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TUCS Newsletter 27.3.2015

Content of the newsletter

TUCS activities

New courses

Announcements

Latest publications at TUCS

TUCS activities

TUCS board’s first meeting in 2015

The TUCS board held its first meeting this year on March 2, 2015. Among other matters, the board approved the budget for 2015 and decided to double the allocation to the research activities of TUCS, such as its research programmes and the TUCS Distinguished Lecture Series. The board also discussed several initiatives to re-organize TUCS during this year, including:

In this broad re-organization of its activities and structures, TUCS welcomes ideas and initiatives from the whole community and from all categories of TUCS members: PhD students, postdocs, senior researchers, professors.

TUCS Research Programme activities

TITLE:  Nothing in cancer biology makes sense except in the light of evolution

During the ongoing academic year, professor John D. Nagy is on sabbatical leave from his home institute, and has had the opportunity to visit the University of Turku for (in total) three months during two visits. These visits are supported by the TUCS BioHealth Research Programme, and the Väisälä Foundation.

gave a guest lecture in the lecture room Consilia in ICT building, starting at 13:15 a.m.

TITLE:  Oritatami, a model of cotranscriptional folding

Abstract: The main role of polymerase is the transcription, that is, binding to a template DNA and copying it into an RNA sequence. Cotranscriptional folding is a process in which the resulting RNA folds as it is being synthesized. Geary, Rothemund, and Andersen recently proposed an architecture for designing RNA tiles that cotranscriptionally fold from a single-strand (ssRNA origami) (Science, vol 345, issue 6198, pp.799-804, 2014). As a theoretical model of cotranscriptional folding, we propose “Oritatami” (folding in Japanese). The aim of this talk is to introduce this model and to exhibit its computational power using examples such as a binary counter by cotranscriptional folding. The oritatami system is in fact Turing-complete. We may briefly address this by showing that an oritatami system can simulate a cyclic TAG system.

TITLE: The Domino Problem for finitely generated groups

Abstract: This talk was a short survey about the Domino Problem for finitely generated groups. This problem consists in the following: Fix a finitely generated group. Is it possible to decide whether a finite set of Wang tiles admits a valid tiling of the whole group ? The problem is known to be decidable for Z but undecidable for Z². The original proof for this latter result, due to Berger and then simplified by Robinson, is based on the existence of an aperiodic set of tiles.

Very little is known about a possible characterization of groups with decidable Domino Problem, but it is commonly believed that the problem is decidable iff the group is virtually free. I will present recent results in this direction, and formulate some questions about the link between the existence of aperiodic tilesets and the undecidability of this problem.

TITLE: "Succinct Interactive Proofs for Quantified Boolean Formulas"

TITLE: Prover-Efficient Adaptive Zero-Knowledge SNARKs

Abstract:

We propose a new succinct extractable vector commitment scheme and succinct non-interactive witness-indistinguishable product and shift arguments. Based on them, we construct adaptive succinct NIZK arguments of knowledge (zk-SNARKs) for various NP-complete languages like Subset-Sum, and also a new range proof. In the new arguments, the prover computation is dominated by O(n) cryptographic operations, where n is the length of the vectors, while the most prover-efficient previous adaptive zk-SNARKs for any NP-complete languages require Omega(n log n) cryptographic operations. Importantly, in all new arguments the data is committed by using the same commitment scheme. Hence, committed data can be reused between different arguments.

TITLE: User interfaces with little effort

Abstract: User interfaces are costly to develop, correctly behaving user interfaces more so.  30-60% of all application code is estimated to be for user interfaces, and even a higher percentage of all defects are found in this code. The sources of complexity of user interface code are many. Programming models based on writing handler functions for user events are known to lead to unstructured spaghetti code, and orchestrating asynchronously executed computations using event-handling code compounds the problem. Further, user interfaces need to remain responsive and react to changes in the structure of the data manipulated through the user interface. The complexities of user interface programming commonly manifest as low quality: as defects, missing features, inconsistent behavior, unhelpful or non-existent error messages, and unresponsiveness.

 

This talk discusses a declarative approach for user interface programming based on hierarchical multi-way data-flow constraint systems. The amount of application-specific event handling code reduces drastically; in some applications such code can become eradicated.  In lieu of event handlers, the programmer specifies (using an embedded DSL) what the dependencies amongst the data manipulated by a user interface are. A significant source of program errors is eliminated, as the programmer does not specify how and when state changes based on the dependencies occur---these concerns are delegated to a constraint system, and implemented as reusable algorithms in a software library.  The approach shows promise for significantly reducing the cost of developing high-quality user interfaces. The talk demonstrates the benefits of the approach with a few small user interfaces implemented using our ``Hotdrink'' JavaScript library.

 

Bio: Jaakko Järvi is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. His research interests include user interface programming, generic programming, programming languages, and software construction in all forms.  He is a member of the C++ standards committee and the, and has contributed many features to C++ and its standard library.  His former affiliations include Indiana University (postdoc, 2001-03), and Adobe Systems Inc. (visiting professor, 2013), and University of Bergen (visiting professor, 2014). He did his Ph.D. work at TUCS, and has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Turku.

TUCS Distinguished Lecture Series

Friday, March 27, 2015, at 13.15

ICT Building, Auditorium Gamma

 

Host: Prof. Juhani Karhumäki, University of Turku

We introduce a notion of ultrametric automata and Turing machines using p-adic numbers to describe random branching of the process of computation. These automata have properties similar to the properties of probabilistic automata but complexity of probabilistic automata and complexity of ultrametric automata can differ very much. Our results in this paper show that, for some problems (decision trees,learning of recursive functions) ultrametric algorithms can have smaller complexity than even nondeterministic algorithms.

Biography: Prof. Rusins Freivalds received his PhD in 1971 from the Institute of Mathematics, Novosibirsk, and his DSc in 1976 from Moscow University. He is since 1992 Dr.habil.math. Prof. Freivalds is a member of the Academy of Sciences of Latvia since 1992, a member of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science since 1979. He has been working at the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science since 1970.

 

Prof. Freivalds’s primary area of research has always been complexity of computation. In 1975 he proved the very first theorem on advantages of randomized algorithms over deterministic ones. A typical feature of his research is the use of deep methods of classical mathematics for problems in theoretical computer science. He has given invited talks on his research in complexity of computation and inductive inference in many top international conferences. Computer education is another interest of his, which has resulted in educational TV shows, books, including one published in a million copies.

 

Prof. Freivalds’s achievements have been well recognized by the international research community.  He received the Latvian YCL Prize for the work on Theory of Inductive Inference in 1976. He is a Honorary Scientist of Latvian SSR, 1986. He received the Latvian Academy of Sciences Eizens Arins prize for a cycle of a papers, Effective Probable Algorithms, 2000, the Grand Medal of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, 2003 and the Latvian Academy of Sciences and Joint Stock Company "Grindex" Prize, 2003.

Title: "Looking for Computers in the Biological Cell. After Twenty Years"

Abstract: A glimpse on natural computing is carried out, with an autobiographical eye, hence with some details about DNA computing and membrane computing. Besides (types of) problems and results (applications included), some research directions are mentioned which need further efforts. Then the question is raised whether or not "we dream too much" in this area, of bio-inspired computing. Some "impossibility theorems" as those of R. Gandhy and M. Conrad are mentioned.

CV: Gheorghe Paun is a researcher in the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest. Interested in formal language theory, automata theory, mathematical linguistics, DNA computing, and membrane computing. Long research stages in Germany, Finland, The Netherlands, Canada, Spain, Japan, many visits in universities from other countries (over 100 collaborators from all these countries). Several of his books, written alone or in collaboration, became standard references, e.g., in regulated rewriting, Marcus contextual grammars, grammar systems, DNA computing, membrane computing. This last research area was initiated by him, in 1998, see TUCS Technical Report No. 208, November 1998, www.tucs.fi) and it was soon considered by ISI as a "fast emerging research area of computer science". A comprehensive coverage of the domain is "The Oxford Handbook of Membrane Computing", 2010, edited by Gh. Paun, G. Rozenberg, A. Salomaa.

Gh. Paun is a member of the Romanian Academy and of Academia Europaea.

TUCS GP Doctoral Defences

Time: 12 noon

Place: Auditorium Gamma, ICT building

        

        Time: 12 noon

Place: Auditorium Gamma, ICT building

New courses

New course: Logic for High School Mathematics

Special course in Computer Science

Special course in Mathematics

Lectures: Wednesdays 14 - 16.

Excercises: Wednesdays 13 - 14.

Course duration: April 1 - May 27

Place: ICT House, room B3040  (Cobol)

Lecturer: Ralph-Johan Back

The course starts on April 1, at 14, in Cobol . More information about the course is given on the course web page: http://users.abo.fi/backrj/HighSchoolLogic/

 

The course is intended for M.Sc and Ph.D. students in Mathematics, Computer Science and Computer Engineering. Lectures are in English,  but assignments can be done in Finnish, Swedish or English.

Course description: Mathematics is based on logic. But logic is not really used in practice in high school mathematics.  A course on logic may be offered in the curriculum, but it is usually taught as a separate course, focusing on the foundations of mathematics, rather than seeing logic as a  tool  that can be used in all mathematics throughout high school. Our aim in this course is to show how logic can be used as a highly practical tool for solving mathematical problems in high school and first year university courses. We base our approach on structured derivations,  a new format for presenting mathematical calculations, proofs and general derivations. We show how  the use of logic in combination with structured derivations allows us to present clear and easily understandable solutions to rather complicated mathematical problems. We will present the basics of  propositional calculus and predicate calculus in this course, and show how these reasoning tools can be used in typical high school problem solving.  Our aim is also to present a simple general reasoning framework that we hope will clear up much of the conceptual mess that many students experience when trying to understand the underlying logic behind informal mathematical argumentations.  The last part of the course treats some more advanced topics, like induction proofs and the epsilon-delta method.

New INFORTE courses

 

Design Research

April 22nd – 24th

Helsinki

 

Speakers:

Professor Samir Chatterjee (Claremont Graduate University, USA)

Professor Matti Rossi (Aalto University School of Business, Finland)

Organizer:

Professor Matti Rossi (Aalto University School of Business, Finland)

 

Registration closing date: April 14th   

Registration and more information: http://inforte.jyu.fi/events/Design_research

 

 

Coming later this year:

 

Cyber Defence

September 21st – 22nd

Jyväskylä

 

Speakers:

Adjunct professor Martti Lehto (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)

Professor  Rauno Kuusisto (Finnish Defence Research Agency, Finland)

Associate Professor Rain Ottis (Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia)

Dr. Saara Jantunen (Finnish Defence Research Agency, Finland)

Organizer:

Adjunct professor Martti Lehto (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)

 

Registration is open: June 1st – September 11th

Registration and more information: http://inforte.jyu.fi/events/cyber-defence

 

Please, see all detailed programs in INFORTE.fi

 

Organising of INFORTE.fi courses

Inforte.fi program started operating originally in 2001.During this wholeperiod, the Inforte.fi program has however maintained its standing as a stat- wide program for ICT professionals. It is designed to offer networking and education events to PhD students and professionals working in Finnish companies, polytechnics and public administration. Invited speakers are some of the top international researchers or industry representatives in their field. Inforte.fi’s member university departments will annually organize about 12 workshops and seminars on diverse areas of ICT. The main areas of focus are:

These intensive events can be used as tools for professional education, or as parts of doctoral education. Inforte.fi program delivers certificates of participation, and participants negotiate how these achievements can be included in their studies with their home universities. Inforte.fi events are a way to connect you with other ICT professionals and academics in your field, and build important social networks. Inforte.fi events allow you to update your knowledge and keep on track with the latest scientific and practical knowledge in the ICT field.

HOW TO COME ALONG?

Anyone within the member departments can suggest an event. We hope that the event is in line with our main areas of focus. If you have something in mind, contact the Inforte.fi staff and let’s start planning the event!

Inforte.fi’s member university departments are:

ABOUT ORGANIZING INFORTE.FI EVENTS

The organizer’s payment for organizing an one-day event is 250 € and for a two-day event 500 €. The organizer has to send the Inforte.fi staff his or hers separate tax card or otherwise the Finnish tax authorities will take off 60 % taxes from the payment. Inforte.fi staff will send the organizer a travelling expenses claim form and a bank and personal information form. The travelling expenses claim form needs to be filled only if needed, but the bank and personal information form needs to be filled always. The Inforte.fi office will organize morning coffee with something small to bite to the events, but lunch and afternoon coffee can be bought at participant’s own expense. The organizer can however buy his/her and the speaker’s lunch and afternoon coffee and reimburse those expenses from the Inforte.fi office with the travelling expense claim. Also one feasible dinner with the speaker is allowed to reimburse with the travelling expense claim. However when using the travelling expenses claim, the organizer needs to send all of the original documents and receipts to Inforte.fi office (the address is at the bottom of this document).

The speaker’s payment Inforte.fi pays 120 € / lecturing hour and 60 € / group work hour at most. Lecturing fee is considered salary by Finnish tax office. Because the work is done in Finland, the Finnish tax authorities will automatically take off approximately 35 % taxes. In addition, it is mandatory to take off around 4 % other social security and pension contribution payments from the fee. This will happen automatically - no fee can be paid without these deductions.In addition to travel expenses and accommodation Inforte.fi will pay the speaker daily allowance. Daily allowance is 39 euros or 18 euros per travelling day. Inforte.fi will calculate the daily allowances. Inforte.fi does not cover meal expenses according to receipts. The fee and travel expenses will be paid separately and it may take approximately a month until the payment is on the speaker’s bank account.

The speaker’s travelling and accommodation

Inforte.fi pays for the speakers travelling and accommodation expenses and helps with the arrangements regarding these. If the Inforte.fi event will be merged with other activities in Finland (e.g. seminars) or during the trip, Inforte.fi will pay only a part of the expenses. If the speaker decides to book the trip independently, he/she needs to be in contact with the Inforte.fi staff because only travelling in Economy class will be accepted as expenses. Inforte.fi will book the hotel for the speaker.

Date and other important information about the event

The date of the event has to be agreed on in good time and the Inforte.fi staff has to be informed about it immediately after that. In addition to this the Inforte.fi staff will need the following information as soon as possible:

Remote access

The organizer has to agree with the speaker if participants can be included in the event with remote access. If both sides agree that it can be handled, the organizer has to find out that with what kind of system the speaker is used to and whether the remote access is possible to organize at the event location.

Inforte.fi staff’s contact information:

Annemari Soranto

Project Researcher

Email: office@inforte.fi

Phone: +358 400 247700

Nina Jakonen

Programme planner

Email:office@inforte.fi

Phone: +358 400 247700

Courses on transferable skills at University of Turku

http://www.utu.fi/fi/Tutkimus/tutkijakoulu/courses/Sivut/home.aspx

Announcements

Call for nominations: the best PhD thesis in CS in Finland and the Cor Baayen award

The call for nominations for the award for the best PhD thesis in Computer Science in Finland in 2014 and for Finland’s nomination for the European competition on the Cor Baayen award. The Cor Baayen Award is awarded each year by the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) to a promising young researcher in computer science and applied mathematics.

Read more here: http://www.ercim.eu/activity/cor-baayen-award

The nominations should be sent to the Finnish Society for Computer Science (markku.tukiainen@uef.fi and jaakko.hakulinen@sis.uta.fi). The deadline for both calls is April 1. The committee for both competitions consists of Mikko Koivisto (University of Helsinki), Tapio Pahikkala (chair, TUCS, TY) and Ion Petre (TUCS, ÅA).

Michael Stonebraker, Pioneer in Database Systems Architecture, Receives 2014 ACM Turing Award

Michael Stonebraker is being recognized for fundamental contributions to the concepts and practices underlying modern database systems.  Stonebreaker is the inventor of many concepts that were crucial to making databases a reality and that are used in almost all modern database systems. His work on INGRES introduced the notion of query modification, used for integrity constraints and views. His later work on Postgres introduced the object-relational model, effectively merging databases with abstract data types while keeping the database separate from the programming language.

Stonebraker's implementations of INGRES and Postgres demonstrated how to engineer database systems that support these concepts; he released these systems as open software, which allowed their widespread adoption and their code bases have been incorporated into many modern database systems. Since the pathbreaking work on INGRES and Postgres, Stonebraker has continued to be a thought leader in the database community and has had a number of other influential ideas including implementation techniques for column stores and scientific databases and for supporting on-line transaction processing and stream processing.

More at http://amturing.acm.org/

Google faculty research awards

Google has a call for applications for faculty research awards. Applications

from everywhere in the world are eligible for this call. The topic list

covered by the call spans several of the research areas in TUCS. We hope to

have several applications from TUCS researchers; let us know if the TUCS

office can help/support your applications. Details can be found at  http://research.google.com/university/relations/research_awards.html

EIT ICT Labs: Growth and harvest

Innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) course for PhD students

http://www.eitictlabs.eu/news-events/events/article/growth-harvest-course-for-doctoral-students/#allView 

DATE:  23-27 March, 2015 and 13-17 April, 2015

VENUE: 1st week: Stockholm (EIT ICT Labs CLC in Kista), Sweden; 2nd week: Helsinki (EIT ICT Labs CLC in Otaniemi, Espoo), Finland

ORGANISER:  EIT ICT Labs, Helsinki, Finland.

After completing the Growth and Harvest course, the doctoral candidate has an understanding of the management, dealing with competition as well as financial issues of a growing business. The Growth and Harvest focuses on the approaches and solutions for companies with global growth potential and deals with high risk – high potential ventures.

Who can attend?

All doctoral students at the partnering universities of EIT ICT Labs. List of ICT Labs partners, please visit: http://www.eitictlabs.eu/about-us/partners-of-eit-ict-labs/ 

Pre-requirements?

Students are required to have completed the EIT ICT Labs I&E program's "Opportunity Recognition (OR)" and "Business Modeling & Development (BMD)" courses prior to the Growth & Harvest (GH) course.

Registration via web, Deadline 6 March 2015.

https://workspaces.ictlabs.eu/PROMISE/PRIVATE/FORMS/register_step1.aspx?guid=19493672-f153-41a5-a147-bcc501417310 

Registration is binding. If cancelled without a medical certificate later than 15.03.2015, a cancellation fee of 50 euros may be charged.

Travel and accommodation not included. For students accepted to the EIT ICT Labs doctoral program, their host DTC can take care of the travel and accommodation costs.

More information: Jussi.i.autere@aalto.fi

Learning outcomes:

* The ability to exploit the growth potential of own venture.

* The ability to lead a growing firm entrepreneurially and managerially and manage the value of a

company in the markets.

* The ability to understand the roles of entrepreneur/manager and differentiate the changing role

and activities of the entrepreneur/manager as the business grows.

* Learn how to effectively manage a research, development and innovation portfolio and maintain

innovativeness in a growing firm.

*  How to master different growth and harvesting strategies, ability to apply them and understand

their connections to firm functions and strategy.

*  How to master business valuation and different exit strategies.

* The ability to exploit the competition and networking knowledge in business.

* The ability to secure the finance in a growing company.

* How to master the basic of risk management in an organisation.

EIT ICT Labs: New course on business modelling

“BUSINESS MODELLING" innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) course for PhD students

http://www.eitictlabs.eu/news-events/events/article/business-modelling-for-doctoral-students/#allView

EIT ICT Labs organizes an unique opportunity for doctoral students to learn how to develop a modern business plan for a new start-up or a new business inside an industrial corporation.

The Business Modelling module organized Helsinki Doctoral Training Centre is aimed at all the doctoral students of the Doctoral School of EIT ICT Labs. Also all the doctoral students of Aalto University can participate.

The module gives hands-on training on the main elements of any business model and resulting plan:

* Market analysis

* Offering definition

* Go-to-market plan

* Financing and other resourcing

* Selling and other execution

* Monetizing intellectual property

* Teamwork

* Pitching to investors and other decision makers

The module consists of three parts

1. a seven week course with lectures once a week April 16-May 28; and three assignments. It is possible to participate this module mainly remotely;

2. one week intensive course in the first week of September 2015 in Helsinki node of EIT ICT Labs with one assignment;

3. one and half day closing session in late September (the exact timing and and place to be agreed together with the participants of the module).

By completing the whole module and all the assignments, the student can get a maximum of 11 ECTS.

The first part of the course is organized together with Aalto Venture Program as their following course

https://noppa.aalto.fi/noppa/kurssi/cse-e5754/

The lectures are once a week Thursday afternoons (13-16) in Computer Science and Engineering building (Konemiehentie 2, Espoo). The lectures will take place April 16th, to May 28th.

REGISTRATION via the link at the course website:

As a doctoral student, you should not use the WebOodi registration referred on the noppa.aalto.fi, but the registration link on the course website.

More information: Jussi.i.autere@aalto.fi

EIT ICT Labs: Health and Wellbeing @Work 2015 in Birmingham-UK

The Health and Wellbeing Business Community participated in the Health and Wellbeing @Work 2015 exhibition in Birmingham that took place on 3-4 March. Health and Wellbeing @Work 2015 is UKs leading event for occupation health professionals, rehabilitation specialists, therapy specialists and others responsible for the health and wellbeing of work-aged people. The four Finnish start-ups - Firstbeat, HeiaHeia, Traxmeet and Wellmo - met with many potential customers and are expected to close some deals still this year.

Read more here: http://www.eitictlabs.eu/news-events/news/article/health-and-wellbeing-work-2015-in-birmingham-uk/?utm_source=newsflash&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_campaign=helsinki2015-2#allView

Postdoctoral position in machine learning for systems biology - Paris region

The institute of Systems and Synthetic Biology (iSSB) has an immediate opening for a postdoctoral position in the field of machine learning for systems biology.

We invite applications from researchers who hold (or are very close to completion) a PhD in machine learning, active learning, computational system biology or a related field.

The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary team of computational and molecular biologists (http://www.issb.genopole.fr/Research/teams/mega), working on an exciting ICST European project: AdaLab (Adaptive Automated Scientific Laboratory:  http://www.chistera.eu/projects/adalab ) funded by CHIST-ERA.  She/He will be responsible for developing machine-learning algorithms for network inference and experimental design, and for building a knowledge base about the yeast diauxic shift to be used in the Robot Scientist platform (Prof. Ross King).

The successful candidate will be offered an initial contract for 24 months with possible extension for an additional 12 months depending on performance.

The iSSB is part of Genopole, the premier French BioPark of leading research academic and private laboratories in biotechnology, genomics, post-genomics and related sciences. It is located in Evry (Paris region).

Applicants should send a full CV, the contact details of three referees, and a cover letter to Dr. Mohamed Elati (http://www.issb.genopole.fr/~elati/) at mohamed.elati@issb.genopole.fr

Net Futures Information Day on H2020 ICT-2015

The Directorate "Net Futures" organises this Information Day presenting the topics in the area of Future Internet in the second ICT call H2020-ICT-2015 published in October 2014. The deadline for submission of proposals is 14 April 2015.

More information and registration here: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/net-futures-information-day-h2020-ict-2015

More information (in Finnish) here: http://wfeo.creamailer.fi/email/54bd0188706c1

EAPLS PhD Award 2014 - Call for Nominations

 EAPLS PhD Award 2014: Call for Nominations

 URL: http://eapls.org/pages/phd_award/

The European Association for Programming Languages and Systems has established a Best Dissertation Award in the international research area of programming languages and systems. The award will go to the PhD student who in the previous period has made the most original and influential contribution to the area. The purpose of the award is to draw attention to excellent work, to help the career of the student in question, and to promote the research field as a whole.

 

Eligibility

Eligible for the award are those who successfully defended their PhD

* at an academic institution in Europe

* in the field of Programming Languages and Systems

* in the period from 1 November 2013 – 31 December 2014

Nominations

Candidates for the award must be nominated by their supervisor.

Nominating a candidate consists of submitting the thesis to https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=eaplsphd2014. The nomination must be accompanied by (a zip file containing)

 * a letter from the supervisor describing why the thesis should be

considered for the award;

* a report from an independent researcher who has acted as examiner

of the thesis at its defense.

The theses will be evaluated with respect to originality, influence, relevance to the field and (to a lesser degree) quality of writing.

 Procedure

The nominations will be evaluated and compared by an international committee of experts from across Europe. The procedure to be followed is analogous to the review phase of a conference. The justification by the supervisor and the external report will play an important role in the evaluation.

Members of the expert committee are barred from nominating their own PhD students for the award.

 The award consists of a certificate announcing the winner to have received the EAPLS PhD award 2014. The supervisor will receive a copy of this certificate. If possible, the certificate will be handed out ceremonially at a suitable occasion, as for instance the ETAPS conference.

Apart from the winner, no further ranking of nominees will be published. The decision of the expert committee is final and binding, and will not be subject to discussion.

Important dates

31 March 2015: Deadline for nominations

31 July 2015:        Announcement of the award winner

Expert committee

The Expert committee includes:

* Eerke Boiten, University of Kent, U.K.

* Mark van den Brand, Universiteit Eindhoven, The Netherlands

* Paolo Ciancarini, Universita di Bologna, Italy

* Stefano Crespi Reghizzi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

* Kei Davis, Los Alamos National Laboratory, U.S.A.

* Mariangiola Dezani, Universita di Torino, Italy

* Josuka Díaz-Labrador, Universidad de Duesto, Spain

* Marko van Eekelen, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, The Netherlands

* Giorgio Ghelli, University of Pisa, Italy

* Sabine Glesner, Technische Universität Berlin

* Stefan Gruner, University of Pretoria, South Africa

* Kevin Hammond, University of St Andrews, U.K.

* Martin Hofmann, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany

* Paul Klint, CWI and University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

* Jens Knoop, Technische Universität Wien, Austria

* Ralf Lämmel, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany

* Rita Loogen, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany

* Tiziana Margaria, University of Potsdam, Germany

* Greg Michaelson, Heriot-Watt University , Edinburgh, U.K.

* Alan Mycroft, University of Cambridge, U.K.

* Ricardo Peña, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

* Arnd Poetzsch-Heffter, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Germany

* Arend Rensink, Universiteit Twente, The Netherlands

* Bernhard Steffen, Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany

* Baltasar Trancon Widemann, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany

* Peter Van Roy, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium

EATCS Bulletin Issue 115 available online

The 114th issue of the EATCS Bulletin, is

now available online at

http://bulletin.eatcs.org/index.php/beatcs/issue/view/17

You can download a pdf with the printed version of the bulletin from

http://www.eatcs.org/images/bulletin/beatcs115.pdf

As an EATCS member, you have access to

the members area which contains news and related articles. Young researchers

can find announcements of open positions, news and related articles.

To find out the latest information on EATCS news, activities, conferences,

and much more, find us via social media:

facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/eatcs

google+ : https://plus.google.com/112559236052381533540/posts

youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChc3QOHDEbDdPRErx1uSl6A

twitter: http://twitter.com/eatcs_secretary

Linkedin EATCS group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3412855 

EATCS - Young researchers Linkedin group:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3520564

TUCS GP travel reports

TUCS GP Student Eyal Eshet's Travel Report from DHT 2.0

Full name of the event: Designing Human Technologies 2.0

Place and date: Denmark, Roskilde, May 18th – 20th, 2014

Type of event: Ph.D. course

My article:

Title: Research progress and plan: Addressing context of use in the design of mobile systems

The scientific profile of the event:

Designing Human Technologies is a broad (participatory) design-oriented research field with a central human principle of participation and ethical concerns. Common goals of research activities in this field include being constructive and solution-oriented in close dialogue with citizens and users. Deep analyses of how designs are used and enter into the daily life of their users as well as innovative design solutions are at the core of this course. The human principle includes involving users and central interest groups in the design and in evaluations of the ability of design artifacts to meet the goals.

Format of the event:

Group workshops with discussion of the PhD research plans, facilitated by field expert scholars. In addition, selected faculty participants gave a talk on topics related to the design of human technologies, particularly on participatory design.

Opinion on the best presentation and its topic: A talk about methods, evaluations, experience, and usability by Marianne Lykke

Number of participants: 20 PhD students + 10 faculty participants

Social events: Walks in the close by forest, all meals were provided in the facility and were used for social interaction and networking.

Touristic impressions:

The event was organized by Roskilde University in their field station called “Søminestationen” (http://www.soeminestationen.dk)

The place is a former naval torpedo test facility, situated in a forest, very close to the fjord Isefjorden. It is east of the town of Holbæk and one hour drive from Copenhagen Airport. Accommodation was arranged in the facility with two-students shared rooms. Also, all the meals were prepared by a local chef (delicious) and were served in the facility. The place is surrounded by forest and is optimal for this type of events. There are small villages close by, but we stayed the whole time in the station’s area, except for short walks in the woods.

TUCS GP Student Tewodros Deneke's Travel Report from ICME 2014

Full name of the event: ICME 2014

Place and date: China, Chengdu, July 14th – 18th, 2014

Type of event: conference

My article:

Title: Video transcoding time prediction for proactive load balancing

Authors: Tewodors Deneke, Habtegebreil Haile1, Sebastien Lafond, Johan Lilius

The scientific profile of the event: showcases high quality oral and poster presentations and demo sessions in the area of multimedia systems and applications.

Opinion on the best paper and its topic: o        Parallel SHVC decoder: implementation and analysis

Number of participants: Around 500

Social events:

Two lunch events at Jingang hotel in Chngdu of which one is dedicated to showcasing the Chinese and Japanese foods to participants and allowing them to freely discuss.

Tutorials on some multimedia subjects such as Multimedia Big Data Analysis.

Doctoral consortium

Unofficial visit to Panda zoo with the event organizers for those who like to participate.

Touristic impressions: The worlds largest Panda research facility and zoo. Old Chinese towns and beautiful forests.

TUCS GP Student Abayomi Baiyere's Travel Report from research visit to Bentley University

Full name of the event: Research Visit to Bentley University

Place and date: Waltham, USA, August 29th – December 20th, 2013

Type of event: research visit

The scientific profile of the event: The research visit provided an opportunity to collaborate with distinguished professor Robert Galliers and other researchers. It also provided a chance to get my research reviewed from different perspectives and also helped me develop the methodological and theoretical foundations for my research.

Touristic impressions: Waltham is a small city with little touristic attraction. It however benefits from being part of the greater Boston region which means almost endless touristic opportunities aboud and around Waltham.

TUCS GP Student Charmi Panchal's Travel Report from SSBSS 2014

Full name of the event: International Synthetic and Systems Biology Summer School Biology meets Engineering and Computer Science (SSBSS 2014)

Place and date: Italy, Taormina, June 15th – 19th, 2014

Type of event: summer school

The scientific profile of the event: The lectures held in this summer school were delivered by the professionals, researchers and the industry leaders actively working in the field of synthetic and systems biology. The main focus was on the cutting edge advances in the designing of the biological systems.

Opinion on the best paper and its topic:

All the lectures presented in this summer school were very interesting and the speakers were exceptionally good.

The lectures delievered by Ron Weiss (MIT, USA) were very helpful and I could consider it as best lectures.

Ron Weiss, MIT, USA. Lecture I: Synthetic Biology: From Parts to Modules to Systems

Ron Weiss, MIT, USA. Lecture II: Mammalian Synthetic Biology: Scientific and Therapeutic Application.

Number of participants: The summer school was open to select around 150 participants.

Social events: There were 2 coffee breaks and a lunch break. It was possible to get socialized and conduct short discussions. During the summer school there was a live music performance, which was excellent performance and very good opportunity to become a part of such an event. This was arranged in the conference vanue.

Touristic impressions: Taormina ( Sicily, Italy) is all surrounded by the mountains and the sea. Walking paths are very well organized and very beautiful surroundings. The venue was also surrounded by the beautiful scenery. View of active volcano Mount Etna eruption was possible to see from Taormina.

TUCS GP Student Noora Nieminen's Travel Report from Central European Conference on Cryptology

Full name of the event: Central European Conference on Cryptology

Place and date: Hungary, Budabest, May 21st – 23rd, 2014

Type of event: conference

My article:

Title: Hierarchy for Classes of Garbling Schemes

Authors: Tommi Meskanen, Valtteri Niemi, Noora Nieminen

The scientific profile of the event:The conference covered different aspects of cryptography: symmetric key cryptography, elliptic curve cryptography, pairing-based cryptography, applied cryptography etc.

Opinion on the best paper and its topic: All presentations were good and interesting, so it is hard to choose the best. Besides the invited talk about digital Müllerian mimicry given by David Naccache, the presentation “Some Multi-Authority Attribute-Based Encryption Schemes for Small Message Space” by Viktoria Villanyi was one of the most interesting.

Number of participants: approximately 30 - 40

Social events: Wine and cheese party at Renyi Institut (where the conference took place); conference dinner in Central Bistro (Nador utca 13, Budapest)

Touristic impressions:

The transportation from airport to the center of Budapest is easy and fast. Taxi takes you in less than ½ hour to the center and it costs only 25 eur (at most). You can also take bus 200E to the remotest metro station and continue with metro (blue line) to the center.

Moving around Budapest is easy either by walking or by public transportation. Worth seeing are the shopping street Vaci utca and the main market hall at the end of this shopping street. Another sight worth seeing in Pest side is the Parliament building. Also the Buda side is worth visiting: Buda Castle, Fisherman’s Bastion and many others.

TUCS GP Student Syed M.A.H. Jafri's Travel Report from SAMOS

Full name of the event:International Conference on Embedded Computer Systems: Architectures, Modeling, and Simulation.

Place and date: Greece, Samos, July 14th – 17th, 2014

Type of event: conference

My article:

Title: RuRot: Run-time rotatable-expandable partitions for efficient mapping in CGRAs

Authors: Syed M. A. H. Jafri, Guillerno Serreno, Masoud Daneshtalab, Kolin Paul, Ahmed Hemani, Juha Plosila, and Hannu Tenhunen

The scientific profile of the event:SAMOS is a unique conference. It deals with embedded systems (sort of) but that is not what makes it different. It brings together every year researchers from both academia and industry on the quiet and inspiring northern ontainside of the Mediterranean island of Samos, which in itself is different. but more importantly, it really fosters collaboration rather than competition. Formal and intensive technical sessions are only held in the mornings. A lively panel ends the formal part of the day, and leads nicely into the afternoons and evening – reserved form informal discussions, good food, and the inviting Aegean Sea.

Opinion on the best paper and its topic: The Heterogeneous System Architecture: It's Beyond the GPU

Number of participants: approx 200-300

Social events: Dinner and city hiking was awesome

Touristic impressions: Very nice historical place awesome food.

Open jobs at University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University

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