Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics Conferences in 2007 and 2008

2007年7月，第19届“形式幂级数与代数组合学”国际会议将在中国天津南开大学组合学中心召开。2008年6月，第二十届FPSAC国际会议将在智利瓦尔帕莱索举行。这笔资金将专门用于支持45名在美国大学学习或工作的研究生、博士后、早期职业研究人员和来自代表性不足群体的研究人员参加这两次会议。传统上，FPSAC会议有9个全体发言人，大约30个专题演讲和2个海报会议。来自世界各地的参与者人数在120至200人之间，其中70至120人是研究生和早期职业研究人员。年度FPSAC会议的持续成功部分源于其相当广泛的跨学科广度——将组合数学领域的领先研究人员与来自纯数学和应用数学、理论计算机科学、物理学和生物学等相关领域的强大研究人员联系起来。这个会议系列的相当大的跨度是独特的国际会议与强调组合数学。接下来两届FPSAC会议的主要主题将是：代数和枚举组合及其应用以及与数学、物理、生物和计算机科学等其他领域的关系。全体会议发言人的选择证明了跨学科的跨度。中国的全体发言人都已确认参加。分别是：Bruce C. Berndt（美国伊利诺伊大学）、Philippe Biane（法国高等师范学院）、Anders Buch（美国罗格斯大学）、Maxime Crochemore（法国马恩拉山谷大学）、Eva-Maria Feichtner（德国斯图加特大学）、Sergey Fomin（美国密歇根大学）、Ezra Miller（美国明尼苏达大学）、Soichi Okada（日本名古屋大学）和Peter Paule（奥地利林茨大学）。至于智利FPSAC'08，以下发言人已确认参加：Marcelo Aguiar（德克萨斯州AM）， Micheal Albert（新西兰奥塔哥大学），Jonathan Brundan（美国俄勒冈大学），Ian Grojnowski（英国剑桥大学），Maria Ronco（智利瓦尔帕莱索大学）。FPSAC'07会议的科学项目主席和联合主席是：中国南开大学的Bill Chen和法国马恩-拉-瓦尔伊大学的Jean-Yves Thibon。FPSAC'08会议的主席和联合主席是：塔尔卡大学的Luc Lapointe和密歇根州立大学的Bruce Sagan。FPSAC会议的一个显著特点是共同努力表彰和鼓励杰出的青年科学家。这在一定程度上是通过选择至少一位“新兴”明星（Eva-Maria Feichtner， Marcelo Aguiar和Jonathan Brundan）作为全体会议发言人来实现的，并确保有才华的年轻研究人员在选择的演讲者中得到充分的代表。FPSAC会议的另一个特点是继续努力强调与会者之间的包容性。会议旨在吸引传统上在数学科学领域代表性不足的群体的大量参与。参加这两个会议对于研究生和初级研究人员来说是非常有价值的。中国有一个充满活力的组合学研究群体，近年来他们一直在寻求显著增加他们的国际研究合作。这将是研究生和职业研究人员与中国研究人员发展联系的独特机会。FPSAC 2007标志着该系列会议首次在亚洲举行。FPSAC 2008也标志着该会议首次在南美洲举行。与阿根廷和巴西等地区其他国家相比，智利的数学界规模相对较小。然而，近年来它一直在快速增长。我们希望FPSAC能够促进智利数学的发展，至少在离散数学领域。这两次会议都将有会议论文集。

In July 2007, the nineteenth international conference entitled FormalPower Series and Algebraic Combinatorics (FPSAC) will be held atthe Center for Combinatorics at Nankai University in Tianjin, China.In June 2008, the twentieth FPSAC international conference will be held in Valparaiso, Chile. The funding from this grant will be used to exclusively support the attendance, at each of these 2 conferences, of 45 graduate students, post-doctoral students, early career researchers, and researchers from underrepresented groups, who are studying or working at American Universities. Traditionally, the FPSAC conferences feature 9 plenary speakers, approximately30 contributed talks, and 2 poster sessions. The number of participants varies between 120 to 200 from all around the world, of whom between 70 to 120 are graduate students and early career researchers. The continuing success of the annual FPSAC conferences stems in part from their considerableinterdisciplinary breadth---linking leading researchers in combinatorial mathematics with strong researchers in allied fields drawn from pure and applied mathematics, theoretical computer science, physics, and biology. The considerable span of this conference series is unique among international conferences with an emphasis on combinatorial mathematics.The principal topics featured during the next two FPSAC conferences will be: algebraic and enumerative combinatorics and their applications and relations to other areas of mathematics, physics, biology, and computer science. The interdisciplinary span is evidenced by the choice of plenary speakers. All the plenary speakers for China have confirmed their participation. Those are: Bruce C. Berndt (U. of Illinois, USA), Philippe Biane (Ecole Normale Superieure, France), Anders Buch (Rutgers U., USA), Maxime Crochemore (U. of Marne-la-Vallee, France), Eva-Maria Feichtner (U. of Stuttgart,Germany), Sergey Fomin (U. of Michigan, USA), Ezra Miller (U. of Minnesota, USA),Soichi Okada (Nagoya U. Japan), and Peter Paule (U. of Linz, Austria).As for the FPSAC'08 in Chile, the following speakers have confirmed their participation: Marcelo Aguiar (Texas AM), Micheal Albert (U. of Otago, New Zealand), Jonathan Brundan (U. of Oregon, USA), Ian Grojnowski (U. of Cambridge, UK), Maria Ronco (U. de Valparaiso, Chile). The Chair and co-Chair for the Scientific program of the FPSAC'07 conference are: Bill Chen of Nankai University, China and Jean-Yves Thibon of the University of Marne-La-Vall\'ee, France. For the FPSAC'08 conference the chair and co-chair are: Luc Lapointe of the Universidad de Talca, and Bruce Sagan of Michigan State University.A distinguishing characteristic of FPSAC conferences is the concerted effort to recognize and encourage outstanding young scientists. This is accomplished in part by choosing at least one plenary speaker to be an ``emerging'' star (Eva-Maria Feichtner, Marcelo Aguiar and Jonathan Brundan) and by ensuring that talented young researchers are well represented among the speakers selected for contributed talks. Another special feature of the FPSAC conferences is a continuing effort to emphasize inclusiveness among participants. The conference seeks to draw substantial participation from groups which have been traditionally under-represented in the mathematical sciences. Attendance at these two conferences will be exceptionally valuable for graduate students and junior researchers. China has a vibrant community of researchers in combinatorics, and in recent years they have sought to significantly increase their international research collaborations.This will be a unique opportunity for graduate students andearly career resarchers to develop ties with Chinese researchers.FPSAC 2007 marks the first time this conference series willtake place in Asia. FPSAC 2008 also marks the first time this conference will be held in South America. In contrast to other countries in the region such as Argentina and Brazil, Chile still has a relatively small mathematical community. However, it has been fast growing in recent years. We are hopeful that FPSAC will bolster the efforts for the developement of mathematics in Chile,at the very least in the field of Discrete Math. There will be conference Proceedings for each of these two conferences.