INESC-ID researchers awarded ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper
A joint team of researchers including INESC-ID researchers Vasco Manquinho and Pedro Orvalho will receive an ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award for their work on a new analysis engine for the popular Alloy modeling language.
The paper “AlloyMax: Bringing Maximum Satisfaction to Relational Specifications” has been chosen to receive an ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at upcoming ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE 2021).
The team of authors is composed by Changjian Zhang (CMU), Ryan Wagner (CMU), Pedro Orvalho (INESC-ID/IST, Universidade de Lisboa), David Garlan (CMU), Vasco Manquinho (INESC-ID/IST, Universidade de Lisboa), Ruben Martins (CMU), and Eunsuk Kang (CMU).
Distinguished papers are given to at most 10% of the papers accepted at an ACM SIGSOFT-sponsored conference. The winners were chosen by the program co-chairs from those papers that had either a nomination for distinguished paper award, or at least two accept scores and no negative scores. In total eight papers were recognized this year.
“The Alloy language is widely used in software engineering for verification, automatic generation of test cases, or security analysis. Considering that the software is currently pervasive on any device we use, some defects can result in serious failures in the operation and safety of the devices”, mentioned Vasco Manquinho.
The work, in collaboration with the CMU team, extends the Alloy modeling language to enable the generation of optimal solutions according to a given optimization criterion. For example, it enables to obtain solutions that maximize the performance or security of systems. The INESC-ID research team has a long-term collaboration with Prof. Rúben Martins (CMU) in the development of new optimization algorithms using computational logic.
“This distinction is important because it allows greater visibility to our work in the field of computational logic. Reality is demonstrating the importance of this area in numerous engineering contexts”, adds the INESC-ID researcher.
Upcoming Events
NII International Internship Programme Presentation and Q&A by Emmanuel Planas
On April 30, Emmanuel Planas, the acting director of the Global Liaison Office (GLO) and responsible for the internationalisation program at the National Institute of Informatics (NII) in Tokyo, Japan, will give a presentation to introduce the NII and its internship program to INESC-ID students and IST’s Master’s in Computer Science students.
Date & Time: April 30, 14h00
Where: Sala Polivalente, Técnico – Taguspark
“The NII International Internship Program is an exchange activity with students from institutions with which NII has concluded a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreement. This incentive program aims at giving interns the opportunity for professional and personal development by engaging in research activities under the guidance and supervision of NII researchers.
The NII Internship Program is open to Research Master’s and PhD students who are currently enrolled at one of the partner institutions that have signed an MOU agreement with NII.”
Educational Workshop on Responsible AI for Peace and Security (UNODA)
On June 6 and 7, The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) are offering a selected group of technical students the opportunity to join a 2-day educational workshop on Responsible AI for peace and security.
The third workshop in the series will be held in Porto Salvo, Portugal, in collaboration with GAIPS, INESC-ID, and Instituto Superior Técnico. The workshop is open to students affiliated with universities in Europe, Central and South America, the Middle East and Africa, Oceania, and Asia.
Date & Time: June 6 a 7
Where: IST – Tagus Park, Porto Salvo
Registration deadline: April 8
Summary: “As with the impacts of Artificial intelligence (AI) on people’s day-to-day lives, the impacts for international peace and security include wide-ranging and significant opportunities and challenges. AI can help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but its dual-use nature means that peaceful applications can also be misused for harmful purposes such as political disinformation, cyberattacks, terrorism, or military operations. Meanwhile, those researching and developing AI in the civilian sector remain too often unaware of the risks that the misuse of civilian AI technology may pose to international peace and security and unsure about the role they can play in addressing them. Against this background, UNODA and SIPRI launched, in 2023, a three-year educational initiative on Promoting Responsible Innovation in AI for Peace and Security. The initiative, which is supported by the Council of the European Union, aims to support greater engagement of the civilian AI community in mitigating the unintended consequences of civilian AI research and innovation for peace and security. As part of that initiative, SIPRI and UNODA are organising a series of capacity building workshops for STEM students (at PhD and Master levels). These workshops aim to provide the opportunity for up-and-coming AI practitioners to work together and with experts to learn about a) how peaceful AI research and innovation may generate risks for international peace and security; b) how they could help prevent or mitigate those risks through responsible research and innovation; c) how they could support the promotion of responsible AI for peace and security.”