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.beckmannswansea.ac.uk