Aotearoa Lodge and Conference Centre, Whitianga17-20 November 2014

NZMASP2014

SponsorsWe thankfully acknowledge our generous sponsors:

We would like to extend special thanks to the following people

for their support and assistance in making this year’s conference

possible: Vivien Kirk; Marston Conder; Claire Postlethwaite; Mike

Plank; Charles Semple; Stephen Joe; Geoff Whittle; Alex James;

Gaven Martin and Winston Sweatman.

New Zealand Mathematicsand Statistics Postgraduate

ConferenceThe annual New Zealand Mathematics and Statistics Postgraduate

conference is organised by students for students. It provides an

opportunity for postgraduates throughout New Zealand to network,

practise presentations and gain experience of conference etiquette

in a relaxed and supportive environment. This year the conference

is in Whitianga on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Starting in 2006, the South Island Mathematics and Statistics

Postgraduate Conference (SIMaSP) was held at Queenstown for

two days. Twenty six postgraduate students and staff from the

Universities of Canterbury and Otago attended. It was such a

success that the first New Zealand Mathematics and Statistics

Postgraduate Conference (NZMASP) was held in November 2007,

also in Queenstown. Since then the NZMASP conference has been

held in the following places:

2008 Whitianga;

2009 Foxton Beach;

2010 Westport;

2011 Lower Hutt;

2012 Shakespear Park;

2013 Cass Field Station.

Queenstown 2006, 2007

Whitianga 2008, 2014

Foxton Beach 2009

Westport 2010

Lower Hutt 2011

Shakespear Park 2012

Cass Field Station 2013

NZMASP 2014

Welcome ReceptionThere will be a welcome reception at On the Beach Backpackers

at 6pm on Monday.

The VenueAll talks will take place at the Aotearoa Lodge and Conference

Centre, 70 Racecourse Rd.

AccommodationAccommodation for students is at On the Beach Backpackers Lodge,

46 Buffalo Beach Rd. See the room allocation plan on the next

page.

Conference DinnerWednesday 7pm at the Indian buffet at Sangam Indian Cuisine,

13/1 Blacksmith Ln.

Prizes sponsored by

There will be prizes for the top four talks as chosen by participants

of the conference. A voting slip is on the last page of this booklet.

Fill it out and post it in the boxes provided by 11:30 on Thursday

20th November.

ExcursionWednesday afternoon is a free afternoon for you to spend how you

wish. Here are some suggestions, use the internet or talk to the

organisers for more information:

Whitianga Rock Walk This is a short walking track in

the Whitianga Rock Scenic and Historic Reserve just across

the Whitianga harbour.

Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove These are some

famous and equally as beautiful beaches on the east coast of

the Coromandel peninsula just east of Whitianga. There are

tour buses departing from Whitianga that can take you there.

Water Sports Kayaks and boats are available for hire, there

are also good diving spots and glass bottom boat tours to

experience Mercury Bay without getting wet.

Room AllocationsUnit Room Name

1 Single Susan Jowett

1 F1 Andrea Babylon

1 F2 Heather Davidson

1 F3 Louise McMillan

1 F4 Paula Bran

1 R1 Jeremie Morenhout

1 R2 Tuan Chien

1 R3 Jurij Volcic

1 R4 Barak Shani

1 D1 Timm Treskatis

1 D2 Paul Cordue

1 D3 Saeed Farjami

1 D4 Ben Lawrence

B1 Double Lynette OBrien/Graeme OBrien

B1 Twin 1 Rodelyn Avila

B1 Twin 2 Lisa Hall

B1 Dorm 1 Leon Escobar Diaz

B1 Dorm 2 Jerome Cao

B1 Dorm 3 Rory Ellis

B1 Dorm 4 Jack Simpson

B2 F1 Cris Hasan

B2 F2 Peter Langfield

B2 F3 Sebastian Boie

B2 F4 Jose Mujica

B2 R1 Jennifer Creaser

B2 R2 Sylvia Han

B2 R3 Maree Hawkins

B2 R4 Rebecca Turner

Unit Room Name

B6 Twin 1 Duy Ho

B6 Twin 2 Tan Do

B6 Dorm 1 Andrew Probert

B6 Dorm 2 Mathew Grice

B6 Dorm 3 Abu Zar Md Shafiullah

B6 Dorm 4 Will Critchlow

Female dorm Dorm 1 Howida Alfran

Female dorm Dorm 2 Rachelle Binny

Female dorm Dorm 3 Tina Li

Female dorm Dorm 4 Allanah Kenny

Female dorm Dorm 5 Carolyn Irons

Female dorm Dorm 6 Weijuan Zhang

Female dorm Dorm 7 Emma Greenbank

Female dorm Dorm 8 Giovanna Le Gros

Female dorm Dorm 9 Jasmine Hall

Male dorm Dorm 1 Ali Zaidi

Male dorm Dorm 2 Amjad Ali

Male dorm Dorm 3 Carlo Danieli

Male dorm Dorm 4 Liam McMahon

Male dorm Dorm 5 Chris King

Male dorm Dorm 6 Paul Brown

Male dorm Dorm 7 Giulio Dalla Riva

Male dorm Dorm 8 Hafiz Mohd

Male dorm Dorm 9 Andrus Giraldo

Male dorm Dorm 10 Abhishek Bhardwaj

Male dorm Dorm 11 Jesse Hart

Male dorm Dorm 12 James Hannam

Top tips for student talksBy last year’s plenary speakers: Alex James; Jeanette McLeod

and Elena Moltchenova.

Slides: Beamer, powerpoint, ...? Nobody cares. As long as your

slides look nice and are informative that’s all that matters! Check

them in a large room beforehand, can you read everything from

the back row? Do all the lines on your graphs show up on a

low resolution projector? Don’t get carried away with fancy slide

effects, revealing things one at a time should aid understanding

and not just jazz up a too long list of bullet points. As a rule of

thumb no more than two effects per talk. Spell-check!

Equations: Research (Fawcett, PNAS, 2012) has shown that

citations decrease as equations per page increase. The same applies

to talks. Try to use English words not mathematical symbols.

Style: Chatty talks are nice but don’t sacrifice mathematical

formality to achieve this. Experienced speakers who do this took

years to perfect it and started off by giving formal talks.

Facilities: Videos and movies are great but check they work

on the conference system and have a back up plan if they don’t.

Drawing on a whiteboard usually comes across as poor preparation,

as though you couldn’t be bothered to prepare a decent slide.

We strongly recommend you avoid doing it unless there is a true

pedagogical need.

Less is more: Don’t include your entire thesis. The aim of a talk

is to enthuse, educate and entertain your audience. Many good

speakers choose one (often small) concept from their research and

explain this to the audience. If your research topic is particularly

obscure this may need to be a fairly basic concept!

Audience: Remember to adapt your talk to your audience. A

graph theory conference participant has a different background to a

more general conference participant. Be sure to define your terms!

For more general audiences you should spend some time motivating

your work. This is especially important for pure maths topics.

Preparation: Good talks take time to prepare. It’s very obvious

to your audience when you’ve just thrown together a talk at the last

minute. They’ve taken time from their busy schedule to listen to

you. It’s quite insulting when you haven’t taken a similar amount

of time to prepare.

Body language: Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing :-) If you don’t

look interested why will your audience be interested. Look at the

audience, make eye-contact with people. Try not to spend your

whole talk talking to the whiteboard, screen or floor.

Laser pointers: These are a curse to the nervous, they make

it obvious if your hand is shaking! For smaller rooms consider

just using your hand to point instead. If you do use one, use it

sparingly, don’t wave it around the screen constantly, it can make

people feel seasick.

Questions: Answering questions after your talk is important.

But if you do not know the answer, it is fine to say so and to follow

up later. Do not forget to thank the commenter.

Acknowledgements: Research is rarely the product of a single

person. Who is your supervisor? Who funded you? Include

references and make it clear what your contribution is.

Program

Tuesd

ay18th

November

Room

1Chair

Peter

Langfield

Room

2Chair

Tim

mTreskatis

9:00

–9:20

Gra

eme

O’B

rien

Discrete

Groups

of

MobiusTransformations

Ali

Zaidi

Solutions

toan

advanced

functional

partial

differential

equationof

the

pantograph-typ

e

9:20

–9:40

TanDo

From

stronglyellip

ticoperatorsto

degenerateellip

ticoperators:

Coreproperties

Caro

lynIronsLineage

tracingin

collective

cellmigration

9:40

–10:00

Bara

kShaniTheHidden

Number

Problem

and

Applicationsto

Bit

Security

inFinite

Fields

Rach

elle

Binny

Defining

Mom

ents:

SpatialStructure

inaModel

ofCollective

CellMovem

ent

10:00–10:20

Sylvia

Han

AMathem

atical

Model

of

Calcium

Dynam

icsandSalivaSecretion

DuyHoToroidal

CirclePlanes

10:20–10:40

Sebastian

Boie

Excitation-contraction

couplin

gin

airway

smooth

musclecells

Jasm

ineHallGeneralizingtheGeometry

of

Throws

10:40–11:00

Allanah

Kenny

Calcium

Oscillationsin

Smooth

MuscleCells

Chris

King

On

5-adic

and

7-adic

λ-

invariants

attached

tocyclic

cubic

number

fields

Tuesd

ay18th

November

11:00–11:30

MorningTea

11:30–12:30

IgorKlepLinearMatrixInequalities

12:30–1:30

Lunch

Room

1Chair

AndrusGiraldo

Room

2Chair

Tuan

Chien

1:30

–1:50

PaulBrown

BayesianInference

usingLow

Discrepancy

Sequences

Cris

Hasan

Mixed-m

ode

Oscillations

andCanardOrbitsin

Systemsof

Chem

ical

Reactions

1:50

–2:10

Rodelyn

Avila

TheUse

ofPeakHeight

VelocityandPeakWeightVelocityforObesity

StatusPrediction

Maree

Hawkins

Freezing

Multiple

Tim

escaleModels

2:10

–2:30

Xin

LiIncorporatingcompetitionin

atrait-

based

communityassembly

model

LynetteO’B

rien

AStudyof

burstingin

aThreeDim

ensional

System

2:30

–2:50

Leon

Escobar

Diaz

Numerical

solution

oftheCauchyproblem

forspacetim

eswith

spatialtopologiesS3

orS1

×S2

Jack

Sim

pso

nRed

Numbers:

TheStudy

ofMathem

aticsUnder

SovietSocialism

Tuesd

ay18th

November

2:50

–3:20

AfternoonTea

3:20

–4:20

Caro

lineYoonWhat

kindof

mathem

aticseducatorareyou?

Room

1Chair

JeremieMoerenhout

Room

2Chair

RachelleBinny

4:20

–4:40

Howida

Alfra

nTheedge

slidegraphof

then-dim

ensional

cube

PeterLangfield

Interactionsof

forward-

andbackw

ard-tim

eisochrons

4:40

–5:00

PaulCord

ue

CharacterisingPhylogenetic

Networks

that

DisplayaTreeTwice

Jose

Mujica

ALin’smethod

approachfor

detectingcanardorbits

5:00

–5:20

Tuan

Chien

When

aretwosequencesof

vectorsprojectivelyunitarily

equivalent?

Jen

Creaser

TheLorenzsystem

nearthe

loss

ofthefoliation

condition

Wednesd

ay19th

November

Room

1Chair

Barak

Shani

Room

2Chair

Sebastian

Boie

9:00

–9:20

BenLawrence

Linearmatrixinequalities,

spectrahedra,andoptimisation

Louise

McM

illan

Saddlepoint

Method:

AnIntroduction

9:20

–9:40

Jurij

Volcic

Noncommutative

rational

functions

Abu

ZarM

dShafiullah

Acomparative

studyon

theerrorratesandpow

erofselection

criteria

forfactor

screening

9:40

–10:00

Tim

mTreskatis

Viscoplastic

Fluids:

LaboriousbutFun

Weijuan

Zhang

Som

einfin

itefamilies

of

chiral

polytopes

10:00–10:20

Amjad

Ali

ASim

plified

Model

for

Transportin

Aquifers

Matthew

Grice

Graphswithnooddcycles

arebipartite

-theproof

from

‘TheBook’

10:20–10:40

Saeed

Farjami

Spikeaddingin

Transient

dynam

ics

Jeremie

Moerenhout

Chiral

Polytopes

arisingfrom

almostsimple

groupswithsocle

PSL(2,q)

10:40–11:00

AndreaBabylon

Modellin

gLeptospirosis

inLivestock

andWild

life

Jero

meCao

Uniquenessof

Merom

orphic

FunctionandItsk-th

DerivativewithTwo

WeightedSharingValues

11:00–11:30

MorningTea

11:30–12:30

Mary

am

AlaviAppliedMathem

aticsin

Industry:a“real-world”exam

ple

Wednesd

ay19th

November

12:30–1:30

Lunch

Room

1Chair

PaulCordue

Room

2Chair

JenCreaser

1:30

–1:50

WillCritchlow

Alm

osteverymatroid?

HafizM

ohd

Modellin

gtheDistributions

ofCom

petingSpeciesalongEnvironmental

Gradients

1:50

–2:10

Andrew

Pro

bert

PathWidth

inGraphs

Heath

er

Davidso

nGeothermal

spring

temperature

analysis

2:10

–2:30

Susan

Jowett

Graphic

Connectivity

Functions

Carlo

Danieli

FlatBand

Modelswith

correlated

onsite

perturbation

2:30pm

Excursion

7:00pm

Conference

Dinner

Thursday20th

November

Room

1Chair

AndreaBabylon

Room

2Chair

Tan

Do

9:00

–9:20

Andru

sGiraldo

Global

Invariant

ManifoldsnearaHom

oclin

icFlip

Bifurcation

Paula

Bra

nEstim

atingabundance

using

DNAsamples

9:20

–9:40

RebeccaTurn

er

TestingaModelof

Bird

Navigation

Rory

Ellis

Com

paring

SARIM

Aand

PARMA

modelsin

forecastingretail

trade

data

9:40

–10:00

GiulioDallaRiva

TheWeb

andtheTree

andtheWeb

LisaHall

Tobeor

not

tobe–that

isnot

thequestion.Toseeor

not

tosee–now

that

isthequestion!

10:00–10:20

Abhishek

Bhard

waj

Positive

Polynom

ialsandSumsof

HermitianSquares

JamesHannam

Will

mynew

tower

stand

tallthrough

anearthquake?

10:20–10:40

JesseHart

Robin

Constants

onAlgebraic

Curves

inC

2

Emma

Greenbank

Modellin

gSurtseyan

Ejecta

10:40–11:00

GiovannaLeGro

sKhovanov

Hom

ology

ofKnots

Liam

McM

ahon

CurrentSheetFormation

ata

Magnetic

Neutral

Line

ina

Weakly

Collisional

Plasm

a

11:00–11:30

MorningTea

11:30–12:30

Rach

elFewsterHow

tofake

dataifyoumust

12:30–2:00

Lunch,prizesandfarewell

Notes

Priz

e Vo

ting

Slip

Noteyourfavourite

talkby

astudenton

thevotingslip

below

,tear

itoff

andpostitin

theboxes

provided

by11:30am

onThursday

20th

Novem

ber.Plenarytalkscannot

win

theprize.Thetopfourtalkswill

receiveaprize.

Nom

inationforBestTalk

Nam

e

Titleof

Talk