Abel MathRoom

Fw:IMU-Net 31: September 2008

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:07:11 GMT

IMU-Net 31: September 2008

A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

CONTENTS

1. Editorial
2. IMU on the Web
3. Emmy Noether lecturer
4. Sad news about Ibni Oumar Mahamad Saleh
5. Subscribing to IMU-Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. EDITORIAL

A year ago two lecturers were sought to participate in the beautiful
project of the French organization CIMPA (Centre International de
Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées) to help rebuild the mathematics
infrastructure in Cambodia. The context of this work was described to
potential volunteers as follows:

"We seek lecturers for intensive 3-4 week courses at universities in the
developing world, at the advanced undergraduate level.  The lecturer
would be assisted by a local mathematics professor who prepares the
students beforehand, assists when necessary during the course, and takes
care of any necessary follow-up. These courses should have a student
audience of 20 or more, be controlled, with examinations, and be part of
a regular degree program at the university at which they are offered.

Past experience in the developing world is desirable but not necessary.
However what is required is tolerance for working in circumstances of
modest resources, unexplained inefficiencies, and limited physical
comforts.

Funds for all expenses, including travel, will be provided; however,
we request that the mathematician's home institution offer leave with
pay during his/her 3-4 week absence.  We believe that a strong case
can be made that cooperation with this program will not only bring
personal and professional benefit to the lecturer, but will also
redound to the credit of the lecturer's institution."

40 volunteers immediately responded!  Such an outpouring of interest
in contributing to the formation of students of mathematics in the
developing world could not be ignored!  The Developing Countries
Strategy Group of the International Mathematical Union, in cooperation
with CIMPA and the U.S. National Committee for Mathematics, have built
on that nucleus of 40 volunteers to launch the "Volunteer Lecturer
Program" (VLP), whose goal is to provide mathematician volunteers to
give intensive month-long courses at universities in the developing
world. The program is quite modest in size due to the
limited financial resources of the sponsoring organizations.  But
mathematicians interested in participating in the VLP,  universities in the
developing world interested in hosting lecturers to teach in the
context described above, and, as importantly, donors desiring to
provide the E.3000 necessary to support a VLP lecturer, should contact:
Sharon Berry Laurenti
Administrative Secretary
Developing Countries Strategy Group of the International Mathematical Union
e-mail: cde@ictp.it

Herbert Clemens
Chair of the DCSG

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. IMU ON THE WEB: Preserving our History

The use of TeX over the last decade and a half to write papers,
lecture notes and even ephemera has moved from the unusual to the
commonplace. Indeed, some of my younger colleagues can't remember using
anything else but TeX to write mathematics.  For those of us somewhat
longer in the tooth, we remember using other software, which was preceded
by the little golf balls that allowed typing of mathematical symbols,
which in turn was preceded by writing in the mathematics by hand (with
the hope that the typesetting would introduce only a few errors).

One of the happier results of this migration to TeX has been the ability
to put our papers on personal web pages so that anyone with a standard
computer configuration can acquire them. This usually means making a pdf
or a PostScript file available for download. The little postcards that
were mailed to request reprints has now joined those little golf balls
as historical curiosities.

Happily, the papers that were written in the predigital era are not
beyond redemption. They, too, can and perhaps should be made available
for download. In the past several years there have been significant
advances in the ability to scan paper documents. With the right equipment,
scanning several hundred or even a thousand pages is not difficult.

The are two approaches, both of which work well. The first is to use
a standalone scanner. Robust models with document sheet feeders are
available for under $1000. These include the software for doing the
scanning. There are lots of options when using such software, so here
are some suggestions.

When scanning the pages, the software can produce colour, grayscale or
black and white files. Unless there is a compelling reason, black and
white is usually the best choice for older documents. There is also a
choice of resolution: 200, 300, 600 or 1200dpi (dots per inch). Usually
the 600dpi is the best choice.

There are also several different types of files that can be produced
by the scanning software. All of them have some compression: these come
in two types: lossless (no data lost during the compression) and lossy
(some data irretrievable). A lossless compression is the best. There
are also different file formats, the most common being pdf and TIFF.
The pdf files are the ones to put on your web page; they can be read
on any modern computer with readily available software. Note that there
are two different types of pdf files: ones that are image only and those
that are also text searchable. The latter type is preferable, and most
scanners can produce them.

There is also a compelling reason to keep lossless TIFF files. Newer and
smarter software will emerge that will do things we can't do today. If
you keep the TIFF files, there will be no need to rescan since the
information is already in an industry-standard format.

A second approach is to use a photocopier. Many of them come with scanning
software built in: you feed in the pages and the image files are emailed
back to you. Usually there are fewer options than with a scanner. The
default resolution is usually 200dpi, so be sure to set it to 600dpi.
The provisos given above for scanners are also valid for photocopiers.

I recently carried out a two-month project that involved scanning of
some 53000 pages. It really wasn't difficult. In fact the hardest part
of preserving your mathematical history may be taking the staples out
of those old pages.

Our mathematical history is important and worth preserving. A bit of
effort by all of us can produce a significant body of mathematical
literature.  Let's get our history out of the file cabinet and onto
the web!

Michael Doob
Member of CEIC

------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. EMMY NOETHER LECTURER: for ICM 2010 in Hyderabad

Emmy Noether was one of the great mathematicians of her time, someone
who worked and struggled for what she loved and believed in. Her life
and work remain a tremendous inspiration. The 2010 Emmy Noether
Lecture will be presented as a plenary lecture at the International
Congress of Mathematicians in August 2010 in Hyderabad, to honour
women who have made fundamental and sustained contributions to the
mathematical sciences.

There have been Emmy Noether Lectures at four previous ICMs, and this
will be the second time that the selection of the Emmy Noether
Lecturer has been made formally by the IMU. The IMU Executive
Committee has established a committee of five, chaired by Cheryl
Praeger (Australia), to select the 2010 Emmy Noether Lecturer. The
committee will conduct their work over the next 6-9 months, and
suggestions for consideration by the committee may be sent to Cheryl
Praeger at praeger@maths.uwa.edu.au

------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Sad news about Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh

Following the report of an independent enquiry on the events that took
place in the Republic of Chad between January 28 and February 8, 2008,
the French professional societies (SFdS, SMAI, and SMF) have notified
the IMU that almost certainly Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh died in detention
a few days after having been kidnapped from his home on February 3rd,
2008 by the armed forces of Chad. Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh, Professor of
Mathematics at the University of N'Djamena was instrumental in the
establishment of higher-education exchanges between France and Chad. He
was one of the leading figures in the democratic opposition to the
government of Chad. For more information and to continue demanding the
truth on the fate of Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh, please go to:
http://smf.emath.fr/PetitionSaleh/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

5. SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive

____________________________________________________________________________
IMU-Net is the electronic newsletter of the International Mathematical Union.
More details about IMU-Net can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net/
You can find here, for instance, detailed information about subscribing to
the IMU-Net mailing list and  unsubscribing from it.

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Fw:IMU-Net 30b: August 2008

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:18:51 GMT

IMU-Net 30b: August 2008

Special issue in memory of Henri Cartan (1904-2008)

The world has lost one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth
century. Henri Cartan, a legendary figure in mathematics, died in
Paris on 13 August, at the age of 104 years.

The son of the great mathematician Elie Cartan, his contributions to
mathematics were fundamental, from several complex variables to
algebraic topology and homological algebra. A member of the Bourbaki
group, his participation in the rejuvenation of the French
mathematical school was essential, in particular through his seminar
held at the École Normale Supérieure. His roles as teacher and mentor
were also exceptional, and were felt well beyond national boundaries.

During the critical years after the second world war, Cartan's
enduring friendship with the German mathematician Heinrich Benhke, and
his own personal generosity, contributed greatly to the rebirth of
German mathematics. He was made an honorary member of the German
Mathematical Society (DMV) in 1994.

His natural preoccupation with international cooperation led to his
active involvement with the International Mathematical Union, of which
he was President from 1967 to 1970. As such he chaired the Fields
Medal Committee for the Nice International Congress of Mathematicians
in 1970.

He was actively involved in the defense of mathematicians who were
jailed or discriminated against in their countries, and was an ardent
defender of European unity.

Apart from his professional achievements, Henri Cartan will be
remembered for his personal qualities. He was generous to students,
colleagues and friends, and a vigorous defender of Human Rights.

His death is a severe loss to the mathematical community worldwide.

International Mathematical Union
22 August 2008


An interview of Henri Cartan conducted in March, 1999, and published
in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society may be found at
http://www.ams.org/notices/199907/fea-cartan.pdf

On-line obituaries may be found at
http://www.zeit.de/online/2008/34/henri-cartan-nachruf

Memorial Web sites for Henri Cartan
French Academie des Sciences:
http://www.academie-sciences.fr/membres/C/Cartan_Henri.htm
Société Mathématique de France:
http://smf.emath.fr/en/VieSociete/Rencontres/JourneeCartan/NoticeCartan.html

100th issue of the Gazette des Mathématiciens, the news publication of
Société Mathématique de France, carried some tributes to Cartan, two
of which are reproduced in September 2004 issue of the European
Mathematical Society Newsletter
http://www.emis.de/newsletter/archive_contents.html#nl_53


------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMU-Net is a Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International
Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive/

____________________________________________________________________________
IMU-Net is the electronic newsletter of the International Mathematical Union.
More details about IMU-Net can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net/
You can find here, for instance, detailed information about subscribing to
the IMU-Net mailing list and  unsubscribing from it.

Fw:IMU-Net 30: July 2008

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:32:46 GMT

IMU-Net 30: July 2008

A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

CONTENTS

1. Editorial
2. IMU on the Web
3. ICMI: the new Executive Committee
4. EMS Prizes
5. Shaw Prizes
6. 7th PACOM
7. Subscribing to IMU-Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. EDITORIAL

Dear Reader,

this is summertime, the season of big conferences. You will find below
news about ICME-11, the international congress of ICMI and about the
5th European Congress of Mathematics.
As usual, this issue contains the regular column "IMU on the Web".
I am also pleased to inform you that our colleague, the mathematician
Alf Onshuus from the University of Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia) has
been released by the FARC.
I wish you a good vacation.

Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel
Editor

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. IMU ON THE WEB: The digitization of the ICM proceedings and related
material

One of the projects the CEIC is pursuing is the digitization of all
the Proceedings of the International Congresses of Mathematicians to
make them readily accessible to the public.

The whole material consists of 62 printed volumes with a total of more
than 35000 pages. The last three ICMs (Berlin, Beijing, Madrid)
produced electronically born proceedings while everything earlier was
only printed and hence will be digitized.

The actual state of the metadata can be seen here:
http://www.math.uni-bielefeld.de/~rehmann/icm_proceedings.html

The list starts a few years before the first ICM of 1897 in Zürich
with the Chicago Congress, held in 1893 on the occasion of the World's
Columbian Exposition at Chicago, which gave birth to the ideas of
international mathematical congresses and to the International
Mathematical Union as a whole.

Felix Klein, in a talk on "The Present State of Mathematics",
described the tendency of mathematics to become more and more
specialized, and therefore evokes ideas for unifying our science and
our scientific efforts, by saying:

           "A distinction between the present and the earlier period lies
           evidently in this: that what was formerly begun by a single
           master-mind, we now must seek to accomplish by united efforts and
           cooperation. A movement in this direction was started in France
           some time since by the powerful influence of Poincar'e.  For
           similar purposes we three years ago founded in Germany a
           mathematical society, and I greet the young society in New York
           and its Bulletin as being in harmony with our aspirations. But our
           mathematicians must go further still. They must form international
           unions, and I trust that this present World's Congress at Chicago
           will be a step in that direction."

(Quoted from "Felix Klein: Present State of Mathematics", Mathematical
Papers read at the International Mathematical Congress, 1893, p. 133-135.)

After having collected the copyrights -- which we eventually got --
our production process goes by first finding a copy of the respective
proceedings volumes, and then in most cases -- horribile dictu for all
bibliophiles -- by cutting them into single pages. This is a
reasonable way to make use of an automatic page feeder.

The University of Michigan Library gave permission for the use of
their images for the years 1897 through 1924.

Scanning is done with 600 dpi, since we found out that this is
necessary for good quality. Math requires the readability of second
order indices, which are typically of 5 point size.

Of course, the next step then is to run the scanned images through an
optical character recognition process in order to make the volumes
searchable.

In the final setup, the single articles of the respective proceedings
will occur with their titles on dedicated web-pages as it is custom by
now in E-journal postings.

Display formats will be DJVU and PDF, but we will also make the
scanned images publicly available, and we will encourage sites to
mirror the collection, as this will contribute to its longevity: The
more copies exist, the more likely is its survival in the long run.

For all who want to help: In addition to the ICM proceedings, we would
like to digitize related material like Programmes, Abstracts, Short
Communications etc.

Here we do not have all the items -- we mostly do not even know what
was published at all. Some of this material is already listed in the
metadata web page mentioned above. In case you are aware of or
possibly even have and want to donate material which isn't listed,
please contact one of us:

Keith Dennis (dennis@rkd.math.cornell.edu)
Ulf Rehmann  (rehmann@math.uni-bielefeld.de)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. NEW ICMI EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

A new Executive Committee of the ICMI-International Commission on Mathematical
Instruction, was elected at the ICMI General Assembly held July 6 in
Monterrey, México.
ICMI is an official commission of IMU and till now the election was
held at the General Assemblies of IMU. It was the first time that the
ICMI General Assembly elected the Executive Committee of ICMI; this
was decided by the IMU General Assembly held in Santiago de
Compostela, August 12-13, 2006.
The members of the 2010-2012 ICMI EC, with the various positions held, are:

PRESIDENT:
William Barton (New Zealand)
SECRETARY-GENERAL:
Jaime Carvalho e Silva (Portugal)
VICE-PRESIDENTS:
Mina Teicher (Israel)
Angel Ruiz (Costa Rica)
MEMBERS AT LARGE:
Mariolina Bartolini Bussi (Italy)
Sung Je Cho (Korea)
Roger Howe (USA)
Renuka Vithal (South Africa)
Zhang Yingbo (China)

The term of this next EC will start on January 1, 2010.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. EUROPEAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY (EMS) PRIZES

THe EMS Prizes are awarded by the European Mathematical Society in
recognition of distinguished contributions in mathematics by young
researchers not older than 35 years. THe prizes are presented every
four years at the European Mathematical Congress.
The 2008 winners are:
Artur Avila (Brazil, France), Alexei Borodin (Russia, USA), Ben Green
(UK), Olga Holtz (Russia, USA), Bo'az Klartag (Israel, USA), Alexander
Kuznetsov (Russia), Assaf Naor (Israel, USA), Laure Saint-Raymond
(France), Agata Smoktunowicz (Poland) and Cedric Villani (France).

The Felix KLein Prize, established by the EMS and the Institute for
Industrial Mathematics, is awarded to a young scientist (or a small
group of young scientists), not older than 38 years, for an
outstanding solution of a difficult industrial problem.
The second Felix KLein Prize winner is Josselin Garnier (France)

For more information:
http://smf.emath.fr/PrixDistinctions/PrizewinnersbookEMS2008.pdf

------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. SHAW PRIZES

The Shaw Laureates 2008 in Mathematical Sciences are:

Professor Ludwig Faddeev, Director of Euler International Mathematical
Institute (Steklov Institute of Mathematics, St. Petersburg, Russia) and

Professor Vladimir Arnold, Chief Scientist of Steklov Mathematical
Institute (Moscow, Russia)

for their widespread and influential contributions to Mathematical Physics.

See
http://www.shawprize.org

------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. 7th PACOM

The president of the African Mathematical Union (AMU) has decided to
cancel the 7th PACOM that was scheduled to be held in Cairo (Egypt) in
August 2008.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

7. SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive



____________________________________________________________________________
IMU-Net is the electronic newsletter of the International Mathematical Union.
More details about IMU-Net can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net/
You can find here, for instance, detailed information about subscribing to
the IMU-Net mailing list and  unsubscribing from it.

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Fw:IMU-Net 29b: June 2008

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:50:27 GMT

IMU-Net 29b: June 2008

Special issue on "Citation Statistics", a report analyzing
impact factors and similar statistics based on citations

Dear colleagues,

This is the first special issue of IMU-Net.

Today the IMU has released an important document, called
"Citation Statistics", which we want to bring to your attention.

IMU-Net 24 (July 2007) announced the creation of a committee on
"Quantitative assessment of research" that was asked to investigate
various aspects of impact factors and similar statistics based on
citations. The committee was appointed jointly by the Executive
Committees of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), the
International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM),
and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). It consisted of:

- John Ewing (Providence, USA), chair, appointed by IMU
- Robert Adler (Haifa, Israel), appointed by IMS
- Peter Taylor (Melbourne, Australia), appointed by ICIAM.

The terms of reference given to the committee can be found at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/2007/Charge-ComOnQuantAssessmRes070521.pdf

The committee has addressed this charge by reviewing and discussing
current practices along with an extensive literature on the use of
citations to evaluate research. Its report, written from the perspective
of mathematical scientists, was submitted to the Executive Committees
of IMU, ICIAM, and IMS, and all three endorsed the report. The three
organizations are making the report "Citation Statistics" public today.

The report can be found at the following URL:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Report/CitationStatistics

A press release that was mailed out today to journalists is at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/PressRelease/2008-06-11/CitationStatistics

This effort was triggered by numerous requests from IMU member countries,
mathematical societies, important mathematical institutions, and
individuals who reported the increasing use (and misuse) of impact
factors and similarly of other citation-based indicators to measure the
quality of research of individuals, departments, or whole institutions.

IMU suggests that the readers of IMU-Net not only read the report
but also distribute it to administrators and decision-makers who are
involved in the assessment of research quality, in order to give them
a mathematical science perspective. IMU, ICIAM and IMS have agreed that,
in order to assure as wide distribution as possible, journals, newsletters
and similar publications that are interested in publishing this report
will have the non-exclusive right to publish it in one of their issues.
Please contact the newsletters/journals you are connected with and
suggest publication of the report "Citation Statistics".

All 3 organizations, representing the world community of pure,
applied, and industrial mathematics and statistics, hope that the
careful analysis and recommendations in this report will be
considered by decision-makers who are making use of citation
data in research assessment.

Best regards

L. Lovasz
IMU President

------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMU-Net is a Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive/

____________________________________________________________________________
IMU-Net is the electronic newsletter of the International Mathematical Union.
More details about IMU-Net can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net/
You can find here, for instance, detailed information about subscribing to
the IMU-Net mailing list and unsubscribing from it.

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Fw:IMU-Net 29: May 2008

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:03:00 GMT

IMU-Net 29: May 2008

A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

CONTENTS

1. Editorial
2. IMU Prizes: Chairs and Nomination
3. International Congresses of Mathematicians: Database of ICM
speakers-Missing names
4. IMU on the Web
5. ICMI Awards
6. Abel Prize 2008
7. Towards Digital Mathematics Library (DML 2008)
8. Wolf Prize
9. Subscribing to IMU-Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. EDITORIAL

Dear Reader,

Last week here in Oslo, Norway, we celebrated this year's Abel Prize
Laureates, John Griggs Thompson and Jacques Tits, who were awarded the
Prize "for their profound achievements in algebra and in particular
for shaping modern group theory". The mathematical high point of the
celebrations were the four Abel lectures given by the prize winners
and by Michel Broué and Alex Lubotzky.

Another, smaller, event that took place in Oslo, in February, was a
conference on Higher education and research in developing countries.
http://www.dnva.no/c26889/artikkel/vis.html?tid=27509
Among the presenters were mathematicians from Africa, the Middle East,
Latin America, and Asia. For example, we heard from Cambodia about the
project initiated by CIMPA, supported by IMU and others, to rebuild
mathematical research and education in that country. Such projects
depend heavily on the support and participation of mathematicians from
around the world. Indeed, IMU's Developing Countries Strategy Group is
currently working on establishing a database of mathematician who are
willing to volunteer to give short courses as invited by developing
countries.

The Executive Committee met in Budapest, Hungary, in April. A couple
of the items on the agenda are mentioned in this newsletter, others
will follow in later newsletters.

Finally, I would like to repeat a plea from my editorial in IMU-Net 8,
2004: if you have a suggestion for an item or a piece of news from
your part of the world that you think might be of interest to the
international mathematical community, please let the editor of IMU-Net
know! You can also help us increase the distribution of the newsletter
by forwarding this issue to colleagues and encouraging them to
subscribe.

Ragni Piene
Member of the Executive Committee

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. IMU PRIZES: CHAIRS AND NOMINATION

The International Mathematical Union will award the following prizes during
the Opening Ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematicians
on 19 August 2010. The IMU Executive Committee has now appointed the
selection committees for these prizes. The Prize Committee Chairs are

- Fields Medals:
László Lovász

- Rolf Nevanlinna Prize:
Ravindran Kannan

- Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize:
Wolfgang Dahmen

The names of the other committee members will be made public at ICM 2010.

Information about the prizes is at
http://www.mathunion.org/general/prizes
Nomination guidelines can be found at
http://www.mathunion.org/general/prizes/nomination-guidelines/

Nominations should ideally be sent by 15 December 2008 to the Prize
Committee Chairs.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. DATABASE OF ICM SPEAKERS - MISSING NAMES

A database of ICM plenary and invited speakers since 1950 can be found
on the IMU web site.
http://www.mathunion.org/o/ICM/Speakers/Search.php

This list, which now consists of 2084 entries, has been a work in
progress and has been compiled from the proceedings volumes of the ICMs.
It is searchable by name, section, and year of the congress. However,
this database does not include those invitees who, for whatever reason,
did not participate in ICM and consequently were not included in the
table of contents of ICM proceedings. It has been pointed out to the IMU
Executive Committee (EC) that a number of mathematicians were invited
speakers but were prevented by their local governments from attending
ICM and giving their talks. Most of these mathematicians were from the
former Soviet Union.

The IMU has consistently supported the freedom of circulation of
scientists around the world and has continued to endorse the principle
of universality expressed by the International Council for Science. In
particular, the 15th IMU General Assembly (Santiago de Compostela, 2006)
reaffirmed this position and passed a resolution (Resolution 10) in
this regard.
http://www.mathunion.org/Organization/GA/GA-Santiago/15thGAReportfinal070520Santiago.pdf

In its meeting in Budapest in April 2008, the EC approved a proposal by
A. Vershik, Russia, to include on its web site a list of mathematicians
who were invited to speak at one of the previous ICMs and who, for
political reasons, were unable to participate in the congress. (This
list will not include those invitees who either declined the invitation
or were unable to attend for personal reasons.) The names of these
mathematicians will not be added to the already existing database
mentioned above, but will rather be posted as a separate list. It is not
an easy task to compile such a list from IMU records spanning several
ICMs. Therefore this will be a work in progress, and it is hoped that
inaccuracies and omissions are reported to IMU and can be corrected
accordingly. If you can help with this, please send your information to
sbaouendi at ucsd.edu or ragnip at math.uio.no.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. IMU ON THE WEB: WHAT IS THE PRICE OF A JOURNAL?

For that matter, what is the price of a car or a novel or a loaf of bread?
All these things are frequently discounted, but we don't say they have no
real price. Yet on several occasions recently, I've heard people say that we
can't tell the price of journals because they are often discounted.

When the editorial board of the journal Topology resigned and began a
competing journal, Elsevier wrote: "Because the majority of our subscribers
purchase this journal in a larger set of journals, most are paying a
fraction of the institutional subscription price." I've heard similar
arguments from other publishers, who like to compute the "price" of a
journal by dividing the total revenue by the number of subscribers. But
that's not the price! It's the average revenue per subscriber.

The (list) price of a journal is set by the publisher, and it's plainly
visible to anyone who examines annual price lists. Just as for cars or
novels or bread, journals may be sold at a discount. But it's important to
remember that publishers discount journals for business reasons, not
because, in a sudden fit of remorse, they want to lower the price. Journals
are sometimes discounted to agents, who consolidate them to help libraries
purchase from multiple publishers. They are discounted to institutional
members of scholarly societies as a member benefit, in return for dues. And
journals are discounted to subscribers who buy bundles of journals, often
making a commitment to buy for several years. In each case, the publisher is
discounting journals in order to gain some advantage -- it's a business
arrangement.

There is nothing wrong with discounting journals or business arrangements in
general. But it doesn't change the price. Indeed, the list price is the
starting point for all such business arrangements, defining the amount of
money "given back" to the customer: I'll return a portion of the price in
return for some action on your part - consolidating, being a member, or
purchasing a bundle. Confusing the discounted price with the actual price
ignores one half of the bargain.

We should pay attention to the list price of a journal because some
subscribers (quite often, most) pay the list price. But there is another
reason not to let publishers substitute the "average revenue per subscriber"
for the price: the average revenue is a quotient, and publishers control
both the numerator and the denominator. We must rely on the publisher to
tell us the numerator, that is, the total revenue for a journal. Calculating
total revenue sounds straightforward until one realizes that when selling
bundles, large publishers apportion revenue among many journals - a
mysterious process that isn't easily discovered. For many publishers, the
total revenue assigned to a particular journal is a very fuzzy number
indeed. The denominator is even more problematic. How many subscribers does
a journal have? If a publisher adds many journals to bundles at no charge,
the number of "subscribers" will quickly rise. But adding unwanted (and
frequently unused) journals to bundles doesn't REALLY change the number of
subscribers to each journal. Allowing publishers to use these arrangements
to calculate either the average price per journal (for an institution) or
the average revenue per subscriber (for the publisher) is like allowing
politicians to count all those people who MIGHT have voted for them (but
didn't vote) in an election.

Scholars face a crisis today caused by high journal prices. If they are
going to make headway in addressing that crisis, they have to get smarter
about journals and more sophisticated about business practices. They can't
allow publishers to redefine the problem by redefining the price. That's
neither smart nor sophisticated.

John Ewing

------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. ICMI AWARDS

The 2007 ICMI Felix Klein Medal is awarded to Professor Jeremy
Kilpatrick (USA).
The 2007 ICMI Hans Freudenthal Medal is awarded to Professor Anna
Sfard (Israel).
The official presentation of the 2007 medals will be made during the
opening ceremony at ICME-11 in Monterrey, Mexico, on Monday, 7 July
2008, jointly with the presentation of the two 2005 ICMI Medals.
http://www.mathunion.org/icmi/Awards/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. ABEL PRIZE 2008

On 20 May 2008, the King of Norway presented the Abel Prize for 2008
to John Griggs Thompson, University of Florida and Jacques Tits,
Collège de France.
The Abel Laureates gave their prize lectures at the University of Oslo
on 21 May, followed by lectures by Michel Broué and Alex Lubotzky.
See: http://www.abelprisen.no/en/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

7. WORKSHOP "TOWARDS DIGITAL MATHEMATICS LIBRARY"(DML 2008)

The workshop will take place on 7 July 2008 in Birmingham, UK.
The objectives are to formulate the strategy and goals of a global
mathematical digital library and to summarize the current successes
and failures of ongoing technologies and related projects, asking such
questions as:
# What technologies, standards, algorithms and formats should be used
and what metadata should be shared?
# What business models are suitable for publishers of mathematical
literature, authors and funders of their projects and institutions?
# Is there a model of sustainable, interoperable, and extensible
mathematical library that mathematicians can use in their everyday work?
# What is the best practice for
* retrodigitized mathematics (from images via OCR to MathML
and/or TeX);
* retro-born-digital mathematics (from existing electronic copy in
DVI, PS or PDF to MathML and/or TeX);
* born-digital mathematics (how to make needed metadata and
file formats
available as a side effect of publishing workflow [CEDRAM model])?
More on
http://www.fi.muni.cz/~sojka/dml-2008.xhtml

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

8. WOLF PRIZE

the 2008 Wolf Prize in Mathematics has been jointly awarded to:

Pierre R. Deligne (IAS, Princeton, New Jersey, USA)
for his work on mixed Hodge theory; the Weil conjectures; the
Riemann-Hilbert correspondence; and for his contributions to arithmetic.

Phillip A. Griffiths (IAS, Princeton, New Jersey, USA)
for his work on variations of Hodge structures; the theory of periods
of abelian integrals; and for his contributions to complex
differential geometry.

David B. Mumford (Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA)
for his work on algebraic surfaces; on geometric invariant theory; and
for laying the foundations of the modern algebraic theory of moduli of
curves and theta functions.

The prizes were presented by the President of the State of
Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres, at a special ceremony, at the Knesset
in Jerusalem, on 25 May 2008.
http://www.wolffund.org.il

------------------------------------------------------------------------

9. SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive/index
____________________________________________________________________________
IMU-Net is the electronic newsletter of the International Mathematical Union.
More details about IMU-Net can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net/
You can find here, for instance, detailed information about subscribing to
the IMU-Net mailing list and unsubscribing from it.

买二手房挑专业经纪人

Fw:IMU-Net 28: March 2008

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:40:39 GMT

IMU-Net 28: March 2008

A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

CONTENTS

1. Editorial
2. News from IMU
3. IMU on the Web
4. ICM 2010: Nomination of invited speakers
5. ICM 2014: Invitation of Bids
6. Abel Prize 2008
7. Petition for a mathematician who has disappeared in Chad
8. Subscribing to IMU-Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. EDITORIAL: THE YEAR OF MATHEMATICS IN GERMANY

In the year 2000, the German federal government started
a campaign to better inform the general public about
the sciences and humanities, focusing each year on
one particular area. In 2008 Germany celebrates the
"year of mathematics".

This is a joint initiative of all German mathematics
related scientific societies and teacher organizations
(coordinated by Guenter M. Ziegler, the current President
of DMV, the German Mathematical Society), together with
various other associations, industrial and governmental
partners. The main financial sponsors are the Federal
Ministry of Education and Research and the Deutsche Telekom
Foundation.

The year of mathematics has found overwhelming support
not only by research mathematicians who are concerned
about a possible decrease of interest by future students.
About one thousand newspaper and journal articles have
already appeared since January. Some newspapers have a
full page on mathematics each weak. The topics covered
range from mathematics and the modern society, mathemtics
in other sciences, recreational mathematics, education,
applications, to pure math. The presence of mathematics
topics and mathematicians on radio and TV has multiplied
by a large factor. Universities and scientific
institutions throughout the country focus on mathematics
in their annual festive events, schools invite research
mathematicians to outline the role mathematics plays
today and to explain study and job perspectives. More
than a thousand "mathematical events" are expected to
happen throughout this year.

The whole activity has several goals. The general public
needs to be informed that mathematics is inside of almost
everything employed in everyday life. Many examples
demonstrate where and how mathematics supports technology,
medical care, decision making, etc. A drive is initiated
to modernize math education in schools. Teachers may become
"Mathemacher". 500 have done so in the meantime. They will
receive supporting teaching and information material and are
offered special training courses. A particular aim here is
to make the educational initiative sustainable.

Among the various publications in progress, one will focus
on mathematics as an important production factor in industry.
The book will be launched in November and is sponsored by
acatech, the National Academy of Engineering. Several
large companies have agreed to show how they utilize
mathematics either via publications or "mathematics days"
in the companies. Needless to say that the German chancellor
Angela Merkel (who has a physics PhD) supports the year by
public appearances, see her podcast at
http://www.jahr-der-mathematik.de/coremedia/generator/wj2008/de/01__Das_20Wissenschaftsjahr/03c__Podcast.html

Various popular public figures have agreed to act (and they
do so very successfully) as "ambassadors of mathematics".
This includes "Germany's next top model" who is a (very
good looking) mathematics student and the coach of one
of the most popular German football teams who once was
a mathematics teacher.

The drive that has already been generated in the first weeks
of this year has turned out to be extremely positive for
mathematics. That is why I am reporting about this initiative
in this editorial. Those who fear a decline of interest in
mathematics, report about a bad public image of our field,
claim that journalists are not interested in mathematics, or
complain about shrinking student enrolments may consider the
experience made in Germany and think of launching similar
activities. It is, no doubt, a lot of work but may result
in very beneficial long term effects.
The year of mathematics Webpage (in German only) is at
http://www.jahr-der-mathematik.de/

Martin Groetschel, Secretary of IMU

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. NEWS FROM IMU

The IMU member countries have voted positively on Norway's
application for an upgrade of its membership status from
Group II to Group III. The upgrade became effective on
February 1, 2008.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. IMU ON THE WEB

The CEIC is turning 10 this year, and it seems appropriate to take
stock of the changes, both good and the bad, that have taken place over
this decade.

Ten years ago perhaps 10% of the mathematical literature was digitized,
while now perhaps 65% is. The growth of the infrastructure of the internet
has made physical/virtual access to this literature easy, but in practice
there are impediments caused by individual knowledge and IT arrangements,
licensing agreements, cost to the end-user, and much else.

Ten years ago searching on the web was still rudimentary. Today, while still
not perfect, a mathematician may use a combination of MathSciNet and
Zentralblatt MATH, Library tools, Google Scholar, Amazon, Wikipedia, Planet
Math among others, and this has enormously improved ability to find known
material or to discover the existence of valuable but not readily available
material.

Ten years ago, the freely available electronic publishing tools offered
hopes that academic presses and individually operated journals would
increase their presence in and share of the academic publishing market. In
fact, just the opposite has happened as market consolidation has taken place
and the remaining large academic publishers have increased their share
of mathematical publishing from under 40% to over 60%. Journal prices
remain at least as vexing an issue as a decade ago, while the
purchasing decisions have become further removed from the academic user.

Some fine projects are coming to fruition within the IMU. These include: the
soon to be complete digitization of the ICM Proceedings; excellent
Registries of electronic material
(www.ceic.math.ca/WDML/registries/index.shtml), and a Federated search
engine (http://projects.cs.dal.ca/ddrive/fwdm/) for mathematicians
(soon to add many new features). On balance, the (digital) world of
mathematics is much richer but no-less complex than a decade ago.

Jonathan Borwein, Chair CEIC

------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. ICM 2010: NOMINATION OF INVITED SPEAKERS

After the IMU Executive Committee has selected the Program
Committee (PC) for ICM 2010 and its Chair, the PC has
meanwhile chosen the core panels for the ICM Sections. The
core panels are currently selecting further panel members.
The PC is now seeking suggestions for invited plenary and
section speakers. Further information and the list of
ICM-sections can be found at
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/CircularLetters/2008-03.pdf
All speaker nominations are supposed to be directed to
the PC Chair Hendrik W. Lenstra. Please use the following
e-mail address: hwlicm@math.leidenuniv.nl

------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. ICM 2014: INVITATION OF BIDS

The Executive Committee of the International Mathematical
Union invites the Adhering Organizations (and the mathematical
societies in IMU member countries) to place bids for hosting
the International Congress of Mathematicians in the year 2014
and the IMU General Assembly prior to this Congress. To be
considered by the Site Committee, these bids must be received
by the IMU Secretary (secretary@mathunion.org) by November 30,
2008. Detailed information about items that need to be
considered for a bid are at
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/CircularLetters/2008-02.pdf

--------------------------------------------------------------------

6. ABEL PRIZE 2008

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the
Abel Prize for 2008 to John Griggs Thompson, University of Florida and
Jacques Tits, Collège de France. Thompson and Tits receives the Abel
Prize "for their profound achievements in algebra and in particular
for shaping modern group theory".

The Abel Award ceremony will take place in Oslo on the 20th of May. HM
King Harald will present the Abel Prize.

See
http://www.abelprisen.no/en/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

7. PETITION FOR A MATHEMATICIAN WHO HAS DISAPPEARED IN CHAD

IMU receives, fortunately not too often, reports about
mathematicians who have been abducted (to demand ransom) or
imprisoned (for political reasons) or have "simply disappeared". Such
letters usually include a request to IMU to help in some way. These
are dreadful incidences, terrible for the victims, their family and
friends. They are also politically very delicate matters since whether
or not "IMU pressure" positively or negatively influences such a case
strongly depends on the circumstances. For that reason IMU seeks
advice from various person or authorities who have good "local
knowledge" and sometimes IMU is advised not to call international
attention. IMU recently received a report and a request from
Marie-Francoise Roy (France) informing about the disappearance of
mathematician Ibni Oumar Mahamet Saleh, a Chadian politician and
former minister. He has been abducted from his home on February 3,
2008 and there are no news from him since then.
On behalf of SMF (Société Mathématique de France) and SMAI (Société de
mathématiques appliquées et industrielles), Marie-Francoise has set up
a Web page (http://smf.emath.fr/en/PetitionSaleh/) where there are
documents describing the person and the case and asking to sign a petition.
IMU recommends that the readers of IMU-Net consider her request.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

8. SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive/index

____________________________________________________________________________
IMU-Net is the electronic newsletter of the International Mathematical Union.
More details about IMU-Net can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net/
You can find here, for instance, detailed information about subscribing to
the IMU-Net mailing list and unsubscribing from it.

中国最强网游 --- 网易梦幻西游，166 万玩家同时在线

Fw:ILAS 2008, Cancun, Mexico

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:39:12 GMT

发件人："verde@star.izt.uam.mx"
发送日期：2008-03-26 11:31:53
收件人：undisclosed-recipients@star.izt.uam.mx
主题： ILAS 2008, Cancun, Mexico

     Dear Colleague,

   This is the second announcement for the 15-th conference of the 
 International Linear Algebra Society (ILAS), that will be held in 
 Cancun, Mexico, from  June 16 to June 20, 2008.
  The program includes invited plenary lectures, mini-symposia, and 
 contributed talks.

 Plenary speakers:
  Albrecht Boettcher, Froilan Dopico, Heike Fassbender,
  Luca Gemignani, Leslie Hogben, Erxiong Jiang, Daniel Kressner,
  James Nagy, Juan Manuel Pe~na, Peter Rosenthal, Naomi Shaked-Monderer,
  Ilya Spitkovsky, and Paul Van Dooren. 

 Mini-symposia:
  Combinatorial Matrix Theory.
  Eigenproblems: Theory and computation.
  Implementation and application issues in regularizing
    least squares and total least squares.
  Linear Algebra Education.
  Linear Algebra in Model Reduction.
  Matrix functions and matrix equations.
  Max Algebra.
  Nonnegative and eventually nonnegative matrices.

 Conference venue: Westin Resort and Spa, Cancun.

 Deadlines: 
  Abstract submission, April 14, 2008.
  Payment of discounted registration fee, April 14, 2008.
  Online registration, May 14, 2008.
  Hotel reservation, May 15, 2008.
  Submission of papers for the Conference Proceedings, October 1, 2008.

  The ILAS-08 website:  
                http://star.izt.uam.mx/ILAS08 
  contains additional information, on-line registration and abstract 
  submission forms, and a link to the hotel reservations web-page.
 
  For information about ILAS and the past conferences see the ILAS
  Information Center home-page:  http://www.ilasic.math.uregina.ca/iic/

  We look forward to meeting you in Cancun,
        The Organizing Committee

中国最强网游 --- 网易梦幻西游，166 万玩家同时在线

Fw:IMU-Net 27: January 2008

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:34:40 GMT

IMU-Net 27: January 2008

A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

CONTENTS

1. Editorial
2. News from IMU
3. IMU on the Web
4. ICM 2010 Web site
5. ICMI News, the new Newsletter from ICMI
6. ICME-11 and ICME-12
7. Subscribing to IMU-Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. EDITORIAL

Among other activities, International Congresses of Mathematicians
(ICM) are the most important activity supported and assisted by the
International Mathematical Union. Needless to say, every ICM should
reflect the best work of mathematics being carried out in the world -
this has been a significant feature and a strong tradition of ICMs. At
the same time we must ensure that the ICMs should present the best
work being carried out in all mathematical subfields and in different
regions of the world.  By doing this, the ICM is indeed recognized as
the highest academic festival of mathematicians all over the world.
But, the significance of the ICMs is not confined to this, it gives
also an important opportunity to highlight the beauty, the influence,
and the power of mathematics to the whole society, which in turn
brings big impact for the further development of mathematics. The 15th
General Assembly in Santiago de Compostela in 2006 approved new PC/OC
guidelines that describe the roles of the various parties involved in
the preparation
of the scientific program of an ICM, and the Executive Committee was
charged with the task of upgrading the Guidelines whenever
appropriate. In the current version of the guidelines, endorsed by the
IMU EC on November 21, 2007, the purpose of ICMs is described as
follows:
"International Congresses of Mathematicians are the most important IMU
activity and need correspondingly careful preparation. Every ICM
should reflect the current activity of mathematics in the world,
present the best work being carried out in all mathematical subfields
and different regions of the world, and thus, point to the future of
mathematics. The invited speakers at an ICM should be mathematicians
of the highest quality who are able to present current research to a
broad mathematical audience."
The details of the current version of the guidelines for the Program
Committee and the Organizing Committee can be found at the IMU website
http://www.mathunion.org/ICM/PC/

Zhi-Ming Ma
Vice President, IMU Executive Committee

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. NEWS FROM IMU

- Colombia is a new member of IMU, as of 1st January 2008.

- The IMU Executive Committee will have its annual meeting
on 20 and 21 April 2008 in Budapest (Hungary). Requests that
need EC decisions should be sent to Martin Groetschel, Secretary of
IMU (secretary@mathunion.org) by the end of February 2008.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. IMU ON THE WEB: DIGITAL FEEDBACK

The remarks "Digital Downside" of the previous IMU on the Web provided
an unusual volume of feedback. For example, Stevan Harnad of the
American Scientist Open Access Forum supplied comments explaining that
Open Access comes in colours, specifically green and gold, the colours
sported by Australia's representative teams. I recommend googling the
Forum and studying its discussions.

For full details amplifying this and the remarks below see
http://www.ceic.math.ca/News/IMUonWeb.shtml#CEIC24

Mention of "Journal and Conference scams" led a reader to suggest I
also issue a warning to respectable conference organisers. In brief,
there is strong anecdotal evidence (instanced in the case of ICM2006)
of persons claiming to intend to attend a conference and seeking a
formal letter of invitation; yet their purpose likely is solely to
obtain an entry visa to the host nation.

CEIC 1998-2008

The International Mathematical Union's Committee on Electronic Information
and Communication was created at the behest of the Dresden Quadrennial
Assembly of the IMU, in 1998 and now commences its tenth year. It
should be no secret that a primary purpose of the CEIC was to advise
on the matter of journal prices. Its first formally endorsed
recommendation was one we spoke of as "Personal Collected Works" and
that officially became a "Call to All Mathematicians to Make
Publications Electronically Available".

Alf van der Poorten (alf AT maths.usyd.edu.au), member of the CEIC.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. ICM 2010 WEB SITE

The ICM 2010 Website has been started. It will be constantly updated,
giving relevant information as and when it becomes available.
The web address is:
http://www.icm2010.org.in

------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. ICMI NEWS, THE NEW NEWSLETTER FROM ICMI

ICMI (International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, an
official commission of IMU), launched last December the first issueof
its bimonthly email newsletter with the name ICMI News. This
newsletter aims at improving communication between ICMI and the
worldwide community interested in mathematics education, informing
about actions and recommendations of ICMI, highlighting issues that
are under discussion, and reporting about ongoing activities. In
addition, ICMI News will report on major activities by the ICMI
Affiliated Study Groups (HPM, PME, IOWME, WFNMC and ICTMA), on major
international events related to mathematics education and on other
topics of general interest to the community of educational
researchers, curriculum designers, educational policy makers, teachers
of mathematics, mathematicians, mathematics educators, and others
interested in mathematical education around the world.

The first issue of ICMI News included, among other items, updated
information about the 11th International Congress on Mathematical
Education (ICME -11) and about ICMI Study 18 - Statistics Education in
School Mathematics: Challenges for Teaching and Teacher Education.
ICMI News reported on the first meeting of the current Executive
Committee of ICMI, included a calendar of events of interest to the
ICMI community, and featured a historical vignette about the Swiss
mathematician Henri Fehr (1870-1954), the first secretary general of
ICMI, who played a very important role in the international
cooperation in mathematics education for more than 50
years.

If you are interested in subscribing to ICMI News, there are two ways
to do it:
1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/ICMI/Mailinglist with a Web browser
and go to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to ICMI News online.

2. Send an e-mail to icmi-news-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

Jaime Carvalho e Silva, Editor of ICMI News

------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES ON MATHEMATICAL EDUCATION

- ICME-11
Important deadlines for the Eleventh International Congress on
Mathematical Education  (ICME-11), to be held in Monterrey, México, on
6-13 July 2008, are:
15 February 2008: Submission of applications to the ICME-11 Grant programme
2 March 2008: "Early bird" registration

More information on ICME-11, including a pdf of the Second
Announcement, is available on the congress website
http://icme11.org/

- ICME-12
The site for ICME-12 has been selected: It will take place in Seoul
(Korea) in 2012. The precise dates of ICME-12 will be announced later
and a Korean delegation will be present at ICME-11 to provide
information on the ICME-12

------------------------------------------------------------------------

7. SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive/index
____________________________________________________________________________
IMU-Net is the electronic newsletter of the International Mathematical Union.
More details about IMU-Net can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net/
You can find here, for instance, detailed information about subscribing to
the IMU-Net mailing list and  unsubscribing from it.

网易有道英汉电子词典获 2 0 0 7 年 “ 电脑报 ” 免费软件最佳功能奖

Fw:IMU-Net 26: November 2007

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 07:37:33 GMT

IMU-Net 26: November 2007

A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

CONTENTS

1. Editorial
2. Stable IMU infrastructure
3. IMU on the Web
4. Associate members of IMU
5. Schools of Mathematics in Latin America
6. CIMPA
7. Ramanujan Prize
8. Bolyai Prize
9. Subscribing to IMU-Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. EDITORIAL

The IMU aims to promote and represent Mathematics at the global scale, in a
world where mathematicians move and collaborate freely across national
borders.
In the past, substantial work and diplomatic skill were employed to try and
bring to the Union's fold countries separated by world political tensions,
and establish IMU as the truly international body it now is. In retrospect,
progress has been remarkable, particularly dealing with the most developed
countries.

But much has yet to be done for the IMU to achieve comparable presence in
the developing world. The 2006 General Assembly (GA), held at Santiago de
Compostela, recommended that the role of IMU in support of Mathematics in
the developing world be enhanced and expanded. This is a different kind of
challenge, and one that is very much on the mind of the Executive Committee.
A number of initiatives are currently under way to address it.

In line with the report presented at the GA 2006 by the Developing Countries
Strategy Group (DCSG), a Committee for Developing Countries (CDC) has been
created with the mission to devise new initiatives of the IMU in developing
and economically disadvantaged countries, to search for funding to support
the corresponding activities, and to establish institutional partnerships
with scientific organizations with common goals. The CDC is to continue and
further develop the programs that have been previously run by the Commission
for Development and Exchange and by DCSG.

The EC is actively promoting applications for membership of new countries,
from all regions of the globe. An important new instrument has been created
by the GA to ease adherence of economically disadvantaged countries: countries
that have never been members of the Union may now join as Associate Members,
without financial dues nor voting rights, for up to 8 years, after which they
are expected to become full members. A few countries have applied under this
instruments, and several others are being encouraged to do it.

The EC is also strongly committed to continued improvement of geographical
balance in the Union's activities, aiming for a more correct representation
of mathematicians working in developing countries in all the Union's
activities, both from the organizational and the academic point of view.

Marcelo Viana
Executive Committee Member

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. STABLE IMU INFRASTRUCTURE Stable IMU infrastructure

The 15th IMU General Assembly recommended that the 2007-2010
IMU Executive Committee (EC) "studies the establishment of
a stable administrative structure and funding mechanisms,
including possible fund raising, for the support of the
expanding IMU activities, and reports to the 2010 General
Assembly with concrete proposals."

The IMU EC has now started the search process for a sustainable
location with associated suitable infrastructure at which the
IMU secretarial staff could reside for a (long) period of
time, and at which the costs of running the IMU operations
is either low or covered by some long term grant/subsidy or
the like.

The IMU EC solicits initial proposals and recommendations from
interested institutions and organizations for the location of
such an office. Suggestions and declarations of interes are
requested by the end of January 2008 to the IMU Secretary
(secretary@mathunion.org). For more details see
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/CircularLetters/2007-06.pdf

-------------------------------------------------------------------

3. IMU ON THE WEB: DIGITAL DOWNSIDE

OPEN ACCESS
It's hard to argue against having more access to scholarship. On the
other hand, it can be bad if it causes us to ignore the real problems
we face, and it can be tragic if new enticing technology combines with
an irresistible fad to mislead us into acting against our own
interests. Open access has had both affects on scholarly publishing.
When planning for our digital future, we spend most of our time
talking about access (already greatly improved) and almost no time
talking about the integrity of scholarship, copyright issues, foolish
bureaucrats who use faulty statistics, or (worst of all!) avaricious
publishers who have created a crisis in scholarly publishing. Instead,
we talk about access.

BUNDLING OF JOURNALS almost always involves multi-year contracts that
don't allow cancellations or changes. The extra titles are often only
of marginal value to scholars. Decisions about what is purchased are
made at a high level, far removed from scholars themselves, and most
importantly far removed from the individual disciplines. In the end,
big deals make it more difficult for scholars to make sensible
decisions about journals based on price and need. Of course, big deals
give the big publishers a substantial advantage over little publishers
...

WHY WE SHOULD WORRY ABOUT AUTHOR-PAY.  In the subscription model,
users and librarians make decisions; in the author-pay model, authors
and publishers make them. To succeed in the subscription model, a
journal must secure enough subscriptions by convincing users and
librarians that it has intellectual value. To succeed in the
author-pay model, a journal must convince enough authors to submit
papers and then it must accept enough of them to make money. Price
will vie with prestige. The most prestigious journals will charge more
and will attract authors who can pay the cost (grants will help). The
less prestigious journals will discount their price in order to
attract more authors and will increase their acceptance rate. Some
institutions may demand that scholars use less expensive journals;
others will demand that their faculty publish only in expensive ones.
The result will be a distorted
and ugly market, driven by some of the same forces that drive vanity
publishing. This is what happens when a market is driven by producers
instead of consumers.

JOURNAL AND CONFERENCE SCAMS
If you receive an invitation to be involved in a journal or conference
whose organiser's reputability you do not already know, and agree to
let your name be used in what might be a purely money making scheme or
fail to check out the integrity of what is proposed before sending any
money then your bad and misleading example may make you a fraudster ...

... find relevant URLs and more on these matters at
http://www.ceic.math.ca/News/IMUonWeb.shtml#CEIC23

Alf van der Poorten (alfATmaths.usyd.edu.au), member of the CEIC

------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. ASSOCIATE MEMBERS OF IMU

At its 15th General Assembly in August 2006 at Santiago de Compostela,
Spain the IMU introduced Associate Members as new type of IMU
membership. In contrast to ordinary membership an Associate Member
does not need independent scientific activity. It is assumed that an
Associate Member is determined to develop its mathematical landscape
and has the will to become an IMU Member after four to eight years of
associate membership.

Ecuador and Kyrgyzstan have just become associate members of IMU.
http://www.mathunion.org/Members/Associate.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. SCHOOLS OF MATHEMATICS IN LATIN AMERICA

UMALCA, the Mathematical Union for Latin America and the Caribbean
organizes two cycles of schools, as part of its efforts for promoting
the development and dissemination of Mathematics across the entire
region.

The ELAMs (Escuelas Latino Americanas de Matematicas) are
doctoral/research level meetings with a long and very fruitful
tradition. They usually focus on one or two grand topics, and include
both mini-courses and seminar type talks.

The ELAMs are attended by students from most latin american countries,
as well as researchers from the region and abroad. The lastest
editions took place in Lima, Peru (1999), Cartagena, Colombia (2002),
and Montevideo, Uruguay (2005). Preparations for the ELAM 2008 are
currently under way.

The EMALCAs (Escuelas de Matematicas de America Latina y Caribe) are
targeted at students at the end of their undergraduate studies, aiming
to attract the most talented to join graduate studies and a research
career. They have particularly strong impact in the least developed
countries in the region.

EMALCAs are organized in Mexico and Venezuela, in alternate years, as
well as in many other countries in Central and South America, attaining a
currently steady flux of 3 schools every year. So far, EMALCAs have
been held in Bolivia (2), Cuba, Paraguay (2), Costa Rica, Nicaragua,
Colombia, and
Peru. As this iniative becomes better known, an increasing percentage
of students come from neighboring countries (support is provided for
land transportation and local expenses of the students).

In all cases, UMALCA provides academic and partial financial support,
while the organizational burden lies on the local committee, that also
provides a good part of the funding. The EMALCAs are generously
supported by
CIMPA-Centre International de Mathématiques Pures et Apliquées through
an agreement with UMALCA. Other international oganizations, including
ICTP, IMU-CDE, PROSUL (Brazil), and UNESCO have also been contributing
to the Union's initiatives.

UMALCA is currently presided by J. A. de la Peña (Mexico) and its
Secretary General is R. Labarca (Chile). R. Markarian (Uruguay)
coordinates the EMALCAs committee. More information on the Union and
its activities can be found at http://umalca.usach.cl.

Marcelo Viana
Scientific Coordinator - UMALCA

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. CIMPA (International Centre for Pure and Applied Mathematics)

Appointment of the post of Director of CIMPA: Call for candidates
http://www.cimpa-icpam.org/Anglais/AppointmentDir.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------

7. RAMANUJAN PRIZE

The Ramanujan Prize was established at International Centre for
Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, to honour young
mathematicians who have conducted outstanding research in developing
countries.
The Ramanujan Prize is supported by the Norwegian Academy of Science and
Letters through the Abel Fund, with the cooperation of the International
Mathematical Union.

Jorge Lauret (38) of the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina
is the winner of the 2007 Srinivasa Ramanujan Prize.
More information: http://www.abelprisen.no/en/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8. BOLYAI PRIZE

On 30 September 2007, László Lovász, current president of the International
Mathematical Union, received the Bolyai Prize which is
given by a private foundation, founded by five Hungarian enterpreneurs
who wanted to honor scientific achivements of Hungarian scholars,
scientists, and - through the example of the awardees - to encourage
young people to pursue a career in research.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

9. SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive/index
____________________________________________________________________________
IMU-Net is the electronic newsletter of the International Mathematical Union.
More details about IMU-Net can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net/
You can find here, for instance, detailed information about subscribing to
the IMU-Net mailing list and  unsubscribing from it.

Fw:IMU-Net 24: July 2007

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 05:14:20 GMT

IMU-Net 24: July 2007

A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

CONTENTS

1. Editorial
2. Committee on "Quantitative Assessment of Research"
3. IMU on the Web
4. News from ICMI
5. Shaw prize
6. Subscribing to IMU-Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. EDITORIAL

Dear Reader,

The International Congress of Mathematicians will be held in India in
2010, about a century after Srinivasa Ramanujan, a young Indian with
little formal  mathematical training, sent his famous letters to G. H.
Hardy in England.  What a splendid opportunity to celebrate the
universality of mathematics!  ICM 2010 will be the third time the
Congress has been held in Asia, and the second time in a developing
country.  The IMU has been striving to increase the participation of
mathematical communities and mathematicians from around the world.
Currently 68 countries are members of the IMU (out of about 190 member
states of the United Nations). There are many countries, not yet IMU
members, with substantial mathematical activities, whose participation
in the IMU would be mutually beneficial.  Others have written in
previous issues
of this Newsletter about IMU programs to strengthen mathematics and
mathematics education
in the developing world.

In order to encourage more developing countries to become IMU members,
the IMU General Assembly, meeting in Santiago de Compostela in August
2006, voted to establish a new category of membership, that of
Associate Member
(http://www.mathunion.org/Organization/Statutes2006.pdf) .  An
organization of mathematicians in a developing country that has not
been an IMU member may apply for Associate Membership for a period of
up to eight years
without paying dues. An Associate Member country may participate in
many IMU activities, including sending a delegate to the General
Assembly.  More importantly, mathematicians from an Associate Member
country will have the opportunity to interact with other
mathematicians around the world and increase the visibility of their
country in the mathematical community.

The list of current IMU members can be found at
http://www.mathunion.org/Members/continents.html. I hope you, the
reader, will encourage your mathematical contacts from nonmember
countries to talk with their colleagues about joining the IMU. As
Claudio Procesi wrote in the last Newsletter, we need all the help we
can get!

It is a great privilege for me to serve on the Executive Committee of
the IMU, and I am grateful for the opportunity to write this editorial.

M. Salah Baouendi
Member, IMU Executive Committee

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. COMMITTEE ON QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF RESEARCH

ICIAM/IMS/IMU set up a joint Committee on "Quantitative Assessment of
Research"

The International Council of Industrial and Applied Mathematics
(ICIAM), the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics (IMS), and the
International Mathematical Union (IMU) have formed a Committee of
"Quantitative Assessment of Research" that will investigate various
aspects of the quantitative assessment of research in mathematics. The
Committee will, in particular, look into impact factors and similar
ways to measure research output.

The Committee consists of:
- Robert Adler (Haifa, Israel), appointed by IMS
- Peter Taylor (Melbourne, Australia), appointed by ICIAM
- John Ewing   (Providence, USA), appointed by IMU.

The Committee is expected to create a summary of its findings to be
endorsed by the Executive Committees of ICIAM, IMS, and IMU and to be
published afterwards.

ICIAM, IMS, and IMU have formulated an aspirational charge to help set
direction rather than prescribe the final outcome of the committee's
work, see
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/2007/Charge-ComOnQuantAssessmRes070521.pdf
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/News.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. IMU ON THE WEB

Spanish Digital Mathematics Library, Vlib MATH, Beyond Escher, Impact, and ...

Our colleagues in Spain launch a beautiful website displaying their
digitisations of a wide collection of major journals.  The DML-E
project offers full-text access to all articles published from 1980
... Because the journals are commercial publications,  their editors
apply a moving wall policy: meaning that universal access is allowed
to the full-text articles except for those of very recent publication.
For articles behind the moving wall (generally those published in the
past year), only abstracts are accessible unless the user has a
subscription to that  journal.

Katharina Habermann reports development of the Virtual Library of
Mathematics of the SUB Goettingen, a portal which will offer search of
and access to link-collections, library catalogs, journals, other
databases, and customised search engines allowing Google to give
greater relevance weight to mathematical sites.

I point to a site of interest to Escher enthusiasts, note the
phenomenon of a publisher of science fiction offering its readers free
access to its back list, and qualify remarks I made at the end of May.

The drive towards more transparency and accountability in the academic
world has created a "culture of numbers" in which institutions and
individuals believe that fair decisions can be reached by algorithmic
evaluation of some statistical data; unable to measure quality (the
ultimate goal), decision-makers replace quality by numbers that they
can measure. This trend calls for comment from those who
professionally "deal" with numbers --- mathematicians and
statisticians.  A small group jointly appointed by the IMU, ICIAM, and
the IMS is preparing suitable such "comment".

... find relevant URLs and more on these matters at
http://www.ceic.math.ca/News/IMUonWeb.shtml#CEIC21

Alf van der Poorten (alfATmaths.usyd.edu.au), member of the CEIC

------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. NEWS FROM ICMI

- ICME-11 FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT
Information concerning the Eleventh International Congress on
Mathematics Education (ICME-11) in Monterrey, Mexico (6-13 July 2008).
See
http://icme11.org/node/12

- ICMI AWARDS
The International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) has
created two awards in mathematics education research :
.  the Hans Freudenthal Award, for a major programme of research on
mathematics education,
.  the Felix Klein Award, for lifelong achievement in mathematics
education research,

An ICMI Awards Committee has been appointed. The President of ICMI has
appointed professor Mogens Niss (Denmark) to chair this committee, the
other members of which are anonymous until their terms have come to an
end.

The two 2005 awards went to Professors Ubiratan D'Ambrosio (Brazil)
(the Klein Award) and Paul Cobb (USA) (the Freudenthal Award).
These awards and the 2007 awards will formally be presented to the
recipients at the opening ceremony of ICME-11, to be held in
Monterrey, México, in July 2008.

The ICMI Awards Committee is now entering a third cycle of selecting
awardees for 2007. The result of this process will be known by the end
of 2007. As was the case for the first two cycles, the ICMI Awards
Committee welcomes suggestions coming from the mathematics education
community in addition to wishing this information to be widely
distributed.

Nominations of candidates for the Felix Klein or the Hans Freudenthal
Awards have to be accompanied by summaries presenting the persons
nominated and the reasons for the nomination. Moreover, nominations
also have to include the names and coordinates of two or three persons
whom the committee may contact for further information.

All proposals must be sent by e-mail to Mogens Niss (mn@ruc.dk) no
later than by 15 November 2007.


- A MEDAL FOR H. BASS
The White House named 11 scholars among the 13 winners of the 2006
National Medals of Science, the US highest scientific honor. The prize
recognizes achievement in the physical, biological, mathematical,
social, behavioral, and engineering sciences.
President Bush has presented the medals for 2006, as well as the
medals for 2005, at a White House ceremony on 27 July.
Hyman Bass, past president of ICMI, professor of mathematics and
mathematics education at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, has
received the prize in mathematics and the computer sciences for establishinga
branch of mathematics known as "algebraic K-theory."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. SHAW PRIZE

the Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences has been awarded on 12 June 2007.
The Shaw Prize goes in equal shares to Prof. Robert Langlands
(Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) and Prof. Richard Taylor
(Harvard University) for initiating and developing a grand unifying
vision of mathematics that connects prime numbers with symmetry.

More details on the website :
www.shawprize.org.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive/index
____________________________________________________________________________
IMU-Net is the electronic newsletter of the International Mathematical Union.
More details about IMU-Net can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net/
You can find here, for instance, detailed information about subscribing to
the IMU-Net mailing list and  unsubscribing from it.

网易 Yeah.net 邮箱夏日大变脸，带你感受新一代邮箱的全新魅力 >>

Fw:IMU-Net 23: May 2007

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 05:13:36 GMT

IMU-Net 23: May 2007

A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

CONTENTS

1. Editorial
2. Program Committee for ICM 2010 appointed
3. IMU on the Web
4. Abel Prize 2007 awarded
5. Centennial of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction
6. African Mathematical Union Commission on the History of Mathematics
in Africa
7. The Electronic Newsletter of ICSU
8. Subscribing to IMU-Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. EDITORIAL

Dear Reader,
We had our first meeting  of the EC in Oslo and I can assure
that it was "a lot of work". This is a sign that IMU is serving more and
more the mathematical community. In fact for me this is the most important
point, the fact that we "the mathematicians" act and feel as being members
of a community and want to make a serious effort  towards the goal  of
making this community really  universal.

It was for me an element of pride to read that, after world war one, it
was an Italian president of IMU, Salvatore Pincherle, who insisted on
inviting to the 1928 ICM mathematicians from the countries who had
lost the war: the "enemies".
This created a clash inside IMU and we all know how
tragic it was the inability to bring back those countries into the
international community  at that time. We needed another terrible war to
start to understand how to cooperate, at least in a part of the world.
After the fall of the wall we have been able to  knit the ties  between
the western and eastern European mathematicians and we face now the much
harder task to integrate into our community mathematicians from countries
which, for political, economic or even cultural reasons  are  isolated
from us. We are small players in the world, with very limited financial
resources but with great  human resources and a universal language to
offer. Our society, IMU, can serve as a reference point  for the many
organizations who work to build up mathematics in developing countries
and, hopefully, also as a fund-raiser. Remember that we need all the
help we can get.

Claudio Procesi
Vice President, IMU Executive Committee

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. PROGRAM COMMITTEE FOR ICM 2010 APPOINTED

The IMU Executive Committee appointed the Program Committee (PC)
for the International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad,
India, 19-27 August 2010 at its meeting in Oslo in May 2007.
The names of the PC members will be kept secret until the
congress, except for the PC chair.

The PC will soon start its work by defining the structure of the
scientific program, e.g., the sections and their precise definition,
the kind of lectures, their number, their purpose, and their
arrangement, whether to have short communications and/or poster
sessions. Although programs of previous ICMs will traditionally
be used as rough guidelines, every ICM PC has come up with some
innovations and changes. The PC chair Hendrik W. Lenstra invites
suggestions for the ICM 2010 program. If you have good proposals
please contact him by e-mail:
hwlicm@math.leidenuniv.nl

------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. IMU ON THE WEB
The Web, Math Encyclopedias, Peer Review

What to say? I had promised myself to write for you about ... but I
haven't done the work and ... just now surfing a mathematical topic on
the web I was sadly reminded of the ability of the web to present
misguided material as if it were the advice of careful pundits. It is
a truism that good writing means rewriting and rewriting again;
somehow, that's not encouraged by the web. The unevenness of the
quality of pages presented as parts of web math encyclopedias startles
me; I don't think that was as true of their paper predecessors. I
cannot help but believe that traditionally published material was much
better moderated and edited; it also had the advantage, generally, of
being commissioned from honest-to-goodness authorities.

A Great Stride Forward.
Yet, I also keep on being happily surprised by the web. Specifically,
I happened to google the phrase "four squares in arithmetic
progression" and was provided with a large collection of relevant
sample pages from scanned books. I owned several of the books and was
thus readily able to check a reference ... This new opportunity to
search the full text of books is marvellous and adds significant value
to any math book collection.

... more on these and related matters at
http://www.ceic.math.ca/News/IMUonWeb.shtml#CEIC20

Alf van der Poorten (alfATmaths.usyd.edu.au), member of the CEIC

------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. ABEL PRIZE 2007 AWARDED

On 22 May 2007, the King of Norway presented the Abel Prize for 2007
to Srinivasa S.R. Varadhan, Courant Institute of Mathematical
Sciences, New York.
S.S.R. Varadhan presented his Abel lecture on 23 May, followed by
lectures by G. Papanicolaou, O. Zeitouni and T. Lyons.

See: http://www.abelprisen.no/en/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. CENTENIAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION

First Century of the International Commission on Mathematical
Instruction (1908-2008): Reflecting and Shaping the World of
Mathematics Education,
Roma (Italy), 5-8 March 2008, Accademia dei Lincei and Istituto dell
Enciclopedia Italiana.

More information :
http://www.unige.ch/math/EnsMath/Rome2008

If you are interested in participating in a working group,
please contact one of its chairs. It will also possible to attend
the symposium as a free participant, without making a presentation. In
that case, apply to :
marta.menghini@uniroma1.it
after September 2007.

Ferdinando Arzarello
Chair, International Program Committee

------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. AFRICAN MATHEMATICAL UNION COMMISSION ON THE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS
IN AFRICA

Two new books are published by the African Mathematical Union Commission
on the History of Mathematics in Africa:

1. African Doctorates in Mathematics: A Catalogue.
This volume presents a catalogue of over 2000 doctoral theses (in
historical order since 1923) by Africans in all fields of mathematics,
including applied mathematics, mathematics education and history of
mathematics.

2. Paulus Gerdes & Ahmed Djebbar: Mathematics in African History and
Cultures: An annotated Bibliography. New edition.
This volume constitutes an updated and extended version of the
bibliography published under the same name in 2004 by the African
Mathematical Union.

These books are available (both in print and as download) from
http://www.lulu.com  by  going to http://stores.lulu.com/pgerdes.
The books (print) will also become soon available from
amazon.com and other retailers / bookshops.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

7. ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER OF ICSU

The Electronic Newsletter of ICSU (International Council for Science)
"ICSU Insight" provides some background information about ICSU. IMU is
a member of ICSU.
If you are interested in receiving ICSU Insight by e-mail, register at
http://www.icsu.org/3_mediacentre/INSIGHT_1.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------

8. SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request@mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive/index

____________________________________________________________________________
IMU-Net is the electronic newsletter of the International Mathematical Union.
More details about IMU-Net can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net/
You can find here, for instance, detailed information about subscribing to
the IMU-Net mailing list and  unsubscribing from it.

网易 Yeah.net 邮箱夏日大变脸，带你感受新一代邮箱的全新魅力 >>

从有界序列中可选出收敛子列

Fri, 25 May 2007 13:17:56 GMT

可以证明，从任一序列中可以找到一单调子列。

假设欲找一递增列，则按下列程序进行：

先取一有限子列，找出最大元，作为第一项；然后向后扩大该有限集，继续找出最大元，作为第二项；这一过程继续下去。若能无限进行，则找到一递增列；若某一项以后无最大元，则去掉该项继续；若这种最大项有限个，则仍可得一递增列，否则这些最大项构成一递减列。

以每一实数为聚点的序列

Thu, 24 May 2007 14:41:35 GMT

无理数可以由有理数序列逼近获得，所以，如果每一个有理数都在序列中出现，则有理数必然为其聚点；如果序列中包含所有有理数，则由稠密性，每一个有理数均为该序列的聚点。从而，问题可以变换为给出一个序列，包含所有有理数（有理数集为可列集）。