Faculty of Science

Sage Days 30, a workshop on the mathematics software package Sage, was
held at Acadia University May 2-6.  Sage is developed by and for the
mathematical community, and aims to replicate and extend the
functionality of other software such as Maple or Mathematica on an
open-source model.

The beginning of this workshop introduced new users to Sage, with the
guidance of invited speakers and Sage experts Dr. Nicolas Thiery
(Universite Paris Sud), Dr. Florent Hivert (University of Rouen), Anne
Schilling (UC Davis), and Franco Saliola (UQAM).  This was follow by a
hands-on introduction to the process of Sage development.  Many
participants were undergraduate summer research students or graduate
students who were able to complete work toward the research projects
that they had begun for the summer.

Experienced participants worked collaboratively on targeted development
projects to extend Sage's functionality in the workshop's target areas
of number theory and combinatorics; including contributing important new
tools to the research area of Dr. Eva Curry of Acadia's Department of
Mathematics and Statistics, in multidimensional digit representations.

Similar Sage Days workshops have been held across Canada and
internationally, drawing contributions from mathematicians around the
world.  Sage Days 30 was the first workshop to be held in Atlantic
Canada, and Dr. Curry and co-organizer Dr. Hugh Thomas (UNB) were quite
excited to have the opportunity to introduce local colleagues and
students to this important research tool.

We would like to acknowledge the support of Acadia University and
Acadia's Faculty of Pure and Applied Science, the Atlantic Association
for Research in the Mathematical Sciences (AARMS) and the AARMS
Distinguished Lecturer Fund, the Fields Institute, and the University of
New Brunswick.