o - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - o - - - September 15, 1998 - - O P - S F N E T Volume 5, Number 5 - - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - - Editors: - - Tom H. Koornwinder thk@wins.uva.nl - - Martin Muldoon muldoon@yorku.ca - - - - The Electronic News Net of the SIAM Activity Group - - on Orthogonal Polynomials and Special Functions - - - - Please send contributions to: poly@siam.org - - Subscribe by mailing to: poly-request@siam.org - - or to: majordomo@wins.uva.nl - - - o - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - o Today's Topics 1. Elections of SIAG Officers 2. DLMF Seminar Series Announcement 3. International Conference on Rational Approximation 4. ICIAM '99 in Edinburgh 5. Report on Minisymposium on Problems and Solutions in Special Functions 6. Orthogonal Polynomials and Special Functions at ICM'98 7. Announcement of Review of Vilenkin & Klimyk three-volume set 8. New edited book by Jones and Ranga 9. Revised Maple Packages on Hypergeometric and q-Hypergeometric Summation 10. PhD student position at University of Amsterdam 11. SIAM Student Paper Prizes 12. Rota's "Ten Math problems I will never solve" 13. Mathematica special functions poster 14. MathCD 1998 15. Classical Analysis preprints in xxx archive 16. Migration of Haubold archive to xxx 17. Changes of Address, WWW Pages, etc 18. About opsftalk 19. Subscribing to OP-SF NET 20. Obtaining back issues of OP-SF NET and submitting contributions to OP-SF NET and Newsletter Calendar of Events: 1999 March 29 - April 2: Fifth International Conference on Approximation and Optimization in the Caribbean, Guadeloupe 5.4 #4 May 12-15: SIAM Annual Meeting in Atlanta June 6-11: International Conference on Rational Approximation, Antwerp, Belgium 5.5 #3 June 21-25: Conference on Special Functions, Hong Kong 5.2 #7, 5.4 #5 July 5-9: ICIAM '99, Edinburgh 5.5 #4 September 20-24: International Symposium on Orthogonal Polynomials, Special Functions and Their Applications, Patras, Greece 5.4 #3 2000 July 10-14: SIAM Annual Meeting in Puerto Rico Topic #1 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: OP-SF NET Editors , Subject: Elections of SIAG Officers Charles Dunkl informs us that the the SIAM Office will soon be distributing the ballots for the election of our Activity Group Officers for the three-year period starting January 1, 1999. (See OP-SF NET 5.4, Topic #2). The return deadline will be October 26, 1998. Topic #2 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Bruce Miller Subject: DLMF Seminar Series Announcement DLMF Seminar Series Announcement Hypergeometric Summation: Tables AND Algorithms Prof. Dr. Peter Paule Research Institute for Symbolic Computation (RISC), J. Kepler University, A-4040 Linz, AUSTRIA Monday, September 21, 10:30 - 11:30 NIST North, Room 618 The speaker will give a sketch of recent developments in the field with examples why both tables and algorithms are needed in order to enlarge the mathematics knowledge base. All interested are invited to reconvene in the same room after lunch for a roundtable discussion with the speaker. For more information see http://math.nist.gov/DigitalMathLib/Events/ bruce.miller@nist.gov http://math.nist.gov/~BMiller/ Topic #3 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: OP-SF Editor Subject: International Conference on Rational Approximation The following information is taken from: http://win-www.uia.ac.be/u/icra99/ International Conference on Rational Approximation June 6-11, 1999 University of Antwerp (UIA) The conference will focus on rational approximation theory in the broadest sense, including all computational aspects and applications. Contributions are welcomed on the subjects of Pade Approximation, Continued Fractions, Orthogonal Polynomials and Rational Approximation in general. Scientific Committee Adhemar Bultheel (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) Annie Cuyt (Universiteit Antwerpen) Alphonse Magnus (Universite Catholique de Louvain) Jean Schmets (Universite de Liege) Jean-Pierre Thiran (Facultes Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix Namur) Marc Van Barel (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) Paul Van Dooren (Universite Catholique de Louvain) Brigitte Verdonk (Universiteit Antwerpen) Invited Speakers George A. Baker Jr. (Los Alamos National Laboratory - USA) Peter Borwein (Simon Fraser University - Canada) Peter R. Graves-Morris (University of Bradford - United Kingdom) William B. Jones (University of Colorado at Boulder - USA) George Labahn (University of Waterloo - Canada) Lisa Lorentzen (Norwegian university of Science and Technology - Norway) Doron S. Lubinsky (University of Witwatersrand - South Africa) Hans J. Stetter (Technische Universitat Wien - Austria) Address Universiteit Antwerpen (UIA) Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Universiteitsplein 1 B 2610 Antwerpen-Wilrijk Belgium (Europe) Phone +32 (0) 3 820 24 01 (Department) +32 (0) 3 820 24 07 (Annie Cuyt) +32 (0) 3 820 24 03 (Brigitte Verdonk) Fax +32 (0) 3 820 24 21 E-mail icra99@uia.ua.ac.be Web site: http://win-www.uia.ac.be/u/icra99/ Topic #4 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Martin Muldoon Subject: ICIAM '99 in Edinburgh The following is taken mostly from the conference web site: http://www.ma.hw.ac.uk/iciam99/ "The Fourth International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics will be held in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, from 5th to 9th of July 1999. "It will be jointly organised by the Institute of Mathematics and its Application and the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences, with the involvment of Mathematics Departments at Edinburgh University and Heriot-Watt University. "Previous Congresses met in Paris in 1987, Washington, DC in 1991, and Hamburg in 1995. Broad developments and the latest advances in industrial and applied mathematics will be presented. Cross disciplinary themes within mathematics, between mathematics and other disciplines, and between mathematics and particular industries will be covered." SIAM is one of the Member Societies of the Committee for International Conferences on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (CICIAM). The web site includes information on mini-symposia. A mini-symposium is a session of 3-5 speakers focusing on a single topic and lasting for two hours. The organiser of a mini-symposium invites the speakers and decides on the topics to be addressed. The deadline date for mini-symposium proposals is 30 September 1998. Our Activity Group sponsored a mini-symposium at the 1995 ICIAM in Hamburg. Suggestions of minisymposia to be sponsored by us at the 1999 meeting should be sent to our Program Director, Willard Miller . Topic #5 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Martin Muldoon Subject: Report on Minisymposium on Problems and Solutions in Special Functions On July 14, 1998, our Activity Group sponsored a Minisymposium "Problems and solutions in Special Functions" (Organizers: Willard Miller, Jr. and Martin E. Muldoon) at the SIAM Annual Meeting in Toronto. The organizers recognized that by providing concrete and significant problems, the problem sections in journals such as SIAM Review and the American Mathematical Monthly have been influential in advancing mathematical research and have played a role in attracting young people to the mathematical profession. At a time when the SIAM Review is phasing out its problem sections (see OP-SF NET 4-6, Topics #17, #18 and #19), it seemed appropriate to assess the history and impact of the problems sections and their future evolution. Cecil C. Rousseau, University of Memphis offered a retrospective on the 40-year history of the SIAM Review Problems and Solutions Section, based on his experience as a collaborating editor and then as an editor of the Section. We learned that of the 777 problems proposed, 329 were starred (no solution submitted by the proposer). The title most used was "A definite integral" while the keywords occurring most frequently were "integral" (131 times), "inequality" (47), "identity" (33), "series" (25) and "determinant" (24). The most frequent problem proposers were M. S. Klamkin (46), M. L. Glasser (38), D. J. Newman (24) and L. A. Shepp (20). Cecil chose a specific issue (April, 1972) and mentioned Problem 72-6 by Paul Erdos ("A solved and unsolved graph coloring problem") that provided the first contact between Erdos and the Memphis graph theory group (Faudree, Ordman, Rousseau, Schelp), and in that way led to more than 40 joint papers involving Erdos and the members of this group. He mentioned Problem 72-9 ("An extremum problem") by Richard Tapia, who, coincidentally, was honored on the same day as our Minisymposium by a Minisymposium for his 60th birthday. In the same issue, the solution to Problem 71-7 ("Special subsets of a finite group") was the very first publication by Doron Zeilberger. Rousseau himself had a solution of Problem 71-13 proposed by L. Carlitz, which called for a proof that a certain integral involving the product of Hermite polynomials was nonnegative. At the time, Rousseau looked for, but did not find, a combinatorial interpretation of the integral that would immediately imply its nonnegativity. That there is such an interpretation was shown by Foata and Zeilberger in 1988. Later in the discussion, Rousseau mentioned that problems sometimes get repeated in spite of the best efforts of the editors; for example, Problem 95-6 repeats part of Problem 75-12 but that he had found the relevant double integral later in Williamson's Calculus (6th ed), 1891! Otto G. Ruehr, Michigan Technological University, discussed the forty-year history of the Section with particular attention to the second half. He offered an anecdotal description of the trials, tribulations and satisfactions of being editor. Special attention was paid to problems in classical analysis, particularly those relating to orthogonal polynomials and special functions. He regretted that some problems he had proposed (73-12, 84-11) attracted only one solution other than that of the proposer. Sometimes, sheer luck played a role as in a solution of his which depended on the relatively sharp inequality 27e^2 < 200. In spite of the best editorial efforts, errors often crept in. In the very last issue which contained problems a complicated asymptotic expression (Problem 97-18) was correct except for an error in sign! Nevertheless, it led to collaboration between one of the proposers (D. H. Wood) and J. Boersma. Otto mentioned that, very appropriately, the last issue (December 1998) of the Section will be dedicated to its founding editor, Murray S. Klamkin. In some brief remarks, Murray discussed some highlights and problems such as "A network inequality" and (the very first) Problem 59-1 "The ballot problem", Proposed by Klamkin and Mary Johnson. This has not been solved in the general case. Willard Miller, Jr., University of Minnesota, spoke on "The Value of Problems Sections in Journals" He stressed their importance in getting young people interested in mathematics and as a place where a person not expert in an area can get their feet wet. He offered Doron Zeilberger as someone who exemplified the value of problem sections. Bill mentioned that by participation in problems sections you can get established researchers in other areas interested in what you have to say. People see that a problem is hard and when the solution comes out they are interested in it and are challenged to find a better proof. Richard Askey, University of Wisconsin, was unable to attend the Minisymposium but submitted a written statement, some of which was read by Bill Miller, and which offered some thoughts about problems and the role that a problem section can play in a scientific journal. Askey's first example was on the generalization to Jacobi polynomials of an inequality for trigonometric functions. Rather than writing a one page paper, he decided to submit it as a problem to have people work on it. Unfortunately his plan failed. Nobody else submitted a solution because he had not been explicit enough about a limiting case which would be more familiar to readers. Askey also described some of the history (including an incorrect published solution) of a problem where it was required to show that the sum from 1 to n of (-1)^(k+1)[sin(kx)/ksin(x)]^(2m) is positive for all real x, m = 1,2,... Askey described his favorite SIAM Review problem as Problem 74-6 ("Three multiple integrals") submitted by a physicist, M.L. Mehta. It called for the evaluation of a multidimensional normal integral. "I spent many hours on this problem, unsuccessfully. Eventually, a multidimensional beta integral which Atle Selberg had evaluated about 1940, and published a derivation of in 1944, came to light. Then it was easy to prove the Mehta-Dyson conjecture, as Dyson realized once Bombieri told him of Selberg's result. I heard about this from George Andrews, who was in Australia at the time, and he heard of it from Kumar, a physicist there. I worked out what should happen in a q-case, and published my conjectures in SIAM Journal of Mathematical Analysis. All of these conjectures have now been proven. Ian Macdonald heard about Selberg's result from someone in Israel, and he came up with some very significant conjectures about other q-beta integrals. He had been working on questions like this for root systems, and his conjecture for a constant term identity for BC(n) was equivalent to Selberg's result. Some of this would have been done exactly as it was without Mehta's problem in SIAM Review, but I doubt that I would have appreciated the importance of Selberg's result as rapidly if I had not spent so much time on the Mehta-Dyson conjecture." In the general discussion which followed there was mention of "opsftalk" the discussion forum for this Activity Group. It was generally agreed that it could not replace Problem Sections of the kind being discussed both because of the limited readership and the fact that it is restricted to orthogonal polynomials and special functions. Dick Askey had cautioned: "I am afraid that having a problem section only on line will lead to a restricted group of readers, those with a love of problems for their own sake, and not reach the wider group of mathematicians, applied mathematicians, and scientists who could use some of the results in these problem sections." A wide-ranging discussion continued informally between those attending. Some of the points raised in these discussions follow: It was felt that it was very important to stress that any web initiative for a Problem Section should cover all areas. It would be unsatisfactory to have separate operations for say, the various SIAM activity groups. There was some skepticism about the web proposal. In particular, the importance of careful editing was stressed. It is a commonplace that much material on the web is sloppy and done in a hurried manner. It will be very important to make sure that the present proposal is carefully monitored. There was also a sense that "putting it on the web" is sometimes offered as a panacea for all sorts of information distribution without a realistic understanding of the work involved. Nevertheless, the advantages of speed and access which are provided by a web site are eagerly anticipated by those interested in preserving and enhancing the SIAM Review Problem Section. There should be a part of the web initiative devoted to problems suitable for high school students. This has the potential to greatly broaden the audience for the problem sections and to attract more young people to mathematics research. The web pages should be divided into two parts. Part A would contain the problems and refereed solutions, and would be comparable to what appears in the SIAM Review now (but with hyperlinks and other bells and whistles). Part B would be more informal. It would contain proposed solutions (before they have been fully refereed), comments on the solutions and other comments and background information related to the problems. Part B would be more timely. The editor would still control what is posted in Part B but wouldn't vouch for the accuracy of all proofs. Part B would be more lively, and give a better indication of how mathematics research is actually carried on. Part A would be more polished. There should be some way to archive in print the problems and solutions of Part A. Perhaps a volume could be produced every few years. SIAM should refer routinely to the website in the Review, say a paragraph in each issue. Once the website is well launched, there should be an article about the project in the SIAM Newsletter. Topic #6 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Tom H. Koornwinder Subject: Orthogonal Polynomials and Special Functions at ICM'98 (From opsftalk) ICM'98 (the International Congress of Mathematicians) was held during August 18-27, 1998 in Berlin, Germany. Orthogonal Polynomials and Special Functions were no major theme at this Congress, but some was represented, scattered over the sections: 7. Lie groups and Lie algebras 8. Analysis 11. Mathematical physics 15. Numerical analysis and scientific computing 16. Applications Here is a (probably not exhaustive) list. Fields Medal Winners: One of the winners, Richards E. Borcherds, has obtained generalizations of Macdonald identies in connection with generalized Kac-Moody algebras (just as the Macdonald identities follow from denominator identities for affine Kac-Moody algebras). Plenary Lectures: I.G. Macdonald, "Constant term identities, orthogonal polynomials and affine Hecke algebras" Invited Section Lectures: Ivan V. Cherednik, "From double Hecke algebra to analysis" (contains some one-variable q-identities for which Cherednik would like to hear from others a classical proof) Barry McCoy, "Rogers-Ramanujan identities: A century of progress from mathematics to physics" Percy Alec Deift, "Uniform asymptotics for orthogonal polynomials" (very recommended) Leslie Frederick Greengard, "A new version of the fast Gauss transform" (uses Hermite polynomials) Short Communications and Poster Sessions: N. Jing, "Quantized Kac-Moody algebras and symmetric functions" Boris Rubin, "Fractional calculus and wavelet transforms in integral geometry" Ahmed I. Zayed, "Wavelets in closed form" Thomas C. Kriecherbauer, "Asymptotics of orthogonal polynomials via integrable methods" (relates to Deift's lecture) Margit Rosler, "Positivity of Dunkl's intertwining operator" Raoul R.F.G. Gloden, "Proprietes des polynomes orthogonaux. Developpements de cas particuliers" Kathy A. Driver, "Zeros of hypergeometric functions" William C. Connett, "Measure algebras that have oblate spheroidal wave functions as characters" Alan L. Schwartz, "Hypergroups and their maximum subgroup" Andreas Ruffing, "On Schrodinger-Hermite operators in lattice quantum mechanics" Vitaly Tarasov, "q-Hypergeometric solutions of the quantized Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equation" All abstracts are available at the ICM'98 web site http://elib.zib.de/ICM98 There you will also find a link to a site from which you can download the files of the papers of the Invited Section Lectures. Tom Koornwinder Topic #7 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Tom Koornwinder Subject: Announcement of Review of Vilenkin & Klimyk three-volume set Erik Koelink and I wrote a book review for the Bulletin of the AMS on the three-volume set by Vilenkin & Klimyk which appeared some years ago. Here is the full reference: Erik Koelink and Tom H. Koornwinder, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 35 (1998), pp. 265-270, Review of "Representation of Lie groups and special functions, Vols i,2,3" by N.Ja. Vilenkin and A.U. Klimyk, Kluwer, 1991, 1992, 1992. The review is downloadable from http://www.ams.org/bull/1998-35-03/ Topic #8 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Tom Koornwinder Subject: New edited book by Jones and Ranga Orthogonal Functions, Moment Theory, and Continued Fractions; Theory and Applications, Edited by: William B. Jones (University of Colorado, Boulder) and A. Sri Ranga (Universidade Estadual Paulista, Sao Paulo, Brazil). Lecture Notes in Pure and Applied Mathematics, Vol. 199, Marcel Dekker, Inc. 440 pp., ISBN 0-8247-0207-7, $165.00. See http://www.dekker.com/cgi-bin/webdbc/md/detail.htx?d_cat_id=0207-7 Topic #9 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Wolfram Koepf Subject: Revised Maple Packages on Hypergeometric and q-Hypergeometric Summation Revised versions of our Maple packages `hsum.mpl` and `qsum.mpl` on hypergeometric and q-hypergeometric summations coming with the book "Wolfram Koepf: Hypergeometric Summation, Vieweg, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden, 1998" that was announced in OP-SF NET 5.4, Topic #8, are available now from the web site www.imn.htwk-leipzig.de/~koepf/research.html . They contain implementations of Gosper's, Zeilberger's, Petkovsek's and related algorithms and their q-analogues, respectively. For details you should consult the accompanying book. Wolfram Koepf Topic #10 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Allison Bogardo Subject: SIAM Student Paper Prizes The annual SIAM Student Paper Prizes will be awarded during the 1999 SIAM Annual Meeting, May 12-15, at the Radisson Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. If you are a student or know of a student who would like to take part in the competition, here are the details: The authors of the three best papers in applied and computational mathematics written by students and submitted to SIAM will present their papers at the meeting and each will receive a $1,000 cash prize as well as gratis registration for the meeting. There is no provision for travel expenses associated with the prize. Papers must be singly authored and not previously published or submitted for publication to be eligible for consideration. To qualify, authors must be students in good standing who have not received their PhDs at the time of submission. In submitting their work for publication, authors are asked to consider SIAM journals. However, student paper prize winners are not guaranteed publication in any SIAM journal; all papers submitted to SIAM journals are subject to the same refereeing process and standards. Submissions must be received in the SIAM office on or before February 1, 1999. Submissions, which must be in English, can be sent by regular mail or fax. Each submission must include (1) an extended abstract NOT LONGER THAN 5 PAGES (including bibliography); (2) the complete paper, which will be used solely for clarification of any questions; (3) a statement by the student's faculty advisor that the paper has been prepared by the author indicated and that the author is a student in good standing; (4) a letter by the student's faculty advisor describing and evaluating the paper's contribution; and (5) a short biography of the student. Submissions will be judged on originality, significance, and quality of exposition. The winners will be notified by March 15, 1999. Please direct your submission and any questions you may have to A. Bogardo at SIAM, 3600 University City Science Center, Philadelphia, PA 19104-2688;telephone (215) 382-9800; e-mail to bogardo@siam.org. Topic #11 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Tom H. Koornwinder Subject: PhD student position at University of Amsterdam The Korteweg-de Vries Institute for Mathematics of the University of Amsterdam has available in the near future a few four-year assistant positions for PhD students. Prospective candidates should have completed a PhD thesis by the end of this period. See http://turing.wins.uva.nl/~thk/links/aioen.html for details. Thesis work may be done in a large number of different fields of mathematics. To a large extent, selection of candidates will be based on the quality of their work for the master's degree. One of the possible fields for a prospective candidate is in the area of OP & SF, with me as an adviser. Possible directions are: - computer algebra algorithms for special functions - special functions associated with root systems - q-special funcions in connection with quantum groups If you are interested, please contact me. Tom Koornwinder Topic #12 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Tom H. Koornwinder Subject: Rota's "Ten Math problems I will never solve" (From opsftalk) The 2/98 issue of the journal "Mitteilungen der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung" has a "Sonderbeilage zum ICM'98 in Berlin" called "Zukunft der Mathematik". One of the contributors (in English) is Gian-Carlo Rota with the title "Ten Mathematics Problems I will never solve" (Invited address at the joint meeting of the American Mathematical Society and the Mexican Mathematical Society, December 6, 1997). His fourth Problem is "A unified theory of special functions", his eighth Problem is "Confluent symmetric functions". Concerning Problem 4 he has a funny comment: Lately, q-analogs have come into high fashion. They have been ennobled by the name "quantum groups", even though they are neither quantum nor groups. Thirty years ago, those half dozen of us who worked on q-analogs were looked at with deep suspicion. More than sixty years ago, the Reverend F.H. Jackson, who was at that time probably the only person working on q-analogs, stormed out of the lecture room when someone in the audience made an unpleasant comment on q-analogs, and he never finished delivering his lecture on the q-analog of the gamma function. Tom Koornwinder Topic #13 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Tom H. Koornwinder Subject: Mathematica special functions poster (From opsftalk) At the recent ICM'98 in Berlin, the Mathematica booth displayed a giant poster on "The Mathematical Functions of Mathematica". It has four panels: - Elliptic functions - Elementary functions - Hypergeometric functions - Zeta, Mathieu, and other functions The full poster, or parts of it, are available for free from Mathematica (in limited amount). See http://www.wolfram.com/icm/poster.html Disclaimer: This message is just for your information. I am not affiliated to Mathematica in any way, nor do I endorse the mathematical contents of this poster. Tom Koornwinder Topic #14 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Tom H. Koornwinder Subject: MathCD 1998 (From opsftalk) The following is taken from http://topo.math.u-psud.fr/~lcs/MathCD.html A CD-ROM for Mathematics Call for Submissions Dear Fellow Mathematicians, We are currently editing a CD-ROM devoted chiefly to freely distributable material of interest to mathematicians. Called MathCD 1998, it will be published in Fall 1998 by a French non-profit organization. Hopefully this CD-ROM will be the first of a series. CD-ROM technology is unrivalled for low-cost high-volume distribution. For a unit cost of a few dollars, one can, by exploiting efficient formats, distribute a quantity of information that would fill several hundred books. Our first priority has been to provide the electronic mathematics journals with a durable distribution medium to complement the volatile internet. Our second priority is to improve the organisation and distribution of mathematical software produced by individual mathematicians. Much space will be available for further material that will hopefully make this CD-ROM something of a mathematician's almanac and vademecum: various readers (viewers), choice pieces of the classical literature, monograph reprints, math memorabilia, math folklore, electronic graphics, programming tools, manuscript preparation tools, etc. We solicit from our mathematical colleagues proposals of material to distribute on CD-ROM. We hope that each proposing mathematician (be he an author or an observer) will be willing to write a useful signed review and arrange the material for the CD-ROM. He or she should, at very least, put us in contact with the author, and indicate other qualified experts. It is expected that authors will, in most cases, retain copyright and provide their own copyright notices within their contributions, while giving the editors specific permission for publication on the CD-ROM. Contributions exploitable in many computer environments will be preferred; but those specific to DOS, MSWindows or Macintosh will also be very acceptable. Commercial material and advertizing may be accepted under conditions to be negotiated, and the editors' intent here will be to reduce the price at which the CD-ROM can be distributed. After the closure of MathCD 1998, submissions will be welcomed for future editions. Laurent Siebenmann (editor in chief) Krzysztof Burdzy (editor for electronic journals) Richard Palais (editor for math software) Xah Lee (associate editor for math software) Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way to MathCD 1998. I forward this just for your information. Tom Koornwinder Topic #15 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: OP-SF NET editors Subject: OP-SF preprints in xxx archive The following preprints related to the field of orthogonal polynomials and special functions were recently posted to one of the subcategories of the xxx archives. See: http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/math.CA http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/math.CO http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/math.QA http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/solv-int math.CO/9808050 (QA) L. Lapointe, A. Lascoux, J. Morse. Determinantal expressions for Macdonald polynomials. math.CO/9808040 (FA MP) Vladimir V. Kisil. Polynomial Sequences of Binomial Type and Path Integrals. 11 pages math.CO/9807074 Doron Zeilberger (Temple University). A Heterosexual Mehler Formula for the Straight Hermite Polynomials (A La Foata). 5 pages. CO. math.QA/9807125 (CO) George E. Andrews, Anne Schilling, S. Ole Warnaar. An A$_2$ Bailey lemma and Rogers--Ramanujan-type identities. 25 pages. ITFA-98-18 math.QA/9807014 (CO) Frederick M. Goodman, Hans Wenzl. Crystal Bases of Quantum Affine Algebras and Affine Kazhdan-Lusztig Polynomials. 22 pages. math.QA/9809002 (CV FA) D. Shklyarov, S. Sinel'shchikov, L. Vaksman. On Function Theory in Quantum Disc: q-Differential Equations and Fourier Transform. 17 pages. math.MP/9809066 (QA) Alexander Berkovich, Barry M. McCoy. The perturbation $\phi_{2,1}$ of the M(p,p+1) models of conformal field theory and related polynomial character identities. 30 pages. ITP-SB 98-49 math.QA/9808136 Peter Goddard. The Work of R.E. Borcherds. 9 pages. DAMTP-1998-120. math.QA/9808110 Ahmedov, H. Analysis on the 2-Dim Quantum Poincarč Group at Roots of Unity. 18 pages math.QA/9808096 (RT) Richard Dipper, Jochen Gruber. Generalized q-Schur algebras and modular representation theory of finite groups with split (BN)-pairs. 47 pages math.QA/9808075 Mirko Luedde, Alexei Vladimirov. Analogs of q-Serre relations in the Yang-Baxter algebras. 6 pages math.QA/9808043 (MP) Angel Ballesteros, Francisco J. Herranz, Javier Negro, Luis Miguel Nieto. On quantum algebra symmetries of discrete Schrodinger equations. 11 pages. UBU-Dfis-98-02. math.QA/9808015 (CV FA). D. Shklyarov, S. Sinel'shchikov, L. Vaksman. On Function Theory in Quantum Disc: Integral Representations. 17 pages. KhMI-98-09. math.QA/9808003 (MP) Masatoshi Noumi, Yasuhiko Yamada. Higher order Painleve equations of type $A^{(1)}_l$. 16 pages. math.QA/9808002 (MP) Yasuhiko Yamada. Determinant formulas for the $\tau$-functions of the Painleve equations of type $A$. 11 pages. math.QA/9807046 M. Irac-Astaud (Laboratoire de Physique Theorique de la Matiere Condensee, Universite Paris VII, Paris, France), C. Quesne (Physique Nucleaire Theorique et Physique Mathematique, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Campus de la Plaine, Brussels, Belgium). Unitary Representations of Su_q(2) on the Plane for q in R+ or Generic q in S1. 6 pages math-ph/9807019 (QA) J. Van der Jeugt, R. Jagannathan. Realizations of $su(1,1)$ and $U_q(su(1,1))$ and generating functions for orthogonal polynomials. 20 pages solv-int/9808015 Title: On the Solution of a Painleve III Equation Authors: Harold Widom (University of California, Santa Cruz) Topic #16 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: OP-SF NET editors , Subject: Migration of Haubold archive to xxx Hans Haubold reports that between 17 June and 30 July 1998, the following paper was deposited in the "siam/submissions" directory at ftp://unvie6.un.or.at/siam/opsf_new/00index.html V.S. Buyarov, J.S. Dehesa, A. Martinez-Finkelshtein, and E.B. Saff, Asymptotics of the information entropy for Jacobi and Laguerre polynomials with varying weights As announced in OP-SF NET 5.4, Topic #19, the functions of Hans Haubold's (earlier Waleed Al-Salam's) reprint archive for papers in Orthogonal Polynomials and Special Functions is being taken over by the so-called xxx archives. The intention is that workers in our areas of interest should post their reprints to the Classical Analysis archive (or possibly to another of the xxx archives with a cross-listing to Classical Analysis). As part of this change, the existing papers in the Haubold archive have been relocated to: http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/search/op-sf&num=200 We repeat the relevant URLs for the xxx site: the xxx mathematics archive, maintained at Los Alamos: http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/math the UC Davis front end for the xxx mathematics archive: http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ a detailed list of categories within the xxx mathematics archive: http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/categories.html Topic #17 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: OP-SF NET Editors Subject: Changes of Address, WWW Pages, etc. The new Journal of Computational Analysis and Applications (see OP-SF NET 5.3, Topic #10) now has a home page: http://www.msci.memphis.edu/~anastasg/anlyjour.htm Jasper Stokman (until August 1998 at the University of Amsterdam) will stay in Paris until January 1999. His address is: Centre de Mathematiques de Jussieu Universite Paris 6 Pierre et Marie Curie Tour 46 5e etage, Boite 247 4, place Jussieu, F-75252 Paris Cedex 05 France Email: stokman@math.jussieu.fr K. Trimeche in Tunis has an email address. His full address is: Departement de Mathematiques, Faculte des Sciences de Tunis Campus Universitaire 1060 Tunis Tunisia Email: khlifa.trimeche@fst.rnu.tn Erik Koelink, whose temporary position at the University of Amsterdam would end at the end of 1998, has obtained a tenured position at Delft University of Technology. His new address is as below. His home page has not yet been moved. The old email address is also still valid. H.T. Koelink Delft University of Technology Faculty of Information Technology and Systems Department of Technical Mathematics PO Box 5031 2600 GA Delft the Netherlands email: koelink@twi.tudelft.nl tel: + 31 15 278 1807 fax: + 31 15 278 7245 Visiting address: office HB.09.280, Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft Topic #18 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: OP-SF NET editor Subject: About opsftalk In a recent posting, Haseo Ki and Young-One Kim ask when hypergeometric functions (entire functions with real coefficients) have real zeros only. They have necessary and sufficient conditions for this to hold in the confluent hypergeometric function case. The listserv opsftalk is a discussion forum in orthogonal polynomials and special functions. It started last November. Presently, there are 43 subscribers. Postings are welcome. In particular, if you want to send a contribution to OP-SF NET, and if you think it is suitable for opsftalk, please post it there, and it will automatically be considered for inclusion in OP-SF NET. To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@wins.uva.nl and put in the body of the message only the words: subscribe opsftalk You can post messages by sending mail to opsftalk@wins.uva.nl Your message will then be automatically forwarded to everybody on the opsftalk list. The postings received during January 13 - March 12, 1998 were archived by Tom Koornwinder at URL http://turing.wins.uva.nl/~thk/opsftalk/archive.html. Postings received from March 14, 1998 onwards will be automatically archived at URL http://www.findmail.com/listsaver/opsftalk/ Please note that email addresses in the messages posted at findmail look incomplete, but become complete when you click on it. During the summer there were a few cases of "spam" (commercial junk mail) submitted as messages to opsftalk. For this reason, the listserv will be moderated by me from now on. Tom Koornwinder Topic #19 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: OP-SF NET Editors , Subject: Subscribing to OP-SF NET There are two ways to subscribe to OP-SF NET: 1. Send a message to poly-request@siam.org with your name and email address in the body of the message. If everything works well, you will be put on the mailing list of OP-SF NET which is maintained by SIAM. 2. Send a message to majordomo@wins.uva.nl and put in the body of the message only the words: subscribe opsfnet This is handled by an automatic list server. You will receive a confirmation, with a list of further commands. You will be put on the opsfnet mailing list of this list server. A new issue of OP-SF NET will be mailed to people on this list immediately after the mailing by SIAM to the people on the list maintained by SIAM. Topic #20 ------------ OP-SF NET 5.5 ----------- September 15, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: OP-SF NET Editors , Subject: Obtaining back issues of OP-SF NET and submitting contributions to OP-SF NET and Newsletter Back issues of OP-SF NET can be obtained from ftp: ftp.wins.uva.nl, in directory pub/mathematics/reports/Analysis/koornwinder/opsfnet.dir or WWW: http://turing.wins.uva.nl/~thk/opsfnet/ or WWW: http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/JAT/DATA/OPSFNET/opsfnet.html Contributions to the OP-SF NET 5.6 should reach the email address poly@siam.org before November 1, 1998. The Activity Group also sponsors a (printed) Newsletter edited by Wolfram Koepf, soon to be replaced by Renato Alvarez-Nodarse and Rafael Yanez (see OP-SF Net 5.2, Topic #1). Deadline for submissions to be included in the October 1998 issue is September 15, 1998 and for the February 1999 issue it is January 15, 1999. Please send your Newsletter contributions directly to the old or new Editors: Wolfram Koepf Fachbereich IMN HTWK Leipzig Gustav-Freytag-Str. 42 A D-04277 Leipzig phone: +49-341-307 64 95 fax: +49-341-301 27 22 e-mail: koepf@imn.htwk-leipzig.de koepf@zib.de Renato Alvarez-Nodarse Departamento de Matematicas Escuela Politecnica Superior Universidad Carlos III, Butarque 15 E-28911 Leganes, Madrid, Spain phone: +34-1-624-94-70 fax: +34-1-624-94-30 e-mail: nodar@math.uc3m.es (Effective October 1998, Renato's Address will be: Departamento de Analisis Matematico Universidad de Sevilla c/ Tarfia s/n E-41012 Sevilla, Spain fax: +34-95-455-7972 e-mail: renato@gandalf.ugr.es) Rafael J. Yanez Departamento de Matematica Aplicada Universidad de Granada E-18071 Granada, Spain phone: +34-58-242941 fax: +34-58-242862 e-mail: ryanez@ugr.es preferably by email, and in latex format. Other formats are also acceptable and can be submitted by email, regular mail or fax. Please note that submissions to the Newsletter (if not containing mathematics symbols or pictures) are automatically considered for publication in OP-SF NET, and vice versa, unless the writer requests otherwise. Previous issues of the Newsletter, but not the most recent one, can be obtained as dvi or PostScript files from Wolfram Koepf's WWW homepage: http://www.zib.de/koepf/ or by anonymous ftp at ftp.zib.de in directory pub/UserHome/Koepf/SIAM In order to join the SIAM Activity Group on Orthogonal Polynomials and Special Functions, and thereby receive the Newsletter, you have to become a member of SIAM. The annual dues are $93 for SIAM plus $10 for the Group. Student memberships are $20 a year with free membership in one Activity Group. Postgraduates can join for $45 a year (for three years). 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