CAIMS/SCMAI E-News Volume 01 Number 3
August 9, 2001

Editor: Sue Ann Campbell (sacampbell@uwaterloo.ca)

CONTENTS

1. President’s Column

2. CAIMS 2001 – Report

3. Canada Research Chairs in Applied Mathematics

4. A letter from the past chair of NSERC GSC 337 re the Reallocation Exercise

5. Thematic Year on Numerical and Computational Challenges in Science and
Engineering at the Fields Institute

6. Societa Italiana di Matematica Applicata e Industriale Biannual Conference

7. First International Conference of the New Millennium on History of
Mathematical Sciences

8. Positions available at the University of Western Ontario

9. CAIMS/SCMAI E-News Information

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ITEM 1
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From: Sam Shen <samshen@climate.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 13:40:29 -0400

July 9, 2001

President’s Column

Our last annual meeting was held during June 7-9, 2001 at the University of
Victoria. It was a very successful meeting. In particular, the poster session
attracted a huge audience and was a big success. The meeting was organized by
Rod Edwards and David Leeming of the UVic. I’d like to thank them again for the
great job.

At the Victoria meeting, Anna Lawniczak passed the CAIMS/SCMAI presidency to me.
I will work with the CAIMS/SCMAI members and the society supporters to continue
to strengthen the society and help it grow.

During her presidency, Anna worked very hard for the society. She strengthened
our connection with several major mathematics societies, including the Canadian
Mathematics Society (CMS), Statistical Society of Canada (SSC), Society of
Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and Gesellschaft fur Angewandte
Mathematik und Mechanik e. V. (GAMM). The CAIMS-CMS joint meeting of 2000 at
Hamilton, called MATH2000, attracted more than 400 participants and our society
made $12,800 profit from this meeting. CAIMS-2003 will be a joint meeting with
SIAM in Montreal, and our 2004 annual meeting will be joint with CMS in Halifax.
At the society’s council meeting in Victoria, a motion of thanks to Prof.
Lawniczak for all her hard work as president was carried unanimously.

In the coming two years, I have three goals in mind. First, we need to drive up
the membership. CAIMS/SCMAI membership application/renewal forms can be found at
http://www.math.sfu.ca/caims/Society/subscribe.html I’d like to start a
membership-drive. We have established a Membership Committee, consisting
of Mike Foreman, Martin Gander, Abba Gumel, Ken Jackson, Paul Muir, Steve Ruuth,
and myself. I was assigned to chair the committee initially. Considering my
responsibilities to the other committees, I found that it is more appropriate
for somebody else to chair the committee and I have appointed Ken Jackson, the
President Elect, as the committee chair. I wish to use this opportunity to call
upon you to encourage your students to join CAIMS, to encourage your supervisor
to join CAIMS, and to encourage at least one friend to join CAIMS. For faculty
members, I’d like to convince you to be a life-member. The cost is only $600 and
it saves you the trouble of paying the annual fee. As you know, the membership
fee can be reimbursed from your professional allowance. Junior faculty members
benefit the most from the life-membership. Most major mathematics societies do
not have this offer and I do not know whether this offer will last forever for
CAIMS/SCMAI.

Second, we will establish a CAIMS/SCMAI research prize. A prize committee has
been formed and consists of Anthony Pierce (UBC), Don Dawson (Carleton), and
Hermann Brunner (Memorial). Anthony chairs the committee. When the details of
the prize are figured out, the committee will make an announcement through the
internet.

Third, we will strengthen our relationship with NSERC, CRM (Centre de recherches
mathematiques), the Fields Institute, MITACS (Mathematics of Information
Technology and Complex Systems), and PIMS (Pacific Institute for the
Mathematical Sciences). CAIMS/SCMAI should play an important role in the NSERC
fund reallocation exercise.

CAIMS/SCMAI is our society and is your society. Let us work together to promote
Canadian applied and industrial mathematics, to attract more talent to this
field, and to get more funding for this field. Our next annual meeting (June
8-10, 2002) will be in Calgary. Please join us! The details can be found at
http://www.math.ucalgary.ca/~ware/caims/index.html
Paul Binding and Tony Ware are the organizers. I plan to call all the past
presidents of our society and invite them to the meeting. I expect all of you
to meet these past presidents and give them a big hand for their contribution
to our society!

That is all I wished to share with you in this issue of the newsletter. If you
have any questions or need to contact me, please email me at shen@ualberta.ca.
More information about me can be found from my webpage www.ualberta.ca/~shen.

Cheers,
Sam Shen

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ITEM 2
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From: “Roderick Edwards” <edwards@math.uvic.ca>
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 17:08:52 -0700

CAIMS 2001 – Report

by Rod Edwards, Co-chair of Organizing Committee, July, 2001

The 22nd Annual Meeting of CAIMS, held at the University of Victoria in
Victoria, BC, June 7-9, 2001, was a delightful event. About 120
participants enjoyed three busy and stimulating days in the relaxed and
pleasant atmosphere of the university, and were fortunate to have the
opportunity to hear and speak with some outstanding Canadian and
international mathematicians and scientists. The list of speakers included
some highly distinguished researchers with international reputations as
well as some of our newer Canadian researchers. The poster session also
proved extremely popular.

Martin Taylor, the Vice-President Research of the University of Victoria,
and Florin Diacu, our local PIMS site director, opened the conference on
Thursday morning. The meeting was divided into 6 thematic sessions plus the
poster session: Applied Dynamical Systems (organized by Florin Diacu;
plenary speaker, Jerold Marsden), Data Compression (organized by Wu-Sheng
Lu and Nigel Horspool; plenary speaker, Bin Yu), Fluid Dynamics (organized
by Andrew Weaver; plenary speaker, Grae Worster), Computational Biology
(organized by Valerie King and Ben Koop; plenary speaker, Tandy Warnow),
Mathematical Biology (organized by Pauline van den Driessche; plenary
speaker, Hal Smith) and Neural Networks and Neural Dynamics (organized by
Rod Edwards; plenary speaker, Nancy Kopell). As there were no more than two
parallel sessions at any time, it was possible (even for the organizers!)
to attend a large percentage of the talks, including all the plenary talks
and the poster session. Many participants commented on the overall high
quality of the talks, people were able to find out what was occurring in
fields other than their own main area, and the level of interaction, both
in and out of the talks, was generally high.

This interaction extended to the social events, too. The reception on
Thursday evening and the salmon barbecue on Friday evening certainly
contributed to the genial atmosphere of the conference. Sue Ann Campbell
acted as Master of Ceremonies at the barbecue where the prize and other
honours were presented, and Sam Shen was presented as the new president of
CAIMS.

A panel of five judges evaluated the contributed presentations (both
posters and short talks) by graduate students and post-doctoral fellows for
the traditional prize. Although the quality of all the presentations was
high, the prize was awarded to Ricardo Carretero-Gonzalez of Simon Fraser
University for his work on “Breathers in Soliton Lattices: From Multi-
Soliton Interactions to Homoclinic Tangles”. Two others received honourable
mention: Gustavo Carrero of the University of Alberta for “Diffusion
Process Monitored by Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching: Some
Theoretical Aspects”, and Chee Tiong Ong for “Interactions of Forced
Solitons – fKdV & fNLS”.

The success of the conference was due in part to the calibre of researchers
we were able to attract and in part to the effective organizing team that
supported us. The session organizers listed above, representing five
university departments (Mathematics and Statistics, Electrical and Computer
Engineering, Computer Science, Earth and Ocean Sciences, Biology), did a
fine job of coordinating their speakers and in many cases did much more
than that. The team also included my Co-Chair, David Leeming, Reinhard
Illner, Kelly Choo, Mike Foreman, Gary MacGillivray, Gary Duncan and Ariana
Clapton, with help during and immediately before the event from Julien
Arino, Karissa Johnston, Julia Sigwart, Mary-Lou Zeeman and Dmitri Gokhman.
Particular thanks go to Irina Gavrilova and Wendy Leyland, who actually
managed a large part of the paperwork, bookkeeping and communications.

On behalf of the University of Victoria, I would like to thank CAIMS for
the opportunity to host such a satisfying meeting. Finally, here are some
comments received from participants:

“Thanks for putting together a spectacular meeting. It was a perfect mix of
high fliers. and local talent.” “I had a great time at CAIMS, and. I am
absolutely in awe that you put together such a high-power list of
speakers.”

“It was, easily, one of the best meetings (if not the best) that I have
attended in Canada. Clearly, UVIC has a reputation for high quality and
thoroughly enjoyable meetings.” “The plenary and invited presentations.
were of very high quality.” “The lecture rooms were simply superb.” “The
Conference Dinner (Salmon BBQ) in the magnificent University Club was
delicious and the atmosphere friendly.”

“The presence of the rather friendly rabbits population. also added to the
beauty of the campus.”

“It was indeed a great conference–you did a wonderful job.”

“Congratulations on an excellent conference.”

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ITEM 3
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From: Sue Ann Campbell <sacampbell@uwaterloo.ca>
Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001

I hope everyone will join me in congratulating the following
individuals:

Jonathan Borwein, Simon Fraser University
Hadi Dowlatabadi, University of British Columbia
Brigitte Jaumard, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
Mark Lewis, University of Alberta
Jianhong Wu, York University

each of whom has been awarded a Canada Research Chair in Applied Mathematics.

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ITEM 4
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From: Herb Freedman <hfreedma@math.ualberta.ca>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001

Editor, CAIMS – SCMAI Newsletter

In a letter in the February 2001 Newsletter, Ed Vrscay comments about various
aspects of NSERC funding of applied mathematics. Since I was Chair of GSC 337,
Pure and Applied Mathematics B, which includes applied mathematics for
the 2001 competition, I thought that I would respond to some of the comments
and queries, perhaps answering and clarifying some of them.

Perhaps I can begin with a bit of history concerning the Pure and Applied
Mathematics Committees. I was a member of what was then called CAMS-SCMA
from its very beginning and eventually served on its Council and Executive
(as Secretary) for about six years. During that period, it was strongly felt
by many (including myself) that applied mathematicians where getting a raw
deal from the predominantly pure mathematicians on the NSERC grant selection
committees over the years, and that there ought to be a separate Grant
Selection Committee (GSC) for applied mathematics. We wrote to NSERC on many
occasions giving what we felt were sound academic reasons for a separate
committee, but our letters so to speak fell on deaf ears.

Eventually, however, NSERC did agree to split Pure and Applied Mathematics
into two committees, Committee A (GSC 336) and Committee B (GSC 337). The split
was not made on academic grounds, but rather for administrative reasons, namely
there were so many applicants and such a wide variety of areas that the work of
the GSC became too unwieldy, took too long, and there was not enough expertise
in one committee satisfying language, geography, gender and other requirements
to cover all or even most areas of mathematics.

The split was by topic so that the committees handled mathematical topics (and
still does) mainly as follows. GSC 336 looks after algebra, number theory,
topology, classical and functional analysis, approximation theory, etc.
GSC 337 covers combinatorics, graph theory, differential equations, fluid
dynamics, control theory, mathematical biology, mathematics of finance, etc.
Certainly all applications in applied mathematics are handled by GSC 337
if they are handled by a mathematics committee. However all equipment grants
are handled by both committees meeting jointly. Note that Statistics has its
own committee. Also note that last year Computing Science was split into A
and B committees, also for administrative reasons.

As pointed out by Ed Vrscay, it is indeed the case that not all researchers in
applied mathematics apply to GSC 337. Many apply to the Interdisciplinary
Committee, Mechanical Engineering Committee, Physic Committee, Earth Sciences
Committee, etc. I don’t know what the percentage is, but in my department all
but three or four applied mathematicians receive their grants from GSC 337.

I should point out that the applicant indicates which committee is preferred
to adjudicate the application, but in the end it is NSERC through committee
chairs consultations that make the final selection.

Dr. Vrscay asked in his letter “… is there even a need for GSC 337 as far
as Applied Math is concerned?” The answer is clearly yes. NSERC will not
revert to a single mathematics committee again. Applied mathematicians may
ask that their applications be considered by other committees, but the
applications will be sent to where the expertise lies, and if the mathematics
outweighs the applications as it did in over fifty of the applications last
year, the application will be sent to a mathematics committee for adjudication.
The fact is that I believe in Canada, most applied mathematicians at
Universities are mathematicians first and are located in Mathematics
Departments.

To address the next point, one must understand how NSERC’s budgeting works.
Each committee is given a budget which, subject to some adjustments for
reallocation funds (which is why the reallocation exercise is extremely
important), is directly related to the total amount of funds previously
allocated to applicants who are up for renewal. This year additional funds
were made available for new applicants (junior and senior researchers).

The fact is that for the 2001 competition the majority of the applicants to
GSC 337 were applied mathematicians. Almost all the “pure” applicants were
in combinatorics, graph theory and design theory. Certainly the largest
grants awarded were to applied mathematicians and these were comparable to
any grants awarded by either committee in any year. The statement that
applied mathematics does poor compared to pure mathematics is a myth. One
only has to sit on a GSC to see that to the best of our ability, all
applicants and applications are thoroughly examined equally and treated
with respect. By NSERC rules, which I made sure were followed, no area of
mathematics or its applications was considered to be worse or less worthy
than any other.

In his letter, Dr. Vrscay asks “So then how much of 337 money goes to applied
mathematics?” I cannot answer this question exactly and the answer would
vary from year to year. Certainly the majority by far goes to applied
mathematics because the majority by far of the applicants are in applied
mathematics. Under the rules of equal treatment, the answer would clearly
depend on quantity and quality of the “applied” applications versus “pure”.

I really must address the issue of “horror stories” as presented by Dr.
Vrscay. Of course, they do happen in every GSC upon occasion (I hope it
didn’t happen this year under my guidance), but never intentionally. The
fact is that almost all “horror” situations from the point of view of the
applicant, are even more horrific from the point of view of the committee.
The plain fact is that almost all applications which don’t get funded or
which were funded at a drastically reduced level from previous funding
are because either the proposal is poor or poorly written, or the proposer’s
research is poor or scanty, or there is no demonstration for the need for
funds, or in the case of renewals, very poor training of highly qualified
personnel. Prominent researchers who cease doing research won’t be funded.
There is too much need for funds for young, up and coming researchers in
a limited budget. If you are applying as an applied mathematician and the
mathematics is poor or routine, and the applications are poor or nebulous,
don’t expect funding from any committee. I wish Dr. Vrscay had consulted
with a committee member before writing his comments on this subject.

I hope I have shed some light on the workings of NSERC and on GSC 337 in
particular. I can assure the applied mathematics community that applied
mathematics is treated fairly and justly by all concerned. Good researchers
get good grants (at least for mathematics). If it seems that more money
is allocated to pure mathematics as a whole, it is because there are far
more “pure” mathematicians than “applied”, but the average grant sizes are
comparable. I wish the reallocation committee well, for their task is far
more important than most of us realize. I am happy to discuss NSERC policy
and procedures with anyone who has concerns. I can be reached at
(780) 492-3530 or e-mail me at hfreedma@math.ualberta.ca.

H.I. Freedman
Professor Emeritus of Mathematical Sciences
University of Alberta

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ITEM 5
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From: Ken Jackson <krj@cs.toronto.edu>
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 14:29:35 -0400

Thematic Year on

Numerical and Computational Challenges
in Science and Engineering

at the Fields Institute
August 2001 to August 2002

The Fields Institute in Toronto is sponsoring a Thematic Year on
“Numerical and Computational Challenges in Science and Engineering”
(NCCSE) from August 2001 to August 2002. The main point of this
announcement is to inform the scientific computing committee about this
event so that any people interested in participating can include it in
their plans for 2001-02.

More information about the Fields Institute in general and the NCCSE
Thematic Year in particular can be found at

http://www.fields.utoronto.ca

and

http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/numerical.html

respectively.

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ITEM 6
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From: Mario Primicerio <primicer@math.unifi.it>
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 11:16:12 +0100

Dear colleague,

In May 2002 (May 27th to 31st) SIMAI will organize its biannual
Conference at Chia Laguna, a nice place in Sardinia. I proposed that
all members of Scientific Societies affiliated to ICIAM are entitled
to pay the reduced fee offered to members of SIMAI. The Organizing
Committee accepted.

I would like to ask you to circulate this information among the
members of your society. Some more information on the conference can
be found on the web site http://www.iac.rm.cnr.it/simai/simai2002.

Best wishes

Mario Primicerio

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ITEM 7
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From: “Dr.Man Mohan” <indianshm@yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 09:58:58 +0530

First International Conference of the New Millenium
on History of Mathematical Sciences
Delhi : December 20-23, 2001
Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Ramjas College, University of Delhi,
Delhi, India

ANNOUNCEMENT

December 2001

20-23. The First International Conference of the New Millennium on History of
Mathematical Sciences, will be held at Ramjas College, University of Delhi,
Delhi 110007, India.

Organizers: The Indian Society for History of Mathematics, Ramjas College,
University of Delhi and other national institutions.

International Steering Committee: Bruce C Berndt(USA), Chandra Gulati
(Australia), E Von Collani(Germany), Eberhard Knobloch(Germany),
G E Andrews(USA), Ivor Grattan-Guinness(UK), Jan P Hogendirk(Netherlands),
Jasbir Singh Chahal(USA), Jose Maria Balmaceda(Philippines), Ken Ross(USA),
Liyaquat Khan(India), M Monastyrsky(Russia), Mariana L Ferreira(USA), Mary
Croarken(UK), Mohammad Bagheri(Iran), Navin Singhi(USA), R C Gupta(India),
Roland Duduchava(Georgia), S M R Ansari(India), V Lakshmikantham(USA),
Volker Peckhaus(Germany)

Invited Speakers: Abhilasha Aggarwal(UK), Ananda Prasad Pant(Nepal),
Antonio Drago(Italy), Benno Artmann(Germany), Catherine Goldstein(France),
Dana Schlomiuk(Canada), De G Young(Egypt), E Von Collani(Germany),
Enrico Giusti(Italy), Frank Hawkins(USA), Frank Swetz(Philippines),
George Gheverghese Joseph(UK), Guru Prasad Dhakal(Nepal),
Ivor Grattan-Guinness(UK), Jasbir Singh Chahal(USA),
Jose Maria Balmaceda(Philippines), K V Mardia(UK), Kamal Chanda(USA),
Kenneth Williams(UK), Mariana L Ferreira(USA), Milogardner(USA),
Mohammed Bagheri(Iran), Navin Singhi(USA), Prem Nath Bajaj(USA),
Ravinder Kumar(USA), Ritu Gupta(Australia), Roland Duduchava(Georgia),
Rolf Jeltsch(Switzerland), S Leela(USA), Saeed S Hashemi(Iran),
Umberto Bottazzini(Italy), V Lakshmikantham(USA), Vitali Milman(Israel),
Volker Peckhaus(Germany), and a number of eminent mathematicians from the
country.

FOCUS: The conference will cover all aspects of the history of mathematical
sciences including mathematics, statistics, Operations Research and computer
science and applications thereof to societal needs. In particular the
conference will focus on the following areas:

1. General Histories, Source Books and Biographies of Mathematicians

2. Mathematics and indigenous Cultures of the World

3. Ancient Indian Mathematics

4. The Origin of Mathematics

5. Mathematics in 15th to 18th Centuries, Renaissance

6. 19th and 20th Centuries Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences

7. History of Mathematics as a subject in Educational Curricula

8. Future Prospects

The academic sessions will consist of invited plenary talks and contributed
paper presentations.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Papers covering topics pertaining to the above areas are
invited for the conference. The authors are requested to submit the full
version of their papers in the publishable form latest by October 1, 2001
along with the abstract. The Proceedings of the conference will be published.

LOCAL HOSPITALITY: Outstation participants will be provided free local
hospitality including local accommodation, transportation and meals at the venue
of the conference.

REGISTRATION FEE: The Registration fee of US $200 for foreign participants and
Rs.500 for participants from India is payable latest by 30th September 2001. All
payments should be made either by a local Cheque or a Demand Draft drawn in
favour of ICHM2001, Delhi and payable at New Delhi.

COMMUNICATION ADDRESS: All communications, including papers and payments, should
be addressed to:

Professor Y P Sabharwal
Organizing Secretary, ICHM2001
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Ramjas College, Delhi 10007, India
ichm2001rjc@yahoo.com

********************************************************************************

Preliminary Registration Form

Position:
First name:
Surname:
Affiliation:
Contact Mailing address:
Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:
Payment Details:
Tentative title of paper:
……………………………………………………………………..
……………………….

FORM – F

PERSONAL PARTICULARS OF FOREIGN SCHOLARS COMING TO INDIA

Part -A

1. Full Name (expanding the initials) :
2. Nationality :
3. Date and place of Birth :
4. Parentage :
5. Present address :
6. Permanent address ;
7. Passport number, date and place of issue and validity :
8. Whether previously in India, if so, date and place of previous stay :
9. Occupation :
10. Purpose of visit :
11. Expected duration of stay :
12. Places in India likely to be visited or a copy of itinerary :
13. The name of the Indian Mission Abroad at which the foreigner will apply for
visa authorization :
14. Source of funding and terms/conditions of funding/appointment :
15. Whether accompanied by spouse/ dependents, and if so, full personal
particulars and source of funding should be indicated :

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ITEM 8
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From: gayle mckenzie <gmckenzi@uwo.ca>
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 14:47:30 -0400

THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO

DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS

The Department of Applied Mathematics at The University of Western Ontario
invites applications for up to two, tenure-track positions at the Assistant
Professor Level.

The Department seeks applicants with an established record of computationally
intensive research in at least one of materials physics, financial mathematics,
mathematical biology, or numerical solutions of applied partial differential
equations. The position requires teaching in the graduate and undergraduate
program and establishing an independent research program including the
supervision of and securing funds for graduate students.

At least one of the successful applicants will be appointed as a SHARCNET ™
Research Chair. SHARCNET ™ is a $43 million, multi-institutional, high-
performance computing initiative in southwestern Ontario, with a head office and
major computing infrastructure housed within the Department of Applied
Mathematics. For more information on SHARCNET ™ see www.sharcnet.ca.

Applications including a detailed curriculum vitae and the names of 3 referees
should be sent to:
Dr. Paul J. Sullivan, Chair
Department of Applied Mathematics
Western Science Centre
The University of Western Ontario
London, Canada, N6A 5B7
e-mail: pjsul@uwo.ca

Closing Date: The selection process will begin October 31, 2001 and continue
until suitable candidates are found.

Positions are subject to budget approval. In accordance with Canadian
Immigration requirements, this advertisement is directed to Canadian Citizens
and permanent residents. The University of Western Ontario is committed to
employment equity, and welcomes applications from all qualified women and men
including visible minorities, aboriginal people and persons with disabilities.

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ITEM 9
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From: Sue Ann Campbell <sacampbell@uwaterloo.ca>
Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001

CAIMS/SCMAI E-News Information

CAIMS/SCMAI E-News is distributed electronically approximately three times a
year by the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society/Societe Canadienne
de Mathematiques Appliquees et Industrielles (http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~caims).

Past issues are available on the web at
http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~caims/Society/pub.html

Submissions are welcome and should be sent in plain text format to:
sacampbell@uwaterloo.ca.

The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the Board or
Membership of CAIMS/SCMAI. The editorial policy of this publication is to
encourage the discussion of issues and facilitate the dissemination of information
relevant to Canadian applied and industrial mathematics.