This year's ADFOCS features four lecturers, each of which will give four lectures and two exercise sessions. They will be distributed to eight blocks of about four hours. A typical morning or afternoon block will start with 2 hours of lecture (with a break in between), followed by an hour of exercises (in small groups without the lecturers). During the exercise periods, the respective lecturer will be around, as well as some drinks.

Schedule

Lunch

Here you can find the daily menu of our restaurant (Mensa). Using your coupons, you can get anything, except for the options at Mensa cafe. Note: In order to switch to English, you can select a date, and then click on the gear next to date. In the box that appears, at the bottom there is a dropdown for language with the word "sprache". Choose English.

Lecture halls

All the Lectures will be held in E1 5 R002, all the exercises in the classrooms on the ground floor of E1 4, and all the coffee breaks in E1 4.

Talks by members of MPI-INF

On Thursday, members of the Algorithms and Complexity Group (D1) at MPI-INF will introduce the group by presenting their own work.

• Danupon Nanongkai: Graph Algorithms (slides)
• Karl Bringmann:Fine-Grained Complexity and Efficient Algorithm Design (slides)
• Tomasz Kociumaka: Based on a FOCS’22 paper with Elazar Goldenberg, Robert Krauthgamer, and Barna Saha (slides)
• Hannaneh Akrami: Fair Division (slides)

Excursion

On Wednesday afternoon, there are no lectures. Instead, you can join an excursion to a tour on bicycle handcars or a guided tour of Saarbrücken. We provide buses leaving to bicycle handcars tour at 13:30. For a guided tour of Saarbrücken, we leave at 13:30 as well with public transport.

The registration fee is EUR 130 for early registration (deadline July 31st 2024) and EUR 180 for late registration (from August 1-August 11, 2024).
This fee covers course material, lunches (all days), coffee and snacks, and the excursion; it does not cover hotel accommodation.
We will provide some grants for graduate students and young researchers.

If you are a student (including PhD student) please register here: student registration
Otherwise please register here: regular registration

We strongly recommend to use the bank transfer option when registering.

Note: It may take some time for the Payment Status to change from "Pending", while we process and confirm your payment. If the status of your transaction shows, "Pending", please ignore. We can see who had made an attempt to make the payment, and we consider it as a valid registration.

Michal Feldman

• Lecture 1-3: Algorithmic Contract Design (slides)
• Lecture 4: Ambiguous Contracts (slides)
• Exercises
• Solutions
• Recording 1 and 2

Paul Duetting

• Lecture 1: Prophet Inequalities Part 1: Introduction (slides)
• Lecture 2: Prophet Inequalities Part 2: Online matching and contention resolution (slides)
• Lecture 3: Prophet Inequalities Part 3: Online combinatorial auctions and balanced prices (slides)
• Lecture 4: Prophet Inequalities Part 4: Data-driven prophet inequalites (slides)
• Exercises
• Recording 1 and 2

Bernhard von Stengel

• Lecture 1: Equilibrium Computation in Games (slides)
• Lecture 2: Geometry of Equilibria in Bimatrix Games (slides)
• Lecture 3: Extensive Games and the Sequence Form (slides)
• Lecture 4: PPAD (slides)
• Lecture 5: Correlated Equilibria – Existence via LP Duality (slides)
• Exercises and Solutions
• Recording 1 and 2

Elias Koutsoupias

• Lecture 1-2: Mechanism Design: Introduction, VCG, single parameter settings (slides)
• Lecture 3-4: Mechanism Design: Multi-parameter mechanisms as algorithms (slides)
• Exercises
• Solutions
• Recording 1 and 2

Talks by members of MPI-INF

On Thursday, members of the Algorithms and Complexity Group (D1) at MPI-INF introduced the group by presenting their own work.

• Danupon Nanongkai: Graph Algorithms (slides)>
• Karl Bringmann:Fine-Grained Complexity and Efficient Algorithm Design (slides)
• Tomasz Kociumaka: Based on a FOCS’22 paper with Elazar Goldenberg, Robert Krauthgamer, and Barna Saha (slides)
• Hannaneh Akrami: Fair Division (slides)
• Recording

We will offer a limited number of travel grants for graduate students and young researchers.

Application

If you wish to apply for a grant, please send an email with a brief CV (name, affiliation, complete address, education, publications, nationality, etc.);
Please have your supervisor at your institute send an email with a brief letter of recommendation, certifying in particular your relation with the topics in ADFOCS, before the deadline.

Note that the travel grant is meant to roughly cover your local expenses (hotel/youth hostel, registration); it will not be sufficient to cover flight costs!

Please send both emails to adfocs@mpi-inf.mpg.de and indicate as subject "ADFOCS grant application". You will receive a confirmation of receipt of your application.

Deadline

June 30, 2024, 24:00 Central European Summer Time
(By the deadline, we must receive both the CV and the letter of recommendation)

Notification

by July 10, 2024

The participants are responsible for their accommodation. In Saarbrücken, per-night prices including taxes and breakfast typically range from 50 EURO (youth hostel) to about 105 EURO (hotel, single room).

We have reserved a certain number of rooms (breakfast included) in the following hotels. When booking a room, please refer to "ADFOCS" since we have negotiated special rates for you.

• Hotel B&B: 76 EURO single room / 94 EURO double room (the offer expires by 10 July)
• Hotel Madeleine: 77 EURO single room / 87 EURO double room (the offer expires by 19 August).

Further options (without reserved contingents) include:

• Etap-Hotel
• Hotel Leidinger
• Hotel Motel One
• Hotel Premier Inn
• Hotel Weller
• Youth Hostel (closest to the university, not too expensive)
• Hotel Holiday Inn Express

We strongly recommend to carry some Euros in cash while you come to Germany.

You can use this link to get route recommendations that are more accurate than Google Maps. You can also find an app with the same name to help you.

We highly recommend purchasing a Deutschlandticket. It costs EURO 49/month and gives access to buses, the tramway, and most trains. Note: The Deutschlandticket is only available by subscription. Make sure to cancel it early in advance, so that you only pay for August. In particular, you need to cancel by 10 August, 2024, so that you don't pay for September. Please look here for more information.

If you don't have a Deutschlandticket then:

• The fare for one trip Frankfurt-Saarbrücken is roughly EURO 42. If you are a group of people, you may want to check the Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket.
• On Monday you will be provided with a badge that gives you access to buses and Saarbahn (tramway) for the whole week. Before getting your badge, you can buy one-way tickets (roughly EURO 3), and daily tickets (EURO 5.20). Tickets can be bought from the bus driver on board the bus. At the Saarbahn, single tickets can be bought from ticket vending machines at Saarbahn stations or on board the trains.

Traveling to Saarbrücken

You will probably try to reach Saarbrücken by train. If you have a flight to Frankfurt, this is extremely easy. There is a train station right in the terminal building. Trains run frequently. You have to buy a ticket before you board the train, and there you can also ask which trains to take.

If you arrive at some other airport, things are not that simple, but there are still train connections.

From Saarbrücken main train station ("Saarbrücken Hauptbahnhof") to your hotel

From the train station to your hotel you can use public transport: Buses and a tramway that is called "Saarbahn".

• The Hotel B&B Saarbrücken is located directly at the main train station.
• For Hotel Madeleine, you take the tramway S1 with destination "Sarreguemines", "Brebach", or "Kleinblittersdorf" and get off at the stop "Johanneskirche" (two stops). You can also walk (15 minutes).
• For the Youth Hostel, you take bus 124 with destination "Universität Busterminal" and get off at the stop "Prinzenweiher/DJH" (six stops). On Sunday, bus 124 does not operate. You can travel either to Ilseplatz by Bus 102 (11th stop), and walk from there (about 7 minutes), or you may check other options here: www.saarbahn.de (von: Saarbrücken Hbf, nach: Saarbrücken, Europa Jugendherberge).
• For Hotel Kaiserhof, take the tramway S1 with destination "Sarreguemines", "Brebach", or "Kleinblittersdorf" and get off at the stop "Uhlandstrasse" (five stops).
• For the Etap-Hotel, take the tramway S1 with destination "Sarreguemines", "Brebach", or "Kleinblittersdorf" and get off at the stop "Kieselhumes". (six stops).

Specific bus queries (using the names of the bus/tram stops) can be entered here (enter the name of the origin bus/tram stop in the "von" field, the destination in the "nach" field, and in the next two, date and time).

Getting to the MPII and back

All buses to the MPII will have "Universität" as part of their destination sign. You get off the bus at the stop "Universität Mensa". The MPI building is located on the left side a bit further down the street (Building number E1.4). You can also look at the map below. On the way back you depart from the same bus stop (other side of the road).

• From the main train station and from Hotel B&B Saarbrücken, take bus 124 with destination "Universität Busterminal" and get off at the stop "Universität Mensa" (12 stops). On the way back, the destination is "Betriebsbahnhof".
• From the city center (Hotel Madeleine is located here) several buses to the MPII (stop "Universität Mensa") start at the bus stop "Rathaus": bus 101 with destination "Dudweiler Dudoplatz" (10 stops), bus 102 with destination "Dudweiler Dudoplatz" (13 stops), bus 109 with destination "Universität Busterminal " (13 stops), and bus 150 with destination "Neuweiler Sternplatz" (10 stops). On the way back to the city center you get off the bus at the bus stop "Johanneskirche". The destinations are "Füllengarten Siedlung" for bus 101, "Altenkessel Talstrasse" for bus 102, "Saarcenter/Goldene Bremm" for bus 109, and "Saarcenter" for bus 150.
• From the Hotel Kaiserhof (tramway stop "Uhlandstrasse") or the Etap-Hotel (tramway stop "Kieselhumes") take the tramway S1 back in direction main station (destinations "Siedlerheim" and "Riegelsberg Süd") and get off at the tramway stop "Johanneskirche" (three/four stops). Walk over to the bus stop "Rathaus" and proceed as above.
• From the Youth Hostel (bus stop "Prinzenweiher/DJH"), you enter the bus at the same stop you left when coming from the train station and go on to "Universität Mensa" taking bus 101 with destination "Dudweiler Dudoplatz", bus 124 with destination "Universität Busterminal", or bus 150 with destination "Neuweiler Sternplatz" (seven/six stops). On the way back, the destinations are "Füllengarten Siedlung" (bus 101), "Betriebsbahnhof" (bus 124), and "Saarcenter" (bus 150).

Websites of previous ADFOCS summer schools.

• ADFOCS 23 (2023)
• ADFOCS 22 (2021)
• ADFOCS 21 (2020)
• ADFOCS 20 (2019)
• ADFOCS 19 (2018)
• ADFOCS 18 (2017)
• ADFOCS 17 (2016)
• ADFOCS 16 (2015)
• ADFOCS 15 (2014)
• ADFOCS 14 (2013)
• ADFOCS 13 (2012)
• ADFOCS 12 (2011)
• ADFOCS 11 (2010)
• ADFOCS 10 (2009)
• ADFOCS 9 (2008)
• ADFOCS 8 (2007)
• ADFOCS 7 (2006)
• ADFOCS 6 (2005)
• ADFOCS 5 (2004)
• ADFOCS 4 (2003)
• ADFOCS 3 (2002)
• ADFOCS 2 (2001)
• ADFOCS 1 (2000)

ADFOCS supports the recommendations of the SafeTOC report to combat harassment and discrimination in the Theory of Computing community.

By participating in the ADFOCS program, you agree to not exercise any demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behavior and speech. More precisely, we will adhere to the guidelines as recommended by the ACM/STOC code of conduct.

If at anytime you feel unsafe, intimidated or harrassed during ADFOCS, please contact the organizers immediately and we will start an (anonymous) investigation.

The organizers reserve the right to remove any participant from the ADFOCS summer school.