Events and news relevant to the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science

[Adam Harrison <A.Harrison-15@sms.ed.ac.uk>]

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
METHOD:REQUEST
PRODID:Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:GMT Standard Time
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:16010101T010000
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=3
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
ORGANIZER;CN=Adam Harrison:mailto:A.Harrison-15@sms.ed.ac.uk
ATTENDEE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE;CN=Ivan Vegne
 r:mailto:ivan.vegner@ed.ac.uk
ATTENDEE;ROLE=OPT-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE;CN=inf-semina
 rs@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk:mailto:inf-seminars@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk
ATTENDEE;ROLE=OPT-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE;CN=inf-edinbu
 rghnlp@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk:mailto:inf-edinburghnlp@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk
ATTENDEE;ROLE=OPT-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE;CN=ilcc-membe
 rs@inf.ed.ac.uk:mailto:ilcc-members@inf.ed.ac.uk
ATTENDEE;ROLE=OPT-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE;CN=aiai-membe
 rs@inf.ed.ac.uk:mailto:aiai-members@inf.ed.ac.uk
ATTENDEE;ROLE=OPT-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE;CN=lfcs-inter
 est@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk:mailto:lfcs-interest@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION;LANGUAGE=en-US:Teams meeting for anyone who can’t make it in 
 person\n__________________________________________________________________
 ______________\nMicrosoft Teams meeting\nJoin: https://teams.microsoft.com
 /meet/392601482277293?p=xCVgoNLCPKAwOOxQSn\nMeeting ID: 392 601 482 277 29
 3\nPasscode: 2pi72xY6\n________________________________\nNeed help?<https:
 //aka.ms/JoinTeamsMeeting?omkt=en-US> | System reference<https://teams.mic
 rosoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_MjNhNmNlODItOGE2OC00YTgzLWEzNWUtMjIw
 MTczNDhhOTZk%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%222e9f06b0-1669-4589-87
 89-10a06934dc61%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22e0f73f04-7a9f-404a-b597-700b0a2315b7%2
 2%7d>\nFor organizers: Meeting options<https://teams.microsoft.com/meeting
 Options/?organizerId=e0f73f04-7a9f-404a-b597-700b0a2315b7&tenantId=2e9f06b
 0-1669-4589-8789-10a06934dc61&threadId=19_meeting_MjNhNmNlODItOGE2OC00YTgz
 LWEzNWUtMjIwMTczNDhhOTZk@thread.v2&messageId=0&language=en-US>\n[Company L
 ogo]\nThe University of Edinburgh is a charitable body\, registered in Sco
 tland\, with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th
 ’ ann an Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann\, clàraichte an Alba\, àireamh clàra
 idh SC005336.\nOrg help<https://support.office.com/en-us/article/join-a-me
 eting-in-teams-1613bb53-f3fa-431e-85a9-d6a91e3468c9> | Privacy and securit
 y<https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/about/policies-and-regulations
 >\n_______________________________________________________________________
 _________\n\n\n_____________________________________________\nFrom: Adam H
 arrison\nSent: 09 June 2026 16:59\nTo: 'inf-seminars@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk' <i
 nf-seminars@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk>\; inf-edinburghnlp@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk\nSubje
 ct: AI Safety Seminar 3.07 Informatics Forum\, Friday 4pm - Ivan Vegner & 
 Elliot Tower - Sparse weight factorization for transformer circuit discove
 ry\n\nJoin us for a seminar organised by AI Safety Hub Edinburgh<https://d
 illinger.io/aished.org>.\n\nThis week we have 4th year PhD student Ivan Ve
 gner and independent researcher Elliot Tower presenting their work on mech
 anistic interpretability and how they unify weight-based circuit analysis 
 with feature-based activations.\n\nTitle: Sparse weight factorization for 
 transformer circuit discovery\nWhen: Friday\, 12th June\, 4pm\nWhere: 3.07
 \, Informatics Forum\nAbstract:\nMechanistic interpretability of transform
 er language models often seeks to identify task-relevant circuits: pathway
 s by which one component writes information to the residual stream and ano
 ther later component reads it. Existing methods such as edge attribution p
 atching (EAP) score the importance of whole component-to-component edges\,
  but they do not reveal which residual-stream directions mediate the commu
 nication. We introduce a factorized transformer parameterization in which 
 attention and MLP projection matrices are decomposed through a shared bank
  of residual-stream factors. In this representation\, output projections w
 rite into factor subspaces and input projections read from the same factor
  basis\, making cross-module communication explicit at the level of learne
 d weight structure. We show that standard EAP decomposes exactly into a su
 m of factorized EAP scores\, where each score measures the attribution of 
 a specific writer factor from module (u) to a specific reader factor in mo
 dule (v). This yields a more granular circuit-discovery objective over fac
 tor-mediated pathways rather than whole edges. This framework provides a b
 ridge between weight-based circuit analysis and feature-based residual-str
 eam decompositions\, enabling interpretable analyses of which factors are 
 read\, written\, and reused in transformer computations. In this talk\, we
  present the factorized Transformer framework and some preliminary results
 .\n\n\nBest\,\nAdam\n
UID:040000008200E00074C5B7101A82E00800000000309968CB5BFADC01000000000000000
 0100000002811F2CECFBF1C4D9B75D25512360104
SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-US:AI Safety Seminar 3.07 Informatics Forum\, Friday 4p
 m - Ivan Vegner & Elliot Tower - Sparse weight factorization for transform
 er circuit discovery
DTSTART;TZID=GMT Standard Time:20260612T160000
DTEND;TZID=GMT Standard Time:20260612T170000
CLASS:PUBLIC
PRIORITY:5
DTSTAMP:20260612T101907Z
TRANSP:OPAQUE
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SEQUENCE:0
LOCATION;LANGUAGE=en-US:Microsoft Teams Meeting
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-APPT-SEQUENCE:0
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-OWNERAPPTID:-320051222
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:TENTATIVE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INTENDEDSTATUS:BUSY
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-ALLDAYEVENT:FALSE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-IMPORTANCE:1
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INSTTYPE:0
X-MICROSOFT-SKYPETEAMSMEETINGURL:https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/
 19%3ameeting_MjNhNmNlODItOGE2OC00YTgzLWEzNWUtMjIwMTczNDhhOTZk%40thread.v2/
 0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%222e9f06b0-1669-4589-8789-10a06934dc61%22%2c%22O
 id%22%3a%22e0f73f04-7a9f-404a-b597-700b0a2315b7%22%7d
X-MICROSOFT-SCHEDULINGSERVICEUPDATEURL:https://api.scheduler.teams.microsof
 t.com/teams/2e9f06b0-1669-4589-8789-10a06934dc61/e0f73f04-7a9f-404a-b597-7
 00b0a2315b7/19_meeting_MjNhNmNlODItOGE2OC00YTgzLWEzNWUtMjIwMTczNDhhOTZk@th
 read.v2/0
X-MICROSOFT-SKYPETEAMSPROPERTIES:{"cid":"19:meeting_MjNhNmNlODItOGE2OC00YTg
 zLWEzNWUtMjIwMTczNDhhOTZk@thread.v2"\,"private":true\,"type":0\,"mid":0\,"
 rid":0\,"uid":null}
X-MICROSOFT-DONOTFORWARDMEETING:FALSE
X-MICROSOFT-DISALLOW-COUNTER:FALSE
X-MICROSOFT-REQUESTEDATTENDANCEMODE:DEFAULT
X-MICROSOFT-ISRESPONSEREQUESTED:TRUE
X-MICROSOFT-LOCATIONS:[ { "DisplayName" : "Microsoft Teams Meeting"\, "Loca
 tionAnnotation" : ""\, "LocationSource" : 0\, "Unresolved" : false\, "Loca
 tionUri" : "" } ]
BEGIN:VALARM
DESCRIPTION:REMINDER
TRIGGER;RELATED=START:-PT15M
ACTION:DISPLAY
END:VALARM
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR