RAND-APX Thematic Network: Edinburgh Site
Overview
Most computational tasks that arise in realistic scenarios are intractable,
at least if one insists on exact solutions delivered with certainty
within a strict deadline.
Nevertheless, necessity dictates that acceptable solutions of some
kind must be found.
Two means for circumventing the intractability barrier are:
randomized computation, where the answer is required to be optimal
with high probability but not with certainty,
and approximate computation, where the answer
is guaranteed to be within, say, 5% of optimality.
RAND-APX
("Randomized and Approximate Computation")
is a Thematic Network funded under the European IST Programme,
with sites
in Bonn, Edinburgh, Leeds, Lund,
Oxford,
Paris,
and the Weizmann Institute, Rehovot.
Its aim is to promote research in foundational aspects
of randomized and approximate computation.
The RAND-APX members associated with the Edinburgh site
are
Mary Cryan
(publications),
Leslie Goldberg
(publications),
and
Mark Jerrum
(publications).
Recent workshops
-
The
first workshop
of the RAND-APX Thematic Network was held at the
International Centre
for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS)
at Edinburgh from Sunday 17th to Tuesday 19th September 2000.
The workshop took place at the ICMS's headquarters at 14 India Street,
Edinburgh. Its special theme was "statistical physics".
A report of the meeting
has been published in the EATCS Bulletin.
-
The second workshop
was held at
Schloß Dagstuhl
during the week Monday 4th to Friday 8th June.
A report of
the meeting has been published by the IBFI.
-
The third workshop was in Paris, from 3rd to 5th April 2002.
Forthcoming workshop
The next meeting is in
Oxford, from
Wednesday 10 December to Friday 12 December 2003.
``Missions''
Mark Jerrum
Last modified: Mon Dec 1 19:03:48 GMT 2003