Invited Speakers:
Title of the talk: "In Search of Most Complex Regular Languages"
Janusz (John) Brzozowski is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. He is renowned for his fundamental work on circuit theory and automata theory, and, in particular, on regular expressions and on syntactic semigroups of formal languages. He has published many papers in the areas of theory of languages and automata, asynchronous circuits, and testing. He has written two books: Digital Networks (Prentice-Hall, 1976), and Asynchronous Circuits (Springer-Verlag, 1995). His current research interests are in the theory of automata and formal languages, particularly in descriptional complexity issues for regular languages.
Title of the talk: "Adding Pebbles to Weighted Automata"
Paul Gastin is a CNRS reasearcher at "Laboratoire Spécification et Vérification" (LSV) of ENS de Cachan (France) and he is head of the Computer Science Department. He is a member of the executive committee of the Parisian Master of Research in Computer Science (MPRI) and of the french steering committee of STACS. He is well-known for his contributions on semantic models of concurrency, trace semantics, temporal logics and model checking. Current research interests include weighted automata and weighted logics, and specially weighed automata with pebbles. He is co-author of chapters in several monographs and in particular of a chapter of the Handbook of Weighted Automata (2009).
Title of the talk: "Typed linear algebra for probabilistic automata"
José Nuno Oliveira is a professor at the Department of Informatics, School of Engineering of University of Minho in Portugal. His research interests include formal methods, algebra of programming and program calculation, and functional programming. He aims at improving scientific standards in software design through formal methods and calculational techniques. These include the application of mathematical transforms in refactoring and improving existing software theories.
Title of the talk: "A Formal Framework for Processes Inspired by the Functioning of Living Cells"
Grzegorz Rozenberg is a professor at the Department of Computer Science of Leiden University, the head of the Theoretical Computer Science group at Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, and the scientific director of Leiden Center for Natural Computing. He was president of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (1985-1994) and editor of the Bulletin of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (1980-2003). He has published about 500 papers, 6 books, and is a (co-)editor of more than 70 books. With Arto Salomaa, Rozenberg edited "Handbook of Formal Languages" (1997). His current research interests include natural computing, theory of concurrent systems, formal language and automata theory, and mathematical structures useful in computer science.
Title of the talk: "In Memoriam of Sheng Yu"
Kai Salomaa received his PhD from the University of Turku in 1989. After holding various positions with the Academy of Finland and at the University of Turku and the University of Western Ontario, he moved to Queen's University in 2000 where he is currently full professor in the School of Computing. Dr. Salomaa's has more than 140 refereed publications in several areas of theory of computation. Current research interests include automata theory and descriptional complexity.