The LSUS Department of Mathematics Home Page

LSUS math student gets published.

Laura McCormick, LSUS math major (and president of the LSUS Math and Physics Club), has had an article published (Nov. 2009) in the Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Society. The article's title is "Square products of punctured sequences of factorials" and is co-authored with Dr. Rick Mabry of the LSUS Department of Mathematics. The article extends Laura's solution to a journal problem in the Gazette; more info here.

Laura presented her research at the Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference at Sam Houston State University, November 7, 2009, and again at the Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics, Jan. 29–31, 2010.

LaPrep Professorship gets super-sized.

The Board of Regents awarded matching funds in the amount of $80,000 to enhance the AEP/SWEPCO LaPREP Professorship to the AEP/SWEPCO LaPREP Super Professorship held by Dr. Carlos Spaht. Read more here. Congratulations to Carlos and LaPrep!

New professorship boosts department's research

The Miriam M. Sklar Endowed Professorship for Theoretical Math and Physics is newly established at the $100,000 level with the initial investment of $60,000 from the Sklar family and $40,000 in matching funds from the Board of Regents. The recipient is Dr. Richard Mabry, professor of mathematics. More details here.

Dr. Shepherd rides the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

Debbie and Bruce have moved, taking positions at UTC (the University of Tennessee Chattanooga). Debbie served as a key member of our department during 2001-2009, starting and running the Actuarial Sciences program and serving as chair (2005-2007). She will be sorely missed by all of us. Luckily, she has family in Shreveport and we can hope to see her between semesters. You can still reach her at her LSUS email address. Good luck, Debbie and Bruce!

Wanda Huhn elected to national and state KKI posts

Wanda was elected as Kappa Kappa Iota National Recording Secretary and Kappa Kappa Iota Eta State (La.) Treasurer. Kappa Kappa Iota is an educational organization.

Dr. Paul Sisson is Provost.

At some point in the past few years (it's all a blur), while still Dean of the (then *) College of Sciences, Dr. Paul Sisson was named Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Soon the "Interim" was dropped, but he was still maintaining two offices, one as Dean, the other as Provost. After a year or so of this hectic nonsense, Paul was able to drop the Dean thing and settle down to the relaxing (yeah, right) role as Provost. He now has just one office (except that his Blackberry is almost always on, so his office is The Earth). Oh wait—now Paul is also Dean of Graduate Studies! Is that in a separate office? Congratulations (with reservations), Paul!

* As of August 2009, the College of Sciences has merged with the College of Liberal Arts to become one: The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Curtis Wesley is a father!

Curtis and Huilan (mainly the latter) gave birth to Benjamin Lawrence Wesley on July 17, 2009, and all are doing great.

Recent publications by LSUS math faculty

Curtis Wesley's research spreads.

A Habitat-Based Model for the Spread of Hantavirus Between Reservoir and Spillover Species (with L.J.S. Allen (primary author), R.D. Owen, D.G. Goodin, D. Koch, C.B. Jonsson , Y.-K. Chu, S. Hutchinson, and R. Paige), Journal of Theoretical Biology, in press; accepted June, 2009.
Models for the Spread and Persistence of Hantavirus Infection in Rodents and Indirect Transmission to Humans (with L.J.S. Allen), Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, in press; accepted May, 2009.
Presentations:
- Oct. 2009, The 2nd International Conference on Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of Populations in Biological Systems, University of Alabama in Huntsville (oral presentation: "Models for the Spread of Hantavirus between Reservoir and Spillover Species")
- May 2009, 24th Annual Shanks Conference, Mathematical Modeling in Medical Science, Vanderbilt University (oral presentation: "A Habitat-Based Model for the Spread of Hantavirus Between Reservoir and Spillover Species")
- Sep. 2008, Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Poster Presentation, Ohio State University (poster presentation: "The Basic Reproduction Number in Epidemic Models with Periodic Demographics")

Zsolt Lengvárszky publishes four articles (discretely and otherwise).

On the combinatorics of an origami model, Discrete Mathematics 309 (2009), 4171–4175.
The size of maximal systems of square islands, European Journal of Combinatorics 30 (2009), 889–892.
The minimum cardinality of maximal systems of rectangular islands, European Journal of Combinatorics 30 (2009), 216–219.
Reflective Polyhedra, Geombinatorics 18 (2008), 35–45.

Paul Sisson connects math and art; 2nd edition of text in print.

Fractal Art Using Variations on Escape Time Algorithms in the Complex Plane, Journal of Mathematics and the Arts 1 (2007), no. 1, 41–45.
Precalculus, Hawkes Publishing, 2006 (ISBN 0-918091-89-6).
College Algebra, 2nd ed., Hawkes Publishing, 2008 (ISBN 1-932628-27-4).

Rick Mabry connects math and ... pizza? Pool? Dancing?? Where's the beer?

Stretched shadings and a Banach measure that is not scale-invariant, Fundamenta Mathematicae, to appear.
Crosscut Convex Quadrilaterals, Mathematics Magazine, to appear.
The Hardest Straight-in Pool Shot, College Math. J., 41, no. 1 (Jan. 2010), 49–57.
Square products of punctured sequences of factorials, Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Society, 36, no. 53 (Nov. 2009), 346–352. (coauthor Laura McCormick (LSUS student)). [This is an extension of the solution to a Gazette problem here:
"Factorial fun", Austral. Math. Soc. Gaz. 36, no. 3 (July 2009), 178.]
Of Cheese and Crust: A Proof of the Pizza Conjecture and Other Tasty Results, American Math. Monthly 116, no. 5 (May 2009), 423–438 (coauthor Paul Deiermann).
A Result of Strauss, Amer. Math. Monthly, 115, no. 8 (Oct 2008), p. 756. [Groan!]
Taylor minima [Problem 1772], Math. Mag. 81, no.3 (June 2008), p.222.
A Chancy Function [Problem 11327], Am. Math. Monthly 116, no.7 (Aug.–Sep. 2009), 655–656 (coauthor Debbie Shepherd).

Keith Neu has several papers published

Keith Neu, graduate of LSUS's math program, former LSUS instructor, and now teaching at Angelina College in Lufkin, TX, has had several mathematical papers published or accepted for publication lately:

Almost Isometry-Invariant Sets and Shadings, Real Analysis Exchange, to appear.
The Number of Different Maximal Product-Free Subsets of a Group, Journal of Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing 73 (May 2010), to appear.
A Few Results on Archimedean Sets, Real Analysis Exchange 34 (2008/2009), no. 2, 157–170.
Using random tilings to derive a Fibonacci congruence, College Mathematics Journal 37 (2006), no. 1, 44–47. (coauthor Paul Deiermann) Zentralblatt citation