In April there will not be a full Infinite Groups seminar, since I will be overseas. However, the following talk on 11 April by Juan González-Meneses, who will be visiting Volker Gebhardt at UWS, may well be of interest. The talk can be viewed in Carslaw 829, the Access Grid Room. If you plan to attend, please contact Robert Pearson to let him know that you will be in the audience. ------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Monday 11 April Time: 9:30-11am Place: University of Western Sydney and broadcast over the Access Grid Speaker: Juan González-Meneses, University of Seville Title: Growth functions of braid monoids and generation of random braids. Abstract: In most papers concerning cryptographic protocols using braid groups, or cryptanalysis of these protocols, the method for generating braids of a given length is not satisfactory, as distinct braids do not appear with the same probability. We will explain an efficient method to generate random positive braids of a given length. Along the way, we will discover new properties of the growth functions of positive braid monoids, which can be generalized to Artin-Tits monoids of finite type and to certain Garside monoids. This talk will be accessible to non-specialists. --------------------------------------------------------------