Parallel Evolutionary Systems (PES) track at GECCO 2010

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Call for Papers
Parallel Evolutionary Systems (PES) track
GECCO 2010
Portland, Oregon, USA July 7-10, 2010

http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2010/
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This track in GECCO aims at developing the cross-fertilization of knowledge between evolutionary algorithms (metaheuristics in general) and parallelism. Parallel algorithms represent a very important topic in all international research programs, and virtually any algorithm can profit from parallelism to create efficient optimization and learning tools capable of unseen performance in complex problems.

Working in two domains of research is at the same time difficult and fruitful. Knowing on parallelism and networking helps in creating parallel algorithms for clusters or grids of computers. However, it also needs a careful definition of proper benchmarks, software tools, and metrics to measure the behavior of algorithms in a meaningful and standard way. In concrete, a conceptual separation between physical parallelism and decentralized algorithms (whether implemented in parallel or not) is needed to analyze the resulting algorithms.

This track is expected to collect a set of high quality contributions to the theory and the application of techniques born from the crossover of traditional parallelism and metaheuristics. Articles are wanted to provide significant results to problem solving (efficiency and also accuracy) and be methodologically well-founded. Also, the hardware used for running parallel algorithms is a target, in order to analyze how it can be used to provide better optimization and learning techniques.

This track includes (but not limits) topics concerning the design, implementation, software, hardware, and application of parallel evolutionary algorithms, and also parallel metaheuristics in general: ACO, PSO, VNS, SS, SA, EDAs, TS, ES, GP, GRASP… As a guide, contributions are welcomed in the following areas:

• Parallel evolutionary algorithms
• Parallel metaheuristics
• Master/slave models
• Massively parallel algorithms
• Parallel algorithms on Graphical Processing Units (GPUs)
• SIMD/MIMD and FPGA parallelization
• Distributed and shared memory parallel algorithms
• Multicore execution of parallel algorithms
• Concurrent algorithms with several threads of execution
• Algorithms running in clusters of machines
• Grid/cloud computing
• Peer to peer (P2P) algorithms
• Ad-hoc and mobile networks for parallel algorithms
• Parallel software frameworks/libraries
• Theory on decentralized and parallel algorithms
• Parallel test benchmarks
• Parallel hybrid/memetic algorithms
• Parallel multiobjective algorithms
• Self-adaptive parallel algorithms
• Parallel algorithms and dynamic optimization problems (DOP)
• Algorithms and tools for helping in designing new parallel algorithms
• Competitive/cooperative parallel algorithms and agents
• Statistical assessment of performance for parallel algorithms
• Unified view of parallel approaches and results
• Real-world applications in telecoms, bioinformatics, engineering...

Accepted papers will appear in the proceedings of GECCO 2010.

IMPORTANT DATES:
- January 13, 2010 - Article submission deadline
- March 10, 2010 - Notification of article acceptance
- April 5, 2010 - Camera-ready version of accepted articles
- July 7-11, 2010 - GECCO 2010 Conference


Enrique Alba (track chair)

WCCI 2010 2010IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence

http://www.wcci2010.org/home

Welcome The 2010 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (IEEE WCCI 2010) is the largest technical event in the field of computational intelligence. It will host three conferences: the 2010 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN 2010), the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE 2010), and the 2010 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (IEEE CEC 2010). IEEE WCCI 2010 will be held in Barcelona, a Mediterranean city located in a privileged position on the northeastern coast of Spain. Call For Papers

Prospective authors are invited to contribute high-quality papers to IEEE WCCI 2010. All papers should be submitted electronically through the Congress website (http://www.wcci2010.org/submission). Contributed papers will be refereed by experts in the fields based on the criteria of originality, significance, quality and clarity.

Paper submission deadline - January 31, 2010

Conference Date: July 18 - 23, 2010

Al-Fatihah untuk Arwah Kak Jamsiah Mohd Hussin (7 Jun 1940 - 15 Nov 2009)

Al-Fatihah untuk Arwah Kak Jamsiah Mohd Hussin (kakak sulong keluarga kami) yang telah kembali kerahmatullah tepat jam 2:05 pagi 15 November 2009.

1 Dengan menyebut nama Allah Yang Maha Pemurah lagi Maha Penyayang.

2 Segala puji bagi Allah, Tuhan semesta alam.

3 Maha Pemurah lagi Maha Penyayang.

4 Yang menguasai di Hari Pembalasan

5 Hanya Engkaulah yang kami sembah, dan hanya kepada Engkaulah kami meminta pertolongan.

6 Tunjukilah kami jalan yang lurus,

7 (yaitu) Jalan orang-orang yang telah Engkau beri ni'mat kepada mereka; bukan (jalan) mereka yang dimurkai dan bukan (pula jalan) mereka yang sesat.

Kak adalah anak kelima dan kakak sulung kami dari 15 adik beradik (5 perempuan dan 10 lelaki). Tiga abang sulong dari mak lain telahpun meninggal. Kami juga telahpun lama kehilangan kedua-dua ayah dan mak, ayah meninggal pada tahun 1973 manakala mak menyusul kemudian pada awal tahun 1976 dan dikebumikan di Mekah sehari sebelum beliau sepatutnya pulang ke Malaysia. Oleh itu kak lah yang jadi pengganti kepada mak dan semasa hayatnya beliau banyak mengasuh adik-adik, anak-anaknya dan juga anak saudara.

Pengorbanan kak pada keluarga amat besar kerana memikul tanggungjawab sebagai ibu. Beliau amat setia menghuni rumah pusaka di kampung di mana ianya menjadi tempat kami berkumpul walaupun tanpa mak dan ayah. Alhamdulillah ikatan kekeluargaan tetap akrab dan kerap kali kami dapat berkumpul pada Hari Raya (selalunya pada hari raya ketiga).

Selepas suami kak meninggal pada tahun 2001, Kak mula tinggal dengan anak-anaknya di Kangar atau KL. Kak pulak, sejak sebelum berkawin lagi kerap kali diduga dengan penyakit yang kadang-kadang menjadi misteri bagi kami. Semasa hayatnya dia selalu saja pening kepala, ditambah pulak dengan penyakit kencing manis dan arthritis. Selepas pembedahan jantung yang dilaluinya pada penghujung tahun lepas, beliau tidak dapat kembali pulih dengan sepenuhnya. Keadaannya makin merosot dan pada petang Jumaat 13 Nov beliau dimasukkan ke PPUM apabila anaknya mendapati dia sukar bernafas. Paru-parunya didapati berair, jantung lemah, oksigen kurang dari 50% dan tahap karbon dioksid terlampau tinggi. Kami dari Alor Setar mula turun ke KL selepas dimaklumkan bahawa keadannya amat kritikal. Pada petang Sabtu doktor menyatakan bahawa kak sebenarnya dalam keadaan nazak dan keluarga perlu buat keputusan samada untuk meneruskan dengan rawatan atau bawa balik. Kami memutuskan untuk bawa balik supaya dia dapat menghembuskan nafas terakhir di rumah di kelilingi keluarga.

Kak dibawa balik ke rumah Kak Arah. Kami tau yang Kak memang nak balik ke Alor Setar tapi keadaannya masa itu memang tak mengizinkan. Selepas sampai di rumah dan selepas bantuan oksigen dihentikan kami dimaklumkan yang selalunya pesakit hanya dapat bertahan selama setengah jam sahaja. Semua adik-adik kak (kecuali Bang Cik yang berada di Alor Setar) dan anak-anaknya ada dan kami sempat memohon ampun dan maaf serta menghalalkan segalanya supaya kak dapat pergi dengan aman. Beliau memang dalam keadaan sedar masa itu sebab apa yang kami nyatakan, dia memberi maklum balas. Masa itu abang sulong sekarang iaitu Bang Pin dari Kuala Kangsar belum sampai. Selepas setengah jam kak masih bertahan dan masih dalam keadaan sedar, dapat bercakap dan membaca ayat-ayat Al-Quran. Tapi kami dapat lihat bahawa kak dalam keadaan sakit dan sukar menarik nafas. Selepas solat Maghrib kami mula beramai-ramai membaca Yasin, solat Isyak dan solat hajat. Bang Pin dan isterinya Kak Timah sampai lebih kurang jam 11mlm. Masa dengan Kak Timah, kak nak sembahyang Isyak katanya dan Kak Timah bantu dia walaupun tak sempurna solatnya. Selepas itu ada yang dah balik dan ada yang dah tidor, saya pulak tak balik ke USJ, duk dalam bilik kak bersama anak-anaknya, Kak Arah, Abang Lah dan Zati. Kak menghembuskan nafasnya yang terakhir pada 2:05 pagi 15 Nov 2009.

Oleh kerana banyak kali Kak sebut nak balik Alor Setar maka anak-anak dan adik-adik dah buat keputusan supaya jenazah disemadikan di Alor Setar. Jenazah dimandikan dan dikapan di TTDI, KL. Van jenazah tiba di Alor Setar pada jam 12:30 tgh dan selepas solat Asar, jenazah selamat dikebumikan. Semoga Allah memberi keampunan bagi kak, sesungguhnya kak banyak berjasa kepada keluarga, kami semua sayang pada kak, halalkan makan minum kami, kami mohon ampun dan maaf di atas segala kesalahan dan kekasaran bahasa samada secara sedar atau tidak sedar dan kami juga memaafkan kak dan menghalalkan segalanya, kami redha sebagaimana kakpun redha atas segala-galanya. Ya Allah ya Tuhan ku, anugerahkanlah rahmatMu, ampunkan kakak ku dan tempatkan kak bersama orang-orang yang soleh. Amin.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un (انّا للہ و انّا الیہ راجعون) “Sesungguhnya kami adalah kepunyaan Allah dan kepada Allah jualah kami kembali.”

Ya Tuhan kami, berilah kami keampunan dan keampunan bagi saudara-saudara kami yang telah beriman lebih dahulu daripada kami. (al-Hasyr: 10).

META 2010

International Conference on Metaheuristics and Nature Inspired Computing

The 3rd International Conference on Metaheuristics and Nature Inspired Computing, META’10, will held in Djerba Island in Tunisia ().

The Conference will be an exchange space thanks to the sessions of the research works presentations and also will integrate tutorials and a vocational training of metaheuristics and nature inspired computing.

The scope of the META’2010 conference includes, but is not limited to:

• Local search, tabu search, simulated annealing, VNS, ILS, …
• Evolutionary algorithms, swarm optimization, scatter search, …
• Emergent nature inspired algorithms: quantum computing, artificial immune systems, bee colony, DNA computing, …
• Parallel algorithms and hybrid methods with metaheuristics, machine learning, game theory, mathematical programming, constraint programming, co-evolutionary, …
• Application to: logistics and transportation, telecommunications, scheduling, data mining, engineering design, bioinformatics, …
• Theory of metaheuristics, landscape analysis, convergence, problem difficulty, very large neighbourhoods, …
• Application to multi-objective optimization
• Application in dynamic optimization, problems with uncertainty, …

Conference

• October 28-30, 2010

Paper:

• Submission of a paper: May 15, 2010
• Notification: July 15, 2010
• Final version: September 15, 2010

Session:

• Submission of a session: May 15, 2010
• Notification: June 15, 2010

Tutorial:

• Submission of a session: May 15, 2010
• Notification: June 15, 2010

http://www2.lifl.fr/META10/index.php?n=Main.HomePage

CAMP’10: International Conference on Information Retrieval and Knowledge Management 2010

Call for Papers (Extended deadline: 3 November 2009)

CAMP’10: International Conference on Information Retrieval and Knowledge Management 2010

16–18 March 2010, Shah Alam, Malaysia

http://fskm.uitm.edu.my/camp10

[Please excuse us if you are receiving this CFP more than once]

Dear Colleagues, It is our pleasure to invite you to CAMP’10 to share your research findings and experience in the field of Information Retrieval in support for Knowledge Management. This conference is organised by PECAMP, the Malaysian society of Information Retrieval and Knowledge Management together with Universiti Teknologi MARA, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and is supported by the IEEE Malaysian Section and theIEEE Computer Society. The proceedings of CAMP’10 will be included in the IEEE Xplore database - Show quoted text - Scope - Show quoted text - Invisible World • Second Life • Augmented Virtuality • Augmented Reality • Collaborative Workspace • Digital Community • Social Networks • Online Behaviour • Online Gaming • Simulation Emerging Computing • Autonomous Computing • Cloud Computing • Natural Computing • Social Computing • Trust Computing • Contextual Computing • Ubiquitous Computing • Pervasive Computing • Network Computing Network Security • Network Surveillance • Intrusion Detection • Threat Avoidance • Privacy, Trust and Security Assurance Knowledge Intelligence • Artificial Intelligence • Social Intelligence • Ambient Intelligence • Emotional Intelligence • Reasoning Strategies Information Storage and Retrieval • Multimedia Information Retrieval (Audio, Video, Music, Image, Text) • Storage and Indexing Techniques • Semantics and Metadata • Natural Language Processing • Distributed and Parallel Information Retrieval • Information Fusion • Information Recovery • Visualisation Knowledge Management • Knowledge Management Processes (Creation, Sharing, Representation and Use of knowledge) • Knowledge Management Techniques and Tools (for Acquisition, Learning, Sharing and Processing of knowledge) • Change Management • Culture of Innovation • Organisational Complexity

- Show quoted text - Deadline for manuscript submission: 3 November 2009 Notification of acceptance: 20 November 2009 Camera ready paper due: 10 January 2010 Deadline for author’s registration: 10 January 2010

More information Kindly visit the conference web site at http://fskm.uitm.edu.my/camp10 for further details.

The 8th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling

PATAT 2010: PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS & DEMONSTRATIONS The 8th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling 10th August - 13th August 2010 Belfast, UK This conference is the eighth in a series of conferences that serve as a forum for an international community of researchers, practitioners and vendors on all aspects of computer-aided timetable generation. For more information about the conferences see http://www.cs.qub.ac.uk/~B.McCollum/patat10/index.html Featured Keynote Speakers Graham Kendall (University of Nottingham, UK) Jeff Kingston (University of Sydney, Australia) David Ryan (University of Auckland, New Zealand) George White (University of Ottawa, Canada) The themes of the conference include (but are not limited to): Educational Timetabling Transport Timetabling Employee Timetabling and Rostering Sports Timetabling Complexity Issues Distributed Timetabling Systems Research Areas, including; Implementations Commercial Packages Interactive vs Batch Timetabling Timetable Updating Standard Data Formats Relationship with Other Scheduling Problems Constraint-Based Methods Evolutionary Computation Artificial Intelligence Mathematical Programming Expert Systems Heuristic Search Knowledge Based Systems Operational Research Simulated Annealing Local Search Ant Colony Methods Soft Computing Tabu Search Meta-Heuristics Hyper-Heuristics Very Large Neighborhood Search Graph Colouring Hybrid Methods Multi-Criteria Decision Making Fuzzy Reasoning Data Mining Submissions Authors are invited to submit presentations in one of three categories: (a) Full Papers. Authors should submit papers describing significant, original and unpublished work. Such papers are expected to be approximately 10-20 pages in length but this guideline is not strict. These papers will be fully refereed by the programme committee and the accepted ones will appear in conference proceedings. As in previous years, a selection of the papers will appear in a post conference volume. The second round of refereeing for this volume will take place shortly after the conference. (b) Abstracts. Authors can submit abstracts of up to 1000 words. Abstracts will be fully refereed. The accepted ones will appear in the conference proceedings. Abstracts will not go forward to the second round of refereeing for the post-conference volume. However, authors of accepted abstracts will have the opportunity to write a full paper based on their abstract and submit it for the selected papers volume. People who wish to give a talk (e.g. practitioners, researchers with preliminary or incomplete papers) but do not want to submit a full paper can submit under this category. (c) System Demonstrations. Authors can submit an abstract, describing the major properties and contribution of implemented and/or commercial timetabling systems. Abstracts should not exceed 1000 words (3-4 pages). Authors of accepted submissions in this category would be expected to provide a demonstration of their software during the conference. Demonstration submissions will be evaluated on the basis of their innovation, relevance and scientific contribution. The abstracts will be published in the conference proceedings but they will not be forwarded to the second round of refereeing for the post-conference volume. However, authors of accepted system demonstration abstracts are welcome to submit a full paper to the post-conference volume if they so wish. Submission Instructions Authors of all types of submitted papers are kindly requested to prepare a paper in English and submit it through our online submission system (available by the end of November 2009). The length of the paper should fulfil the requirements given for each category above. All papers must be submitted as a PDF file and authors will be requested to use the templates provided: the LaTeX version is preferred, the Microsoft Word version is also acceptable, no other format can be accepted. Please note that all participants will need to register for the conference and pay the registration fee in order for accepted submissions to appear in the conference proceedings. Deadlines Paper/abstract/system submissions: January 20th, 2010 Notification: April 20th, 2010 (at the latest) Organizing and Programme Committee co-chairs Barry McCollum School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Queen's University Belfast and Edmund Burke Automated Scheduling, Optimisation and Planning Research Group, School of Computer Science and Information Technology University of Nottingham Jubilee Campus, Nottingham NG8 1BB United Kingdom PATAT 2010 website: http://www.cs.qub.ac.uk/~B.McCollum/patat10/index.html Copyright © 2009 PATAT 2010

4th International Symposium on Information Technology ITSim' 10

4th International Symposium on Information Technology
ITSim' 10 (www.itsim.org)

June 15 - 17, 2010
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

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*** Paper Submission Deadline is extended --- January 31, 2010 ****

Hosted by :

Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, IEEE Malaysia Section, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Co-sponsored by :

IEEE Computer Society, Malaysian Information Technology Society (MITS)

Important Dates:

31 January 2010 : Submission of Full Paper

15 March 2010 : Notification of Papers Acceptance

30 April 2010 : Camera Ready due

1 – 15 April 2010 : Early Bird Registration

Paper submission :

Prospective authors must submit their original papers for review through the EDAS conference management system at http://edas.info/.

The manuscript template is available at: http://www.itsim.org/instruction.html

Areas :

The topics of the conference include, but not limited to, the following:

Engineering and Technology

• GRID and peer-to-peer computing
• Decision Support Systems
• Distributed control systems
• Computer networking
• Data and communications protocol
• Mobile computing
• Signal processing
• Electronics
• Scientific computing
• Computer security
• Biometrics and security
• Knowledge representation
• Artificial intelligence
• Neural networks
• Machine learning
• Fuzzy logic
• Data mining
• Information storage and retrieval
• Cryptography and compression
• Pattern recognition
• Agent technologies

Green Computing

• Hardware reusability
• Server virtualization
• Thin client solution
• Material recycling
• Power management
• Electronics waste management
• Telecommuting
• Minimalism computing
• Software reusability
• Algorithm efficiency
• Performance per watt
• Hibernation features

Human and Natural Ecosystem

• Biologically-inspired computing
• Bioinformatics
• Cerebral computing
• Genetic computing
• Autonomic computing
• Nature of software
• Natural intelligence
• Natural knowledge
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Neural computation
• Neural informatics
• Quantum processing
• Cognitive linguistic
• Expressive mathematics

Energy Informatics

• Data exploration on energy data set
• Energy information system
• Energy analysis
• Energy and ICT
• Renewable energy technology
• Sustainable energy technology
• Energy efficiency

Systems Development and Application

• Software engineering
• Knowledge engineering
• Knowledge-based applications
• Web-based information systems
• E-commerce systems
• E-learning systems
• Expert systems
• Intelligent systems
• Adaptive systems
• Voice recognition systems
• Haptics systems
• Industrial application systems
• Augmented Reality
• Simulation and visualization
• Comparative programming
• Evaluation of systems
• Technology impact assessment
• Software reusability
• Virtual reality

Knowledge Society

• Knowledge society indicators
• Knowledge divide
• Knowledge Management
• E-community
• Personalized knowledge
• Intellectual capital
• Meta-knowledge
• Libre knowledge

Registration & Fees

Registration must be made via EDAS website http://edas.info/.

Information on fees can be found at http://www.itsim.org/registration.htm .

Symposium Partners:

Universiti Malaya(UM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM), Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Universiti Islam Antarabangsa (UIA), Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT), Universiti Multimedia, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Universiti Kreatif Lim Kok Wing, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Open University Malaysia, Kolej Tunku Abdul Rahman, MIMOS.

Symposium Co-chairs

Ahmad Kamil Mahmood, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia

Halimah Badioze Zaman, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
Steve Elliot, University of Sydney, Australia
Peter Haddawy, Asian Insitute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand
Stephan Olariu, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, USA
Timothy Shih, National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan
Zaiki Awang , Chairman, IEEE Malaysia Section

Contact us:

For further information, visit www.itsim.org or kindly contact us at :

Tel: +605-3687475/ +605-3687411
or
E-mail: itsim2010@petronas.com.my

International Workshop on Scheduling in Healthcare Systems (SCHEALS'10)

International Workshop on Scheduling in Healthcare Systems (SCHEALS'10)

25-27 August 2010

IAMSR, Åbo Akademi University
Turku, Finland

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Abstract

Many Healthcare providers have suffered a crisis of poor quality and inefficiency with rapidly increasing costs. Healthcare delivery faces complex scheduling needs and stands to gain from advances in scheduling technology and understanding. The SCHEALS 2010 workshop will take place at Åbo Akademi University in the city of Turku, in conjunction with the 2nd International Conference on Applied Operational Research (ICAOR'10). We invite you to join your colleagues for this international forum. Sharing of ideas, knowledge and experience is the primary goal of the workshop. The meeting would be ideal for young researchers to present their work, even at a preliminary stage, for constructive discussion and feedback.


Workshop Theme

The workshop will cover the general area of scheduling with particular emphasis being placed on healthcare applications, including, but not limited to:

* Automation
* Exact Methods
* Expert Systems
* Heuristics
* Machine Scheduling
* Meta-Heuristics
* Optimization
* Patient Scheduling
* Personnel Scheduling
* Queuing
* Rescheduling
* Shift Timetabling
* Simulation
* Uncertainty


Paper Submission

Researchers wishing to contribute to the conference are invited to submit manuscripts of not more than 12 pages either as full papers or extended abstracts. The working language of the conference is English. Authors are encouraged to prepare their manuscripts in LNCS style using the MS Word template provided by the Springer, please see Information for LNCS Authors.
Papers should be submitted online through the conference website submission system in MS Word 2003 format (.doc). All submissions will be reviewed by at least two referees, and successful papers will be included in the Conference Proceedings.


Special Issue

The authors of accepted papers will have the opportunity to submit extended versions of their papers for consideration to post-workshop special issues of the Journal of Applied Operational Research (JAOR) or Lecture Notes in Management Science (LNMS).


Important Dates

15-Aug-2009 - Submission opens
15-Mar-2010 - Paper submission deadline
15-May-2010 - Notification of decisions
15-Jun-2010 - Registration deadline
30-Jun-2010 - Camera-ready deadline
25-Aug-2010 – Workshop starts


International Scientific Programme Committee

Ben Atkinson, London Metropolitan University, UK
Sigrid Knust, Clausthal University of Technology, Germany
Gilbert Laporte, HEC Montréal, Canada
Jesper Larsen, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
Rym Hallah, Kuwait University, Kuwait
Margarida Moz, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
Andrea Schaerf, University of Udine, Italy
Kaveh Sheibani, Tadbir Institute, Iran (Chair)


Registration

All workshop participants are expected to register for the ICAOR 2010 conference. The conference registration fee is €300 per delegate. This includes participation in all conference sessions, the proceedings, coffee breaks, lunches and the conference dinner.


Contact Details

General information on the conference email to:
icaor2010@gmail.com

Local Chair
Doc. Dr. Mikael Collan
Institute for Advanced Management Systems Research
Abo Akademi University
Joukahaisenkatu 3-5 A 4th floor
20520 Turku
Finland
Tel +358 (0)2 215 4033
Fax +358 (0)2 215 4809
mcollan@abo.fi

ICAOR/SCHEALS General Chair
Prof. Dr. Kaveh Sheibani
Tadbir Institute for Operational Research,
Systems Design and Financial Services Ltd.
122 Mahmudi 2ND Street
Tehran 19797-13673
Iran
Tel +98 (0)21 2271 7097
Fax +98 (0)21 2271 6816
tadbir@tadbirstm.org.ir


Please visit ICAOR website at http://www.tadbirstm.org.ir
or ICAOR 2010 conference website at http://iamsr.abo.fi/icaor2010

Eid Mubarak

I would like to wish to everybody

"Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir dan Batin".

That is the normal phrase when Hari Raya comes again. This year we do not have to join the rush to 'balik kampung' since we are already staying near to my kampung (i.e. Alor Star). Normally my first hari raya I will go back to the house where I have been brought up. I lost both my parents when I was in the secondary school, but I have a very close-knit family with 11 surviving siblings (from 15 siblings) and our nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, grand-nephews and great-grand-nieces and great-grand-nephews. I have been keeping a database of all family members and this remind me that I should update it more often.

Normally the third hari raya, we will have a gathering and most family members will try to come back. Last year was very meaningful to me because that is when everbody celebrate my marriage. I got married in the UK while I was doing my Phd. Eventhough I came back in 2005, last year was the first year that my hubby came back from the UK.

This year we have not made any plan for the third hari raya. We'll see how it goes.

Plagiarism Again

It was just about a month ago that I wrote about plagiarism in this blog. Suddenly on Monday morning, a colleague from Shah Alam SMS me to read a news on plagiarism in Sun newspaper. I found the online version (no Sun paper in Kedah/Perlis) and the headline says "UPM duo in plagiarism scandal" This type of news is not normally publicised but hopefully this will be a lesson to all.

Academics should know that plagiarism is a very serious crime. The excuse given in this case by the senior lecturer was "it looked fine to me" uuuhhhh .... does that mean that he did not even write it, then why is he one of the author??? which part is his contribution??? another case of ghost author, another serious crime in academics.

Prof Datuk Dr Nik Mustapha, UPM vice-chancellor, said “The junior author, who recently completed her PhD, said that since the source was from the Internet, she thought the information was in the public domain and as such did not cite the article”. (theStar Sept 15) uuuhhh .... If that is your belief then you have been taught wrong. Don't you know how to do citation and what is meant by copyright? Where did you get your PhD?

I once review a paper submitted to a conference and it was taken 100% from a webpage (different owner). It was actually an insult to a reviewer to get such a paper.

In one of the course I attended on copyrights, one case study shows a website owner was sued for putting up a picture taken from another website. The materials on a website are actually protected under the copyright law. Whatever materials you used on your website which are taken from other website must be acknowledged and with permission granted.

Being a Research University (RU) is a big responsibility. Academics are required to maintain their status by requiring them to publish, publish and publish. "Publish or Perish" - the saying gives the whole picture for some but not all academics. Therefore some people resort to all sort of means to get a certain number of publications a year.

Plagiarism

Today I had a discussion with my master student. It is interesting to note that he was very concerned about plagiarism and he actually did some readings on plagiarism. He even mentioned that students should know what is plagiarism and how to avoid plagiarism. He also share with me an open source software (Viper) which can be used to detect whether your writing contain any plagiarism (Type I only).

In academic, plagiarism is a very serious offence. Base on Academic Policy, students maybe expelled if they are found to submit a plagiarized work as their own. Academics also need to write and publish our research work. There may not be a written rules on publication guidelines but as academics we should have an academic integrity.

According to Dr Barnbaum, there are five types of plagiarism:

Type I: Copy & Paste

Type II: Word Switch

Type III: Style

Type IV: Metaphor

Type V: Idea

Most of us are more familiar with Type I: Copy n Paste and are not aware of the other types. For more detail description and examples, refer to Dr Barnbaum page.

The following list some references on the different type of plagiarism:

Dr. C. Barnbaum, Plagiarism, A Student's Guide to Recognizing It and Avoiding It, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Valdosta State University.

Sue Ann Brainard, Plagiarism Workshop, Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo

Academic Integrity Tutorial, New York University

A Trip to Shah Alam

On Monday I drove from Jitra to Shah Alam to attend my student's PhD Defense Proposal. It was a 5-hours drive and it rain half of the way. I planned to meet my student, A before his presentation on Tuesday but unfortunately his handphone was off and only reply my SMS late evening with an excuse that he is not well and was sleeping ..... hhmmm. I also schedule a meeting with my other PhD student, R, again no luck she is also not well.

Anyway, I was there when A presented his proposal and later we went through his proposal again to make the necessary corrections based on the comments made by the panel. I asked him to sent me his corrections in a couple of weeks.

It was nice to meet friends in Shah Alam. Almost everybody ask me "Seronok ke kat Perlis" It is a difficult question but my famous answer is "Bolehla". It is just a matter of adjusting to new environment and new friends. One thing is obvious no more traffic jam and toll.

I left Shah Alam at about 2 pm and reach Jitra about 7pm

Semester Break

UiTM decided to move its semester break to this week. This is as a precaution against the spread of H1N1 virus (A couple of UiTM campuses are closed already). We got the information late Friday afternoon. It was already too late for me to give my students assignment during the semester break. Hopefully they will use this time to revise what had been covered in the first three weeks of classes (I doubt so). Classes will resume on the 2nd of August.

First Day of class

This is the first week of class. I started the first day with my first meeting with a newly registered Master of Computer Science research student. I have agreed to be his supervisor and the first discussion is on the topic and a planning on what to be accomplished during the 18 months of research work. He will need to attend the Research Methodology class which began last Saturday.

The following links should be helpful for our research students:

http://naimahmh.uitm.edu.my/resources.html

I do update my resources page (not as frequent as I like to) so if you find any broken link, do let me know.

For academic papers search, you can go to the following link:

http://www.scopus.com

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/

http://scholar.google.com/

And of course you can always use the google search engine.

As usual, I don't encourage students to use white paper published on the internet. It is best to cite from papers published in well refereed conferences and well established journals or books.

New at UiTM Perlis

It has been a month since I transfer to UiTM Perlis from Shah Alam. It is a new environment which I need to get adjusted. This blog was set up sometime ago and I have not much idea on what to put here. I already have my academic web page hosted at FSKM web server and a duplicate copy hosted at the UiTM web server. I thought of migrating everything to UiTM web server but something is not right somewhere. I use to be able to search my name using google and the page from FSKM web server will appear but now it is gone ... hhhhmmm ... no clue why??? anyway I will start to build on this blogging thing... till then..