Overview

Focus

Helsinki February Workshop is an invite-only research workshop on the theory of distributed computing. We will focus on distributed graph algorithms, broadly interpreted. The field has been progressing very rapidly in the past couple of years, and among the main goals of the workshop will be:

• sharing information on the recently discovered techniques,
• finding out what are the possibilities and limitations of these new tools,
• identifying where precisely is the current boundary between known and unknown, and
• ideally, pushing the boundary at least a little bit further.

We will aim at doing new research, not just presenting old work.

Organisers

The event is organised by the Distributed Algorithms group at Aalto University; the contact person is Jukka Suomela.

The workshop is sponsored by Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, a joint research institute of Aalto University and the University of Helsinki.

Participants

• Saeed Akhoondian Amiri · Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik
• Alkida Balliu · Aalto
• Sebastian Brandt · ETH Zurich
• Yuval Emek · Technion
• Laurent Feuilloley · University Paris Diderot
• Manuela Fischer · ETH Zurich
• Mohsen Ghaffari · ETH Zurich
• Juho Hirvonen · University Paris Diderot
• Barbara Keller · AdNovum Informatik AG
• Janne H. Korhonen · Aalto
• Fabian Kuhn · University of Freiburg
• Tuomo Lempiäinen · Aalto
• Christoph Lenzen · Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik
• Yannic Maus · University of Freiburg
• Dennis Olivetti · Aalto
• Mikaël Rabie · Aalto
• Joel Rybicki · IST Austria
• Jukka Suomela · Aalto
• Jara Uitto · ETH Zurich
• Ben Wiederhake · Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik

Fees

There is no registration fee. With the help of our sponsor, we will try to provide lunch and coffee, but the participants are expected to cover their own travel expenses.

Communication

We will use the following Slack workspace for instant messaging and announcements: feb2018.slack.com. All participants will receive invitations to this workspace.

Workshop activities

We will try to start each day with some short presentations and discussions among all workshop participants. We will then go for lunch together, and after lunch we will continue discussions in smaller groups.

While we have planned some activities in advance, we are very flexible; feel free to do whatever makes most sense to you! You are encouraged to use the Slack forum to e.g. coordinate meetings.

Short presentations

All participants should prepare a short talk that, ideally, follows this format:

• A brief introduction to a big open question related to your own research interests. This can be somewhat open-ended and vague.
  • Example: Understanding why we have not been able to design algorithms that find a maximal independent set in o(Δ) + O(log* n) rounds in the LOCAL model?
• One or more concrete, simplified problems that seems to be just slightly outside the reach of our current techniques. This would be ideally something that is precise, concrete, and easy to explain – and maybe a bit surprising that such a seemingly simple question is still open.
  • Example: Can you find a maximal matching in o(d) rounds in d-regular bipartite graphs in the port-numbering model? In O(1) rounds?
• A brief explanation of why the current techniques do not seem to apply here, what has been already tried, and what is your conjecture.

The presentation itself should be short (say, 15 min), but we can use much more time after the talk for discussions. Presentation slides are not necessary; you can also give a whiteboard talk.

Guest lectures

There will also be longer guest lectures aimed at the general CS or TCS audience, in the lecture series of our department, and in Helsinki Algorithms Seminar.

Schedule

Dates

The workshop starts on Monday, 26 February 2018, and ends on Friday, 2 March 2018.

Daily schedule

A rough plan of our typical daily schedule is as follows:

• 9.00am: short presentations, discussions with all participants (coffee/tea available)
  • Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: room T4
  • Tuesday: room T5
• 12.30pm: lunch – we will try out various restaurants in our campus:
  • Monday: Fat Lizard
  • Tuesday: Dipoli
  • Wednesday: Innopoli
  • Thursday: Metropol
  • Friday: Fat Lizard
• 2.00pm: research meetings in smaller groups

Key events

• Monday, 9.00am: Opening, room T4
• Tuesday, 7.00pm: Dinner, restaurant Bryggeri (in Helsinki city centre)
• Thursday, 2.15pm–3.00pm: CS Forum talk, room T3
  • Christoph Lenzen: Hazard-free Circuits
• Thursday, 4.15pm–5.00pm: Helsinki Algorithms Seminar, room T5
  • Fabian Kuhn: On the Role of Randomization in Local Distributed Graph Algorithms

Venue

Local information

See information for our visitors for hotel suggestions, information on local transportation and tickets, etc. Please ask us (e.g. on our Slack forum) if you need any help!

Building

The workshop is organised at Aalto University, in our building (Computer Science building); the street address is Konemiehentie 2, 02150 Espoo, Finland. Our building is a 2-minute walk from the metro station “Aalto University” — at the metro station, follow signs for “Tietotie” exit.

Rooms

We will meet in these rooms:

• T4: seminar room · 2nd floor, left side
• T3: seminar room · 2nd floor, left side
• T5: seminar room · 1st floor (ground floor), left side
• A142: large meeting room · 1st floor (ground floor), left side
• A346: large meeting room · 3rd floor, left side
• B337: small meeting room · 3rd floor, right side

These rooms are reserved for us as follows:

You are also welcome to use the following rooms whenever they are available:

• A324: office (two seats, reserved for us) · 3rd floor, left side
• B312: ad-hoc meeting room · 3rd floor, right side
• B317: coffee room · 3rd floor, right side
• B314: office of Janne Korhonen & Dennis Olivetti · 3rd floor, right side
• B325: office of Alkida Balliu & Mikaël Rabie · 3rd floor, right side

Just ask us if you need e.g. a quiet space for Skype calls.