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<p class="MsoNormal">And some words from me:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A big thank you to Ami for initiating, organizing and running this wonderful conference with great help from Sylvie.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition big personal thanks to Ami for the triple honor of 1. Celebrating the 40<sup>th</sup> anniversary of coining the term Stringology. 2. Making me a co-organizer with few responsibilities. And 3. Asking me to speak in the opening.
I was delighted we also celebrated the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Peter van Emde Boas’ algorithm. I was there at Cornell when he discovered it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A propos the term Stringology, on the one hand it is in Wikipedia (no idea who put it there) and on the other hand Microsoft still makes it a typo. It is now in a title of a book (Jewells of Strigology) and in a name of the Prague Stringology
Club. Sparsificartion, a term I coined about 10 years later did not make it yet to Wikipedia
<span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">😉</span>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the opening session I talked about the people that we lost since the subfield Stringology was born. As the sign of a maturing field we started losing some members, very sadly quite young in our case.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I talked about my dear friend Alberto Apostolico, who fortunately was a colleague at Georgia Tech. He has had huge credit for the creation of the subfield of Stringology by organizing the Nato Workshop of Combinatorial Algorithms on Words
in Maratea, Italy. I was also the co-organizer <span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">
😉</span>. My paper was “Open Problems in Stringology” and I was delighted that Dan Gusfield referred to it in his paper. Among the participants of the Workshop were Michael Rabin and Andy Yao. Alberto, Maxime Crochemore and yours truly later created CPM that
is now celebrating its 35<sup>th</sup> anniversary. In case you missed it, I add Dick Lipton’s beautiful
<a href="https://rjlipton.com/2015/07/22/alberto-apostolico-1948-2015/">column</a> about Alberto. It has a broken link to another great
<a href="https://rjlipton.com/2011/01/12/stringology-the-real-string-theory/">column</a> about Stringology.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I talked about my dear student Danny Breslauer. In case you missed it, I attach what people wrote about Danny after we lost him. And I mentioned Costas Illipoulos that we lost this year. I found a piece about Costas
<a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/remembering-professor-costas-iliopoulos">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I should have talked also about Renato Capocelli who should be an honorary member of the Stringology gang. He organized Sequences I in 1989 in Naples (in a real palace) and in Positano and Sequences II in 1991 in Positano; Positano is
one of the most beautiful places in the world. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Again, thank you all who came or Zoomed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">zvi<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> Amir Amihood <amir@cs.biu.ac.il> <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, September 19, 2024 5:57 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Galil, Zvi <galil@cc.gatech.edu>; Roberto Grossi <grossi.roberto@gmail.com>; Gary Benson <gbenson@bu.edu>; Jeff Vitter <jeffvitter@gmail.com>; Tomasz Kociumaka <kociumaka@mimuw.edu.pl>; Andrei Broder <broder@google.com>; Gasieniec, Leszek <lechu@liverpool.ac.uk>;
Moti Yung <moti@cs.columbia.edu>; P. van Emde Boas <p.vanemdeboas@uva.nl>; gusfield@cs.ucdavis.edu; Bill Smyth <bill@arg.cas.mcmaster.ca>; Rao Kosaraju <kosaraju@cs.jhu.edu>; Paolo Ferragina <paolo.ferragina@santannapisa.it>; Franek, Frantisek <franek@mcmaster.ca>;
Rahul Shah <rahul@lsu.edu>; Raphael Clifford <raphael@clifford.net>; Igor Zavadskyi <ihorza@gmail.com>; Igor Nor <norigor@gmail.com>; tomohiro@ai.kyutech.ac.jp; yuto.nakashima@inf.kyushu-u.ac.jp; oren weimann <oren.weimann@gmail.com>; Gregory Kucherov <Gregory.Kucherov@univ-eiffel.fr>;
philippe.gambette@univ-mlv.fr; Jakub Radoszewski <jakub.radoszewski@gmail.com>; Panagiotis Charalampopoulos <panagiotis.charalampopoulos@kcl.ac.uk>; Concettina Guerra <concettinaguerra2@gmail.com>; Dina Sokol <sokol.dina@gmail.com>; peltorator@gmail.com; Robert
Krauthgamer <robert.krauthgamer@weizmann.ac.il>; dominik.koeppl@uni-dortmund.de; Jan Holub <Jan.Holub@fit.cvut.cz>; Tsvi Kopelowitz <kopelot@gmail.com>; Sylvie Baruch <sylvie.baruch@biu.ac.il>; Moshe Vardi <vardi@cs.rice.edu>; Shoshana Marcus <shoshanan@gmail.com>;
Martin Golumbic <golumbic@gmail.com>; Ely Porat <porately@cs.biu.ac.il>; Moshe Lewenstein <moshe.lewenstein@gmail.com>; noa.lewenstein@gmail.com; Avivit Levy <avivitlevy@gmail.com>; Riva Shalom <riva.shalom@gmail.com>; איתי בונה <barbunyaboy2@gmail.com>; Eitan
Kondratovsky <eit414@gmail.com>; דביר פריד <friedvir1@gmail.com>; Michael itsjaki <michael.itzhaki@live.biu.ac.il>; Ayelet Butman <ayelet.butman@gmail.com>; Moshe Butman <moshe.butman@gmail.com>; חיים פריאנטי <haimpa@gmail.com>; Shay Golan <sgvbgo@gmail.com>;
Daniel Gusfield <dmgusfield@ucdavis.edu>; Uzi Vishkin <vishkin@umiacs.umd.edu>; Travis Gagie <travis.gagie@gmail.com>; Steven Skiena <skiena@gmail.com>; Meira Brandwein <Meira@academy.ac.il><br>
<b>Cc:</b> cpm-spire-l@lists.cs.ucr.edu<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Thanks<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Dear Friends,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
Yesterday we concluded the Israel Stringology 2024 Conference.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
There is still a lot of work ahead of me to update the site with the presentations and videos of the talks, as well as photos of the speakers and activities. But I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
First and foremost to the brave speakers who came from abroad to participate physically. In the photos below you will see them hunkering in the trenches, eating gruel from a mess kit as the bullets are whizzing in their hair
<span style="font-family:Wingdings">J</span>. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
Next, to the speakers who contributed online – I know that took social courage and I acknowledge and appreciate it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
It was nice to see, albeit online, many old friends – thank you, and I hope you enjoyed the talks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
My thanks to all who contributed to this conference:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
The co-organizer, Zvika Galil, who was invaluable for the success of this meeting.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
The Rothschild Fund of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, The Israel Science Foundation, Bar Ilan University Vice President for Research, the Dean of Exact Sciences at Bar-Ilan University, and the department of Computer Science at Bar Ilan University.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
In particular, our heartfelt thanks go to Ms. Sylvie Baruch who was there with us every step of the way and who was the address for every complaint, from arranging a cab for a participant, to interfacing with the hotels, travel agent, caterers, and other providers.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
And to all of you who participated, I hope you all found the conference interesting and pleasurable.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
<o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify">
Attached are some photos of the conference, there are lots more.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">See you all in the next Israel Stringology Conference!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="gmail-msonospacing" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Ami<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue">Amihood Amir</span> Tel. +972 3 5318770<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Prof. of Computer Science Secr. +972 3 7360497<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Bar Ilan University Fax +972 3 7384056<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Ramat Gan email: <a href="mailto:amir@cs.biu.ac.il" target="_blank">
amir@cs.biu.ac.il</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">ISRAEL 52900 url: <a href="http://u.cs.biu.ac.il/~amir/" target="_blank">
http://u.cs.biu.ac.il/~amir/</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p>
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