Invited Speakers

Foundations of Computer Science

  • David Janin, LaBRI, University of Bordeaux, France
    Towards a Higher-Dimensional String Theory for the Modeling of Computerized Systems
    Abstract ⇑

    Recent modeling experiments conducted in computational music give evidence that number of concepts, methods and tools belonging to inverse semigroup theory can be attuned towards the concrete modeling of time-sensitive interactive systems. Further theoretical developments show that some related notion of higher-dimensional strings can be used as a unifying theme across word or tree automata theory. In this lecture, we will provide a guided tour of this emerging theory, both as an abstract theory and with a view to concrete applications.

  • Rastislav Královič, Department of Computer Science, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
    Advice Complexity: Quantitative Approach to A-Priori Information
    Abstract ⇑

    In several areas of computing, the problem instance contains some entities not known to the algorithm (e.g., a communication topology in distributed computing, a sequence of future requests in online computing), and it is often the case that a complete knowledge of these parameters would make the problem solvable easily. A natural question is to ask to what extend some limited information about the unknown variables may help. Traditionally, the approach is to study the impact of the knowledge of various specific properties (e.g., the communication algorithm may be equipped with a sense of direction; the online algorithm may know that the requests have certain structure, etc.). Recently, a quantitative approach has been pursued, in which the algorithm may be equipped with an arbitrary information (best case), and the relationship between the size of this information, and the performance of the algorithm is studied. The talk surveys recent results in this setting.

Software & Web Engineering

  • Miklós Biró, Software Competence Center Hagenberg, Hagenberg, Austria
    Open Services for Software Process Compliance Engineering
    Abstract ⇑

    The paper presents an update of the change of expectations and most recent new approaches regarding software processes and their improvement following the Software Process Improvement Hype Cycle introduced earlier by the author as an extension of the Gartner Hype Cycle idea. Software process assessment and improvement can itself be considered on the more abstract level as a quest for compliance with best practices. Etics and regulatory regimes explicitly addressing safety- critical systems mean however stringent compliance requirements beyond the commitment to improve process capability. New approaches are nec- essary for software engineers to ful ll the considerably growing expecta- tions regarding quality under much slower changing development bud- get and deadline constraints. Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) is the emerging initiative inspired by the web which is currently at the technology trigger stage along its hype cycle with the potential to have a determining impact on the future of Software Process Compliance Engineering.

  • Jerzy Nawrocki, Institute of Computing Science, Poznań University of Technology, Poznań, Poland
    (joint work with Mirosław Ochodek, Jakub Jurkiewicz, Sylwia Kopczyńska, and Bartosz Alchimowicz)
    Agile Requirements Engineering: A Research Perspective
    Abstract ⇑

    Agile methodologies have impact not only on coding, but also on requirements engineering activities. In the paper agile requirements engineering is examined from the research point of view. It is claimed that use cases are a better tool for requirements description than user stories as they allow zooming through abstraction levels, can be reused for user manual generation, and when used properly can provide quite good effort estimates. Moreover, as it follows from recent research, parts of use cases (namely event descriptions) can be generated in an automatic way. Also the approach to non-functional requirements can be different. Our experience shows that they can be elicited very fast and can be quite stable.

Data, Information, and Knowledge Engineering

  • Nicola Guarino, ISTC-CNR Laboratory for Applied Ontology, Trento, Italy
    Episode-Centric Conceptual Modeling
    Abstract ⇑

    Most conceptual modeling and knowledge representation schemes focus on relations. The Entity-Relationship approach is a paradigmatic example in this respect. However, in many cases, when we say that a relationship holds (say, John is married with Mary) there is something which occurs (or "perdures") in a certain interval of time. Technically speaking, this entity is a perdurant, in DOLCE's terms. We may call it an event for short, in the most general understanding of this term, but I tend to prefer the term episode, for the reasons I will illustrate in my talk (according to OALD, an episode is "an event, a situation, or a period of time that is important or interesting in some way").

    My main point will be that, whenever there is an episode which corresponds to a particular relationship, it is very useful to model such episode explicitely, putting it in the domain of discourse. I will investigate the various cases when a relationship corresponds to an episode, and illustrate a number of open ontological issues concerning episodes and their participants.

  • Jiří Matas, Center for Machine Perception, Czech Technical University, Czech Republic
    Matching of Images of Non-Planar Objects with View Synthesis
    (joint work with Dmytro Mishkin)
    Abstract ⇑

    We explore the performance of the recently proposed two-view image matching algorithms using affine view synthesis -- ASIFT (Morel and Yu, 2009) and MODS (Mishkin, Perdoch and Matas, 2013) on images of objects that do not have significant local texture and that are locally not well approximated by planes.

    Experiments show that view synthesis improves matching results on images of such objects, but the number of "useful" synthetic views is lower than for planar objects matching. The best detector for matching images of 3D objects is the Hessian-Affine in the Sparse configuration. The iterative MODS matcher performs comparably confirming it is a robust, generic method for two view matching that performs well for different types of scenes and a wide range of viewing conditions.

Cryptography, Security, and Verification

  • Bogdan Warinschi, Faculty of Engineering, University of Bristol, UK
    Symbolic and Computational Security
    Abstract ⇑

    In this talk I will discuss two types of models used to define the security of cryptographic systems. One originates in work on formal languages and logics, the other is based on probability theory and computational complexity. I will explain that the two approaches have complementary strengths and weaknesses and that it is sometimes possible to obtain the best of both worlds. If time permits I will go over two examples, one related to protocol verification and the other from the area of cryptographically enforced access control.