News
Cheryl Praeger was awarded the George Szekeres Medal of the Australian Mathematical Society.
Alice Niemeyer has left UWA to take up a Professorial position at Maynooth University, Ireland.
Michael Giudici was promoted from Level C to Level D.
Guang Rao (supervised by Cai-Heng Li, Gordon Royle and Shu-Jiao Song) has passed his Ph.D. subject to minor revisions.
Melissa Lee (supervised by John Bamberg and Eric Swartz) and Michael Martis (supervised by Gordon Royle) received First Class Honours.
Colva Roney-Dougal (University of St. Andrews, Scotland) is the recipient of the first Cheryl E. Praeger Visiting Research Fellowship.
Michael Giudici, Cai-Heng Li and Gabriel Verret were awarded an ARC Discovery Project grant, entitled "Symmetries of Finite Digraphs", 2015-2017.
Michael Giudici received a UWA Vice-Chancellorís Mid-Career Research Award.
Gabriel Verret received a UWA Vice-Chancellorís Research Award for Early Career Investigators.
Cheryl Praeger gave a keynote presentation at the National Mathematics Summer School (NMSS) WA Orientation, Rossmoyne Senior High School, 25 October 2014, entitled "Opportunities and Adventures in Mathematics".
The WA Junior Mathematics Olympiad (WAJO) took place on 1 November 2014. Several CMSC members volunteered.
Cheryl Praeger gave a presentation about WAJO at the Scotch College final assembly, 5 December 2014.
Stephen Glasby is managing editor and Cheryl Praeger is co-editor of a special volume of the Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society dedicated to Laci Kovács.
Luke Morgan visited Marston Conder at the University of Auckland, 23-29 November 2014, and gave a talk entitled "Locally transitive graphs and their vertex stabilisers" in the Algebra Seminar Series.
2014 Inter-Academy Seoul Science Forum, 12-13 November 2014. Cheryl Praeger represented the Australian Academy of Science, contributed to a round table discussion on "Science for Creative Economy", and participated in theCelebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST).
Showcase of Modern Mathematics, 3 November 2014. Approximately 200 year 9-10 students attended the School of Mathematics and Statisticsí main outreach event, which consisted of six activities: Nim and game theory (Alice Devillers and Joanna Fawcett), Codes and ciphers (Michael Giudici and Michael Small), Making the best of it (John Bamberg and Michael Martis), Counting M&Ms (Julie Marsh), Fractals (Thomas Stemler), An introduction to Mathematica (Blake Segler and Duncan Beckham). Shreya Bhattarai also gave a talk on the use of mathematics in his profession. The event was supported by the faculty external relations team, especially Zahra Mansurali and Rose Nightingale, and several members of the UWA Mathematics Union were group leaders for the activities.
Recent and upcoming visitors
Colva Roney-Dougal (University of St. Andrews, Scotland), 10-31 January 2015.
Tim Penttila (Colorado State University, USA), 12-23 January 2015.
Seyed Hassan Alavi (Bu-Ali Sina University, Iran), 21 January-20 February 2015.
Frederico Augusto (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil), February-May 2015.
Zhe Liu (Zhejiang University, China), 1 April-31 May 2015.
Jason Semeraro (University of Bristol, UK), 7-28 April 2015.
Bart De Bruyn (Ghent University, Belgium), April 2015.
CMSC Retreat
The fourth annual CMSC retreat will be held over three days in February. This year, CMSC members, visitors and students will depart to Yanchep, north of Perth. We are looking forward to engaging with interesting research projects and learning something new in the organised lecture series. We also anticipate some enjoyable social time together in the evenings and in sports activities.
SymOmega
SymOmega is a mathematical blog run by CMSC members John Bamberg, Michael Giudici and Gordon Royle.
Conferences
Thirty-Second Annual Victorian Algebra Conference, Monash University, 2-3 October 2014. Michael Giudici gave the opening talk, entitled "Commuting graphs".
Banff International Research Station (BIRS) workshop on Algorithms for Linear Groups (14w5031), 16-21 November 2014. Cheryl Praeger gave a special lecture on ¡kos Seress day of the workshop, entitled "Generating finite classical groups by elements with large fixed point spaces". Alice Niemeyer gave a talk entitled "Symmetric p-groups". Videos are available at the conference website.
Mathematical Association of Western Australia (MAWA) Secondary Convention, 24-26 November 2014. Cheryl Praeger gave a keynote lecture, entitled "A life of mathematics in a technologically driven world". Michael Giudici gave a keynote lecture, entitled "The challenges of the new undergraduate mathematics courses at UWA and their links to the new WACE courses".
38th Australasian Conference on Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing (38ACCMCC), 1-5 December 2014, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Alice Devillers gave a plenary talk, entitled "Tits' buildings as combinatorial objects". John Bamberg, Stephen Glasby, Daniel Hawtin, Melissa Lee, Irene Pivotto, Tomasz Popiel, Gordon Royle, Eric Swartz, and Gabriel Verret gave talks. Luke Morgan attended. Slides are available at the conference website.
8th Australia New Zealand Mathematics Convention (ANZMC8), 8-12 December 2014, The University of Melbourne. John Bamberg, Joanna Fawcett, Michael Giudici, Daniel Hawtin, Melissa Lee, Luke Morgan, Tomasz Popiel, Cheryl Praeger, Eric Swartz, and Gabriel Verret gave talks. Luke Morgan and Eric Swartz were co-organisers with Padraig Ó Catháin of the special session "Algebra and Combinatorics": slides are available here.
Workshop on Algebraic, Number Theoretic and Graph Theoretic Aspects of Dynamical Systems, University of New South Wales, Australia, 2-6 February 2015. Cheryl Praeger will be a plenary speaker.
Banff International Research Station (BIRS) workshop on Groups and Geometries (15w5017), 3-8 May 2015. Alice Devillers, Michael Giudici and Cheryl Praeger will attend.
8th Slovenian Conference on Graph Theory, Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, 21-27 June 2015. Michael Giudici will be a plenary speaker. Gabriel Verret will attend.
2015 Ph.D. Summer School in Discrete Mathematics, Rogla, Slovenia, 27 June-3 July 2015. Gabriel Verret will attend.
25th British Combinatorial Conference, University of Warwick, UK, 6-10 July 2015. Joanna Fawcett will attend.
London Mathematical Society Regional Meeting, University of Warwick, UK, 7 July 2015. Stephen Glasby will attend.
Conference on finite simple groups and related topics, University of Warwick, UK, 8-10 July 2015. Stephen Glasby will attend.
Simple groups, representations, and related topics: a conference in honour of Martin Liebeck and Jan Saxl, University of Cambridge, UK, 13-15 July 2015. Joanna Fawcett, Stephen Glasby and Cheryl Praeger will attend.
Papers
Published papers
A. Alahmadi, S. Alamoudi, S. Karadeniz, B.Yildiz, C. E. Praeger and P. Sole, "Centraliser codes", Linear Algebra Appl. 463 (2014) 68-77.
S. H. Alavi, J. Bamberg and C. E. Praeger, "Triple factorisations of the general linear group and their associated geometries", Linear Algebra Appl. 469 (2015) 169-203.
J. Bamberg, S. P. Glasby and E. Swartz, "AS-configurations and skew-translation generalised quadrangles", J. Algebra 421 (2015) 311-330.
M. D. E. Conder, C.-H. Li and P. Potočnik, "On the orders of arc-transitive graphs", J. Algebra 421 (2015) 167-186.
E. Dobson, A. Hujdurović, M. Milanič and G. Verret, "Vertex-transitive CIS graphs", European J. Combin. 44 (2015) 87-98.
M. Giudici and L. Morgan, "A class of semiprimitive groups that are graph-restrictive", Bull. London Math. Soc. 46 (2014) 1226-1236.
M. Giudici, L. Morgan, P. Potočnik and G. Verret, "Elusive groups of automorphisms of digraphs of small valency", European J. Combin. 46 (2015) 1-9.
M. Giudici, P. Potočnik and G. Verret, "Semiregular automorphisms of edge-transitive graphs", J. Algebraic Combin. 40 (2015) 961-972.
M. Giudici, C. E. Praeger and P. Spiga, "Finite primitive permutation groups and regular cycles of their elements", J. Algebra 421 (2015) 27-55.
W. Jin, A. Devillers, C.-H. Li and C. E. Praeger, "On geodesic transitive graphs", Discrete Math. 338 (2015) 168-173.
C.-H. Li, ¡. Seress and S.-J. Song, "s-Arc-transitive graphs and normal subgroups", J. Algebra 421 (2015) 331-348.
C.-H. Li, Z.-P. Lu and G.-X. Wang, "Vertex-transitive cubic graphs of square-free order", J. Graph Theory 75 (2014) 1-19.
P. Potočnik, P. Spiga and G. Verret, "A census of 4-valent half-arc-transitive graphs and arc-transitive digraphs of valence two", Ars. Math. Comtemp. 8 (2015) 133-148.
C. E. Praeger, A. Seress and Ş. Yalcınkaya, "Generation of finite classical groups by pairs of elements with large fixed point spaces", J. Algebra 421 (2015) 56-101.
Accepted papers
J. Bamberg, A. Devillers, J. B. Fawcett and C. E. Praeger, "Locally triangular graphs and rectagraphs with symmetry", to appear in J. Combin. Theory A.
A. Devillers and C. E. Praeger, "Pairwise transitive 2-designs", to appear in J. Combin. Theory A.
N. I. Gillespie, C. E. Praeger and P. Spiga, "Twisted permutation codes", to appear in J. Group Theory.
M. Giudici and L. Morgan, "On locally semiprimitive graphs and a theorem of Weiss", to appear in J. Algebra.
R. Chen, M. DeVos, D. Funk and I. Pivotto, "Graphical representations of graphic frame matroids", to appear in Graphs and Combinatorics.
M. Martis, J. Bamberg and S. Morris, "An enumeration of certain projective ternary two-weight codes and their relationship to the cubic Segre variety", to appear in J. Combin. Designs.
Submitted papers
J. Bamberg, S. P. Glasby, T. Popiel, C. E. Praeger and C. Schneider, "Point-primitive generalised hexagons and octagons".
N. I. Gillespie, M. Giudici, D. R. Hawtin and C. E. Praege, "Entry-faithful 2-neighbour transitive codes".
M. W. Liebeck, C. E. Praeger and J. Saxl, "The classification of 3/2-transitive permutation groups and 1/2-transitive linear codes".
L. Morgan, E. Swartz and G. Verret, "On 2-arc-transitive graphs of order kp^n".