Winter Simulation 2012

To be held, December 9-12.2012 in Berlin, Germany

This years theme is "Winter Simulation Goes Europe" reflects that this is the first time the Winter Simulation will be held outside of the USA and in Europe. Whereas typically themes are used to establishing a single track in this area at the Winter Simulation, this year, a closer look reveals that with the track chairs (at least half of which come from Europe), with the keynote talks, with the titan of simulation, and with the celebrated anniversaries the Winter Simulation is indeed going Europe (and with Kyoto even beyond). 

Keynote: On Monday, the 10th of December, 2012

Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany

After studying physics at the Universities of Ulm and Konstanz and physical oceanography at the University of Wales (Bangor) Stefan Rahmstorf completed a thesis on general relativity theory. He then moved to New Zealand and obtained his PhD in oceanography at Victoria University of Wellington in 1990. His PhD work included a number of research cruises in the South Pacific.  After this he worked as a scientist at the New Zealand Oceanographic Institute, at the Institute of Marine Science in Kiel and since 1996 at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. His work there focuses on the role of ocean currents in climate change.  In 1999 Rahmstorf was awarded the $ 1 million Centennial Fellowship Award of the US-based James S. McDonnell foundation. Since 2000 he teaches Physics of the Oceans as a professor at Potsdam University. Rahmstorf is a member of the Academia Europaea and of the German Advisory Council on Global Change. He is also one of the lead authors of the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC. In 2007 he became an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales and in 2010 a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. He has published over 60 scientific papers (14 of which in Nature and Science) and co-authored three books. Available in English is Our Threatened Oceans (2009, with Katherine Richardson) and The Climate Crisis (2010, with David Archer).

Keynote: On Tuesday, the 11th of December, 2012

Thomas A. Henzinger , Institute of Science and Technology, Austria

Thomas A. Henzinger is since September 2009, President of IST Austria. Before he has been Professor of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He holds a Dipl.-Ing. degree in Computer Science from Kepler University in Linz, Austria, an M.S. degree in Computer and Information Sciences from the University of Delaware, and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Stanford University (1991). He was Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University (1992-95), Assistant Professor (1996-97), Associate Professor (1997-98), and Professor (1998-2005) of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He was also Director at the Max-Planck Institute for Computer Science in Saarbruecken, Germany (1999). His research focuses on modern systems theory, especially models, algorithms, and tools for the design and verification of reliable software, hardware, and embedded systems. His HyTech tool was the first model checker for mixed discrete-continuous systems. He is an ISI highly cited researcher, a member of Academia Europaea, a member of the German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the ACM, and a Fellow of the IEEE.

Titans of Simulation: On Tuesday, 11th of December, 2012

Gianfranco Balbo, University of Torino, Italy

After studying physics at the University of Torino (Italy) Gianfranco Balbo went to Purdue University (USA) where he got is MS and PH.D. in Computer Science with a specialization in operating systems and evaluation methods for the study of their performances. Since November of 1978 he is with the Faculty of the University of Torino where he is now Professor of Computer Science and Vice-Rector with the responsibility of the Information Systems of the Athenaeum. His  research interests are in the area of performance evaluation of computer systems, queueing network models, stochastic Petri nets, and queueing theory. After working on the computational algorithms for the solution of product form queueing networks, he started to use Stochastic Petri Nets for the analysis of the performance of parallel computers. In 1984, together with  M. Ajmone-Marsan and G. Conte,  he proposed the Generalized Stochastic Petri Net  (GSPN) formalism which, supported by the GreatSPN software package, quickly became one of the most popular modelling languages for the specification and analysis of performance models of computer and communication systems. He has published over 70 scientific papers and co-authored three books. He is an ISI highly cited researcher, a member of the Academy of Sciences of Torino, and a member of the ACM.

Military Keynote:

Important Anniversaries

• Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) - it is the first time that the WSC will be held outside of the USA.
  
• Kyoto Protocol - it is exactly 15 years after the Kyoto Protocol (December, 11th, 1997). The impact of human activities on climatic change, the challenges we will likely be faced with, and the central role modeling and simulation plays in meeting these challenges, will be at the core of dedicated tracks and a keynote talk at this years WSC. 
  
• Petri Nets - it is 50 years, since Adam Petri published his PhD thesis on "Kommunikation mit Automaten" (where he developed the Petri Net formalism). Since then, the community of scientists applying and doing research on Petri Nets has steadily been increasing. A track on Petri Nets in this years WSC and the Titan's talk will highlight the role of Petri Nets in Modeling and Simulation. 
  
• Simulation in Military - it is 212 years since the grand father of military simulation, Graf Helmuth von Moltke, was born (not far from Berlin, i.e. in Parchim, Mecklenburg Vorpommern).  
  

Tracks