The Signal Beat – A Related Blog

David Arthur Tanzer

Greetings Azimuth readers! This is a note to introduce myself and a new math blog that I am starting. I’ve been involved with Azimuth for a long time now, having written some blog articles years back, and have been helping to keep things organized on the forum. I have a PhD in CS and an undergraduate degree in math, and have continued to study math in the context of Azimuth and the applied category theory community. Professionally I am experienced as software engineer and developer for quantitative finance, and have an independent consulting practice based in New York City.

The Signal Beat is a math-oriented blog, with popular style articles written for a range of audiences. It could, for example, present first principles of epidemic modeling to general readers, matrix transformations to programmers, or category theory to math undergraduates. My aim is to develop it into a coherent library of tutorials. The tagline is: a math reading room.

Following up on an invitation from John, I will be cross-posting the articles here to Azimuth — a great community for talking about ideas!

The blog is offered in a spirit of public outreach. In these times of pandemic, climate threat and attacks on science, an informed public is truly needed. A broad-based culture of science would be a natural complement and support for the activity of professional scientists. Every good scientist had a mother and a father, and so generally speaking their education made a contribution as well.

As some articles are written with nonprofessional audiences in mind, a typical Azimuth reader might feel that certain points are being over-explained. There is a tightrope to be walked with this kind of writing; where possible, I aim to leave no competent reader behind. In any case you might want to read on, as the posts are connected into series that go from point A to point B.

The first posts will be on computer science and mathematical epidemiology. Later themes may include foundations of probability theory, machine learning, basic category theory and its applications, and biological modeling.

Submissions for guest contributions are invited.

I look forward to discussing ideas with you here on Azimuth!

Contact: tanzer@thesignalbeat.com

Reposted from the Signal Beat, Copyright © 2021, All Rights Reserved.

Compositionality — First Issue

Yay! The first volume of Compositionality has been published! You can read it here:

https://compositionality-journal.org

“Compositionality” is about how complex things can be assembled out of simpler parts. Compositionality is a journal for research using compositional ideas, most notably of a category-theoretic origin, in any discipline. Example areas include but are not limited to: computation, logic, physics, chemistry, engineering, linguistics, and cognition.

Compositionality is a diamond open access journal. That means it’s free to publish in and free to read.

The executive board consists of Brendan Fong, Nina Otter and Joshua Tan. I thank them for all their work making this dream a reality!

The coordinating editors are Aleks Kissinger and Joachim Kock. The steering board consists of John Baez, Bob Coecke, Kathryn Hess, Steve Lack and Valeria de Paiva.

The editors are:

• Corina Cirstea, University of Southampton, UK
• Ross Duncan, University of Strathclyde, UK
• Andrée Ehresmann, University of Picardie Jules Verne, France
• Tobias Fritz, Perimeter Institute, Canada
• Neil Ghani, University of Strathclyde, UK
• Dan Ghica, University of Birmingham, UK
• Jeremy Gibbons, University of Oxford, UK
• Nick Gurski, Case Western Reserve University, USA
• Helle Hvid Hansen, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
• Chris Heunen, University of Edinburgh, UK
• Martha Lewis, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Samuel Mimram, École Polytechnique, France
• Simona Paoli, University of Leicester, UK
• Dusko Pavlovic, University of Hawaii, USA
• Christian Retoré, Université de Montpellier, France
• Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh, Queen Mary University, UK
• Peter Selinger, Dalhousie University, Canada
• Pawel Sobocinski, University of Southampton, UK
• David Spivak, MIT, USA
• Jamie Vicary, University of Birmingham and University of Oxford, UK
• Simon Willerton, University of Sheffield, UK

Compositionality – Now Open For Submissions

Our new journal Compositionality is now open for submissions!

It’s an open-access journal for research using compositional ideas, most notably of a category-theoretic origin, in any discipline. Topics may concern foundational structures, an organizing principle, or a powerful tool. Example areas include but are not limited to: computation, logic, physics, chemistry, engineering, linguistics, and cognition.

Compositionality is free of cost for both readers and authors.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We invite you to submit a manuscript for publication in the first issue of Compositionality (ISSN: 2631-4444), a new open-access journal for research using compositional ideas, most notably of a category-theoretic origin, in any discipline.

To submit a manuscript, please visit http://www.compositionality-journal.org/for-authors/.

SCOPE

Compositionality refers to complex things that can be built by sticking together simpler parts. We welcome papers using compositional ideas, most notably of a category-theoretic origin, in any discipline. This may concern foundational structures, an organising principle, a powerful tool, or an important application. Example areas include but are not limited to: computation, logic, physics, chemistry, engineering, linguistics, and cognition.

Related conferences and workshops that fall within the scope of Compositionality include the Symposium on Compositional Structures (SYCO), Categories, Logic and Physics (CLP), String Diagrams in Computation, Logic and Physics (STRING), Applied Category Theory (ACT), Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science (CALCO), and the Simons Workshop on Compositionality.

SUBMISSION AND PUBLICATION

Submissions should be original contributions of previously unpublished work, and may be of any length. Work previously published in conferences and workshops must be significantly expanded or contain significant new results to be accepted. There is no deadline for submission. There is no processing charge for accepted publications; Compositionality is free to read and free to publish in. More details can be found in our editorial policies at http://www.compositionality-journal.org/editorial-policies/.

STEERING BOARD

John Baez, University of California, Riverside, USA
Bob Coecke, University of Oxford, UK
Kathryn Hess, EPFL, Switzerland
Steve Lack, Macquarie University, Australia
Valeria de Paiva, Nuance Communications, USA

EDITORIAL BOARD

Corina Cirstea, University of Southampton, UK
Ross Duncan, University of Strathclyde, UK
Andree Ehresmann, University of Picardie Jules Verne, France
Tobias Fritz, Max Planck Institute, Germany
Neil Ghani, University of Strathclyde, UK
Dan Ghica, University of Birmingham, UK
Jeremy Gibbons, University of Oxford, UK
Nick Gurski, Case Western Reserve University, USA
Helle Hvid Hansen, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Chris Heunen, University of Edinburgh, UK
Aleks Kissinger, Radboud University, Netherlands
Joachim Kock, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Martha Lewis, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Samuel Mimram, Ecole Polytechnique, France
Simona Paoli, University of Leicester, UK
Dusko Pavlovic, University of Hawaii, USA
Christian Retore, Universite de Montpellier, France
Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh, Queen Mary University, UK
Peter Selinger, Dalhousie University, Canada
Pawel Sobocinski, University of Southampton, UK
David Spivak, MIT, USA
Jamie Vicary, University of Birmingham and University of Oxford, UK
Simon Willerton, University of Sheffield, UK

Sincerely,

The Editorial Board of Compositionality

Compositionality: the Editorial Board

The editors of this journal have an announcement:

We are happy to announce the founding editorial board of Compositionality, featuring established researchers working across logic, computer science, physics, linguistics, coalgebra, and pure category theory (see the full list below). Our steering board considered many strong applications to our initial open call for editors, and it was not easy narrowing down to the final list, but we think that the quality of this editorial board and the general response bodes well for our growing research community.

In the meantime, we hope you will consider submitting something to our first issue. Look out in the coming weeks for the journal’s official open-for-submissions announcement.

The editorial board of Compositionality:

• Corina Cristea, University of Southampton, UK
• Ross Duncan, University of Strathclyde, UK
• Andrée Ehresmann, University of Picardie Jules Verne, France
• Tobias Fritz, Max Planck Institute, Germany
• Neil Ghani, University of Strathclyde, UK
• Dan Ghica, University of Birmingham, UK
• Jeremy Gibbons, University of Oxford, UK
• Nick Gurski, Case Western Reserve University, USA
• Helle Hvid Hansen, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
• Chris Heunen, University of Edinburgh, UK
• Aleks Kissinger, Radboud University, Netherlands
• Joachim Kock, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
• Martha Lewis, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Samuel Mimram, École Polytechnique, France
• Simona Paoli, University of Leicester, UK
• Dusko Pavlovic, University of Hawaii, USA
• Christian Retoré, Université de Montpellier, France
• Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh, Queen Mary University, UK
• Peter Selinger, Dalhousie University, Canada
• Pawel Sobocinski, University of Southampton, UK
• David Spivak, MIT, USA
• Jamie Vicary, University of Birmingham, UK
• Simon Willerton, University of Sheffield, UK

Best,
Josh, Brendan, and Nina
Executive editors, Compositionality

Compositionality — The Journal

A new journal! We’ve been working on it for a long time, but we finished sorting out some details at ACT2018, and now we’re ready to tell the world!

It’s free to read, free to publish in, and it’s about building big things from smaller parts. Here’s the top of the journal’s home page right now:

Here’s the official announcement:

We are pleased to announce the launch of Compositionality, a new diamond open-access journal for research using compositional ideas, most notably of a category-theoretic origin, in any discipline. Topics may concern foundational structures, an organizing principle, or a powerful tool. Example areas include but are not limited to: computation, logic, physics, chemistry, engineering, linguistics, and cognition. To learn more about the scope and editorial policies of the journal, please visit our website at http://www.compositionality-journal.org.

Compositionality is the culmination of a long-running discussion by many members of the extended category theory community, and the editorial policies, look, and mission of the journal have yet to be finalized. We would love to get your feedback about our ideas on the forum we have established for this purpose:

http://reddit.com/r/compositionality

Lastly, the journal is currently receiving applications to serve on the editorial board; submissions are due May 31 and will be evaluated by the members of our steering board: John Baez, Bob Coecke, Kathryn Hess, Steve Lack, and Valeria de Paiva.

https://tinyurl.com/call-for-editors

We will announce a call for submissions in mid-June.

We’re looking forward to your ideas and submissions!

Best regards,

Brendan Fong, Nina Otter, and Joshua Tan

http://www.compositionality-journal.org/