Romanian Masters of Mathematics, 2009 - UK IMO Register

GOBIERNOdeCANTABRIAVERSIÓN ACTUALIZADAIncluye: Correcciones (BOC 20-9-06) yAcuerdo de revisión (BOC 31-5-07)Acuerdo de revisión de 9-11-2007prestados y méritos adquiridos, a partir de la adquisición de condición de personalestatutario fijo en instituciones sanitarias del Servicio Cántabro de Salud, momentoen el que podrá solicitar su integración en el sistema de carrera profesional.3.- CARACTERÍSTICAS.El sistema de carrera profesional regulado en el presente Acuerdo tendrá lassiguientes características:3.1. Será de acceso individualizado para todos los licenciados y diplomados delServicio Cántabro de Salud que reúnan los requisitos exigidos en el apartado 5.3.2. Será de carácter voluntario, a cuyo efecto el profesional decidirá, si desea o noacceder al sistema de carrera profesional, los ritmos de progresión en la misma, y ellímite en el grado a alcanzar.3.3. Será homologable con el Sistema Nacional de Salud. De conformidad con elartículo 39 de la Ley de Ordenación de las Profesiones Sanitarias, la coordinaciónestatal a través del Consejo Interterritorial establecerá los principios y criterios dehomologación de los distintos sistemas de carrera profesional de los diferentesservicios de salud de las Comunidades Autónomas.3.4. Será transparente, de modo que el proceso de evaluación se instrumenta sobrela base de elementos observables que sean susceptibles de someterse a unavaloración objetiva preestablecida y conocida por los profesionales destinatarios dela misma y bajo los principios de igualdad, mérito y capacidad.3.5. Será consolidable, de modo que, con carácter general, el grado profesionalreconocido quedará consolidado, salvo en el supuesto excepcional señalado en elapartado 6.5 del presente Acuerdo.3.6. Será independiente del puesto o plaza que se ocupe en la plantilla del ServicioCántabro de Salud, si bien se podrá establecer una relación entre la carreraprofesional y los puestos organizativos o cargos del servicio de salud, valorándosecomo mérito para el acceso a estos, el grado alcanzado en carrera profesional.Asimismo, el grado alcanzado en carrera, podrá computarse como mérito de losprofesionales, dentro del Servicio Cántabro de Salud, para la encomienda deactividades docentes y para la provisión de puestos asistenciales en los términosque se prevean en cada convocatoria.3.7. Será actualizable, de modo que la baremación de méritos debe permitir surevisión, respondiendo siempre a la realidad del desarrollo del servicio de salud y delas diferentes competencias que componen la carrera profesional.3.8. No existirá limitación alguna en el número de profesionales que puedan accedera los distintos niveles de carrera. El acceso exclusivamente dependerá de la3

each year hereafter. Sally Anne has brought it safely from the UK, and aspart of the Opening Ceremony I am to present it to the Headmistress ofTudor Vianu school. We are sanguine about our chances of retaining thewinners’ plate, so before the ceremony we decide to get some photos of theteam holding it while we still can. Photographing a silver plate is not aseasy as one might hope. The plate is as shiny as a mirror, and I mostlysucceed in taking pictures of my own reflection taking the photograph. TheOpening Ceremony, at Tudor Vianu school, is very friendly indeed, filledwith stories of the present and past of Romanian mathematics and theirlongstanding mathematical olympiad tradition. Romania were hosts of thevery first IMO, 50 years ago, and many of the luminaries of Romanianmathematics are present to take a bow. The Deputy Minister of Educationand a Romanian TV camera crew are also there.The exam will be the following morning, so after dinner back at the RinGrand, the team relax with a hot chocolate in the bar before bed. Romaniantelevision is playing in the background, and we are pleased to see a lengthyreport on the Opening Ceremony of the competition – the handiwork ofthe film crew we had seen earlier in the evening. The UK team featurerepeatedly in the footage, looking dapper in their powder blue polo shirts.The ExamThe team assemble in the hotel lobby at 07:30 (05:30 in the UK!) the nextmorning (Saturday 28 February) in order to be bussed the now familiarjourney to the school. They are in good spirits, considering that they areabout to sit a tricky 5-hour exam. As they wait outside the school to becalled in to the exam hall, Peter apologises handsomely for the fact thathe has lost his competition T-shirt and name badge. Someone points outthat he is wearing both of them. Let’s hope that this isn’t an indication ofPeter’s level of brainpower this morning.At maths competitions, the time when the students are sitting the examis often the best opportunity for leaders and deputy leaders to do a bit ofsightseeing on their own. Sally Anne and I seize this chance by going tovisit two of the most beautiful old churches of Bucharest, the Biserica Rusă(Russian Church) and Mănăstirea Stavropoleos (Stavropoleos Monastery).Linguistically, Romania faces west, with a Romance language that is reminiscent,to our ears, of Italian. Religiously, however, the country looks eastwith an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, to which denominationboth of these splendid churches belong. Afterwards, Sally Anne and I walka long route through the grand boulevards of the city centre. We pass bymany of Bucharest’s fine buildings, including the former Royal Palace, thebeautiful Ateneul Român concert hall, and the lavish George Enescu Museum.Outside the Senate we see the Memorial of Rebirth, a monument tothe fallen of the Romanian Revolution of 1989. It is striking to think that6

ResultsEvery year, 1 March is a special day in Romania. On this day, Romanianmen mark the coming of Spring by handing every woman they know amărţişor (a brooch with a red and white thread attached to it). Sally Anneis very touched to receive three of these brooches and also a small bunch offlowers from our friend Dan Schwarz, the chief coordinator. Sadly, there arenot many girls competing in this contest – one from China, one from Serbiaand a few from Romania – but they all get mărţişors too.Over breakfast, Andrew explains to me how his solution to Problem 1works. As I suspected, there was an underlying logic. But will I be able tosell it to the Romanian coordinators? They too were up late the previousevening, poring over the scripts. So when we convene at Tudor Vianu at10:00, everyone is ready to get through the coordination in quick time.First up for UK is Problem 2. Nathan pockets his 7 points. Craig loses2 for mixing up n and n −1, which is fair. Tim gets 1 for proving one of thebounds in the analogous 2-dimensional problem. Now we have the scriptsfor Luke, Andrew and Peter, each of whom has done one half of the problem.At one stage, the intention was to split the marks 6 and 1 between those twohalves; then 5 and 2; but after reviewing all the scripts, the coordinatorshave decided finally that it is going to be 4 and 3. This is good news forLuke and Andrew, who get 3 each for proving their half of the problem; butbad news for Peter, who gets only the 4 marks for proving the other half.I wonder whether he will be able to console himself with the fact the teamgained in total from the change in mark scheme.Next is Problem 4 where we agree on 5 marks for Peter’s excellent work.We also pick up a welcome 2 marks for Tim for making a variety of pertinentobservations without succeeding in pushing any of them through to asolution. Throughout the morning’s coordination, I send through the UK’sresults to Sally Anne by text message. She and team are off on an excursionto the open-air Romanian Village Museum. Thankfully the weatheris bright and sunny, so that they can appreciate the interesting displays ofhistorical houses, farmsteads, stables, watermills and windmills from all ofRomania’s regions.But there is no such recreation for me. I am straight on to coordination ofProblem 1. This is going to be tricky. I just hope I can remember everythingthat Andrew explained to me over breakfast, which now seems like a longtime ago. There are solid 7’s for Luke and Tim; there is 6 for Peter, whohas made a couple of minor errors. Craig’s solution has a bit of a hole init, which drops him down to 5; and we agree on 2 for Nathan. So we arrivefinally at the pièce de resistance that is Andrew’s script. The coordinatorpolitely invites me to set out his approach. I begin by sketching in outlinethe four principal lemmas that underlie his solution, so that I can flesh outthe bones a bit later on. The coordinator looks like a man who needs a bitmore convincing, ‘But he needs to prove all these!’ – ‘He does prove some of8

them, and the rest are obvious’ – ‘But why? And what does he mean here,here and here?’, and so on. This goes on so long that I coordinate Problem3 on the side for a bit of light relief (straight zeros, alas), before resumingwith Problem 1. Eventually we converge on 5/7, which I think is absolutelyright. I am very grateful for the painstaking attention that the Romaniancoordinators have taken over this complicated but interesting script. Suchthings make all the difference to an olympiad competition.By lunchtime, the results have been collated and the final rankings are in.Agonisingly, five of our six students are one mark shy of a medal boundary:Peter is one off a silver; Luke, Nathan, Tim and Craig are all one off abronze. The team competition has been won impressively by China. USAand Serbia are joint second, with Russia in fourth. Congratulations to all ofthem – most of all, perhaps, to Serbia for managing to get up among threeof the IMO giants.All the medals are presented at a closing ceremony at Tudor Vianu schoolthat evening; the silver plate goes to worthy winners China. After a farewellbanquet back at the hotel, the team are off playing games again and socialisingwith their American and Italian counterparts till the early hours.The next morning the coach for the airport arrives at 05:00 (a bracing03:00 UK time) to collect us and several other bleary-eyed teams. Thejourney home passes without incident. We reach Heathrow 30 minutes earlyat 09:20, and the team split – weary but exhilarated.Thanks...Thanks to Luke, Nathan, Tim, Andrew, Peter and Craig for being suchsterling representatives of the UK; to Rachel and all in the Leeds office fortheir help in preparations for the trip; and to Sally Anne for her constantgood company and good sense.We are very grateful for the support of Winton Capital Management,sponsors of the UK team for the Romanian Masters of Mathematics Competition.Above all, thank you very much to our Romanian hosts, among whom Imust mention Dan Schwarz (‘Dan Schwarz is the problem selection committee’)for his tremendous work leading the mathematical side of the competition,and Sever Moldoveanu and Radu Gologan for their endeavours on thelogistics side. I think it must be by the generosity of spirit and intellectualaccomplishment of such excellent people that the Romanian mathematicaltradition flourishes so strongly to this day.9