Title:   XML: From Practice to Theory
Speaker: Victor Vianu (UCSD)

Abstract:

The development of XML technology has occurred very rapidly,
initially leaving theory behind. As is often the case in such
situations, practical development sometimes seemed more ad-hoc
than well principled. There is now a substantial body of work
providing formal foundations for XML. This talk presents some
milestones  in  the development of  a  theory of XML. I will
start with precursor work on semistructured data, and proceed
with selected topics from the theory developed around XML,
including connections to tree automata and transducers and 
their applications to static analysis.