CiE Newsletter No.25, January 3, 2010 A very Happy New Year to all CiE members! and a reminder that the January 20th deadline for submission to CiE 2010 in the Azores is fast approaching. The final Call for papers is expected soon. CiE is already shaping up to be a remarkable event, even by CiE standards - for up-to-date details, go to: http://www.cie2010.uac.pt/ ___________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS: 1. Still time to submit to TQC 2010 Conference (13-15 April 2010, Leeds, UK) 2. Obituary: Ray Solomonoff, Founding Father of Algorithmic Information Theory 3. UC2010 Workshop on Hypercomputation and related topics, including quantum computation and digital physics 4. PHYSICS AND COMPUTATION 2010 --- CALL FOR PAPERS 5. BCTCS 2010: First Announcement 6. STACS - First Call for Participation 7. LAST CfP: PETRI NETS 2010, 31st International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets and other Models of Concurrency 8. Interdisciplinary MSc in Logic 2010-2012 at the Universiteit van Amsterdam =========================================================================== =========================================================================== 1. (from Viv Kendon) Still time to submit to TQC 2010 Conference (13-15 April 2010, Leeds, UK): Dear colleagues, A brief reminder: ** Submission of papers and posters to TQC 2010 closes on 4th January 2010, next Monday (23:59 local time)! ** Please refer to the website http://tqc2010.leeds.ac.uk for details. We look forward to reviewing your submissions. Best wishes, Viv Kendon (local organising committee chair) Wim van Dam (programme committee chair) Simone Severini (programme committee co-chair) __________________________________________ TQC 2010 tqc2010@leeds.ac.uk The fifth Conference on Theory of Quantum Computation, Communication, & Cryptography University of Leeds 13th-15th April 2010 http://tqc2010.leeds.ac.uk/ =========================================================================== =========================================================================== 2. (from Paul Vitanyi) Obituary Ray Solomonoff: Obituary: Ray Solomonoff, Founding Father of Algorithmic Information Theory Ray J. Solomonoff, founding father of Algorithmic Information Theory, died on December 7, 2009, of complications of a stroke caused by an aneurism in his head. Ray was the first inventor of Algorithmic Information Theory which deals with the shortest effective description length of objects and is commonly designated by the term ``Kolmogorov complexity.'' The latter notion was a side product of his approach to induction. His crucial results concerning prediction, in 1960 and later, partially resolve the old philosophical problem concerning how to obtain a valid prior distribution in Bayes's rule by showing that a single ``universal'' distribution can be used instead of any computable prior with almost the same resulting predictions. This may be viewed as a central problem of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Statistical Inference--with the caveat that the universal distribution is incomputable. Solomonoff's theory has led to feasible induction and prediction procedures. Ray Solomonoff is survived by his wife, Grace Morton, 72 Winter Street, Arlington, MA 02474, and by his nephew, Alex Solomonoff, of Somerville. An obituary outlining Solomonoff's contributions to science together with biographical remarks is at http://homepages.cwi.nl/~paulv/obituary.html =========================================================================== =========================================================================== 3. (from Mike Stannett) UC2010 Workshop on Hypercomputation and related topics, including quantum computation and digital physics: *********************************************** Co-located with the Unconventional Computation (UC) 2010 conference in Tokyo (June 2010), there will be a Workshop on Hypercomputation and related topics, including quantum computation and digital physics. Key dates include: * submissions: 28 Feb 2010 * notification: 31 Mar 2010 Accepted authors will be expected to attend the workshop. Further details of UC2010 can be found online at http://arn.local.frs.riken.jp/UC10/ Mike Stannett (m.stannett@dcs.shef.ac.uk) *********************************************** =========================================================================== =========================================================================== 4. (from Felix Costa) PHYSICS AND COMPUTATION 2010 --- CALL FOR PAPERS: CALL FOR PAPERS PHYSICS AND COMPUTATION 2010, P&C 2010 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ P&C 2010 3rd International Workshop on PHYSICS AND COMPUTATION On the Nile, Egypt August 30 (embarkation) -- September 3 (desembarkation on September 5) Submissions of 4-5 pages extented abstracts due: January 15 Notification: February 12 Full paper submission due: March 20 Early Registration: February 19 --- The charter will take a limited number of 40 participants with some further space for people travelling together (in the early registration step, participants will have to book their places and pay $200 each to the Cruiser Company in Egypt, through the Conference Webpage). -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- WEB www.pc2010.uac.pt -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- Original papers are solicited in all areas of Physics and Computation (and related fields). Typical, but not exclusive, topics are: - Analogue Computation - Axiomatization of Physics: completeness, decidability, reduction - Church-Turing thesis - Computing beyong the Turing barrier - Digital Physics - Philosophy of Physics (and computation) - Quantum computation (digital, analogue). Applications to Biology. Quantum logics - Reaction-diffusion models of computation: including Brain Dynamics, BZ Computers - Relativity: spacetimes, computation, time travel, speedup - Theory of measurement: axiomatization, complexity All researchers in the area of the Workshop are kindly invited to submit their extended abstracts (4-5 pages) and / or papers (at most 12 pages) electronically, via Easychair: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=pc10 . The submissions are expected to be in PDF format using the suitable class files of Springer LNCS. Joint submissions to other conferences are not permitted. Each accepted paper must be presented at the Workshop. Contributed papers will be selected from submissions received by the PROGRAMME COMMITTEE: - Andrew ADAMATZKI, University of West England - Selim AKL, Queen's University, Canada - Hajnal ANDREKA, Alfred Renyi Institute of Mathematics, Budapest - Edwin BEGGS, University of Swansea - Olivier BOURNEZ, Ecole Polytechnique - Dan BROWNE, University College London - Cristian CALUDE, University of Auckland, New Zealand - Arturo CARSETTI, University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Barry COOPER, University of Leeds - Bob COECKE, University of Oxford - Jose Felix COSTA, Technical University of Lisbon - Gilles DOWEK, Ecole Polytechnique and INRIA - Walid GOMAA, University of Alexandria - Viv KENDON, University of Leeds - Carlos LOURENCO, University of Lisbon - Judit MADARASZ, Alfred Renyi Institute of Mathematics, Budapest - Yasser OMAR, Technical University of Lisbon - Sonja SMETS, University of Groningen , Netherlands - Mike STANNETT, University of Sheffield - Karl SVOZIL, Institut fur Theoretische Physik, Technische Universitat Wien - John V. TUCKER, University of Swansea - Jiri WIEDERMANN, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic , Institute of Computer Science - Karoline WIESNER, University of Bristol - Martin ZIEGLER, University of Paderborn, Germany TUTORIALS: - Hajnal ANDREKA, Gergely SZEKELY, Judit X. MADARASZ, Istvan NEMETI, and Peter NEMETI: Axiomatization of Physics in a logical framework. - Marco LANZAGORTA: Quantum computation: computability and complexity. INVITED SPEAKERS: - Salvador VENEGAS-ANDRACA (Quantum computation): Adiabatic quantum computation and NP-completeness: quantum algorithms and massive simulation in classical computer clouds. - Arturo CARSETTI (Philosophy of Science): The emergence of meaning at the co-evolutive level. An epistemological approach. - John CASE (Learning Theory): Algorithmic Scientific Inference. - Gilles DOWEK (CT Thesis): The physical Church thesis as an explanation of the Galileo thesis. - Thomas JENNEWEIN (Quantum Computation): Teleportation Experiments. - Sonja SMETS (Quantum Logic): Quantum logics. - Vlatko VEDRAL (Quantum computation): Can entanglement be considered a genuine order parameter? SPECIAL SESSION: The wakening of the computer ; Which technological realizations make us feel closer to the HAL 9000 Computer? - Selmer BRINGSJORD - David G. STORK VENUE: 3rd International Workshop on Physics and Computation, P&C 2010 Egypt, August 30 -- September 3, Cruise downstream and upstream the Nile, from Luxor (through Aswan) to Luxor. Arrival and departure airports: Luxor or Cairo. Registration fees: between $800 and $1200, plus the (optional) sightseeing package of $145. Includes one (or half) a cabin (7 nights) on board and the meals (but not drinks) for the 8 days cruise on the Nile. PREVIOUS EVENTS: Second International Workshop on Physics and Computation http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~bournez/PC2009/i.php First International Workshop on Physics and Computation http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/conferences/physicsandcomputation/pc08.h tml POST--CONFERENCE PUBLICATION: P&C 08: Two Issues of Applied Mathematics and Computation (Volume 215, Issue 4, October 15 , 2009 , Elsevier) and Natural Computing (Volume 8, Number 3 , September, 2009 , Springer) . P&C 09: Proceedings will appear as a Bentham Book. P&C 10: We are applying for a special Issue of Physica D . STRUCTURE OF THE EVENT: Our 5 days (Monday to Friday) Workshop 'Physics and Computation 2010' comprises: 7 Invited speakers (50 minutes each, 10 minutes for discussion); 2 Tutorials (100 minutes each, 20 minutes for discussion); 14-16 Contributed papers (35 minutes each, 10 minutes for discussion); 1 Special Session: Homage to Arthur C. Clarke 's 2010 , HAL 9000 New Legacy (120 minutes). David G. Stork has done a respectable work with respect to 2001 (http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/Hal/contents.html). Social programme includes sightseeing (with visits to) the main Archeological Stations, light lectures after dinner on Egyptology and the reading of hieroglyphs. STEERING COMMITTEE: - Caslav BRUKNER - Cristian CALUDE - Gregory CHAITIN - Jose Felix COSTA - Istvan NEMETI ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE: - Cristian CALUDE - Jose Felix COSTA - Walid GOMAA - Helia GUERRA - Karl SVOZIL CONTACT: Walid GOMAA Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt Email: wgomaa@alex.edu.eg and walid.gomaa@loria.fr =========================================================================== =========================================================================== 5. (from Julian Bradfield) BCTCS 2010: First Announcement: Preliminary Announcement: 26th British Colloquium for Theoretical Computer Science (BCTCS) 6th to 9th April 2010 University of Edinburgh http://www.bctcs.ac.uk/BCTCS2010/ SCOPE The purpose of the BCTCS is to provide a forum in which researchers in theoretical computer science can meet, present research findings, and discuss developments in the field. It also aims to provide an environment in which PhD students can gain experience in presenting their work, and benefit from contact with established researchers. The conference will consist of invited keynote presentations by distinguished researchers and a number of contributed talks. LOCATION AND SCHEDULE BCTCS 2010 will be held at the University of Edinburgh, in the centre of Edinburgh. Talks will be at the Informatics Forum, and accommodation will be in the Pollock Halls of Residence nearby. Edinburgh is easily accessible by train from most of the U.K., and has air connections to most UK and many European airports. The event will start on Tuesday afternoon and will end with a lunch on Friday. INVITED SPEAKERS BCTCS 2010 will include invited lectures by the following distinguished speakers: * Erik Demaine (MIT) * Johan Hastad (KTH Stockholm) * Gil Kalai (HU Jerusalem) * Kim Guldstrand Larsen (Aalborg) * Catuscia Palamidessi (INRIA / École Polytechnique) * Ulrike Sattler (Manchester) CONTRIBUTED TALKS Participants at the colloquium are encouraged to present a contributed talk. Please prepare an abstract using the LaTeX template and submit at the abstract submission page. The abstracts of accepted contributed talks will be published in the Bulletin of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 28 February 2010. STUDENT GRANTS The BCTCS steering committee has obtained ongoing funding to support the participation of upto 45 graduate students at BCTCS. The grants cover registration including accomodation and meals, but not travel. Students enrolled at UK higher education institutions may apply for fellowships by filling the online application form. Fellowships will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis to those PhD students who submit an abstract and commit to presenting a contributed talk (see above). Some fellowships may be available to students not presenting contributed talks; decisions on these cases will be taken in March 2010. REGISTRATION Registration will open in late January, when a Call for Participation will be sent. ORGANISATION AND FURTHER INFORMATION The conference is being organised by Julian Bradfield and Mary Cryan of the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh. More information about the meeting including updates are available from the conference webpages at: http://www.bctcs.ac.uk/BCTCS2010/ We hope to see you there! =========================================================================== =========================================================================== 6. (from Jean-Yves Marion) STACS - First Call for Participation: ************************************************************************ 27th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science STACS 2010 - CALL FOR PARTICIPATION MARCH 4-6, 2010, NANCY, FRANCE http://stacs.loria.fr/ ************************************************************************ INVITED SPEAKERS *********************** Mikolaj Bojanczyk, Warsaw University Rolf Niedermeier, University of Jena Jacques Stern, Ecole Normale Superieure ACCEPTED PAPERS ************************ http://stacs.loria.fr/AcceptedPapers.html PROGRAM COMMITTEE *************************** Markus Blaser, Saarland University Harry Buhrman, CWI, University of Amsterdam Thomas Colcombet, CNRS, Paris 7 University Anuj Dawar, University of Cambridge Arnaud Durand, Paris 7 University Sandor Fekete, Braunschweig University of Technology Ralf Klasing, CNRS, Bordeaux University Christian Knauer, Freie Universität of Berlin Piotr Krysta, University of Liverpool Sylvain Lombardy, Marne la Vallée University Parthasarathy Madhusudan, University of Illinois Jean-Yves Marion, Nancy University (co-chair) Pierre McKenzie, Université de Montréal Rasmus Pagh, IT University of Copenhagen Boaz Patt-Shamir, Tel Aviv University Christophe Paul, CNRS, Montpellier University Georg Schnitger, Frankfurt University Thomas Schwentick, TU Dortmund University (co-chair) Helmut Seidl, TU Munich Jiri Sgall, Charles University Sebastiano Vigna, Università degli Studi di Milano Paul Vitanyi, CWI, Amsterdam CONTACT : stacs@loria.fr ************************* =========================================================================== =========================================================================== 7. (from Joao Paolo Barros) LAST CfP: PETRI NETS 2010, 31st International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets and other Models of Concurrency: LAST CALL FOR PAPERS PETRI NETS 2010 31st International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets and other Models of Concurrency June 21-25, 2010 Braga, Portugal Web: http://petrinets2010.di.uminho.pt/ Email : petrinets2010[@]di[.]uminho[.]pt Collocated with ACSD 2010: 10th International Conference on Application of Concurrency to System Design (http://acsd2010.di.uminho.pt) Common page at http://acsd-petrinets2010.di.uminho.pt The call for papers is available at http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/TGI/PetriNets/meetings/pn2010/ INVITED SPEAKERS In 2010, the PETRI NETS and the ACSD conferences will feature five keynote speakers of international reputation: - David Harel (Distinguished Carl Adam Petri Lecture) - Kim Guldstrand Larsen - Gabriel Juhas - Maciej Koutny - Lars M. Kristensen More information is available at http://acsd-petrinets2010.di.uminho.pt/?page=InvitedSpeakers WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIALS The workshops below have been accepted for PETRI NETS / ACSD 2010. All workshops will take place on June 21 and/or June 22. - Abstractions for Petri Nets and Other Models of Concurrency (APNOC) Organizers: Alexander Serebrenik and Natalia Sidorova. - Petri Nets and Software Engineering (PNSE) Organizers: Michael Duvigneau and Daniel Moldt. - Biological Processes & Petri Nets (BioPPN) Organizers: Claudine Chaouiya and Monika Heiner. - Scalable and Usable Model checking for petri nets and Other models of concurrency (SUMo) Organizers: D. Buchs, F. Kordon, Y. Thierry-Megg, J. Sproston - Foundations of Interface Technologies (FIT2010) Organizers: B. Caillaud and A. Legay - Applications of Region Theory (ART) Organizers: Jorg Desel and Alex Yakovlev. =========================================================================== =========================================================================== 8. (from Tanja Kassenaar) Interdisciplinary MSc in Logic 2010-2012 at the Universiteit van Amsterdam: You want to study logic. You enjoy an interdisciplinary approach to research. You like to meet people from all over the world, join the MASTER OF SCIENCE IN LOGIC http://www.illc.uva.nl/MScLogic in Amsterdam. The MSc in Logic is truly interdisciplinary, international and individual: (*) it combines mathematics, computer science, linguistics and philosophy to give a broad view of logic, (*) its students come from all continents and many different countries, (*) and the course programme of each student is individually picked by the student and his or her mentor under consideration of strengths, weaknesses and interests of the student out of a total of over 40 courses. The MSc in Logic covers the traditions of logic as well as the modern view of logic as the study of encoding, transmission and comprehension of information in natural, artificial and formal languages, providing a wide range of applications in modern information society. Within two years, the MSc leads to a highly respected research degree that opens the doors to academic research at the highest level. Most of our graduates continue to get a PhD in logic or a related field. Interested students with a BSc or BA in a relevant field (for example, mathematics, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, but also others) should apply. Candidates who took courses at the graduate (MSc or PhD) level may apply for waivers and could finish the MSc in Logic in three semesters or one year ("fast track"). There are some grant programmes that students can apply to: the national HSP programme (Huygens Scholarship Programme) or the Amsterdam Merit Scholarships for non-European students at the University of Amsterdam. Deadlines for applications (for the academic year starting September 1, 2010) are: January 8, 2010 if you wish to apply for the HSP scholarship February 1, 2010 for non-European students April 1, 2010 for students from EU countries We accept applications after the deadline, but cannot guarantee student housing and/or a timely visa application procedure in this case. Are you interested? Find more information about us on http://www.illc.uva.nl/MScLogic or contact Ms Tanja Kassenaar phone: +31 20 525 6051 email: gpil@science.uva.nl =========================================================================== =========================================================================== Items for the next CiE Newsletter should be sent to s.b.cooper@leeds.ac.uk to arrive by January 15, 2010 ___________________________________________________________________________ ASSOCIATION COMPUTABILITY IN EUROPE http://www.computability.org.uk CiE Conference Series http://www.illc.uva.nl/CiE CiE 2010 http://www.cie2010.uac.pt/ CiE Membership Application Form http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/acie ALAN TURING YEAR http://www.turingcentenary.eu/ ___________________________________________________________________________