Logic in Computer Science (LICS)
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| Logic in Computer Science (LICS) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Logic in Computer Science (LICS) |
| Discipline | Computer science; Mathematics |
| Abbreviation | LICS |
| Founded | 1986 |
| Frequency | Annual |
| Organizer | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) |
Logic in Computer Science (LICS) is a research area and annual international conference that brings together scholars from Alonzo Church, Alan Turing, Kurt Gödel–inspired traditions and communities such as Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS), International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). It emphasizes formal reasoning about computation and the use of deductive techniques developed by researchers associated with Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of Cambridge and École Normale Supérieure. The field crosses boundaries with work from John von Neumann, Alfred Tarski, Saul Kripke, Dana Scott and contemporary groups at institutions including Carnegie Mellon University, University of California, Berkeley, Oxford University and University of Toronto.
History and scope
LICS emerged from interactions among pioneers such as Alonzo Church, Alan Turing, Kurt Gödel, Alfred Tarski, and Alfred North Whitehead and was institutionalized through events and societies like ACM SIGPLAN, IEEE Computer Society and the EATCS. Early developments trace to seminars at Princeton University, Harvard University, University of Chicago and research programs at Bell Labs, IBM Research and Microsoft Research. The scope includes foundational results associated with Gödel's incompleteness theorems, Church–Turing thesis, Post correspondence problem and interactions with schools led by Dana Scott, Saul Kripke and Per Martin-Löf. Funding and coordination have involved agencies such as National Science Foundation (NSF), European Research Council (ERC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and collaborations with industry labs like Google Research and Amazon Web Services.
Core areas and topics
Core topics interweave work from Model theory, Proof theory, Category theory, Automata theory, Lambda calculus, Temporal logic, Modal logic, Fixed-point logics, Hoare logic, Separation logic and Game semantics. Researchers draw on traditions associated with Bertrand Russell, David Hilbert, Emil Post, Stephen Kleene, Raymond Smullyan, Michael Rabin, Dana Scott and Haskell Curry. Subareas include Descriptive complexity, Monadic second-order logic, Finite model theory, Process algebra, Coalgebra, Linear logic and Dependent type theory with contributions influenced by groups at ENS Lyon, University of Warsaw, University of Edinburgh, Université Paris-Saclay and Nagoya University.
Formal methods and verification
Formal methods research within LICS centers on specification, model checking and deductive verification, connecting influential results from Edsger Dijkstra, Tony Hoare, Zohar Manna, Zohar Manna and Amir Pnueli and Robert Milner. Techniques include Temporal logic model checking, SAT solving, SMT solving, Automated theorem proving, Interactive theorem proving and proof assistants such as Coq, Isabelle, HOL Light, Lean and Agda. Verification projects have institutional roots at NASA, European Space Agency, DARPA, Intel, ARM Holdings, Microsoft Research and Bell Labs, and tie to standards and awards like the Turing Award and prizes funded by Simons Foundation and Wellcome Trust.
Computational complexity and decidability
Decidability and complexity in the LICS tradition relate to classical problems studied by Stephen Cook, Leonid Levin, Richard Karp, Joan Boyar and Juraj Hromkovič. Topics include the complexity of logical theories, lower and upper bounds for satisfiability and validity, classification results from Post, Büchi automata, Monadic second-order logic on trees, Descriptive complexity theory connecting to Immerman–Vardi theorem, completeness results like NP-completeness and classes such as PSPACE, EXPTIME, NLOGSPACE and AC^0. Landmark decidability results trace to work by Alfred Tarski on real closed fields, Buchi on ω-automata, and later hardness proofs by researchers at University of California, Berkeley, Cornell University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and École Polytechnique.
Logic in programming languages and type theory
The interaction of logic and programming languages emanates from correspondences such as the Curry–Howard correspondence, and continues through foundational frameworks by Robin Milner, Gordon Plotkin, Philip Wadler, Simon Peyton Jones and Per Martin-Löf. Type systems, dependent types, polymorphism and effect systems are developed in environments tied to Cambridge University, University of Edinburgh, Microsoft Research Cambridge, Chalmers University of Technology and Tokyo Institute of Technology. Formalizations appear in languages and tools like Haskell (programming language), ML (programming language), OCaml, Rust (programming language), Scala (programming language), Coq, Agda and Idris (programming language).
Conferences, publications, and community
The community convenes at annual venues and workshops supported by ACM, IEEE, EATCS, IFIP and regional groups like SIGLOG. Major conferences and journals interacting with LICS include POPL, ICFP, CSL, CADE, IJCAR, CAV, CONCUR, ICALP, STOC, FOCS, Journal of the ACM, SIAM Journal on Computing, Information and Computation and Theoretical Computer Science. Influential research groups and labs linked to the community operate at University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, INRIA, CNRS and private labs at Google DeepMind, Facebook AI Research and IBM Research.
Applications and impact on industry
LICS-influenced technologies underpin advances in cryptography deployments by teams at RSA Security, IBM, Google, National Security Agency (NSA), and verification tools used by Intel, ARM Holdings, Siemens, Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Siemens AG. Applications include safe compilers (influenced by CompCert work), hardware verification at ARM, protocol verification in industry consortia such as IETF, and programming language design at companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon Web Services and Apple Inc.. The field also informs standards, regulatory assessments and collaborations with funding bodies including DARPA, NSF and ERC.