Nicola Cotumaccio receives Best Italian PhD Thesis Award in Theoretical Computer Science

At this time of the year, the Italian Chapter of the EATCS announces its awards. See here for the full list for 2024 and previous years. 

I am delighted to see that the selection committee for the Best Italian PhD Theses in Theoretical Computer Science 2024 has selected Nicola Cotumaccio (Gran Sasso Science Institute) for that award for his thesis "Data Compression Meets Automata Theory", which was supervised by Nicola Prezza, Travis Gagie and Catia Trubiani. Nicola received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in January 2024, as part of a joint agreement between the Gran Sasso Science Institute (Italy) and Dalhousie University (Canada). From February 2024, he is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki in
Finland. His research can be placed in the interconnection between formal methods and algorithms, where he develops innovative techniques mainly in the fields of data compression and automata theory.

Nicola's thesis work introduces a new paradigm in graph compression and formal language theory, using some of the most important data structures for compressing and indexing strings, such as the suffix array, the Burrows-Wheeler Transform and the FM-index. Not only does the proposed paradigm provide a new approach to studying classic problems on finite automata and regular languages, but it also retrospectively explains the impact of the aforementioned data structures. I find it both refreshing and amazing that Nicola and his collaborators have been able to shed some new light on time-honoured constructions on automata, such as the subset construction, via the paradigm presented in his thesis. See, for instance, their JACM paper. 

I am also thrilled to see that Nicola shared the award with Francesca Randone (IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca), who is recognised for her thesis "Efficient and Accurate Analysis of Two Classes of Transparent Generative Models", supervised by Mirco Tribastone and Luca Bortolussi.

I wish Francesca and Nicola good luck for their future careers!

Accepted papers for GandALF 2024 and SLSS 2024

The list of papers that were selected for presentation at GandALF 2024 is available at https://scool24.github.io/GandALF/ I am looking forward to listening to the presentations based on those articles and to the four invited talks by Bernd Finkbeiner (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security), Kim Guldstrand Larsen (Aalborg University), Brigitte Pientka (McGill University) and Azalea Raad (Imperial College London). 

On behalf of the GandALF SC, I thank the GandALF 2024 PC co-chairs, Antonis Achilleos and Adrian Francalanza, and their PC for the efficient PC work. 

 In case you missed it, the list of selected contributions and invited talks at the co-located Twelfth Scandinavian Logic Symposium (SLSS 2024) is at https://scool24.github.io/SLSS/. SLSS will be held on 14-16 June and GandALF on 19-21 June. As part of the Reykjavik Summer of Cool Logic 2024 (SCooL 2024), we will also host the Fifth Nordic Logic Summer School (NLS 2024) on 10-13 June. 

Thanks to all my colleagues at ICE-TCS, Department of Computer Science at Reykjavik University, who are working very hard on the organisation of these three events back to back. 

I hope to see a good participation at those events.

Call for expressions of interest for open-rank positions at the Gran Sasso Science Institute

I hope that this call for expressions of interest for faculty positions in Computer Science at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) will entice some of the readers of this blog to "express interest", possibly for a direct call. 

In my, admittedly biased, opinion, the GSSI and its Computer Science group offer motivated academics an excellent environment to achieve their career goals and carry out the best work of which they are capable. L'Aquila and the Abruzzo region offer a good quality of life, as well as excellent food and wine. 

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Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) - Computer Science Area

National Department of Excellence in Computer Science and Mathematics

Call for expressions of interest for open-rank positions at GSSI

The Computer Science Group at the GSSI (top ranked computer science department in Italy in 2022 and national department of excellence) invites expressions of interest for open-rank positions in computer science (Open Rank: Tenured Full Professorship or Assistant Professorship with Tenure Track). Moreover, it invites expressions of interest for direct calls of researchers (at all levels). This is a form of direct recruitment that does not include calls from individual universities, but it is a nominative proposal that the university sends directly to the Ministry (Law 230/2005, Art. 1, paragraph 9). A researcher is eligible for a direct call if they meet either of the following two criteria: 

• They have been permanently engaged in research or teaching activities outside Italy for at least three years, holding an equivalent academic position in a university or a research institution abroad. The call requires the approval of the National Scientific Qualification Commission (ASN).
• They have been qualified for specific high-qualification research projects, funded by the European Union or by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) and identified with a specific decree, after a positive opinion from ANVUR and CUN. For calls made within three years of winning the research project, approval of the National Scientific Qualification Commission (ASN) is not required.

The main research areas of the Computer Science area are Algorithms, Formal Methods, and Software Engineering. Research in Algorithms at GSSI focuses on computational problems arising in networks and multi-agent systems. The research of the Formal Methods group centres on the study of complex reactive systems and spans a broad range of topics that include languages, semantic models, and software verification. The research of the Software Engineering group is mainly concerned with the systematic application of engineering approaches to the development of software for autonomous and smart systems. More details are available on the website: http://cs.gssi.it.

Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI)

Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI - http://www.gssi.it) is an International centre of excellence for advanced studies and PhD school established in L'Aquila (Italy). 

Despite being founded only in 2012 and stabilized in 2016, after a three-year successful experimental period, the institute has already obtained wide recognition at both national and international levels. 

The PhD program at GSSI is organized in the scientific areas of Astroparticle Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics, Regional Sciences and Economic Geography. Every year, the institute offers PhD scholarships and postdoctoral grants as well as research internship opportunities, thus facilitating the attraction of prestigious scientists in the field of Computer Science.

In 2022, GSSI participated for the first time in the Ministry of University and Research call of ANVUR (Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes - https://www.anvur.it/en/agency/mission/) to evaluate universities in Italy. 

In this first participation, the computer science area has been evaluated as the first computer science department in Italy. This recognition gave the computer science area the opportunity to participate in a further call for funding, and together with the mathematics area, was recognized as one of the "Departments of Excellence", obtaining more than 7 million Euros in additional funding. Besides its prestige, this recognition will bring additional permanent positions and significant funds (over one million Euros) for building autonomous systems, IoT, and algorithm-engineering laboratories.

Moreover, the GSSI project was ranked  first in the specific disciplinary sector (https://www.anvur.it/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/ALLEGATO-NOTA-ANVUR_esito-180.pdf) among the 11 departments of excellence in computer science and mathematics, with only three of them (including GSSI) concerning Computer Science. The first place is shared with the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and the University of Pisa, two prestigious Italian institutions. 

Working at GSSI

GSSI is the perfect place both for experienced academics and for young researchers who aim to establish and consolidate their group and become principal investigators (PIs). Indeed, these are the main strengths of GSSI as a working environment: 

• Freedom in selecting research topics and activities.
• Entry package aiming at helping newcomers to develop their own research;  ideal conditions to perform excellent research; availability of open PhD positions and of funding to purchase research resources; access to research laboratories (see below); a collegial environment welcoming newcomers to joint ongoing research projects; space to host a research group; funding for travelling and inviting researchers.
• Low teaching duties, involving solely teaching PhD-level courses and supervising PhD students.
• Laboratories: Autonomous Systems (service robots and vehicles), IoT, Algorithm Engineering, High-Performance Computing (HPC).
• Young, friendly, non-hierarchical, vibrant, and International environment.
• Excellent place to perform interdisciplinary research, e.g., with the other areas of GSSI, in the context of existing or new projects.
• Located in a cosy and medium-size city in the centre of Italy, a city of science hosting also the University of L’Aquila (https://www.univaq.it) and the INFN (https://www.lngs.infn.it/en/lngs-overview), Gran Sasso Tech (a joint venture between GSSI and Thales Alenia Space - https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/space/press_release/gran-sasso-tech-foundation-born), high-technology companies (such as Thales Alenia Space, Leonardo, Sanofi, IZS), good food, great nature, mountains, lakes, seaside at around 80 km, Rome at less than 100 Km, etc. The quality of life in L’Aquila is pretty high and there is also an international Lyceum.

Call for Expression of Interest

We are looking for candidates with an excellent publication record, an internationally visible research profile, a clear potential to promote and lead research activities, and a specific interest in teaching skilled and internationally recruited students at the postgraduate level.

Applications Applicants should submit their expression of interest by sending:

• a specification of the level of appointment in which the candidate is interested (i.e., Tenured Full Professorship, Tenured Associate Professorship, Assistant Professorship with Tenure Track, Direct call)
• a motivation letter,
• a curriculum vitae,
• a list of selected publications (at least 5 and no more than 12 publications) with links from which they can be downloaded, and
• a brief research statement.

Applications (and questions regarding the application process) must be submitted in electronic form, preferably by 10 May 2024, to eoi-cs@gssi.it.

GSSI is committed to gender balance, inclusion and diversity. All expressions of interest will be given proper consideration, independent of ethnicity, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is not a job advertisement. Based on the received expressions of interest, the Gran Sasso Science Institute will decide whether to open an official call and which selection procedure to follow.

Additional information

Duties: Teaching PhD courses, leading internal seminars and tutoring PhD students. All activities are in English.

Salary: The salary will be determined on a personal basis, also taking into account past positions covered abroad. Professors who have held a tenured position outside Italy for more than three years (at the corresponding level) might be eligible for a partial recognition of past services, depending on specific legal constraints.

Moreover, successful candidates might benefit from important and multiannual tax incentives for attracting human capital to Italy: https://www.agenziaentrate.gov.it/portale/web/english/nse/individuals/tax-incentives-for-attracting-human-capital-in-italy 

For informal enquiries, please contact the Head of the Computer Science area at patrizio.pelliccione@gssi.it

Ten fully-funded PhD positions at the Gran Sasso Science Institute

The Computer Science Department of the Gran Sasso Science institute (see https://gssi.it), which has recently been ranked among the best computer science departments in the Italian research evaluation exercise, offers 10 fully-funded PhD scholarships in Computer Science. The scholarships include several other benefits, apart from the monthly salary. See below for details.

Successful candidates will have the opportunity to carry out cutting-edge research in algorithms, formal methods, or software engineering (see https://cs.gssi.it for current research activities in those fields).

In particular, these are some highlights of the call for application:

• 10 fully-funded scholarships (yearly gross amount: € 16.243,00)
• 4-years programme
• Application deadline: May 23, 2024
• Interviews of shortlisted applicants between June 26 and June 28, 2024
• Academic Year starts on November 1st 2024
• Several benefits:
• Free accommodation available for 1st year students
• 350 EUR (gross)/month for housing costs from the 2nd year onwards
• Tuition fees waived
• Insurance against any accident and/or injury that may occur while carrying out Ph.D. activities
• Financial support to buy hardware and vouchers for lunches

For all details, see

https://www.gssi.it/communication/announcements/item/25220-phd-call-for-applications-2024-25-now-open

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GandALF 2024: Call for papers

 GandALF 2024: Call for papers

Abstract submission deadline: 7 April 2024

Paper submission deadline: 10 April 2024

Website: https://scool24.github.io/GandALF/

The Fifteenth International Symposium on Games, Automata, Logics, and Formal Verification (GandALF 24) will be held in Reykjavik (Iceland) on June 19-21, 2024. This year, GandALF is part of the Reykjavik Summer of Cool Logic 2024 (SCooL 2024) and is co-located with the Twelfth Scandinavian Logic Symposium (SLSS 2024) and the Fifth Nordic Logic Summer School (NLS 2024). See https://scool24.github.io/ for information all the co-located events, 

The aim of GandALF 2024 is to bring together researchers from academia and industry who are actively working in the fields of Games, Automata, Logics, and Formal Verification. The idea is to cover an ample spectrum of themes, ranging from theory to applications, and stimulate cross-fertilization. Papers focused on formal methods are especially welcome. Authors are invited to submit original research or tool papers on all relevant topics in these areas. Papers discussing new ideas that are at an early stage of development are also welcome. The topics covered by the conference include, but are not limited to, the following:

Automata Theory

Automated Deduction

Computational aspects of Game Theory

Concurrency and Distributed computation

Decision Procedures

Deductive, Compositional, and Abstraction Techniques for Verification

Finite Model Theory

First-order and Higher-order Logics

Formal Languages

Formal Methods for Systems Biology, Hybrid, Embedded, and Mobile Systems

Game Semantics

Games and Automata for Verification

Logical aspects of Computational Complexity

Logics of Programs

Modal and Temporal Logics

Model Checking

Models of Reactive and Real-Time Systems

Probabilistic Models (Markov Decision processes)

Program Analysis and Software Verification

Reinforcement Learning

Run-time Verification and Testing

Specification and Verification of Finite and Infinite-state Systems

Synthesis

Important Dates

Abstract submission deadline: 7 April 2024

Paper submission deadline: 10 April 2024

Acceptance notification: 10 May 2024

Camera-ready deadline: 10 June 2024

Conference dates: 19-21 June 2024

 all deadlines are AoE

Publication

The proceedings will be published by Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science (https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~eptcs/). Authors of selected papers will be invited to submit a revised version of their work to a special issue of the high-quality, open-access journal Logical Methods in Computer Science.

The previous editions of GandALF already led to special issues of the International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science (GandALF 2010), Theoretical Computer Science (GandALF 2011 and 2012), Information and Computation (GandALF 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020), Acta Informatica (GandALF 2015) and Logical Methods in Computer Science (GandALF 2021, 2022, and 2023).

Submission

Submitted papers should not exceed 14 pages (excluding references and clearly marked appendices) typeset using EPTCS format (please use the LaTeX style provided at https://style.eptcs.org/), be unpublished, and contain original research. For papers reporting experimental results, authors are encouraged to make their data available with their submission. Submissions must be in PDF format and will be handled via easychair at the following address:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=gandalf23 

Invited Speakers

GandALF 2024 will feature four invited talks, which will be delivered by 

• Kim G. Larsen (Aalborg University, Denmark)

• Other speakers will be announced in the coming weeks

Program Committee

Co-chairs 

Antonis Achilleos (Reykjavik University)

Andrian Francalanza (University of Malta)

Members

Parosh Aziz Abdulla (Uppsala University)

Valentina Castiglioni (Eindhoven University of Technology)

Aggeliki Chalki (Reykjavik University)

Laure Daviaud (University of East Anglia)

Dario Della Monica (Università degli Studi di Udine)

Giorgio Delzanno (Università degli Studi di Genova)

Léo Exibard (Université Gustave Eiffel)

Nicola Gigante (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano)

Julian Gutierrez (Monash University)

Felix Stutz (University of Luxembourg)

Orna Kupferman (Hebrew University)

Martin Leucker (University of Luebeck)

Jakub Michaliszyn (University of Wroclaw)

Laura Nenzi (University of Trieste)

Paweł Parys (University of Warsaw)

Guillermo Perez (University of Antwerp)

Jakob Piribauer (TU Dresden)

Ocan Sankur (Univ Rennes, CNRS)

Ryan Kavanagh (Université du Québec à Montréal)

Patrick Totzke (University of Liverpool)

Tomoyuk Yamakami (University of Fukui)

Matteo Zavatteri (University of Padova)

Martin Zimmermann (Aalborg University)

Steering Committee

Luca Aceto – Reykjavik University (Iceland) and Gran Sasso Science Institute (Italy)

Javier Esparza – University of Munich (Germany)

Salvatore La Torre – University of Salerno (Italy)

Angelo Montanari – University of Udine (Italy)

Mimmo Parente – University of Salerno (Italy)

Jean-François Raskin – Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium)

Martin Zimmermann – Aalborg University (Denmark)

Website

https://scool24.github.io/GandALF/

EATCS Fellows 2024: Call for Nominations

The call for nominations for EATCS Fellows 2024 is out. I strongly encourage members of the EATCS to submit nominations for some of the many members of the association who would deserve this recognition. The deadline for submitting your nominations is March 7, 2024. 

The submission of a nomination is easy and lightweight, but it does require the writing of a strong letter of nomination (preferably two separate ones, if my previous experience as nominator is anything to go by) co-signed by several EATCS members. Note that the nominee and the nominators must be members of the EATCS. (If you are now a member of the EATCS, I strongly encourage you to join! See this web page for details on how to do so and for the benefits of becoming a member. Becoming a member of the EATCS is easy and cheap. I assure you that every cent is used by the association to support TCS-related activities and awards.)

My colleagues in the EATCS Fellows Selection Committee and I look forward to receiving your nominations, and to bestowing this accolade upon some of the nominees!

On a personal note, I'd be delighted to see several of our top-class female colleagues nominated for the role of EATCS Fellow.

World Logic Day 2024 in Tallinn

On Monday, 15 January 2024,  colleagues in Tallinn organised the Estonian event contributing to the World Logic Day 2024.  Apart from showcasing some of the exciting logic-related work that is going on in Estonia, the event featured the following three, one-hour-long invited talks:

• Jan von Plato (U. of Helsinki), "Kurt Gödel's life and work in the light of his shorthand notebooks,"
• Valentin Goranko (Stockholm U.), "Logics for strategic reasoning of socially interacting rational agents," and 
• Margus Veanes (Microsoft Research), "The impact of logic in formal methods at Microsoft."

Jan von Plato's talk reported on some of the work his research group has done in the context of the ERC Advanced Grant GODELIANA, which is devoted to the study of the thousands of pages that Kurt Gödel wrote in a German shorthand that very few people in the world can decipher today. In his talk, Jan von Plato told the audience how the study of Gödel's notes reveals how Gödel became a logician and how he developed the ideas in his seminal and celebrated published output. Moreover, apparently Gödel left behind a book-length collection of finished, unpublished new results largely on set theory and intuitionistic logic. Overall, that amounted to about 2,500 pages of publishable results in a variety of fields that Gödel told to nobody and part of which was published by others later on! 

The part of those notebooks devoted to results on the foundations of mathematics is described in the recently-published book "Kurt Gödel: Results on Foundations", edited by Maria Hämeen-Anttila and Jan von Plato.   Overall, this was fascinating account of the thus-far-below-water iceberg of Kurt Gödel's scientific work. 

In his talk, Valentin Goranko offered an overview of some work on the use of formal logics to reason about collections of agents that act "rationally" to achieve individual and/or collective goals. His talk was based on a recent survey paper of his, to which I refer interested readers for information on that line of research. Here, I will limit myself to saying that the logics for strategic reasoning presented in Goranko's talk allow one to express properties such as 

"The coalition of agents A has a joint action to ensure satisfaction of its coalitional goal G in every outcome state that may result from that joint action." 

 

"For every joint action of the coalition A that ensures satisfaction of its goal G(A), there is a joint action of the coalition B that ensures satisfaction of its goal G(B)." 

Margus Veanes delivered a "tool-oriented" talk, in the sense that he surveyed a wealth of tools for computer-aided verification and validation developed at Microsoft Research that have their roots in a variety of logic-based formal methods. His talk clearly indicated the practical impact that logic has had on software development at Microsoft and elsewhere. 

I thank our Estonian colleagues for organising such an interesting event and for streaming it online.

Disclaimer: I hope that I have not misrepresented anything in the text above and encourage you to check the speakers' work to be sure. If you attended the event and would like to share your opinions on it, please do so by posting a comment!

Postdoctoral position in the field of cyber-physical systems at the Gran Sasso Science Institute

Catia Trubiani has one postdoctoral position funded by the Italian PRIN project "DREAM, modular software design to reduce uncertainty in ethics-based cyber-physical systems" at the Gran Sasso Science Institute - Computer Science Group. The call is available at the following link: https://applications.gssi.it/postdoc/ 

The firm deadline for application is 31 January 2024 at 3pm (Italian time). 

The Computer Science Group at the Gran Sasso Science Institute has already received excellent results in the latest national evaluation exercise in Italy. Most importantly, it provides a nurturing environment where a postdoctoral researcher can further their career and Catia Trubiani is a thoughtful mentor who provides a lot of support to everyone in her research environment. 

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