Description of the mini-Conference

For the past 16 years, Professor Renu Laskar of the Department of Mathematical Sciences and Professor Stephen Hedetniemi of the Department of Computer Science have organized and co-hosted the Clemson mini-Conference on Discrete Mathematics, with support from ONR and NSA. This year the name has changed, and it is being funded by NSF.

As the name suggests the mini-Conference is rather brief and rather small. It lasts a day and a half (usually Thursday afternoon and all day Friday). It consists of from 11-14, 40-minute talks from invited speakers. The talks are separated by 10-20 minute breaks, depending on the number of speakers. Speakers talk on any topic they like. About 100 people attend, mostly from the Southeast, but a few come from just about anywhere, including Canada, Europe and even South Africa.

Since the conference is jointly sponsored by the Department of Mathematical Sciences and the Department of Computer Science, the dozen or so speakers are usually split between pure discrete mathematicians and algorithmic types, but sometimes it is difficult to determine into which category a speaker falls.

The conference is low key, low expense. No registration fee is charged anyone to attend the conference; refreshments, including a party Thursday night, and a pizza dinner Friday evening, are provided free-of-charge. This permits many graduate students to attend. Each speaker is asked to permit us to make photocopies of their slides, which we then provide, free-of-charge, to all interested attendees. Thus, there are no proceedings of this small conference; only slides.

Most conference attendees who cannot drive to Clemson, fly into the Greenville-Spartanburg, SC airport, which is about a 50-minute car ride from Clemson. Arrangements can usually be made for someone to pick you up at the airport and drive you to Clemson, and then later take you back to the airport, usually free-of-charge. Lodging is arranged at one of the Clemson motels including

• Holiday Inn (864) 654-4450, or 1-800-HOLIDAY
• Ramada Inn (864) 654-7501
• Comfort Inn (864) 653-3600
• Sleep Inn (864) 653-6000
• Hampton Inn (864) 653-7744, or 1-800-HAMPTON
• Days Inn of Clemson (864) 653-4411
• The Clemson House, on the Clemson campus (864) 654-2491
• Clemson Suites (864) 654-4605
• Clemson Motel (864) 654-2744
• The James F. Martin Inn (888) 654-9020

For cheaper airfares, some attendees stay in Clemson on Saturday and fly out Sunday morning. An informal Saturday morning seminar is often held for those who are still here. Since the conference starts around 1:30 pm on a Thursday afternoon, attendees can usually arrange to fly to the Greenville-Spartanburg airport sometime Thursday morning and arrive in time for the start of the mini-Conference.

A complete list of all former speakers at all previous Clemson mini-Conferences is found in Previous_mini-Conferences.

For any other information about the mini-Conference, interested persons can contact either:

• Professor Renu Laskar at rclsk@mail.clemson.edu
• Professor Steve Hedetniemi at hedet@cs.clemson.edu

Student Senate Chambers, Student Union Clemson University
Clemson, South Carolina

Speakers:

Prof. Ravindra K. Ahuja, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Florida
Prof. Charles Colbourn, Chair, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Arizona State University
Prof. Ralph Faudree, Provost, University of Memphis
Prof. Herbert Fleischner, Institute of Discrete Mathematics, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Prof. Wayne Goddard, formerly Department of Computer Science, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa; now Department of Computer Science, Clemson University
Prof. Jerrold Griggs, Department of Mathematics, University of South Carolina
Prof. Bruce Landman, Chair, Department of Mathematics, University of West Georgia
Prof. K. B. Reid, Department of Mathematics, California State University, San Marcos
Prof. Ian Roberts, Faculty of Science, Information Technology and Education, Northern Territory University, Darwin, Australia
Prof. Chris Rodger, Discrete & Statistical Sciences Department, Auburn University
Prof. Allen Schwenk, Department of Mathematics, Western Michigan University
Prof. Harold Ward, Department of Mathematics, University of Virginia

Thursday, October 10th

Friday, October 11th