Are you curious about entrepreneurship but do not have a concrete startup idea yet? Or do you believe your research can be transformed into a business case but you don’t know where to start? Entrepreneurship in Data Science is an intensive two-day program that will allow you to experience all the challenging aspects of starting a company. Learn how to launch your own venture by joining interactive lectures, taking part in workshops by top science and business experts and listening to real-life stories from startup founders.

Are you curious about entrepreneurship but do not have a concrete startup idea yet? Or do you believe your research can be transformed into a business case but you don’t know where to start? Entrepreneurship in Data Science is an intensive two-day program that will allow you to experience all the challenging aspects of starting a company. Learn how to launch your own venture by joining interactive lectures, taking part in workshops by top science and business experts and listening to real-life stories from startup founders.

In this seminar, we address some substantial semantic debates, such as the debate between Tanya Reinhart & Tal Siloni and Edit Doron & Malka Rappaport Hovav on the meaning of clitics like SI and SE in Romance languages. Does a sentence like “Gianni e Maria si sposano” (=G. and M. get married) get interpreted the way it is due to a special syntactic operator (R&S) or due to a pronominal interpretation of “si” like the expression “each other” in English (D&RH)?

The purpose of this talk is to introduce the notion of a path category (short for a category with path objects). Like other notions from homotopical algebra, such as a category of fibrant objects or a Quillen model structure, it provides a setting in which one can develop some homotopy theory. For a logician this type of category is interesting because it provides a setting in which many of the key concepts of homotopy type theory (HoTT) make sense. Indeed, path categories provide a syntax-free way of entering the world of HoTT, and familiarity with (the syntax of) type theory will not be assumed in this talk. Instead, I will concentrate on basic examples and results. (This is partly based on joint work with Ieke Moerdijk.)

This paper is intended to offer a philosophical analysis of the propositional intuitionistic logic formulated as NJ. This system has been connected to Prawitz and Dummett’s proof-theoretic semantics and its computational counterpart. The problem is, however, there has been no successful justification of ex falso quodlibet (EFQ): “From the absurdity ‘⊥’, an arbitrary formula follows.” To justify this rule, we propose a novel intuitionistic natural deduction with what we call quasi-multiple conclusion. In our framework, EFQ is no longer an inference deriving everything from ‘⊥’, but rather represents a “jump” inference from the absurdity to the other possibility. The paper is joint work with Yosuke Fukuda.

Recent progress in building quantum computers leads to new opportunities for cryptography, but also endangers existing cryptographic schemes. A large-scale quantum computer will be able to factor large integer numbers, thereby breaking the security of currently used public-key cryptography. The research area of “post-quantum cryptography” investigates the possibilities for replacing currently used classical (i.e. non quantum) systems with quantum-proof variants. On the other hand, quantum mechanics offers a way to communicate with information-theoretic security (which is provably impossible in the classical world). The Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocol invented in 1984 by Bennett and Brassard allows two players, Alice and Bob, to securely communicate over an insecure line which is eavesdropped on by Eve. In this talk, I will cover various aspects of the fascinating field of quantum cryptographic research as well as some related political and logical questions.

Speakers: Sacha Kapoor, Giacomo Ponzetto, Stephane Wolton

In 1966 Grätzer introduced the notion of transferability for finite lattices. A finite lattice L is transferable if whenever L has an embedding into the ideal completion of a lattice K, then L already has an embedding into K. In this talk we will introduce the analogous notion of MacNeille transferability, replacing the ideal completion with the MacNeille completion. We will pay particular attention to MacNeille transferability of finite distributive lattices with respect to the class of Heyting algebras. This will also allow us to find universal classes of Heyting algebras closed under MacNeille completions.

This is joint work with G. Bezhanishvili, J. Harding, and J. Ilin.

The main aim of deontic logic is to come up with a logical system suitable to capture normative concepts (like those of prescription and permission), but it seems clear that these normative concepts should also be somehow connected with norms and normative systems. However, the last sixty years of research has shown that the way to formulate a satisfactory logic of norms can be pretty tortuous. To mention some of the most serious issues, how can we account for the fact that norms direct rather than describe? How can we represent norms as consisting of prescriptions in conditional rather than categorical form? Can we model the fact that only enforced norms are sources of obligation? Is there a relation between norms and ideality?

In this talk, I will introduce these fundamental problems and present a new logic of norms designed to address them. I will conclude by showing how this new system can be used to overcome the well-known paradox of contrary to duty obligations. Snacks and drinks will be provided in the ILLC common room after the talk!