An article by Professor Erika King and her students, Trevor Gionet and Yixiao Sha, has been published in the journal Discrete applied Mathematics. The article, which is titled "A revision and extension of results on 4-regular, 4-connected, claw-free graphs," corrects a classification of 4-connected, claw-free, well-covered graphs that was published in 1995.

Every Spring, the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science awards several prizes to students in recognition of excellence in mathematics or computer science. These prizes have been endowed at various times in the history of the department, and they carry (small) cash awards in addition to the recognition.

Prizes awarded in Spring 2011 were as follows:

• The Robert L. Beinert Prize, awarded to a graduating Senior to recognize excellence in Mathematics, to Zhiyou Cao '11.
• The John S. Klein Prize, awarded to a graduating Senior to recognize excellence in Computer Science, to Reynaldo Kelly '11.
• The Glen M. Lee Prize, awarded for the first time in 2011, to the Hobart Senior who has displayed the greatest proficiency in Mathematics and Athletics, to Kyle Whitaker '11.
• The William Ross Proctor Prize, awarded to the William Smith sophomore who have achieved the highest rank in mathematics in their first two years at the Colleges, to Yanfen Wu '13
• The Irving Bentsen Prize, awarded to the second year student at Hobart College who has the most outstanding record in mathematics and computer science, to Samuel Heinle '13 and Alexander Kittelberger '13.

Sigma Xi (www.sigmaxi.org) is an international scientific research society, founded in 1886 to "honor excellence in scientific investigation and encourage a sense of companionship and cooperation among researchers in all fields of science and engineering."

Each year, students who have done research in mathematics or computer science and who are in their last year at the Colleges are nominated by the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science for student membership in Sigma Xi.

For 2011, the nominees are:

• Max Beckett (H'11)
• Reynaldo Kelly (H'11)
• Yixiao (Selena) Sha (WS'12)

(Selena, who is in the 3-2 Engineering program, was nominated as a Junior because she will be moving on to Columbia University next Fall to complete the engineering program.)

Alex Bryce will be defending his master's thesis at RIT on April 15th. When analyzing a discrete reaction-diffusion dynamical system, one primary area of interest is locating where in the parameter space Turing instabilities occur. In his thesis Alex shows that Turing instabilities cannot occur in the react then diffuse equations if all diffusion coefficients are equal. The Replicator dynamic is a system of equations that is used in evolutionary game theory applications to study behavior types in animal populations. He also discusses conditions for a Turing instability in first order discrete replicator systems and illustrates this with computer simulations of the results.

After finishing his master's degree, Alex will be starting a job at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. as a Research Assistant/Programmer on July 5th in Washington, D.C. He will be working on a variety of statistical research projects (depending on who the company contracts with). The DC branch works more with projects relating to health care and education policy. Some of his duties will involve programming in SAS, data collection and analysis, literacy review, and writing reports.

The web site www.mathaware.org has information about the annual celebration of Math Awareness Month in April 2011.

"Unraveling Complex Systems" is theme for Mathematics Awareness Month, April 2011, as per a joint announcement from the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Mathematics Awareness Month is sponsored by the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM).

How do epidemics spread, birds flock, and stock markets operate?

Many of these answers fall within the realm of mathematics.

From natural entities such as living cells, insect colonies and whole ecosystems to man-made inventions like power grids, transportation networks and the World Wide Web, we see complex systems everywhere. Deciphering the mathematics behind such systems can unravel well-structured networks and discernible patterns in natural and artificial structures. That is the idea behind Mathematics Awareness Month.

Understanding these complex systems can not only help us manage and improve the reliability of such critical infrastructures of everyday life, but can also allow us to interpret, enhance and better interact with natural systems. Mathematical models can delineate interactions among components of these systems, analyze their spontaneous and emergent behaviors, and thus help prevent undesirable developments while enhancing desirable traits during their adaptation and evolution.