Author: Giuseppe Primiero

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S. Barry Cooper Prize
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The S. Barry Cooper Prize is awarded to a researcher who has contributed to a broad understanding and foundational study of computability by outstanding results, by seminal and lasting theory building, by exceptional service to the research communities involved, or by a combination of these. This award is presented every two to three years, with the presentation taking place at the International Conference Computability in Europe (CiE).

The Prize is named in honor of S. Barry Cooper, the founding President of the Association Computability, in recognition of his vision of the fundamental concept of computability that brought together several different research communities. The awardee shall be invited to the next annual CiE conference to give an invited talk and will be presented with an award plaque on this occasion.


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Nominations and Eligibility
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Nominations may be made by any member of the scientific community and any such member can be nominated. Nomination letters can have multiple signatories and should provide a motivation for awarding the prize to the nominee, precisely stating their outstanding results, their seminal and lasting theory building, and/or their exceptional service to the research communities involved.

Nominations for the award should be submitted by email to the Award Committee Chair

Anuj Dawar (University of Cambridge)
anuj.dawar@cl.cam.ac.uk

Any emails and related messages should have the subject line starting with “S. Barry Cooper Prize 2023”.

To be considered, nominations for the 2023 Prize must be received by 31 January, 2023.

A nomination package should include:

1. A statement of motivation for awarding the prize to the nominee describing the nominee’s outstanding results, their seminal and lasting theory building and/or exceptional service to the research communities, as the case may be. These should be supported by at least one of

– A list of the most important publications, accompanied by a brief summary of the technical content of the papers and a brief explanation of their significance. Where possible, this should include pointers to online versions of the publications.

– A statement explaining the role played and the exceptional services rendered by the nominee, in the research communities involved in computability and related areas.

2. A support letter or letters signed by at least two members of the scientific community. The nomination package must be in English, but it may include reference to publications in other languages.

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Selection Process
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The Award Committee is solely responsible for the selection of the winner of the award. All matters relating to the selection process that are not specified here are left to the discretion of the Award Committee, whose decision will be final.

The Association Computability in Europe, its Council and Executive Committee, express great sorrow and concern for the war in Ukraine and the attack on the freedom and peace of its population.

ACiE supports the values of peaceful and harmonious coexistence of people building towards universal scientific knowledge. To this aim, we believe that geopolitical divergences among nations should uniquely be resolved through the legitimate means of international diplomacy and that the violent invasion of a sovereign nation and its consequences on the population are never acceptable.

We join the expression of concern of several other academic and scientific institutions around the world for the suffering imposed on the Ukrainian population. We also support those Russian citizens and members of the scientific community who are opposing the military aggression pursued by their own country.

ACiE will remain active in supporting its members directly affected in their personal and professional lives and in guaranteeing that principles of peace, diversity and rational agreement will always be at the basis of its own scientific endeavours.

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CALL FOR INFORMAL PRESENTATIONS
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CiE 2021: Connecting with computability
5 – 9 July 2021
website: www.CiE2021.ugent.be
**Due to the current pandemic CiE 2021 will be held as a virtual conference.**

CiE 2021 is the seventeenth conference organized by the Association Computability in Europe. The /Computability in Europe/ conference (CiE) series has built up a  strong tradition for developing a scientific program which is interdisciplinary at its core bringing together all aspects of computability and foundations of computer science, as well as the interplay of these theoretical areas with practical issues in CS and other disciplines such as biology, mathematics, history, philosophy, and physics. For more information about the CiE conferences and the Association  CiE, please have a look at: https://www.acie.eu/.

CiE 2021 will be the second CiE conference that is organized as a virtual event and aims at a high-quality meeting that allows and invites active participation from all participants. It will be hosted virtually by Ghent University.

Previous meetings have taken place in Amsterdam (2005), Swansea (2006), Siena (2007), Athens (2008), Heidelberg (2009), Ponta Delgada (2010), Sofia (2011), Cambridge (2012), Milan (2013), Budapest (2014), Bucharest (2015), Paris (2016), Turku (2017), Kiel (2018), Durham (2019) and virtually in Salerno (2020)

INFORMAL PRESENTATIONS:
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Continuing the tradition of past CiE conferences, in addition to the formal presentations based on the LNCS proceedings volume, CiE 2021 will host a track of informal presentations, that are prepared very shortly before the conference and inform the participants about current research and work in progress.  The Programme Committee cordially invites all researchers (European and non-European) to submit their abstract for informal presentations. The abstract will be posted on the CiE 2021 website.

The deadline for the submission of abstracts for informal presentations is May 15, 2021. Informal presentations should be at most one page long and sent in .pdf format. Authors should submit their abstracts electronically using EasyChair:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cie2021

Notification can be expected a few days after the submission deadline

REGISTRATION:
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Registration for CiE 2021 will be free. The registration website will open soon


PLENARY SPEAKERS
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Laura Crosilla (University of Oslo, Norway)
Markus Lohrey (Universität Siegen. Germany)
Russell Miller (tutorial speaker, CUNY, US)
Joan Rand Moschovakis (Occidental College, emerita)
Joël Ouaknine (Max Planck Institute for software systems, Germany)
Christine Tasson (tutorial speaker, Université Paris Diderot, France)
Keita Yokoyama (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan)
Henry Yuen (University of Toronto, Canada)


SPECIAL SESSIONS
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/Church’s thesis in constructive mathematics (HaPoC session)/
Marianna Antonutti-Marfori (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany) and Alberto Naibo (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

/Classical Computability theory: Open problems and solutions/
Noam Greenberg (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) and Steffen Lempp (University of Wisconsin)

/Computational geometry/
Maike Buchin (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany) and Maarten Löffler (Utrecht University, Netherlands)

/Computational Pangenomics/
Nadia Pisanti (University of Pisa, Italy) and Solon Pissis (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)

/Proof theory and computation/
David Fernández Duque (Ghent University, Belgium) and Juan Pablo Aguilera (Ghent University, Belgium)

/Quantum computation and information/
Harry Buhrman (Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands) and Frank Verstraete (Ghent University, Belgium)


WOMEN IN COMPUTABILITY
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The Computability in Europe conference series has a long tradition in setting up a Women in Computability program. For CiE 2021 we plan a Women in Computability workshop combined with an online mentoring program. For more details on the Special Interest Group Women in Computability, see: https://www.acie.eu/cie-conference-series/cie-cs-women-in-computability/


ORGANIZED BY:
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Department of Mathematics WE16, Ghent University
Organizing Committee:

David Fernández-Duque, chair (Ghent University)
Juan Pablo Aguilera (Ghent University)
David Belanger (Ghent University)
Ana Borges (University of Barcelona)
Liesbeth De Mol (University of Lille)
Andreas Debrouwere (Ghent University)
Lorenz Demey (Catholic University of Leuven)
Eduardo Hermo-Reyes (University of Barcelona)
Christian Michaux (University of Mons)
Fedor Pakhomov (Ghent University)
Pawel Pawlowski (Ghent University)
Frederik Van De Putte (Ghent University)
Peter Verdée (Catholic University of Louvain)
Andreas Weiermann (Ghent University)


PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
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Marianna Antonutti Marfori (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)
Nathalie Aubrun (CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay)
Christel Baier (TU Dresden)
Nikolay Bazhenov (Sobolev Institute of Mathematics)
Marie-Pierre Béal (Université Paris-Est)
Arnold Beckmann (Swansea University)
David Bélanger (Ghent University)
Joel Day (Loughborough University)
Liesbeth De Mol (CNRS, Université de Lille, PC co-chair)
Carola Doerr (Sorbonne University, CNRS)
Jérôme Durand-Lose (Université d’Orléans)
David Fernández-Duque (Ghent University)
Zuzana Haniková (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic)
Mathieu Hoyrup (LORIA)
Assia Mahboubi (INRIA)
Florin Manea (University of Göttingen)
Irène Marcovici (Université de Lorraine)
Klaus Meer (BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg)
Ludovic Patey (Institut Camille Jordan)
Cinzia Pizzi (University of Padova)
Giuseppe Primiero (University of Milan)
Simona Ronchi Della Rocca (Università di Torino)
Paul Shafer (University of Leeds)
Svetlana Selivanova (KAIST)
Monika Seisenberger (Swansea University)
Alexander Shen (CNRS & Univ. Montpellier 2)
Alexandra Soskova (Sofia University)
Mariya Soskova (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Frank Stephan (National University of Singapore)
Peter Van Emde Boas (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
Sergey Verlan (Université Paris Est – Créteil Val de Marne)
Andreas Weiermann (Ghent University, PC co-chair)
Damien Woods (Maynooth University)

Due to the pandemic in Europe and in the rest of the world, this year the Conference Computability in Europe will take place virtually in Salerno from June 29 to July 3. I wish to thank the Council and the organizers of the CiE conference “Beyond the Horizon of Computability “ for their efforts in managing to run the main events related to Association in these hard times.

The past editions of the CiE conferences have always been characterized for a special atmosphere of interdisciplinary interaction between the different souls of the Association, reflecting the different areas of Computability. This fruitful mix can be felt particularly during the Special sessions, the tutorials and the invited talks for the general audience, while parallel sessions and contributed talks focus on specific interests and expertise.

The 2020 edition of CiE in Salerno will be unique and memorable: not only it will experiment with new modalities of interaction between the attendees, but it will also be the first edition to celebrate the Barry Cooper Prize, an event that will characterize many more CiE Conferences to come. This edition is also special for me personally: after Siena (2007) and Milan (2013), the 2020 edition in Salerno, is the third taking place in one of the most beautiful areas in Italy.

On this occasion, to remember the extraordinary work by Barry in building a community of researchers and people related by their interest on the various areas of computability and motivated by his broad vision of the subject, I wish to spend few words on my personal experience with him.

I have several memories of Barry’s enthusiasm about this community and the creation of this Association. My active role in this project strengthened our friendship and gave me the opportunity to know him better. I still remember vividly his last visit to Milan, on the occasion of a Turing celebration. He gave a very inspired talk, and as usual he included a picture of me and other friends from the Association. I especially recall a meeting in London, where we discussed the Constitution of the Association and the bureaucratic hurdles of its formal registration. His dream was realized few years after, thanks to the support of the ACiE Executive Committee.

Barry was a researcher with many dreams, and the Barry Cooper Prize realizes a dream of many people actively involved in the Association: to celebrate Barry’s original vision of a multidisciplinary, inclusive and open minded community. Let me also add that this vision included a human aspect: a research community should create a bond of friendship that goes behind the collaboration or sharing of common interests.

It is my pleasure to announce that prof. Bruno Courcelle is the first awardee of the Barry Cooper Prize. My sincere thanks go to the Members of the Prize Committe Anuj Dawar, Yuri Gurevitch, Maryia Soskova and Peter Van Emde Boas who worked hard with me to select the winner among several outstanding candidates.

The 2020 S. Barry Cooper Prize is awarded to Bruno Courcelle for his work on the definability of graph properties in Monadic Second Order Logic, through a sequence of seminal papers and a book (joint with Joost Engelfriet).  This forms an outstanding example of theory building, bringing together logic, computability, graph grammars, and various notions of graph width (tree-width, clique-width and rank-width) and opening new avenues in our understanding of graph structure theory and the computability and complexity of graph algorithms.  Besides its foundational character, the work has had great impact on a number of areas of computer science, including in parameterized algorithmics, verification and other areas, and has influenced a generation of researchers in this field.  It has straddled the divide between the logical and algorithmic aspects of theoretical computer science.

The ACiE President
Paola Bonizzoni

Due to the current medical situation related to the coronavirus COVID-19
outbreak, the Organizing Committee of CiE2020, in agreement with the CiE Steering Committee, has decided to reschedule the conference. We will be monitoring the situation and give more details on the Conference web site https://cie2020.wordpress.com/

CiE 2020: Salerno, Italy June 29 – July 3, 2020 
https://www.acie.eu/cie-conference-series/cie2020

IMPORTANT DATES: 

Deadline for informal presentations submission: 10 April 2020
(The notifications of acceptance for informal presentations will be sent a few days after submission.)  
Early registration before: 1 May 2020  

TUTORIALS 

Fine-Grained Complexity – Virginia Vassilevska Williams (MIT) 

Computable Analysis – Martin Ziegler (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)  

INVITED TALKS:  

Centralities in Network Analysis — Paolo Boldi (University of Milan)

A game-theoretic approach for the automated synthesis of complex systems — Véronique Bruyère (University of Mons)

On-the-fly classification of structures — Ekatarina Fokina (Vienna University of Technology)

A Survey on Analog Models of Computation — Amaury Pouly (CNRS Paris)

On the Repetitive Structure of Words — Antonio Restivo (University of Palermo)

Molecular algorithms using reprogrammable DNA self-assembly — Damien Woods (Maynooth University) 

HOSTED BY: 

Department of Computer Science, University of Salerno  

SPECIAL SESSIONS: 

 Algorithmic Learning Theory
Combinatorial String Matching
Computable Topology
HAPOC session on Fairness in Algorithms
Large scale Bioinformatics and Computational Sciences
Modern aspects of Formal Languages  

Contributed papers will be selected from submissions received by the PROGRAMME COMMITTEE consisting of:  
Marcella Anselmo University of Salerno (co-chair)
Veronica Becher           Universidad de Buenos Aires
Paola Bonizzoni        University of Milano-Bicocca
Laura Crosilla         University of Oslo
Liesbeth De Mol           Université de Lille 3
Gianluca Della Vedova     University of Milano-Bicocca
Jérôme Durand-Lose      Université d’Orléans
Pawel Gawrychowski     University of Wroclaw
Mathieu Hoyrup           LORIA
Juliette Kennedy          University of Helsinki
Karoliina Lehtinen         University of Liverpool
Benedikt Loewe            Universiteit van Amsterdam
Florin Manea            Universität Göttingen
Timothy McNicholl        Iowa State University
Klaus Meer             BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg
Turlough Neary            University of Zurich
Daniel Paulusma         Durham University
Arno Pauly            Swansea University (co-chair)
Karin Quaas            University of Leipzig
Viola Schiaffonati     Politecnico di Milano
Markus L. Schmid           Humboldt University Berlin
Thomas Schwentick       Universität Dortmund
Marinella Sciortino        University of Palermo
Victor Selivanov        Institute on Informatics Systems
Mariya Soskova          University of Wisconsin-Madison
Peter Van Emde Boas    Universiteit van Amsterdam 
Linda Brown Westrick         Pennsylvania State University 

The CiE conferences serve as an interdisciplinary forum for research in all aspects of computability, foundations of computer science, logic, and theoretical computer science, as well as the interplay of these areas with practical issues in computer science and with other disciplines such as biology, mathematics, philosophy, or physics.  Continuing the tradition of past CiE conferences, the Program Committee cordially invites all researchers (European and non-European) to submit informal presentations of their recent work. A proposal for an informal presentation must be submitted viaEasyChair

 https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cie2020,

using the LNCS style file (available at https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines) and be 1 page; a brief description of the results suffices and an abstract is not required. Informal presentations will not be published in the LNCS conference proceedings. Results presented as informal presentations at CiE 2020 may appear or may have appeared in other conferences with formal proceedings and/or in journals.  

Women in Computability Travel Grants

 We are very happy to announce that within the framework of the Women in Computability programme sponsored by ACM-W we are able to offer four grants of up to 250 EUR for junior female researchers who want to participate in CiE 2020. Applications for this grant should be sent to johanna.franklin@gmail.com, before April 30, 2020 and include a short cv (at most 2 pages) and contact information for an academic reference. Preference will be given to junior female researchers who are presenting a paper (including informal presentations) at CiE 2020. 

Association of Symbolic Logic Travel Grants

 The Association for Symbolic Logic is graciously sponsoring CiE 2020. Hence student members of the ASL may apply for student travel awards. Further information can be found on the ASL website. Applications must be received by March 28th.

COMPUTABILITY IN EUROPE 2020 SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS:

CiE 2020
Salerno, Italy
June 29 – July 3, 2020
https://www.acie.eu/cie-conference-series/cie2020
https://www.acie.eu

IMPORTANT DATES:
Deadline for abstract registration: 3 January 2020 AOE
Deadline for article submission: 17 January 2020 AOE
Notification of acceptance: 29 February 2020
Final versions due: 15 March 2020
Deadline for informal presentations submission: 10 April 2020
(The notifications of acceptance for informal presentations will be sent a few days after submission)
Early registration before: 1 May 2020


CiE 2020 is the 16th conference organized by CiE (Computability in Europe), a European association of mathematicians, logicians, computer scientists, philosophers, physicists and others interested in new developments in computability and their underlying significance for the real world.

Previous meetings have taken place in Amsterdam (2005), Swansea (2006), Siena (2007), Athens (2008), Heidelberg (2009), Ponta Delgada (2010), Sofia (2011), Cambridge (2012), Milan (2013), Budapest (2014), Bucharest(2015), Paris (2016), Turku (2017), Kiel (2018), and Durham (2019).

TUTORIAL SPEAKERS:
– Virginia Vassilevska Williams (MIT)- Martin Ziegler (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

INVITED SPEAKERS:
Paolo Boldi (University of Milan)
Véronique Bruyère (University of Mons)
Ekatarina Fokina (Vienna University of Technology)
Amaury Pouly (CNRS Paris)
Antonio Restivo (University of Palermo)
Damien Woods (Maynooth University)

HOSTED BY:
Department of Computer Science, University of Salerno

SPECIAL SESSIONS:
Algorithmic Learning Theory
Combinatorial String Matching
Computable Topology
History and Philosophy of Computing
Large scale Bioinformatics and Computational Sciences
Modern aspects of Formal Languages

CONTRIBUTED PAPERS:
Contributed papers will be selected from submissions received by the PROGRAMME COMMITTEE consisting of:
Marcella Anselmo          University of Salerno (co-chair)
Veronica Becher           Universidad de Buenos Aires
Paola Bonizzoni        University of Milano-Bicocca
Laura Crosilla         University of Oslo
Liesbeth De Mol           Université de Lille 3
Gianluca Della Vedova     University of Milano-Bicocca
Jérôme Durand-Lose      Université d’Orléans
Pawel Gawrychowski     University of Wroclaw
Mathieu Hoyrup           LORIA
Juliette Kennedy          University of Helsinki
Karoliina Lehtinen         University of Liverpool
Benedikt Loewe            Universiteit van Amsterdam
Florin Manea            Universität Göttingen
Timothy McNicholl        Iowa State University
Klaus Meer             BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg
Turlough Neary            University of Zurich
Daniel Paulusma         Durham University
Arno Pauly            Swansea University (co-chair)
Karin Quaas            University of Leipzig
Viola Schiaffonati     Politecnico di Milano
Markus L. Schmid           Humboldt University Berlin
Alexander Schoenhuth       Bielefeld University
Thomas Schwentick       Universität Dortmund
Marinella Sciortino        University of Palermo
Victor Selivanov        Institute on Informatics Systems
Mariya Soskova          University of Wisconsin-Madison
Peter Van Emde Boas    Universiteit van Amsterdam
Linda Brown Westrick         Pennsylvania State University

The CiE conferences serve as an interdisciplinary forum for research in all aspects of computability, foundations of computer science, logic,and theoretical computer science, as well as the interplay of these areas with practical issues in computer science and with other disciplines such as biology, mathematics, philosophy, or physics.

THE PROGRAMME COMMITTEE cordially invites all researchers (European and non-European) to submit their papers in all areas related to the above for presentation at the conference and inclusion in the proceedings of CiE 2020 at

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cie2020.

Papers must be submitted in PDF format, using the LNCS style (available at https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines) and must have a maximum of 12 pages, including references but excluding a possible appendix in which one can include proofs and other additional material. Papers building bridges between different parts of the research community are particularly welcome.

The CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS will be published by LNCS, Springer Verlag.

WOMEN IN COMPUTABILITY TRAVEL GRANTS
We are very happy to announce that within the framework of the Women in Computability programme sponsored by ACM-W we are able to offer four grants of up to 250 EUR for junior female researchers who want to participate in CiE 2020.Applications for this grant should be sent to johanna.franklin@gmail.com, before APRIL 30, 2020 and include a short cv(at most 2 pages) and contact information for an academic reference.Preference will be given to junior female researchers who are presenting a paper (including informal presentations) at CiE 2020.

The 16th Conference of the Association Computability in Europe will be hosted by the Computer Science Department at the University of Salerno, Italy.
Co-Chairs: Marcella Anselmo (Salerno), Arno Pauly (Swansea).
Co-Organisers: Marcella Anselmo (Salerno), Gianluca della Vedova (Milan)
Dates to be confirmed. Looking forward to seeing you in Salerno!

The AGM of the Association, held in Durham on the 18th of July has elected four new members of the ACiE Council:

• Johanna Franklin (Hofstra University)
• Alison Pease (Dundee)
• Arno Pauly (Swansea)
• Marcella Anselmo (Salerno)

Welcome and Congratulations!