Descriptional Complexity of Formal Systems

DCFS, the International Workshop on Descriptional Complexity of Formal Systems is an annual academic conference in the field of computer science.

Beginning with the 2011 edition, the proceedings of the workshop appear in the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Already since the very beginning, extended versions of selected papers are published as special issues of the International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science, the Journal of Automata, Languages and Combinatorics, of Theoretical Computer Science, and of Information and Computation In 2002 DCFS was the result of the merger of the workshops DCAGRS (Descriptional Complexity of Automata, Grammars and Related Structures) and FDSR (Formal Descriptions and Software Reliability). The workshop is often collocated with international conferences in related fields, such as ICALP, DLT and CIAA.

Topics of the workshop
Typical topics include: As such, the topics of the conference overlap with those of the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 1.2 on descriptional complexity.
 * various measures of descriptional complexity of automata, grammars, languages and of related systems
 * trade-offs between descriptional complexity and mode of operation
 * circuit complexity of Boolean functions and related measures
 * succinctness of description of (finite) objects
 * state complexity of finite automata
 * descriptional complexity in resource-bounded or structure-bounded environments
 * structural complexity
 * descriptional complexity of formal systems for applications (e.g. software reliability, software and hardware testing, modelling of natural languages)
 * descriptional complexity aspects of nature-motivated (bio-inspired) architectures and unconventional models of computing
 * Kolmogorov–Chaitin complexity and descriptional complexity

Significance
In a survey on descriptional complexity, state that "since more than a decade the Workshop on 'Descriptional Complexity of Formal Systems' (DCFS), [...] has contributed substantially to the development of [its] field of research." In a talk on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the workshop, gave an overview about trends and directions in research papers presented at DCFS.

History of the workshop
Chairs of the Steering Committee of the DCFS workshop series:

Basic information on each DCFS event, as well as on its precursors, DCAGRS and FSDR, is included in the following table.