VOLUME 5, ISSUE 5, OCTOBER 2011

WORKSHOP NEWS


International Workshop on Complex Systems and Networks 2011


Professor Xinghuo Yu, the acting Deputy
Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation and Vice-President, RMIT, delivered
the workshop opening speechWorkshop_News_files/iwcsn2011a_1.png
The 2011 International Workshop on Complex Systems and Networks (IWCSN 2011) took place in Melbourne, Australia on 17-19 September 2011 (website: http://www.iwcsn2011.org/). The IWCSN 2011 was the 8th International Workshop in the successful series of events organized consecutively in Bologna (2004), Hong Kong (2005), Vancouver (2006), Guilin (2007), Canberra (2008), Bristol (2009), and Beijing (2010). This year, the IWCSN 2011 was officially organized and sponsored by the Platform Technologies Research Institute and School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia. It was co-sponsored by the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society and its Nonlinear Circuits and Systems Technical Committee, the Centre for Chaos and Complex Networks at the City University of Hong Kong, the Research Centre for Complex Networks of Wuhan University, China, the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the School of Electrical and Information Engineering of University of Sydney, Australia. The IWCSN 2011 focused on complex systems and complex networks, multi-agent systems, systems biology, computer networks, biological networks, communication networks, networked control systems, and their applications.


Following the past successful workshop series, the two days received a set of insightful and aspiring lectures delivered by a group of distinguished invited speakers.


David Hill (U Sydney, Australia) kicked off the workshop with an interesting lecture on the planning and control of future smart massive networks. Then Ron Chen (City U, HK) exp
Group photo of part of invited speakers and
participants at the Research Lounge of RMIT University City CampusWorkshop_News_files/iwcsn2011_1.png
lored the modeling of the AS-level Internet. In the following, Mario di Bernardo (U Bristol, UK and U Naples, Italy) presented the contraction theory to address the control and synchronization issues in complex networks. Jinhu Lu (RMIT, Australia) reported the recent advances of his group in genetic regulatory networks. David Green (Monash U, Australia) discussed some future challenges of complex networks. Antoinette Tordesillas (U Mel, Australia) concluded the first day meeting by demonstrating the dynamical behaviors of granular materials via complex networks.


Iven Mareels (U Melb, Australia) opened the second day of the workshop by a talk on predicting the epileptic episodes. Ljiljana Trajkovic (SFU, Canada) presented the spectral analysis and dynamical behavior of complex networks. Maciej Ogorzalek (Jagiellonian U, Poland) discussed the description and optimization of geometric design in 3D via shape grammars. Michael Tse (Polytech U, HK) explored a practical consensus problem of orchestral conducting. Xinghuo Yu (RMIT, Australia) reported the recent advances of his institute in the consensus study of multi-agent systems. Kathy Horadam (RMIT, Australia) investigated a citation network for its potential in data fusion. Graham Farr (Monash U, Australia) concluded the workshop presentations by addressing using information theory to resolve graph sequence segmentation problems.


Before the workshop, some speakers toured the Great Ocean Road from Apollo Bay to the magnificent 12 Apostles and weaved through several beautiful parks, beaches and the rugged coastline. During the meeting, two social dinners were held at the Flower Drum Restaurant recognized as one of the world’s top 50 restaurants by the Restaurant Magazine in England in 2002-2005, and the Lemongrass Restaurant ranked the Best Thai of American Express Restaurant Awards in 1992. These activities provided an excellent opportunity for all participants to exchange their research ideas and experiences, and to work together through gathering.


The series of IWCSN workshops will continue with the next meeting being hosted tentatively either in USA or Shanghai in September of 2012. For more information, please be referred to the IWCSN home website: http://iwcsn.eie.polyu.edu.hk.



Jinhu Lü, RMIT University, Australia, and Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

(Email: jhlu@iss.ac.cn)