30th Edition

International Conference on
Implementation and Application of Automata

Bringing together researchers and practitioners in automata theory, implementation, and applications from across academia and industry

Dates
August 5-8, 2026
Location
Queen's University
City
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
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Welcome

About CIAA 2026

The International Conference on Implementation and Application of Automata (CIAA) is the premier annual venue for research in automata theory and applications

CIAA 2026 will be held at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, organized by the School of Computing. The conference brings together members of the academic, research, and industrial communities who share an interest in the theory, implementation, and application of automata and related structures.

The conference concerns research on all aspects of implementation and application of automata and related structures, including theoretical aspects. For more information about the CIAA conference series, visit the official CIAA website.

Sheng Yu Award

The prestigious Sheng Yu Award will be presented to the author(s) of the paper judged to be the best based on referee reports, recognizing excellence in automata research.

📚 Publication

Springer LNCS

Conference proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in the renowned Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series.

Extended versions of selected papers from the conference will be invited for consideration in a special issue of Theoretical Computer Science.

Co-located with DCFS 2026 (August 9-11, 2026)

Timeline

Important Dates

March 20, 2026 → March 27, 2026
Paper Submission Deadline
April 24, 2026 → May 1, 2026
Author Notification
May 8, 2026
Camera-Ready Deadline
August 5-8, 2026
Conference
Program

Schedule of Talks

All conference sessions will be held in Room 2109, Biosciences Complex, Queen's University (116 Barrie Street)

Download Schedule (PDF) Conference Poster (PDF) Conference Proceedings (Springer) Tool Track Proceedings (PDF)

Wednesday, August 5

Time Event
8:00am – 9:00am Registration / Breakfast
9:00am – 9:30am Conference Opening
9:30am – 10:30am Invited Talk 1
Nataša Jonoska
"Traversing Crystals by Automata"
10:30am – 11:00am Coffee Break
11:00am – 12:00pm Session 1
Thomas Braipson and Tom Clara
"Efficiently Testing Emptiness of Automata on Linear Orderings"
Oscar Ibarra and Ian McQuillan
"Decidability of Regularity for Families of Languages"
12:00pm – 1:30pm Lunch
1:30pm – 2:30pm Session 2
Yong Li, Qiyi Tang and Di-De Yen
"Hyper-Minimization for Deterministic Register Automata"
Hellis Tamm and Brink Van Der Merwe
"Minimal Deterministic Finite Automata from Alternating and Boolean Automata"
2:30pm – 3:00pm Coffee Break
3:00pm – 3:30pm Tool Track Session 1
Jesse Burdick-Pless, Lucas Famous, Chang you Yu, Teddy FitzPatrick, and Alexander Day
"Automated Verification of Student Automata Submissions Using AFCT"

Thursday, August 6

Time Event
8:30am – 9:30am Registration / Breakfast
9:30am – 10:30am Invited Talk 2
Anthony Bonato
"Burning, Cooling, and Liminal Burning Graphs"
10:30am – 11:00am Coffee Break
11:00am – 12:00pm Session 3
Da-Jung Cho, Szilárd Zsolt Fazekas, Daihei Ise, Shinnosuke Seki, Wataru Tamehira and Max Wiedenhöft
"Bandwidth of nondeterministic finite automata"
Daniil Lyubaev, Maria Radionova and Alexander Okhotin
"On the state complexity of two-way reversible finite automata"
12:00pm – 1:30pm Lunch
1:30pm – 2:30pm Session 4
Abhisek Midya and A Baskar
"Measure Many Quantum Finite Automata on Infinite Words"
Hermann Gruber, Markus Holzer and Christian Rauch
"The Stanat-Weiss Pumping Lemma, Revisited (Extended Abstract)"
2:30pm – 3:00pm Coffee Break
3:00pm – 3:30pm Tool Track Session 2
Oleg Efimov, Tommy Tracy II, Whiting Zheng, Kevin Skadron and Kevin Angstadt
"Normal Forms for Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions"
Evening Excursion and Dinner

Friday, August 7

Time Event
8:30am – 9:30am Registration / Breakfast
9:30am – 10:30am Session 5
Sabine Broda, António Machiavelo, Nelma Moreira and Rogério Reis
"Boolean Products of Languages"
Sungmin Kim, Hyunki Hong, Taeryung Lim, Yo-Sub Han and Kai Salomaa
"Decomposing regular languages under shuffle along trajectories"
10:30am – 11:00am Coffee Break
11:00am – 12:00pm Invited Talk 3
Ian Mertz
"Computing with a Full Hard Drive"
12:00pm – 1:30pm Lunch
1:30pm – 2:30pm Session 6
Yusuke Inoue, Yuji Komatsu, Hiyu Inoue and Shun-Ichi Kimura
"Impartial Derivation Games on Context-Free Grammars"
Sungmin Kim, Hyundong Jin and Yo-Sub Han
"Pattern matching under R-congruence"
2:30pm – 3:00pm Coffee Break
3:00pm – 3:15pm Business Meeting
3:15pm – 3:30pm Special Session

Saturday, August 8

Time Event
10:00am – 11:00am Registration / Breakfast (weekend late start)
11:00am – 12:00pm Session 7
Florin Manea, Tina Ringleb, Stefan Siemer and Maximilian Winkler
"Efficiently Finding Minimal Absent Subsequences in a String"
Delaram Moradi, Narad Rampersad and Jeffrey Shallit
"Complexity of Linear Subsequences of k-Automatic Sequences"
12:00pm – 1:30pm Lunch Break (own lunch)
1:30pm – 2:30pm Open Problems Session
2:30pm – 3:00pm Coffee Break
3:00pm – 3:30pm Tool Track Session 3
Mans Hulden and Michael Ginn
"Compiling Rewrite Rules to Finite-State Transducers with the Worsening Trick"
3:30pm Conference Closing
Papers

Accepted Papers

Proceedings Papers

Thomas Braipson and Tom Clara. Efficiently Testing Emptiness of Automata on Linear Orderings
Sabine Broda, António Machiavelo, Nelma Moreira and Rogério Reis. Boolean Products of Languages
Da-Jung Cho, Szilárd Zsolt Fazekas, Daihei Ise, Shinnosuke Seki, Wataru Tamehira and Max Wiedenhöft. Bandwidth of nondeterministic finite automata
Hermann Gruber, Markus Holzer and Christian Rauch. The Stanat-Weiss Pumping Lemma, Revisited (Extended Abstract)
Oscar Ibarra and Ian McQuillan. Decidability of Regularity for Families of Languages
Yusuke Inoue, Yuji Komatsu, Hiyu Inoue and Shun-Ichi Kimura. Impartial Derivation Games on Context-Free Grammars
Sungmin Kim, Hyunki Hong, Taeryung Lim, Yo-Sub Han and Kai Salomaa. Decomposing regular languages under shuffle along trajectories
Sungmin Kim, Hyundong Jin and Yo-Sub Han. Pattern matching under R-congruence
Yong Li, Qiyi Tang and Di-De Yen. Hyper-Minimization for Deterministic Register Automata
Daniil Lyubaev, Maria Radionova and Alexander Okhotin. On the state complexity of two-way reversible finite automata
Florin Manea, Tina Ringleb, Stefan Siemer and Maximilian Winkler. Efficiently Finding Minimal Absent Subsequences in a String
Abhisek Midya and A Baskar. Measure Many Quantum Finite Automata on Infinite Words
Delaram Moradi, Narad Rampersad and Jeffrey Shallit. Complexity of Linear Subsequences of k-Automatic Sequences
Hellis Tamm and Brink Van Der Merwe. Minimal Deterministic Finite Automata from Alternating and Boolean Automata

Tool Track Papers

Oleg Efimov, Tommy Tracy II, Whiting Zheng, Kevin Skadron and Kevin Angstadt. Normal Forms for Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions
Jesse Burdick-Pless, Lucas Famous, Chang you Yu, Teddy FitzPatrick, and Alexander Day. Automated Verification of Student Automata Submissions Using AFCT
Mans Hulden and Michael Ginn. Compiling Rewrite Rules to Finite-State Transducers with the Worsening Trick
Research Areas

Principal Topics

We solicit papers on all aspects of implementation and application of automata and related structures, including theoretical aspects, including but not limited to:

  • Algorithms on automata
  • Automata and logic
  • Bioinformatics
  • Complexity of automata operations
  • Compilers
  • Computer-aided verification
  • Concurrency
  • Data structure design for automata
  • Data and image compression
  • Design and architecture of automata software
  • Digital libraries
  • DNA/molecular/membrane computing
  • Document engineering
  • Editors, environments
  • Experimental studies and practical experiences
  • Industrial applications
  • Natural language processing
  • Networking
  • New algorithms for manipulating automata
  • Object-oriented modeling
  • Pattern-matching
  • Quantum computing
  • Speech and speaker recognition
  • Structured and semi-structured documents
  • Symbolic manipulation environments for automata
  • Teaching
  • Text processing
  • Techniques for graphical display of automata
  • VLSI
  • Viruses, related phenomena
  • World-wide web
Keynotes

Invited Speakers

Anthony Bonato
Anthony Bonato
Toronto Metropolitan University
"Burning, Cooling, and Liminal Burning Graphs"
Visit Website →
Nataša Jonoska
Nataša Jonoska
University of South Florida
"Traversing Crystals by Automata"
Visit Website →
Ian Mertz
Ian Mertz
Charles University
"Computing with a Full Hard Drive"
Visit Website →
Organization

Committees

Program Committee

Chair
Taylor J. Smith
Canada
Frederique Bassino
France
Cezar Campeanu
Canada
Pascal Caron
France
Giuseppa Castiglione
Italy
Szilard Fazekas
Japan
Yo-Sub Han
South Korea
Markus Holzer
Germany
Galina Jiraskova
Slovakia
Jarkko Kari
Finland
Stavros Konstantinidis
Canada
Martin Kutrib
Germany
Andreas Malcher
Germany
Florin Manea
Germany
Sabrina Mantaci
Italy
Brink van der Merwe
South Africa
Nelma Moreira
Portugal
Cyril Nicaud
France
Giovanni Pighizzini
Italy
Luca Prigionero
UK
Rogerio Reis
Portugal
Kai Salomaa
Canada
Shinnosuke Seki
Japan
Mikhail Volkov
Russia
Hsu-Chun Yen
Taiwan

Organizing Committee

Chair
Salimur Choudhury
Canada
Tasnim Ahmed
Canada
Attend

Registration

Registration is officially closed. If you are still interested in attending the conference, please contact the organizing chair, Dr. Salimur Choudhury.

CIAA 2026 Fees

Category Early Rate (by July 1, 2026) Late Rate (after July 1, 2026)
Regular CA$550 CA$700
Student CA$450 CA$600

Joint CIAA + DCFS 2026 Fees

Attending both CIAA 2026 and DCFS 2026? Register jointly at a combined rate.

Category Early Rate (by July 1, 2026) Late Rate (after July 1, 2026)
Regular CA$900 CA$1,200
Student CA$700 CA$1,000
Location & Travel

Venue, Travel & Accommodation

🏛️

Queen's University

School of Computing

Conference Venue: Biosciences Complex, Room 2109

116 Barrie Street, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6

+1 613-533-2000  |  queensu.ca

Getting to Kingston

✈️
By Air

The closest airport is Kingston Airport (YGK), approximately 10 km from campus. For more flight options, attendees may fly into:

  • Toronto Pearson International (YYZ)
  • Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International (YOW)
  • Montréal-Trudeau International (YUL)

Attendees taking Air Canada may book the Air Canada landline bus service from Toronto to Kingston as a flight connection.

🚍
By Bus
From Carrier Duration
Toronto (Union Stn) Megabus / FlixBus 3h 15m – 3h 20m
Toronto Airport (YYZ) Megabus / FlixBus 3h 35m – 3h 40m
Ottawa, ON Megabus / FlixBus 2h 15m – 2h 20m
Montréal, QC Megabus 3h 20m

Megabus Canada  |  FlixBus

🚆
By Train (Via Rail)
Route Duration
Toronto – Kingston 2h 21m
Ottawa – Kingston 2h 03m
Montréal – Kingston 2h 00m

Via Rail Canada

🚗
By Car

Kingston is located along Highway 401:

  • ~272 km east of Toronto Pearson Airport (~3 hours)
  • ~200 km southwest of Ottawa (~2 hours)

Accommodation

Queen's University Residences

156 Albert Street, Kingston, ON K7L 3V2

Phone: 613-533-3183 (May–August)  |  queensu.ca/eventservices/accommodations

CA$140 / night (excl. taxes & fees)
Special Rate Deadline: July 6, 2026

Room: Endaayaan Tkanonsote 2 Bedroom Unit

  • 2 double beds  ·  private bath  ·  sleeps up to 4
  • Desk and chair, wardrobe, mini-fridge, flat-screen TV
  • In-unit climate control
  • Floor lounges with kitchen facilities (microwave, stove-top, fridge)
  • Regular housekeeping, 24-hour front desk, elevator access

Note: Only two-bedroom units are available. Participants wishing to split the cost must arrange sharing details independently.

Book Now — Group Code 144715

Join Us at CIAA 2026

Registration is closed, but you're welcome to reach out about attending

Contact Organizers
Get in Touch

Contact Us

Have questions? We're here to help

✉️

Email

ciaa2026@cs.queensu.ca

For all inquiries regarding paper submissions, registration, venue, or general questions about CIAA 2026