Issue 113 of the Bulletin of the EATCS is out

Issue 113 of the Bulletin of the EATCS is now available on line abd be downloaded as a single PDF file. As usual, the bulletin is freely accessible for everyone.

In the current issue, you will find very interesting survey articles on, for instance, the complexity of valued constraint satisfaction, kernelization and contextual semantics. I strongly recommend the first installment of the Concurrency Column edited by Nobuko Yoshida on recreational formal methods.  The piece by Frits Vaandrager and Freek Verbeek tells us how to design vacuum cleaning trajectories using Uppaal, SAT solvers and theorem provers.

I hope that you will enjoy this issue of the BEATCS. At the EATCS general assembly, which will be held at ICALP 2014 in Copenhagen, we will discuss the developments of the BEATCS. Your input to the discussion is very valuable.

Sad news: Berthold Vöcking passed away

Berthold Vöcking, who was a professor for Algorithms and Complexity at RWTH Aachen,  passed away on 11th June after a long illness. He was only 47.

Berthold was a leading figure in algorithmics research in Europe, was an invited speaker at ICALP 2012 and was one of the authors of the best paper for Track C at this year's ICALP, where we will remember him during the award session.

Our thoughts go to his family.

Addendum: For some information on Berthold's work, do read Sad News: Berthold Vöcking by Michael Mitzenmacher's blog.

Another computer scientist becomes rector of an Italian university

I just heard that Michele Bugliesi has been elected as the new rector of the Universita' Ca' Foscari in Venice. (Italian speaking  readers may wish to look here for details.) Michele is yet another (theoretical) computer scientist who becomes rector of an Italian university. This is a sign of recognition for our discipline as a whole, as well as for the Italian computer science community.

I am sure that Michele will do a great job and I wish him the best of luck in his new, and challenging, role.

Call for guest posts from ICALP 2014

If you are going to ICALP 2014 and you are willing to contribute guests posts on that conference on this blog, drop me a line. It would be good to have reports on the three tracks, on the invited talks and on the award-related events, as well as on the conference as a whole.

Helga Guðmundsdóttir lands one of Google’s 2014 Anita Borg Scholarships

My colleagues and I at the  School of Computer Science at Reykjavik University are thrilled by the recent news that Helga Guðmundsdóttir,  one of our master students and one of the very best BSc students we have ever had, has been selected as one of Google’s 2014 Anita Borg Scholarship recipients. Congratulations to Helga for this achievement!

Apart from being an outstanding student, who has already done some research in algorithms for wireless networks and has had successful internships at the Fraunhofer Center for Experimental Software Engineering (University of Maryland) and Cornell University, Helga is also a role model for our female students and fantastic ambassador for computer science. She is one of the founders of /sys/tur, the association of female computer scientists at Reykjavik University. I was amazed by how active the association is in promoting computer science at all our outreach events.

I don't need to look at my crystal ball to forecast a bright future for Helga and that she will go from strength to strength whatever she decides to do.