The “Seventh International Colloquium on Theoretical Aspects of Computing” (ICTAC) was held in September 1-3, 2010, in Natal, Brazil. The ICTAC series of conferences brings together practitioners and researchers from academia, industry and government to present research results, and exchange experience and ideas. Beyond these scholarly goals, another main purpose is to promote cooperation in research and education between participants and their institutions, from developing and industrial countries.
At the conference, new results on modelling, grammars, semantics, logics, algorithms, and types were presented. The program included a seven-day school for students, and three invited talks in addition to 23 contributed presentations (selected from among 68 papers submitted to the conference by researchers from 24 countries). The detailed information on the conference program can be found at the conference website.
The ICTAC 2010 proceedings are published by Springer Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series, and it includes papers by two of the invited speakers, and the regular papers. A special issue of the Elsevier journal Theoretical Computer Science will collect revised and extended versions of a selection of these papers.
The FME invited lecture Invariants and Well-Foundedness in Program Algebra delivered by Prof. Ian Hayes raised a lot of interest, as reflected in a large number of questions and comments. His work is described in an invited paper in the conference proceedings. He gave a clear account of program algebra and various iteration operators, and introduced the notion of well-founded programs; the Unifying Theories of Programming provided the framework for the development of his ideas. Beyond what is already published in the ICTAC 2010 proceedings, Prof. Hayes also discussed the application of his results to real-time programs. Prof. Hayes’ work had a strong impact on on the development of the formal methods community in Brazil. This made the occasion of his visit and his FME lecture in Brazil particularly special.
During the coffee breaks, Brazilian delicacies and soft drinks made the continued scientific discussions very pleasant. The participants also enjoyed a conference dinner in a typical Brazilian restaurant.q Finally, the program of cultural events also included excursions to beautiful beaches nearby, both before and after the event.
Slides of FME invited lecture “on Invariants and Well-Foundedness in Program Algebra by Ian Hayes