NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS (NZIMA) ====== One of New Zealand's Centres of Research Excellence ====== Newsletter 11 May 2006 We're pleased to give you an update on news from the NZIMA. Readers from the Wellington region may be interested in the event we're planning for 14th June - see item 2 below. Also we're in the process of designing a colourful twice yearly bulletin containing more in-depth stories about NZIMA people, events and outcomes, for a wider audience. The current quarterly newsletter will continue to be sent by email, but if you would like to be on the mailing list for the new one as well, then please let Margaret Woolgrove know by sending an email with your name and postal address to . Marston Conder and Vaughan Jones Co-Directors of the NZIMA SUMMARY OF CONTENTS 1. Peter Hunter elected FRS 2. NZIMA event in Wellington 14th June 3. Announcement of Maclaurin Fellows for 2007 4. Cost waivers for NZ students attending PRIMA meetings 5. NZIMA Scholarships 6. Update on NZIMA programmes 7. Further NZIMA support 8. Other News 9. Update on events calendar 1. PETER HUNTER ELECTED TO THE UK's ROYAL SOCIETY Peter Hunter (a member of the NZIMA Governing Board and a key participant in the NZIMA programme on Modelling Cellular Function) has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Election as FRS is one of the highest honours available to the world's scientists. Peter is Director of the Bioengineering Institute at the University of Auckland, which he founded and is recognised internationally for its work on the development of sophisticated mathematical and computer models of human organs. 2. NZIMA SPECIAL EVENT IN WELLINGTON On the evening of Wednesday 14th June, from 6:30pm, the NZIMA will host a special event in Wellington, partly to celebrate the appointment of Geoff Whittle to a Maclaurin Fellowship for 2006. The programme will also include a showing of the 30 minute video "Porridge, Pulleys, Pi: two mathematical journeys" produced by the MSRI in Berkeley, and this will be followed by drinks and light refreshments. All are welcome. A copy of the invitation (250kb pdf file) can be found on the NZIMA website http://www.nzima.auckland.ac.nz/NZIMA-Invitation14June06.pdf Please reply to Margaret Woolgrove by 12th June if you plan to attend. 3. MACLAURIN FELLOWS FOR 2007 *Full-time Maclaurin Fellowship* Professor Graeme Wake FRSNZ (of Massey University) has been awarded a Maclaurin Fellowship beginning March 2007. Graeme will undertake a year's research on functional differential equations, in collaboration with other New Zealand based mathematicians, motivated by applications such as models for cell/tumour growth. *Visiting Maclaurin Fellowships* Visiting Maclaurin Fellowships for 2007 have been awarded to Professors Peter Lax (New York University) and Marcus du Sautoy (Oxford). Professor Lax is one of the world's most distinguished mathematicians, and won the Abel Prize when it was awarded for only the third time, in 2005. He is best known for his work in analysis and partial differential equations. He will visit Professor Boris Pavlov and others at the University of Auckland, and may take part in the January summer meeting. Professor du Sautoy is a talented mathematician best known not only for his work in group theory, but also for his ability in communicating and popularising mathematics. A frequent radio and TV commentator on aspects of mathematics and society, he is the author of the best-selling book on the Riemann hypothesis, "The Music of the Primes", for which he won the Sartorius and Peano Awards. 4. PACIFIC RIM MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION (PRIMA) MEETINGS One of the first initiatives adopted by PRIMA is the encouragement of participation in summer schools and other meetings (at reduced cost) by students of its member institutions. Students from New Zealand universities affiliated with the NZIMA are eligible for such subsidies - such as for the 2006 ICE-EM Australian Graduate School in Mathematics (3-21 July 2006, Brisbane) and the 2007 Mathematics-in-Industry Study Group (MISG 2007, 5-9 February 2007, Wollongong). More details and weblinks are are available on the NZIMA's website http://www.nzima.auckland.ac.nz/Events.html 5. NZIMA SCHOLARSHIPS NZIMA postgraduate scholarships have been awarded to three new students: - Tiangang Cui, for a PhD on Bayesian Inference for Geothermal Model Calibration (being supervised by Colin Fox and Mike O'Sullivan), University of Auckland - Dion O'Neale, for a PhD on Theory and Application of Geometric Numerical Integration (being supervised by Robert McLachlan), Massey University - Kim Noakes, for a Masters degree in Bioengineering on a project to create an anatomically accurate computational model of the male and female pelvic floor regions (being supervised by Leo Cheng, Ian Bissett and Andrew Pullan), University of Auckland. ************************************************************************ We will be soon be announcing a call for further applications for scholarship support from the NZIMA, with a closing date of 15th August 2006. This support is open for merit-based competition among postgraduate research students enrolled in mathematical science departments in NZ universities. Applications are particularly welcomed for scholarships for students engaged in research projects in areas of the application of the mathematical sciences (to business/industry or other areas of research), as well as those in more fundamental areas of research in the mathematical sciences, where clear benefits to NZ can be identified. ************************************************************************ 6. UPDATES ON NZIMA PROGRAMMES *Transportation Optimization * Strong international links are developing with the NZIMA thematic programme in Transportation Optimization as an outgrowth of its 2005 workshop held in Auckland. Andy Philpott was invited to judge the TSL Dissertation Prize for the Transportation Section of INFORMS. David Ryan will soon be visiting the Centre for Traffic and Transport (headed by Oli Madsen) at the Technical University of Denmark. Matthias Ehrgott was a member of the programme committee of the 16th Mini-EURO Conference on "Artificial Intelligence in Transportation" and 10th Meeting of the European Working Group on Transportation in Poznan, Poland, in September 2005. The programme has also hosted many expert visitors including Professors Garrett van Ryzin (Columbia University), the world's leading expert on revenue management, and Ruediger Schultz (Duisberg-Essen). Masters student Hamish Sheild is about to submit his thesis on wind models for planning optimal routes in short-course yacht races, which will allow more accurate predicition of wind speed and direction over the America's Cup course off Valencia. Amir Joshan (PhD student) has been developing computational models for studying pricing competition in the airline industry, and extends work carried out by researchers at MIT who are devising non-cooperative game models for analyzing competition. Andrea Raith (PhD student) has been working on a comparison of different algorithmic strategies for solving shortest path problems, such as those in public transportation networks. *Geometric Methods in the Topology of 3-Manifolds* Two further workshops have been held, following on from the highly successful meeting at Taipa in January: one at Hahei in February, and another at Leigh in March. Invited speakers at the latter were Patrick Dehornoy (Caen, France), Paul Gartside (Pittsburg), Louis Kauffman (Illinois) and Brian Sanderson (Warwick). Peter Nyikos (South Carolina) is currently visiting and giving a course of lectures at the University of Auckland. *Hidden Markov Models* Two expert visitors, Drs Takaki Iwata (Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Tokyo) and Elisa Varini (CNR, Milan) visited recently and played key roles in a short informal workshop on earthquake modelling for researchers at Victoria University of Wellington and GNS. A second PhD student, Wang Qing, will start work with Mark Bebbington in the second semester, with support from a Marsden Fund award. 7. FURTHER NZIMA SUPPORT The NZIMA has committed to support the following future events and activities: - Joint Conference of the Statistical Society of Australia and the New Zealand Statistical Association (ASC/NZSA 2006), July 2006 - A visit to NZ by Professor Bill Newman (UCLA) - Development by Dr Mike Meylan of a website devoted to linear water wave theory. 8. OTHER NEWS John Butcher (member of the NZIMA's Governing Board and director of one of the NZIMA's first programmes) has written a 100-page invited paper on General Linear Methods (for the numerical solution of differential equations) that will appear in Acta Numerica, vol. 15, later this year. Eamonn O'Brien (co-director of the NZIMA's Geometry programme and host to visiting Maclaurin fellows John Conway and Martin Liebeck) has been promoted to a (full) professorship at the University of Auckland. Congratulations Eamonn! 9. FORTHCOMING EVENTS IN THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES IN NZ & PACIFIC 27 June 2006, at Victoria University of Wellington One day workshop on Dynamical Systems and Numerical Analysis See: http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~markm/DSNA/ 3-7 July 2006, at Sky City, Auckland Joint Conference of the Statistical Society of Australia and the New Zealand Statistical Association (ASC/NZSA 2006) See: http://www.statsnz2006.com/ 3-21 July 2006, in Brisbane, Australia ICE-EM Australian Graduate School in Mathematics See http://www.ice-em.org.au/cryptomaths *Please note: Cost reduction for NZ students affiliated with the NZIMA * 10-14 July 2006, in Rotorua International Conference on Analytic Topology and Applications See: http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~cao/conference06.html 4-6 December 2006, in Hamilton 2006 New Zealand Mathematics Colloquium See: http://www.math.waikato.ac.nz/Coll2006/ 29 January to 2 February 2007, in Fiji Second South Pacific Conference on Mathematics (SPCM07) See http://www.riemann.usp.ac.fj/~spcm07/ 5-9 February 2007 at Wollongong, NSW, Australia Mathematics-in-Industry Study Group 2007 See http://www.misg.math.uow.edu.au/ *Please note: Cost reduction for NZ students affiliated with the NZIMA * 16-20 April 2007, at Hanmer Springs Workshop on Modelling Invasive Species and Weed Impact See http://www.math.canterbury.ac.nz/bio/NZIMA/ SUBSCRIBING AND UNSUBSCRIBING Please forward this NZIMA newsletter to any non-subscriber to whom the material may be relevant and who may wish to receive the publication regularly. 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