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ProgrammeThe schedule for the conference can now be found here (in PDF format). NB. Updated (again) 7th April. Abstracts for the contributed talks are here (also PDF): this listing is now complete. Abstracts for the invited talks are below.
Andrew Thomason University of Cambridge Pseudo-random graphs are deterministic graphs that have the appearance of having been generated randomly. As such they can provide good examples of graphs with certain properties. There are several natural different but, it turns out, equivalent ways to describe pseudo-randomness in graphs. An overview of the ideas and developments will be given, together with one or two outstanding problems. The application to graph minors (contractions of graphs) will be discussed too.
John Truss University of Leeds The solubility of equations of the form w = g, where w is a word (an element of a free group FX) and g is an element of an infinite symmetric group G, has been studied by Lyndon, Mycielski, and Dougherty. A word for which this equation is soluble for every g in G is said to be universal for G. Their main result is that a word is universal for G if and only if it cannot be written as a proper power. I shall describe the method they use, which is based on consideration of a suitable sequence of labelled digraphs, and indicate modifications which may be adopted to establish the corresponding result for other infinite permutation groups in place of G such as the automorphism group of the random graph.
Bridget Webb Open University Infinite designs are quite rare in the literature: most books on design theory have no mention of them at all. In this talk I will present a brief history of infinite designs, give a precise definition, and compare some properties of finite and infinite designs.
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