[FOM] 2nd Call: Newton Institute Workshop "Logical Approaches to Barriers in Complexity II"

[Arnold Beckmann]

[Apologies for multiple copies]

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                    Newton Institute Workshop
        "Logical Approaches to Barriers in Complexity II"

                       26 - 30 March 2012

        http://www.newton.ac.uk/programmes/SAS/sasw01.html

Organisers: Arnold Beckmann (Swansea) and Anuj Dawar (Cambridge)
       in association with the Newton Institute programme
         "Semantics and Syntax: A Legacy of Alan Turing"

   Deadline for application for participation:  26th January 2012

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Computational complexity theory has its origin in logic. The 
fundamental goal of this area is to understand the limits of 
efficient computation (that is understanding the class of 
problems which can be solved quickly and with restricted 
resources) and the sources of intractability (that is what takes 
some problems inherently beyond the reach of such efficient 
solutions). The most famous open problem in the area is the P = 
NP-problem, listed among the seven Clay Millenium Prize problems. 
Logic provides a multifarious toolbox of techniques to analyse 
questions like this, some of which promise to provide deep 
insights in the nature and limits of efficient computation.

In our workshop, we shall focus on logical descriptions of 
complexity, i.e. descriptive complexity, propositional proof 
complexity and bounded arithmetic. Despite considerable progress 
by research communities in each of these areas, the main open 
problems remain. In finite model theory the major open problem is 
whether there is a logic capturing on all structures the 
complexity class P of polynomial time decidable languages. In 
bounded arithmetic the major open problem is to prove strong 
independence results that would separate its levels. In 
propositional proof complexity the major open problem is to prove 
strong lower bounds for expressive propositional proof systems.

The workshop will bring together leading researchers covering all 
research areas within the scope of the workshop. We will 
especially focus on work that draws on methods from the different 
areas which appeal to the whole community.

TUTORIAL SPEAKERS:

     Samuel R. Buss (University of California, San Diego)
     Stephan Kreutzer (Technische Universität Berlin)

INVITED SPEAKERS:

     Albert Atserias (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya [UPC])
     Yijia Chen (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
     Stefan Dantchev (Durham University)
     Arnaud Durand (Université Denis-Diderot Paris 7)
     Bjarki Holm (University of Cambridge)
     Juha Kontinen (University of Helsinki)
     Jan Krajicek (Charles University in Prague)
     Phuong The Nguyen (University of Montreal)
     Rahul Santhanam (University of Edinburgh)
     Nicole Schweikardt (Goethe University)
     Neil Thapen (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic)

SPECIAL EVENING LECTURE:

     Andrew Hodges (Oxford University)


PARTICIPATION:

     The application form for participation in this workshop
     can be found at

         http://www.newton.ac.uk/cgi/wsapply?CODE=SASW01

     The Deadline for receiving the application is

         26th January 2012


CONTACT:

     For further questions concerning this workshop please contact
     a.beckmann<at>swansea.ac.uk