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Aim and Scope

The MCU traces its roots back to mid of 90s, and has since been concerned with gaining a deeper understanding of computation through the study of models of general purpose computation. MCU explores computation in the setting of various discrete models (Turing machines, register machines, cellular automata, tile assembly systems, rewriting systems, molecular computing models, neural models etc.) and analog and hybrid models (BSS machines, infinite time cellular automata, real machines, quantum computing etc.).

The 8th MCU will be hosted by the University of Paris Est Creteil Val de Marne and it will take place at IUT de Fontainebleau, located in the city of Fontainebleau, former residence of French kings situated near Paris.

The conference will be collocated with the  conference UCNC 2018.

Topics of Interest

There is particular (but not exclusive) emphasis given towards the following:

  • The search for frontiers between decidability and undecidability in the various models. (For example, what is the smallest number of pairs of words for which the Post correspondence problem is undecidable, or what is the largest state-symbol product for which the halting problem is decidable for Turing machines?)
  • The search for the simplest universal models (such as small universal Turing machines, universal rewriting systems with few rules, universal cellular automata with small neighborhoods and a small number of states, etc.)
  • The computational complexity of predicting the evolution of computations in the various models. (For example, is it possible to predict an arbitrary number of time steps for a model more efficiently than explicit step by step simulation of the model?)
  • How parallelism can be connected to decidability, complexity and universality.
  • Universality and undecidability in continuous models of computation.

The LNCS proceedings of the conference are published in vol. 10881.

The best student paper award is given to the paper
Richard Whyman, Physical Computation and First-Order Logic

The best paper award is given to the paper
Viliam Geffert and Zuzana Bednarova, Minimal Useful Size of Counters for (Real-Time) Multicounter Automata

Important dates:
  • Paper submission: February 4 February 19, 2018
    Please submit your abstract before February, 16
  • Paper notification: March 20 March 27, 2018
  • Camera-ready version: April 9, 2018
  • Conference: June 28-30, 2018