From MAILER-DAEMON Wed Jan 17 11:45:49 2007 Date: 17 Jan 2007 11:45:49 -0400 From: Mail System Internal Data Subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA Message-ID: <1169048749@mta.ca> X-IMAP: 1164936148 0000000062 Status: RO This text is part of the internal format of your mail folder, and is not a real message. It is created automatically by the mail system software. If deleted, important folder data will be lost, and it will be re-created with the data reset to initial values. From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Nov 30 21:20:14 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:20:14 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gpwxe-0004SM-Nd for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:13:06 -0400 Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 00:21:34 +0100 (CET) To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: PSSL 85 in Nice - first announcement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: From: cat-dist@mta.ca Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 1 PSSL 85 in Nice - first announcement It is proposed to hold the 85th meeting of the Peripatetic Seminar on Sheaves and Logic in Nice during the weekend of 24/25 March 2007. We expect to have some money available to support students' and postdocs' attendance at the conference. If you are interested please write to Eugenia Cheng. For those unfamiliar with PSSLs, they are a long-running series of meetings, usually held on a weekend at a university somewhere in Europe. They are fairly informal, and presentations of work in progress are quite acceptable. The name is a (charming) historical relic: talks cover all aspects of category theory, not just sheaves and logic. Further details of the arrangements will be announced by early February and posted at the following website: http://math.unice.fr/~eugenia/pssl85 . In the meantime if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. Regards, Eugenia Cheng --- Universite de Nice Sophia-Antipolis eugenia@math.unice.fr http://math.unice.fr/~eugenia From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Dec 2 10:03:37 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sat, 02 Dec 2006 10:03:37 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GqVIV-0001Jn-Ol for categories-list@mta.ca; Sat, 02 Dec 2006 09:52:55 -0400 To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Kurt G=F6del Centenary research Prize Fellowships From: goedel2006@logic.at Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 10:19:43 +0100 Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 2 KURT G=D6DEL CENTENARY RESEARCH PRIZE FELLOWSHIPS (Organized by the Kurt G=F6del Society with support from the John Templeton= Foundation) The Kurt G=F6del Society is proud to announce the commencement of the resea= rch fellowship prize program in honor and celebration of Kurt G=F6del's 100th birthday. The research fellowship prize program sponsored by the John Templeton Found= ation will offer: two Ph.D. (pre-doctoral) fellowships of $60,000 US per annum for two years two post-doctoral fellowships of $ 80,000 US per annum for two years one senior fellowship of $120,000 US per annum for one year The purpose of the fellowship is to support original research in mathematic= al logic, =93meta-mathematics,=94 philosophy of mathematical logic, and the foundations of mathematics. This = fellowship is to carry forward the legacy of G=F6del, whose works exemplify deep insights and breakthrough discoveries in mathema= tical logic. The selection will be made based upon an open, international competition. An international Board of Jurors chaired by Professor Harvey Friedman will = oversee the process. The finalist papers will be published in a special issue of a premier journ= al in mathematical logic. Web:http://kgs.logic.at/goedel-fellowship Contact: goedel-fellowship@logic.at Goal and Criteria of Merit: In pursuit of similar insights and discoveries, we adopt the following criteria of merit for evaluating Fe= llowship applications: 1. Intellectual merit, scientific rigor and originality of the submitted pa= per and work plan. The paper should combine visionary thinking with academic excellence. 2. Potential for significant contribution to basic foundational understandi= ng of logic and the likelihood for opening new, fruitful lines of inquiry. 3. Impact of the grant on the project and likelihood that the grant will ma= ke this new line of research possible. 4. The probability that the pursuit of this line of research is realistic a= nd feasible for the applicant. 5. Qualifications of the applicants evaluated via CV and recommendation let= ters* (*recommendation letters are not required for senior applications). Scopes: Original fellowship proposals from all fields of mathematical logic (such as Computability Theory, Model Theory, Proof Theory, Set Theory), meta-mathematics, the philosophy of mathematics, and the foundations of mathematics insofar a= s the research has strong relevance or resemblance to the G=F6delian insights and original= ity. Preliminary Timeline December 1, 2006. Announcement June 15, 2007. Submissions deadline October 2007. Jury decision due on papers to be publi= shed December 15, 2007. Final versions due January 2008. Jury decision on winners due February 2008. Award Ceremony Mar.-Sept.2008. Commencement of the Fellowships From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Dec 4 20:48:31 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Mon, 04 Dec 2006 20:48:31 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GrOMg-0002hf-1b for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 04 Dec 2006 20:40:54 -0400 To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: TLCA'07 - Second Call for Papers Date: Mon, 04 Dec 2006 10:26:51 +0900 From: Hasegawa Masahito Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 3 Second Call for Papers Eighth International Conference on Typed Lambda Calculi and Applications (TLCA '07) Paris, June 26-28, 2007 http://www.rdp07.org/tlca.html http://www.lsv.ens-cachan.fr/rdp07/tlca.html Part of Federated Conference on Rewriting, Deduction, and Programming (RDP'07) ** Title and abstract due 22 December 2006 ** ** Deadline for submission 2 January 2006 *** The TLCA series of conferences serves as a forum for presenting original research results that are broadly relevant to the theory and applications of typed calculi. The following list of topics is non-exhaustive: * Proof-theory: Natural deduction and sequent calculi, cut elimination and normalisation, linear logic and proof nets, type-theoretic aspects of computational complexity * Semantics: Denotational semantics, game semantics, realisability, categorical models * Implementation: Abstract machines, parallel execution, optimal reduction, type systems for program optimisation * Types: Subtypes, dependent types, type inference, polymorphism, types in theorem proving * Programming: Foundational aspects of functional and object-oriented programming, proof search and logic programming, connections between and combinations of functional and logic programming, type checking The programme of TLCA'07 will consist of three invited talks and about 25 papers selected from original contributions. Accepted papers will be published as a volume of Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/index.html). Invited Speakers and Special Events: ------------------------------------ There will be invited talks by * Patrick Baillot (CNRS, University Paris 13) * Greg Morrisett (Harvard University) * Frank Pfenning (Carnegie Mellon University), joint with RTA An evening session will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the lambda calculus: * Henk Barendregt (Nijmegen University): Diamond Anniversary of Lambda Calculus Submissions: ------------ The submitted papers should describe original work and should allow the Programme Committee to assess the merits of the contribution. In particular references and comparisons with related work should be included. Submission of material already published or submitted to other conferences with published proceedings is not allowed. Papers should not exceed 15 pages in Springer LNCS format (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html). Instructions for online submissions are found at the conference webpage (http://www.rdp07.org/tlca.html). Important Dates: ---------------- December 22 Title and abstract due January 2 Deadline for submission March 10-15 Author review period March 25 Notification of acceptance-rejection April 20 Deadline for the final version TLCA'07 Program Committee: -------------------------- Chantal Berline (CNRS, France) Peter Dybjer (Chalmers, Sweden) Healfdene Goguen (Google, USA) Robert Harper (Carnegie Mellon University, USA) Olivier Laurent (CNRS, France) Simone Martini (University of Bologna, Italy) Simona Ronchi Della Rocca (University of Torino, Italy), chair Peter Selinger (University of Dalhousie, Canada) Paula Severi (University of Leicester, UK) Kazushige Terui (University of Sokendai, Japan) Pawel Urzyczyn (University of Warsaw, Poland) TLCA Steering Committe: ----------------------- Samson Abramsky, Oxford, chair Henk Barendregt, Nijmegen Mariangiola Dezani-Ciancaglini, Turin Roger Hindley, Swansea Martin Hofmann, Munich Pawel Urzyczyn, Warsaw TLCA Publicity Chair: --------------------- Masahito Hasegawa, Kyoto From rrosebru@mta.ca Wed Dec 6 21:42:11 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:42:11 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gs87b-0004Zf-PL for categories-list@mta.ca; Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:32:23 -0400 From: Michael Mislove Subject: categories: MFPS 23 Final Call for Submissions Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 15:24:34 -0600 To: categories@mta.ca Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 4 Dear Colleagues, This is the Final Call for Papers for MFPS 23. The deadlines for submissions are: Friday, December 15 for titles and short abstracts, and Friday, December 22 for full submissions Submissions can be made by first directing your browser to the EasyChair submission page http://www.easychair.org/MFPSXXIII/ MFPS 23 will take place on the campus of Tulane University in New Orleans, LA USA from April 11, through April 14, 2006. The meeting will feature plenary talks by Steven Brookes, Jane Hillston, John Mitchell, Gordon Plotkin and John Power. There also will be four special sessions. A feature of this year's meeting will be a special session honoring Gordon Plotkin on his 60th birthday year. The remaining special sessions will be devoted to Systems Biology, to Security and to Physics, Information and Quantum Computation. Full details about the meeting can be found at the MFPS 23 home page http://www.math.tulane.edu/~mfps/mfps23.htm Best regards, Mike Mislove =============================================== Professor Michael Mislove Phone: +1 504 862-3441 Department of Mathematics FAX: +1 504 865-5063 Tulane University URL: http://www.math.tulane.edu/~mwm New Orleans, LA 70118 USA =============================================== From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Dec 7 19:40:08 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:40:08 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GsSlD-0003AI-O3 for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:34:39 -0400 To: jonathan.cohen@anu.edu.au Subject: categories: USMC'07 - Call for talks and participation From: Jon Cohen Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 14:45:58 +1100 Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 5 [Apologies for multiple copies] CALL FOR TALKS AND PARTICIPATION Universal Structures in Mathematics and Computing http://usmc07.rsise.anu.edu.au The Australian National University Canberra, Australia 5 - 7 February 2007 Aim: Starting from very different motivations, various groups of mathematicians and computer scientists have sought to describe abstract structures in great generality. This parallel evolutionary process has led to various groups of researchers working on highly interrelated areas, though unable to effectively communicate with each other due to vastly differing languages. This workshop aims to bring together researchers working in category theory, universal algebra, logic and their applications to computer science in order to highlight recent advances in these fields and to facilitate dialogue between the different camps. Of particular interest is work which spans two or more of these areas. Structure and Scope: The workshop will consist of several invited keynote talks as well as shorter contributed talks. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): * Operads and related structures * Higher dimensional categories * Coalgebras * Clones in universal algebra * Residuated lattices * Algebraic logic * Linear and other substructural logics * Higher dimensional automata * Concurrency theory * Domain theory * Type theory Keynote Speakers: * Brian Davey (La Trobe, Australia) * Rob Goldblatt (VUW, New Zealand) * Ross Street (Macquarie, Australia) * Glynn Winskel (Cambridge, UK) Talk submissions: We solicit talks on topics related to the themes and spirit of the workshop. We aim to facilitate all those who wish to speak at the workshop. Submission of talks can be made by email to Alwen Tiu (Alwen.Tiu@rsise.anu.edu.au) or Jon Cohen (Jonathan.Cohen@rsise.anu.edu.au). Registration: Registration for the workshop can be done online through the workshop website. The online registration will be opened on Friday, 15th December 2006 until 2nd February 2007. * Full registration: AU$ 55 (incl. GST) * Student registration: AU$ 35 (incl. GST) Important Dates and Information: * Deadline for registration: 2nd February 2007 * Deadline for talk titles and abstracts submission: 19th January 2007 * Workshop: 5 - 7 February 2007 Accommodation: A limited number of rooms have been reserved at University House (http://www.anu.edu.au/unihouse/) and Ursula College (http:// ursula.anu.edu.au/Ursula/12.html). Please quote the workshop name "USMC workshop" when reserving the rooms. In addition, there are many hotels and hostels for those wishing to arrange their own accommodation. Locations in the city centre as well as the suburbs of Turner and Braddon are within walking distance of the university. Details can be found at http://www.canberratourism.com.au/. Sponsors: The workshop is sponsored by the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) and National ICT Australia. Travel support: There are limited travel funds available to support students and early-career researchers from AMSI members. Applications of funds have to be made directly to AMSI. See http://www.amsi.org.au for details. Organising Committee: * Jonathan Cohen (ANU and NICTA) * Brian Davey (La Trobe) * Greg Restall (Melbourne) * Alwen Tiu (ANU and NICTA) Contact: * Jon Cohen (Jonathan.Cohen@rsise.anu.edu.au) * Alwen Tiu (Alwen.Tiu@rsise.anu.edu.au) From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Dec 7 19:40:08 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:40:08 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GsSnO-0003KT-7N for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:36:54 -0400 Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 15:21:31 +0200 (EET) Subject: categories: preprint announcement - related to Todd Wilson's question From: "Panagis Karazeris" To: categories@mta.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-7 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 6 Dear categorists, I would like to announce that the following preprint is available from my webpage www.math.upatras.gr/~pkarazer P. Karazeris and J. Velebil, Dense morphisms of monads. Abstract: Given an arbitrary locally finitely presentable category K and finitary monads T and S on K, we characterize monad morphisms \alpha : S --> T with the property that the induced functor \alpha _* : K^T --> K^S between the categories of Eilenberg-Moore algebras is fully faithful. We call such monad morphisms dense and give a characterization of them in the spirit of Beth’s definability theorem: \alpha is a dense monad morphism if and only if every T-operation is explicitly defined using S-operations. We also give a characterization in terms of epimorphic property of \alpha and clarify the connection between various notions of epimorphisms between monads. The above work bears some relation to the question posed by Todd Wilson on implicitly definable operations. The connection though with non-surjective epimorphisms is not pursued here. Best regards, Panagis Karazeris From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Dec 7 19:40:08 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:40:08 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GsSmU-0003GJ-Qp for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:35:58 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: Marco Grandis Subject: categories: Elsevier and weapons trade Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 09:47:43 +0100 To: categories@mta.ca Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 7 Dear colleagues, I happened to know now of a strange, seemingly incredible, connection =20= between the Elsevier publishing company and arms fairs. There is a dedicated web page: http://cage.ugent.be/~npg/elsevier/index.html Quoting from the beginning: " Background on Elsevier and the arms trade If you are an academic then you may well know the publishing house =20 Reed-Elsevier as a publisher of your papers. What you may not know is =20= that they also have a sideline organising arms fairs. Through its =20 subsidiary companies, Reed Exhibitions and Spearhead Exhibitions, =20 Reed Elsevier is responsible for organising major arms fairs in =20 several countries across the world, as well as here in the UK. The majority of Reed's work is in providing information services and =20 publications for a wide variety of professional groups whose work is =20 in the public interest. Consequently it is surprising that they would =20= want to muddy their good work by involvement in the arms trade. It =20 also means that they have received significant criticism from =20 professional groups who use their more legitimate services. " (end =20 of citation.) --- More information can be found on other links of the previous page. =20 For instance: http://cage.ugent.be/~npg/elsevier/Reedbackgrounder.pdf or reading the following letter from "Timesonline" (March 1, 2006), =20 signed also by JM Coetzee, a Nobel prize winner: http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25390-2064400,00.html --- The replies I have seen to all that seem to be of the following kind: [from the "Timesonline" article cited above] "Reed Exhibitions have =20 publicly insisted that =93the defence industry is central to the =20 preservation of freedom and national security=94. (end of citation.) I think that all scientists are concerned, in particular our group. With kind regards Marco Grandis From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Dec 7 19:40:08 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:40:08 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GsSpJ-0003Th-Rg for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:38:53 -0400 Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 17:31:09 +0100 (CET) Subject: categories: SAS 2007 Preliminary Call for Papers From: terkel@imm.dtu.dk To: categories@mta.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 8 Call for papers Static Analysis Symposium SAS 2007 22-24 August 2007, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark (co-located with LOPSTR 2007) url http://www.imm.dtu.dk/sas2007 email sas2007@imm.dtu.dk Static Analysis is increasingly recognized as a fundamental tool for high performance implementations and verification of programming languages and systems. The series of Static Analysis Symposia has served as the primary venue for presentation of theoretical, practical, and application advance= s in the area. The technical programme for SAS 2007 will consist of invited lectures, tutorials, panels, presentations of refereed papers, and software demonstrations. Contributions are welcome on all aspects of Static Analys= is, including, but not limited to: abstract domain abstract interpretation abstract testing compiler optimisations control flow analysis data flow analysis model checking program specialization security analysis theoretical analysis frameworks type based analysis verification systems Submissions can address any programming paradigm, including concurrent, constraint, functional, imperative, logic and object-oriented programming. Survey papers, that present some aspect of the above topics from a new perspective, and application papers, that describe experience with industrial applications, are also welcome. Papers must describe original work, be written and presented in English, and must not substantially overlap with papers that have been published, or that are simultaneously submitted to a journal or a conference with refereed proceedings. Submitted papers should be at most 15 pages formatted in LNCS style excluding bibliography and well-marked appendices not intended for publication). PC members are not required to read the appendices, and thu= s papers should be intelligible without them. The proceedings will be ublished by Springer-Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. Program Committee Agostino Cortesi (U. Venice, Italy) Patrick Cousot (ENS, France) Manuel Fahndrich (Microsoft, USA) Gilberto Fil=E9 (U. Padova, Italy, co-chair) Roberto Giacobazzi (U. Verona, Italy) Chris Hankin (Imperial College, UK) Manuel Hermenegildo (TU. Madrid, Spain) Jens Knoop (TU. Vienna, Austria) Naoki Kobayashi (Tohoku U., Japan) Julia Lawall (U. Copenhagen, Denmark) Hanne Riis Nielson (DTU, Denmark, co-chair) Andreas Podelski (U. Freiburg, Germany) Jakob Rehof (U. Dortmund, Germany) Radu Rugina (Cornell U., USA) Mooly Sagiv (Tel-Aviv U., Israel) Dave Schmidt (Kansas State U., USA) Helmut Seidl (TUM, Germany) Harald S=F8ndergaard (U. Melbourne, AU) Kwangkeun Yi (Seoul N. U., Korea) Organising committee Christian W. Probst Flemming Nielson Terkel K. Tolstrup Henrik Pilegaard Eva Bing Elsebeth Str=F8m Important dates Submission of abstract: March 26, 2007 Submission of full paper: March 30, 2007 Notification: May 7, 2007 Camera-ready version: June 4, 2007 Conference: August 22-24, 2007 --- Terkel K. Tolstrup Language-Based Technology Technical University of Denmark From rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Dec 8 09:37:29 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:37:29 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gsfnl-0003rV-5j for categories-list@mta.ca; Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:30:09 -0400 Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 12:13:32 +0100 From: Sun Meng MIME-Version: 1.0 To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: QAC'07 - 2nd call for papers Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 9 ******************************************************************************* 2nd Call for Papers 1st International Workshop on Quality Aspects of Coordination (QAC'07) June 4-5, 2007, Shanghai, China http://www.cwi.nl/qac07/ ******************************************************************************* Overview and Topics of Interest: Modeling, analysis, and ensuring end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) represent key concerns in large-scale distributed applications. Deregulation and increased competition in the telecommunications industry mean that, increasingly, providers use components and services offered by multiple vendors to compose such applications. This highlights the conspicuous absence of compositional models of QoS that reflect their underlying architecture of component/service composition. Connectors have emerged as a powerful concept for composition and coordination of concurrent activities encapsulated as components and services. Compositional coordination models and languages serve as a means to formally specify and implement component and service connectors. They support large-scale distributed applications by allowing construction of complex component connectors out of simpler ones. A promising approach to support compositional models of QoS involves augmenting connector models to reflect and account for the QoS properties of composed systems. This presents an emerging area of research with potential high impact. Dynamic changes in a distributed environment may lead to scarcity of resources (e.g., bandwidth, CPU cycles, and memory), and cause perceptible degradation of QoS of a running application. Offering performance guarantees to satisfy users' end-to-end QoS requirements raises additional challenges for component connectors. It involves monitoring fluctuations that can trigger such degradations, and escalating them to the proper architectural levels where actors can take counter-measures such as substitution of alternate components and services from other vendors. The aim of this workshop is to provide a forum for international experts to discuss issues related to coordination and compositional models of connectors with QoS guarantees in large-scale distributed systems. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * Compositional QoS models * Compositional models for connectors and coordination with QoS * Quantitative models for components and connectors * Relation between QoS in adjacent architectural layers * Modeling and analysis of trade-offs along different QoS dimensions * QoS issues in coordination of web services * Performance of middleware-based architectures * QoS-sensitive monitoring and adaptation mechanisms * Dynamic reconfiguration of systems and connectors * Quantitative model checking * Testing quantitative models * Experience with QoS in coordination (case studies) Submission and Proceedings Submissions to the workshop will be evaluated on the basis of originality, relevance, technical soundness and presentation quality. Papers should be written in English and not exceed 15 pages in ENTCS format. The workshop proceedings will be published in Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Elsevier, as post-proceedings; in addition, informal workshop proceedings will be handed out to participants during the workshop. Papers must be submitted in electronic form by email to M.Sun@cwi.nl. Submissions must not have been published or be concurrently considered for publication elsewhere. All submissions will be reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. The final version of the papers must be prepared in LaTeX, adhering to the ENTCS format instructions (see http://www.entcs.org/final.html). Note that within one or two days after submitting your paper, you will get a message from the program committee chair, confirming that your paper was received complete and printed fine. Should you need help with your submission, or should you have any questions, please contact Sun Meng at M.Sun@cwi.nl. Important Dates: * Paper submission deadline: February 16, 2007. * Acceptance notification: April 6, 2007. * Camera ready version due: May 4, 2007. * Workshop: June 4-5, 2007. Organization: The workshop is organised by CWI, Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Organising Committee: * Farhad Arbab, CWI, The Netherlands * David Clarke, CWI, The Netherlands * Sun Meng, CWI, The Netherlands (Chair) * Jan Rutten, CWI, The Netherlands * Naixiao Zhang, PKU and ECNU, China Program Committee: * Bernhard Aichernig, TU Graz, Austria * Farhad Arbab, CWI, The Netherlands (Co-Chair) * Christel Baier, University of Bonn, Germany * Luis S. Barbosa, University of Minho, Portugal * Marcello Bonsangue, LIACS-Leiden University, The Netherlands * Frank de Boer, CWI, The Netherlands * Manfred Broy, TU Munich, Germany * Tom Chothia, CWI, The Netherlands * Rocco De Nicola, Universita' di Firenze, Italy * Pu Geguang, ECNU, China * Mei Hong, Peking University, China * Dang Van Hung, UNU-IIST, Macao * Marta Kwiatkowska, University of Birmingham, UK * Zhiming Liu, UNU-IIST, Macao * Antonia Lopes, University of Lisbon, Portugal * Rob Van der Mei, CWI, The Netherlands * Sun Meng, CWI, The Netherlands (Co-Chair) * Ugo Montanari, University of Pisa, Italy * Jun Pang, University of Oldenburg, Germany * Jan Rutten, CWI, The Netherlands * Bernhard Schaetz, TU of Munich, Germany * Marjan Sirjani, Tehran University and IPM, Iran * Carolyn Talcott, SRI International, USA * Emilio Tuosto, University of Leicester, UK * Wang Yi, Uppsala University, Sweden Invited Speakers: * He Jifeng, ECNU, China * Kishor S. Trivedi, Duke University, USA From rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Dec 8 09:37:29 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:37:29 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GsfmP-0003lK-7e for categories-list@mta.ca; Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:28:45 -0400 Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 19:46:42 -0600 (CST) From: Gabor Lukacs To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Response to "Elsevier and weapons trade" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 10 [Note from moderator: as the poster points out, categories is not a forum for political discussion. Consequently, further messages on this topic received before Monday will be digested and posted then, closing the discussion.] Dear Colleagues, I am responding to the posting of Marco Grandis. I would like to express my heartfelt admiration to all those who raised their voice against Elsevier's involvement in the arms trade. I find it so noble that many scientists found time to express their outrage and protest. At the same time, I cannot help saying that I find the whole initiative childishly naive, and even somewhat hypocritical. Naive, because apparently, they believe that wars are because of the arms trade -- in other words, they seem to mistake the cause with the result. (If there were no wars, would there be any point in manufacturing weapons? Let me ask it clearer: Would it bring *profit* to manufacture arms in that case??) And I said hypocritical, because I do wonder where the same good souls were at the time of the invasion of Iraq, during the war in the Balkan, or what do they think about what is happening in Israel. I wonder if the same worried scientists who propose to boycott Reed-Elsevier have already signed the academic boycott against Israel, and would participate in a similar action against the US as a protest against its foreign policy. I am raising these issues not in order to generate a political discussion on a categories forum (which is definitely not the appropriate place for such a discussion), but rather to illuminate the disproportional nature of the suggestion action. It appears to me an overreaction, and directed against the wrong entity. With best wishes, Gabor Lukacs From rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Dec 8 19:22:41 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:22:41 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gsoz4-0002gY-FW for categories-list@mta.ca; Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:18:26 -0400 From: Tom Hirschowitz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 16:11:48 +0100 To: cat-dist@mta.ca Subject: categories: intensional higher-order logic Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 11 Dear all, Here is a probably easy question on categorical logic. If I understood correctly from Bart Jacobs' book [1], a topos, besides its elementary definitions, e.g., as a complete CCC with a subobject classifier, may be defined as a category whose subobject fibration is a higher-order fibration. Such subobject higher-order fibrations always have extensional entailment, in the sense that logical equivalence implies internal equality (which in HOL is necessarily Leibniz equality modulo iso). My question is twofold: (a) Is there an intensional equivalent to the notion of topos? In other words, is there a widely accepted categorical, elementary characterization of HOL? (b) If so, for these HOL categories, is there an analogue of the definition in terms of subobject fibrations? For instance, is it the case that for such HOL categories, e.g., the fibration of monos (or the codomain fibration) is a higher-order fibration? The question might be equivalent to: is there a well-established pair of a fibred construction F and an elementary doctrine D, such that for all category C, C is in D iff F (C) is a HO fibration? However, I am highly unsure that this formulation makes sense. Thanks and all that, Tom [1] B. Jacobs, Categorical Logic and Type Theory, Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics 141, North Holland, Elsevier, 1999. From rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Dec 8 19:22:41 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:22:41 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GsoyR-0002eV-RT for categories-list@mta.ca; Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:17:47 -0400 Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 15:03:42 +0100 From: Jiri Rosicky To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: research positions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-2 Content-Disposition: inline Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 12 Eduard Cech center had been established in 2005 as the national research center focusing its attention to interactions between algebra, geometry, and logic (and their applications in cryptology, computer science, etc.). It is jointly operated by mathematicians from Masaryk University in Brno, Charles University in Prague and Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, with offices both in Brno and Prague. The Center invites applications for several research positions commencing during the year 2007 at the date depending on mutual agreement. The positions are initially for one year with a possibility of extension for another year. The candidates must be recent PhD's that obtained their degree not earlier than 2 years before the beginning of their contract with the Eduard Cech Center. Candidates should submit a letter of application accompanied by a CV, list of publications and an outline of their research project to Professor Jan Slovak (slovak@muni.cz) not later than January 31, 2007. They should also arrange for at least 2 letters of recommendation (one can be from a Czech mathematician) to be mailed directly to slovak@muni.cz before January 31, 2007. The successful applicants will be notified as soon as possible but not later than March 15, 2007. Further information about the Eduard Cech Center can be found at http://ecc.sci.muni.cz From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 10 10:21:09 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:21:09 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GtPOK-0006Mn-9q for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:10:56 -0400 Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 20:00:43 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Barr To: Categories list Subject: categories: Distributive laws MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 13 A year ago I wondered if linear distributivity was an example of a Beck distributivity. The answer is "sort of". I wrote a sort of paper on the subject and sort of submitted it to a TAC editor who sort of asked for a referee report. The resultant not-quite report sort of rejected it (actually asked for more work that I felt it was worth) and with the help of the editor I decided to just post it. So there it is, titled Beck distributivity, on my pdffile site: ftp.math.mcgill.ca/pub/barr/pdffiles/distlaw.pdf Michael From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Dec 12 08:06:56 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:06:56 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gu6GV-0006nJ-OM for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 12 Dec 2006 07:57:43 -0400 From: "Marta Bunge" To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: RE: Response to "Elsevier and weapons trade" Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:51:36 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 14 Dear Gabor, In support of those who raised their voice in this matter (namely, Marco Grandis), I would like to say that although maybe naive, this alarm call is surely not even mildly hypocritical. Notice that to protest against one particular issue does not exclude protesting about others, surely more fundamental as you rightly point out in this case. For this reason, I think that your questioning in the paragraph below is out of order and calls for a retraction. It seems to me that you assume too much about those who were brave enough to let us all be aware of this issue, and to whom we should be grateful. >And I said hypocritical, because I do wonder where the same good souls were >at the time of the invasion of Iraq, during the war in the Balkan, or what >do they think about what is happening in Israel. I wonder if the same >worried scientists who propose to boycott Reed-Elsevier have already >signed the academic boycott against Israel, and would participate in a >similar action against the US as a protest against its foreign policy. In a more detailed answer to this paragraph, I firmly believe (from first-hand knowledge) that the same worried scientists who would sign a petition to criticize Reed-Elsevier would also sign petitions against unjustified wars and invasions, such as those perpetrated by the current US government and its allies (and that includes the UK and Israel -- although I find that the latter is a trickier issue and tends to be simplistically confused with antisemitism). Any of such actions may be considered naive in view of the results they cause (well -- not always! see the recent US elections) -- nevertheless it is the duty of any conscientious scientist to raise his/her voice against any crimes against humanity, regardless of who perpetrates them. The case of Reed-Elsevier touches us more closely than any other, as (say) mathematicians who publish in reputed journals cannot simply ignore Journal of Pure and Aplided Algebra, Topology, Advances in Mathematics, etc. This case, unlike the larger and more fundamental issues, is within our reach, and that is what makes it so special. I fully agree with Marco Grandis having raised the alarm in this forum, precisley for this reason. Unlike you, I am not wondering why is he (or others) not doing likewise with other causes in this same forum. The reason is simple -- this is an ACADEMIC matter and therefore, as academics (not politicians), we can in principle do something effective about it. We may individually sign lots of other petitions, write letters to newspapers, and disseminate difficult to get inflormation colncerning the larger and more fundamental issues. But to bring those larger issues to the attention of this forum would, in my view, and I am sure also in the view of ther moderators, be inappropriate. This, on the other hand, is not. I understand that the entire editorial board of Topology recently resigned as a protest against their profiteering (without much effort -- who does the writing of papers, refereeing, preparing camera ready articles or proofreading? not them -- yet they charge outrageous prices for their journals), knowing far too well that Thirld World countries cannot afford such outrageous subsciptions. Would it be possible to promote such an action for this far more important issue of arms dealing (a worse case of profiteering and also more inmoral as it concerns human lives, not "just" access to scikentific journals)? To end, I largely agree with your concerns. I am only asking you to be less judgemental in your assesments without analysing the situation further. It may be unjust and hence unnecessarily insulting. Best wishes, Marta ************************************************ Marta Bunge Professor Emerita Dept of Mathematics and Statistics McGill University 805 Sherbrooke St. West Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 2K6 Office: (514) 398-3810 Home: (514) 935-3618 marta.bunge@mcgill.ca http://www.math.mcgill.ca/bunge/ ************************************************ >From: Gabor Lukacs >To: categories@mta.ca >Subject: categories: Response to "Elsevier and weapons trade" >Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 19:46:42 -0600 (CST) > >[Note from moderator: as the poster points out, categories is not a forum >for political discussion. Consequently, further messages on this topic >received before Monday will be digested and posted then, closing the >discussion.] > >Dear Colleagues, > >I am responding to the posting of Marco Grandis. > >I would like to express my heartfelt admiration to all those who raised >their voice against Elsevier's involvement in the arms trade. I find it so >noble that many scientists found time to express their outrage and >protest. > >At the same time, I cannot help saying that I find the whole initiative >childishly naive, and even somewhat hypocritical. Naive, because >apparently, they believe that wars are because of the arms trade -- in >other words, they seem to mistake the cause with the result. (If there >were no wars, would there be any point in manufacturing weapons? Let me >ask it clearer: Would it bring *profit* to manufacture arms in that >case??) > >And I said hypocritical, because I do wonder where the same good souls >were at the time of the invasion of Iraq, during the war in the Balkan, or >what do they think about what is happening in Israel. I wonder if the same >worried scientists who propose to boycott Reed-Elsevier have already >signed the academic boycott against Israel, and would participate in a >similar action against the US as a protest against its foreign policy. > >I am raising these issues not in order to generate a political discussion >on a categories forum (which is definitely not the appropriate place for >such a discussion), but rather to illuminate the disproportional nature of >the suggestion action. It appears to me an overreaction, and directed >against the wrong entity. > > >With best wishes, > >Gabor Lukacs > > > > _________________________________________________________________ Download now! Visit http://www.telusmobility.com/msnxbox/ to enter and see how cool it is to get Messenger with you on your cell phone. http://www.telusmobility.com/msnxbox/ From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Dec 12 08:06:57 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:06:57 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gu6II-0006s8-6z for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 12 Dec 2006 07:59:34 -0400 Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 14:08:26 -0800 From: Dusko Pavlovic MIME-Version: 1.0 To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: "Elsevier and weapons trade" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 15 Hi. I would like to make two points in response to Gabor Lukacz's post. 1) The reasoning that arms dealers just cater to the market, and bear no responsibility for wars or murders --- applies to drug dealers equally well. Indeed, the same reasoning appears not only in the charter of the National Rifle Association, but also in interviews of Pablo Escobar, who would say something like: > (If there were no [cocaine users], would there be any point in > manufacturing [cocaine]? Let me > ask it clearer: Would it bring *profit* to manufacture [cocaine] in > that case??) 2) It is not obvious to me that a scientific venue, such as the Categories mailing list, is a priori inappropriate to discuss publishers' motives. Lancet is another scientific venue, and they found it appropriate to oppose Elsevier's stance. We probably cannot avoid the fact that the dissemination methods of a science influence its contents, and the way people set up their research goals. The presence of TAC, and maybe even of this very list, have probably influenced category theory research. Elsevier has probably influenced category theory research. Most of that influence was probably positive. But the world is changing, Elsevier is changing and it might make sense to exchange thoughts on how their changes may influence our research. That does not seem to be out of scope of this list. all the best, -- dusko From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Dec 12 08:06:57 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:06:57 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gu6Hn-0006qX-9R for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 12 Dec 2006 07:59:03 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Vladimiro Sassone Subject: categories: Re: Response to "Elsevier and weapons trade" Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 00:48:41 +0000 To: categories@mta.ca Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 16 Following Gabor's line of reasoning, and paying the utmost attention not to confuse cause with effect, it would be OK for us to invest in narcotics: after all, if people wouldn't use drugs, we wouldn't be making any money, the market would regulate itself and we would get what we deserve. I have to add that I missed the connection with Iraq and the rest. There is an elephant in the room that Gabor seems to fail to notice: if the allegations are true, Elsevier would be investing money we directly make for them with our own (unpaid) work. Which -- whatever side you take in the dispute -- makes a call for boycott legitimate. My pension fund is bound to ethical investments, my employer too; I don't see why I shouldn't ask so for my publisher. On 8 Dec 2006, at 01:46, Gabor Lukacs wrote: > [Note from moderator: as the poster points out, categories is not a > forum > for political discussion. Consequently, further messages on this topic > received before Monday will be digested and posted then, closing the > discussion.] From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Dec 12 08:06:57 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:06:57 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gu6H5-0006oh-Qd for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 12 Dec 2006 07:58:19 -0400 Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 11:29:46 -0600 (CST) From: Gabor Lukacs To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: RE: Response to "Elsevier and weapons trade" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 17 Dear Marta, Let me start from the end of your message, where you mentioned the resignation of the entire editorial board of Topology. I find their action quite reasonable and appropriate, because it is primarily an academic issue. Furthermore, preventing access to knowledge serves the perpetuation of poverty and the current division of power/property in the world. Thus, the pressure excerted on the publisher this way has the potential of being helpful. Now to the original question. I do not question, even for a single moment, the subjective good intent of those who protest and raise their voice. Nevertheless, objectively, I do find it hypocritical to protest against the arms trade, and not against the those who *use* or *buy* the arms. I find it a cheap lip service to complain about prostitutes and remain silent about the clients. What makes the arms trade profitable are precisely those countries (among them our beloved Land of Freedom, the US) who buy the weapons. I do not think it is sensible to make reproaches to these companies. Capitalism is about maximazing profit, not about the people's welfare. (Even if many measures are sold to the public as such!) Thus, the existence of the arms industry is just a consequence, not a cause. Trying to make it vanish helps as much as curing the symptoms of the plague. This issue bothers me for the same reason that I am bothered by animal-rights activists (who feel sorry for the poor-poor dogs and cats, but often seem to be less sensitive to the problems of their fellow humans) -- it distracts the attention from the real problem, and creates artificial ones. There are many entities that could/should be boycotted. However, before someone would join a boycott of Elsevier, they should ask themselves: When did they visit the US last time...? > It seems to me that you assume too much about those who were brave > enough to let us all be aware of this issue, and to whom we should be > grateful. I think this is exactly the point -- I do not find it brave at all to boycott a publisher. In fact, it looks like a very cheap way of relieving oneself from the responsibility of taking a real action, and this is what I find hypocritical about it. If someone is brave, s/he should refuse to participate in conferences in the US, or even boycott US academics altogether (as you all know, a similar initiative is in place against Israel). Personally, I am not sure if this is the area where I would like show my courage, but I would certainly admire anyone who would organize such a boycott. Because THAT takes a lot of courage. > nevertheless it is the duty of any conscientious scientist to raise > his/her voice against any crimes against humanity, regardless of who > perpetrates them. I fully agree with you on this. However, in my opinion, the crime is not manufacturing a weapon, but *using* it. Let me repeat that I was not question at all the subjective good intent of the posting or anyone involved. With warmest regards, Gabor Lukacs From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Dec 12 08:06:57 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:06:57 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gu6En-0006hO-Cl for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 12 Dec 2006 07:55:57 -0400 Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 21:34:03 -0500 From: jim stasheff MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Categories List Subject: categories: question on the Hochschild complex categorically Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 18 Can anyone enlighten me on the *early* history of the observation that the Hochschild complex is the complex of derived transformations of the identity functor. Thanks jim From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Dec 12 08:06:57 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:06:57 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gu6Fp-0006kK-Ax for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 12 Dec 2006 07:57:01 -0400 Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 10:39:10 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Barr To: Categories list Subject: categories: Boycott Elsevier MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 19 Along with Springer, Bertelsmann, Gordon & Breach and any other publisher who is killing our libraries with their outrageous prices. We category theorists have TAC, for example, and there are other possibilities. I have just had a paper (in point set topology) accepted by Mathematica Japonica, who publish in all areas of math. What gripes me about these publishers is that as their costs decline (typesetting was once their largest cost and is now almost gone) their prices go up. It has been almost 12 years since I have anything to do with these publishers, as referee or author. I did hang on as editor for a few more years since it was the only way McGill could get JPAA. Just one more comment. Although I don't think the arms trade would decline if Elsevier didn't participate, I also would not want to be associated with anyone involved in the trade. I do not delude myself into thinking that my repugnance would have any effect. On the other hand, a boycott of these publishers by mathematicians in general would certainly have an effect. Michael From rrosebru@mta.ca Wed Dec 13 11:13:48 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 11:13:48 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GuVbv-00053a-Qf for categories-list@mta.ca; Wed, 13 Dec 2006 11:01:31 -0400 Subject: categories: A canonical algebra From: Tom Leinster To: categories@mta.ca Content-Type: text/plain Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 13:19:49 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 20 Dear all, Here is a canonical, but perhaps not trivial, way of constructing an algebra for any finitary algebraic theory. Does anyone know anything about it? E.g. is there existing work on it, or an alternative description? Take a finitary monad (T, eta, mu) on Set. We construct an algebra A for the monad in three steps: (i) Let C be the terminal coalgebra for the endofunctor T (which exists since T is finitary). (ii) Regard C as an algebra for the endofunctor T (via Lambek's Lemma: the structure map of C is invertible). (iii) Turn C into an algebra A for the monad (T, eta, mu) by applying the left adjoint to the inclusion (T, eta, mu)-Alg ----> T-Alg. Here are two examples. 1. Fix a monoid M and let (T, eta, mu) be the theory of left M-sets. Then C is the set of infinite sequences (m_1, m_2, ...) of elements of M, and A = C/~ where ~ is generated by (m_1, m_2, ...) ~ (m_1 ... m_n, m_{n+1}, m_{n+2}, ...) for any natural number n and m_i in M. 2. Let (T, eta, mu) be the theory of monoids. Then C is the set of infinite planar trees in which each vertex may have any natural number of branches ascending from it (or descending, according to convention). Next, A = C/~ where ~ is generated by s o (t_1, ..., t_n) ~ s' o (t_1, ..., t_n) for any finite n-leafed trees s, s' and t_1, ..., t_n in C. Here "o" means "grafting": the left-hand side is the union of s and the (t_i)s, with the root of t_i glued to the i-th leaf of s. Hence A is the set of equivalence classes of infinite trees, where two trees are equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by altering just a finite portion at its base. This equivalence relation (or actually, the analogous one for commutative monoids) is what made me start thinking about all this. Thanks, Tom -- Tom Leinster From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Dec 14 20:58:45 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 20:58:45 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gv1Eb-0002yq-6U for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 14 Dec 2006 20:47:33 -0400 Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:28:52 -0800 From: Vaughan Pratt MIME-Version: 1.0 To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: A canonical algebra Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 21 At first glance Tom's canonical algebra seems as though it should be closely related to what came out of the last 26 messages of http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~sweirich/types/archive/1988/ starting with John Mitchell's question of 9 Nov 88, message 155, as to whether initiality was the right criterion for correctness of an implementation of an algebraic data type. Satish Thatte in message 174 suggested Mitch Wand's "Final Algebra Semantics" from JCSS 1979 as more appropriate, in particular Wand's main theorem that every standard conservative extension has a maximal base-conservative augment, or as I put it in 176 (= 177), "Every biconservative extension of an equational theory has a greatest base-conservative augment." I then conjectured that it could be extended to "Every extension of an equational theory has an optimal base-conservative augment", and commented that "There is only thing bothering me about all this. It seems too nice, elementary, and useful to be not already known to logicians. Anyone seen anything like this outside Wand's paper?". In message 178 Satish Thatte pointed out that my optimal augment did indeed always exist, namely as the intersection of all maximal base-conservative augments. In the final paragraph of the final message (180) in that series, with subject "final algebras", I wrote "In any event I don't see how category theory is helping here, indeed this would seem to be an instance where category theory hinders more than it helps." If Tom's construction is equivalent then I sure got that wrong. If the algebras are different it would be nice to understand what the differences and relative merits of the two are - seems to me they ought at least to be related. I wish my memory went back that far. Vaughan Tom Leinster wrote: > Dear all, > > Here is a canonical, but perhaps not trivial, way of constructing an > algebra for any finitary algebraic theory. Does anyone know anything > about it? E.g. is there existing work on it, or an alternative > description? > > Take a finitary monad (T, eta, mu) on Set. We construct an algebra A > for the monad in three steps: > > (i) Let C be the terminal coalgebra for the endofunctor T (which exists > since T is finitary). > > (ii) Regard C as an algebra for the endofunctor T (via Lambek's Lemma: > the structure map of C is invertible). > > (iii) Turn C into an algebra A for the monad (T, eta, mu) by applying > the left adjoint to the inclusion > > (T, eta, mu)-Alg ----> T-Alg. > > > Here are two examples. > > 1. Fix a monoid M and let (T, eta, mu) be the theory of left M-sets. > Then C is the set of infinite sequences (m_1, m_2, ...) of elements of > M, and A = C/~ where ~ is generated by > > (m_1, m_2, ...) ~ (m_1 ... m_n, m_{n+1}, m_{n+2}, ...) > > for any natural number n and m_i in M. > > 2. Let (T, eta, mu) be the theory of monoids. Then C is the set of > infinite planar trees in which each vertex may have any natural number > of branches ascending from it (or descending, according to convention). > Next, A = C/~ where ~ is generated by > > s o (t_1, ..., t_n) ~ s' o (t_1, ..., t_n) > > for any finite n-leafed trees s, s' and t_1, ..., t_n in C. Here "o" > means "grafting": the left-hand side is the union of s and the (t_i)s, > with the root of t_i glued to the i-th leaf of s. > > Hence A is the set of equivalence classes of infinite trees, where two > trees are equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by altering > just a finite portion at its base. > > This equivalence relation (or actually, the analogous one for > commutative monoids) is what made me start thinking about all this. > > Thanks, > Tom > From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Dec 14 20:58:45 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 20:58:45 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gv1J3-0003Ax-8v for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 14 Dec 2006 20:52:09 -0400 From: reinhard.boerger@FernUni-Hagen.de To: categories@mta.ca Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 10:29:51 +0100 Subject: categories: Re: A question about extensive categories Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 22 Dear colleagues on 29 Nov 2006 at 15:58 Jiri Adamek wrote: > Does anyone know whether every extensive and locally finitely > presentable > category fulfils the following condition: > > For every omega op-chain of coproduct injections i_n: A_n+1 -> A_n > with all A_n finitely presentable some i_n is an isomorphism. Here is the answer: Consider the category of pairs of sets X,Y together with an isomorphism s:XxY->Y, with inverse Y->XxY, Y|->(py,qy). Then X is locally finitely presentable, because it is a two-sorted variety with operations s,p,q and equations s(py,qy)=y=qs(x,y), ps(x,y)=x. One might think of the elements of Y as versions of sequences in X; an element y can be considered as a version of the sequence (pq^n(y))_n, where n runs over all natural numbers (including 0). Then p maps evey "sequence" to its initial (0-th) member, q means ommitting the initial member, an s(x,y) is obtained from y by adding the new initial member x. Then it is quite easy to see that the category is also extensive. The free algebra A=(N,S) on one element of Y can then be described as follows: N is the set of natural numbers and s is the set of all sequences (x(n))_n in N with the property that the exisit a natural number m and an integer k with x(n)=n+k for all n>m; p is the projection (x(n))_n|->x(0) to the 0-th component, and q is the left shift (x(n))_n|->(x(n+1))_n. The algebra A is freely generated by the sequence g:=(n)_n of natural numbers; every element of S can be obtained from g by first shifting left several times and then shifting right with inserting arbitary natural numbers in the initial component; every n in N can be obtained as n=pq^n(g). The free algebra on one element of X is ({0},0,...), where 0 is the empty set. Now the coproduct A+B is isomorphic to A with injections i:A->A, j:B->A, where i is the sucessor map n|->n+1 and j maps 0 to 0 in the first component; this uniquely determines the second components (because "different versions of the same sequence do not occur".) Now A_n:=n and i_n:=i for all n in N yields a counterexample to the above statement. Greetings Reinhard From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Dec 14 20:58:45 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 20:58:45 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gv1M0-0003KN-CD for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 14 Dec 2006 20:55:12 -0400 From: "Marta Bunge" To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Gabor Lukacs in the Globe and Mail Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 07:52:19 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; format=3Dflowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 23 Dear colleagues, The Globe and Mail today printed an article on Gabor Lukacs, based on an interview solicited by the paper. The printed edition has color photos, which the email edition does not. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061214.PROF14/TPStory/?q= uery=3DGabor+Lukacs Lukacs was flying off to Budapest last week without being sure of what exactly the article would contain, but it seems from what he told me that they have indeed paid attention to his requests. Congratulations, Gabi! Marta ************************************************ Marta Bunge Professor Emerita Dept of Mathematics and Statistics McGill University 805 Sherbrooke St. West Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 2K6 Office: (514) 398-3810 Home: (514) 935-3618 marta.bunge@mcgill.ca http://www.math.mcgill.ca/bunge/ ************************************************ _________________________________________________________________ Enter the "Telus Mobility Xbox a Day" contest for your chance to WIN! Telu= s Mobility is giving away an Microsoft Xbox=AE 360 every day from November 20= to December 31, 2006! Just download Windows Live (MSN) Messenger to your IM-capable TELUS mobile phone, and you could be a winner! http://www.telusmobility.com/msnxbox/ From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Dec 16 09:24:45 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:24:45 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GvZM7-0005OB-Pj for categories-list@mta.ca; Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:13:35 -0400 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 14:17:41 +0100 To: categories@mta.ca, From: Michal Walicki Subject: categories: CALCO 2007 - Call for Papers Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 24 *------------------------------------------------------------------* * Call for Papers * * * * CALCO 2007 * * * * 2nd Conference on Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science * * CALCO Tools Day * * * * August 20-24, 2007, Bergen, Norway * * * *------------------------------------------------------------------* * Abstract submission: January 28, 2007 * * Technical paper submission: February 7, 2007 * * Tools Day submission: February 17, 2007 * * Author notification: March 28, 2007 * *------------------------------------------------------------------* * http://www.ii.uib.no/calco07/ * *------------------------------------------------------------------* CALCO brings together researchers and practitioners to exchange new results related to foundational aspects and both traditional and emerging uses of algebras and coalgebras in computer science. This is a high-level, bi-annual conference formed by joining the forces and reputations of CMCS (the International Workshop on Coalgebraic Methods in Computer Science), and WADT (the Workshop on Algebraic Development Techniques). The first CALCO conference took place 2005 in Swansea, Wales (http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/calco/index.php), and was a huge success. The second event will take place August 2007 in Bergen, Norway. CALCO 2007 will be preceded by two events on August 20, 2007. * CALCO-jnr - a CALCO Young Researchers Workshop dedicated to presentations by PhD students and by those who completed their doctoral studies within the past few years. See separate announcements for CALCO-jnr. * CALCO Tools Day - providing the opportunity to give system demonstrations. See below for more information. There are separate submission procedures for the CALCO main conference, CALCO-jnr and CALCO Tools Day, respectively. Topics of Interest ------------------ We invite submissions of technical papers that report results of theoretical work on the mathematics of algebras and coalgebras, the way these results can support methods and techniques for software development, as well as experience with the transfer of resulting technologies into industrial practice. We encourage submissions in topics included or related to those in the lists below. * Abstract models and logics - Automata and languages, - Categorical semantics, - Modal logics, - Relational systems, - Graph transformation, - Term rewriting, - Adhesive categories * Specialised models and calculi - Hybrid, probabilistic, and timed systems, - Calculi and models of concurrent, distributed, mobile, and context-aware computing, - General systems theory and computational models (chemical, biological, etc) * Algebraic and coalgebraic semantics - Abstract data types, - Inductive and coinductive methods, - Re-engineering techniques (program transformation), - Semantics of conceptual modelling methods and techniques, - Semantics of programming languages * System specification and verification - Algebraic and coalgebraic specification, - Formal testing and quality assurance, - Validation and verification, - Generative programming and model-driven development, - Models, correctness and (re)configuration of hardware/middleware/architectures, - Process algebra Submission Guidelines --------------------- Prospective authors are invited to submit full papers in English presenting original research. Submitted papers must be unpublished and not submitted for publication elsewhere. Experience papers are welcome, but they must clearly present general lessons learned that would be of interest and benefit to a broad audience of both researchers and practitioners. As in 2005, it is planned to publish the proceedings in the Springer LNCS series. Final papers will be no more than 15 pages long in the format specified by Springer. It is recommended that submissions adhere to that format and length (see http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html). Submissions that are clearly too long may be rejected immediately. Proofs omitted due to space limitations may be included in a clearly marked appendix. Both an abstract and the full paper must be submitted by their respective submission deadlines. Paper submissions should be made electronically at http://sttt.cs.uni-dortmund.de/calco07/servlet/Conference A special issue of the new high-quality open access journal Logical Methods in Computer Science (http://www.lmcs-online.org), consisting of extended versions of selected papers will be produced after the conference if there are enough good papers that can be extended and revised to the standards of this journal. Important Dates (all in 2007) ----------------------------- January 28 Abstract submission due February 7 Technical paper submission due February 17 Submissions to CALCO Tools Day, see below March 28 Author notification May 16 Camera ready due ----------------------------- August 20 CALCO-jnr and CALCO Tools Day August 21-24 CALCO technical programme August 24 Post-conference meetings Invited Speakers ---------------- Luis Caires, New University of Lisbon, Portugal http://www-ctp.di.fct.unl.pt/~lcaires/ Barbara Koenig, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany http://www.ti.inf.uni-due.de/people/koenig/ Glynn Winskel, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~gw104/ Programme Committee ------------------- Jiri Adamek, University of Braunschweig, D Jose Fiadeiro, University of Leicester, UK H.Peter Gumm, Philipps University, Marburg, D Bartek Klin, University of Warsaw, PL Bart Jacobs, University of Nijmegen, NL Marina Lenisa, University of Udine, I Ugo Montanari, University of Pisa, I (co-chair, http://www.di.unipi.it/~ugo/) Larry Moss, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA Till Mossakowski, University of Bremen and DFKI Lab Bremen, D (co-chair, http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~till/) Peter Mosses, University of Wales Swansea, UK Fernando Orejas, Politechnical University Catalonia, Barcelona, E Prakash Panangaden, McGill University, CA Dirk Pattinson, University of Leicester, UK Dusko Pavlovic, Kestrel Institute, USA Jean-Eric Pin, CNRS-LIAFA Paris, F John Power, University of Edinburgh, UK Horst Reichel, Technical University of Dresden, D Grigore Rosu, University of Illinois, Urbana, USA Jan Rutten, CWI and Free University, Amsterdam, NL Davide Sangiorgi, University of Bologna, I Andrzej Tarlecki, Warsaw University, PL Martin Wirsing, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, D Uwe Wolter, University of Bergen, NO Steering Committee ------------------ Jiri Adamek, Michel Bidoit, Corina Cirstea, Jose Fiadeiro (co-chair, http://www.cs.le.ac.uk/people/jfiadeiro/), H.Peter Gumm, Magne Haveraaen, Bart Jacobs, Hans-Joerg Kreowski, Alexander Kurz, Ugo Montanari, Larry Moss, Till Mossakowski, Peter Mosses, Fernando Orejas, Francesco Parisi-Presicce, John Power, Horst Reichel, Markus Roggenbach, Jan Rutten (co-chair, http://homepages.cwi.nl/~janr/), Andrzej Tarlecki Organising Committee -------------------- Magne Haveraaen (chair, http://www.ii.uib.no/~magne/), Michal Walicki, Uwe Wolter, University of Bergen, Norway Yngve Lamo, Bergen University College, Norway Location and Organisation ------------------------- Bergen was Norway's first capital from the 13th century, and up until the 1830's Norway's biggest town. Its placement has made it a natural point through which foreign influences penetrated to Norway and Scandinavia and the Norwegian export was leaving the country. For some centuries it was part of the Hanseatic League with export of fish and timber. Many of the wooden houses and larger facilities from the Hanseatic times survived fires and modernisation and make up today a charming town center. Nowadays Bergen is small by international standards, but it has always been a meeting place for people and a centre for commerce and culture. Spectacular fjords and mountains surrounding the town, combined with a lively and sociable atmosphere, make it a worthwhile place to visit. The conference will be held at Grand Hotel Terminus in the centre of Bergen. The hotel will handle room bookings individually. A social programme will complement the scientific event. Sponsored by Department of Informatics, University of Bergen, Bergen University College, and IFIP WG1.3 on Foundations of System Specification. Further sponsorships pending. CALCO Tools Day --------------- A special day at CALCO'07 is dedicated to tools based on algebraic and coalgebraic principles. These include systems/prototypes/tools developed specifically for design, checking, execution, and verification of (co)algebraic specifications, but also tools targeting different application domains but making core or interesting use of (co)algebraic techniques. Tool submissions should be no longer than 5 pages in the LNCS format; the accepted tool papers will be included in the final LNCS proceedings of the conference. The tools should be available on the web for download and evaluation. Each submission will be evaluated by at least three reviewers; one or more of the reviewers will be asked to download and run the tool. At least one of the authors of each tool paper must attend the conference to demo the tool. Submissions by e-mail to grosu@cs.uiuc.edu. Important Dates (all in 2007) February 17 Tools software and paper submissions due March 28 Author notification May 16 Camera ready due August 20 CALCO Tools Day Program Committee Narciso Marti-Oliet, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain http://www.ucm.es/info/dsip/directorio/NMO.html Grigore Rosu, University of Illinois, Urbana, USA http://fsl.cs.uiuc.edu/index.php/Grigore_Rosu -- http://www.ii.uib.no/calco07/ From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Dec 16 09:24:45 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:24:45 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GvZNH-0005Qx-OA for categories-list@mta.ca; Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:14:47 -0400 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 11:27:39 -0500 From: jim stasheff MIME-Version: 1.0 To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: "Elsevier NOT about weapons trade" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 25 Hi Dusko, One of Elsevier's motives (and other publishers) is close to trying to corner the market or at least squeeze out all the profit possible we now have several ways to resist 1. choice of journal to which we submit papers B. choice of journal for which we will perform slave labor (editing) III. advice in re the above to our mentees jim Dusko Pavlovic wrote: > Hi. > > I would like to make two points in response to Gabor Lukacz's post. > > 1) The reasoning that arms dealers just cater to the market, and bear > no responsibility for wars or murders --- applies to drug dealers > equally well. Indeed, the same reasoning appears not only in the charter > of the National Rifle Association, but also in interviews of Pablo > Escobar, who would say something like: > >> (If there were no [cocaine users], would there be any point in >> manufacturing [cocaine]? Let me >> ask it clearer: Would it bring *profit* to manufacture [cocaine] in >> that case??) > > > 2) It is not obvious to me that a scientific venue, such as the > Categories mailing list, is a priori inappropriate to discuss > publishers' motives. Lancet is another scientific venue, and they found > it appropriate to oppose Elsevier's stance. > > We probably cannot avoid the fact that the dissemination methods of a > science influence its contents, and the way people set up their research > goals. The presence of TAC, and maybe even of this very list, have > probably influenced category theory research. Elsevier has probably > influenced category theory research. Most of that influence was probably > positive. But the world is changing, Elsevier is changing and it might > make sense to exchange thoughts on how their changes may influence our > research. That does not seem to be out of scope of this list. > > all the best, > -- dusko > > From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Dec 16 09:24:46 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:24:46 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GvZJB-0005H2-4P for categories-list@mta.ca; Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:10:33 -0400 Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 20:15:53 -0600 (CST) From: Gabor Lukacs To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: What was left out [Re: FW: Gabor Lukacs in the Globe and Mail] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 26 Dear Marta, Thank you for your message! >> Lukacs was flying off to Budapest last week without being sure of what >> exactly the article would contain, but it seems from what he told me that >> they have indeed paid attention to his requests. Indeed, although I do wish they included a little more from what I said about Walter Tholen's role in getting to where I am now, and maybe a few more words on the time I spent in Bremen and Halifax, which have also played a role in my education. Personally, these mean to me much more than the story about my escaping Hungary or my childhood. My sense of justice dictates me to include below a few excerpts from the interview (part of which was done by e-mail) that, unfortunately, did not make it to the printed story. Best wishes, Gabi ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I consider myself very lucky to have had Walter as my PhD supervisor, and I learned a lot from him, alhough I do wish I could have learned from him even more. Behind his back, we (some of his students) call Walter <> -- even now, years after we finished our formal studies with him." "I feel that I owe a lot to Walter for everything that he did for me, for being an emotionally very supportive supervisor, who gave me the freedom to develop, and who pushed me to think with my own mind." "Walter was the one who saw me at least once a week, but sometiems even 2-3 times a week he had to put up with me (must have been hard!), and with my excitingly barging into his office, and starting to explain to him my latest thoughts -- which often turned out to be wrong after a few minutes of thinking. I think if someone asked Walter to say honestly what was the biggest challange in supervising me he would say: <>" From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Dec 16 09:24:46 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:24:46 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GvZKI-0005KI-9f for categories-list@mta.ca; Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:11:42 -0400 Subject: categories: Re: Gabor Lukacs in the Globe and Mail Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 00:27:54 -0400 (AST) To: categories@mta.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: selinger@mathstat.dal.ca (Peter Selinger) Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 27 For those who cannot get a printed copy, I might add that the story appeared as a 2-page spread in the centerfold of the main section of the paper, and that the Globe and Mail is the largest daily national newspaper in Canada. Such prominent placement is unusual for an article on academia. The article does not mention category theory, but it does mention that Gabi might be in need of a girlfriend. Gabi, the Globe and Mail has a circulation of 2 million; you better get ready for a flood of applicants :) Congratulations, -- Peter Marta Bunge wrote: > > Dear colleagues, > > The Globe and Mail today printed an article on Gabor Lukacs, based on an > interview solicited by the paper. The printed edition has color photos, > which the email edition does not. > > http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061214.PROF14/TPStory/?query=Gabor+Lukacs > > Lukacs was flying off to Budapest last week without being sure of what > exactly the article would contain, but it seems from what he told me that > they have indeed paid attention to his requests. > > Congratulations, Gabi! > > Marta From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Dec 16 09:24:46 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:24:46 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GvZL4-0005MB-O3 for categories-list@mta.ca; Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:12:31 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: categories: Peronal webpage on Locale Theory/Topos Theory Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 10:35:49 -0000 From: "Townsend, Christopher" To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 28 I have set up a webpage with my papers on Locale Theory/Topos Theory:=20 http://www.christophertownsend.org/ Comments, as always, very welcome.=20 Regards to everyone, Christopher Townsend =20 ______________________________________________________________________ This email is intended only for the use of the individual(s) to whom it is = addressed and may be privileged and confidential. Unauthorised use or disclosure is prohibited.If you receive This e-mail in = error, please advise immediately and delete the original message. This message may have been altered without your or our knowledge and the se= nder does not accept any liability for any errors or omissions in the messa= ge. From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 17 09:40:39 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:40:39 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gvw3j-000618-Aj for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:28:07 -0400 Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:49:34 -0800 From: John Baez To: categories Subject: categories: Elsevier Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 29 Jim Stasheff wrote: >One of Elsevier's motives (and other publishers) is close to >trying to corner the market >or at least squeeze out all the profit possible > >we now have several ways to resist >1. choice of journal to which we submit papers >B. choice of journal for which we will perform slave labor (editing) >III. advice in re the above to our mentees I quit serving as an editor for Advances in Mathematics when it was bought by Elsevier. When I learned how bad the situation was, I also quit refereeing for all Elsevier-run journals. People can read the rest of my rant here: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/journals.html Best, jb From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 17 09:40:39 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:40:39 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Gvw2p-0005yt-Dh for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:27:11 -0400 From: Gabor Lukacs To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: Gabor Lukacs in the Globe and Mail MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:27:11 -0400 Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 30 Dear Peter, As I hinted in my earlier message to the categories list, had I been in control of the article, I would have written it quite differently. The journalist's original intent was not to mention Walter Tholen, or any of my postdoctoral studies AT ALL because in her opinion, that is not interesting for the public... Without boring you with the details, let me just say that I spent the WHOLE last day of mine before my departure to Europe arguing with the journalist about this particular issue. The little that *was* eventually mentioned about academics was a result of this 7-hour-long dialog (or monologue?). Although she claims to be an expert of academic affairs, she seemed to have a hard time to understand that an academic success or achievement is the success of many academics (supervisors, colleagues, etc.), who should be given due credit for their role. The way I look at it is that: (a) Mathematics was exposed in the press, which is a good thing; (b) Nothing terrible appeared about me, even if the details of my social life are somewhat distorted (the reporter forgot to mention that I eat cold beans out of a tin...); (c) She did not write that I am a crook. So, after all, the article is OK... Finally, I doubt that with the nerdy picture that was chosen for the article I am going to be flooded with fan's letters. But, Peter, your sense of humor did not deteriorate since I saw you last time in Halifax, which is the real good news as far as I am concerned. Thank you for writing to me/about me! Best, Gabi From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Dec 18 10:19:48 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:19:48 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GwJAF-0005GJ-Mg for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:08:23 -0400 Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:16:49 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Barr To: categories Subject: categories: Re: Elsevier References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 31 I read John's manifesto, which was interesting. One thing I do not understand is the reluctance of libraries and universities to get involved in this. While TAC runs without any funding at all (except for the trivial storage cost that Mt. Alison contributes), a journal publishing a more typical 2000 pages a year would need at least a minimum of some clerical support. A donation of $50/year by 100 universities would go a long way. Several years ago one of my colleagues suggested starting a free journal to be called McGill J. Math. But there were so many naysayers in the department that the idea never got off the ground. As far as I can tell, I was the only one to support the idea (and volunteer to help). Pity. Michael From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Dec 18 10:19:48 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:19:48 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GwJAp-0005JM-14 for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:08:59 -0400 Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:23:52 -0800 From: John Baez To: categories Subject: categories: A double bicategory of cobordisms with boundary Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 32 Dear Categorists - Here's an excerpt from "week242". ..................................................................... Also available as http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week242.html December 2, 2006 This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics (Week 242) John Baez This week I'd like to talk about a paper by Jeffrey Morton. Jeff is a grad student now working with me on topological quantum field theory and higher categories. I've already mentioned his work on categorified algebra and quantum mechanics in "week236". He'll be be finishing his Ph.D. thesis in the spring of 2007 - and as usual, that means he's already busy applying for jobs. [stuff deleted] 10) Jeffrey Morton, A double bicategory of cobordisms with corners, available as math.CT/0611930. People have been talking a long time about topological quantum field theory and higher categories. The idea is that categories, 2-categories, 3-categories and the like can describe how manifolds can be chopped into little pieces - or more precisely, how these little pieces can be glued together to form manifolds. Then the problem of doing quantum field theory on some manifold can be reduced to the problem of doing it on these pieces and gluing the results together. This works easiest if the theory is "topological", not requiring a background metric. There's a lot of evidence that this is a good idea, but getting the details straight has proved tough, even at the 2-category level. This is what Morton does, in a rather clever way. Very roughly, his idea is to use something I'll call a "weak double category", and prove that these: (n-2)-dimensional manifolds (n-1)-dimensional manifolds with boundary n-dimensional manifolds with corners give a weak double category called nCob_2. The proof is a cool mix of topology and higher category theory. He then shows that this particular weak double category can be reinterpreted as something a bit more familiar - a "weak 2-category". In the rest of his thesis, Jeff will use this formalism to construct some examples "extended TQFTs", which are roughly maps of weak 2-categories Z: nCob_2 -> 2Vect where 2Vect is the weak double category of "2-vector spaces". He's focusing on some extended TQFTs called the Dijkgraaf-Witten models, coming from finite groups. But, he's also thought about the case where the finite group is replaced by the Lie group SU(2). In this case we get something a lot like an extended TQFT, but not quite, called the Ponzano-Regge model. In this case of 3d spacetime, this is a nice theory of quantum gravity. And, as I hinted back in "week232", we can let 2d space in this model be a manifold with *boundary* by poking little holes in space - and these holes wind up acting like particles! So, we get a relation like this: (n-2)-dimensional manifolds MATTER (n-1)-dimensional manifolds with boundary SPACE n-dimensional manifolds with corners SPACETIME which is really quite cool. It would be fun to talk about this. However, to understand Morton's work more deeply, you need to understand a bit about "weak double categories". He explains them quite nicely, but I think I'll spend the rest of this Week's Finds giving a less detailed introduction, just to get you warmed up. This chart should help: BIGONS SQUARES LAWS HOLDING strict strict AS EQUATIONS 2-categories double categories LAWS HOLDING weak weak UP TO ISOMORPHISM 2-categories double categories 2-categories are good for describing how to glue together 2-dimensional things that, at least in some abstract sense, are shaped like *bigons*. A "bigon" is a disc with its boundary divided into two halves. Here's my feeble ASCCI rendition of a bigon: f --->--- / \ / || \ X o ||B o Y \ \/ / \ / --->--- g The big arrow indicates that we think of the bigon B as "going from" the top semicircle, f, to the bottom semicircle, g. Similarly, we think of the arcs f and g as going from the point X to the point Y. Similarly, double categories are good for describing how to glue together 2-dimensional gadgets that are shaped like *squares*: f X o---->----o X' | | g v S v g' | | Y o---->----o Y' f' Both 2-categories and double categories come in "strict" and "weak" versions. The strict versions have operations satisfying a bunch of laws "on the nose", as equations. In the weak versions, these laws hold up to isomorphism whenever possible. A few more details might help.... A 2-category has a set of objects, a set of morphisms f: X -> Y going from any object X to to any object Y, and a set of 2-morphisms T: f => g going from any morphism f: X -> Y to any morphism g: X -> Y. We can visualize the objects as dots: o X the morphisms as arrows: f X o---->----o Y and the 2-morphisms as bigons: f --->--- / \ / || \ X o ||B o Y \ \/ / \ / --->--- g We can compose morphisms like this: f g fg o---->----o---->----o gives o--->---o X Y Z X Y We can also compose 2-morphisms vertically: f f ---->---- --->--- / S \ / \ / g \ / \ X o ----->----- o Y gives X o ST o Y \ T / \ / \ / \ / ---->---- --->--- h h and horizontally: f f' ff' --->--- --->--- --->--- / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ X o S o T o Z gives X o S.T o Y \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / --->--- --->--- --->--- g g' gg' There are also a bunch of laws that need to hold. I don't want to list them; you can find them in Jeff's paper (also see "week80"). I just want to emphasize how a strict 2-category is different from a weak one. In a strict 2-category, the composition of morphisms is associative on the nose: (fg)h = f(gh) and there are identity morphisms that satisfy these laws on the nose: 1f = f = f1 In a weak 2-category, these equations are replaced by 2-isomorphisms - that is, invertible 2-morphisms. And, these 2-isomorphisms need to satisfy new equations of their own! What about double categories? Double categories are like 2-categories, but instead of bigons, we have squares. More precisely, a double category has a set of objects: o X a set of horizontal arrows: f X o---->----o X' a set of vertical arrows: X o | g v | Y o and a set of squares: f X o---->----o X' | | g v S v g' | | Y o---->----o Y' f' We can compose the horizontal arrows like this: f f' f.f' o---->----o---->----o gives o--->---o X Y Z X Y We can compose the vertical arrows like this: X o | g v o | | Y o gives gg' v | | g' v o | Y o And, we can compose the squares both vertically: f X o---->----o X' | | f g v S v g' X o---->----o X' | | | | Y o---->----o Y' gives gh v SS' v g'h' | | | | h v S' v h' Z o---->----o Z' | | f' Z o---->----o Z' f' and horizontally: f Y g f.g X o---->----o---->----o Z X o---->----o Z | | | | | h v S v S' v h' h v S.S' v h' | | | | | X' o---->----o---->----o Z' X' o---->----o Z' f' Y' g' f'.g' In a strict double category, both vertical and horizontal composition of morphisms is associative on the nose: (fg)h = f(gh) (f.g).h = f.(g.h) and there are identity morphisms for both vertical and horizontal composition, which satisfy the usual identity laws on the nose. In a weak double category, we want these laws to hold only up to isomorphism. But, it turns out that this requires us to introduce bigons as well! The reason is fascinating but too subtle to explain here. I didn't understand it until Jeff pointed it out. But, it turns out that Dominic Verity had already introduced the right concept of weak double category - a gadget with both squares and bigons - in *his* Ph.D. thesis a while back: 11) Dominic Verity, Enriched categories, internal categories, and change of base, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1992. Interestingly, if you weaken *only* the laws for vertical composition, you don't need to introduce bigons. The resulting concept of "horizontally weak double category" has been studied by Grandis and Pare: 12) Marco Grandis and Bob Pare, Limits in double categories, Cah. Top. Geom. Diff. Cat. 40 (1999), 162-220. Marco Grandis and Bob Pare, Adjoints for double categories, Cah. Top. Geom. Diff. Cat. 45 (2004), 193-240. Also available at http://www.dima.unige.it/~grandis/rec.public_grandis.html and more recently by Martin Hyland's student Richard Garner: 13) Richard Garner, Double clubs, available as math.CT/0606733 and Tom Fiore: 14) Thomas M. Fiore, Pseudo algebras and pseudo double categories, available as math.CT./0608760. At this point I should admit that the terminology in this whole field is a bit of a mess. I've made up simplified terminology for the purposes of this article, but now I should explain how it maps to the terminology most people use: ME THEM strict 2-category 2-category weak 2-category bicategory strict double category double category weak double category double bicategory horizontally weak double category pseudo double category Verity used the term "double bicategory" to hint that his gadgets have both squares and bigons, so they're like a blend of double categories and bicategories. It's a slightly unfortunate term, since experts know that a double category is a category object in Cat, but Verity's double bicategories are not bicategory objects in BiCat. Morton mainly uses Verity's double bicategories - but in the proof of his big theorem, he also uses bicategory objects in BiCat. There's a lot more to say, but I'll stop here and let you read the rest in Jeff's paper! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Previous issues of "This Week's Finds" and other expository articles on mathematics and physics, as well as some of my research papers, can be obtained at http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/ For a table of contents of all the issues of This Week's Finds, try http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/twfcontents.html A simple jumping-off point to the old issues is available at http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/twfshort.html If you just want the latest issue, go to http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/this.week.html From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Dec 18 19:25:22 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:25:22 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GwRne-0000VA-9t for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:21:38 -0400 Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:17:48 -0500 From: joyal.andre@uqam.ca To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Fair Mathematics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 33 Dear collegues, "Equitable Mathematics" was a translation of=20 "Math=E9matiques Equitables" in french.=20 I am not sure the translation is correct. "Fair Mathematics" maybe better. Regards, Andre ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Dec 18 19:25:22 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:25:22 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GwRn0-0000T5-87 for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:20:58 -0400 Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 13:18:15 -0500 From: joyal.andre@uqam.ca To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Equitable Mathematics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 34 Mike Barr is raising up an important point. We should look at the problem from an economical point of view. The true buyers of scientific journals are the university librairies, not the scientists. There is a demand for low-price-high-quality scientific journals. The mathematical community is the producer. The publisher is the intermediate. The prices are artificially high. We may need an organisation of Equitable Mathematics. The organisation should be supported financially by the university librairies and the mathematical associations. The editorial board of Topology has resigned to protest the price of the journal. I admire their political gesture but unfortunately, it has a drawback: a prestigious journal has disappeared. I have a crazy idea: Topology could be resurrected as a cloned called Equitable Topology. The new journal could have the same editorial board as late Topology, if the editors agree. Other expensive mathematical journals could be duplicated with an Equitable clone having the same editorial board. I am aware of the organisational difficulties of realising the idea of Equitable Mathematics. To be successful, it will have to be done very seriously. It should be economically sound. Maybe the mathematical associations should be involved in the organisation. Andre ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Dec 18 19:25:22 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:25:22 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GwRmR-0000R6-02 for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:20:23 -0400 From: "Marta Bunge" To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: Elsevier Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:26:37 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed X-OriginalArrivalTime: 18 Dec 2006 15:26:40.0144 (UTC) FILETIME=[EA2C3100:01C722B8] Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 35 Dear Michael, > >Several years ago one of my colleagues suggested starting a free journal >to be called McGill J. Math. But there were so many naysayers in the >department that the idea never got off the ground. As far as I can tell, >I was the only one to support the idea (and volunteer to help). Pity. > I never heard of such an initiative or else I would have supported it and volunteered to help. You may (or may not) recall that during many years I sole-handedly edited the Reports of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, after Willie Moser stepped down from this job. It was a lot of work for me, but I am afraid that it served little purpose. Had I known of such an initiative (for a proper journal), I would have devoted my energy to it rather than to the Reports. In the end it was the Department itself which decided that there was no need for the Reports (and thus for me) any longer. Just to set the record straight, Marta _________________________________________________________________ Off to school, going on a trip, or moving? Windows Live (MSN) Messenger lets you stay in touch with friends and family wherever you go. Click here to find out how to sign up! http://www.live.com/?mkt=en-ca From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Dec 18 19:44:37 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:44:37 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GwS7k-0001bs-Ep for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:42:24 -0400 Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:16:01 -0400 (AST) From: Bob Rosebrugh To: categories Subject: categories: [esc-plus] Digitization - European Progress and more (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 36 [Note from moderator: The NUMDAM project has extraordinary interest for category theorists, not least because Mme Ehresmann has told me that Cahiers will be aomng the journals covered there before long. Some of the seminars already available are more than classic. Other URL's mentioned below lead to more treasures. Enjoy.] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:44:06 -0500 From: Jacques Carette To: esc+@cms.math.ca Subject: [esc-plus] Digitization - European Progress and more It appears that we have some stiff competition. The NUMDAM project has an impressive list of journals digitized: http://archive.numdam.org/numdam-bin/browse with some nice metadata available http://www.numdam.org/en/infotech.php Another snapshot is provided by http://www.library.cornell.edu/math/digitalization.php at Cornell. As far as OCR of mathematics is concerned, my efforts with Google have not yielded anything "new". For reference these were interesting: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=3304 http://units.sla.org/division/dpam/pam-bulletin/vol31/no1/mathematics.html http://www.inftyproject.org/en/ http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&id=190438 http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=628842 (and its references) Even this large list http://tev.itc.it/OCR/ResearchProjects.html of research projects only mentions 1 that has to do with mathematics. However, I have searched for sources of freely available TIFFs for experimental purposes - and did not really find any. While it might be possible to get some from Cornell (see http://historical.library.cornell.edu/math/help.html), this is not obvious. Jacques From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Dec 19 10:09:29 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:09:29 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GwfYL-0004iZ-Nl for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:02:45 -0400 Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:15:53 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Barr To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: Equitable Mathematics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 37 I like the idea of publishing ourselves, but I don't like titles like Fair (or Equitable) Topology. You would have to ask a lawyer about this, but in general book titles cannot be copyrighted and I would assume the same is true of journals. Certainly it would seem insane to allow anyone to own a generic name like "Topology". So, assuming it is allowed, why not start a journal called just "Topology". But another thing we can do is just support, in every possible way, journals that are reasonably priced. I have just had a paper accepted for the journal Mathematica Japonica, published by the Japanese Math Soc. I think one way that the whole scene went off the rails was the highly specialized journals like J. Algebra, Topology, and so on. They were and are low-circulation (circulation numbers are trade secrets) and have come to be very expensive. JPAA was up to nearly $4000 for 2100 pages when McGill stopped subscribing about ten or twelve years ago. I don't know what it is now, but I know they were losing subscribers steadily and may be down to a couple hundred by now. Of course, Elsevier is now primarily in the business of selling universities their entire journal selection in electronic form, so subscription numbers are meaningless. But I do know that most of McGill's journal budget is now going to these deals. But when, at some future date, McGill withdraws from this, not only do they lose their access to future publications, but also past. You are not buying access, only renting it. That is why I have copied all my papers that are currently available onto my ftp site. We need not only a McGill J., but also a UQAM J., a U de M J. and a Concordia J. Along with Toronto, York, UBC, .... No one would represent a great deal of work (start-up would involve less work than it did for TAC, since we would make our experience available). I can only hope that Elsevier's days on academic publishing are numbered, along with all the rest of them. Michael On Mon, 18 Dec 2006, joyal.andre@uqam.ca wrote: > Mike Barr is raising up an important point. > We should look at the problem from an economical point of view. > The true buyers of scientific journals are the university librairies, > not the scientists. There is a demand for low-price-high-quality > scientific journals. The mathematical community is the producer. > The publisher is the intermediate. The prices are artificially high. > We may need an organisation of Equitable Mathematics. > The organisation should be supported financially by > the university librairies and the mathematical associations. > > The editorial board of Topology has resigned to protest the > price of the journal. I admire their political gesture > but unfortunately, it has a drawback: > a prestigious journal has disappeared. > I have a crazy idea: > Topology could be resurrected as a cloned called Equitable Topology. > The new journal could have the same editorial board as late Topology, > if the editors agree. > Other expensive mathematical journals could be duplicated > with an Equitable clone having the same editorial board. > > I am aware of the organisational difficulties of > realising the idea of Equitable Mathematics. > To be successful, it will have to be done very seriously. > It should be economically sound. > Maybe the mathematical associations should be involved > in the organisation. > > Andre > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > > > From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Dec 19 10:09:29 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:09:29 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GwfZZ-0004o0-Qd for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:04:02 -0400 Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:46:57 -0500 From: jim stasheff To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: Fair Mathematics Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 38 I prefer "Equitable Mathematics" jim joyal.andre@uqam.ca wrote: > Dear collegues, >=20 > "Equitable Mathematics" was a translation of=20 > "Math=E9matiques Equitables" in french.=20 > I am not sure the translation is correct. > "Fair Mathematics" maybe better. >=20 > Regards, Andre >=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. >=20 >=20 >=20 From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Dec 19 10:09:29 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:09:29 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GwfaA-0004rW-Rp for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:04:39 -0400 Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:38:52 +0000 From: Alexander Kurz MIME-Version: 1.0 To: categories Subject: categories: Re: Elsevier Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 39 Michael Barr wrote: > I read John's manifesto, which was interesting. One thing I do not > understand is the reluctance of libraries and universities to get involved > in this. While TAC runs without any funding at all (except for the > trivial storage cost that Mt. Alison contributes), a journal publishing a > more typical 2000 pages a year would need at least a minimum of some > clerical support. A donation of $50/year by 100 universities would go a > long way. > > Several years ago one of my colleagues suggested starting a free journal > to be called McGill J. Math. But there were so many naysayers in the > department that the idea never got off the ground. As far as I can tell, > I was the only one to support the idea (and volunteer to help). Pity. > An alternative way how libraries could support electronic publications arises from the following thoughts. What will or should be the role of libraries in the digital age? Certainly, buying and storing hardcopies will play a smaller and smaller role. So libraries should have an interest in finding something else to do, just to survive as institutions themselves. What could that be? I think university libraries could become publishers of electronic journals. Universities should have an interest to host these journals, because they provide prestige for little money. As a conclusion, maybe the libraries could be convinced to DO the `clerical support'. Alexander From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Dec 19 10:09:29 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:09:29 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GwfYx-0004l3-M4 for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:03:23 -0400 From: "Marta Bunge" To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: RE: Equitable Mathematics Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:18:01 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 40 The idea which Andre Joyal has put forward is certainly original, although it may not be that practical or someone would have thought of it before?. However, there may be a way to implement it and I am all for it. I would extend the list to include, in additon to Topology, also Advances in Mathematics, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, and Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra. Maybe others where some of us belong to the editorial boards. It so happens that the journals listed above are all published by Reed-Elsevier. A few (foolish?) academics have pledged not to publish in such journals for a different, and in my view, a much more serious, reason -- namely, the involment with arms dealers. The latter affects human lives, whereas the former "just" makes it difficult to access scientific informatin, particularly in Third World countries. http://cage.ugent.be/~npg/elsevier/signatories.html A similar pledge to target all highly-priced journals would make little difference to some of us who have signed the above, but could mean scientific suicide to others. In addition, we do (naively, perhaps) expect to exert enough influence with this and other demarches going on right now (such as a planned letter in the Times), so that we are relieved of the pledge soon enough. If not, well.....there is always TAC and other electronic journals listed in the excellent note by John Baez (which can also be seen in the above website looking at comments by signataries). Something must be done. That much is clear. Marta _________________________________________________________________ Download now! Visit http://www.telusmobility.com/msnxbox/ to enter and see how cool it is to get Messenger with you on your cell phone. http://www.telusmobility.com/msnxbox/ From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 12:44:50 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 12:44:50 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyWJ2-0006mn-Ij for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 12:34:36 -0400 From: Bas Spitters To: joyal.andre@uqam.ca Subject: Re: categories: Equitable Mathematics Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:44:29 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.5 Cc: categories@mta.ca References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200612191544.29989.spitters@cs.ru.nl> Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 41 Regarding the discussion about free journals: It seems that people are unaware of Logical methods in computer science: http://www.lmcs-online.org A number of categorically inclined people are involved: http://www.lmcs-online.org/ojs/edBoard.php Are you proposing to set up a similar journal for topology? Bas Spitters From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 13:26:41 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:26:41 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyX6O-00017B-Ht for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:25:36 -0400 Subject: categories: Re: Fair Mathematics From: Eduardo Dubuc Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 13:15:23 -0300 (ART) To: categories@mta.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 42 good morning the "crazy" ides of joyal looks crazy, but ... it is not imposible ... the problem is that it will need a lot of people with different qualifications involved and really working in its implementation is that possible ... ? as for the name, i think, "fair", or "equitable" have presisely a connotation of fairness that is in itself a justification whose place should not be in the title i propose a neutral name as "alternative" it would be really fun if all expensive journals "xx" are replaced by unexpensive jounals "alternative xx" with the same editorial board ... this would be an important subversive action happy new year eduardo dubuc From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 13:26:41 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:26:41 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyX5W-000148-AT for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:24:42 -0400 Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:02:37 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Barr To: categories Subject: categories: Re: Elsevier MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 43 I would certainly agree, but in my brief discussions, they are little interested in taking on new responsibilities. I have just discovered that Mathematica Japonica charges page charges. That is a retrograde step that I cannot advise. Michael On Tue, 19 Dec 2006, Alexander Kurz wrote: > > > Michael Barr wrote: >> I read John's manifesto, which was interesting. One thing I do not >> understand is the reluctance of libraries and universities to get involved >> in this. While TAC runs without any funding at all (except for the >> trivial storage cost that Mt. Alison contributes), a journal publishing a >> more typical 2000 pages a year would need at least a minimum of some >> clerical support. A donation of $50/year by 100 universities would go a >> long way. >> >> Several years ago one of my colleagues suggested starting a free journal >> to be called McGill J. Math. But there were so many naysayers in the >> department that the idea never got off the ground. As far as I can tell, >> I was the only one to support the idea (and volunteer to help). Pity. >> > > An alternative way how libraries could support electronic publications > arises from the following thoughts. > > What will or should be the role of libraries in the digital age? > > Certainly, buying and storing hardcopies will play a smaller and smaller > role. So libraries should have an interest in finding something else to > do, just to survive as institutions themselves. What could that be? > > I think university libraries could become publishers of electronic > journals. Universities should have an interest to host these journals, > because they provide prestige for little money. > > As a conclusion, maybe the libraries could be convinced to DO the > `clerical support'. > > Alexander > > From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 13:49:03 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:49:03 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyXRE-00023I-Cr for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:47:08 -0400 From: Colin McLarty To: categories@mta.ca Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 11:19:39 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: categories: Re: Equitable Mathematics Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 44 Just a small point about From: Michael Barr Date: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 9:17 am Subject: categories: Re: Equitable Mathematics > You would have to ask a lawyer about this, but > in general book titles cannot be copyrighted and I would assume the > same is true of journals. You cannot copyright a title but you can protect a well known title from infringement. You can title your new book "My travels through the Pyrenees" without worrying whether someone else has already used the title. But you cannot title it "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone." Colin From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 13:49:03 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:49:03 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyXPu-00020E-5X for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:45:46 -0400 Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:13:07 -0600 (CST) From: Gabor Lukacs To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: RE: Equitable Mathematics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 45 Dear Marta, I fully agree with your suggestion concerning the numerous journals that you mentioned. Having a free on-line version of these journalist would certainly be efficient in solving the problem of access to knowlwdge, which is indeed very important. (My understanding is that the topic of arms trade was closed on this mailing list!) On the shorter run, however, I propose creating an off-shore website, which is outside the reach of US/Canadian/European courts. The declared intent of this website would be to violate the copyright laws by downloading the ready PDF files from ScienceDirect through the library access that we have, and uploading it to this site -- which makes them freely available for anyone interested. The idea would be to accept anonymous uploads, and thus share the burden (and liablity) for maintaining the site. I think it would be much harder to fight the overpriced publishers if we followed all the laws and rules. These laws were made to *maintain* and *stabilize* the current situation, and not to help those who want a change. > Something must be done. That much is clear. The problem is that profit is a very good organizer, while getting volunteers is never easy. I would be quite interested in hearing the history of TAC, how it started, etc. Best wishes, Gabi From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 15:47:22 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:47:22 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyZEw-0006LC-Ds for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:42:34 -0400 Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:32:14 -0800 From: Vaughan Pratt MIME-Version: 1.0 To: categories Subject: categories: Re: Elsevier Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 46 One institution that hasn't been mentioned is conference proceedings. I don't know why but mathematics generally seems to take a more casual approach to these than engineering. Whereas mathematics conferences tend to expect the talks to ripen into carefully refereed publications afterwards, whether together in a proceedings or separately in various journals, engineering conferences tend to insist on issuing a bound proceedings with 4-10 pages per paper, leaving it up to the authors to decide whether they want to submit a more polished version to a journal later. For both mathematics and engineering a conference may invite a subset of the papers for a special issue of a suitable journal. This difference is sensitive to the needs and circumstances of publication. Ostensibly the primary purpose of publication is dissemination, with author kudos supposedly secondary. Lately the latter has been badly skewing the former, with conferences seemingly worrying as much about appointments and promotions as about dissemination. This may well be a side effect of the web, whose search engines support associative retrieval of polished articles and daily blogs alike, solving the access problem without addressing the evaluation problem. This technological revolution is transforming the publication world faster than universities, libraries, and publishers can follow in real time. Appointments and promotions have until recently been mired in the tradition of relying on refereed journal publications in strong preference to conference publications. Libraries continue to follow the taste of deans in preferring to archive journals over conference proceedings, with the result that at least pre-web articles in conference proceedings are inaccessible to the clients of many libraries. And publishers seem to have a certain inertia that makes them slow to adapt their processes to the outgoing tide of publication costs, an inertia that strands them on the rocks of their expensive old methods. This is all changing, slowly but inevitably. Engineering deans are becoming more willing to equate at least flagship conference publications with journals. Search engines are making libraries less relevant for current material, while the ongoing digitization of older material is starting to make basement stacks less relevant. And authors, editors, referees, and libraries are forcing the collective hand of the publishers by avoiding the most expensive. In this disruptive scenario the potential exists for conferences to assume more of the role of journals. The effect of journal refereeing by itself is achieved for conferences with two mechanisms: refereeing (supposedly quicker and less careful than for journals), and limited capacity at the top---flagship conferences have acceptance rates of 20-40%, forcing the overflow into lesser conferences. Whereas in the past appointments and promotions were judged on the fact of journal acceptance in combination with the assessment of their quality by peers and seniors, these two criteria are now joined by a third: the quality of the conferences that accepted the candidate's papers. Historically journal quality while a factor took a back seat to mere acceptance; today it is made more important by the need to justify the supposedly less careful refereeing and certainly hastier preparation of conference papers. If this trend towards attaching more importance to conference publication is where we're all headed, it will happen in engineering before it happens in mathematics for the simple reason that engineering promotes conference publication more strenuously than does mathematics. Vaughan From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 15:47:22 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:47:22 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyZHU-0006RG-Tr for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:45:12 -0400 Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 17:24:03 +0100 From: Jerome Scherer Subject: categories: conference announcement To: categories@mta.ca MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 47 First announcement SECA4, "seminar on Category theory and applications" Barcelona (CRM): June 6 - 9, 2007. This is the fourth conference of a series of meetings held in Spain. It is intended as meeting point for specialists in category theory and related areas as homological algebra, representation theory, or homotopy theory. It is sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Education, the Catalan Government, and the Centre de Recerca Matematica in Barcelona. Speakers: Denis-Charles Cisinski, Universite Paris 13 Jose L. Garc=EDa Hernandez, Universidad de Murcia Joachim Kock, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Henning Krause, Universitaet Paderborn Tom Leinster, University of Glasgow Javier Majadas, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela Ieke Moerdijk, Universiteit Utrecht Antonio Viruel, Universidad de Malaga Survey Talks: Ronnie Brown, University of Wales Carles Casacuberta, Universitat de Barcelona Marco Grandis, Universita de Genova You will find more information on the following webpage http://mat.uab.es/~seca4/ There will be financial support available for young participants. More details will appear in the subsequent announcements. If you have specific questions, please send an email to: seca4@mat.uab.es Organizing committee: Pere Ara, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Carles Broto, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (coordinator) Jose Manuel Casas, Universidad de Vigo Luis Javier Hernandez, Universidad de La Rioja Manuel Ladra, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela Albert Ruiz, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Jerome Scherer, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Scientific committee: Ronnie Brown, University of Wales Carles Casacuberta, Universitat de Barcelona Jose Luis Gomez Pardo, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela Marco Grandis, Universita di Genova Lionel Schwartz, Universite Paris 13 From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 15:47:22 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:47:22 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyZIQ-0006TP-Ud for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:46:10 -0400 Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 14:40:33 -0500 From: "Lengyel, Florian " To: categories Subject: categories: Re: Elsevier Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 48 Alexander Kurz wrote: > > > An alternative way how libraries could support electronic publications > arises from the following thoughts. > > What will or should be the role of libraries in the digital age? > > Certainly, buying and storing hardcopies will play a smaller and smaller > role. So libraries should have an interest in finding something else to > do, just to survive as institutions themselves. What could that be? > > I think university libraries could become publishers of electronic > journals. Universities should have an interest to host these journals, > because they provide prestige for little money. > > As a conclusion, maybe the libraries could be convinced to DO the > `clerical support'. > > Alexander > > > This would seem to involve libraries in the business of system administration. The CUNY Graduate Center hosts a few online academic journals (e.g., http://ojs.gc.cuny.edu/ http://ojs.gc.cuny.edu/index.php/lljournal ) using the Open Journal Systems journal open source management and publishing system ( URL: http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs ). The library here is not involved in either site administration, which the IT department handles; or the management of the journals--the IT department delegates this function to the journal editors. FL -- Florian Lengyel, Ph.D. Assistant Director for Research Computing Department of Information Technology and Adjunct Professor Ph.D. Program in Computer Science Graduate School and University Center The City University of New York 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 4420 New York, NY 10016 email: flengyel@gc.cuny.edu VOX: (212) 817-7374 FAX: (212) 817-1615 WWW: http://research.gc.cuny.edu From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 15:47:22 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:47:22 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyZGo-0006Q9-D6 for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:44:30 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Marco Grandis Subject: categories: ArXiv and ethics Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 13:41:27 +0100 To: categories@mta.ca Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 49 Dear colleagues, Recent discussions on this list seem to highlight two main ways in which we may contrast the high costs of many scientific journals, as well as some unethical connections of big publishing companies: 1. To support, and possibly develop, free electronic journals like TAC and low-cost printed journals like Cahiers. (Here, I would like to express my gratitude to persons like Bob Rosebrugh, Michael Barr and Andree Ehresmann, which make this possible.) 2. To systematically send our preprints to an electronic archive, and only submit them to journals which allow the permanence of such files in these archives. As to point 2, there seems to be a clear candidate, arXiv. (And of course it would be good to have a "universal solution", where one would easily find things.) I have used of this possibility a few times. Before deciding of doing so in a systematic way, I would like that there be a clear statement of the policy of "arXiv" and clear assumptions of responsibility by its organisers; statements which, likely, the organisers and many of us take as understood and granted, but which I have been unable to find on the net. For instance, what about the possibility of the system being, in future, exploited economically? What about the possibility of it being sold to a commercial company - connected or not with strange trades? When downloading a preprint at arXiv, the author is asked to sign (electronically) a sort of non-exclusive transfer of copyright. I think we have a right to know that this transfer will not be used, in future, for goals which would be in contrast with the present (understood) ones, or even opposite to them. Waiting for being able to extend my gratitude to the organisers of arXiv Marco Grandis From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 15:47:22 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:47:22 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyZFl-0006N4-Qc for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:43:25 -0400 Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 18:13:36 -0500 Message-Id: <200612192313.kBJNDaRr019586@euler.unh.edu> From: Donovan Van Osdol To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: Equitable Mathematics Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 50 To add some actual data to the discussion, one can find an incomplete list (I estimate 300) of journal prices, with history back to 2000, at: http://www.ams.org/membership/journal-survey.pdf . Best wishes for the holidays, Don From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 15:47:34 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:47:34 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyZJ6-0006Uc-U9 for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:46:52 -0400 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 17:28:06 +0000 To: categories@mta.ca From: Category Theory 2007 Subject: categories: CT2007 - second announcement Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 51 Please circulate to all interested colleagues. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D CT2007 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D International Category Theory Conference Hotel Tivoli Almansor Carvoeiro, Portugal June 17-23, 2007 Information about registration, accommodation,=20 travel, abstract submission and deadlines is now available at the web page http://www.mat.uc.pt/~categ/ct2007 Invited Speakers: ----------------------- Dominique Bourn (Calais, France) Marcelo Fiore (Cambridge, UK) Marino Gran (Calais, France) Dirk Hofmann (Aveiro, Portugal) Martin Hyland (Cambridge, UK) Andr=E9 Joyal (Montr=E9al, Canada) F. William Lawvere (Buffalo, USA) Jir=ED Rosicky (Brno, Czech Republic) Scientific Committee: ---------------------------- Samson Abramsky (Oxford, UK) Jir=ED Ad=E1mek (Braunschweig, Germany) Francis Borceux (Louvain, Belgium) George Janelidze (Cape Town, South Africa) Steven Lack (Sydney, Australia) Michael Makkai (Montreal, Canada) Manuela Sobral (Coimbra, Portugal) Ross Street (Sydney, Australia) Walter Tholen (Toronto, Canada) Organizing Committee: ------------------------------- Diana Rodelo, University of Algarve (drodelo@ualg.pt) Manuela Sobral, University of Coimbra (sobral@mat.uc.pt) Maria Manuel Clementino, University of Coimbra (mmc@mat.uc.pt) Jorge Picado, University of Coimbra (picado@mat.uc.pt) Lurdes Sousa, IPViseu (sousa@infante.ipv.pt) Maria Jo=E3o Ferreira, University of Coimbra (mjrf@mat.uc.pt) Gon=E7alo Gutierres, University of Coimbra (ggutc@mat.uc.pt) From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 24 15:55:48 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:55:48 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GyZQa-0006tt-5Q for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:54:36 -0400 Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:18:43 +0100 From: Andree Ehresmann To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: Equitable Mathematics Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 53 If I correctly understand what is proposed for an "equitable" or "fair" journal (as you prefer!), I think the "Cahiers de Topologie et Geometrie Differentielle Categoriques" can be so classified. Up to 1975 the "Cahiers" had some support from the CNRS. However for the last 30 years we have published them (at a very cheap price), without any financial nor clerical subvention, with only the revenue of the subscriptions which (scarcely) pay for the printer and the stamps. I do all the material work (preparation of the final version of the volume for the printer, preparation of the envelopes and sending of the volumes, registration of the subscriptions,...) without any help. I even pay personally for the simple computer material necessary to handle them (that explains why I need well prepared .pdf files from the authors...). Though the "Cahiers" seemed forgotten by the French establishment, I have been pleasantly surprised to recently receive an offer from NUMDAM to post them on the Internet (without any cost for me). In fact the 7 first volumes are already posted under the heading "Seminaire Ehresmann" (which was their initial title or sub-title); at the address http://www.numdam.org/numdam-bin/feuilleter?j=SE&sl=0* The following volumes should be numerized in 2007 (I have agreed with the terms of the contract and should incessantly receive its final version to sign). After that NUMDAM will post each volume 2 years after its paper publication. I hope you'll help me by avoiding to substantially decrease the number of subscriptions which are vital for the journal's continuation. With all my best wishes to all Andree Ehresmann From rrosebru@mta.ca Wed Dec 27 12:09:54 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 12:09:54 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GzbBr-0005AZ-1s for categories-list@mta.ca; Wed, 27 Dec 2006 11:59:39 -0400 Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 14:38:23 -0800 From: Toby Bartels To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: Equitable Mathematics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 54 Colin McLarty wrote: >Michael Barr wrote: >>You would have to ask a lawyer about this, but >>in general book titles cannot be copyrighted and I would assume the >>same is true of journals. >You cannot copyright a title but you can protect a well known title from >infringement. Specifically, you use ~trademark~ law, rather than ~copyright~ law, to do this. So a practical question in the case of the name "Topology" is whether Elsevier claims it as their trademark as a journal title. (They don't have to mark it on the cover to do this, although it helps; trademarks often aren't legally identified until the litigation begins.) Note that such a meaningful and relevant (not arbitrary and fanciful) name is harder to trademark at all, but history and recognition help. --Toby From rrosebru@mta.ca Wed Dec 27 12:09:54 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 12:09:54 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1GzbDP-0005EG-6J for categories-list@mta.ca; Wed, 27 Dec 2006 12:01:15 -0400 Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 22:14:11 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Barr To: categories Subject: categories: Re: Elsevier MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 55 A propos what Vaughan says, conferences in math are not seriously refereed, often not refereed at all. This makes conference proceedings useless for promotions and also for research grants. Like it or not, this is one of the main reasons mathematicians tend to ignore conference proceedings. But CS conferences are generally carefully refereed with the results Vaughan mentioned. There are a number of reasons for this, I suppose but the overwhelming one is how hard it is to get read a paper in math, with a concomitant difficulty in getting serious refereeing. I note that CS journals usually want two and sometimes three referees to recommend a paper. With rare exceptions (Wiles, the Hales's paper on the Kepler conjecture, Perlman, should he choose to publish) that is almost unheard of in math. I was on the committee that chose the papers for last summers conference in Nova Scotia and only a couple papers were turned down and they were jokes. How about a journal called J. Topology. The owners of Topology cannot object to that. Yes, Cahiers is a good choice. And while many thanks must go to Andree for keeping it going all these many years, first we have to thank Charles Ehresmann for starting it. Michael From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Dec 28 17:01:49 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:01:49 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1H02Hz-0005oK-3U for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:55:47 -0400 Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:49:10 +0100 From: Andree Ehresmann To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Correct address of the NUMDAM site for Cahiers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=ISO-8859-1;DelSp="Yes";format="flowed" Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 56 In my preceding msg, I have given the address of the site where the 7 first volumes of the "Cahiers" are posted (under the heading "Seminaire Ehresmann"). However I have made a slight error (kindly indicated to me by Marco Grandis). The correct address is: http://www.numdam.org/numdam-bin/feuilleter?j=SE&sl=0 With all my best wishes to all Andree C. Ehresmann From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Dec 28 17:01:49 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:01:49 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1H02Bc-0005aP-LH for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:49:12 -0400 Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 10:53:40 -0800 From: John Baez To: categories Subject: categories: groupoids versus homotopy 1-types Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 57 Dear Categorists - The following claim should be well-known (or false), but I don't know a reference: Let Gpd be the 2-category consisting of groupoids functors natural transformations and let 1Type be the 2-category consisting of homotopy 1-types continuous maps homotopy classes of homotopies where for present purposes "homotopy 1-types" means "CW complexes with vanishing higher homotopy groups regardless of the choice of basepoint". Claim: Gpd and 1Type are equivalent (or "biequivalent", in older terminology). In fact I bet there is an explicit pseudo-adjunction between them, with the "fundamental groupoid" 2-functor going one way and the "Eilenberg-Mac Lane space" 2-functor going the other way. Does anyone know for sure? Know a reference? Best, jb From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Dec 28 17:01:49 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:01:49 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1H02DE-0005eN-VG for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:50:53 -0400 Subject: Re: Elsevier Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 18:40:12 -0400 (AST) To: categories@mta.ca (categories) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: selinger@mathstat.dal.ca (Peter Selinger) Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 58 I have found that what mathematicians call a "conference" is similar to what computer scientists usually call a "workshop" - almost everybody who submits an on-topic abstract can talk, modulo basic sanity checks, and sometimes on a first-come-first-served basis. What computer scientists call a "conference" often involves fairly careful refereeing (by multiple referees) and doesn't seem to exist in mathematics. The refereeing is often to check for originality, timeliness, and interest, rather than correctness. What mathematicians call a "workshop" is often an affair where the organizers invite their friends to give talks. Sometimes a few short contributed talks may be accepted if there are empty slots, but usually there is no (or only a token) public call for contributions. This type of workshop also exists in computer science, although it is less common. And some mathematics workshops follow the first pattern above. -- Peter Michael Barr wrote: > > A propos what Vaughan says, conferences in math are not seriously > refereed, often not refereed at all. This makes conference proceedings > useless for promotions and also for research grants. Like it or not, this > is one of the main reasons mathematicians tend to ignore conference > proceedings. But CS conferences are generally carefully refereed with the > results Vaughan mentioned. > > There are a number of reasons for this, I suppose but the overwhelming one > is how hard it is to get read a paper in math, with a concomitant > difficulty in getting serious refereeing. I note that CS journals usually > want two and sometimes three referees to recommend a paper. With rare > exceptions (Wiles, the Hales's paper on the Kepler conjecture, Perlman, > should he choose to publish) that is almost unheard of in math. I was on > the committee that chose the papers for last summers conference in Nova > Scotia and only a couple papers were turned down and they were jokes. > > How about a journal called J. Topology. The owners of Topology cannot > object to that. > > Yes, Cahiers is a good choice. And while many thanks must go to Andree > for keeping it going all these many years, first we have to thank Charles > Ehresmann for starting it. > > Michael > > From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 31 10:49:11 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 10:49:11 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1H11rG-0006an-3o for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 31 Dec 2006 10:40:18 -0400 Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 19:06:58 -0500 (EST) From: Phil Scott To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Announcement of Fields Workshop on Traced Monoidal Cats MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 59 Dear Colleagues: We would like to announce the following: ============================================================== A Fields Institute Sponsored Workshop Recent advances in category theory and logic: Applications of traces to algebra, analysis and categorical logic University of Ottawa April 28-30, 2007 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The abstract theory of traces has had a fundamental impact on a variety of fields within mathematics. These range from functional analysis and noncommutative geometry to topology and knot theory, and more recently to logic and theoretical computer science. The theory of traced monoidal categories, due to Joyal, Street and Verity, is an attempt to unify various notions of trace that occur in these diverse branches of mathematics. More recent developments include several theories of partial traces in monoidal categories. The Logic and Foundations of Computing Group at the University of Ottawa, with funding from the Fields Institute, is proud to host a workshop to explore these topics. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers in these fields to look for common developments, models, and applications of trace theory. Among the applications are various notions of parametrized traces arising in operator algebras, in the theory of feedback and recursion in theoretical computer science, in braid closure in knot theory, and in dynamics of proofs as expressed by Linear Logic and the Geometry of Interaction. Some invited speakers include: Samson Abramsky (Oxford) Robin Cockett (Calgary) Andre Joyal (UQAM) Louis Kauffman (Illinois) Mathias Neufang (Carleton) We will be announcing further speakers shortly. This is intended to be a workshop, with student participation in mind, including introductory lectures. We will have some funding for student travel and accommodation. Students interested in receiving financial aid should contact the organizers by January 30th. Anyone interested in attending or contributing a talk should contact us by the same date. There will soon be an official webpage. We hope to see you there. The organizers: Phil Scott (phil@site.uottawa.ca) Rick Blute (rblute@uottawa.ca) Pieter Hofstra (hofstrap@cpsc.ucalgary.ca) From rrosebru@mta.ca Sun Dec 31 15:58:56 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 15:58:56 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1H16kd-0001ZG-Cv for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 31 Dec 2006 15:53:47 -0400 Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 09:16:57 -0800 (PST) From: Bill Rowan To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: What is needed for an online journal MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 60 Hello, We have the arxiv preprint server, and other preprint servers. Why is this not sufficient? Because the papers are not refereed and subject to being made better through the work of editors (not that they always improve things). What about having an editorial board, which would look at papers on the arxiv, say, have them reviewed and revised, and then put them back on the arxiv in final form, and listed elsewhere as having been through that process and "blessed" so to speak by the editorial board? What we would all like to have is more prestige for having our papers blessed, and hopefully, read by somebody. In this proposal, the quality of the editorial board's work and the usability of its published listings would be the most important thing. They could even give a negative recommendation for someone's paper, although authors might hope for the opportunity to withdraw their paper if they didn't appreciate the final recommendation. The pulbished listings could include more information than just an up- or down- recommendation to read the paper, it could include comments by other mathematicians. Bill Rowan From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Jan 1 20:51:31 2007 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 20:51:31 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1H1Xhw-0004eh-KE for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 01 Jan 2007 20:40:48 -0400 Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 20:26:54 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Barr To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: What is needed for an online journal MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 61 I guess reality will have to intervene. Young people need refereed journal publications if they hope to get tenure and promotion. Canadians, and doubtless others, require them in order to get research grants. If you are going through the process of refereeing them for ArXiv, you may as well start a journal; it costs no more. TAC is a good model and I am about to find out about the NY J. Math. since I am a coauthor on a paper that has no category theory in it. I have probably published as many papers in TAC as anyone else and have so far managed to convince NSERC that these are genuinely refereed papers. I recently had a paper turned down for TAC, incidentally, so the refereeing is real. I had my doubts whether the paper was publishable and now I am sure. On ArXiv, there would have been no judgment. However, I do not believe that this model of totally cost-free publication is viable in the long run. Since the universities will be the main beneficiaries of the eventual demise (I hope) of the commercial journals, they ought to be giving us the modest help we need. Michael On Sun, 31 Dec 2006, Bill Rowan wrote: > Hello, > > We have the arxiv preprint server, and other preprint servers. Why is > this not sufficient? Because the papers are not refereed and subject to > being made better through the work of editors (not that they always > improve things). > > What about having an editorial board, which would look at papers on the > arxiv, say, have them reviewed and revised, and then put them back on the > arxiv in final form, and listed elsewhere as having been through that > process and "blessed" so to speak by the editorial board? > > What we would all like to have is more prestige for having our papers > blessed, and hopefully, read by somebody. In this proposal, the quality > of the editorial board's work and the usability of its published listings > would be the most important thing. They could even give a negative > recommendation for someone's paper, although authors might hope for the > opportunity to withdraw their paper if they didn't appreciate the final > recommendation. > > The pulbished listings could include more information than just an up- or > down- recommendation to read the paper, it could include comments by other > mathematicians. > > Bill Rowan > > > From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Jan 1 20:51:31 2007 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 20:51:31 -0400 Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1H1Xgr-0004bO-WD for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 01 Jan 2007 20:39:42 -0400 Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 12:30:47 -0800 From: John Baez To: categories Subject: categories: Re: What is needed for an online journal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Message-Id: Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 62 On Sun, Dec 31, 2006 at 09:16:57AM -0800, Bill Rowan wrote: > What about having an editorial board, which would look at papers on the > arxiv, say, have them reviewed and revised, and then put them back on the > arxiv in final form, and listed elsewhere as having been through that > process and "blessed" so to speak by the editorial board? This is what many journals do, after someone submits the paper. For example, with Advances in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, you submit a paper merely by sending them its arXiv number; when it's accepted you prepare a version in their preferred format and this gets put on the arXiv. Other electronic journals, like Geometry and Topology or Algebraic and Geometric Topology, require that you send them LaTeX in their preferred format when you submit a paper. If and when it's accepted, the final version gets put on the arXiv. It's a small extra expense for a journal to keep its papers on its own server as well as the arXiv, so that practice will probably continue. It would be a huge amount of work for someone to edit ALL papers on the journal, so that won't happen - unless some billionaire decides it's worth setting up a foundation to do this. Best, jb