[TYPES/announce] Final Call for Papers: Fourth Symposium on Compositional Structures (SYCO 4)

[Kohei Kishida]

(Invited speakers and financial support have been added.  The
submission deadline is close, but please note that there is no fixed
submission format or page limit.)


FOURTH SYMPOSIUM ON COMPOSITIONAL STRUCTURES (SYCO 4)

Chapman University, California, USA
     22-23 May, 2019

   http://events.cs.bham.ac.uk/syco/4/

The Symposium on Compositional Structures (SYCO) is an
interdisciplinary series of meetings aiming to support the growing
community of researchers interested in the phenomenon of
compositionality, from both applied and abstract perspectives, and in
particular where category theory serves as a unifying common language.
The first SYCO was in September 2018, at the University of Birmingham.
The second SYCO was in December 2018, at the University of Strathclyde.
The third SYCO was in March 2019, at the University of Oxford. Each
meeting attracted about 70 participants.

We welcome submissions from researchers across computer science,
mathematics, physics, philosophy, and beyond, with the aim of
fostering friendly discussion, disseminating new ideas, and spreading
knowledge between fields. Submission is encouraged for both mature
research and work in progress, and by both established academics and
junior researchers, including students.

Submission is easy, with no format requirements or page restrictions.
The meeting does not have proceedings, so work can be submitted even
if it has been submitted or published elsewhere. Think creatively---
you could submit a recent paper, or notes on work in progress, or even
a recent Masters or PhD thesis.

While no list of topics could be exhaustive, SYCO welcomes submissions
with a compositional focus related to any of the following areas, in
particular from the perspective of category theory:

- logical methods in computer science, including classical and
quantum programming, type theory, concurrency, natural language
processing and machine learning;

- graphical calculi, including string diagrams, Petri nets and
reaction networks;

- languages and frameworks, including process algebras, proof nets,
type theory and game semantics;

- abstract algebra and pure category theory, including monoidal
category theory, higher category theory, operads, polygraphs, and
relationships to homotopy theory;

- quantum algebra, including quantum computation and representation
theory;

- tools and techniques, including rewriting, formal proofs and proof
assistants, and game theory;

- industrial applications, including case studies and real-world
problem descriptions.

This new series aims to bring together the communities behind many
previous successful events which have taken place over the last
decade, including "Categories, Logic and Physics", "Categories, Logic
and Physics (Scotland)", "Higher-Dimensional Rewriting and
Applications", "String Diagrams in Computation, Logic and Physics",
"Applied Category Theory", "Simons Workshop on Compositionality", and
the "Peripatetic Seminar in Sheaves and Logic".

SYCO will be a regular fixture in the academic calendar, running
regularly throughout the year, and becoming over time a recognized
venue for presentation and discussion of results in an informal and
friendly atmosphere. To help create this community, and to avoid the
need to make difficult choices between strong submissions, in the
event that more good-quality submissions are received than can be
accommodated in the timetable, the programme committee may choose to
*defer* some submissions to a future meeting, rather than reject them.
This would be done based largely on submission order, giving an
incentive for early submission, but would also take into account other
requirements, such as ensuring a broad scientific programme. Deferred
submissions can be re-submitted to any future SYCO meeting, where they
would not need peer review, and where they would be prioritised for
inclusion in the programme. This will allow us to ensure that speakers
have enough time to present their ideas, without creating an
unnecessarily competitive reviewing process. Meetings will be held
sufficiently frequently to avoid a backlog of deferred papers.

# INVITED SPEAKERS

John Baez, University of California, Riverside
Tobias Fritz, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Nina Otter, University of California, Los Angeles

(One more speaker to be confirmed)

# IMPORTANT DATES

All times are anywhere-on-earth.

- Submission deadline: Wednesday 24 April 2019
- Author notification: Wednesday 1 May 2019
- Travel support application deadline: Wednesday 8 May 2019
- Registration deadline: TBA
- Symposium dates: Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 May 2019

# SUBMISSIONS

Submission is by EasyChair, via the following link:

   - https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=syco4

Submissions should present research results in sufficient detail to
allow them to be properly considered by members of the programme
committee, who will assess papers with regards to significance,
clarity, correctness, and scope. We encourage the submission of work
in progress, as well as mature results. There are no proceedings, so
work can be submitted even if it has been previously published, or has
been submitted for consideration elsewhere. There is no specific
formatting requirement, and no page limit, although for long
submissions authors should understand that reviewers may not be able
to read the entire document in detail.

# FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Some funding is available to cover travel and subsistence costs, with
a priority for students and junior researchers. To apply for this
funding, please contact the local organizer Alexander Kurz
(akurz at chapman.edu) with subject line "SYCO 4 funding request" by
Wednesday, 8 May, with a short statement of your current status,
travel costs, and funding required.

# PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

Miriam Backens, University of Oxford
Ross Duncan, University of Strathclyde and Cambridge Quantum Computing
Brendan Fong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stefano Gogioso, University of Oxford
Amar Hadzihasanovic, Kyoto University
Chris Heunen, University of Edinburgh
Dominic Horsman, University of Grenoble
Martti Karvonen, University of Edinburgh
Kohei Kishida, Dalhousie University (chair)
Aleks Kissinger, Radboud University Nijmegen
Andre Kornell, University of California, Davis
Martha Lewis, University of Amsterdam
Samuel Mimram, École Polytechnique
Benjamin Musto, University of Oxford
Nina Otter, University of California, Los Angeles
Simona Paoli, University of Leicester
Dorette Pronk, Dalhousie University
Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh, Queen Mary
Pawel Sobocinski, University of Southampton
Joshua Tan, University of Oxford
Sean Tull, University of Oxford
Dominic Verdon, University of Bristol
Jamie Vicary, University of Birmingham and University of Oxford
Maaike Zwart, University of Oxford