THE LONDON MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY

The IMA and the LMS have been working increasingly closely together over the past few years, in order to serve their members better and to speak for mathematics with a unified voice. In November 2003 the Councils of the two societies decided to ask a joint working party (called the ‘Framework Study Initiative’ or FSI group) to consider the nature of their collaboration and prepare a discussion paper that describes a range of options for the two organisations’ futures. The report of the FSI group is being sent to members of the two societies; copies for LMS members are included with this Newsletter. The Councils of both societies wish to hear the views of their members on the different frameworks considered in the report, preferably by the middle of October this year. Also enclosed with this Newsletter is a sheet outlining the ways in which you can make your views known by letter or email or by attending one of the open meetings that will be held around the country between May and September, and joining in the discussions that will take place there. Members of the LMS can write to the President at De Morgan House or email to fsi@lms.ac.uk. Details of the consultation process will be published on the societies’ websites and in the LMS Newsletter and IMA Mathematics Today. We hope that in addition plenty of informal discussions will take place, at other meetings and within departments. The responses to this consultation will be considered carefully by the two Councils in November 2005 and again in March 2006. After that, the next steps will depend on the opinions received, but may involve a more detailed report produced by the FSI group taking account of these responses. Any proposals concerning the future structure of the two societies would be based on a further, more formal consultation following a second report. Members are urged to think carefully about the issues raised in this report, and to contribute to the consultation, in order to secure the best possible future for mathematics.


LOOKING AT THE FUTURE OPTIONS FOR THE IMA AND LMS
The IMA and the LMS have been working increasingly closely together over the past few years, in order to serve their members better and to speak for mathematics with a unified voice. In November 2003 the Councils of the two societies decided to ask a joint working party (called the 'Framework Study Initiative' or FSI group) to consider the nature of their collaboration and prepare a discussion paper that describes a range of options for the two organisations' futures.
The report of the FSI group is being sent to members of the two societies; copies for LMS members are included with this Newsletter.
The Councils of both societies wish to hear the views of their members on the different frameworks considered in the report, preferably by the middle of October this year. Also enclosed with this Newsletter is a sheet outlining the ways in which you can make your views known by letter or email or by attending one of the open meetings that will be held around the country between May and September, and joining in the discussions that will take place there.
Members of the LMS can write to the President at De Morgan House or email to fsi@lms.ac.uk. Details of the consultation process will be published on the societies' websites and in the LMS Newsletter and IMA Mathematics Today. We hope that in addition plenty of informal discussions will take place, at other meetings and within departments.
The responses to this consultation will be considered carefully by the two Councils in November 2005 and again in March 2006. After that, the next steps will depend on the opinions received, but may involve a more detailed report produced by the FSI group taking account of these responses. Any proposals concerning the future structure of the two societies would be based on a further, more formal consultation following a second report.
Members are urged to think carefully about the issues raised in this report, and to contribute to the consultation, in order to secure the best possible future for mathematics.

COUNCIL DIARY 18 March 2005
As members will be aware, a working group has been meeting over the past year to consider the future relationship between the Society and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA). Council received the working group's report and agreed that the next stage was consultation with the membership of the Society. The report and details of the consultation mechanisms are being sent with this issue of the Newsletter.
As mentioned in the January Council Diary, the Society presented written evidence to the current Inquiry into Strategic Science Provision (see the LMS website for the text). Five learned societies including the LMS were invited to present oral evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee, and we are most grateful to Professor Amanda Chetwynd for representing the Society. Hopefully the Select Committee will have been impressed by our emphasis of the special nature and importance of mathematics within the sciences.
The question of closure or 'downsizing' of university mathematics departments arose at several points during the Council meeting. The submission to the Inquiry mentioned above included the Society's policy statement on the academic case for universities to maintain strong mathematics departments. These issues were also referred to in answers compiled by the Council for Mathematical Sciences to a series of questions raised by former Secretary of State Charles Clarke on the role of mathematics. The Society is keen to support departments that encounter difficulties, and should be informed as soon as there is any hint of a possible reduction in provision.
Council received a report from the Society's Maths Promotion Unit, set up in 2004 to increase public and political awareness of the 'maths message'. Activities during the Unit's first year included 15 press releases, promotion of activities such as the Popular Lectures and the Women in Mathematics Day, launching the Mathscareers website and responding to numerous enquiries from the media and public. The Unit has provided input to the Society's responses to several consultations, and in particular is compiling a comprehensive database on mathematics participation and provision at all levels to back up advice As usual a smaller, more focused, mathematical meeting will follow the general meeting. This year this will be on Fusion Systems, Representation Theory and Groups and will take place from 19-21 May. There will be about ten one-hour invited talks.

LMS SUPPORT FOR MATHEMATICS AT A REGIONAL LEVEL
Council has asked Programme Committee to review the various ways in which the Society helps to support mathematics at a regional level, as opposed to our work at a national or international level, or our support for individual mathematicians or conferences. This note is intended to set out what we currently do, and to invite observations and suggestions for future developments. The most obvious means by which we try to give such support is through our Regional Society Meetings. Many of these have been very successful at bringing together a large group of mathematicians from neighbouring departments, and the associated workshops have always been very valuable to the specialists (from all over the UK and beyond) who attend them.
Scheme 3 (for joint research groups) also provides support at a regional level: the research groups are usually fairly close to each other, and judging by the demand this is viewed as a very valuable scheme. Schemes 2 (for visitors to the UK who give lectures in at least three separate institutions) and 4 (for collaborative research) are also in demand, and arguably they also provide support at a regional level. However, it is not necessarily the case that the lectures in Scheme 2 or the collaborators in Scheme 4 will be in neighbouring departments.
The demand for Scheme 6 (connectivity grants) is very low, and it may be that we should consider replacing it with something which helps mathematicians in neighbouring departments to collaborate and support each other.
Please send any comments you would like to make to Sylvia Daly (grants@lms.ac.uk) or the Programme Secretary, Stephen Huggett (s.huggett@plymouth.ac.uk).

LMS PROGRAMME AND CONFERENCE FUND
Members are reminded that the Society's Programme and Conference Fund is used to provide conference grants (Scheme 1), grants to visitors to the UK (Scheme 2), grants to support joint research groups (Scheme 3), collaborative small grants (Scheme 4), international short visits (Scheme 5) and connectivity grants (Scheme 6).
For full details of all the Schemes please see the article in the December 2004 Newsletter (No. 332, pp 20-24), and also the Society's website (www.lms.ac.uk/activities/prog_com/ index.html). Queries regarding applications can be addressed to the Programme Secretary (tel: 01752 232710, e-mail: s.huggett@ plymouth.ac.uk) or the Secretary to Programme Committee, Sylvia Daly (tel: 020 7291 9979, email daly@lms.ac.uk) who will be pleased to discuss proposals informally with potential applicants and give advice on the submission of an application.
Please note that grant applications will not be considered between mid-June and mid-

WOLF PRIZE 2005
The 2005 Wolf Prize has been awarded to Gregory A. Margulis (Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA) for his monumental contributions to algebra, in particular to the theory of lattices in semi-simple Lie groups, and striking applications of this to ergodic theory, representation theory, number theory, combinatorics, and measure theory; and to Sergei P. Novikov (University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA; and the L.D. Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow, Russia) for his fundamental and pioneering contributions to algebraic and differential topology, and to mathematical physics, notably the introduction of algebraic-geometric methods. The two share the $100,000 prize. Sergei Novikov is an Honorary  Peter Lax receives the Abel Prize for his groundbreaking contributions to the theory and application of partial differential equations and to the computation of their solutions.
Peter Lax has been described as the most versatile mathematician of his generation. He stands out in joining together pure and applied mathematics, combining a deep understanding of analysis with an extraordinary capacity to find unifying concepts. He has had a profound influence, not only by his research, but also by his writing, his lifelong commitment to education and his generosity to younger mathematicians.
His work has been recognized by many honours and awards. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1986, presented by President Ronald Reagan at a White House ceremony. Lax received the Wolf Prize in 1987 and the Chauvenet Prize in 1974 and shared the American Mathematical Society's Steele Prize in 1992.
Lax became a member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 1962. He has also been both President (1977-80) and Vice President (1969-71) of the American Mathematical Society.

RAMANUJAN PRIZE
The Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries is a new prize which will be awarded by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, through a selection committee appointed in conjunction with IMU. The first winner will be announced in 2005. Nominations should be sent no later than 31 July 2005 to: director@ictp.it. For further information, see www.ictp.trieste.it/~sci_info/awards/ Ramanujan/ Ramanujan.html.

STRATEGIC SCIENCE PROVISION IN ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES
The Select Committee on Science and Technology published its report on strategic science provision in English universities on 7 April.* The Society provided a written submission (available on the Society's website) and Professor Amanda Chetwynd, Vice-President, gave oral evidence to the Committee.
The Select Committee's report emphasises the importance of all STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects to the national well-being and the need for a strategic approach to increase the flow of STEM graduates into the workplace. It supports the recommendations of the Smith inquiry into Post-14 Mathematics as a basis for reinvigorating mathematics in schools and colleges, and recommends the introduction of bursaries to encourage entry to STEM subjects in higher education.
The report recognises the need for diversity of provision in STEM disciplines and draws attention to the effects of the very sharp cutoff in research funding between grade 4 and 5 departments. It argues that the full cost of teaching must be accurately assessed and met.
In order to meet regional needs the Select Committee recommends a 'hub and spokes' model with at least one department in each core STEM subject within each region funded at the highest level for its research. That department becomes a research hub of the region for its subject, supporting and collaborating with other institutions. The Society is not convinced of the validity of this model in mathematics. It continues to hold that single honours courses in mathematics need departments that are research active, and that any university with a STEM presence must have an identifiable and accessible core of active mathematicians.
The Society is considering the report further.

NEWS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICAL UNION
In recent years the International Mathematical Union has been paying special attention to the promotion of mathematics in developing countries. That there is abundant mathematical talent in the developing countries is seen from the success of some of these countries in the International Mathematical Olympaid competitions as well as from the presence of a large number of students from these countries in the graduate schools in the West. To transform this talent into excellence in mathematicians in these countries needs a lot of exposure to deep mathematics at the frontiers of current research. Individual mathematicians working in advanced nations can contribute very meaningfully to this by visiting mathematical centres in third world countries for extended periods of time giving courses of lectures and otherwise interacting with students and researchers (such visits are taking place but they are far and few between). Short visits are also of course useful but are of limited value. One hopes that IMU's increased interest in promoting mathematics in the third world will act as a catalyst for increasing this kind of interaction.
Madabusi S. Raghunathan Member of the IMU Executive Committee

IMU and ICMI nominating committees
These Nominating Committees have been formed by the procedures described at www.mathunion.org/Organization/NomCom ms.html and will work to propose nomination slates for officers and members of the IMU and ICMI Executive

The Developing Countries Strategy Group
The Developing Countries Strategy Group (DCSG) was established by IMU in order to augment in kind and duration IMU's support of mathematics and the study of mathematics in developing countries. In particular, DCSG will be available as a 'clearinghouse' for the activities of individual countries and mathematics societies in this direction, in order to enhance the effects of those individual initiatives, and ensure that they complement and reinforce each other. Enthusiastically responding to IMU President MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER No. 337 May 2005 about the prime number cicadas for the Friends of the Earth magazine Earthmatters. Following on from the success of his series for Radio 4 'Five Shapes' (archived at http://db.bbc.co.uk/ radio4/science/fiveshapes.shtml), Marcus will also aim to develop more ideas for radio series incorporating mathematical themes. Getting mathematics on to television is of course the toughest nut to crack. Marcus hopes to continue his collaboration with BBC4 after his experience of presenting 'Mindgames', the mathematical and logical game show on BBC4. Marcus plans to combine these proactive projects with a more responsive mode, being available for comment on TV, radio and in print media on mathematical stories as they arise. If LMS members have stories that they think might make good news then Marcus will be happy to hear from you.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
The Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (ACME) was established by the Joint Mathematical Council and the Royal Society in 2002 to provide an independent body able to speak authoritatively to Government on matters of mathematics education. The LMS was, and remains, a strong supporter of ACME.
Recent news from ACME: ACME Projects: ACME's feasibility study ensuring a high quality 'local offer' in Continuing Professional Development in mathematics, as part of the planned establishment of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics, continues to progress well with three local soundings meetings held in Greater Manchester, Cambridgeshire and Cornwall, and data gathered from a wide range of stakeholders. For further information visit: www.royalsoc.ac.uk/acme/maths teaching.htm. Post14 Mathematics: QCA and ACME jointly organised a workshop on 'functional mathematics' on 3 March in London. It is expected that a summary of the discussion will be available on both QCA and ACME websites in April. ACME is also representing the views of the mathematics community on a QCA Post14 Mathematics Advisory Group which met again on 14 March and was attended by the contractors for post-14 mathematics pathways development. It will meet again in May. For further information visit: www. royalsoc.ac.uk/acme/post14.htm.
John Ball's New Year appeal, committees, member societies and their affiliated bodies have been coming forward with information on their initiatives in developing countries and have been listing opportunities for participation in these efforts. All this is now being publicized on DCSG's website (www.ictp.it/~dcsg). (The website is still 'under construction', so please excuse any anomalies or omissions.) Suggestions from readers in the international mathematical community as to opportunities to support mathematicians in the developing world, such as programs of sponsorship of attendance at conferences, research collaborations, visiting lectureship programs, joint degree programs, etc., will be gratefully received, and posted on the website. They may be e-mailed to DCSG's Administrative Secretary at cde@ictp.it.
Another 'clearinghouse' website, the Clearinghouse for African Mathematicians (CAM), whose purpose -as its name suggests -is to act as a clearinghouse for activities specifically in support of mathematicians and mathematics educators in Africa, is also in the initial stages of its development under the direction of Professor Le Dung Trang, Head of Mathematics at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), in Trieste, Italy, and may be viewed at www.ictp.it/~cam. Among its recent initiatives, DCSG has been active in support of the African Mathematics Millennium Science Initiative, a consortium of centers of advanced mathematics education and research institutes in sub-Saharan Africa. DCSG has also assisted ICTP in the establishment of ICTP's newly announced Ramanujan Prize for mathematics done in the developing world. The latest initiative to which DCSG has offered support is the First African Regional Congress of the International Council of Mathematics Instruction (ICMI), which will take place at the University of the Witwatersrand in

LONDON MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Friday 10 June 2005
The Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford announces the following colloquium in conjunction with an Ordinary Meeting of the London Mathematical Society.

pm Professor Isadore Singer (MIT) The Projective Dirac Operator and its Fractional Analytic Index
The meeting and talk will be in Lecture Room 2 (L2).
The colloquium will be followed by an informal reception in the Mathematical Institute Common Room and those attending the ceremony and talk are cordially invited.

ZORAN REUT
Dr Zoran Reut, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 18 January 1991, died in January 2005, aged 60.

THE EUROPEAN RESEARCH COUNCIL
Plans to set up a European Research Council are well advanced. The proposal has the backing of the European Commission as well as of the Council of Ministers and looks certain to be part of the Framework 7 programme though, as ever, the amount of funding is yet to be decided. It is unlike other support through the European Union in that, as things stand, there will be no thematic constraints and no social constraints on projects: only the science, as judged by peer review, will be taken into account. The European Research Council will have an independent governing council, whose members are expected to reflect the broad disciplinary scope of research, while not acting as representatives of a particular discipline. Indeed, with only twenty members and covering the social sciences and humanities as well as science and engineering, it will be impossible to represent all disciplines effectively.
The European Mathematical Society is one of a very few European organisations which have been asked to suggest names for the governing council (and will have responded by the time this article appears). This is one small success in the continuing struggle to get mathematics adequately recognised and represented in decision-making bodies in Europe.
David Salinger EMS Publicity Officer

ISAAC NEWTON INSTITUTE
The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences is a national research institute in Cambridge. It aims to bring together mathematical scientists from UK universities and leading experts from overseas for concentrated research on specialised topics in all branches of the mathematical sciences from pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and statistics, to engineering, computer science, theoretical physics and mathematical biology.
At any time there are two visitor programmes in progress, each with about twenty scientists in residence. Included within these programmes are periods of more expanded activity including instructional courses and workshops. Fifty-nine programmes have now been completed the most recent being Magnetohydrodynamics of Stellar Interiors and Quantum Information Science. The programmes currently taking place are Model Theory and Applications to Algebra and Analysis and Developments in Quantitative Finance.

Call for Proposals
The Institute now invites new proposals for programmes for 2007 onwards. A choice of six-month or four-month programme is available and short programmes of four weeks duration are invited for July/August each year. These short programmes are intended for more narrowly focused topics or for subjects that may be at an embryonic stage of development, and for which a longer programme might not be as yet justified.

VISIT OF PROFESSOR G.B. SHABAT
Professor George Shabat (Moscow University of Humanities, Moscow State University and the Independent University) will be visiting the UK from 29 April to 14 May, supported by an LMS Scheme 2 grant. Professor Shabat is one of the leading experts in algebraic geometry. He will give two lectures at Leeds on 3 and 6 May (contact A. Mikhailov), a lecture at Loughborough on 11 May (contact A.P. Veselov) and at Southampton on 13 May (contact G.A. Jones). For further details contact Alexander Mikhailov (A.V.Mikhailov@leeds.ac.uk).

VISIT OF PROFESSOR DA-JUN ZHANG
Professor Da-jun Zhang (Shanghai University) will visit the University of Leeds from 1-15 June partially supported by an LMS scheme 2 grant. He will give lectures at the following universities:

NGMA
The second meeting of NGMA (Network for Geometry, Mechanics and Applications), which is a sub-network of PANDA (Patterns, Nonlinear Dynamics and Applications), will take place at Southampton on 11 May on the theme of Geometric Approaches to Fluids and Liquid Crystals.

READING ONE-DAY COMBINATORICS COLLOQUIUM
There will be a one day Combinatorics Colloquium at Reading University on Wednesday 25 May. The talks will be in the Mathematics Building (Rooms 113 and 314) in the morning and in the Physics Building in the afternoon. The first talk will be at 10.30 am and the last will finish around 5.30 pm. Everyone who is interested is invited to attend. The speakers and the titles of their talks are:

MATHS MILLENNIUM PROJECT EVENT
On Thursday 19 May, 5.00 -6.00 pm, at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, Professor John Barrow will be speaking on 'Maths is Everywhere'.
What is mathematics and why does it 'work'? We will look at some of the ways in which mathematics can tell you things about the world that you can't learn in any other way. We will see how computers have extended the reach of human mathematicians, discover the simple nature of many 'hard' problems that no computer can solve, learn how to win at dice, understand how to coach some Olympic sports champions, and even discover whether the Premier Football League is just a random process. We meet the modern concepts of chaos and fractals, and see how they shed light on Abstract Expressionist art and art fraud. The talk is suitable for those aged 16 and over.
For free tickets please email Alison Boyle (mmp@maths.cam.ac.uk).

MATHS EVENT AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION
On Thursday 19 May, 6.30 -8.00 pm, at the Royal Institution, London, Dr Andrew Green will be speaking on 'The new renaissance in mathematical science'.
The Renaissance was a special time in the history of intellectual thought; a time when individuals could expect to understand the full range of current ideas from art to science and from engineering to philosophy. The story of science since this time has, however, been one of ever-increasing specialisation. This is an exciting time for mathematical scientists. A new subtlety in the way in which mathematics is applied to the world has emerged that has opened up new disciplines to mathematical analysis. Once again, it is possible for mathematical scientists to be renaissance men and women with careers spanning areas as diverse as cellular biology, information theory, finance and economics, theoretical physics and ecology. Join Andrew as he discusses these ideas from the perspective of a theoretical physicist, using examples from a range of disciplines to illustrate the nature of this new connectivity in science.

BELFAST FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS DAY
This year's Belfast Functional Analysis Day (BFAD) will feature Professor Vladimir Müller from the Czech Academy of Science as the main speaker. He will deliver two one-hour lectures on Orbits of Operators. As usual there will be contributed talks by the participants.
The meeting will be held in the Department of Pure Mathematics at Queen's University Belfast on Saturday 19 November. It is organised by Drs Martin Mathieu and Ivan Todorov and Professor Anthony Wickstead. It is supported by an LMS conference grant and postgraduate students studying at a UK or RoI university can be supported. Full details and further updates can be found at www.qub.ac.uk/ bfad or email m.m@qub.ac.uk.

PURE AND APPLIED ALGEBRAIC TOPOLOGY
A conference on Pure and Applied Algebraic Topology will be held on the Isle of Skye from 21-25 June. The emphasis will be on the emerging role of algebraic topology in physics and finite group theory, but the scope of the conference is broad, welcoming any new work in algebraic topology. Invited speakers are: Several shorter talks will also be scheduled. Participants are invited to indicate when they register if they are willing to give a talk.
The conference will take place at Sabhal Mór Ostaig College, near Sleat, on the Isle of Skye. The cost to register is £120, or £60 for postgraduate students. Accommodation at the venue is currently fully booked; for information on alternative accommodation and other costs please visit the conference website (details below). Further information and registration forms are available on-line at www. abdn.ac.uk/~wpe006/conference/index.php.
A tentative closing date for registration was given as 15 April, but late registration is possible. To do so, contact one of the members of the organizing committee: John Hubbuck (Aberdeen), Nick Kuhn (Virginia), Ran Levi (Aberdeen), Assaf Libman (Aberdeen), Stephen Theriault (Aberdeen), Michael Weiss (Aberdeen). The conference is supported by an LMS conference grant.

FOURIER ANALYSIS AND HYPERBOLIC PDES
The Fourier Analysis and Hyperbolic PDEs conference will be held at Imperial College London from 10-12 May.

School of Mathematics
The University of Southampton invites applications for four appointments in the fields of Applied Mathematics and Pure Mathematics. The University is in the top ten of research-led universities in the UK for both research quality and research income. In the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, all four units of assessment within the school were rated 5.

Lectureships in Pure Mathematics Ref. No. 04F0674
Applications are invited for two Lectureships in Pure Mathematics starting in October 2005. The Pure Mathematics Group has an international reputation in Geometric Group Theory and in K-theory. We seek applicants with an outstanding record of research in an area which will enhance our strengths. Preference will be given to applicants specialising in algebra, geometry or topology.

Lectureships in Applied Mathematics Ref. No. 04F0675
Applications are invited for two Lectureships in Applied Mathematics starting in October 2005. The Applied Mathematics group has an international reputation in General Relativity, Optics and Biomathematics. We seek applicants with an outstanding record of research in an area which will enhance the strengths of the group. Preference may be given to someone with a strong track record of research in General Relativity or the mathematics of optical phenomena and devices.
Informal enquiries concerning this post are welcome and may be made to Professor J A Vickers, email: J.A.Vickers@maths.soton.ac.uk Tel. +44 (0)23 80595113, Fax. +44 (0)23 80595147 Salary will be in the range of £24,161 to £28,009 per annum (Level 4), although an appointment may be made at a higher level for a suitably qualified candidate. Closing date for applications for these positions is 31 May 2005.
Application forms and further particulars for these posts are available from www.maths.soton.ac.uk or from the Human Resources Department, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ UK, Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 2750, email: recruit@soton.ac.uk or minicom 023 8059 5595. Please quote the appropriate reference number.

WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS DAY 2005
The next Women in Mathematics Day will be held on 25 May at De Morgan House. Talks will begin at 11 am, after half an hour for coffee and the day will end at 4.30 pm, followed by an early supper at a nearby restaurant. While this is an occasion particularly for women active in mathematics to get together, men are certainly not excluded. Sessions will include talks by practising women mathematicians in a variety of appointments and at different career stages.
One aim of the day is to encourage women approaching the various interfacesundergraduate/postgraduate, PhD/postdoc and so on -to stay in mathematics; we hope that an opportunity to see women who are active and successful in mathematics, and to meet with them informally over lunch, tea etc will have a positive effect on this problem. Feedback from previous meetings has shown that this is one of the aspects of the Women in Mathematics Days that participants say has made a difference to them. (i) derivation of the most important mathematical models of nonlinear waves and their use in practical applications; (ii) analysis of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, including multiple scale analysis, integrable system structure, long time asymptotics and blow-up; (iii) the inverse scattering transform for integrable models such as the Korteweg de Vries equation, and its extension to a transform method for boundary value problems.
The course aims to describe various different aspects of the relevant theory to an audience of advanced postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers in applied mathematics. However, presentations will be accessible to any graduate student with a basic training in fluid dynamics and analysis.
The three series of lectures will be supplemented by tutorials and problem sessions, as well as by a number of invited research seminars in the area of nonlinear waves, presenting the work of a number of major UK researchers in this area. More information can be found at: www.maths.rdg.ac.uk/nonlinearwaves.html.
The registration fee is £100. The accommodation costs for all UK-based research students are covered by EPSRC. Participants must pay their own travel costs. EPSRC-supported students can expect that their registration fees and travel costs will be met by their departments from the EPSRC Doctoral Training Account. Postdocs and non-UK students will be required to pay their own subsistence costs.
Application forms may be obtained from Isabelle Robinson, Administrative Officer, London Mathematical Society, De Morgan House, 57-58 Russell Square, London WC1B 4HS (email: robinson@lms.ac.uk, fax: 020 7291 9978) or from the LMS website: www.lms.ac.uk/activities/research_meet_com/short_course/25_poster.html Numbers will be limited and those interested are advised to make an early application. The closing date for applications is Friday 6 May 2005. Completed forms should be returned to the Administrative Officer by email, fax or post (details above). All applicants will be contacted by the London Mathematical Society approximately one week after this deadline; we will not be able to give information about individual applications before then. Please do not send any money until we ask.

LMS/EPSRC Short Course
University of Wales Swansea, 10-16 July 2005 Organiser: Dr Francis Clarke Algebraic Topology attempts to solve topological (or geometrical) problems by translating them into algebra. Three parallel lecture courses will focus on the most successful way of doing this: by means of generalised (co-)homology theories.
Dr Sarah Whitehouse (Sheffield) will provide an introduction to generalised (co-)homology theories, from K-theory to tmf, their multiplicative structures and their operations.
The computation of generalised (co-)homology groups is highly non-trivial. Spectral sequences are a key technique. Professor John McCleary (Vassar) will introduce the notion of a spectral sequence and show how computationally useful they can be.
Professor John Hunton (Leicester) will concentrate on studying (co-)homology theories from the perspective of stable homotopy theory, concluding with an introduction to the rich properties of recent models of categories of spectra.
The course is aimed at PhD students in Algebraic Topology but the themes may also interest students in other, adjacent fields. Prerequisites will be kept to a minimum. As well as the three courses, there will be tutorials, problem sessions and supplementary lectures. Further details may be obtained at www-maths.swan.ac.uk/ATshort-course.
The registration fee is £100. The accommodation costs for all UK-based research students are covered by EPSRC. Participants must pay their own travel costs. EPSRC-supported students can expect that their registration fees and travel costs will be met by their departments from the EPSRC Doctoral Training Account. Postdocs and non-UK students will be required to pay their own subsistence costs.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS
This calendar lists Society meetings and other events publicised in the Newsletter. Further information can be obtained from the appropriate LMS Newsletter whose number is given in brackets. A fuller list of meetings and events is given on the Society's website (www.lms.ac.uk/meetings/calendar.html).