clarke@csri.toronto.edu (Jim Clarke) (11/19/88)
(RS = Rosebrugh Building, 8 Taddle Creek Road) (SF = Sandford Fleming Building, 10 King's College Road) (GB = Galbraith Building, 35 St. George Street) SUMMARY: THEORY SEMINARS: Monday, December 5, 10 a.m. in RS 208 Tuesday, December 6, 3 p.m. in SF 1013 Thursday, December 8, 3 p.m. in GB 221 -- Michael Sipser: "Applying the Infinite in Complexity Theory" COLLOQUIUM - Tuesday, December 6, 11 a.m. in SF 1105 -- Matthias Jarke: "Database Support for Case" ----------------------- THEORY SEMINARS - AN ITRC VISIT Monday, December 5, 10 a.m. in RS 208 Tuesday, December 6, 3 p.m. in SF 1013 Thursday, December 8, 3 p.m. in GB 221 Michael Sipser Math Dept., MIT "Applying the Infinite in Complexity Theory" Problems in complexity theory often concern the asymptotic behavior of fin- ite objects as their size grows. Sometimes we may be able to gain insight into this behavior by examining limiting objects of infinite size. In these talks we will present two applications of this idea. I. Analytic sets as an analog to NP It is easily seen that the NP sets are given by nondeterministic depth two circuits of polynomial size. If we take instead circuits of countably infinite size, the we get what are commonly called the Ana- lytic sets. We will give a new combinatorial proof of the classical theorem that the Analytic sets are not closed under complement. This proof may suggest a way to pursue the NP =? co-NP problem. II. The Gabber-Galil explicit construction of expander graphs. Expanders are a type of graph with numerous applications. It is easy to see that they exist using a probabilistic argument. A number of people have given explicit constructions for these graphs, generally using sophisticated methods. The method of Gabber-Galil is to first give a explicit construction of a type of infinite expander graph and then use this to get a construction for finite graphs. We will give a self-contained, accessible presentation of their proof. (In addition to the above three formal seminars, there will also be infor- mal discussions. Please let Professor Borodin know if you wish to meet with Professor Sipser.) COLLOQUIUM - Tuesday, December 6, 11 a.m. in SF 1105 Matthias Jarke University of Passau, W. Germany "Database Support for Case" CASE tools are being developed for all phases of the software life cycle, ranging from problem conception to system usage and maintenance support. It is not clear, however, how these tools can be brought to bear effec- tively in an integrated development environment, nor what kind of knowledge about software documents, software processes, tools, developers and users is required for such an environment, especially when dealing with very large systems. Although this looks like a natural application for database technology, there are good reasons why the majority of CASE environments are still working with file systems. The database community has responded to this challenge with several efforts to extend database semantics and functionality with object-oriented and rule-based mechanisms to handle software-specific issues such as teamwork, version, and configuration con- trol. The talk describes some of these efforts and argues for a semantic data model of information systems development processes, based on experi- ences in the DAIDA project. -- Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 (416) 978-4058 BITNET,CSNET: clarke@csri.toronto.edu CDNNET: clarke@csri.toronto.cdn UUCP: {allegra,cornell,decvax,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!clarke