An Access Grid Mathematical Sciences colloquium
(part of the Colloquium Series of the School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University)

Speaker: Prof Zbigniew Michalewicz, University of Adelaide

Time: 12:00 noon (SA time), Building Q1-01, Mawson Lakes Campus.

The talk addresses a gap in the educational curriculum for 1st year students by proposing a new course that aims at getting students to think about how to frame and solve unstructured problems. The idea is to increase the student’s mathematical awareness and problem-solving skills by discussing a variety of puzzles. The talk makes an argument that this approach – called Puzzle-Based Learning – is very beneficial for introducing mathematics, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.

The new course has been approved by the University of Adelaide for Faculty of Engineering, Computer Science, and Mathematics. Many other universities are in the process of introducing such a course. The course will be offered in two versions:

• (a) full-semester course and
• (b) a unit within general course (e.g. Introduction to Engineering).

All teaching materials (power point slides, assignments, etc.) are being prepared. The new textbook (Puzzle-Based Learning: Introduction to Critical Thinking, Mathematics, and Problem Solving) is available from June 2008. The talk provides additional information on this development.

Seminar Convenor: Pamila Phillips (Pamila.Phillips@unisa.edu.au).
AGR Tech Support: Richard Rawinski (ichard.rawinski@unisa.edu.au).

If you (and your colleagues) wish to participate, please:

1. book your own AGR (or university/APAC etc. AGR that you otherwise are able to use), and ask your AGR technical people to contact Richard (the AGR technical person at uniSA); and

2. inform Pamila (the seminar convenor) of your intention to participate.

XXII International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics

The Congress, ICTAM 2008, was invited by the Australian Academy of Science upon the recommendation of the Australian and New Zealand Theoretical and Applied Mechanics communities. A consortium of universities in South Australia will host the meeting, at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

9th Australasian Conference on Mathematics and Computers in Sport

Location:

Twin Towns Resort, Tweed Heads, NSW

Director:

Dr. John Hammond (jhammond@scu.edu.au)

Accommodation bookings:

Twin Towns Resort www.twintowns.com.au

The Department of Statistics at Macquarie University is hosting a one-day short course on Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape (GAMLSS).

• Presenter: Dr Mikis Stasinopoulos, London Metropolitan University.

• Enquiries: Gillian Heller, email: gheller@efs.mq.edu.au, phone: (02) 9850 8541.

Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape (GAMLSS) are (semi-)parametric regression type models. They are parametric, in that they require a parametric distribution assumption for the response variable, and "semi" in the sense that the modelling of the parameters of the distribution, as functions of explanatory variables, may involve using non-parametric smoothing functions.

GAMLSS were introduced by Rigby and Stasinopoulos (2001, 2005) and Akantziliotou et al. (2002) as a way of overcoming some of the limitations associated with the popular Generalized Linear Models (GLM) and Generalized Additive Models (GAM), Nelder and Wedderburn (1972) and Hastie and Tibshirani (1990) respectively.

In GAMLSS the exponential family distribution assumption for the response variable, y, is relaxed and replaced by a general distribution family, including highly skew and/or kurtotic continuous and discrete distributions. The systematic part of the model is expanded to allow modelling not only the mean (or location) but all the parameters of the distribution of y as linear and/or nonlinear parametric and/or additive non-parametric functions of explanatory variables and/or random effects.

Hence GAMLSS is especially suited to modelling a response variable which does not follow an exponential family distribution, (eg. leptokurtic or platykurtic and/or positive or negative skew response data, or overdispersed counts) or which exhibit heterogeneity (e.g. where the scale or shape of the distribution of the response variable changes with explanatory variables(s)).

The GAMLSS framework of statistical modelling is implemented in a series of packages in R. The packages allow the user to fit more than 50 different distributions including the Box Cox Power Exponential distribution (Rigby and Stasinopoulos, 2004) used by the World Health Organization for the construction of the world standard growth curves, [WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study Group (2006, 2007)]. It also allows the fitting of truncated, censored or finite mixture versions of the distributions. The short course will include two practical sessions.

Short courses on GAMLSS have previously been given by Drs. Stasinopoulos and Rigby at the Univeristy of Utrecht (2006), University of Palermo (2007), and the International Workshop on Statistical Modelling, Utrecht (2008).

References

• Akantziliotou, K. Rigby, R. A. and Stasinopoulos, D. M. (2002) The R implementation of Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape in: Statistical modelling in Society: Proceedings of the 17th International Workshop on statistical modelling, ed: Stasinopoulos, M. and Touloumi, G., pp.75–83, Chania, Greece.

• Hastie, T. J. and Tibshirani, R. J. (1990), Generalized Additive Models, Chapman and Hall, London.

• Nelder, J. A. and Wedderburn, R. W. M., (1972) Generalized linear models, J. R. Statist. Soc. A., 135, pp.370–384.

• Rigby, R. A. and Stasinopoulos, D. M. (2001), The GAMLSS project: a flexible approach to statistical modelling, in: New Trends in Statistical Modelling: Proceedings of the 16th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling, ed: Klein, B. and Korsholm, L, pp.249–256, Odense, Denmark.

• Rigby, R. A. and Stasinopoulos D. M. (2004). Smooth centile curves for skew and kurtotic data modelled using the Box-Cox Power Exponential distribution http://studweb.north.londonmet.ac.uk/~stasinom/papers/boxcoxpower23.pdf, Statistics in Medicine, 23, pp.3053–3076.

• Rigby, R. A. and Stasinopoulos D. M. (2005). Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape, (with discussion). Appl. Statist., 54, pp.507–554.

• WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study Group (2006) WHO Child Growth Standards: Length/height-for-age, weight-for-age, weight-for-length, weight-for-height and body mass index-for-age: Methods and development. http://www.who.int/childgrowth/en Geneva: World Health Organization.

International Workshop on Complex Systems and Networks 2008

The workshop aims to foster exchange and collaboration among researchers who work in the fields of complex systems, nonlinear dynamics, networks and coupled systems, and related applications. Invited lecturers will present reviews, tutorials as well as forecasts of future research trends in related fields. A poster area will be available for attendees to discuss their works. Abstracts and presentations will be made available to all attendees at the close of the workshop.

Pre-Workshop Course
On Wednesday 1st October a course on complex networks will be run as part of this workshop. The course will include 3 international experts in the field of complex networks and will include excellent coverage of current and future research trends in this area. Places for this course are limited so participants are encouraged to register early to avoid disappointment.

Invited Speakers

• Prof Guanrong Chen (City University of Hong Kong)
• Prof Jürgen Kurths (Universität Potsdam)
• Prof Phil Pollett (University of Queensland)
• Prof Ljiljana Trajkovic (Simon Fraser University)
• Prof Michael Tse (Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
• Prof Xiaofan Wang (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
• Dr Chai Wah Wu (IBM Research)

Organisers

• Professor David Hill
• Dr Jin Fan
• Mr Lachlan Blackhall

Deadlines
Deadlines for registration for the complex networks course and the workshop will close on 17th September, 2008.

7th Australia – New Zealand Mathematics Convention

University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

This is a joint Australia–New Zealand meeting, incorporating the 2008 Australian Mathematics Colloquium and the 2008 New Zealand Mathematics Colloquium.

Invited Speakers

• Béla Bollobás (Cambridge, UK and Memphis)
• Carl de Boor (Wisconsin-Madison)
• Vaughan Jones (Berkeley), AustMS Distinguished Lecturer
• Kerry Landman (Melbourne)
• Gregory F. Lawler (Chicago)
• Charles Leedham-Green (Queen Mary, London)
• John W. Morgan (Columbia)
• Karen Parshall (Virginia)
• James Sneyd (Auckland), ANZIAM Lecturer
• Angelika Steger (ETH Zurich)
• Neil Trudinger (ANU), NZIMA Lecturer

Director: Rick Beatson (R.Beatson@math.canterbury.ac.nz)

Registration, accommodation and finance: anzmc2008@uco.canterbury.ac.nz

Academic and other enquiries: ANZMC2008@math.canterbury.ac.nz

Travel Grant

The Australian Mathematical Society will provide up to AUD$250 to student members of the AustMS attending the 7th Australia–New Zealand Mathematics Convention, providing they present a paper and travel from Australia. The travel grant will be paid by the AustMS upon application to the Treasurer of the AustMS

The 4th International Conference on Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing

University of Auckland, New Zealand.

The ICC is held every 10 years. This year it incorporates the annual ACCMCC meeting of the Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia as well as the New Zealand leg of the map conferences held annually in Slovenia/Slovakia/Arizona-Portugal/New Zealand.

Tentative list of invited speakers:

• Alexander Barvinok, University of Michigan
• Peter Cameron, Queen Mary College London
• Jan de Gier, University of Melbourne
• Jesus de Loera, University of California–Davis
• Robin Pemantle, University of Pennsylvania
• Cheryl Praeger, University of Western Australia
• Chris Rodger, Auburn University
• Paul Seymour, Princeton University
• Mike Steel, University of Canterbury
• Carsten Thomassen, Technical University of Denmark
• Nick Wormald, University of Waterloo
• Doron Zeilberger, Rutgers University

Contact Mark Wilson, mcw@cs.auckland.ac.nz with queries or to be placed on a mailing list of potential attendees.

Further details will appear in due course on the conference website: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/research/groups/theory/4ICC/

Computing: The Australasian Theory Symposium

The 15th "Computing: The Australasian Theory Symposium" (CATS) will be held in Wellington, New Zealand, during 20–23 January 2009.

Wellington is on the southern tip of the North Island of NZ. CATS is one of the two premier annual conferences in theoretical computer science in the Asia–Pacific.

Authors are invited to submit papers that present original and unpublished research on topics including (but not limited to) the following areas:

• Algorithms and Data Structures
• Complexity Theory
• Graph Theory
• Graph Algorithms and Combinatorics
• Semantics of Programming Languages
• Algorithms on Strings
• Optimisation
• Formal Program Specification and Transformation
• Computational Algebra and Geometry
• Computational Biology
• Logic and Type systems
• New Paradigms of Computation

Programme Committee Co-Chairs:

• Rod Downey, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ
  Rod.Downey@mcs.vuw.ac.nz
• Prabhu Manyem, University of Ballarat, Australia
  manyem@ballarat.edu.au

MISG2009

The Mathematics and Statistics in Industry Study Group, held at UOW.

ANZIAM 2009 will be held at Rydges Oasis Resort, Caloundra, Queensland. For further information see the conference website.

The Institute for Geometry and its Applications will host a Workshop on Complex Geometry at the University of Adelaide from Monday 16 February to Friday 20 February 2009.

Program, March 1 – April 18, 2009.

• March 2–13: Instructional workshop
• March 15–20: Number theory and physics conference
• March 23 – Apr 6: Research in teams
• April 7–10: Workshop
• April 11–18: Research in teams

Recent research in mathematical physics has revealed profound connections between many subjects previously thought unrelated on the surface. The most mysterious connection at this time is perhaps to number theory. In recent years, we have witnessed, for instance, the appearances of automorphic forms (modular forms, quasimodular forms, bimodular forms, etc), motives, multi-\zeta functions and L-series, Galois representations, and the geometric Langlands program in string theory and perturbative quantum field theory.

The connections between all of these areas are still not well understood and this has led to a realization that the time is ripe to assess the implications for both number theory and physics of these apparent connections. There is a consensus from researchers working at the crossroads of number theory and physics that a longer program devoted to this topic is overdue. One of the principal aims of this ESI program is to bring together researchers from both sides, to make a serious attempt to overcome some conceptual barriers between experts and to expose the area to younger researchers. A synthesis of ideas from number theory and physics should prove to be extremely powerful. This program is aimed at enhancing the understanding of the interaction of these subjects amongst researchers from both sides.

Early career researchers are encouraged to apply for support.

Organizers

• Alan Carey
• Harald Grosse
• Dirk Kreimer
• Sylvie Paycha
• Steven Rosenberg
• Noriko Yui

The 5th Asian Mathematical Conference

Putra World Trade Center, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Organisers:

Universiti Sains Malaysia

Malaysian Mathematical Sciences Society

Mathematics Departments of Malaysian Public Universities,

in collaboration with Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia

The Pacific Rim Mathematical Association (PRIMA) is an association of mathematical sciences institutes, departments and societies from around the Pacific Rim. It was established in 2005 to to promote and facilitate the development of the mathematical sciences throughout the Pacific Rim region. PRIMA aims to hold an international congress every four years.

The first PRIMA Congress will be held at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, 6–10 July 2009. As well as plenary addresses by leading international speakers there will be a range of special sessions on topics reflecting the breadth and diversity of research in the mathematical sciences across the region.

Contact: Alejandro Adem (adem@pims.math.ca)

Local Arrangements Committee: (prima2009@maths.unsw.edu.au)

Confirmed Plenary Speakers

• Myles Allen (University of Oxford, UK)
• Federico Ardila (SFSU, USA & U. de Los Andes, Colombia)
• Nassif Ghoussoub (University of British Columbia, Canada)
• Kenji Fukaya (Kyoto University, Japan)
• Seok-Jin Kang (Seoul National University, Korea)
• Yujiro Kawamata (Tokyo University, Japan)
• Shige Peng (Shandong University, China)
• Linda Petzold (UC Santa Barbara, USA)
• Cheryl Praeger (University of Western Australia, Australia)
• Gang Tian (Princeton University, USA & Peking University, China)
• Gunther Uhlmann (University of Washington, USA)

Confirmed Special Sessions

• Symplectic Geometry: K. Fukaya (Kyoto) & Y. Eliashberg (Stanford)
• Orbifolds and Stringy Topology: A. Adem (PIMS), Y. Ruan (U. Michigan) & C. Westerland (U. Melbourne)
• Geometric Analysis: G. Tian (Princeton & Peking U.), J. Chen (U. British Columbia), W. Ding (Peking U.)
• Mathematics of Climate Change: M. England (U. New South Wales) & C. Jones (U. North Carolina)
• Partial Differential Equations: N. Ghoussoub (U. British Columbia) & Y. Long (Nankai Institute)
• Inverse Problems: G. Uhlmann (U. Washington) & G. Bal (Columbia U.)
• Dynamical Systems: D. Lind (U.Washington), A. Dooley (U. New South Wales) & G. Froyland (U. New South Wales)
• Scientific Computing: L. Petzold (UC Santa Barbara) & I. Sloan (U. New South Wales)
• Mathematical Physics: R. Benguria (U. Catolica de Chile) & A. Guttmann (U. Melbourne)
• Math Finance: S. Peng (Shandong U.) & I. Ekeland (U. British Columbia)

Local Arrangements Committee

• G. Froyland (Chair, University of New South Wales)
• C. Greenhill (University of New South Wales)
• A. Guttmann (University of Melbourne)
• J. Kress (University of New South Wales)
• D. Lind (University of Washington)
• I. Sloan (University of New South Wales)