We are pleased to announce the winner of the 2023 E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize:
Gabriele Vanoni, On Reasonable Space and Time Cost Models for the λ-Calculus, University of Bologna
The finalists for the prize are:
We are pleased to announce the winner of the 2022 E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize:
Alexander Bentkamp, Superposition for Higher-Order Logics, VU Amsterdam
The finalists for the prize are:
Final Call and Deadline Extension for Beth Outstanding Dissertation Prize 2022
Extended Deadline: 30th of April 2022.
Since 1998, the Association for Logic, Language, and Information (FoLLI) has been awarding the annual E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize to outstanding Ph.D. dissertations in Logic, Language, and Information (https://folli.info/?page_id=74), with financial support of the E.W. Beth Foundation (https://www.knaw.nl/en/awards/funds/evert-willem-beth-stichting/evert-willem-beth-foundation).
In accordance with the aim of the Beth Foundation to continue and extend the work of the Dutch logician Evert Willem Beth, nominations are invited of outstanding dissertations on topics in the broad remit of ESSLLI, in logic, language, information and computation. Interdisciplinary dissertations with results impacting various of these research areas in their investigations are especially solicited. Nominations are now invited for outstanding dissertations in these areas resulting in a Ph.D. degree awarded in 2021.
The deadline for nominations is the 30th of April 2022.
Qualifications:
– A Ph.D. dissertation on a related topic is eligible for the Beth Dissertation Prize 2022, if the degree was awarded between January 1st and December 31st, 2021.
– There are no restrictions on the nationality, ethnicity, age, gender or employment status of the author of the nominated dissertation, nor on the university, academic department or scientific institution formally conferring the Ph.D. degree, nor on the language in which the dissertation has originally been written.
– If a nominated dissertation has originally been written in a language other than English, its file should still contain the required 10 page English abstract, see below. If the committee decides that a nominated dissertation in a language other than English requires translation to English for proper evaluation, the committee can transfer its nomination to the competition in 2023. The English translation must in such cases be submitted before the deadline of the call for nominations in 2023. The committee may recommend the Beth Foundation to consider supporting such nominated dissertations for English translation, upon request by the author of the dissertation.
The prize consists of:
– a certificate
– a donation of 3000 euros, provided by the E.W. Beth Foundation, divided among the winners, should there be more than one winner
– an invitation to submit the dissertation, possibly after revision, for publication in FoLLI Publications on Logic, Language and Information (Springer).
Only digital submissions are accepted, without exception. Hard copy submissions are not allowed. The following documents are to be submitted in a single nomination file in zip format:
– The original dissertation in pdf format (ps/doc/rtf etc. not acceptable).
– A ten-page English abstract of the dissertation, presenting the main results of each chapter.
– A letter of nomination from the dissertation supervisor, which concisely describes the scope and significance of the dissertation, stating when the degree was officially awarded and the members of the Ph.D. committee. Nominations should contain the address, phone and email details of the nominator.
– Two additional letters of support, including at least one from a referee not affiliated with the academic institution that awarded the Ph.D. degree, nor otherwise related to the nominee (e.g. former teachers, supervisors, co-authors, publishers or relatives) or the dissertation.
– Self-nominations are not possible.
All pdf documents must be submitted electronically, as one zip file, via EasyChair by following the link https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bodp2022. In case of any problems or questions please contact the chair of the committee Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh (m.sadrzadeh@ucl.ac.uk).
The prize will be awarded by the chair of the FoLLI board at a ceremony during the 33rd ESSLLI summer school, in Galway, August 8-19, 2021.
Beth dissertation prize committee 2022:
Maria Aloni (University of Amsterdam)
Cleo Condoravdi(Stanford University)
Robin Cooper (University of Gothenburg)
Guy Emerson (University of Cambridge)
Katrin Erk (University of Texas at Austin)
Tim Fernando (Trinity College Dublin)
Christoph Haase (University of Oxford)
Reinhard Muskens (University of Amsterdam)
Francesca Poggiolesi (CNRS, IHPST, University of Paris 1)
Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh (University College London, chair)
Ana Sokolova (University of Salzburg)
Carla Umbach (University of Koeln)
Jouko Vaananen (University of Helsinki and University of Amsterdam)
FoLLI is committed to diversity and inclusion and we welcome dissertations from all under-represented groups.
FoLLI AGM will be held on the 9th of September 2021 at 18:00-19:00 CEST. On the agenda is the report of the FoLLI board and voting on the updated statutes and bylaws. The proposed new versions of both documents and the changes compared to the previous versions of statutes and bylaws are in the previous news item (below).
You can join the meeting remotely on Zoom. If you would like to attend, please register at the following link by midnight CEST on the 7th of September:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf8p_H329azGijRaCoEvXn4fuAFLfqSvT6k8jLtrhIxhc3Z2w/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0
You should not need a google account to access the form, and the only information collected is your name and email address. The Zoom link and the password will be sent to the email addresses of the people who registered for the AGM. Please let n.a.alechina@uu.nl know if you have trouble with the form, or if you do not get an email with the Zoom link by 18:00 CEST on the 8th of September.
There will be a meeting of FoLLI on Thursday, July 29, at 18:00 CEST,
on Zoom. To join, follow links from https://esslli2021.unibz.it/page/daily_schedule/.
The meeting passcode is sent to the folli.info mailing list.
The meeting is open to all ESSLLI participants and FoLLI members.
The President of FoLLI, Larry Moss, will give a brief overview of what FoLLI
is, and announce the Annual General Meeting which will be held on
Thursday, September 9 18:00-19:00 CEST.
FoLLI Statutes and Bylaws have been unchanged for many years and need to
be updated to confirm with the Dutch legislation (FoLLI is registered in
the Netherlands). In the meeting on the 29th July, new versions of the
Statutes and Bylaws (attached) will be presented by Benedikt Löwe. The
summary of changes written by Benedikt Löwe is below.
At the AGM on the 9th of September, members of FoLLI will vote on whether to
accept the new versions.
S T A T U T E S
Article 1. No changes.
Article 2. Old statutes had a paragraph that listed concrete projects some of which were obsolete (such as the book series). We removed that paragraph since it is not wise to have a specific list of concrete projects in the statutes.
Article 3. No changes.
Article 4. The 2007 statutes had removed the Vice President. The new version has restored the office of Vice President (as has been the practice of FoLLI for the last ten years).
Article 5. The 2007 had a structure of the Board that did not correspond to the current practice and also included an office called “manager of the bureau” which had not been used. The new version describes the structure of the Board precisely as it has been the practice of FoLLI in the last decade.
The 2007 allowed for postal vote for Board members, but that is not in line with Dutch law and had to be removed. (The formulation is mandatory.)
Items 5 & 6 had to be added due to Dutch legal regulations.
(Former Article 6 about the “Scientific council” was deleted since FoLLI never had such a body in practice.)
(Former Article 7 about “Working groups” was deleted since there has never been a formal working group structure.)
Article 6 (former Article 8) was adapted to current practice allowing for members to participate by video-conference with a mandatory formulation. Since Dutch law required the removal of postal votes (cf. comment on Article 5), item 6 was added which allows the Board to allow members to submit proxy votes, giving maximal flexibility tp arrange the elections within the constraints of the Dutch law.
Article 7 (former Article 9). This article was modernised and a requirement to have a proposal supported by at least five members was added.
Article 8. No changes.
Article 9. No changes.
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B Y – L A W S
Article I. Sentence about the Dutch version of the Statutes added. Item about the “principal office of FoLLI” deleted since this does not exist.
Article II. Wording modified to replace the (obsolete) role of the “Manager of the Bureau” with the Secretary. A few items whose intention was unclear (about reinstatement and transferral of membership) were deleted.
The 2007 By-Laws stated that the membership list would be made available to the members; this is not in line with current privacy regulations and was deleted.
Article III. Some changes to remove inconsistencies and clarify wording. No substantial changes. An item about the quorum was removed at the request of the Notary (properly announced General Meetings are always quorate).
Article IV. A large part of this article in the 2007 By-Laws was repeating the Statutes. This text was removed and the text was adapted to be consistent with the Statutes. The “Election Committee” is a new addition.
Text relating to physical meetings of the Board was removed.
Article V. Again, text and entire items that were repeating the Statutes were deleted. The rest of the text was adapted to be consistent with the Statutes. The 2007 By-Laws had an item that allowed the Board to create new offices and appoint officers: this was removed. Instead, the new item 5. that allows the Board to delegate duties was added.
Article VI. The 2007 statutes gave “working groups” a formal statutory status; this was removed and replaced with a general statement about forming committees and working groups. Working groups still have ex officio Board members and the central role of the ESSLLI Standing Committee is now fixed in the By-Laws by item 3.
An item that referred to the Council was removed since this never existed.
Article VII. Mostly unchanged, though an item dealing with checks was deleted as obsolete.
Article VIII. No changes.
Article IX. The period of making announcements about planned changes was changed from 60 days to 15 days (to be in line with the same period for the statutes).
Call For Participation
32nd European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information – ESSLLI 2021
26 July -14 August, 2021, Online
https://www.esslli.eu
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We are happy to announce that ESSLLI 2021 will be held as an online event in the period 26 July-14 August. The school offers an excellent program of courses and workshops and the well established Student SessionIn view of the online format, the program is spread over three weeks so as to facilitate attendance.
Details on the schedule will be posted on the website shortly.
We plan to open the registration by the end of April 2021.
Raffaella Bernardi, Michael Moortgat and Diego Calvanese
The call for nomination for the E.W. Beth award is now open here.
The 2016 E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize has been awarded to:
Thomas Zeume, Small Dynamic Complexity Classes, University of Dortmund.
The 2015 E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize has been awarded to:
Michał Skrzypczak, Descriptive set theoretic methods in automata theory, University of Warsaw
FoLLI Affiliated Meeting @ CLMPS, August 4, 2015
Organizers
Michael Moortgat, Utrecht University
Philip Scott, University of Ottawa
Confirmed speakers
Steve Awodey, Carnegie Mellon University
Wojciech Buszkowski, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan
Claudia Casadio, University of Chieti
Robin Cockett, University of Calgary
Bob Coecke, University of Oxford
Kosta Dosen, Mathematical Institute, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Michael Moortgat, Utrecht University
Glyn Morrill, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh, Queen Mary University of London
Philip Scott, University of Ottawa
Aim and scope
Joachim Lambek (Dec 5, 1922 – June 23, 2014), for more than 60 years, has been a profoundly inspirational mathematician, with groundbreaking contributions to algebra, category theory, linguistics, theoretical physics, logic and proof theory. As part of the 15th Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (CLMPS 2015), FoLLI organizes an Affiliated Meeting on the legacy of Joachim Lambek. Talks at the meeting will present current research in the various areas where the impact of Lambek’s work can be felt, and highlight some remarkable convergences of methods and techniques across these fields, linking category theory, deductive systems, and models of computation.
The meeting consists of two parts.
I. Foundations: logic, mathematics
The first part of the meeting is devoted to the impact of Jim Lambek’s foundational ideas on category theory, algebra, logic, proof theory and the theory of computation on current work in these areas.
II. Applications: physics, linguistics
In his latest book, From Rules of Grammar to Laws of Nature (2014), Jim Lambek’s interests in the application of mathematical ideas range from the grammatical analysis of natural languages to the use of quaternions in special relativistic quantum mechanics. The second part of the meeting is devoted to current work on resource-logical themes in theoretical physics and formal linguistics, and the connections between these two disciplines via shared categorical structures.