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      <h1 style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;font-weight:normal"
          lang="EN-CA"></span></h1>
      <h1 style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;font-weight:normal"
          lang="EN-CA">*******************************************************************************</span></h1>
      <h1 style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span class="spelle"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;font-weight:normal"
            lang="EN-CA">VerifyThis</span></span><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;font-weight:normal"
          lang="EN-CA"> Verification Competition 2024</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></h1>
      <h1 style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;font-weight:normal"
          lang="EN-CA">ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PROBLEMS</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></h1>
      <h1 style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;font-weight:normal"
          lang="EN-CA">Competition to be held at ETAPS 2024</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></h1>
      <h1 style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN-CA"><a
            href="http://verifythis.ethz.ch" target="_BLANK"><span
style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1155CC;font-weight:normal">http://verifythis.ethz.ch</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;font-weight:normal"
          lang="EN-CA"> </span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></h1>
      <h1 style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;font-weight:normal"
          lang="EN-CA">********************************************************************************</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></h1>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">Get involved, even if you cannot participate in
          the competition: provide a challenge!</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">IMPORTANT DATES</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">Problems submission deadline: 15 December 2023</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">Competition: 6 and 7 April 2024</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">ABOUT THE COMPETITION</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span class="spelle"><span
            style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
            lang="EN-CA">VerifyThis</span></span><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA"> 2024 will take place as part of the European
          Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS
          2024) on 6 and 7 April 2019.</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">It is the 12th event in the <span class="spelle">VerifyThis</span>
          competition series.</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">Information on previous events and participants
          can be found at </span><span lang="EN-CA"><a
            href="http://verifythis.ethz.ch" target="_BLANK"><span
              style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1155CC">http://verifythis.ethz.ch</span></a></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">The aims of the competition are:</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">- to bring together those interested in formal
          verification, and to provide an engaging, hands-on, and fun
          opportunity for discussion.</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">- to evaluate the usability of program
          verification techniques and tools.</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">The competition will offer a number of challenges
          presented in natural language. Participants have to formalize
          the requirements, implement a solution, and formally verify
          the implementation for adherence to the specification.</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">There are no restrictions on the programming
          language and verification technology used. Solutions will be
          judged for correctness, completeness and elegance.</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">CALL FOR PROBLEMS</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">To be able to offer a broad and diverse set of
          verification challenges, we are collecting submissions of
          ideas for verification challenges and problems. We welcome
          both problems of academic interest as well as challenges based
          on themes that are relevant in industry.</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">The competition proceeds in three rounds. In each
          round, participants are given 60 - 120 minutes to implement
          and prove specified properties of a given algorithm and/or
          data structure. They are free to use any verification tools
          they choose. Challenges are typically concerned with proving
          functional properties of the code in question (at least some
          part of a challenge involves expressing and proving properties
          specific to the algorithm/data structure in question). It is
          common for problems to have multiple parts, e.g. to prove some
          basic properties first, perhaps for a simplified case, and to
          progress to more-advanced goals.<br>
          <br>
          We are looking for problem submissions. If you have recently
          encountered an interesting challenge in your work where formal
          techniques could be applied, please don't hesitate to submit
          it. Typical challenges have clear input-​output specifications
          and often incorporate one or more of the following: heap
          allocation, concurrency, arithmetic reasoning. A challenge
          usually describes a problem using natural language together
          with some pseudocode, and then provides a list of properties
          or "verification tasks" of varied levels of difficulty.
          Contributors are encouraged to look at the Archive of previous
          problems.<br>
          <br>
          An award will be given for any submission used in the
          competition. To avoid spoiling the competition for others, we
          ask that you keep the subject of your submission private.
          However, note that problem authors *are* allowed to
          participate in the competition!<br>
          <br>
          Submissions should be sent by email to <a
            href="mailto:alex.summers@ubc.ca"
            class="moz-txt-link-freetext">alex.summers@ubc.ca</a> and <a
            href="mailto:paula.herber@uni-muenster.de"
            class="moz-txt-link-freetext">paula.herber@uni-muenster.de</a>.
          The submission deadline is <b>December 15, 2023</b>. We look
          forward to receiving your ideas!<b><br>
            <br>
          </b>Submission Criteria:</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
        <li class="MsoNormal"
          style="color:black;margin-top:12.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1
          lfo1;vertical-align:baseline"> <span
            style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"
            lang="EN-CA">A brief yet precise problem description,
            specifically identifying verification sub-​tasks.</span><span
            lang="EN-CA"></span></li>
        <li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l0 level1
          lfo1;vertical-align:baseline"> <span
            style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"
            lang="EN-CA">A solution to the challenge is strongly
            encouraged, otherwise please provide a sketch of
            correctness.</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></li>
        <li class="MsoNormal"
          style="color:black;margin-bottom:12.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1
          lfo1;vertical-align:baseline"> <span
            style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"
            lang="EN-CA">The description document can use any reasonable
            format, including plain text or PDF.</span><span
            lang="EN-CA"></span></li>
      </ul>
      <p style="margin:0cm"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">ORGANIZERS</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin:0cm"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">* Paula Herber, University of Münster, Germany</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin:0cm"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">* Alexander J. Summers, University of British
          Columbia, Canada</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin:0cm"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA"><br>
        </span></p>
      <p style="margin:0cm"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">STEERING COMMITTEE</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin:0cm"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">* Marieke Huisman, University of Twente, the
          Netherlands</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin:0cm"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">* Rosemary Monahan, Maynooth University Maynooth,
          Ireland</span><span lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin:0cm"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">* Peter Müller, ETH Zurich, Switzerland</span><span
          lang="EN-CA"></span></p>
      <p style="margin:0cm"><span
          style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"
          lang="EN-CA">* Mattias <span class="spelle">Ulbrich</span>,
          Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany</span></p>
      <p></p>
      <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
Prof. Dr. Paula Herber
Embedded Systems Group
University of Münster
Computer Science Department, FB 10
Einsteinstr. 62, D-48149 Münster, Germany
Tel: +49 251 8332421
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:paula.herber@uni-muenster.de">paula.herber@uni-muenster.de</a></pre>
    </div>
    <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
Prof. Dr. Paula Herber
Embedded Systems Group
University of Münster
Computer Science Department, FB 10
Einsteinstr. 62, D-48149 Münster, Germany
Tel: +49 251 8332421
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:paula.herber@uni-muenster.de">paula.herber@uni-muenster.de</a></pre>
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