Logic List Mailing Archive

NVTI Theory Day, March 10 2006, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Invitation NVTI Theory Day, March 10, 2006
==========================================

We are happy to invite you for the Theory Day 2006 of the NVTI
(Nederlandse Vereniging voor Theoretische Informatica). This event will
take place on Friday March 10, 2006, 9:30 - 16:45, at Hoog Brabant,
Utrecht (close to Utrecht Central Station).


Lecturers:
==========

  Martin Abadi  - Reconciling Two Views of Cryptography
  Mark de Berg  - I/O- and cache-efficient algorithms for spatial data
  Mark Kas      - The Research Agenda for Computer Science in The Netherlands
  Wan Fokkink   - Oh Mega Completeness
  Kurt Mehlhorn - Reliable Geometric Computation

As in previous years we have a strong program featuring excellent foreign
and Dutch speakers, covering important streams in theoretical computer
science. Two lectures cover algorithms and complexity theory; the other
two cover logic and semantics.

Please find below the program, location, details on lunch registration,
sponsors, and last but not least the abstracts, and a CV of the speakers


Program:
========

 9.30-10.00: Arrival with Coffee
10.00-10.10: Opening
10.10-11.00: Prof. Dr. Martin Abadi
                  (Microsoft Research and U. California at Santa Cruz)
             Reconciling Two Views of Cryptography
11.00-11.30: Coffee/Tea
11.30-12.20: Prof. Dr. Mark T. de Berg (TU/e)
             I/O- and cache-efficient algorithms for spatial data
12.20-12.40: Dr. Mark Kas (NWO Exacte Wetenschappen/Physical Sciences)
             The Research Agenda for Computer Science in The Netherlands
12.40-14.10: Lunch (see below for registration)
14.10-15.00: Prof. Dr. Wan Fokkink (VU and CWI)
             Oh Mega Completeness
15.00-15.20: Coffee/Tea
15.20-16.10: Prof. Dr. Kurt Mehlhorn
                  (Max-Planck-Institute and University of Saarland)
             Reliable Geometric Computation
16.10-16.40: Business meeting NVTI


Location
========

>From the big hall of Utrecht Central station, follow sign 'Centrum'.
At 'Radboudkwartier' it is only 100 meter. You find 'Hoog Brabant'
behind the info desk from shopping center 'Hoog Catharijne'.


Lunch registration
==================

It is possible to participate in the organized lunch.  Registration is
required. Please register by E-mail (Susanne.van.Dam@cwi.nl) or by
phone (020-5924189), no later than one week before the meeting (March 3).
The costs of 15 Euro can be paid at the location.  We just mention
that in the direct vicinity of the meeting room there are plenty of
nice lunch facilities as well.


Sponsors
========

The NVTI theory day 2006 is financially or otherwise sponsored by NWO
(Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research), Elsevier Science,
CWI (Dutch Center of Mathematics and Computer Science) and the Dutch
research schools IPA (Institute for Programming Research and
Algorithmics), OzsL (Dutch Graduate School in Logic) and SIKS (Dutch
research school for Information and Knowledge Systems).


Abstracts:
==========

Reconciling Two Views of Cryptography
Martin Abadi

  Two distinct, rigorous views of cryptography have developed over the
  years, in two mostly separate communities. One of the views relies
  on a simple but effective formal approach; the other, on a detailed
  computational model that considers issues of complexity and
  probability. There is an uncomfortable and interesting gap between
  these two approaches to cryptography. In this talk, we discuss this
  gap and the current research efforts that aim to bridge it. We focus
  on computational justifications for the formal treatment of
  encryption, and their recent applications to the study of guessing
  attacks and to XML access control.


I/O- and cache-efficient algorithms for spatial data
Mark de Berg

  Modern computer systems have a hierarchal memory consisting of a disk,
  main memory, and several levels of cache. The difference between the
  times to access these different levels of memory is quite large. This is
  holds in particular for main memory and disk: accessing the disk is
  typically about 100,000 times slower than accessing the main memory.
  Hence, it is important to take caching- and I/O-behavior into account
  when designing and analyzing algorithms. In this talk I discuss some of
  the recent results that have been obtained on I/O- and cache-efficient
  algorithms, focusing on algorithms and data structures for spatial data.


Oh Mega Completeness
Wan Fokkink

  In his CONCUR'90 paper, Rob van Glabbeek introduced sound and
  ground-complete axiomatizations for the basic process algebra BCCSP,
  modulo the semantics in his linear time - branching time spectrum.
  Also at CONCUR'90, Jan Friso Groote was the first to address the
  question whether these axiomatizations are omega-complete.
  Since then, positive and negative results have been obtained
  regarding the existence of omega-complete axiomatizations for BCCSP
  modulo the semantics in the aforementioned spectrum. In this talk I
  will give an overview of these results, the methods that were used
  to obtain them, and the remaining open questions.


Reliable Geometric Computation
Kurt Mehlhorn

  Reliable implementation of geometric algorithms is a notoriously
  difficult task. Algorithms are usually designed for the Real-RAM,
  capable of computing with real numbers in the sense of mathematics,
  and for non-degenerate inputs. But, real computers are not Real-RAMs
  and inputs are frequently degenerate. We start with a short collection
  of failures of geometric programs. We then go on to discuss approaches
  to reliable geometric computation:
  - realization of an efficient Real-RAM as far as it is
    needed for geometry,
  - design of algorithms with reduced arithmetic demand,
  - controlled perturbation.


Curricula Vitae of the Lecturers
================================

  Martin Abadi is Professor of Computer Science at UCSC (since 2001)
  and Senior Researcher at Microsoft (since 2006). Earlier, he studied
  at Stanford University and worked at Digital's System Research
  Center and other industrial labs. His research is on computer and
  network security, programming languages, and specification and
  verification methods. He has contributed, for example, to the design
  and analysis of security protocols, to the foundations of
  object-oriented languages, and to temporal-logic verification
  techniques. His web page is at www.soe.ucsc.edu/~abadi/home.html.

  Mark de Berg received an M.Sc. in computer science from Utrecht
  University in 1988, and he received a Ph.D. from the same university
  in 1992.  Currently he is a full professor at TU Eindhoven. His main
  research interest is in computational geometry and its application
  to areas like GIS, computer graphics, and CAD/CAM. He is (co-)author
  of two books on computational geometry and he has published over 100
  papers in journals and conferences.

  Wan Fokkink obtained a PhD degree in Computer Science at the
  University of Amsterdam in 1994. After a postdoc at Utrecht
  University and a lectureship at the University of Wales Swansea, he
  became head of the Embedded Systems Group in CWI in 2000. Since 2004
  he is full professor at the Free University in Amsterdam, and head
  of the Theoretical Computer Science Group.  He is still affiliated
  to CWI one day a week.

  Kurt Mehlhorn is Professor of Computer Science at the University of
  Saarland, and Director of the Max-Planck-Institute in
  Saarbruecken. His research interests are data structures, graph
  algorithms, computational geometry with exact computation, algorithm
  engineering, and theoretical complexity. He is the founder of many
  software libraries, among which the widely used LEDA software
  library.