Newsletter 70

December 12, 2000
[Past issues of the newsletter are available at
 http://logik.mathematik.uni-freiburg.de/lics/newsletters/
 http://www.math.uic.edu/lics/newsletters/]


************************* REMINDER *************************
  The submission deadline for LICS 2001 is January 8, 2001.
************************************************************


TABLE OF CONTENTS
* Calls for Papers
  Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge (TARK VIII)
  Logic Programming and Nonmonotonic Reasoning (LPNMR'01)
  German/Austrian Conference on Artificial Intelligence
  Temporal Representation and Reasoning (TIME'01)
  Inconsistency in Data and Knowledge
* Call for Participation
  International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT'01)
* Conference Announcement
  Algebraic Topological Methods in Computer Science
* Book Announcement
  Introduction to Model Theory by Philipp Rothmaler
* Position Announcements 
  Research Assistant at Aachen
  2 PhD sholarships at Bern
  Postdoctoral Fellow/Research Fellow at Sydney


CONFERENCE ON THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF RATIONALITY AND KNOWLEDGE (TARK VIII) 
  Call for papers
  The Certosa di Pontignano, University of Siena, Italy
  July 8-10, 2001, 
  http://www.tark.org/
* About the Conference: The bi-annual TARK conferences bring together
  researchers from a wide variety of fields, including Artificial
  Intelligence, Cryptography, Distributed Computing, Economics, Game
  Theory, Linguistics, Logic, Philosophy, and Psychology -- to further
  our understanding of interdisciplinary issues involving reasoning
  about rationality and knowledge. 
* Submission Instructions: Please submit a detailed electronic abstract
  (not a full paper) ingrid@wins.uva.nl.  In addition, please send 14
  14 copies by ordinary mail to 
    TARK 2001, c/o Ms. Ingrid van Loon,
    Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, 
    University of Amsterdam 
    Plantage Muidergracht 
    24,1018 TV AMSTERDAM 
    The Netherlands, 
  Strong preference will be given to papers whose topic is of
  interest to an interdisciplinary audience, and papers should be 
  accessible to such an audience. 
* Submission deadline: February 14, 2001. 
* Program Committee: Johan van Benthem (chair, Amsterdam and Stanford,
  johan@wins.uva.nl), Samson Abramsky (Computer Science, Edinburgh),
  Giacomo Bonanno (Economics, UC Davis), Nicola Dimitri (Economics,
  Siena), Joseph Halpern (Computer Science, Cornell), Wiebe van der Hoek
  (Computer Science, Utrecht), Angelika Kratzer (Linguistics, Amherst),
  Bart Lipman (Economics, Madison), Hans Rott (Philosophy, Regensburg),
  Ariel Rubinstein (Economics, Tel Aviv and Princeton), Gabriel Sandu
  (Philosophy, Helsinki), Yoav Shoham (Computer Science, Stanford),
  Tuomas Sandholm (Computer Science, Washington U., S. Louis)


INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LOGIC PROGRAMMING AND NONMONOTONIC REASONING
(LPNMR'01)
  Call for Papers
  Vienna, Austria, September 17 - 19, 2001
  http://www.kr.tuwien.ac.at/lpnmr01/
* Theme. The aim of the conference is to facilitate interactions between
  researchers interested in the design and implementation of logic based
  programming languages and database systems, and researchers who work in
  the areas of knowledge representation and non-monotonic reasoning. LPNMR
  strives to encompass these theoretical and exprimental studies that lead
  to the construction of practical systems for declarative programming and
  knowledge representation.
* Submission. Max. 13 pages in Springer LNCS style. An electronic paper
  management system will be used. Details on the webpage.
* Submission Deadline. April 3, 2001
* Invited Speakers. J. Dix, Ph. Kolaitis, M. Lenzerini, Ch. Sakama
* Program Co-Chairs. Th. Eiter, M. Truszczynski
* Program Committee. A. Bochman, P. Bonatti, G. Brewka, J. Delgrande,
  M. Denecker, N. Foo, M. Gelfond, K. Inoue, A. Kakas, N. Leone,
  V. Lifschitz, F. Lin, V. Marek, Zh. Ming-Yi, I. Niemela, L. M. Pereira,
  M. Schaerf, T. Schaub, F. Toni, L.-Y. Yuan


JOINT GERMAN/AUSTRIAN CONFERENCE ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
  Call for Papers and Workshops
  Vienna, Austria, September 19-21, 2001
  http://www.kr.tuwien.ac.at/KI2001/
* Theme. The conference seeks original research and application papers 
  and workshop proposals in ALL areas of Artificial Intelligence.
* Paper Submission. Max. 15 pages in Springer LNCS style. Further details
  will be published on the webpage.
* Paper Submission Deadline. April 9, 2001
* Workshop Proposal Submissions. Max. 3 pages of ASCII text mailed to the
  workshop chair by January 29, 2001.
* Invited Speakers. H. Kamp, M. Kearns, R. Reiter, V.S. Subrahmanian
* General Chairs. G. Brewka, Th. Eiter
* Program Chair. F. Baader
* Workshop Chair. J. Dorn
* Industrial Chairs. G. Friedrich, K. Sundermeyer
* Program Committee. P. Cunningham, J. Dix, J. Dorn, D. Dubois, M. Fisher,
  G. Friedrich, F. Giunchiglia, H.-M. Gross, A. Gunter, U. Hahn, T. Jebelean,
  J. Koehler, M. Kohlhase, R. Kruse, M. Lenzerini, S. Miksch, B. Neumann,
  M. Richter, R. Rojas, F. Rossi, U. Sattler, J. Siekmann, P. Struss, 
  M. Thielscher, S. Thrun, A. Voronkov, W. Wahlster, G. Widmer, S. Wrobel


INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON TEMPORAL REPRESENTATION AND REASONING (TIME-01)
  Call for Papers
  June 14-16, 2001
  Cividale del Friuli, Italy
  http://tizero.usr.dsi.unimi.it/~time-01/
* The purpose of this symposium is to bring together active
  researchers in different research areas involving time
  representation and reasoning. Research papers on the related topic
  of spatial and spatio-temporal representation and reasoning are also
  welcome.  Traditionally, most contributions came from the Artificial
  Intelligence community, but the number of contributions from other
  areas such as Temporal/Spatial Databases and Temporal Logics has
  been increasing in the last years. We especially encourage
  submissions from these areas in order to achieve a
  multi-disciplinary perspective of the topic and to benefit from
  cross-fertilization of ideas.
* The symposium is planned as a three days event, and it will be
  conducted as a combination of paper presentations, an extended
  poster session, a panel session and two invited talks.
* There are three tracks in the Symposium with separate program
  committees. 
  Track1: Temporal Representation and Reasoning in AI
  Track 2: Time Management in Databases
  Track 3: Temporal Logic in Computer Science
* Important Dates:
  Paper Submission Deadline: February 2, 2001
  Notification of Acceptance: April 2, 2001
  Camera Ready Copy Due: April 15, 2001
* General Chair: 
  Johan van Benthem, University of Amsterdam and Stanford University
  Program Committee Chairs:
  Claudio Bettini, Universita' degli Studi di Milano, Italy
  Angelo Montanari, Universita' degli Studi di Udine, Italy
  Local Organization Chair:
  Carlo Combi, Universita' degli Studi di Udine, Italy


WORKSHOP ON INCONSISTENCY IN DATA AND KNOWLEDGE
  Affilliated with IJCAI'01 
  Call for Papers
  Seattle, August 6th, 2001
  http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~chomicki/inconsistency01.html
* Theme: The problem of reasoning in the presence of inconsistency has
  been studied by the mathematical logic community for some
  decades. Nevertheless, new challenges, problems and issues have
  appeared in the context of knowledge representation in AI, database
  systems, formal specifications and other areas of computer
  science. The main goal of this workshop is to identify new
  inconsistency-related problems of conceptual and practical
  significance, and the ways they are handled in different
  contexts. The workshop is expected to bring together people from
  different research communities (knowledge representation, databases,
  formal specifications, mathematical and philosophical logic) that
  are actively pursuing the issue of inconsistency.
  - Inconsistency handling: prevention, detection, resolution
  - Causes of inconsistency   - Reasoning in the presence of inconsistency
  - Inconsistency in non-classical logics and argumentation systems
  - Inconsistency in databases   - Integrity Constraints
  - Information fusion       - Data reconciliation and cleaning
  - Inconsistency and belief revision/update
  - Action conflicts and their resolution
  - Inconsistency in formal specifications   - Implementation issues
* Submission deadline: March 08, 2001. 
* Organizing Committee: Leo Bertossi (Universidad Catolica de Chile,
  bertossi@ing.puc.cl) (co-chair), Philippe Besnard (Universite Paul
  Sabatier, Toulouse, besnard@irit.fr), Jan Chomicki (SUNY at Buffalo,
  chomicki@cse.buffalo.edu) (co-chair), Anthony Hunter (University
  College London, a.hunter@cs.ucl.ac.uk).
* Program Committee: Diderik Batens (U. Gent, Belgium), Leo Bertossi
  (U. Catolica de Chile), Philippe Besnard (Universite Paul Sabatier,
  France), Laurence Cholvy (U. Toulouse, France), Jan Chomicki
  (University at Buffalo, USA), Anthony Hunter (University College
  London, England), Michael Kifer (SUNY Stony Brook, USA), Jorge Lobo
  (Bell Labs., USA), Alberto Mendelzon (U. Toronto, Canada), Stuart
  Shapiro (University at Buffalo, USA), Francesca Toni (Imperial
  College London, England), Mary-Anne Williams (U. Newcastle,
  Australia), Roel Wieringa (U. Twente, Netherlands)


INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DATABASE THEORY (ICDT'01)
  Call for Participation
  http://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/icdt2001
* The 8th International Conference on Database Theory will be held
  from 4 to 6 January, 2001, at Birkbeck College, University of
  London, UK.  In addition to invited talks by Andrei Broder, Leonid
  Libkin and Philip Wadler, 26 technical papers will be presented.
* See the webpage for more information, where also registration and
  accommodation information will soon be provided.


CONFERENCE ON ALGEBRAIC TOPOLOGICAL METHODS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
  Department of Mathematics, Stanford University 
  July 30 - August 3, 2001 
  http://www.math.uwo.ca/~jardine/at-cs.html 
* The application of algebraic topological methods in areas related to
  Computer Science is an emerging field that is of interest to both
  pure and applied mathematical scientists. The aim of this conference
  is to describe recent advances, and define the fundamental open
  problems in the field through a mixture of expository and technical
  lectures.  There will be twenty lectures, on a variety of topics in
  the area.
* All lectures are by invitation. A preliminary list of speakers can
  be found at the conference web site.  All conference announcements
  and information will be available at that site.
* Organizers: Gunnar Carlsson: gunnar@math.stanford.edu
              Rick Jardine: jardine@uwo.ca


BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT
  Introduction to Model Theory
  Philipp Rothmaler
  Gordon & Breach, Series Part: Algebra, Logic and Applications, Volume 15
  Paperback ISBN 90-5699-313-5               Hardcover  ISBN 90-5699-287-2
* Model theory attracts more and more mathematicians in view of
  growing applications to classical parts of mathematics. Here is an
  introductory text for anybody who wants to learn the basics and see
  how they apply to yield powerful results in other mathematical
  disciplines, be it an undergraduate or graduate student or any
  interested mathematician.
* Suitable for readers who have not studied mathematical logic
  previously (in fact, as opposed to most introductory texts,
  syntactic issues are cut down to a model-theoretically relevant
  minimum here).
* Also unusual for a text of this introductory level and making it
  more pleasant for self-study: fine print remarks about connections
  to other topics and history (within the text---making it unnecessary
  to page back and forth between text and some supplementary parts).
* Some topics, like the two applications in the last part, have never
  been treated in a textbook before. (One of them yielding the
  dimension theory for fields of arbitrary cardinality (as a
  particular case of the study of strongly minimal theories), an
  important topic rarely treated in full detail even in algebra texts
  of this level; the other about models of the theory of the group of
  integers.)
* Detailed bibliography, an epilogue, and hints for further reading
  leading the reader to some of the most recent and up to date
  literature of active research in the field.
* Selected exercises have hints and solutions. Some of them reflect
  very recent (even unpublished) research in the field.


RESEARCH ASSISTANT (POSTDOC) 
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AACHEN (RWTH AACHEN)
  The research group on mathematical foundations of computer
  science (directed by Prof. Erich Graedel) at RWTH Aachen
  is looking for a research assistant to join a DFG-funded project
  on COMPUTATIONAL MODEL THEORY.
* The main goal of this project is the systematic extension of
  finite model theory to a computational model theory that
  covers also suitable classes of infinite structures.
  Topics of interest are logical definability
  and algorithmic complexity on finite and infinite structures,
  model-theoretic and algorithmic issues on automatic structures, 
  metafinite structures, constraint databases, finitely representable
  transition systems etc., and applications of computational 
  model theory to databases and verification.
* We seek a candidate with a PhD in mathematics or computer science,
  strong background in mathematical logic, and good knowledge in 
  either (finite) model theory, complexity theory or automata. 
* The salary is calculated according to the German scale BAT IIa, 
  around DM 3000 - 3600 (EUR 1500 - 1800) per month, 
  after taxes, depending on age and marital status.
  The length of the appointment is negotiable (up to three years),
  the starting date should be within six months. 
* Further information about our research group can be found at
  www-mgi.informatik.rwth-aachen.de.
* Informal inquiries and applications should
  be sent by e-mail, as soon as possible, 
  to graedel@informatik.rwth-aachen.de.


PHD SCHOLARSHIPS IN THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE / LOGIC
  Institute for Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
  Bern University, Switzerland
* 2 PhD sholarships are 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). Both positions are available from January 1, 2001 for a
  period of two years, after which time an extension for another 2
  years may be possible.
* One position is within a research project concerned with explicit
  mathematics, metapredicativity, abstract computations and related
  proof-theoretic questions.  The second is centered around
  non-classical logics and their computational aspects.
* Requirements: Good background in logic and/or theoretical computer
  science; relevant degree (e.g. diploma or MS) in computer science or
  mathematics.
* For further information contact the head of the research group
  G. Jaeger (email: jaeger@iam.unibe.ch, phone: +41 31 631 85 60, fax:
  +41 31 631 32 60).


POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW/ RESEARCH FELLOW 
  Model Checking Logics Of Knowledge And Belief 
* School of Computer Science and Engineering 
  University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 
* Salary Range: $A 39,868 - 45,049
* A postdoctoral fellowship/research fellowship is available in
  applications of modal logic to distributed systems. The project,
  supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council, concerns
  the development of a model checker for logics of knowledge and belief
  and its application to the verification of knowledge-based programs
  and security protocols. Applicants should have, or be about to
  complete, a Ph.D. in computer science, or equivalent research
  experience appropriate to the project, expertise in modal logic
  (particularly epistemic logic and temporal logic) and/or model
  checking, and significant programming experience.  Information
  concerning the position, including a duty statement listing selection
  criteria, is available at URL:
       http://cse.unsw.edu.au/~meyden/positions.html
* Assoc. Prof. Ron van der Meyden
  School of Computer Science and Engineering
  University of New South Wales 
  Sydney 2052 Australia 
  email: meyden@cse.unsw.edu.au 
  www: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~meyden

Back to the LICS web page.

Martin Grohe