IIMS NEWS August 2005 Page 1 of Sciences/IIMS... · IIMS NEWS August 2005 Page 3 of a 300-year-old house and turned it into a model for future restoration work in the village. (The

IIMS NEWS August 2005 Page 1

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Being the newsletter of The Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences

Assembled with care by Freda Mickisch with the vital assistance of Merrill Bowers, the contributors and readers

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Contents

From the Head of IIMS............................................................. 1 News of the people .................................................................... 2 Once more to Korea… .............................................................. 4 Experience at the conference in Cambridge............................. 5 Travels in search of 21st century thought................................. 7 Dates in history - Anyone for tea? ............................................ 8 Trees, radio waves and feathers - a combination of skills........ 9 Pavlov’s curry......................................................................... 11 Research news and views........................................................ 12 Nature or nurture.................................................................... 12 Research at IIMS..................................................................... 13 Laughter lines ......................................................................... 14 Poetry corner .......................................................................... 15 Mathematical bits.................................................................... 16 Wordles ................................................................................... 17 People puzzle .......................................................................... 18 Caption contest ....................................................................... 20 Notices..................................................................................... 22

Overseas or in New Zealand IIMS staff lead interesting lives!

From the Head of IIMS

Staff news Chair in IS I am very pleased to announce that Dr Tony Norris has accepted the position of Professor of Information Systems within IIMS. After several attempts to make an appointment to the Chair,

this comes as excellent news. Tony is presently Associate Professor of Health Informatics in the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management at the University of Auckland. He says:

"... I am delighted by my appointment and looking forward to working with colleagues to develop Information Systems within the Institute and its contribution to the University. ... I am away [on sabbatical leave] for several weeks but hope to be more in evidence in November prior to a formal start in December."


Welcome … to Wen-Chin Liaw from National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan, who is visiting IIMS to work with Shaun Cooper and Heng Huat Chan during August. Wen-Chin is based in Room IIMS3.12.

Health & Safety As required by the MU Health and Safety Office, we (IIMS), a department with more than 30 members, must have an H&S Representative. Our recently-held secret electronic ballot produced Nikki Luke as the IIMS Rep. Thank you, Nikki, for undertaking this important role. She will no doubt keep us informed of current H&S issues, and we must reciprocate.

Future goings and comings As many of you know, Den Pain and Sue Pritchard are to leave IIMS in November (last day will be 18th). We will give them a proper IIMS farewell them in due course.

The process for replacing them both is already well underway. Applications for two Information Systems positions at L/SL level closed on 14 August. We had more than 135 applications, and the panel has now selected a short-list. References are being sought and interviews will take place soon.

More duties for Jeff Jeff Hunter has been elected to serve as the Professorial member of the Academic Board Agenda Advisory Group. (He will dovetail this in with his attendance at Academic Committee.) Jeff is also a member of the planning group currently working on future directions for academic activity at the PN and Albany campuses.

Another TIF Congratulations to Chris Messom for being successful with an application for a TIF (Technology for Industry Fellowship). The Fellow will be John Fuohy, who will be undertaking PhD study under Chris's supervision, working on prevention of credit card fraud.

Changes to semester dates There is a proposal before Academic Committee to extend the mid-semester break in Semester 2 to 2 weeks, reducing the teaching time to 12 weeks (from 13 as it is now). Semester 1 would also be shortened to 12 weeks (from 12.4 as it is now). I am sure that Jeff would receive and pass

on to Academic Committee and Academic Board any views you have on this matter.

Reminders 1. Enterprise Scholarships The closing dates for the next Enterprise Scholarships round is 9 December. If you need any further information give Wendy James (Research Services) a call.

2. Class times This is a reminder that classes start on the hour and finish 50 minutes later, i.e. at 10 minutes to the hour. The 10 minute break is important for students to get to their next class as well as for the following lecturer to get AV equipment set up, etc.

3. Examiners meetings for Semester 2 Please pencil in the following for Semester 2, 2005 IIMS Examiners Meetings:

Undergrad (100- to 400-level):

Thursday 24 November 1:30 - 3:30 pm

and

Postgrad (400- and 700-level):

Friday 25 November 10:30 - 11:30 am

both probably in Room IIMS3.27. The dates will be confirmed once we have information about the various college and programme deadlines.

Robert McKibbin

News of the people by Merrill Bowers

Merrill Bowers collates this material on general news relating to IIMS people.

Buongiorno from Lorri O’Brien… Our apartment in Carunchio is far superior to anything we imagined. When we came here in June the top part of the village where we are staying appeared quite derelict. Chris could not imagine how we could have a 'holiday' here. As it turns out the apartment is fantastic. I looked at the website just last weekend and the photos looked great. Apparently they were only added the day before. Our hosts (as it happens are Chris Messom's sister & her husband – Clare and Paul) have done an incredible refurbishment


of a 300-year-old house and turned it into a model for future restoration work in the village. (The kitchen was installed on the Wednesday before we arrived. All great last minute stuff but they made it.) Now lots of the houses/apartments are occupied as August is when Italy goes on holiday. The place has a nice buzz.

The views are magnificent. We look south over the village as it tumbles down the hill to a broad valley of forest and farm, higher hills beyond. While most of Italy baked in the July heatwave, Carunchio got its fair share of rain; thus everything here is still quite green. Other towns sit atop other hills all around, though they are not always easy to see in the hazy heat of daytime. At night, however, their lights crown the invisible hills — ten or a dozen of them sparkling in the darkness.

We had expected to have internet access from our apartment but there is no phone connection as yet - soon we hope.

When we visited Carunchio in June we saw no sign of shops in the village. We have since learned that because there is no passing trade there is no point in advertising their presence. Opening hours are mornings and then most evenings from 4.30ish. Some have a note in the window telling you to ring the doorbell if you want service and they'll open up. Takes some getting used to! In fact not far below us there are three small grocery-type shops, a baker and a butcher. The grocery selection is not huge, these are small shops that sell only the basics. The shopkeepers, as well as other customers, have been very helpful so far, so shopping has been an enjoyable experience. Mildly frustrating at worst.

In the butcher's you have to request the type of meat cut you want and it is prepared while you wait — minced, trimmed of fat, sliced, filleted, etc. Luckily there is a list on the wall of various meats and cuts with prices. Usually there is a queue so there is plenty of time to see what's on offer while waiting. And when Italians shop (in fact, when Italians do anything) there is always a lot of talk, so the wait can be frustratingly long.

A significant slice of the population has left Carunchio in recent times and I would guess that deaths exceed births by a long way. Hence, there are several properties for sale in the village and, of course, we've been to view a couple just out of curiosity. Tempting but we probably won't allow ourselves to get distracted with a property in Carunchio, despite the bargains, the character,

the very pleasant climate and the fantastic views. Not to mention the very drinkable vino rosso at 2 euros a bottle!

We haven't ventured beyond the village yet but will do so in the coming days. This morning we went to an organ recital in the XVII century church at the highest point of the village. Like so many of the churches we've stuck our noses in on our travels its interior is breathtaking in its structure and its art. The Catholic Church makes Bill Gates look a pauper in this part of the world.

Hope winter isn't being too unkind.

Arrivederci

Follow this link for some photos of Carunchio -

http://www.peacefulretreats-italy.com

(Nice to hear from Lorri and husband Chris.)

and

From our music maestro – Howard Edwards on piano… I played in two bands (ABBH and Denise & X Factor) at the Bay of Islands Jazz and Blues festival on the 13th & 14th of August. Ten gigs in total meant it was more exhausting than exciting!


Once more to Korea… by Graeme Wake

who visited South Korea in August. The following article and photo from the Korean Times (16 August) reported his visit

New Zealander Introduces Math to Industry at KAIST

By Mike Weisbart …some very smart people from around the world congregated late last month at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Taejon for the 3rd Industrial Mathematics Initiative.

Graeme Wake was among those in attendance and he wants important people in government and industry to pay attention.

A senior professor of industrial mathematics from Massey University in New Zealand, Wake is in the process of completing the team’s three-year programme at KAIST, where he, along with three other foreign professors, has been working to advance an initiative designed to nurture closer ties between South Korean industry and mathematicians to solve industrial problems. After first getting its start at Oxford University in the early 1970s, this type of work has been underway for years in other countries.

According to Wake, however, South Korea has been lacking in industrial problem solving skills using applied mathematics.

As a remedy, KAIST in 2000 opened a new Division of Applied Mathematics. To help develop the initiative, the university brought in Wake and his three colleagues, an Australian, a Canadian and a second Kiwi. That team is rotating out this week, with a new one ready to hit the ground for September 1.

Industrial mathematics is distinctive from "pure" math due to its cross-disciplinary approach and real world results.

Mathematicians apply their skills to a variety of non-mathematical problems facing all aspects of society and industry.

In addition to traditional engineering questions, researchers are also looking at important questions in the fields of biology, the environment, financial services and medicine.

Wake's own ground-breaking work on spontaneous ignition has provided a ready-made methodology for fire-safety, and has given industry valuable information on the "critical conditions" required to store and protect fuels, foodstuffs, and cleaning supplies without risk of fire. If left unsolved, these problems can be expensive to both industry and society in a variety of ways, not the least of which is through increased risk premiums for insurance.

For Wake, the crucial task is to let industry know that the problem solving tools are available and to foster collaboration. When the system is working well, as it is for the Mathematics in Industry Study Group in New Zealand, companies will bring their problems to mathematicians to solve.

For the past four years, he's been working with New Zealand Steel to help them optimize their processes and save money. As with any major manufacturer, the company, which is owned by BlueScope Steel in Australia, must periodically change its machinery, either to garner new efficiencies or develop new products.

Using the company's data, Wake creates a mathematical model that enables the company to look at the process offline. Philip Bagshaw, the company's Technology Development Manager, explained that when the company embarks on a new project, "we're able to predict what will happen without actually changing equipment."

In response to a question about the estimated value of the work for his company, Bagshaw put it into perspective by noting that "these projects are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and simulation is an important part of the process. You wouldn't want to proceed without it."

Wake points to his success with companies like New Zealand Steel in arguing that South Korean industry only stands to benefit from such collaboration.

Calling it a "win-win," he talked about the need to get the information out there to industry officials to help Korean companies obtain an advantage over competitors.

"Industry needs to be more aware of what they're missing out on. Math can provide the competitive 10 percent" that everyone is


seeking. For the researchers, the projects are an important source of funding for their work.

Meanwhile, society as a whole, benefits from the overall acquisition of knowledge implicit in the process.

South Korean industry has some work to do to obtain the benefits of this win-win scenario. Typically, most companies depend on in-house research staff to solve problems. The challenge for South Korea, Wake said, is to foster these better connections.

Graeme & Lil Wake with 5 of the top graduate students at KAIST

Experience at the conference in Cambridge by Sena The fifth International Conference on Inverse Problems in Engineering: Theory and Practice (5ICIPE) at which I recently presented a paper was intended to bring together researchers from various fields in engineering. They had a common interest in solving engineering problems using inverse methods. The paper I presented is “Inverse methods for detection of internal objects using microwave technology: with potential for breast screening”, and it fitted perfectly within the scope of the conference. Finding unknown parameters of an internal object using the forward engineering problem in our research was a challenge but we were able solve it by the algorithms based on inverse methods. The conference was held at Clare College, the University of Cambridge, and UK from 11-15 July 2005. It was organised by the Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Leeds, U.K.

Cambridge is the main city in Cambridgeshire which is a major county in the picturesque East of England. Cambridgeshire has been home to countless generations of people for thousands of years. Indeed, relics dating back to the Stone Age have been found in the region. Cambridgeshire was initially home to the Iberians, before being taken over by a British tribe called the Iceni and then overrun by the Romans, who incorporated it into the province of Flavia Cæsariensis. They created a settlement in Cambridge and later fortified it by building Castle Hill. Countless other settlements sprung up around this central hub (read more: www.cambridge-news.co.uk/lifestyle/tourism/cambs_history.lpf.)

When I first saw the Cambridge City centre I understood that the picture I had in my mind about it was not completely wrong. Really, it is a beautiful, historic and fascinating city. I saw its huge ancient buildings, and most of these belong to Cambridge University. The city centre was full of shops, in the small streets, and these were crowded with many people. Cambridge is also a hotspot for tourism, with more than four million visitors taking in its sights last year – half of them from overseas. There were thousands of others cycling through the streets. I strolled around the famous College gardens and I enjoyed a lazy summer punt up the famous winding old ‘River Cam’. I saw the famous bridge called “the Mathematics Bridge” which joins the two banks of the river and facilitates engineering and other departments to maintain a close relationship with the world famous mathematics centre on the other side of the river. It is easy to understand why our conference was held in this historic city of Cambridge in the mid summer of this year.


I would like to clarify the thought that comes into my mind immediately; “why these engineers are so interested in solving inverse problems?”- Not just a joke, but it is really very important for different kinds of engineering applications. There in Cambridge, many engineers, medical officers, mathematicians and researchers from other disciplines had got together to discuss various engineering applications together with their solutions to the inverse problems. Most of those applications had a forward problem related to an engineering application and their respective inverse problems were solved using mathematical algorithms. The conference emphasized a broad range of statistical, mathematical, computational and experimental approaches. Most of those new methods are useful to solve the inverse problems in various applications. Some of those are within electromagnetic, electronics, optics, acoustic, fluid and solid mechanics, heat and mass transfer.

Among the different topics in the conference program, I was mostly interested in the problems discussed under the “industrial” and “identification” sessions. There were some other approaches for breast cancer detection and most of those were related to the Topographic technology. Microwave Tomography is a non-invasive image-based technique which is mostly used for medical applications. Even though the word “tomography” comes from 30-40 years ago, this technology is still not out-dated because there are many new methods that have been developed based on this technology. In this conference, I found some new approaches focused on the internal object detection that can be used for different applications. Within these, there were some brand-new application methods on tomography such as; ‘microwave’, ‘capacitance’ and ‘optical’ that I am interested in as an engineer relating to my area of research.

Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) sensor consists of 16 electrodes mounted on a

pipe. The forward problem determines the electric scalar potential for the active electrode pattern and subsequently the electric field strength and capacitance for a given permittivity within the region of interest. Based on the measurements, a spatial material distribution is reconstructed to distinguish the target (e.g. estimate the size of water bubbles in the oil flow) from the host material. This method is proposed for the pipe lines in the oil and food industries.

In optical tomography; the aim of this new development is to obtain medical imaging for diagnosis of possible breast tumours. Also it is applicable for the search of buried land mines. The approach is to find the solutions to the time dependent diffusion equation using data from only one source but with many detectors. The other method which I was interested in is the “Finite element approach to inverse problems in dynamic Elastography. The elastography is a method of imaging mechanical attributes of the tissue. This is a new diagnostic technology to detect smaller and deeper irregularities. Shear modulus in breast cancer is 7-28 times stiffer than the normal tissue and 8 times stiffer than benign fibroadenomas. Therefore imaging of shear modulus has been considered. Imaging shear modulus can be done using static compression, harmonic vibration or using a transient pulse. For dynamic excitation, viscous effect changes the wave speed and leads for an attenuation. Therefore the use of low frequency excitation, 10s of 100s of Hertz, was preferred for this method.

Now, I can turn to see “why my research is important?” Somebody can think the Tomography is an old technology. Yes, that is true but still people use it for medical and many kinds of engineering applications. The classical mathematics is old but may be very useful when somebody needs to develop a new method like above. In our method the electrical signal is converted to a low power microwave energy signal for the forward application. When it is directed from the surface, we found that the subsequent backscattered signal can provide us with the required information of the internal object of the breast model. Therefore, we call this as Microwave Scattering Tomography (MST). If this is distinguished from the above methods, the difference is; we collect the scattering signal from the same antenna which exits the signal from the surface of the breast skin whereas the other methods needs the detection from the opposite side.


I had to present the paper to an audience with highly knowledgeable and talented researchers, mathematicians and engineers. I gained enormous experience, encouragement and a satisfaction that will promise well for the success of future work in my research. I was the only person who represented Massey University and also New Zealand. The response from the audience at and after my presentation was very good. There are some openings for future networking contacts and through those, I hope to improve the quality of the work in my research. Through this experience, I noticed that there can be many paths for your research but it is very important to select the most suitable direction. This will lead you successfully towards the objectives in the shortest possible time. I encourage those who are involved with research work to select the proper conference and participate because it is very useful.

I am grateful to Technology New Zealand providing a TIF fellowship for my PhD study and Keam Holdem Associates, New Zealand providing industrial support and collaboration. Also I acknowledge my PhD supervisors and IIMS for the excellent support given to make this trip a success.

Travels in search of 21st century thought by Mick Roberts

I spent the first week of July working at the University of Oxford. My colleague Angela McLean is Professor of Mathematical Biology in the Department of Zoology and Director of the Institute for Emergent Infections of Humans in the James Martin 21st Century School. She is Fellow in Biology at St Catherine’s College. Her research interests lie in the use of mathematical models to aid our understanding of the evolution and spread of infectious agents. This encompasses modelling of the dynamics of infections and immune responses within

individual hosts as well as models of the spread of infections from one host to another. During the week we tossed around ideas about the dynamics and evolution of HIV infections, which will be pursued when I return in October.

The second week was spent with my old friend Hans Heesterbeek, who is Professor of Theoretical Veterinary Epidemiology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Utrecht. Hans and I have published fourteen joint papers so far, and we spent the week considering ideas for future collaboration. These included a review of mechanisms in epidemic models that could lead to backward bifurcations, some new ideas concerning epidemics on metapopulations, and extensions to our work on the type reproduction number, a concept that we invented a few years ago. We kept returning to the backward bifurcations, and we will continue working on these when I return in September.

Week three saw me at the European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology held at the Center for High Performance Computing at Dresden University of Technology. It was interesting to see how German efficiency coped with 800 delegates. A large lecture theatre easily accommodated everybody for plenary talks, and was surrounded by spacious concourse areas on many levels used for coffee breaks, book displays, posters and ‘meeting and greeting’. The adjacent grass area would have added to the spaciousness if it hadn’t rained all the time. Smaller rooms off the concourse were used for parallel sessions and as an internet centre. The building also had wireless access, so many delegates could use their laptops to check emails in the concourse or in the lecture rooms during talks. The venue was a few kilometers from the main city hotels, but the conference name-tag doubled as a tram pass. One conference feature was having to produce tickets for meals, drinks and social events: not only was there a ticket for the conference boat trip down the River Elbe but there was another for the boat home! An informal contest developed to see who could get the most free drinks on one ticket at the evening receptions, I think three was the record. Another innovation was hiring a local saxophonist to announce the start of each session, but it was going a bit far to engage him to play at the dinner too.

The conference featured some excellent presentations. The opening lecture by André de Roos on the structure of ecological communities was the perfect prequel to Odo Diekmann’s


plenary on structured population models. The first was a slick PowerPoint presentation and the second was ‘talk and chalk’, but both were models of clarity. At the other end of the spectrum was a presenter with twelve graphs with multiple lines and unreadable legends on one slide, and another with publications photocopied onto transparencies without magnification. I couldn’t make sense of either. Contributed talks were in thirteen parallel sessions. These effectively turned into stand-alone specialist meetings, making good quality plenaries all the more important for giving the meeting coherence.

It seems like I’ve hardly arrived back in NZ when I’m setting off again. In September I’m heading back to Utrecht for two weeks, and then moving on to Oxford. I will spend the Michaelmas Term (October 3 to December 2) working with Angela as a visiting fellow at St Catherine’s. The college provides me with a fully-furnished apartment and meals. According to its website, the focus of the James Martin 21st Century School is on stimulating Oxford’s research overall, by providing the resources and time to think imaginatively and positively about the problems and the opportunities that the future will bring. So when you pass by my office and see me motionless at the desk, be aware that I’m not asleep or staring at the Warehouse, but I’m deep in 21st century thought.

Dates in history - Anyone for tea? by Chris Scogings

According to Chinese mythology, in 2737 BC(?) the Emperor Shen Nung, scholar and herbalist, was sitting beneath a tree while a servant boiled drinking water. A leaf from the tree dropped into the water and the Emperor decided to try the brew. The tree was a wild tea tree. From the earliest times tea has been renowned for its properties as a healthy, refreshing drink and many stories were circulated about the benefits of tea drinking but it was not until the Tang Dynasty (618 – 906) that tea became China’s national drink.

The first book on tea “Ch’a Ching” was written by Lu Yu in 780(?). It consists of three volumes and covers tea growing, making and drinking as well as a history of early tea plantations and illustrations of tea making utensils. Some say that this book inspired Buddhist priests to create the Japanese tea ceremony. The English word

“tea” is derived from early Chinese dialect words such as Tchai, Ch’a and Tay – some of these words were used to describe the beverage and some describe the leaf. British soldiers stationed at posts in Asia during the nineteenth century became familiar with the word “ch’a” and if you ask for “a cuppa char” in most parts of the UK today you will be understood.

Tea and tea drinking moved along the trade routes out of China, reaching Arabia in 850 and Venice in Europe in 1559. The Dutch and Portuguese opened up sea routes to China during the 16th century and regular shipments of tea to ports in Europe were in place by 1610. Until 1669 most tea consumed in Britain was bought from the Dutch. In 1644 the East India Company reached China and began to purchase tea. The East India Company was a private company that was the only British company allowed to trade in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma and China from 1600 to 1858. They also had the right to establish ports and forts wherever they wished in this area. If you think capitalism and monopolies are modern phenomena – think again!!

At this early stage tea was quite rare in Britain and could only be enjoyed in small quantities by the rich who carefully stored their tea in expensive canisters, beautifully decorated with silver, enamel, ceramics and tortoiseshell. These containers were known as tea “caddies” from the Malay word “kati” which was a weight used for selling tea (about six hundred grams). Tea became more widely available in 1706 when the first tea auction took place in London in East India House. In order to ensure brisk trading, early auctions were “Sold by the Candle”, a system where a candle was marked off in inches, it was lit when bidding began and each consignment of tea had to be sold before the candle burned down to the next inch line. London tea auctions took place every three months or so for almost 300 years but ended on Monday June 29th 1998.

By 1741 tea was so popular that work places instituted “tea breaks” when workers who had started work at 6am were allowed to take a short rest, eat breakfast and drink tea. A few extremely charitable employers even repeated the break in the afternoon. Until about 1820 many industrialists, land owners and clerics campaigned against tea breaks maintaining that tea drinking and rest made people lazy. But this campaign failed and the tea break is still with us today.


English settlers moving to the new colonies in America took tea and tea drinking with them and America became a major tea importer. In 1773 the British Government passed the Tea Act which gave the East India Company the right to ship tea directly from China to America instead of via Britain. It also enabled the Company to sell the tea exclusively to chosen merchants in America. The Tea Act was designed to stop American colonists buying tea from the Dutch who had a significant presence in North America. New York was originally a Dutch settlement called New Amsterdam and Dutch settlers were so numerous that the common first name “Jan” (the “J” is pronounced as a “Y”) along with the common Dutch surname “Kees” led to other colonists referring to those from New York as “Yankees”. The Tea Act put many American tea importers out of business and led to a public outcry culminating in the “Boston Tea Party” when fifty colonists boarded East India Company ships in Boston Harbour and threw the cargo of tea overboard. Every patriotic American gave up drinking tea and turned to coffee – a practice still followed by most Americans today.

From the beginning China had been the major supplier of tea to Britain. This fact was so well known that it became the source of the English phrase “You won’t get me to do (something) for all the tea in China”. Tea in China was cultivated in small plots by peasant farmers, whose output could not meet the surge in demand and by 1840 this led to a search for alternative production centres. British experiments with the tea plant in south Asia were successful and led to the development of plantations in Eastern India and in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from the middle of the nineteenth century. The tea companies attracted investment from Britain and were managed by British agents. By 1860, more than fifty companies were producing tea in Eastern India. In 1879, over 70% of tea sold in London was from China but by 1900 China's share had declined to 10% and tea from India and Ceylon constituted the bulk of the market. Tea plantations were also started in British colonies in Africa such as Malawi, Kenya and Tanzania.

During the nineteenth century, the temperance movement in Britain began to fight against the evils of alcoholism. Those who easily came under the influence of alcohol were urged to drink tea instead. A person who gave up alcohol entirely became known as a “teetotaller”. The

reasons for the spelling of “tee” in this context are unclear.

In 1864 the manageress of a shop owned by the Aerated Bread Company persuaded her directors to allow her to serve tea and a light meal in her shop. Such “tea shops” or “tea rooms” rapidly became popular and spread throughout Britain becoming as much as a tradition as tea itself. The tea shops also laid one of the foundations for women’s emancipation since an unchaperoned lady could meet friends in a tea shop without sullying her reputation. The tea shop tradition still remains and many tourists ensure that their visit to the UK includes afternoon tea in a traditional tea shop.

The tradition of “afternoon tea” started in Britain in the early 1800s when Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, came up with the idea of having a light meal around 4pm to ward off the hunger pangs between lunch and dinner. Food served at these “teas” included a recent innovation by the Earl of Sandwich who had hit on the idea of putting his meat between two slices of bread. The “afternoon tea” tradition soon became a good reason for social gatherings and is still very much a part of life in the UK amongst all classes of society. The working and rural communities combined afternoon tea with dinner and “tea” became their main evening meal. This confusion between a light afternoon tea and the main evening meal was exported to New Zealand by settlers in the 1850s and today newly arrived immigrants are still not quite sure what sort of meal they will receive when a New Zealander invites them to “tea”!

Trees, radio waves and feathers - a combination of skills by Dave Wilton

Department of Conservation Volunteer weekend – tree-planting at Stony Bay, Northern Coromandel Peninsula Although my thunder has been stolen to a certain extent by Carlo’s article in last month’s IIMS News, I’m aware that things are pretty quiet at this time of the year, so another similar item may still scrape by the editorial board!

The northern Coromandel Peninsula area, north of about the village of Colville, is dominated by the Moehau Range. This is the large, mountainous feature that can be seen quite prominently from the East Coast Bays beaches


and is often partially or fully obscured by cloud. (That probably sounds slightly nonsensical, but I’m sure you know what I mean.) Anyway, there is a major conservation effort under way in the Moehau area, including a kiwi sanctuary; one of only about five publicly-funded operations of this type in NZ. Apart from work directly related to Kiwi, the operation of the sanctuary requires extensive ancillary work and services, including pest control and monitoring, and re-vegetation. It was this latter activity that was the subject of the volunteer weekend I attended on 23rd-24th July.

Approximately 20 volunteers and DoC staff attended the weekend. The intention was to plant 1200 native trees along the banks of Doctors Creek, one of the major streams flowing into Stony Bay, which is a very pleasant and scenic DoC camping ground. It is basically as far north as you can go by road on the eastern side of the peninsula. The primary aim of the riparian planting program in the area is to stabilise the stream banks (to prevent erosion) but it will also allow the reintroduction of other endangered species; for example blue duck (whio) and brown teal, which are both very rare.

With cut lunch and water bottle in pack, shovel over the shoulder and gloves on hands (to protect against blisters rather than frostbite) we set off around 9am on the Saturday. Being winter, no-one expected sand-flies, but they were there and those with lots of exposed skin (I was in shorts) got reminded of just how irritating and painful these little beasts can be! (Luckily they’re not an endangered species, as I must have killed about a million or so.)

The person who chose the name Stony Bay was no fool! Digging was extremely hard work (as you would probably expect) as the banks of a stream tend to have lots of rocks mixed in with the soil and there were plenty of clangs and curses as shovels met stone. By about 4pm, however, the 1200 trees were duly planted and we headed back to the DoC visitors’ quarters for a well-earned “coldie”, followed later by a nice home-cooked meal.

The volunteers are looked after very well – most of the places where work is undertaken (on the Coromandel anyway) have either huts, houses or camping grounds for accommodation, food and a reasonable quantity of beverages are provided, as is transport, by means of a mini-van from Thames. All those who attend are interesting, friendly people, who share a common love of the environment, and most have plenty of

interesting and/or humorous tales to relate. I’d strongly recommend that anyone with even a vague interest in the NZ outdoors or conservation activities check the Volunteers section of the DoC web site at:

http://www.doc.govt.nz/community/006%7evolunteers/index.asp

There is a calendar of volunteer events, covering a wide variety of activities, spread over most parts of the NZ mainland and offshore islands. Give it a try – go hug a kauri or cuddle a kiwi!

Digging in

Lunch is served

Friendly local


In a slightly different role, I also carry out IT research in support of the Moehau kiwi sanctuary, and kiwi recovery program generally, although I didn’t do anything along those lines that particular weekend. This work involves improvements to the radio telemetry system, and a brief outline is below.

When DoC staff capture birds, or release those bred in captivity, they fit a small VHF telemetry transmitter on to each bird's leg. This is then used to monitor and track the birds, for research purposes and to check whether or not they're still alive. In many sanctuary areas (including Moehau) the rugged terrain makes foot movement very difficult, and also severely restricts very high frequency (VHF) radio coverage, which is inherently "radio line-of-sight". A skilled staff member with a hand-held radio receiver and antenna system may spend a whole day on foot tracking birds, with little or no success. Airborne monitoring may be used, but the cost means that this is affordable only a few times a year.

I have acquired a radio coverage modeling tool (know as Radio Mapper) and digital terrain elevation data (DTED) to model telemetry coverage in the Moehau sanctuary area. Conclusions drawn from this modeling include a finding that increasing receive antenna height to somewhere in the vicinity of 100m would increase radio coverage from most sites to of the order of 7-8 times that possible from a ground station. Further, the modeling predicts that approximately 95% of the Moehau sanctuary area could be covered from a total of about 5-6 sites, all accessible by road. Use of this tool and other work has led to opportunities to improve field practice, e.g. staff training in RF techniques and tactics, selection of optimum receiver sites, improved receive antenna systems, and improved planning for airborne monitoring and tracking.

Professor Robert McKibbin has recently allocated me some IIMS research money and I plan to use it over the rest of this year designing, prototyping and testing a range of improved antennas for the telemetry system. Initial ideas include a 10m telescopic mast for vehicle-mounting, a 100m-high tethered balloon with Yagi draped along one side, and a cheap, improvised dipole or Yagi that can be hoisted into a tree and left in place for future use.

More to follow on this project (plus, hopefully, a more detailed summary in RLIMS).

Pavlov’s curry by Tom Moir

I once studied Psychology when I was much younger (to an elementary level). Not that I was that interested in the subject but rather I was keen to see why Psychology students had so much free time. I thought that maybe it was going to be quite easy and maybe I would learn something useful. One of the first things you learn after the ‘Nature’ versus ‘Nurture’ debate is the work of the Russian Physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936). He was awarded the Nobel prize for medicine in 1904. Pavlov was investigating the gastric function of dogs by externalising a salivary gland so he could collect, measure, and analyse the saliva produced in response to food under different conditions. He noticed that the dogs tended to salivate before food was actually delivered to their mouths, and set out to investigate this ‘psychic secretion’, as he described it.

One of the famous experiments he carried out was to ring a bell when food was presented to a dog. He did this over a period of time and then began to ring the bell and not present the food. The result was that the dog used to salivate in expectation just when he heard the bell. Thus the science of conditioning was born. The Pavlov’s Bell theory is mandatory study in elementary Psychology.

Now closely related to this was when I lived in Glasgow for a long time. Curry is the staple food of Scotland closely followed by fish and chips! (don’t believe the Haggis stories!). It would be unusual if somebody from Glasgow spent a whole week without having a curry or some form of food from the Indian sub-continent. The ‘Indian’ (which includes Pakistani, Bangladesh etc) food is particularly delicious in the UK having evolved to perfection over some 40 odd years. I was no exception when it came to eating curries and would look forward to one at least once or maybe even twice a week. (The ‘Kumars at No 42’ on BBC TV parodied this of course by ‘Going for an English’.) On curry nights I would starve myself through the day so that I could eat more in the evenings and appreciate it more. Well accompanying the food in most of these restaurants was of course Indian style music which set the scene and ambiance of


the restaurant. Now here is the interesting thing that emerged from all this…

If I heard Indian music and was not in a restaurant I would instantly get hungry and salivate. Pavlov’s curry was born. The reverse is also true with time. If the music is played and no food is presented the effect eventually wears off. Since coming to NZ I am now almost totally cured of this affliction.

Research news and views edited by Jeff Hunter

This month’s guest columnist is Assoc Professor Mick Roberts. Mick joined the Institute in 2003 after a period at AgResearch. Through his extensive research activities in mathematical modelling he has found the academic environment very much to his liking with the opportunity to continue his collaborative activities unhindered by the commercial constraints of a CRI. Mick has offered to share something of his passion for his research activities before he leaves shortly for a period in Oxford, UK as the recipient of a prestigious fellowship at St Catherine's College.

This is the last column that I will be putting together as the coordinator of the Institute's Research Portfolio. That's not to say that I have given up on the Institute's research activities - quite the contrary. The research activity in IIMS is bubbling along and it has been very rewarding to see a significant increase in both the quantity and the quality of the activities going on. With me now being on 40% time contract within IIMS (actually 60% time with the University until the end of the year, with me agreeing to manage the Albany campus Strategic Positioning Project) it was appropriate that someone else within the Institute pick up the Research portfolio and run with it! I am delighted that Ken Hawick has agreed to take over. I am sure that he will do a superb job. I'll do what I can to smooth his taking over.

As for my research activities - later in November I'll be taking a brief visit to the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney to give a couple of seminars and discuss some collaborative activities with Eugene Seneta (which has arisen out of his participation as a Keynote speaker at IWMS 2005 held here earlier in the year). My plans for 2006 include accepting invitations to be an invited speaker at three conferences - IWMS 2006 at Uppsala in

June, an international conference on "Modern Stochastics: Theory and Applications" in Kiev, Ukraine, in late June and a Workshop on "Matrix theory and computations in social and physical sciences" at Penn State in late July. There will be plenty to keep me busy!

Nature or nurture by Mick Roberts

Are good researchers born or made? The ‘ability from birth’ theory is rather depressing. At its extreme it implies that there is little that you can do to be more successful, and there as no point in trying too hard because if you’re destined for greatness you will achieve it regardless. If this supposed innate ability is also hereditary then the theory supports the British class system under which you are expected to attend your father’s old school and Oxbridge college. This does not apply in the USA where anyone can grow up to become president. And after all, neither Rutherford nor Ramanujan came from backgrounds conducive to launching a career in research. Alternatively, the idea that we are all born equal and some achieve greatness through their own endeavours has its downside: if you didn’t make it you have nobody else to blame. Clearly the truth lies in-between, with an extra component for making best use of the interaction.

Serendipity plays its part. My enrolment in an applied mathematics MSc programme last century resulted from happening to spot an advert; as did my previous position that started me in mathematical biology and the trains of events that led me to Massey and an Oxford fellowship.

Thomas Jefferson said “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”, but one of my professors used to say that it was impossible to do more than three hours’ mathematics a day. Another colleague clearly does four or five times that amount and prefers to go to conferences by train as it provides more time for research. Working methods are personal, so choose the method that produces results for you. There is another interaction here, one component of hard work must be used to maximize the gains from your ‘luck’.

Last week somebody asked me how I could possibly face the day knowing that I would be


spending it doing mathematics. He looked visibly horrified when I told him that I looked forward to days like that, that I regularly thought about my research while driving, running, skiing, in bed, in the shower, at the gym, on the beach, anywhere. If you are not enthusiastic and passionate about your research it turns into work, and who wants to spend that amount of their life immersed in something that they don’t find fascinating? If your research is a chore find another topic. I know an eminent professor who said that the best thing about having a wife and a mistress was that each thought that he was with the other, and he got lots of time to do mathematics.

Working methods are personal, a fact that doesn’t please the bean-counters. Some are morning people, others are evening people; one colleague had to ‘clock in’ when he arrived at work but in the evening would put the children to bed, open a bottle of wine and say – “let’s finish that paper”. If you look at offices around IIMS you see that some are models of neatness, but others have every horizontal surface covered in piles of paper. Many people advocate keeping a journal and writing everything in it, that doesn’t work for me but I like to type everything in LATEX as I work. The point is that everybody works differently and you can’t legislate how to carry out research.

For me, the best way of doing research is at a whiteboard with one or two like-minded individuals. Once you find a collaborator on your wavelength the results flow. My friend Hans has a complementary set of skills and a similar sense of humour, so we spark off each other. We shared an office when I was on sabbatical at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge in 1993, and have been collaborating ever since. This does not mean that we always agree. One issue that I raised in 1993 remained on the agenda until we finally sorted out our differences and published the resolution ten years later. Over most of the intervening period we disagreed on that topic, although we collaborated and published on many related problems.

One research group had a paper accepted by a highly-cited journal, then discovered an error before it appeared. They failed to withdraw it, and found that their reputation has suffered. The most important word in research is quality. Never be tempted to publish a poor quality paper or an incorrect result, the brief glory is far outweighed by the bad publicity. Don’t forget

that referees are usually anonymous, and those faces in the audience at a conference or the reviewer of a grant application could also have been the reviewer of something half-baked that you sent off to keep the pot boiling. On two occasions I have refereed a paper, recommended rejection, then received it largely unchanged from a second journal; on one occasion I received virtually the same paper simultaneously from two journals. I have also received a paper to referee that plagiarized sections of one of my own. On the other side of the coin, I have been regaled at length about the ‘terrible referee’ a colleague suffered from, and nodded sympathetically happy in the knowledge that I was not identifiable. The research community in any specialist area is small, and bad news travels. Success in your research depends upon the respect of your peers, because without that you don’t get invited to meetings, funding for grants or enthusiastic collaborators. Those peers are also the anonymous referees who judge your submissions, be sure to make a good impression.

To sum up: choose a topic that you are passionately interested in, work in a way that works for you and never compromise on quality.

Research at IIMS

Reported for July 2005. Cat 1 - Refereed Journal Papers

Chase, J. G., Shaw, G. M., Lin, J., Doran, C. V., Bloomfield, M., Wake, G. C., Broughton, B., Hann, C., & Lotz, T. (2005). Impact of insulin-stimulated glucose removal saturation on dynamic modelling and control of hyperglycaemia. International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, 1(1/2), pp 79-94.

Cooper, S. (2005). A simple proof of an expansion of an eta-quotient as a Lambert series. Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society, 71, pp 353-358.

Cooper, S., Gun, S., Hirschhorn, M. D., & Ramakrishnan, B. (2005). Relations among Fourier coefficients of certain Eta products. Integers, 5(A16), 6 pages. [online: http://www.integers-ejcnt.org/vol5.html].

Cooper, S., Hirschhorn, M. D., & Sellers, J. A. (2005). Partitions into four squares. Proceedings of the Jangjeon Mathematical Society, 8(1), pp 73-94.


Cooper, S. (2005). Cubic theta functions in three variables. Proceedings of the Jangjeon Mathematical Society, 8(1), pp 19-24.

Laing, C. R. (2005). Spiral Waves in Nonlocal Equations. SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, 4(3), pp 588-606. Online: http://epubs.siam.org/sam-bin/dbq/toclist/SIADS]

Category 5 Refereed conference paper

Hasan, S. M. R., & Ula, N. (2005). A capacitor-free feed-forward compensated single-stage merged topology fully-differential CMOS folded cascode amplifier. Proceedings of the 3rd Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers North East Workshop on Circuits and Systems, June 19-22, pp 179-182, Quebec City, Canada.

Category 6 Non-refereed journal / paper / article

Edwards, H.P., Govindaraju, K., and Lai, C.D. (2005). A Control chart procedure for student grade monitoring. Research Letters in the Information and Mathematical Sciences, 7, pp 117-126,[online: iims.massey.ac.nz/reesearch/letters/].

Category 14 Addresses to professional bodies

Ghosh, M., & Roberts, M. G. (2005). Bovine tuberculosis in possums: modelling, analysis and predictions. Poster presentation at the European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology 2005, July 18-22, Dresden, Germany.

Roberts, M. G. (2005). Optimising vaccination strategies against measles and pertussis. European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ECMTB 2005), July 18-22, Dresden, Germany.

Accepted

Hasan, S. M. R. (2005). A novel wide-swing wide-bandwidth scalable low-voltage analog CMOS multiplier for communication signal processing. IEEE Region Ten Conference.

Laing, C. R. On the application of `̀equation-free modelling'' to neural systems. Journal of Computational Neuroscience.

Senaratne, G. G., Keam, R.B., Sweatman, W. L., & Wake, G. C. (2005). A New Approach to Breast Tumour Detection Using Microwave Frequencies: A Two-Dimensional Model. International Conference on Sensing Technology to be held in November 21-23, Massey University, Palmerston North.

Laughter lines sent in by

Dave Wilton

Teaching maths throughout the years…

Teaching Math In 1940

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?


A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1970

A logger exchanges a set, "L", of lumber for a set, "M", of money. The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M." The set "C", the cost of production contains 20 fewer points than set "M". Represent the set "C" as a subset of set "M" and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set "P" of profits?


A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?


No figures available because the computer lost all the data and calculations.


A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20 Your assignment: Write and underline the number 20.


A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers.)


Poetry corner submitted by

Tanya Evans

I was asked to introduce myself to the readers of the IIMS newsletter. I am a half-time post-doc working with Gaven Martin. Although my current problem is to overcome my alcohol dependency whilst teaching (see the July issue), I also study the topology of 3-manifolds. I grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia where I had my share of communism, chaos – after the Berlin Wall came down - and cold. I did manage to get a BSc in mathematics and mathematics education and departed to the U.S.A. where I received a fellowship at Rice University to study for my PhD. It was love at first sight with the core of capitalism when I stepped off the plane in Houston, TX. Everything just looked too good to be true and life was like a dream. This convinced me that I would stay in the U.S. and make it my home for the years to come. All was going well with the dream until I met my future husband, Richard, a homesick Kiwi who had just finished his PhD at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and had come to Rice for a post-doc. After three years together at Rice- during which time Richard proposed, I accepted and we got married in Papakura, NZ (where Richard grew up) - we both arrived in NZ. At first Richard had a NZ Science and Technology postdoctoral fellowship with Gaven Martin, (his MSc advisor at the University of Auckland) and I had a one year lecturing position there up until our daughter Vanessa was born in August 2004. Richard now has an NZIMA postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Auckland but can sometimes be seen around IIMS when he visits Gaven or attends seminars - although the sightings are fewer this semester since he is teaching at the Tamaki campus.

Well, that’s my brief introduction. I am looking forward to my time here at IIMS. Thanks to everyone for already making me feel so welcome. Zdrastvoytye.

The following is a translation of a poem by Aleksandr Pushkin (Born, Moscow, 1799 Died, St. Petersburg, 1837) a famous Russian poet.

“What means for you…” What means for you my simple name?

It soon will die as voice of grief -

A wave splash at a distant reef,

A stir in wilderness untamed.

In pray-for-dead despondent rolls

It will leave just the lethal trace

That likes the epitaph in lace,

Which nobody discerns at all.

What does it hold? Forgotten whole

In new and rebel agitation,

It will not give to your young soul

The clear and gentle commemorations.

But in the sad and silent day

You will repeat this name with fervor;

There is in whole world, you say,

The heart in which I live forever...

Aleksandr Pushkin Thank you Tanya

(Please send in a poem or two that you would like to share.)


Mathematical bits found on the internet

Here’s a great site full of colourful and fun tessellations - do have a look! http://www.peda.com/tess/2005/

What do you call an Australian insect that's not feeling well?

Answer: A secant (sick ant) – get it!!!

What do mathematicians sleep on?

Answer: Matrices, of course!

Stop! OK I hear you. (Freda)

Answer to last month’s Perplexing puzzles sent in by Paul Cowpertwait Last month’s ‘photo’ puzzle was…

…a rainfall simulator, which amused Paul because he has spent a number of years developing rainfall simulation software.

Thanks for your contributions Paul – IIMS Newsletter looks forward to some more at a future date.


Wordles submitted by

Freda Mickisch

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3. QUACK QUACK CLUCK CLUCK

4. A E I O --

5. dknisr krinds rknids

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Answers to Wordles

In celebration of Einstein… Hope you enjoy these two little rhymes There was a young lady called Bright,

Who could travel much faster than light.

She went out one day,

In a relative way,

And came back on the previous night.

There's a wonderful family called Stein,

There's Ep and there's Gert and there's Ein.

Ep's sculptures are junk,

Gert's poems are bunk.

And nobody understands Ein.

That’s all folks – more fun next issue.

R R R R D O O O O N U U U U U N N N N O D D D D R

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People puzzle submitted by someone

Last Month (July 2005) An honourable mention goes to Vanessa Harris who guessed that blondie boy was non other than our dark-haired Stephen Ford of

IIMS IT.

This Month

We have two ‘guess who’s’ this month. The second one has a connection with an ‘end-of-an era’ New Zealand event in August.

Number one: The boy on the left of the photo with his mum and

siblings. Who is he?

and… double trouble – next page


Number two: Another boy – with his twin sister. Who is he?

NZ August ‘end-of-an era’ connection: Below a supplementary photo showing

the ‘twins’ being held by David Lange’s father, Roy, in Otahuhu.

David Lange (1942 – 2005), one of New Zealand’s great Prime Ministers died on Saturday 13 August.

The first correct answer emailed to [email protected] gets an honourable mention in

next month’s newsletter.


Caption contest

Last Month Thanks for the fun ‘caption writers’.

Freda and Jim at the bar,

IIMS July Potluck…

Freda is saying…

“Dennis, another shot of vodka on IIMS, please. My paycheque is only this big.”

by Tanya Evans (touché Tanya! Freda).

Or

“The food was terrible... and the portions were small.”

Or

“I want a vegetarian sausage and I want it this big!”

by Mick Roberts

This month

Shaun and Gaven deep in discussion. What are they saying?

Send an email to [email protected] re: Caption Contest.

A selection of captions seen as ‘suitable’ will be printed next Newsletter!


Left blank intentionally… of course


Notices

Reminder!

Drinks and nibbles on Friday

Friday 2 September

at 4 pm

in IIMS Staff Room (IIMS building – level 3)

Come along, even if you can only stay for a short while.

IIMS Newsletter contributions…

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Documents

IIMS NEWS August 2005 Page 1 of Sciences/IIMS... · IIMS NEWS August 2005 Page 3 of a 300-year-old house and turned it into a model for future restoration work in the village. (The