Comments are welcome!
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
date : 12 October 1994
e-mail to: amast@cs.utwente.nl
________________________
e-mailed to : 302 subscribers
Dedicated to 35 years of Michael O. Rabin's contributions to Computing
Sponsors:
The symposium is sponsored by the Army Research Office, the
National Science Foundation, the Courant Institute of Mathematical
Sciences and the Academic Computing Facility of New York University
Program Co-Chairs:
Zvi M. Kedem and Krishna V. Palem Courant Institute
of Mathematical Sciences.
Registration
by October 14 is required, there is no registration fee.
Available seating will be allotted in the order of receipt of
registration forms. To register, contact parcon@cs.nyu.edu.
The symposium will be held in the
Great Hall
Dagostino Hall
New York University
108 West 3rd Street
New York City
Registration Information
Full program, travel and hotel information, registration forms , are available.
Registration: The DIMACS Challenge Workshop will be in CoRE 431 (Seminar Room), Busch Campus, To register, contact Pat Toci [toci@dimacs.rutgers.edu, (908) 445-5930]. If possible, please register, although registration at the conference is permitted. There is no registration fee.
Travel and hotel information: If flying it is recommended to fly into Newark Airport if possible (La Guardia adn Kennedy airports add more travelling time to DIMACS). For travel between Newark airport and DIMACS hotels the ICS Van Service is recommended (phone 1-800-225-4427 or 908-753-5500) but a seat must be booked in advance. If driving to DIMACS then parking permits will be required. These may be obtained in advance by sending email to Pat Toci. Hotel reservations may be made through Pat Toci. All workshop events will take place at DIMACS, located in the CoRE Building of Rutgers University, Busch Campus, in Piscataway, New Jersey.
For further questions regarding local transportation and accommodations or to obtain detailed driving directions to the hotels and to DIMACS, contact Pat Toci [toci@dimacs.rutgers.edu, (908) 445-5930].
A suggested list of hotels and travel costs can be found in the full entry at the location listed above.
The full program, and registration, travel and hotel information are available.
REGISTRATION for FOCS'94
To qualify for the early registration fee your registration application must be postmarked by Thursday, October 20. Refund requests will be honored until November 4.
FOCS UPDATE: NEW INFORMATION
Sorin Istrail
Local Arrangements Chair, FOCS 94
The full program, general information and registration forms , are available.
Invitation to ICDT'95
ICDT '95 is an international conference on theoretical aspects of databases. As ICDT '92 (Berlin) this conference follows two series of conferences on database theory that were formed in parallel by different scientific communities in Europe.
The first series, known as International Conference on Database Theory, was initiated in Rome in 1986, and continued in Bruges (1988) and Paris (1990). The second series, known as Symposium on Mathematical Fundamentals of Database Systems, was initiated in Dresden (1987), and continued in Visegrad (1989) and Rostock (1991). ICDT is held bi-annually.
Invited Talks
Tutorials
Organization:
ORGANIZATION: ICDT '95 is organized by
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech TU of Prague;
Christian Doppler Laboratorium fuer Expertensysteme Wien, TU Vienna.
Sponsors:
ICDT '95 is sponsored by
IDOMENEUS Network Esprit Network of Excellence;
COMPULOG NET Network of Excellence in Computational Logic;
Christian Doppler Laboratorium fuer Expertensysteme.
Further Information: contact
Dr. Marcela Bezouskova
Dept. of Control Engineering
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Czech Technical University
Karlovo nam. 13
CZ - 12135 PRAGUE 2
tel:+42 2 295664/24357488, fax:+42 2 290159
email: k335@lab.felk.cvut.cz
UPDATE of [SIAN02p3-1] : Final Call for Papers available (by anonymous ftp).
A major goal of the AMAST Conference consists in putting software development technology on firm, mathematical foundations. Particular emphasis is given to algebraic and logical foundations of software technology. An eventual goal is to establish algebraic and logical methodology as a practically viable and attractive alternative to the prevailing ad-hoc approaches to software engineering. The benefits accruing from such formal foundations will be clearly far reaching and both academia and industry are expected to benefit from this.
In addition, the first day of the conference is dedicated to Mathematics Education for Software Engineers.
Chairpersons: M Nivat (General Ch.), V S Alagar (Program Ch.), T Rus (Organiz. Ch.), P Grogono (Tools and Demo Ch.), T Radhakrishnan (Finance Ch.), C M I Rattray (Publicity Ch.)
Invited Speakers:
Dates: Subm: Nov 15, Notif: Feb 1, Final: Mar 15; Demo Subm: Dec 15.
Further information:
Registration : krishnan@cs.concordia.ca
Tools and Demos : grogono@cs.concordia.ca
Local Arrangements : missaoui.rokia@uqam.ca
Bulletins on current status of conference:
amast95-info@cs.concordia.ca
Subscription to AMAST'95 mailing list :
amast95-request@cs.concordia.ca
Sponsored by
The Key Centre for Advanced Computing Sciences
University of Technology, Sydney
CATS will be open to all aspects of the theory of computer science. It will provide an opportunity for the scattered community of computing theorists in Australia and New Zealand to meet and exchange views in an informal setting. The following international visitors will be coming.
Printed proceedings will be provided. Following the meeting, authors will be invited to submit revised papers for a special issue of Theoretical Computer Science on Australian research.
Program Committee John Crossley, Barry Jay (Chair), John Staples
Submissions should be no more than twelve pages, include the author's name(s) and e-mail addresses, and be received by Friday, 4th November. Electronic submission in postscript format is preferred. Send them to
cats@socs.uts.edu.auHard copy should be sent to
Dr C.B. Jay
School of Computing Sciences
University of Technology Sydney
PO Box 123
Broadway, 2007
Notification of acceptance will be sent out by Friday, 2nd December. Pre-conference drinks on Friday evening, and a conference dinner on Sunday will be included in the registration costs.
Registration Before 15/11 $85, After 15/11 $120, Students (before 15/11) $45
Accommodation A limited number of rooms in new university appartments with shared facilities are available for $40 per night. These will be allocated in order of request.
Enquiries Send enquiries to cats@socs.uts.edu.au
REGISTRATION FORM (see plain-text version of this announcement)
The full version of this Call for Papers is available as a plain text file.
The purpose of CONCUR'95 is to bring together researchers, developers, and students in order to advance the science of concurrency theory and promote its application.
Topics all areas of semantics, logics, and verification techniques for concurrent systems. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, process algebras, Petri nets, true concurrency, shared-memory and message-passing formalisms, operational and denotational models, programming language semantics, probabilistic and real-time processes, hybrid systems, concurrent logic and constraint programming, fairness, temporal logics, compositional analysis techniques, verification tools.
Proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag. Papers must contain clearly written original contributions and comparison to related work.
Submission draft of a full paper of no more than 15 typed pages with a one-page abstract and mailing addresses (postal and electronic), telephone number and fax number of the author for correspondence. Email uuencoded dvi/postscript files to:
concur95-submit@cs.sunysb.edu(Or if this is not possible send 5 hardcopies to CONCUR, Scott Smolka, Dept of Comp Sci, SUNY at Stony Brook, NY 11794-4400).
Dates: Subm. 1 Mar 1995; Notif. 1 May 1995; Final version, 1 Jun 1995
Program Committee: Bloom, Cleaveland, Degano, van Glabbeek, Gerth, Graf, Groote, Heitmeyer, Henzinger, Jategaonkar Jagadeesan, Jeffrey, Lee, Parrow, Rabinovitch, Sangiorgi, Schneider, Skou, Smolka, Stark, Thomsen, Young
Conference Co-Chairs
Insup Lee, University of Penn. and Scott A. Smolka, SUNY at Stony Brook;
Publicity Rich Gerber;
Tutorials Dale Miller.
Further information Plain text, dvi, and postscript versions of the Call For Papers and latest information on CONCUR '95 can be obtained by
E-MAIL: concur95@cis.upenn.edu
FTP (158.130.12.3)
WWW
A fuller version of this call is available as a plain text file.
Full announcement, call for papers, submission information , are also available.
The DAGS'95 Conference on Electronic Publishing and the Information Superhighway will bring together a broad variety of people to discuss the issues, applications, and underlying technologies for electronic publishing. Potential participants include:
Deadlines:
December 1, 1994 Tutorial proposals, Papers and Short Papers due. December 15, 1994 Panel Proposals due. January 15, 1995 Authors notified. March 15, 1995 Camera-Ready copy due. March 30, 1995 Proposals for Poster Demonstrations due.
Special comments: All papers will appear in the printed proceedings, selected sessions in the DAGS'95 Interactive Multimedia Proceedings. For information on sponsorships, exhibiting, and registration, send email to
DAGS.DOK@notes.compuserve.comor, call 508-443-3330; dial ext 1227 for sponsorships or exhibiting, or dial ext 1230 for registration.
The full version of this call is available as a plain text file.
The Eighth Conference on Computational Learning Theory (COLT 95) will be held on the campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz, USA, from the late afternoon of July 5, through to July 8, 1995.
We invite papers in all areas that relate directly to the analysis of learning algorithms and the theory of machine learning, including artificial and biological neural networks. We also invite papers on learning from related theoretical and applied areas, such as statistics, statistical physics, Bayesian/MDL estimation, information theory, inductive inference, logic, inductive logic programming, knowledge representation, knowledge discovery in databases, natural language processing, robotics, and pattern recognition. Besides purely theoretical papers we encourage the submission of papers on experimental results that also provide a theoretical analysis.
Invited talks: will be given by Terry Sejnowski (Salk Institute and University of California at San Diego) and Les Valiant (Harvard).
Abstract submission: fourteen copies (preferably two-sided copies) of an extended abstract of less than 10 pages (plus cover and summary) to
Wolfgang MaassDates: Subm. strictly by Jan 10, notif. Mar 10, final version April 11.
COLT 95
Institute for Theoretical Computer Science
Tech. Universität Graz
Klosterwiesgasse 32/2
A-8010 Graz
Austria
Program Chair:
Wolfgang Maass (TU Graz, Austria, e-mail: maass@igi.tu-graz.ac.at).
Conference and Local Arrangements Chairs:
David Haussler & Manfred Warmuth (Univ Calif S C).
Program Committee:
Dana Angluin (Yale), Peter Bartlett (ANU, Australia), Tom Dietterich
(Oregon State Univ.), Haym Hirsh (Rutgers), Jeff Jackson (CMU), Martin
Kummer (Univ. Karlsruhe), Phil Long (Duke Univ.), Ron Rivest (MIT),
Robert Schapire (AT&T), Ted Slaman (Univ. of Chicago), Naftali Tishby
(Hebrew Univ.), Gyorgy Turan (UIC, Chicago).
The Twente Workshop on Graphs and Combinatorial Optimization is organized bi-annually at the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Twente. Topics are: theory of graphs and discrete algorithms (both deterministic and random) and their applications in operations research and computer science.
We try to keep a ``workshop atmosphere'' to the best possible and - so far - have succeeded in scheduling never more than two presentations in parallel. We also try to keep the costs as low as possible in order to make the workshop particularly accessible to young researchers.
A special volume of Discrete Applied Mathematics will be devoted to the Proceedings of the 4th Twente Workshop. (The Proceedings of the 2nd Twente Workshop have appeared as vol. 51 (1994) of Discrete Applied Mathematics). Prospective speakers are asked to submit an extended abstract of their presentation for pre-screening. All accepted extended abstracts will be collected into a conference volume available at the workshop. All participants are invited to submit full-length papers for the Proceedings Volume by 1 September, 1995. These articles will undergo the seriously refereed selection process of Discrete Applied Mathematics.
If you are interested in participating in the 4th Twente Workshop, please pre-register now informally (give your complete postal as well as your e-mail address and indicate whether you would like to give a presentation (ca. 30 min.) -- possibly naming subject and/or title in case you know it already). You should receive a definite registration form and more detailed information then in January, 1995.
U. Faigle
C. Hoede
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Twente
P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
e-mail: {faigle, hoede, hunting}@math.utwente.nl
The full version of this call is available as a plain text file.
Efficient parallel solutions have been found to many problems. Some of these solutions can be automatically obtained from sequential programs using compilers. However, there still exist a large class of problems, known as irregularly structured problems that lack efficient solutions. The workshop on Parallel Algorithms for Irregularly Structured Problems - IRREGULAR 95 - is the second in the series started in Geneva in 1994 that addresses issues related to deriving efficient solutions to irregularly structured problems.
Scope : IRREGULAR 95 aims at fostering the cooperation among practitioners and theoreticians of the field. Papers for oral presentation are solicited in all research areas related to the parallelism of irregular problems, as listed below.
Topics : (non exhaustive) approximated and randomized methods, automatic synthesis, branch and bound, combinatorial optimization, compiling, computer vision, load balancing, parallel data structures, scheduling and mapping, sparse matrix and symbolic computation.
Publication : Proceedings will be published by an international publisher and will be available at the workshop. Official languages are English and French.
Submission guidelines : To submit a contribution, send an extended abstract describing original research in no more than 15 pages to
IRREGULAR 95
LIP ENS Lyon 46
all d'Italie
69364 Lyon Cedex 07
France
Important Dates :
Submissions : April 7, 1995 Notification: June 5, 1995 Camera Ready: June 30, 1995
Local Organization : e-mail: irregular@lip.ens-lyon.fr
The full version of this notice is available as a LaTeX file.
Job titles
Chair and Head of the School of Computer Science
Starting date October 1995
Informal enquiries to
Dr W P Dodd
telephone + 44 21 4143711
email W.P.Dodd@birmingham.ac.uk
Closing date for receipt of applications: 14th October 1994
Applications forms and further details obtainable from:
The Director of Staffing Services,
The University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT,
England
Fax + 44 21 4144802, Phone + 44 21 4146486
Please send applications to the above address
The University of Birmingham is an Equal Opportunities Employer
Applications are invited from candidates with an eminent research record who are able to contribute to research, teaching and leadership in the School of Computer Science. There are no restrictions regarding areas of expertise within the general context of either Software Engineering or Theoretical Computer Science. The successful candidate will be expected to take on the Headship of the School for a fixed term from 1st October 1995. An additional lectureship will be associated with this post.
The initial salary will be negotiated between the successful candidate and the Vice Chancellor.
No application form is provided and candidates are free to set out
their applications as they wish provided it is typed on one side only
of A4 paper. However, applications must include:
(a) a full curriculum vitae,
(b) a list of publications,
(c) the names and addresses of three referees, and should include
(d) the equal opportunities form enclosed.
The School of Computer Science has a World Wide Web directory of information .
There are to be several postdoctoral positions at BRICS for a period of one to two years starting in 1995. Applications by researchers are welcome in the areas of logic, semantics and algorithmics. Applications for positions should preferably be sent by email and include curriculum vitae and two or three names of referees for recommendations as well as the referees' regular mail addresses and, if possible, email addresses.
BRICS, a Centre for Basic Research in Computer Science, is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation for the period 1994-1999. Its aim is to establish in Denmark important areas of basic research in the mathematical foundations of Computer Science, notably Algorithmics and Mathematical Logic. The Centre is to develop these areas as a joint effort between the theoretical-computer-science groups at Aarhus University and Aalborg University. The research plan is based on a committment to develop Algorithmics and Logic integrated with existing strong activities in Semantics of Computation, using a combination of long-term efforts and a number of short-term, intensive programmes, within carefully chosen scientific themes. Organizationally, BRICS is an autonomous centre with its own management, and yet with its activities strongly integrated in the existing infrastructure and student environments at the two universities.
Scientific planning is the responsibility of the following committee:
Glynn Winskel, Professor (Aarhus), Director
Mogens Nielsen, Associate Professor (Aarhus), Codirector
Erik Meineche Schmidt, Associate Professor (Aarhus), Codirector
Uffe Engberg, (Aarhus), Project Manager
Kim Guldstrand Larsen, Professor (Aalborg)
Peter D.Mosses, Associate Professor (Aarhus)
Michael Schwartzbach, Associate Professor (Aarhus)
Arne Skou, Associate Professor (Aalborg)
Sven Skyum, Associate Professor, Reader (Aarhus)
Further information on BRICS can be accessed through World Wide Web, and by anonymous FTP .
Addresses:
BRICS
Department of Computer Science
University of Aarhus
Ny Munkegade
building 540
DK - 8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
Phone: +45 8942 3360, fax: +45 8942 3255
Internet: BRICS@daimi.aau.dk
My research group can support a research scientist to build a VHDL based model checker. We intend to build the model checker from scratch rather than compile into an existing system like SMV. The candidate should have significant knowledge about building compilers for hardware description languages to work on the project. He/she should either already know about binary decision diagrams (BDDs) and temporal logic or be able to learn quickly. The salary is good for a beginning RS position (50k per year for two years and benefits).
If you are interested or know of someone who is, please contact
Edmund Clarke
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pa. 15213 USA
Phone: +1-412-268-2628 or 412-571-0794
email: Edmund.Clarke@cs.cmu.edu
The full version of this call is available as a plain text file.
The DIMACS Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science announces its 1995-96 Special Year on Logic and Algorithms.
A primary activity of the Center is to sponsor year-long research programs on specific topics of current interest, and one such program is this Special Year on Logic and Algorithms.
A dichotomy in theoretical computer science is best demonstrated by looking at the 1994 Handbook of Theoretical Computer Science. Volume A discusses algorithms and complexity, while Volume B treats formal models and semantics. Theoretical computer science in the United States is largely `Vol. A'-ish, while European theoretical computer science is largely `Vol. B'-ish. The goal of the Special Year is to bridge the gap between the two branches, focusing on three bridge areas: ComputerAided Verification, Finite-Model Theory, and Proof Complexity. All three are emerging research areas that fit naturally between Vol. A and Vol. B.
We invite applications for visiting and postdoctoral positions at DIMACS in connection with the Special Year. We encourage people to apply to NSF or other granting agencies for support to be used at DIMACS, as well as applying to DIMACS itself. Many funding deadlines fall between mid-October & mid-November, which calls for speedy action by those who are interested in visiting DIMACS. For more information on these positions, likely granting agencies, or anything else, contact DIMACS as described below. DIMACS will announce other postdoc and visitor application deadlines in November, 1994.
For Further Information. You can use several methods:
E-mail: center@dimacs.rutgers.edu, or: fellows@dimacs.rutgers.edu
Phone: 908-445-5928, Fax: 908-445-5932
Mosaic/www/lynx , Gopher , Telnet (login as `info')
Post:DIMACS Center
Rutgers U
P.O. Box 1179
Piscataway, NJ 08855-1179
Special Year Organizing Committee:Eric Allender, Rutgers U. (allender@cs.rutgers.edu)
Bob Kurshan, AT&T Bell Labs (k@research.att.com)
Moshe Vardi, Rice U. (vardi@cs.rice.edu)
GRAME is a research center for contemporary music sponsored by the French Ministry of Culture. Its R&D activities in computer-music are devoted to promoting new approaches and new tools for musicians. One of our two research areas is concerned with formal languages for musical notation and composition. Its objectives are:
Several compositional languages (MidiLogo 1984, MidiLisp 1986, CLCE 1991) come from these works. We are now seeking for a computer science researcher with extensive background in formal definition, semantics and theory of programming languages, especially lambda-calculus and functional programming, to work with us on the theoretical definition of a time based language currently in progress.
This post may apply to the Bc part of the European COMETT program for a duration between 2 and 6 months. This program is intended for promoting cooperation between universities and enterprises and to encourage training in advanced technologies. It concern only countries of the European Community (EC) or European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Thus, this proposal purpose is mainly educational. It must take shape with an agreement between the university and GRAME. All expenses related to this exchange (traveling expenses, accommodation, etc.) are on charge of GRAME. Applications including a C.V. addressing the above points and availability should be sent to GRAME as soon as possible.
Additional information: contact Mr. Orlarey or Mr. Fober at address:
GRAME
6, quai Jean Moulin
BP 1185
69202 LYON Cedex 01
FRANCE
Tel: +33 72073700, Fax: +33 72073701
E-mail: GRAME@AppleLink.Apple.com
UPDATE of [SIAN05p6-1]
A slightly modified version of Isabelle-94 is now available on the Cambridge ftp site (and shortly at TUM). This version has been prepared in response to problems reported with the previous version. The main differences are as follows:
The new version is available by anonymous ftp at Cambridge , where a more general index to Isabelle software and documentation is available, and at Munich .
The Mechanized Reasoning Group is pleased to announce release 2.001 of the GETFOL system.
GETFOL is an interactive reasoning system running on top of a complete reimplementation of the FOL system (FOL was itself developed by Richard W. Weyhrauch). GETFOL can be used in many ways, for instance as a programming language for building intelligent systems, as an interactive theorem prover for first order logic or as an environment for the study of the mathematical theory of computation.
GETFOL has a first order sorted language, theory and axiom declaration commands, multiple proofs, natural deduction inference rules (with extensions to deal with sorts), equality rules, conditional rules (termif, wffif), structural rules (weaken, contract), deciders for propositional and predicate logic, semantic and syntactic simplification, multiple contexts, meta-reasoning.
CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS RELEASE: Complete re-implementation of the deciders. Minor improvements to the administration commands. Bug fixes. GETFOL 2.001 can be obtained by anonymous ftp (IP address 130.251.7.2).
GETFOL2.001.tar.Z is a compressed tar file containing the source code and the documentation needed to run the system.
NEXT RELEASE will feature: backward reasoning integrated with forward reasoning, tactic language, definitions mechanism, emacs interface, export of proofs to LaTeX source code.
DISTRIBUTION POLICY:
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: GETFOL is implemented in HGKM, a language on top of Common Lisp. GETFOL has been successfully compiled with KCL (Kyoto Common Lisp), AKCL (Austin KCL) V(1.623) and Lucid (v. 3.0.0) on Unix.
If you have comments, requests, suggestions, please send e-mail to:
getfol@frege.mrg.dist.unige.it
A more elaborate statement , with examples, is available.
The best we can expect from various areas of research like theorem proving, lambda-calculus, type theory, etc., is that slowly some ideas from these domains will inspire people who are actually working in software development and that they provide a language to talk about various phenomena which have to be dealt with when designing or handling software. None of these formal areas will ever provide a solution to a practical problem. Topological models are neither better nor worse than order theoretic models and it is not clear that they are useful at all in software technology.
The only attitude is to believe that the mathematical models we are building will be useful mainly in providing a language to describe real phenomena and understand them.
My view of the AMAST identity is that of a group of people who believe that algebraic and syntactic methods will be useful, and should be useful, and that this usefulness may be an aim, but is also our main motivation; let mathematicians develop theories per se and for the only beauty of the art (though I believe in mathematics too the possible use in various application fields like physics or mechanics is essential), whereas let us privilege those papers which are motivated by an eventual usefulness, this being completely independent of the content of the paper and the formal techniques it uses. I can very well imagine that papers in traditionally applied fields (e.g. automata theory or algebraic specification) may prove unsuitable under this light, for their real motivation may be a generalization or extension which is not justified by any real need, whilst a paper using methods that are more sophisticated and a priori farther from applications (such as topological methods or geometrical algebra) may prove perfect for AMAST purposes, for it may bring some new ideas at least on how some real phenomenon has already been described and dealt with in another setting.
URL : ftp://ftp.cs.utwente.nl/pub/doc/amast/
Date : 07/10/1994
Contents :
README
(warning: the contents of the repository have
changed, after the distribution of the text version of
this issue; see README for an up-to-date description),
amast91/, amast93/, amast95/,
info/ (new subdirectory structure),
newsletter/ (new: renamed to
links/ ),
pstv95/, sigala/
was edited by Giuseppe Scollo, Michael Johnson and Edmund Kazmierczak, thanks
to contributions by:
PARCON'94 [M1],
Sandeep Bhatt [M2],
Sorin C. Istrail [M3],
Moshe Vardi [M4],
V. S. Alagar [C1],
Barry Jay [C2],
Richard Gerber [C3],
Jamie Ford [C4],
Ming Li [C5],
Ulrich Faigle [C6],
Jose D. P. Rolim [C7],
Marta Kwiatkowska [J1],
Uffe Engberg [J2],
Edmund Clarke [J3],
Steve Mahaney [J4],
COLIBRI 40-1994 [J5],
Larry Paulson [T1],
Fausto Giunchiglia [T2],
Maurice Nivat [V1].
This issue of AMAST Links is available in four forms: