Merkouris Papamichail

Computer Science Department, University of Crete

Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas

Koningsberg: The bithplace of graph theory
Map by G. Braun & F. Hogenberg (1581)

About Me

I am a PhD student in Computer Science Department (CSD), of University of Crete (UoC). I also hold a position as Doctoral Research Assistant in Information Systems Laboratory, of the Institute of Computer Science (ICS), of the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH). I also give tutorial lectures, as teaching assistant in various coursers in CSD.

My scientific interests lay at theoretical computer science. I obtained my bachelor's degree from the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UoA). There I majored in the Foundations of Computer Science and in Data and Knowledge Management. My graduate studies were on Algorithms, Logic and Discrete Mathematics, a join programme from UoA and the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). While still a graduate student I worked as an intern for the ICS, on game theory.

I now live at Heraklion, Crete. The subject of my doctoral research lays at the intersection of Algorithms, Computational Logic and Machine Learning. The intersection of Computational Logic and Machine Learning forms the area of Inductive Logic Programming, a learning technique where the obtained knowledge is encoded as a logic programme. The intersection of Algorithms and Machine Learning form the area of Computational Learning Theory, which constitutes a formal study of learning algorithms' properties.

When not studying or researching I like to play games, read and watch science fiction, and cycling. I love both tabletop and computer RPGs. Among my favorite game genres are adventures and immersive sims. I am fond of the Star Trek Universe and Isaak Asimov's books. I have a weakness for medieval history. Perhaps my favorite book is the "Name of the Rose", by Umberto Eco.

Scientific Interests

Logic

Computational Logic, Mathematical Logic, Logic Programming, Answer Set Programming, Knowledge Representation & Reasoning

Algorithms

Parametrized Algorithms, Approximate Algorithms, Combinatorial Optimisation, Computational Complexity, Computational Geometry

Mathematics

Graph Theory, Partial Orders, Game Theory, Computability Theory, Theory of Linear Programming

Learning

Machine Learning, Inductive Logic Programming, Computational Learning Theory

Education

PhD at Computer Science Department, UoC

2022 - Present

I conduct my doctoral research under prof. Dimitris Plexousakis. My research area includes Inductive Logic Programming and Computational Learning Theory. I work closely with the post-doctoral researcher Constantinos Varsos and the principal researcher Giorgos Flouris.
A report on the are of Inductive Logic Programming is available here. The related presentation is available here.

Master in Algorithms, Logic and Discrete Mathematics, UoA, NTUA

2020 - 2022

My master's thesis was on Sorting and Selection Problems in Partially Ordered Sets. My thesis supervisor was prof. Stavros Kolliopoulos.
The master thesis is available here. The related presentation is available here.

Bachelor in Computer Science, Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, UoA

2014 - 2020

My bachelor's thesis was on Matroid Theory. My thesis supervisor was prof. Stavros Kolliopoulos.
The master thesis is available here (in Greek).

Internships

Graduate Research Assistant, ICS, FORTH

2021 - 2022

I worked under the post-doctoral researcher Constantinos Varsos and the principal researcher Giorgos Flouris on Misinformation Games. A Misinformation Game (MG) is a framework for predicting rational agents' behaviour under misinformation. I developed an implementation of the Adaptation Procedure, for discovering the equilibria in an MG. The developed software is open sourced, under a creative commons licence. The source code is available here.

Publications

Implementating the Adaptation Procedure in Misinformation Games. In proceedings SETN 2022.

Merkouris Papamichail, Constantinos Varsos, Giorgos Flouris, 2022

Our work, during my internship in FORTH, lead to a publication at the 12th Conference of the Hellenic Artificial Intelligence Society.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3549737.3549781

Teaching

Teaching Assistantship in Algorithms and Complexity

2022, 2023

I undertake some tutorial lectures for the undergraduate course of Algorithms and Complexity, taught by prof. Ioannis Tollis.

Teaching Assistantship in Complex Network Dynamics

2023

I undertake some tutorial lectures for the undergraduate course of Complex Network Dynamics, taught by prof. Ioannis Tollis. In this course, I gave a small series of tutorial lectures on elementary notions of Game Theory. The slides of the tutorial are available here (in Greek).

Selected Presentations & Reports

Kolmogorov Complexity

Fall 2023

A presentation of Kolmogorov Complexity, and its connection to Shannon's Information Theory.
The presentation is available here. The report is available here.

Four-Color Theorem: A problem that remained open for over a century

Fall 2022

A simplified presentation of the classical computer science result due to K. Appel and W. Hanken.
The presentation is available here.

Parametrized Two-Player Nash Equilibrium

Spring 2021

Presentation of Danny Hemerlin's et al. paper from 2011.
The presentation is available here. The report is available here.

On the Parametrized Complexity of Red-Blue Points Separation

Spring 2021

Presentation of Edouard Bonnet's et al. paper from 2017.
The presentation is available here. The report is available here.

Non-monotone Submodular Maximization under Matroid Knapsack Constraints

Fall 2021

Presentation of Jon Lee's et al. paper from 2009.
The presentation is available here. The report is available here.

On the Maximal Number of Disjoint Circuits of a Graph

Spring 2020

Presentation of P. Erdos and L. Posa paper from 1961.
The presentation is available here (in Greek). The report is available here (in Greek).

Approximation Algorithms for Orienteering and Discounted-reward TSP

Fall 2020

Presentation of Avrium Blum's et al. work from 2003. Comparison with the paper of Samir Khuller et al. on "Analysing the Optimal Neighborhood: Algorithms for Partial and Budget Connected Dominating Set Problems", 2019.
The presentation is available here (in Greek). The report is available here (in Greek).

Amortized Analysis

Fall 2020

A presentation of the elementary notions of amortized analysis.
The presentation is available here (in Greek).

Maximum Flow - Minimum Cut

Spring 2018

A presentation of the classical result due to L. R. Floyd and D.R. Fulkerson.
The presentation is available here (in Greek).

Colourful Caratheodory Theorem

Fall 2018

Presentation of the papers "Computational Aspects of the Colourful Caratheodory Theorem", by Wolfranf Mulzer et al., 2015, and the paper "Colorful Linear Programming and its Relatives", by Impre Barany et al., 1997.
The presentation is available here (in Greek). The report is available here (in Greek).

Selected Programming Projects

Lambda Calculus Type Checker & Interpreter in OCaml

Fall 2022

The source code is available here.

NMR-structure prediction in Matlab/Octave

Fall 2022

A protein structure prediction based on previous work by I. Emiris and G. Nikitopoulos on "Molecular Conformation Search by Distance Matrix Pertubation", 2003. Our contribution was based on closed source code. It is available for review, after contacting the author.

Constraint problems in ECLiPSe Prolog

Fall 2019

The project's code and documentation is available here.

Bank simulation in C++

Spring 2018

A project about data structures implementation in C++.
The project's code and documentation is available here.

P2P interprocess communication in C++

Spring 2018

A project about inter-process communication in Linux/Unix systems.
The project's code and documentation is available here.

Dropbox-like application in C++

Spring 2018

A project about multi-threading in Linux/Unix systems.
The project's code and documentation is available here.

Bitcoin recommendation system in C++

Fall 2018

Bit-coin recommendation system, on real-data from twitter. A project about Clustering, Sentiment Analysis and Local Sensitive Hashing.
The project's code and documentation is available here.

Classifiers in Matlab/Octave

Spring 2017

Implementation of k-Near Neighbours, Euclidean and Naive Bayesian Classifiers.
The project's code and documentation is available here.

Game solver in Haskell

Fall 2017

A solver for the game "Rush hour".
The project's code and documentation is available here.