29th European Simulation and Modelling Conference - ESM'2015, October 26-28, 2015, Holiday Inn, Leicester, UK, Workshops


UKRI-SPC

CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS

Simulation-based evaluation of interactive systems

IT systems are becoming increasingly more complex, both in terms of their scale and in terms of their individual functionalities. At the same time, the systems should be intuitively usable and should possess a flat learning curve for the user. The integration of the users into the analysis and the entire evaluation process is thus essential and new methods to increase the efficiency of evaluation are strictly required. One particularly useful method for the efficient evaluation and analysis is simulation. Within the scope of the workshop, new innovative methods and approaches for the practically oriented simulation-based evaluation of interaction-centric IT systems should be presented. An example could be a new approach to the simulation of reality in Living Labs.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Living Labs as simulation environments for evaluation
  • Infrastructure simulation in Living Labs
  • Evaluation of user interactions with graphical user interfaces
  • Methods of practically oriented simulation-based evaluation

Submit your abstract/paper proposal for the workshop here

Simulation and Modelling for humanitarian/emergency operations

In recent years, the topic humanitarian logistics becomes significant in particular after the disastrous execution of the logistics after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. Then the Indian Ocean tsunami 2004 caused high costs and the logistics organization was shocking and miserable. The problems in such natural disasters are various: information and communication network system are destructed, access to roads are limited, infrastructure are destroyed and the equipment to remove destroyed buildings and further resources such as trained local officials as well as volunteers are not available. All these problems complicate the coordination and organization in the logistics in such case. With the ongoing of disasters the humanitarian logistics, emergency and the humanitarian aid have to be managed more efficiently.

Since 1975 the total number of natural and technological disasters increased, a high increase of six-fold is to be recognized especially for natural disasters as well as a high number of affected and killed people. 385 natural disasters without the consequences such as diseases and epidemic hit 131 countries worldwide, affected 217 million people, killed 297 thousand people and caused US$ 123.9 billion of damages in 2010. Researcher expect a steadily increase of fivefold times for the number of natural disasters over the next fifty years. In 2006 the UNITED NATIONS also confirmed that the natural disasters become over the next years more severe, often and destructive. As a consequence, disaster managers, policymakers and researchers should make every effort to improve disaster planning, preparedness, response as well as management.

That said researchers are engaged to investigate in disaster preparedness, response logistics and relief network management
• Coordination and network
• Inventory management
• Operations planning
• Warehouse operations
• Transportation Planning
• Distribution Planning

Submit your proposal on Simulation and Modelling for humanitarian/emergency operations here

Supply Chain Scheduling

Supply Chain Management is omnipresent: Nearly every economic discipline is regarding its findings from a holistic supply chain point of view. It deals with the connections and cooperation of different actors with the common aim of maximizing service levels and minimizing costs. So a lot of effort is put into account to establish a network for producing products or services. But these networks often change because of new actors entering the supply chain, changing business environments or developing technology. Because of that the management of supply chains has to be developed from a static and conceptual point of view towards an operational approach with regard to planning and controlling supply chain activities.

One possibility to increase flexibility and agility of a supply chain is the concept of supply chain scheduling. Supply chain scheduling can be seen as connection of scheduling tasks with the supply chain management by coordinating scheduling, batching and delivery decisions at different stages of a supply chain to eliminate inefficiencies. The aim of supply chain scheduling is to reduce total decision cost of supply chain to enhance the competitive capability through company-wide planning tasks. Though, this is a very complex planning task, it calls for simulation and modeling techniques for solving this holistic planning problem.

For instance, the following topics will be of interest:

  • Lot sizing and scheduling
  • Batching and delivery
  • Coordination mechanisms within supply chains
  • ICT for supply chain scheduling
  • Supply chain – network design
  • Supply Chain planning
  • Operations planning
  • Warehouse operations
  • Transportation Planning
  • Distribution Planning

 

Submit your proposal on Supply Chain Scheduling here

Predictive Models in Software Engineering

This workshop aims to cover the repeatable simulation methods for building verifiable models, useful for the implementation, evaluation and management of software development projects (both in general and specific domains like telecommunications, finance, scientific research, etc).

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Effort and Defect prediction models
  • Meta-analysis and generalizations of predictive models
  • Predicting various intermediate or final outcomes of interest regarding the simulation of the organizational aspects of software engineering
  • Qualitative research guiding and informing the process of building future predictive models
  • Instance-based models predicting outcomes by examining similarities to past experiences
  • Industrial experience reports detailing the application of simulation software technologies – processes, methods, or tools – and their effectiveness in industrial settings.
  • Simulation tools for software researchers that effectively gather and analyze data to support reproducible and verifiable research.

Submit your proposal on Predictive Models in Software Engineering here

Intelligent Systems

Intelligent Systems (IS) proliferate in many areas of human activity that involve the resolution of complex problems. The IS comprise a mixture of rules-based systems or systems based on learning techniques (e.g. Artificial Neural Networks, Decision Trees, Linear Regression and Ensembles) and can be considered central in the scientific area of Artificial Intelligence and the Intelligent Agents. Some of these systems attempt to mimic the human decision process and organizational management, while others provide previsions based on data mining techniques(DM). It is clear that the use of IS improves organizational processes. The use of these systems seeks to simplify the administrative processes as well as support and streamline the entire process of decision making.
The introduction of subjects like Artificial Intelligence, Data Mining and Ubiquity in Information Systems promotes the creation of predictive and decision models, and the access to the important information’s by the professionals wherever they are. However, in some areas the use of IS, is still viewed with some suspicion.

The aim of this track is to allow the debate on emerging issues, gathering the scientific community that develops research work in these areas. This track is a forum for discussion and presentation of new contributions on the use of Intelligent Systems.
Thus, it is intended:

 

  • • to identify the critical points of the use of IS as well as processes
    and the areas where is needed an urgent action;
  • • to present and discuss new approaches, trends and innovative aspects of
    the IS;
  • • to promote the use of IS and to explore ways to overcome resistance to
    change;
  • • to analyze the level of use of IS in Europe and to compare with
    the world situation.

 

Topics of interest:
• Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Systems;
• IS Architectures ;
• Data Mining;
• Intelligence Ambient;
• Intelligence in Interoperability;
• Intelligent Electronic Health Record;
• Intelligent Decision Support Systems ;
• Machine Learning Systems;
• Intelligent Systems and Security;
• Intelligent Systems in Medicine
• Intelligent Systems for the WEB;
• Ubiquitous Mobile and Real-Time System;

Reasons for the track to be held in the Conference:
Although the potential application of intelligent systems is very high, levels of understanding and acceptance by professionals of some application areas (e.g. medicine) are quite low. It becomes evident the need to promote and discuss the development and implementation of these systems from a technological or organizational perspective in order to demonstrate its usefulness and added value.
With this track it is expected that the scientific community gets some directions from what has been done and what can be done by motivating the researching and the search for new solutions in the area of Intelligent Systems, with the goal to improve the Administrative and the Decision Making processes.

Organized by:

José Machado
Departamento de Informática
Universidade do Minho
Braga, Portugal
Antonio Abelha
Departamento de Informática
Universidade do Minho
Braga, Portugal

Submit your abstract/paper proposal for this track on Simulation and Optimization here

Real-time GPS Simulation and Service Applications

Introduction
Modern logistics in global supply chains as well as regional and local transport chains are influenced by several trends: Surveys show demand for more open supply chains, more security in supply chains or the cooperation with innovative logistics service providers [DB Schenker Laboratories 2009]. Furthermore the importance of track and trace solutions for cargo increases according to the development of the potentials of satellite based traceability services in logistics [He, et al. 2009; Carlino, et al. 2009].

Workshop presentations and findings
The purpose of this workshop is to identify the potential GPS based track and trace system to support analysts and planners in production and logistics alliances. The following topics will be presented
1) “Real-time” calculation of a product carbon footprint to decrease the variance of the actual state-of-the-art CO2 calculation and to approach the calculated values the ones which are emitted in reality.
2) Active Tracking of the delivery of goods as a service for production planners and trans-port planning assistants to estimate arrival times of raw materials or products in just-in-time production alliances.
3) “Mystery Shipping” to evaluate the performance of logistic service providers according to the practice of “mystery shopping”.

Submit your abstract/paper proposal for this track on Real-time GPS Simulation and Service Applications here

Workshop Simulation with Petri Nets

Petri nets were introduced by C.A. Petri as a "finite combinatorial model of event topology which, is in close correspondence with the models of modern physics, is capable of describing total information flow, and has proven superior to some conventional models both in construction and in analysis of systems of complex organization". Although many other models of concurrent and distributed systems have been developed, Petri nets are still considered "a central model for concurrent systems with respect to both the theory and the applications" due to the natural way they allow to represent reasoning on concurrent active objects which share resources and their changing states.

The huge amount of work invested in making the modelling power of Petri nets formalism more and more intensive, led to a continuous evolution of this area, such that "Petri nets" is currently a generic name for a whole class of models divided into three main layers (ranging from Elementary Net Systems and Place/Transition nets to traditional High Level nets and High Level nets with abstract data types). For the performance evaluation of the modelled system, time execution and/or stochastic processes have also been considered, leading to important extensions to the above general Petri nets classification: Timed and Stochastic Petri nets.

Petri nets are widely considered as an operational (rather than denotational) formalism for Discrete Event Systems. They have proven to be useful in solving difficult discrete-event problems in a variety of application domains such as in software engineering, operating systems, databases, communication and co-operation protocols in distributed systems, manufacturing systems, defence command and control, business processes and telecommunications, etc.
As investigations in this area show, Petri nets also cover a large number of currently active research areas. Despite the great amount of work and achievements, much effort is still to be done to meet the applications requirements.

This workshop is intended to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of original ideas, recent results and achievements by researchers, students and system developers on issues and challenges related to the above domain.
We invite to submit original contributions addressing, but not limited to one of the following topics:
-- Simulation using Petri Net Systems,
-- Place/Transition nets,
-- High-level Petri nets,
-- Timed and Stochastic Petri nets,
-- Temporal and real-time logics with respect to Petri nets,
-- Analysis methods of High Level nets and their time extensions,
-- Modular Petri nets,
-- Object-oriented Petri nets (OOPNs),
-- Computer tools based on OOPNs,
-- Applications of OOPNs.

Submit your proposal on Petri Nets here

Workshop Modelling and Simulation with Bond Graphs

The Bond Graph Workshop will bring experts together for the purpose of discussing new concepts, methods, techniques, tools and applications of this energy-based modelling methodology. Papers dealing with all aspects of the use of bond graphs in system design, analysis, and control are welcome. The workshop will provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of recent research and applications of the Bond Graph methodology. Research papers are welcome in the following categories of presentation: Tutorials, Panel Discussions, Software and Tools, Bond Graph Theory, Advanced Bond Graph Methodology, Bond Graphs and Block Diagrams, Computer Graphics and Bond Graph Modelling, Qualitative Modelling, Mechatronics Systems, Mechanical Systems and Robotics, Electrical and Power Systems, Control Systems, Thermal and Chemical Systems, Biomechanics and Prosthetics, Ecological Systems, Biological and Medical Systems, Social and Economic Systems, Industrial Applications, Large, Nonlinear Models.

Submit your proposal in bond graph simulation here

DEVS Workshop

The DEVS Workshop will cover: Extensions to the DEVS formalism, DEVS and Distributed DEVS frameworks, DEVS-based next generation VHDL, DEVS standardization, DEVS applications.

Submit your proposal in DEVS here

Fluid Flow Modelling Simulation Workshop

Papers are solicited in:Conventional fluid dynamics, New developments in boundary tracking, adaptive multiscale meshes, algorithm stability, turbulence.

Atomistic methods

Ab-initio and classical molecular dynamics, direct simulation Monte Carlo.

Mesoscopic methods

Lattice gases, lattice-Boltzmann, smoothed particle dynamics, \dissipative particle dynamics, discrete simulation automata, etc.

Hybrid methods

Atomistic-mesoscopic and mesoscopic-continuum: direct simulation Monte Carlo, adaptive-mesh dissipative-particle dynamics, etc.

Multidisciplinary and industrial applications

Chemical and biomedical engineering, automotive, oil extraction and aeronautic industry, flow in porous media, Fluid Dynamics Simulation, Fluid Dynamics Simulation in Turbomachinery Flow Analysis of Pump Turbines, Water, air, vibration analysis through fluid flow modelling, Electromagnetic Field Simulation, Virtual Wind Tunnels, Structural analysis Statics (Stress, Deformation), Dynamics (Vibration), Eigen value, Fatigue, Thermal load Electric power plants, General plant components Computational fluid dynamics Compressible flow, Incompressible flow, Heat transfer, Multiphase/multi component flow, Combustion, Reaction,, Noise (Flow-induced sound) Gas turbines/Steam turbines,Combustors, Nuclear plant components, Hydro turbines, Pumps, Heat exchangers, Piping systems Computational electro-magnetics Static elecromagnetics, Eddy current, Electromagnetic wave, Electric circuit Nuclear fusion reactor, Transformers, Switch gear, Rotating machinery, Inverters/Converters Coupled problems Fluid-structure coupled analysis, (Flow-induced vibration), Fluid-electric field coupled analysis, (Insulation) Heat exchangers, Electric power transmission components.

Submit your proposal in fluid flow simulation here

Models and simulations for Emergency and Risk Management

Multiple and unexpected failures but also catastrophes waiting to happen are built into our "society's complex systems". This is a matter of increasing concern. How should we understand, control or avoid such potential crisis on a local/global scale, where local interactions play a major role?

Simulations are powerful tools in a context where risk is the product of probability of accident by the losses per accident. This risk can be major when it is collective, the occurring frequency is low, the impacts on humans or environment are very important. In this kind of risk, it is necessary to engage exceptional resources to prevent, to foresee and to help. This aspect is very important, but some crises have demonstrated that the problems can be in upstream and it is also necessary to consider the detection, the defects diagnosis and the supervision of risk systems.

We solicit contributions on (not exhaustive):

  • Modeling risk (including technical, environmental and human factors) to prevent and to manage
  • Tools of analysis, detection and early diagnosis
  • Population flow before, during and after the crisis
  • Information flow for the emergency
  • .....

 

Submit your proposal in Emergency and Risk management here