PDMW is a semi-regular regional
meeting (held approximately annually, and usually in late Summer or
early Fall) focussing on pure and applied Combinatorics and Discrete
Mathematics, including enumeration, coding theory, graph theory,
configurations, design theory, computational discrete mathematics, and
applications in physics, engineering and statistics. While
the meeting is geared to participants from the West Central North
American region it attracts participants from a wider area.
The meeting itself consists of a series of one-hour talks by 10-12
speakers. This year students are encouraged to participate in a
casual poster session, and travel
support of some form may be available for students and PostDocs who
participate (check back later).
Due to the unusual timing for PDMW V this year, it comes immediately
prior to WCLAM, the
Western
Canada Linear Algebra Meeting -- a similar style of meeting
in Linear Algebra, with fewer invited speakers and some contributed
talks -- May 30, 31 in the same venue. Participants with
interests in both fields may be interested in staying around and
attending both.
(An unrelated meeting in Brandon that will include a Student Workshop
on Algebra and Combinatorics will take place a few weeks earlier in
nearby
Brandon. Interested participants of PDMW, and particularly
students with an interest in this field, may want to check out the
Second
Annual Conference of the Prairie Network for
Research in Mathematical Science
May 7, 8, 9)
Those making planning to pack multiple meetings into a single trip may
want to take notice of the
Second Joint
Canada-France Congress taking place at the Universite du Quebec a
Montreal June 1-5, a meeting subsuming the Annual CMS Summer meeting,
the annual meetings of CAIMS and also of MITACS. Of interest to
PDMW attendees, this meeting will have a
Session
on Algebraic combinatorics and a
MITACS
student poster session, with funds available to defray the cost of
posters (Note the April 15 Deadline!). Their web page also
references the congress held just prior in Ottawa by the
Société Française de Statistique (SFdS) and the
Statistical Society of Canada (SSC).
Organizing Committee:
- Shaun Fallat,
University of Regina
- Steve Kirkland, Univeristy of Regina
- Ortrud Oelermann, University of Winnipeg
- Brian Alspach, University of Regina
- Robert Craigen,
University of Manitoba (Local contact/host)
- John Van Rees, University of Manitoba (Local
organizer/host)
INVITED TALKS
Speaker
|
Topic
(abstracts in hard copy onsite)
|
Day/Time (tentative)
|
Location
|
Ralph Stanton
|
Sarvate-Beam Triple Systems |
Wed 10:00 - 10:50
|
E2 - 350
|
Peter Dukes
|
Permutation Codes of Distance
Four |
Wed 11:00 - 11:50
|
E2 - 350 |
| Wendy Myrvold |
Embedding Graphs on
Surfaces-Algorithmic Aspects and Obstructions |
Wed 2:00 - 2:50
|
E2 - 350 |
| Bill Sands |
Some work with students:
problems about numbers or posets. |
Wed 3:00 - 3:50
|
E2 - 350 |
| Richard Nowakowski |
Topic - Games of No Chance |
Wed 4:00 - 4:50
|
E2 - 350 |
| Hugh Williams |
Primality Proving, Polynomials
and Seiving |
Thu 9:00 - 9:50
|
E2 - 350 |
Donald Kreher
|
Regular Partial Triple Systems |
Thu 10:00 - 10:50
|
E2 - 350 |
| Ortrud Oellermann |
Graph Classes Characterized by
Local Convexities |
Thu 11:00 - 11:50
|
E2 - 350 |
| Wayne Broughton |
Quasi-3 Designs and Regular
Hadamard Matrices |
Thu 2:00 - 2:50
|
E2 - 350 |
Bert Hartnell
|
Well-Covered Graphs |
Thu 3:00 - 3:50
|
E2 - 350 |
Bill Kocay
|
Graph Reconstruction by
Permutations |
Thu 4:00 - 4:50
|
E2 - 350 |
A brief history of PDMW
In prehistory there were meetings loosely referred to as "combinatorial
potlatches", involving universities in British Columbia and
Washington. PDMW was proposed by Brian Alspach as a
generalization of the concept.
PDMW I: University of Regina, 2002
PDMW II:
University of Lethbridge, 2003
PDMW III:
University of Winnipeg, Aug. 25, 26 2005
PDMW IV:
Lethbridge, Aug. 1, 2 2006 (Held in honour of Jim Liu after his tragic
death)
In previous years PDMW has been brought to you by the generous support
of PIMS and the
host university. Support for this meeting is currently
pending.
PDMW encourages
student attendance. Graduate students and PostDocs, in
particular, are encouraged to present posters. The style
of the session is passive: Posters will remain up in the
refreshment area throughout the meetings for casual browsing, with
presenters available at their poster to field questions at
designated times between regular sessions, but there will be no
specific block of time allotted for "poster
presentations". This is a particularly good venue for grad
students, undergraduate students
reporting on summer research projects, and attendees not on the speaker
list wishing to disseminate some aspect of their current work, which
they judge suitable for such a venue.
Partial travel support is being sought to support students or PostDocs
who present posters (if such materializes it will be announced
here). Students and their
supervisors are also encouraged to take advantage of travel funds
available through their home departments and/or faculties, which often
depends upon the students giving some sort of presentation (such as a
poster).