The LogiCS doctoral program is a PhD degree program funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF and run jointly by the three Austrian universities Vienna University of Technology, Graz University of Technology and Johannes Kepler University Linz. This program is aimed at highly motivated students who want to work in one of three fundamental fields of computer science:
Logic is a powerful reasoning tool. Originally invented as an aid for sound argumentation, it reached maturity in the form of mathematical logic and analytic philosophy in the early 20th century, with significant contributions from Vienna. We continue this tradition, using logic as a tool that enables computer programs to reason about the world. These reasoning tasks allow a natural classification into two broad areas: In Databases and Artificial Intelligence, logic is used to model, store, analyze and predict information about the outside world including the Internet. In Verification, logic is used to model, analyze and construct computer programs themselves. The logical and algorithmic questions which underlie both application areas are studied in the area of Computational Logic. In the LogiCS curriculum, all three directions are prominently represented:
- Databases and Artificial Intelligence spans a large number of subjects including Answer-Set Programming and Datalog, query languages based on logical concepts (such as SQL, current XML-based languages), optimization of queries, novel database-theoretical methods (like schema mappings, information integration, querying ontologies), logic programming, knowledge representation and reasoning (belief change, abductive reasoning, multi-context systems, inconsistency handling, incomplete knowledge, diagnosis), and AI formalisms (argumentation, planning, preferential reasoning, decision support systems).
- Verification is concerned with logical methods and automated tools for reasoning about the behavior and correctness of complex state-based systems such as software and hardware designs as well as hybrid systems. It ranges from model checking, program analysis and abstraction to new interdisciplinary areas such as fault localization, program repair, program synthesis, and the analysis of biological systems.
- Computational Logic covers theoretical and mathematical foundations such as proof theory (cut elimination, proof mining, interpolants), automated deduction (resolution, refutation, theorem proving), non-classical logics (multi-valued logics, juridical reasoning, deontic logics, modal and temporal logics), computational complexity (complexity analysis, parameterized complexity, decomposition methods) and constraint satisfaction (SAT, QSAT, CSP).
Further details:
http://logic-cs.at