Salomaa Arto Salomaa – författare

This book is based on columns and tutorials published in the Bulletin of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) during the period 2000-2003. It presents many of the most active current research lines in theoretical computer science. The material appears in two volumes, “Algorithms and Complexity” and “Formal Models and Semantics”, reflecting the traditional division of the field.The list of contributors includes many of the well-known researchers in theoretical computer science. Most of the articles are reader-friendly and do not presuppose much knowledge of the area in question. Therefore, the book constitutes very suitable supplementary reading material for various courses and seminars in computer science.

This volume gathers lectures by 8 distinguished pioneers of automata theory, including two Turing Award winners. In each contribution, the early developments of automata theory are reminisced about and future directions are suggested. Although some of the contributions go into rather intriguing technical details, most of the book is accessible to a wide audience interested in the progress of the age of computers.The book is a must for professionals in theoretical computer science and related areas of mathematics. For students in these areas it provides an exceptionally deep view at the beginning of the new millennium.

The scientific developments at the end of the past millennium were dominated by the huge increase and diversity of disciplines with the common label “computer science”. The theoretical foundations of such disciplines have become known as theoretical computer science. This book highlights some key issues of theoretical computer science as they seem to us now, at the beginning of the new millennium.The text is based on columns and tutorials published in the Bulletin of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science in the period 1995-2000. The columnists themselves selected the material they wanted for the book, and the editors had a chance to update their work. Indeed, much of the material presented here appears in a form quite different from the original. Since the presentation of most of the articles is reader-friendly and does not presuppose much knowledge of the area, the book constitutes suitable supplementary reading material for various courses in computer science.

Chinese Remainder Theorem, CRT, is one of the jewels of mathematics. It is a perfect combination of beauty and utility or, in the words of Horace, omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci. Known already for ages, CRT continues to present itself in new contexts and open vistas for new types of applications. So far, its usefulness has been obvious within the realm of “three C''s”. Computing was its original field of application, and continues to be important as regards various aspects of algorithmics and modular computations. Theory of codes and cryptography are two more recent fields of application.This book tells about CRT, its background and philosophy, history, generalizations and, most importantly, its applications. The book is self-contained. This means that no factual knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader. We even provide brief tutorials on relevant subjects, algebra and information theory. However, some mathematical maturity is surely a prerequisite, as our presentation is at an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate level. We have tried to make the exposition innovative, many of the individual results being new. We will return to this matter, as well as to the interdependence of the various parts of the book, at the end of the Introduction.A special course about CRT can be based on the book. The individual chapters are largely independent and, consequently, the book can be used as supplementary material for courses in algorithmics, coding theory, cryptography or theory of computing. Of course, the book is also a reference for matters dealing with CRT.

The book is a very up-to-date collection of articles in theoretical computer science, written by leading authorities in the field. The topics range from algorithms and complexity to algebraic specifications, and from formal languages and language-theoretic modeling to computational geometry. The material is based on columns and articles that have appeared in the EATCS Bulletin during the past two to three years. Although very recent research is discussed, the largely informal style of writing makes the book accessible to readers with little or no previous knowledge of the topics.

The contributions of the proceedings cover almost all parts of the theory of formal languages from pure theoretical investigations to applications to programming languages. Main topics are combinatorial properties of words, sequences of words and sets of words, grammar systems and grammars with controlled derivations, generation of higher-dimensional objects and graphs, trace languages, numerical parameters of automata and languages.