International Conference on Commutative Algebra & Combinatorics
Jointly Organised by Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana, Pune &
Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad.

Dates: 08 December, 2003 - 13 December, 2003.

PLEASE HEED
DECEMBER IS A PEAK SEASON FOR TRAVEL TO INDIA FROM THE U. S. AND EUROPE. SO PARTICIPANTS ARE REQUESTED TO BOOK THEIR TICKETS * EARLIEST* TO AVOID THE RUSH.


On the occasion of the first International meeting of the American Mathematical Society in India organised by the Indian Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science Academy at Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore from December 17-21, the Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana felt it would be an ideal opportunity to further its interest in the spread of computational and combinatorial methods in commutative algebra.

The Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana appropriately has taken the lead in developing this frontier area of research in accordance with its traditions begun by its founder, and continued and extended by its present Managing committee. We have successfully organised two workshops in Computational methods in Commutative Algebra so far: The first was jointly with the University of Pune on Commutative Algebra and Invariant theory which it ran in December, 1999, and this was followed up by a workshop jointly with Harish-Chandra Research Institute, in Arithmetic and Computational Algebraic Geometry, which it ran in Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad from January 2-11, 2003. The second workshop had an international flavour with Wolfram Decker and Christoph Lossen conducting the actual computational laboratory. We are grateful to the N.B.H.M. for funding these programmes substantially, which made it possible for us to conduct them efficiently.

In view of the fact that 2003 is the 60-th year of two of India's major contributors in Commutative Algebra and Combinatorics related to it, viz. R.C. Cowsik & V. C. Dumir, we felt it would be appropriate to have a conference on Commutative Algebra and Combinatorics at this juncture. We have again approached the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, and have decided to organise an International Conference on Commutative Algebra & Combinatorics at H.R.I., Allahabad from December 8-13, 2003.


In view of the large international participation expected, it was decided to form an international organising committee which would oversee the academic aspects of the school type workshop planned in the morning sessions accessible to graduate students, and in choosing the speakers for the international conference being planned for the afternoon sessions. In the morning session the participants will be exposed to several front-line areas of commutative algebra, and some of the recent developments and open problems in those areas.



The International Organising committee


Chairman: W. Bruns, University of Osnabrük,
Member: A. Conca, University of Genoa, Italy.
Member: I. Swanson, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, USA
Member: T. Hibi, Osaka University, Japan
Member: R. V. Gurjar, T. I. F. R., India.
Member: S. Adhikari, H.R.I., Allahabad.
Member: R. Thomas, University of Washington at Seattle, U.S.A.
Member: N. V. Trung, Hanoi Mathematical Institute, Vietnam.
Member: S. A. Katre, University of Pune, India.
Member: R. A. Rao, T. I. F. R., India.

The international committee is also entrusted with the task of finding travel funds for members from developing countries, with the help of the local organising committee. They will also assist in raising the funds required for holding the conference. This may be by approaching the national bodies like N.B.H.M., D.S.T., or other local organisations, and also via Registration fees.



The local organising committee

Chairman: R. V. Gurjar, T.I.F.R. & Managing Council, Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana.
Secretary & Treasurer: S. A. Katre,
University of Pune, & Managing Council, Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana.
Member: S. D. Adhikari, H.R.I., Allahabad.
Member: R. A. Rao, T.I.F.R.

Member: J. K. Verma, I.I.T., Mumbai.
Member: R. L. Karandikar, I.S.I., Delhi



The local organising committee will look after all aspects of the organisation, including raising of funds, accounts, auditing, travelling arrangements, accommodation, meals, computer facilities, and usual organisational details. We expect to invite about 30 participants from India, and about 40 participants from abroad to take part in this workshop. It will try to make arrangements for travel expenses to the Indian participants, and for all participants from either Allahabad to H.R.I. or from Varanasi to H.R.I. or from Delhi to H.R.I. (The actual purchase of tickets, and its reimbursement may be borne by us, if sufficient funds can be raised.)



Description of the Activity


The international organising committee decided to focus on a few areas of commutative algebra which were prominent today, and had open problems which could be tackled by students. It was also decided to separate the areas of research being covered in this school from those being covered in the session on Commutative Algebra being organised at the A.M.S. meet in Bangalore. We are grateful to Professor J.K. Verma, who is helping us to coordinate these aspects. Generally speaking, the more theoretical aspects of research in Commutative Algebra are being covered in the A.M.S. session on Commutative Algebra at Bangalore, whereas the present satellite conference will cover aspects of Commutative Algebra, related to Combinatorial and Computational Algebra.



Our daily schedule


The morning sessions will be of "school type" with 6 series of lectures, each consisting of 3 lectures. In the afternoon we shall have conference type talks, two of one hour (or 50 minutes) and two of 30 minutes. All the 24 speakers will be by invitation. We shall have tutorial sessions in the evenings in order to emphasize the computational aspects and to include some practical training. The following describe the series of lectures being planned.

Computational methods


1. I. Swanson: On Primary decomposition.
2. N. V. Trung: On Regularity, Local Cohomology, Reduction number.
3. Serkan Hosten: Toric Ideals: Algebra, Optimization and Statistics.


Combinatorial methods


W. Bruns: On Linear Diophantine equations leading to Anand-Gupta-Dumir Conjecture