The Department of Mathematical Sciences at New Mexico State University hosted the Twenty Third Holiday Symposium --- Algebraic Structure for Logic, from January 8 to 12, 1999. The main speakers were Professors Bjarni Jonsson (Vanderbilt University) and Willem Blok (University of Illinois at Chicago). Each of the main lecturers delivered five one hour talks, giving a wonderful view of the development and current status of algebraizable logic and the corresponding algebraic structures. Over sixty participants attended the conference, representing over a dozen countries and five continents. Twenty five of these participants contributed lectures on various topics in algebra and logic.

For more information contact: jharding@nmsu.edu

A program to establish a new one semester high school mathematics course, to be taught by current teachers, pre-service teachers, and graduates of the NMSU Department of Mathematical Sciences Master's program in Mathematics Education has been established at NMSU with the support of the Eisenhower Foundation. The course content is applications driven and includes the design of identification numbers, probability, the mathematics of symmetry, encryption, musical and medical acoustics, and the topology of surfaces. The Project Director, David Finston, and Doug Kurtz are team teaching an NMSU course in which materials for the high school course will be developed by the participants who are pre-service and in-service teachers as well as undergraduate students in the general education Mathematics Appreciation course. The materials produced by the program are expected to be available on the World Wide Web in Summer, 1999.

For more information contact: dfinston@nmsu.edu

The NMSU Mathematics Department, together with several departments in the College of Engineering, has created the "Center for Dynamics, Mechanics and Control," an interdisciplinary research center with focus on issues in robotics and control of dynamical systems. It provides an environment, where students and faculty from different disciplines can interact. Mathematics students become familiar with applications of their subject and learn how to communicate with mathematics users. An extensive educational outreach program is also part of the center's mission.

The department is also working with the Department of Electrical Engineering to develop interdisciplinary graduate and undergraduate programs combining mathematics and information technology.

For more information contact: reinhard@nmsu.edu

In view of problems in Machine Intelligence, research efforts in mathematics for reasoning with fuzzy concepts have spread worldwide. Here at NMSU and UTEP, Hung T. Nguyen and Vladik Kreinovich and their research groups have recently focused their efforts on using a Chu category as a general framework for developing information fusion procedures in intelligent decision-making. This is motivated by recent attempts to use this general algebraic scheme in modeling of information flow in distributed systems (Barwise and Seligman) and in modeling concurrency in Computer Science (V. Pratt). Since Fuzzy Theory is essentially a mathematical model for representing and reasoning with fuzzy concepts in our natural language (containing the most general form of knowledge), it can be embedded into a Chu category framework with natural interpretations. As such it is expected that Chu spaces together with their morphisms can generate new inference procedures for fuzzy logic-based technology applications. This group has been and will be invited speakers in such places as Thessaloniki, Greece; Bhunaneswar, India; Taipei, Taiwan; and Seoul, Korea.

For more information contact: hunguyen@nmsu.edu

Several undergraduate mathematics majors, graduate students and faculty are working together on a joint research project with the NMSU Physical Sciences Laboratory. The project focuses on the development of new mathematical tools from combinatorics and computational algebra for the analysis of complex decision systems. The combination of discrete mathematics, computer simulations and techniques from systems theory provides an ideal learning environment for students, and puts them at the cutting edge of applied mathematical research.

For more information contact: reinhard@nmsu.edu

As part of the activities of the Southwest Regional Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, a group of high school faculty from several disciplines, university mathematics faculty, graduate and undergraduate students is developing a one-year elective high school course in cryptography, which will be taught during the academic year 1998-99 in several Las Cruces High Schools. Together with high school history and English faculty, the group is developing an interdisciplinary high school cryptography program. A one-day statewide conference on April 18, will focus on "Cryptography as a teaching tool", with presentations from high school students, high school and university faculty. For the second time, the SWRIMS group will conduct a one-week summer cryptography workshop for high school students and faculty.

For more information contact: reinhard@nmsu.edu

Since fall 1995 we have offered partnership courses, joint courses for prospective and practicing K-8 teachers, in mathematics at NMSU. Undergraduates enroll in Math 111 or Math 112, required courses for elementary education majors; and graduates (teachers) enroll in Math 501, a special topics course, that meets simultaneously. Teachers act as mentors to undergraduates, who go into teachers' classrooms to observe, co-teach, and teach under supervision units that are studied in the university class.

Since spring 1998 we have offered a new partnership course, Math 301/501: Fundamentals of algebra and geometry, which is sponsored by the Exxon Education Foundation. With these three courses, we now offer nine hours of university mathematics credit for undergraduate elementary education majors, and for K-8 teachers, in a partnership format.

The NMSU College of Education has recently approved a mathematics teaching field for undergraduate elementary education majors, and we are recruiting students for this field. It requires 24 hours of undergraduate mathematics courses. In addition, the College of Education also offers a Master of Arts in Teaching with a specialty in mathematics for K-8 teachers, which requires 18 hours of graduate mathematics credit. We are working to develop new mathematics courses customized for K-8 teachers and prospective teachers. We hope to offer a new course in fall 1999, Elementary mathematics with technology.

As a part of CETP (Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation), for the second straight year, the Department of Mathematical Sciences is hosting a Mathematics Education Institute April 10-13, 1999. Instructors of university mathematics courses for teachers from across the state of New Mexico, and several from other states, will come to our campus, visit our two partnership courses, go into classrooms of teachers taking the courses to see curricular units presented to children, and share innovations in mathematics teacher preparation and development occurring at their home institutions. We invite you to attend this institute.

For more information contact: baggett@nmsu.edu