Special Sessions

Proposal for holding special sessions are invited from prospective authors, industrial bodies and academicians. They are expected to bring at least six (6) registered presenters addressed to conference secretary, in order to offer them free fee

Stream 1

"Dynamics and Optimization of Financial Portfolios and of Development Strategies under Various Assumptions on Time-Dependence: Foundations and Recent Achievements under Hybrid Stochastic Systems" by Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber gweber@metu.edu.tr [Institute of Applied Mathematics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey]

The development of the understanding about the dynamical properties of Stochastic Hybrid Systems is a problem of great relevance both from a theoretical and practical standpoint, because these kind of dynamical systems can be used to improve our understanding of the wide array of real problems, especially, in financial modelling and portfolio optimization. In this talk we focus on the use of stochastic hybrid system to model    financial markets. The systems can be driven either by a geometric Brownian motion, or by a more general Lévy process, and the shifts are driven by general continuous-time Markov process. We use the jump process in the Lévy process to model a sudden decrease in the price process, e.g., just after a bubble bursts. Hence, by using a jump process, the investors may be able to evaluate their risk, i.e., how much they can lose if the bubble bursts. An ultimate goal is to develop techniques for the detection and proper management of catastrophes in financial markets and the corresponding strategies for optimal portfolio management. We extend our view to related aspects of modelling and selection in the field of development and improvement of living condition on earth

G. W. (Willi) Weber is a Professor at IAM, METU, Ankara, Turkey. His research in on optimization and control (continuous and discrete), OR, financial mathematics, on life, bio and human sciences, dynamical systems, data mining, statistical learning, inverse problems, environment and development; he is involved into the organization of scientific life internationally. G.-W. Weber received both his Diploma and Doctorate in mathematics, and economics / business administration, at Aachen University of Technology (RWTH Aachen), and his Habilitation (second doctorate) at Darmstadt University of Technology (TU Darmstadt). He held Professorships by proxy at University of Cologne, Germany, and Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany, before he worked at Cologne Bioinformatics Center and then, in 2003, went to Ankara. At IAM, METU, he is in the Programs of Financial Mathematics, Actuarial Sciences and Scientific Computing, he is Assistant to the Director of IAM and a member of three further graduate schools and institutes of METU. Further, he has affiliations at University of Siegen (Germany), University of Ballarat (Australia), University of Aveiro (Portugal), Malaysia University of Technology and University of North Sumatra (Indonesia). He has served in several national and international projects. Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber is (co-) author of more than 200 publications, e.g., papers and books, he has been member in the Editorial Boards of ca. 15 journals. G.-W. Weber got various awards, calls and distinctions. He has been involved in the organization of numerous international scientific events. G.-W. Weber has given various talks and courses all over the world, and he supervised about 60 students with their theses. He is Honorary Chair of three EURO Working Groups (EUROPT, EURO OR for Development and EURO WG on Societal Complexity), he has been in leading positions of several EURO WGs, served in preparing and fostering EURO WGs, and supports OR in EURO and IFORS, e.g., via IFORS Resources at its homepage. He is “Advisor to EURO Conferences”. G.-W. Weber is a member in numerous national OR societies and other scientific organizations, and “Representative of German OR Society in Turkey”. He encourages education, research and their application, in particular, for an improvement of living conditions and a better understanding between the peoples. http://www3.iam.metu.edu.tr/iam/images/7/73/Willi-CV.pdf

Collaborators:

Azer Kerimov, Efsun Kürüm, Büsra Temocin, Azize Hayfavi, Yeliz Yolcu-Okur, Ayse Özmen, Fatma Yerlikaya, Pakize Taylan, Vilda Purutcuoglu, Zeynep Alparslan-Gök, Özlem Defterli, Linet Özdamar, Chandra Sekhar Pedamallu, Diogo Pinheiro, Nuno Azevedo, Erik Kropat, Vadim Strijov, Basak Akteke Öztürk, Süreyya Özögür Akyüz

Stream 2

"Positive-Net Energy Buildings: approaching future" by Milorad Bojic milorad.bojic@gmail.com [Faculty of Engineering Sciences, of Kragujevac University, 34000 Kragujevac, Serbia]

For positive net energy building (PNEB), the paper presents need, definition and its elements. The most important is that PNEB should provide the maximum thermal comfort with minimum of energy, primary energy, and exergy consumption, and minimum of CO2 emission throughout its life. Then, the paper presents the software for energy simulation and optimization of PNEB. After that, the paper describes the five examples connected to PNEB. The first example is a simulation of a residential PNEB, second the optimization of photovoltaics in a residential PNEB, third the description of an the building as power plant initiative, fourth the description of an office PNEB, fifth description of an archive PNEB and finally a description of a headquarter PNEB.

Professor Milorad Bojic was born in Belgrade, Serbia. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from Kragujevac University. His first degree is Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Belgrade University and second Master of Science in Fluid Mechanics from Syracuse University, USA. Dr. Bojic served in Kragujevac University from 1974 up to now. His current title is Full Professor in Faculty of Engineering Science, Kragujevac University. Professor Bojic was a visiting professor at Nagoya University, Japan, a visiting professor at Hong Kong Politechnic Univesity, and a research associate at Hong Kong University. He is currently a visiting professor at Reunion Island University in France.

Professor Bojic's specialties include, but not limited to, thermodynamics, heat engineering, energy efficiency, and renewable energy engineering with special attention devoted to solar energy. Prof. Bojic is a researcher of acclaimed and distinguished services and contributions in the field of energy science, Professor Bojic has won many research awards and honorary positions in prestigious organizations both nationally and internationally. For instance, he was a honorary professor in Hong Kong Politechnic Univesity; he is a member of the Engineering Academy of Serbia and the Scientific Society of Serbia . He is in editorial board of several journals such as Energy International and Renewable Energy from Elsevier, and a guest editor in Elsevier journals: Energy Conversion and Management and Energy and Buildings. He published over 300 papers in Energy Sciences and was cited over 300 times. In the meantime, he participates actively in international academic organizations and performs advisory work to government agencies and academic organizations.

Stream 3

"Energy Production and Distribution" by Janos Sebestyen Janosy jjs@aeki.kfki.hu [MTA KFKI Atomic Energy Research Institute, Hungary]

This special session is supposed to bring together top researchers, engineers and students from around the world to discuss methodology, trends, latest developments and practical evaluations in the fields of energy production and distribution.

Additionally to the traditional forms of electrical energy generation – that means coal, gas and oil firing power plants, nuclear power plants, and hydro power plants – new, more environment friendly solutions are stepping in, based on renewable energy sources. Solar cells, solar boilers, wind turbines, burning of bio-mass in the boilers are spreading all over the world. Presently they are economically less attractive than the traditional forms of electrical energy generation, but due to the fact that they are not emitting carbon-dioxide, they are usually heavily subsidized by the environment-conscious governments of developed countries.

Intelligent electrical energy distribution networks can change the price of the electrical energy continuously, according to the actual demand. Intelligent customer systems can adjust their energy consumption according to the actual price, removing significant part of the peak loads, resulting in better, more reliable and efficient usage of the existing electrical power networks.Bio-ethanol and bio-diesel production, hydrogen generation does not increase the carbon-dioxide emission, too. These fuels are supposed to be used in the transport industry. A lot of research is needed to work out usable hydrogen-storage technologies suitable for cars and trucks.

Topics:

-        improvements in usage of traditional fossil power plants, less emission of pollutants and carbon-dioxide

-        energy generation based on renewable energy sources, integration of them into existing energy distribution networks

-        improvements in power control strategies of fission-based nuclear power plants

-        electrical power generation in fusion-based nuclear power plants

-        problems of hydrogen-based energetic systems – production, transport and storage

-        biomass, bio-ethanol and bio-diesel production and consumption

-        intelligent energy distribution systems and consumers

Stream 4

"Energy - efficient solutions for time-space localization in wireless sensor networks" by Ustijana Rechkoska Shikoska, and Danco Davcev ustijana@t-home.mk [UIST  Ohri, Republic of Macedonia]

Space and time play a crucial role in wireless sensor networks, since sensor nodes are used to collaboratively monitor physical phenomena and their space-time properties. Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are envisioned to be used to fulfill complex monitoring tasks. A number of techniques and distributed algorithms for location estimation and time synchronization have been developed specifically for sensor networks. Enabled by technological advancements in wireless communications and embedded computing, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) were first considered for military applications, where large-scale wireless networks of autonomous sensor nodes would enable the unobtrusive observation of events in the real-world. Since then, the use of sensor networks has also been considered for various civil application domains. The categories time and location are fundamental for many applications of sensor networks, due to the close integration of sensor networks with the real world.

A similarity of time and space affects the location estimation and time synchronization, ranging from applications and requirements to basic approaches and concrete algorithmic techniques. An original approaches for space and time localization in WSNs will be presented in this special session of the PCO’ 2012 Conference, as well as energy-efficient approaches, by clustering the WSNs, also other solutions for energy efficiency concerning WSNs. In some algorithms, a mobile beacon for both localization and synchronization has been used, a sensor node which moves around the sensor’s field, aware of its time and position, equipped with a GPS receiver that has the ability to move around the sensor field. This beacon can be a human operator, an unmanned vehicle, an aircraft, or a robot. A mobile beacon has been successfully applied to solve the positioning problem. For the issue of time-space localization algorithm, different method could be used to synchronize nodes. The algorithms can be implemented on different network topologies.

As an energy solution, the impact of the clusters in the sensor network can be discussed. With increasing the number of clusters, their influence reffering both localization and synchronization error is of a great importance. When no cluster is formed, energy consumption is very large. When cluster is formed then energy consumption reduces according to the number of cluster. For energy efficient algorithms, clustering the network is very important to be implemented, with an optimal number of clusters in the network, according to the optimizing methods. Implementing these solutions, at particular point energy consumption is minimal for a particular number of a cluster. A clustered WSN is superior from the point of view of energy efficiency. Also, other methods that influence the energy efficiency in the WSNs can be discussed. A set of simulations will be presented to evaluate the performance of presented solutions.

Presented approaches are energy efficient, they reduce communication and processing resources, saving energy and network resources, prolonging the sensor networks lifetime

Stream 5

"Computational Intelligence and its Applications" by Tarek Helmy helmy@kfupm.edu.sa [Information and Computer Science Department, KFUPM, KSA] and Anifowose Fatai  anifowo@kfupm.edu.sa [Center of Petroleum and Minerals, KFUPM, KSA]

Stream 6

"Heuristics Optimization" by Niaz Ahmed Wassan n.a.wassan@kent.ac.uk [Business School, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK]

Heuristics Optimization methods have been very successful in tackling variety of optimization problems in areas such as Industry, Business, Logistics, Computer Science, Engineering, Government etc. For this special session we are inviting papers contributing to methodological developments and successful implementations of Heuristics Metaheuristics and their hybrids. Special emphasis is on Logistics and Supply Chains but other implementations will also be considered.

Stream 7

"Design and Application of Shipbuilding Parts" by  Jeongju Choi jchoi72@dau.ac.kr [Korea]

This special session will bring together top researchers, practitioners and students from around the world to discuss the latest advances in the field of the design and application of valves, fitting, structure, rudder assembly, crane and shipbuilding parts, and related fields. The topic of submitted paper must be discussed about a shipbuilding parts.