CMSA E-Newsletter 33

=Introduction= Thanks to all CMSA members who have sent information for this newsletter. Please send news as soon as you have anything of possible interest to CMSA members and the Combinatorial Community, even if no newsletter is imminent! Please email the Newsletter Editor (Ivan Miljenovic) at: Ivan.Miljenovic at gmail.com (or Ivan.Miljenovic at anu.edu.au)

CLOSING DATE for Issue 34: 11 November, 2011. (Please email items to the newsletter editor ONLY in plain text, optionally with minimal Markdown-like markup.)

Old newsletters can be found here.

=Aims of the newsletter=


 * To promote combinatorics within Australasia.


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


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

=Important Announcements=

The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics and the ERA journal rankings
In 2010 the Australian Research Council (ARC) published a ranked list of journals, as part of their Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative. In this list the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics (E-JC) was wrongly given a ranking of C, due to confusion with the Journal of Combinatorics. The Australian Mathematical Society had recommended a ranking of A for the E-JC.

Earlier this year the ARC invited public consultation about its ERA 2010 journal rankings. I made a submission on behalf of the CMSA, as did several individual CMSA members, urging the ARC to correct the ranking of the E-JC. Then in a surprise twist, the ARC decided that it would not revise the ranked journal list for ERA 2012, but would abandon the ranking system. This is unfortunate, as we miss out on the opportunity to achieve justice for the E-JC.

I would like to draw your attention to this webpage on the Australian Mathematical Society's site. There you can find the rankings that the AustMS recommended to the ARC in 2009, including the recommended A ranking for the E-JC. This is a valuable resource for combinatorialists who need to convince bean-counters that the E-JC is a quality journal.

Catherine Greenhill

President, CMSA

=Future workshop and conference announcements=

International Workshop on Hadamard Matrices and their Applications
In honour of the 60th birthday of Professor Kathy Horadam, the International Workshop on Hadamard Matrices and their Applications will be held at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) in Melbourne, Australia, on November 28-30, 2011.

It is almost 5 years since the publication of Hadamard Matrices and their Applications by Princeton University Press. In honour of the book and its author, and to celebrate the resurgence of interest in Hadamard matrices, we encourage students and researchers in design theory, combinatorics and algebra, as well as in applications of these matrices, in Australia and world-wide to join us in Melbourne for this premier event.

Plenary speakers

 * Assoc. Prof. Robert Craigen, University of Manitoba, Canada
 * Dr. John Dillon, NSA
 * Dr. Dane Flannery, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

More Information

 * Workshop website


 * Organiser: Dr Asha Rao, asha at rmit.edu.au, +61 3 9925 1843

VAC29 December 2011
The aim of the annual Victorian Algebra Conference is to foster communication between algebraists in Australia in general and in Victoria in particular. We interpret algebra quite broadly, including areas such as topological algebra, algebraic logic, graph theory and coding theory. The Twenty-Ninth Annual Victorian Algebra Conference will be held at La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia, 1st - 2nd December, 2011.

For more information, please see the conference website: http://vac2011.ltumathstats.com/

Conference Organisers

 * Prof Brian Davey, B.Davey at latrobe.edu.au, (03) 9479 2599
 * Dr Marcel Jackson, m.g.jackson@latrobe.edu.au, (03) 9479 1570
 * Dr Deborah Jackson, D.Jackson at latrobe.edu.au, (03) 9479 3958

35ACCMCC December 2011
The Australasian Conference on Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing will be held at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, 5th - 9th December.

The invited speakers will be:


 * Elizabeth Billington, University of Queensland
 * Peter Cameron, Queen Mary University of London, UK
 * Nick Cavenagh, University of Waikato, New Zealand
 * Keith Edwards, University of Dundee, UK
 * Tony Evans, Wright State University, USA
 * Brendan McKay, Australian National University
 * Patric Östergård, Aalto University, Finland
 * Cheryl Praeger, University of Western Australia
 * Petr Vojtěchovský, University of Denver, USA
 * Bridget Webb, Open University, UK
 * Herb Wilf, University of Pennsylvania, USA
 * David Wood, University of Melbourne

More information can be found at the conference website: http://users.monash.edu.au/~accmcc/

SODO 2012, Queenstown, New Zealand
The conference and MAGMA workshop on "Symmetries of Discrete Objects", at the lakeside town of Queenstown, New Zealand, 13-17 February 2012.

See the website for details of the venue, accommodation, the social programme and registration, plus some advice about travel options. The programme has not yet been decided, as it depends upon who will be attending.

If you wish to participate, then please register as soon as possible, so we can have a good idea about likely numbers.

Note that payment of registration costs is not needed until early January (for early payment rates) or the start of the conference (for late payment rates). We can supply an official receipt for registration payments, and an official invitation (for visa purposes) if necessary.

Contact Marston Conder  if you have any questions.

=Recent news of CMSA members and others=

Alison Thomson has completed her PhD
Alison Thomson has successfully completed her PhD studies in June/July 2011 at the University of Melbourne supervised by Sanming Zhou. The title of her thesis was "Frobenius graphs as interconnection networks".

Congratulations Alison!

"Ask Me Maths" website
Judy-Anne Osborn is stewarding the "Ask Me Maths" project at the University of Newcastle. Its goal is to device a Maths Q&A website aimed initially at High School students (inspired by the American site "Ask Dr Math") which will provide free online tutoring in which university students and staff answer questions.

She would appreciate any free combinatorial math games that people can submit (either existing or newly written) for the website. For offers of such games or questions about this project, please email her at Judy-anne.Osborn at newcastle.edu.au.

=The Australasian Journal of Combinatorics=

The web page for the Australasian Journal of Combinatorics is at http://ajc.maths.uq.edu.au/.

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

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

The contents of all volumes, 1 to 50, are listed at the above web page. We also now have free public access to the full papers in Volumes 1 to 38 inclusive. All but the last four years are available for free.

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

=Editor= Ivan Lazar Miljenovic,

Australia.

Email: Ivan.Miljenovic at gmail.com (or Ivan.Miljenovic at anu.edu.au)