************************************************************************** 14th Meeting of the IFIP WG 1.6 on Term Rewriting May 28, 2012, Nagoya, Japan http://verify.rwth-aachen.de/Events/WG16-2012/ Minutes (recorded by Bernhard Gramlich) This year's WG meeting was chaired by Hans Zantema, representing the WG-chair Juergen Giesl who could not attend the meeting. For the first time the WG meeting was partitioned into a general part of the program (9:00-16:30), also open to non-WG-members, and a closed WG Business Meeting only for WG-members (16:30-17:45). The general part of the program featured a couple of invited talks by invitees of the WG meeting this year (Ashish Tiwari, Nao Hirokawa, Frederic Blanqui), and of contributed talks (by Helene Kirchner, Bernhard Gramlich, Kristoffer Rose) as well as some discussions on currently important topics. In this general part there were 27 participants. For details about the talks as well as about the program / the agenda see http://verify.rwth-aachen.de/Events/WG16-2012/IFIP-Program.pdf. In the minutes, subsequently we will summarize the discussions and the WG Business Meeting. Discussion on Rewriting-Related Conferences (11:30­12:00, chair: Aart Middeldorp): ********************************************************************* As incentive Aart first gave a kind of summary of the problems that RTA currently faces from his point view and then asked a couple of questions which gave rise to a lively discussion: Analysis: - The number of submissions to RTA has been generally declining over the years. - One reason are rewriting related workshops with formal proceedings (like WRS/IWS: EPTCS, HOR: EPTCS, WRLA; LNCS). - Another reason: Good rewriting papers are published at other conferences (e.g. CADE/IJCAR, CSL, LPAR). - Still another reason: There are too many conferences in the same period and with similar topics as RTA. - General observation: The rewriting community (considering RTA as their major publication forum) is shrinking. Questions: - How to make RTA (again) more attractive? - How to make grow the RTA community? - Can RTA survive on its own? Discussion (aspects touched, opinions expressed): - A relevant (positive) aspect are new emerging applications like computational biology (Hans Zantema). - There is a connection between RTA and rewriting papers also outside RTA (Vincent van Oostrom)! - Rewriting techniques are present almost everywhere (Frederic Blanqui). - Within the RTA-SC a discussion has been initiated about a potential merge with TLCA in the future (reported by Frederic Blanqui). - The fact that rewriting papers are also published in other conferences is good for rewriting (as a field); this may be considered as not so good for RTA, but is a normal process (Salvador Lucas). - A massive merging would only help other conferences which are more renowned (Kristoffer Rose). - What has been the role of RDP (as an umbrella event, since its creation in 2003) and its implications for RTA (Bernhard Gramlich)? - Co-location is not good for individual conferences (Frederic Blanqui). - It is difficult to analyze the reasons for the decline of RTA, e.g. concerning: consequences of RDP since 2003?, effect of switch in 2010 from LNCS proceedings to LIPIcs proceedings? (Salvador Lucas). - TLCA normally has about 20% rewriting papers (Delia Kesner). - It does not seem clear that TLCA is the right choice (for a merge) (Salvador Lucas). - Concerning a potential merge: The positive goals should be decisive! What is the (underlying) vision? (Vincent van Oostrom). At the end of the discussion a straw poll initiated by Hans Zantema about who would lean towards a merge of RTA with TLCA resulted in: 14 out of 26 people present expressed their support for such a move. Discussion on Open Problems in Rewriting (14:30­15:00, chair: Hans Zantema): ****************************************************************** Hans Zantema reports about the history and the current state of "The RTA list of open problems" (http://rtaloop.mancoosi.univ-paris-diderot.fr/), which was created in 1991 by Nachum Dershowitz, Jean-Pierre Jouannaud and Jan Willem Klop on the occasion of the RTA'91 conference. Updated versions of the list have been published in 1993, 1995 and 1998. Since 1997 the list is on the www, and currently this website is maintained by Nachum Dershowitz and Ralf Treinen. The list serves for archiving and reflecting our area of research, for initiating new research efforts, and for highlighting progress achieved. However, as Hans pointed out, there are hardly any new problems (51 of the 107 problems all stem from 1991) and very rarely some progresss is reported. He picked out and reported about the status of a few particular problems (21, 56, 90, 100, 101) and finally suggested the following changes: - Since Ralf Treinen wants to step back (as maintainer of the list), Hans offered to take over the maintenance of the list and thus to be the successor of Ralf. - Hans proposed that the IFIP-WG becomes responsible for the maintenance and further development of the list and that new developments should be reported every year (in the IFIP-WG). - He suggested to rename the list from "The RTA list of open problems" into "Open Problems in Rewriting". These proposals are generally supported by the audience. Finally, the discussion ends with a question ("Who decides if a problem is solved or not") by Delia Kesner (who mentioned and discussed the "higher-order matching" case) and with a proposal (IFIP-WG members should become reponsible for problems on the list) by Aart Middeldorp. Discussion on Funding for Rewriting-Related Projects (15:00­15:30, chair: Vincent van Oostrom): ****************************************************************** Vincent reported that funding in the Netherlands is moved away from the universities, and that the evaluation of project proposals seems to take into account the membership in (European) communities / networks. He therefore asked whether European projects and / or European networks would be promising in this respect? Contributions in the subsequent discussion included: - (National) funding for (not only) rewriting projects is extremely difficult to obtain (Hans Zantema). - A rewriting centered European network might well make sense (Salvador Lucas). - The database community is much more successful in this respect (Kristoffer Rose). - A European project in this direction would be good and important, e.g. on privacy, security, voting issues (Claude Kirchner). - Support for teaching, education and (research) schools would also be important (Helene Kirchner). - European support for training purposes can well be achieved (Fairouz Kamareddine). Finally, there is no clear conclusion of the discussion, but there seems to be an informal agreement that such a European infrastructure for rewriting would be good and nice to have, but would require substantial longer-term efforts. Discussion on ISR (16:00­16:30, chairs: Aart Middeldorp, Vincent van Oostrom): ******************************************************************** - Report on ISR 2012 in Valencia (Salvador Lucas): Salvador reported about the current state of planning and preparation for the 6th International School on Rewriting in Valencia (Spain). One important issue was that in connection with an exam student partipants in the basic track of the school would get 3 ECTS credit points. - Planning for ISR 2014: There are two proposals for ISR in 2014, namely Valparaiso, Chile and Leipzig, Germany which are briefly sketched: (a) Venue: Valparaiso, Chile Organizer: Carlos Castro, Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria, Valparaiso, Chile Presented by Claude Kirchner: WOLLIC 2014 takes place in Valparaiso in summer 2014, too! (b) Venue: Leipzig, Germany Organizers: Alfons Geser, Johannes Waldmann, HTWK Leipzig, Germany Presented by Aart Middeldorp: ISR 2014 should be right after FLoC 2014; lecturers should bring exercises with them and prepare tutorials! Business Meeting, for members of the WG only (16:30­17:00, chair: Hans Zantema): ********************************************************************** Participants (9): Bernhard Gramlich, Delia Kesner, Claude Kirchner, Helene Kirchner, Salvador Lucas, Aart Middeldorp, Vincent van Oostrom, Kristoffer Rose, Hans Zantema - ISR 2014: Hans Zantema proposes a (secret) vote on the two options ("Valparaiso", "Leipzig") the result of which is: - "Valparaiso": 4 - "Leipzig": 3 - abstentions: 2 That means ISR 2014 will take place in Valparaiso, Chile, organized by Carlos Castro. Aart Middeldorp proposes a change for the bylaws of ISR: "bi-annual" should be replaced by "at least bi-annual", to be discussed in the ISR-SC and voted upon in the IFIP-WG-1.6 Meeting. Salvador Lucas emphasizes that the ECTS-issue w.r.t. ISR should also be discussed in the ISR-SC. - Minutes of IFIP-WG-1.6 Meeting 2011: They are approved. Suggestion for the future: Minutes to be sent by email to the WG-members. - Membership: Hans Zantema suggests that from next time on the rule "no presence at 3 WG meetings in a row -> membership expires" will be executed. This suggestion is unanimously approved. - Invitees 2013: Hans Zantema announces that this will be discussed and decided upon by email communication. - List of open problems: It is agreed upon that - Hans Zantema will take over the role of Ralf Treinen; - Hans may contact appropriate people to become responsible for some concrete open problem; - the (new) name should be: List of Open Problems in Rewriting. Delia Kesner suggests to buy a www domain name for the IFIP-WG and to ask IFIP whether they support that. - Next WG-Meeting: It is agreed that the the next WG-Meeting should take place 1-2 days before or after RTA 2013 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, preferably before RTA and its associated workshops. - 17:45 Hans Zantema officially closes the WG-Meeting. **************************************************************************