2008 Annual Meeting
Welcome!Western Kentucky University is pleased to host the 2008 Annual Meeting of the KYMAA on March 28-29, 2008. This should be an outstanding meeting and we strongly encourage you to join the fun. Perhaps you can give a talk, or just come and listen to what your fellow mathematicians are up to these days.More information is provided below, including a description of the invited talks, a call for papers, and information for students. Please note the following important dates for the KYMAA Annual Meeting:
The Invited Talks
Friday evening:The Truth of Proofs, David Bressoud, Macalester College. Abstract: Mathematicians often delude themselves into thinking that we create proofs in order to establish truth. In fact, that which is "proven" is often not true, and mathematical results are often known with certainty to be true long before a proof is found. I will use some illustrations from the history of mathematics to make this point and to show that proof is more about making connections than establishing truth. Bio: David Bressoud is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Mathematics at Macalester College and President-Elect of the MAA. He has received the MAA Distinguished Teaching Award (Allegheny Mountain Section), the MAA Beckenbach Book Award for Proofs and Confirmations, and has been a Polya Lecturer for the MAA. He has published over fifty research articles in number theory, combinatorics, and special functions. His other books include Factorization and Primality Testing, Second Year Calculus from Celestial Mechanics to Special Relativity, A Radical Approach to Real Analysis (now in 2nd edition), and, with Stan Wagon, A Course in Computational Number Theory. His latest book, A Radical Approach to Lebesgue's Theory of Integration, has just been published by the MAA. Saturday morning:The Evolution of the Cryptologic Bombe, Chris Christensen, Northern Kentucky University Abstract: Early successes by the German military in the blitzkrieg attack in Europe and the Battle of the Atlantic were in part due to the ability of the German military to quickly transmit secure tactical messages. One of the machines used to secure German messages was Enigma. Part of the Allied defeat of Germany can be attributed to the Allies' breaking of Enigma. One of the devices used to break Enigma was called the bombe. We will consider an initial version of the bombe that was constructed by the Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski during the 1930s, a second generation bombe that was developed by the British mathematician Alan Turing and improved by the algebraic geometer Gordon Welchman, and the US Navy's cryptologic bombe that was built by Joseph Desch, an engineer at National Cash Register in Dayton, Ohio. Bio: Chris Christensen is in his twenty-fifth year of teaching mathematics at Northern Kentucky University. His mathematical genealogy is a sequence of algebraic geometers. More than a decade ago, he read Robert Harris' Enigma and thought "that's interesting" and "it's fifty years later, a lot of mathematics has been developed in the meantime, this would probably be easy today." It's not. Today, he still finds cryptology interesting, and he has developed a great deal of respect for the mathematicians (and other codebreakers) at Bletchley Park and for the cryptographers and cryptanalysts who preceded them and followed them. Mathematics as a Mechanism for Cohesion in Biology, Louis J. Gross,Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Mathematics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Abstract: Biology is a tremendously diverse field covering systems operating at vastly different scales, with differing levels of interaction between these. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges in biology is that of representativeness: how representative are observations and methods we develop for one biological system applicable to other systems, at different locations, in different organisms, or at different levels of organization in the hierarchy of biology? This inherently theoretical question underpins much of the past effort in mathematical biology, driven typically by the desire to develop the general principles by which biological systems are organized and operate. Yet at the same time there are demands for answers to quite specific questions to better manage natural systems, to enhance human health, and to plan for the future impacts of human actions. Some argue that we have not been tremendously successful to date in moving from theory to practice. I will give a variety of examples of projects in mathematical ecology that lie at this interface between theory and practice, providing some indication of the utility of quantitative methods to elucidate general patterns of natural systems and how these have proven useful in application. I'll conclude this positivist view of mathematical biology with some suggestions as to how we might best develop collaborative endeavors to build a more cohesive theory in biology. Bio: Louis J. Gross is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Mathematics and Director of The Institute for Environmental Modeling at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He completed a B.S. degree in Mathematics at Drexel University and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, and has been a faculty member at UTK since 1979. He has led the effort at UT to develop an across trophic level modeling framework to assess the biotic impacts of alternative water planning for the Everglades of Florida. He has co-directed several courses and workshops in Mathematical Ecology at the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, has edited or co-edited four books, served as Chair of the Theoretical Ecology Section of the Ecological Society of America, as President of the Society for Mathematical Biology and as Chair of the National Research Council Committee on Education in Biocomplexity Research. He is the 2006 Distinguished Scientist awardee of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. Hey Students!I hope your fall term went well. Seniors who are planning to go to graduate school are busy applying to graduate programs - and working hard to finish their undergraduate studies strong! If you will still be an undergraduate in the Fall Semester of 2008, then you should consider participating in a summer REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates). Check out http://www.maa.org/students/undergrad/research.html for more information. Faculty members can help you determine which REUs you would like best, and they can help you apply. Depending on the REU, the application deadline may be any time from the end of January through late March. Don't forget the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) and the Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM). These are four day competitions that start at 8pm on Thursday, February 14 and end at 8pm on Monday, February 18. This competition is for three-student teams. Your institution may have more than one team, but a student may be on only one team and each team works on only one problem. More information is available from http://www.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/mcm/. The registration deadline is 2pm on Thursday, February 14. April is Mathematics Awareness Month. This year's theme is Mathematics and Voting. For information concerning activities and to download a poster, check out http://www.mathaware.org/. Encourage your mathematics and computer science clubs to organize activities during the month of April. You can also kick off the 2008 Mathematics Awareness Month celebration by organizing a trip to attend the Annual KYMAA Section Meeting, March 28-29, 2008 at Western Kentucky University. The KYMAA Section Meeting is a great opportunity for students to give a talk to a friendly audience. Fifteen undergraduate students presented papers at the 2007 meeting. Start thinking about a presentation, discuss it with a professor at your institution and get ready. Here are some ideas: Discuss your team's work in the MCM or ICM. If there is a mathematics or computer science topic you would like to investigate, do the work, then share what you learned at the section meeting. This activity makes your resume more attractive. Student presenters will have a choice of a free one-year subscription to the Mathematical Association of America, which includes a monthly publication of the student's choice, or a book. When you register for the meeting, register for the Friday evening banquet, too. Meals for students will again be at a discounted price. Students who have attended the banquet in the past have truly enjoyed it. Don't miss it! I will be writing a newsletter to be included with the registration packet at the section meeting, and I need your help providing highlights of your activities. Please have one of your club members send a brief summary to m.dobranski@moreheadstate.edu. Your responses are highly appreciated. If you have any questions about the information above, please feel free to contact me. Mike Dobranski at m.dobranski@moreheadstate.edu
Hotel InformationBlocks of rooms are reserved for the night of March 28, 2008 -- all prices are base prices without taxes and fees. Each location has the block of rooms under KYMAA (There will also be reference to WKU and Math) Courtyard by Marriott (20 rooms) Drury Hotel (40 rooms) Hampton Inn (40 rooms)
Directions and MapsDirections and maps can be found on this page.
Future KYMAA MeetingsOur schedule of hosts for future section meetings is:
Please contact any officer of KYMAA if you would interested in
hosting a future meeting. Meeting Program & AbstractsThe information at the following links will be complete on March 10:The meeting program can be found at: Program for the 2008 Annual Meeting of KYMAA (html) The meeting program can also be found at: Program for the 2008 Annual Meeting of KYMAA (doc) The meeting program can also be found at: Program for the 2008 Annual Meeting of KYMAA (pdf) The abstracts for talks can be found at: Abstracts for the 2008 Annual Meeting of KYMAA (doc) The abstracts for talks can also be found at: Abstracts for the 2008 Annual Meeting of KYMAA (pdf) KYMAA Section NExTThe KYMAA is soliciting applications for the third installment of the wildly successful KYNExT program! Modeled after the National Project NExT, the mission of the Kentucky Section NExT (New Experiences in Teaching), is to support soon-to-be, newly-minted, and recent-but-untenured Ph.D.s in the mathematical sciences (including all areas of mathematics, statistics, operations research, and mathematics education) in their role as mathematics faculty. In particular, the goal of KYNExT is to foster and enhance all aspects of an academic career: high-quality teaching and learning of mathematics, productive research and scholarship, and meaningful professional activities. The KYNExT program will immediately precede the annual KYMAA spring meeting, beginning the evening before and ending just as the KYMAA meeting commences. This year's program includes inspiring presentations by award winning faculty from Kentucky and beyond, as well as panel discussions on discovering one's teaching style and on earning tenure. To these ends, KYNExT seeks applications from any and all untenured mathematics faculty and mathematics graduate students who anticipate graduating with a Ph.D. by Fall 2009. KYNExT is intended to be a two-year program, so selection will favor applicants who are able to demonstrate a two-year commitment. Please submit applications to Anne Collins at collins@centre.edu by February 22nd. We anticipate that review of applications will be completed no later than February 29th. A complete application will include:
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