks fit and well, and, in contrast to the rest of us, unflustered by the exams.
On the subject of leave, this correspondent will be heading off in January for thirteen months leave. One consequence of this is that this will be my last contribution as Otago correspondent. This may seem to be the best news I have ever reported here but even better is the news that taking over from me will be Bram Evans. I leave you in his capable hands.
Robert Aldred
By the August vacation, ISOR was getting quite thin on numbers. Peter Smith commenced study leave in June, while Megan Clark and David Vere-Jones started in August. There was a further exodus of staff to conferences, in particular the Aitken Conference in Dunedin.
Peter Smith initially visited the University of Washington in Seattle, and is now visiting the University of Exeter/British Telecom. Megan Clark is visiting Chester College of Higher Education at Chester.
David Vere-Jones has been working in China and is now at the Tokyo Institute of Technology until March 1996. In China he was working with Professor Ma Li at the State Seismological Bureau in Beijing, as part of a joint Asia 2000 project.
In August, Peter Thomson attended the ISI Meeting in Beijing. Tony Vignaux attended a Maximum Entropy Workshop in Santa Fe, and then went on to London to attend his book launch. The book is entitled "Interpreting Evidence: Evaluating Forensic Science in the Courtroom", and is coauthored with Bernard Robertson, who was a member of the Law Faculty at Victoria, and is now a member of the Business Law Department at Massey.
Bevan Blair (Stochastic Models in Finance), Suzette Lizamore (Topics in Maximum Entropy Applications) and Grant Telfar (Acceleration Techniques for Simulated Annealing) have submitted their MSc theses. Bevan is now studying for a PhD at Lancaster University. Grant has joined a number of other ISOR graduates working at Core Management Systems Limited, in Wellington.
Ross Renner has recently been promoted to Reader/Associate Professor. Ross's work as consulting statistician is well known and highly appreciated by staff and generations of graduate students whose research and careers have been assisted by his expertise. His success is due to the breadth and depth of his knowledge and ability to use statistics in an innovative way to solve a wide range of problems. Less well known, is the international reputation that he has gained through the application of these skills in independent research and collaborative work with scientists from several disciplines. In particular, his development of the new technique of endmember
analysis is considered seminal, in that it provides earth and marine scientists with a much better approach to the solution of fundamental problems than has previously been available.
Visitors in the last few months have included Professor Norberg from the University of Copenhagen and Professor Mark Matthews from MIT. Mark worked with David Vere-Jones on evaluating the M8 Algorithm, an earthquake prediction algorithm used by Russian seismologists.
Yu Hayakawa and David Harte
Rob Goldblatt was an invited contributor to the 10th International Congress of Logic, Methodology, and the Philosophy of Science held in Florence in August, where he gave a talk on the relationship between modal propositional logic and first-order quantificational logic.
Peter Donelan has just ended over five years on the AUS Branch Committee and 18 months as Branch President. He is looking forward to having more time to focus directly on his mathematics research interests, commencing with research and study leave in Liverpool working with Chris Gibson.
Mike Doyle is going to the University of Victoria, British Columbia, at the end of November for a few weeks. The purpose of the trip is to discuss his Masters work in Parameterised Complexity and Bounded Treewidth, with Mike Fellows of the Computer Science Department. This is being funded partly from a Marsden Fund Research Assistantship (Rod Downey) and partly by the University of Victoria, BC (Mike Fellows).
Mike plans to finish his research and have commenced writing his thesis by the beginning of March next year which is the 1st anniversary of his enrolment in the MSc Part II as a part time student. I understand that this thesis, which is still to be written, has already been cited (!) by his supervisor Rod Downey in the book currently being written by him and Mike Fellows.
Lindsay Johnston ran a Study Group on Wavelets throughout the 1995 academic year.
Rod Downey now has a Personal Chair in Mathematics, and Vladimir Pestov has been promoted to Reader. Your humble correspondent has become a SLOB...
Mark McGuinness
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS - CENTRE FOR APPLIED STATISTICS
Nye John has been awarded a Marsden Fund grant for work on the topic "Factorial Experiments in Complex block structures". In the area of experimental design, David Whitaker has discovered a fascinating class of Linear Programs with integer coefficients and real solutions which are integers.
Our secretary Angela Hayward has had the sad misfortune of having to leave her position because of illness. Her replacement is Karen Devoy (Susan's sister), an import from the Academic Section of the Registry. She will become the Statistics Secretary from next year. Please contact k.devoy@waikato.ac.nz.
Heather Rae attended the NZ Association of Mathematics Teachers 4th Conference at the University of Auckland in August and presented a
paper on catch-up mathematics at the tertiary level. She also attended the National Conference of Student Learning Support Centres at Victoria in May and discussed the "Skills in Mathematics" series of learning texts being developed and used at Waikato.
Alfred Sneyd attended a conference in Riga, Latvia with Alec Zwart, in August. It was the 14th International Riga Conference on Magnetohydrodynamics, which specialises mainly in metallurgical applications. They gave papers on Aluminium reduction cells. They also visited St Andrews and gave two seminars, one on astrophysical MHD and one of Aluminium cells again.
Zhu Nan presented a paper on removing terms from Knapsack Problems at the OR conference at Victoria in October.
Kevin Broughan attended the conference HPC-ASIA'95 in Taipei in September and presented a paper on parallel symbolic-numeric mathematical
software. He also represented NZ on the Steering Committee for the series of conferences. The next one is scheduled for early 1997 in Seoul.
Professor Bridges was an invited speaker at the international conference in "Truth in Mathematics" at Mussomeli, Sicily, in September. This was an unusual gathering of mathematicians, logicians and philosophers interested in the foundations of mathematics. The setting was a small, hill-top town in central Sicily, with a mediaeval castle on a 150 metre outcrop of rock on the edge of town, where the opening ceremony was held.
The department has been reviewed and has had a number of problems highlighted. The student/staff ratio and part one teaching program are related areas requiring close attention. The Mathematics Department was well served through the review process by the external mathematicians Marsden Condor, Donald Melrose (Sydney) and Walter Neumann (Melbourne) with Warrick Silvester (Biology, Waikato) being the convenor and is grateful for their efforts. The Department of Statistics was not part of the review. Copies of the report may be obtained from glenys@waikato.ac.nz.
The Working Party on internet usage has (thankfully!) supported the continuation of our link to the outside world so any reported addresses are still extant! However some restrictions on who can contribute or link to our department's WWW page are to be implemented.
The Centre for Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, created to
formalize and
enhance the relationship between physics and applied
mathematics has been ceremonially inaugurated but is awaiting the appointment
of a new Professor of Physics, for further development. Contact Ernie Kalnins
for further details: e.kalnins@waikato.ac.nz.
As I write the smoldering brains of exam markers permeates the department. This is the final report from the old Department of Mathematics (and Statistics) which does not pass without a wimper (meaning obscure). The new and separate departments of Mathematics and Statistics are to begin on 1 January 1996. Professor Nye John is to be Chairperson of the Department of Statistics with members being all the current statisticians and members of the Centre for Applied Statistics. As for the future, the less said of that the better - does it even exist? (Anon).
Seminars
Roger Grimshaw (Monash University) "Solitary Waves Generated by Flow Interaction with Topography".
Roger Grimshaw (Monash University) "Interaction of a Solitary Wave with an External Force".
Ted Buchwald (University of the South Pacific) "Linearised Evaporation from a Soil of Finite Depth in a Wetted Region".
Douglas Bridges (University of Waikato) "Constructive Truth in Practice".
Elmer Rees (University of Edinburgh) "Geometry of Grasping".
Elmer Rees (University of Edinburgh) "Areas, Volumes and Dissections".
Kevin Broughan