Jennifer Roma Seberry (Wallis)

MSc, PhD, FIMA, FTICA, FACS, CMath, SMIEEE, MIACR, MACM

STUDY LEAVE REPORT 2003

28th July 2003


Australia, USA, Greece, Turkey, Poland, Russia and China

My Study leave Program was originally granted from February to June 2003 but was
extended until July 12 because of the impact of the Second Gulf War and the outbreak
of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) on my program.

The final program was:

4-7 February, Brisbane, Australia. aps@maths.uq.edu.au
22 Feb-10 Mar 2003, San Diego, USA. warwick@ccrwest.org
10 Mar-10 April 2003, Florida, USA. desmedt@cs.fsu.edu
11 April-2 May, Athens, Greece. ckoukouv@cc.uoa.gr
Visit to Ankara, Turkey cancelled due to Second Gulf War.
2 -9 May, Warsaw, Poland. eurocrypt2003@iacr.org
9 -13 May, Moscow, Russia. leven@keldysh.ru
13-23 May, travelling.
Visit to Beijing and Wuhan, China cancelled due to SARS.
24 May until 7 June in quarantine due to SARS.
9 June -26 June, research in Wollongong.
26 June - 11 July, Athens, Greece. ckoukouv@cc.uoa.gr


I first visited Professor Anne Street, with whom I have a joint ARC grant in Brisbane. We were able to
complete two papers that we had been working on for some time.

Returning to Wollongong, I worked with new and existing postgraduate students to detail their programs
for the time during my leave.

I then travelled to San Diego where I worked with the eminent mathematician Dr Warwick de Launey at
the Center for Communications Research in La Jolla. We commenced some exciting new studies in Combinatorics.

I then visited our frequent visitor and colleague, and distinguished Security specialist Dr Yvo Desmedt
at Florida State University. We started work on a number of papers which we worked further on in June.

I then travelled to Athens, Greece where I worked with Professors Christos Koukouvinos and Marilena
Mitrouli and their students on Numerical Linear Algebra completing one paper and progressing three
others. At the same time Professor Mitrouli, Professor Nickos Bardis, of the Hellenic Army Academy,
Professor Oleksandr Markovskyy of the Research Group on Cryptology and Data Security at the National
Technical University of the Ukraine and I worked on boolean functions for stream ciphers.

Because the University advised not to go to the Middle East during the war in Iraq, I stayed in Athens,
but as it was Orthodox Easter my colleagues and all their families and students had all gone
out of Athens for traditional family gatherings. During the end of this period I was able to work consistently with
two of the PhD students.

I then proceeded to Eurocrypt in Poland and then to Russia to visit the very well known Professor
Vladimir Levenshtein, from the Russian Academy of Science, who had visited me the previous
year in Wollongong. I then travelled across Russia towards Beijing and China.

The closer I got to Beijing the more alarming were the Australian Government's warnings about the
danger of SARS in China.

I tried to change bookings in Russia but, even with Australian Embassy help, this could not be done.
Finally we were given just one choice...go to Ulan Bator..fly to Beijing...stay there two days and
then fly to Australia.

Usually Singapore Airlines flies to Beijing twice a day but we were told there would be no flights
between the 23rd May and 28th May. All other airlines out of Beijing were cancelled because of
SARS.

Beijing was deserted, the hotel had no restaurant and no international business office open (that is no
international phones).

I had contacted a bad case of flu/asthma in Poland and this became worse...finally I took the strongest
medication I had to little avail (I later found out that my Ventolin was years out of date).

Thus I spent most of the time after 8th May with difficulty breathing.

When I got on the plane I had all the symptoms of SARS (except no contact with a case) and was
told to wear a mask in public and stay home for 14 days. Thus, I have returned home, actually on sick
leave but told not to go near a hospital or a doctor without them having a full quarantine protective suit.

I could not carry out my research in China but the Dean, Professor Joan Cooper, kindly extended
my study leave so I could return to Athens to finalize work with Professors Koukouvinos, Mitrouli,
Bardis and Markovskyy. I also attended
the International Statistical Conference, for which I was on the
Program Committee and an Invited Speaker, in honour of the
retirement of the most Senior Greek Statistician, Professor Stratis Kounias, who was one of the founders
of the Greek Statistical Society. My talk was "Applications of Hadamard matrices".

I was able to reach Australia through the Russian Academy of Science. However the Internet cafes in
Russia and China could not get through to the University of Wollongong. On the other hand
there was no difficulty at the Internet cafe at Singapore Airport.

Quite an adventure but thanks to my, now in date medication, I am back working with my students at
the University.

My research interaction was extremely productive and resulted in the following research papers
submitted so far this year:

REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES