CiE Newsletter No.20, September 16, 2009 ___________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS: 1. Latest news on the petition for an Alan Turing apology 2. THE ALAN TURING YEAR - email list + logo 3. POSTDOC POSITION IN LOGIC / THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE 4. 3rd Call for Papers - Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization - NICSO 2010 5. Third Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, Lugano, Switzerland, March 5-8, 2010 6. 5th INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM IN RUSSIA (CSR 2010) - First Call for Papers 7. REACHABILITY PROBLEMS, RP'2009 - LAST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION 8. New multi-disciplinary Springer journal "Cognitive Computation" =========================================================================== 1. (from Barry Cooper, Huma Shah, Liesbeth De Mol, and others) Latest news on the petition for an Alan Turing apology: From the BBC website (many of you will have seen the news): "Gordon Brown has released a statement on World War II code breaker Alan Turing, recognising the 'appalling' way he was treated for being gay." For the full report see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8249792.stm For the official announcement, go to: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page20571 We also hear that Alan Turing is now a 'trending topic' on Twitter: http://tweet-dar.com/224-alan-turing/ The petition currently has over 31,000 signatories: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/turing/ - and is still growing. There is also a Turing petition site for non-UK residents here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/worldturingpetition/index.html There is a widespread feeling that there should be more recognition of Turing's scientific work, and some practical counterpart of the government apology in the run-up to the Turing centenary in 2012. It seems that Gordon Brown has had telephone conversation(s) with the petition originator, computer scientist John Graham-Cumming. =========================================================================== 2. (from Barry Cooper) THE ALAN TURING YEAR - email list + logo: 2012 - THE ALAN TURING YEAR: June 23, 2012, is the Centenary of Alan Turing's birth. During his relatively brief life, Turing made a unique impact on the history of computing, computer science, artificial intelligence, developmental biology, and the mathematical theory of computability. 2012 will be a year-long celebration of Turing's life and scientific impact, with a number of major events taking place throughout the year. Most of these will be linked to places with special significance in Turings life, such as Cambridge, Manchester and Bletchley Park. If you would like to be included in the Turing Centenary email list, please go to: http://www.turingcentenary.eu/ and enter your email address in the panel provided. __________________________________________________ If you would like to add a small copy of the Alan Turing Year logo to your webpage, with a link to the ATY homepage, just copy in the following html script: Turing Year logo =========================================================================== 3. (from Thomas Strahm) POSTDOC POSITION IN LOGIC / THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE: POSTDOC POSITION IN LOGIC / THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE Institute for Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Bern University, Switzerland Postdoc position is available in the research group "Theoretical Computer Science and Logic" at the Institute for Computer Science and Applied Mathematics of Bern University (cf. http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~til/ for further information about our group). The position is available from October 1, 2009 for a period of two years, after which time an extension may be possible. This position is within a research project about proof theory focussing on reflections and (non-)monotone inductive definitions, operational set theory, and feasible and subrecursive proof and type systems. An excellent background in logic and previous working experience in proof theory are required. Interested candidates should send an application letter and a detailed CV (including a list of courses completed and marks received) to G. Jaeger (email: jaeger@iam.unibe.ch, phone: +41 31 631 85 60, fax: +41 31 631 32 60). =========================================================================== 4. (from German Terrazas) 3rd Call for Papers - Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization - NICSO 2010: 3rd Call for Papers - Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization - NICSO 2010 *********************************************************** The IV International Workshop on Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization - NICSO 2010 May 12th - 14th Granada, Spain http://www.nicso2010.org *********************************************************** 3rd CALL FOR PAPERS Biological and natural processes have always been a source of inspiration for computer science and information technology. It is well known that biological entities, from single cell organisms -like bacteria- to humans, often engage in a rich repertoire of social interaction that could range from altruistic cooperation through open conflict. One specific kind of social interaction is cooperative problem solving (CPS), where a group of autonomous entities work together in order to achieve certain goal. The NICSO 2010 aims at promoting cooperative problem solving strategies bringing together international researchers and practitioners from different disciplines in order to discuss the investigations and exchange ideas on the current state of the art of the topic. The conference seeks contributions that are inspired by Nature and that encompass a range of spatio-temporal scales, for visionary conceptions of information processing and computation as pertaining to cooperation mechanisms in the context of problem solving. All submitted papers will be blind reviewed by at least two reviewers. Selection criteria will be based on relevance, originality, significance, impact, technical soundness and quality of the presentation. Contributions are expected to provide original results, insights and experimental innovations. Manuscripts must be in PDF, not exceeding 12 pages and conforming to the guidelines specified in the workshop's website. Contributions are welcome to submission through the system available at http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=nicso2010. The accepted papers will be published in the book series on Studies in Computational Intelligence (Springer). The authors of the best accepted papers will be invited to revise and extend their contributions for publication in a special issue in the Memetic Computing Journal (Springer). Target topics (but not limited to): Adaptive Behaviour Ants Colonies Amorphous Computing Artificial Life Artificial Immune Bio-inspired architecture Distributed Computing Evolutionary Robotics Evolvable Systems Genetic Algorithms Genetic Programming Membrane Computing Quantum Computing Software Self-Assembly Systems Coevolution Swarm Intelligence * * * IMPORTANT DATES * * * Full paper submission: October 15, 2009 Acceptance notification: November 30, 2009 Final camera ready: December 15, 2009 NICSO: May 12 - 14, 2010 http://www.nicso2010.org =========================================================================== 5. (from Marcus Hutter) Third Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, Lugano, Switzerland, March 5-8, 2010: We're pleased to announce the Third Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, hosted by Juergen Schmidhuber in Lugano, Switzerland, March 5-8 2010. Continuing the mission of the highly successful First and Second AGI Conferences, AGI-10 will gather an international group of leading academic and industry researchers involved in serious scientific and engineering work aimed directly toward the goal of artificial general intelligence. This is the only major conference series devoted wholly and specifically to the creation of AI systems possessing general intelligence at the human level and ultimately beyond. By gathering together active researchers in the field, for presentation of results and discussion of ideas, we accelerate our progress toward our common goal. The preliminary Call for Papers is here: http://agi-conf.org/2010/call-for-papers This is the first AGI conference to be held outside the US and we are looking forward to a lively mixture of perspectives. Lugano is a beautiful locale and we are sure it will be an inspiring place to collaborate on creating the future of AGI! Yours, Marcus Hutter Conference Chair =========================================================================== 6. (from Edward Hirsch) 5th INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM IN RUSSIA (CSR 2010) - First Call for Papers: **************************************************************************** First Call for Papers 5th INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM IN RUSSIA (CSR 2010) June 16-20, 2010, Kazan, Russia http://csr2010.antat.ru/ **************************************************************************** CSR 2010 intends to reflect the broad scope of international cooperation in computer science. It is the 5th conference in a series of regular events started with CSR 2006 in St. Petersburg (see LNCS 3967), CSR 2007 in Ekaterinburg (see LNCS 4649), CSR 2008 in Moscow (see LNCS 5010), and CSR 2009 in Novosibirsk (see LNCS 5675). IMPORTANT DATES: Deadline for submissions: December 7, 2009 Notification of acceptance: January 31, 2010 Conference dates: June 16-20, 2010 As has become tradition, there will be YANDEX AWARDs for the best paper and for the best student paper! TOPICS * algorithms and data structures * combinatorial optimization * constraint solving * complexity and cryptography * formal languages and automata * computational models and concepts * algorithms for concurrent and distributed systems, networks * proof theory and applications of logic to computer science * model checking * automated reasoning * deductive methods OPENING LECTURE: Alexander Razborov (University of Chicago and Steklov Mathematical Institute) INVITED SPEAKERS: tba PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Ernst W. Mayr (TU Muenchen, Germany; Chair) Sergei N. Artemov (City University of New York, USA) Lev Beklemishev (M.V. Lomonossov Moscow State University, Russia) Harry Buhrman (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) Edith Cohen (AT&T Research, USA) Samir Datta (Chennai Mathematical Institute, India) Andrew V. Goldberg (Microsoft Research, USA) Dima Grigoriev (Universite de Lille, France) Martin Hofmann (LMU Muenchen, Germany) Yuri Matiyasevich (Steklov Inst. of Math., St. Petersburg, Russia) Peter Bro Miltersen (Aarhus University, Denmark) Georg Moser (University of Innsbruck, Austria) Madhavan Mukund (Chennai Mathematical Institute, India) Harald Raecke (University of Warwick, United Kingdom) Uwe Schoening (Universitat Ulm, Germany) Jeffrey Shallit (University of Waterloo, Canada) Alexander Shen (LIF, Marseille, France) Alberto Marchetti Spaccamela (Universita di Roma "La Sapienza", Italy) Michael Tautschnig (TU Darmstadt, Germany) Pascal Tesson (Universite Laval, Canada) Berthold Voecking (RWTH Aachen, Germany) Sergey Yekhanin (Microsoft Research, USA) Alexander Zelikovsky (Georgia State University, USA) ORGANIZERS: Institute of Informatics, Tatar Academy of Sciences, and Kazan State University CONFERENCE CHAIR: Farid Ablayev (Kazan State University) SUBMISSIONS: Authors are invited to submit an extended abstract or a full paper of at most 12 pages in the LNCS format (LaTeX, as pdf; final version with source); instructions are here: http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-7-72376-0 Proofs and other material omitted due to space constraints are to be put into a clearly marked appendix to be read at discretion of the referees. Papers must present original (and not previously published) research. Simultaneous submission to journals or to other conferences with published proceedings is not allowed. The proceedings of the symposium will be published in Springer's LNCS series. Selected papers from the conference will be reviewed for and published in a special issue of Theory of Computing Systems (Springer-Verlag). Submissions should be uploaded to the EasyChair Conference system: https://www.easychair.org/login.cgi?conf=csr2010 FURTHER INFORMATION AND CONTACTS: Web: http://csr2010.antat.ru/ Email: csr2010.kazan@gmail.com =========================================================================== 7. (from Olivier Bournez) REACHABILITY PROBLEMS, RP'2009 - LAST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: LAST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION -------------------------------------------------------------- REACHABILITY PROBLEMS, RP'2009 September 23-25, 2009, Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau (Near Paris) France -------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/rp09 The annual fall colloquium organized by the Computer Science Laboratory of Ecole Polytechnique (LIX) will host Reachability Problems RP'2009. RP'2009 will take place at Ecole Polytechnique (on-site at Palaiseau, a suburb district of Paris, FRANCE). Invited Speakers: ================ - Ahmed Bouajjani ( University of Paris 7 ) - Thomas A. Henzinger ( EPFL in Lausanne ) - Oded Maler ( VERIMAG ) - Alexander Shen ( CNRS Marseille ) - Moshe Y. Vardi ( Rice University ) Program: ================ http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/rp09/i.php/Main/Programme Scope: ================ Reachability Problems workshops series aims at gathering together scholars from diverse disciplines and backgrounds interested in reachability problems that appear in algebraic structures, computational models, hybrid systems, Verification, etc. Reachability is a fundamental problem in the context of many models and abstractions which are describing various computational processes. Analysis of the computational traces and predictability questions for such models can be formalized as a set of different reachability problems. In general reachability can be formulated as follows: Given a computational system with a set of allowed transformations (functions). Decide whether a certain state of a system is reachable from a given initial state by a set of allowed transformations. The same questions can be asked not only about reachability of exact states of the system but also about a set of states expressed in term of some property as a parameterized reachability problem. Another set of predictability questions can be seen in terms of reachability of eligible traces of computations; unavoidability of some dynamics and a possibility to avoid undesirable dynamic using a limited control. The purpose of the conference is to promote exploration of new approaches for the predictability of computational processes by merging mathematical, algorithmic and computational techniques. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): Reachability problems in infinite state systems, rewriting systems, dynamical and hybrid systems; reachability problems in logic and verification; reachability analysis in different computational models, counter/ timed/ cellular/ communicating automata; Petri-Nets; computational aspects of algebraic structures (semigroups, groups and rings); frontiers between decidable and undecidable reachability problems; predictability in iterative maps and new computational paradigms. Sponsors include: ================ - CNRS & GdR Informatique MathÈmatique - Ecole Polytechnique - Laboratory LIX Contact: ================ 3rd Workshop on Reachability Problems 2009 - RP'09 Olivier Bournez: bournez@lix.polytechnique.fr Igor Potapov: potapov@liverpool.ac.uk http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/rp09 =========================================================================== 8. (from Amir Hussain) New Springer journal "Cognitive Computation": We are delighted to announce the publication of the third (quarterly) Issue (Sep 2009) of Springer's exciting new multi-disciplinary journal in the neurosciences: "Cognitive Computation" - www.springer.com/12559 You will also be pleased to know that ALL (full) articles in Cognitive Computation are FREELY AVAILABLE for access/download through December 31, 2009. Please ask your library to subscribe for 2010 and beyond! The full listing of Issue 3 (Sep 2009) can be viewed here: http://springerlink.com/content/m224t1178m77/?p=61f9d0eb786e434783d7e55414ff 013f&pi=0 The full listing of the Inaugural Issue 1 (March 2009) can be viewed here (which includes invited authoritative reviews by leading researchers in their areas - including keynote papers from London University's John Taylor, Igor Aleksander and Stanford University's James McClelland, and invited papers from Kevin Gurney, Ron Sun, Pentti Haikonen, Geoff Underwood, Claudius Gross, Anil Seth and Tom Ziemke): http://www.springerlink.com/content/w2826455k852/?p=603724902f224ec4ab2a0e52 213f8d3e&pi=0 The full listing of Issue 2 (June 2009) can be viewed here (which includes invited reviews and original research contributions from leading researchers, including Rodney Douglas, Giacomo Indiveri, Jurgen Schmidhuber, Thomas Wennekers, Pentti Kanerva and Friedemann Pulvermuller): http://www.springerlink.com/content/n6134575mg14/?p=0ae0e58e2b8444c48fc62261 e6b6a13f&pi=0 Other 'Online First' published articles not yet in a print issue can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/121361/?Content+Status=Accepted For further information and to sign up for electronic "Table of Contents alerts" please visit the Cognitive Computation homepage: http://www.springer.com/biomed/neuroscience/journal/12559 Finally, we would like to invite you to submit short or regular papers describing original research or timely review of important areas - our aim is to peer review all papers within approximately SIX WEEKS of receipt. We also welcome relevant proposals for Special Issues. With our very best wishes for all aspiring readers and authors of Cognitive Computation, Amir Hussain, PhD (Editor-in-Chief: Cognitive Computation) Igor Aleksander, PhD (Honorary Editor-in-Chief: Cognitive Computation) John Taylor, PhD (Chair, Advisory Board: Cognitive Computation) =========================================================================== Items for the next CiE Newsletter should be sent to s.b.cooper@leeds.ac.uk to arrive by October 2, 2009 ___________________________________________________________________________ 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 ___________________________________________________________________________