Simon Dobson

Posted on Tuesday 19 July, 2016

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

Mary Beard (2015)

A distinguished historian’s swan song, a history of Rome that focuses on many of the neglected aspects of the period – and on why they are neglected. The experience of slaves, or women of the poor – of which we know next to nothing – are contrasted against the experience of Cicero, the first person in history we can “know” in a modern, biographical, sense. On the way Beard explores what it meant to be Roman, and so what it meant to be a part of the Empire from the perspective of the ordinary and elite peoples far from Italy.

For me the most radical observation that Beard makes is in identifying what counts as “important” Roman history. She essentially discounts the empire and the emperors as being a footnote, something that occurred after all vibrancy and creativity had passed. For her, the Republic and the characters around it – the Gracchi, Cicero himself, Pompei and Caesar – are the elements that gave us the important things we have taken from Rome. It’s an unusual argument, compellingly made.

5/5. Finished Tuesday 19 July, 2016.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Posted on Monday 18 July, 2016

CfP: Collective adaptive systems

A special track of the 32nd ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC‘17) looking for contributions.

COLLECTIVE ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS

Special Track of the 32nd ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC‘17) http://sac-cas2017.apice.unibo.it April 3 - 7, 2017 Marrakech, Morocco Nowadays, most aspects of our daily life are affected by pervasive technology, consisting of massive numbers of heterogeneous units/nodes (computers, devices, software applications, smart objects, etc.), complex interactions, and humans-in-the-loop. The distributed and open nature of these systems and their large scale make sensing, decision-making, planning and acting possibly highly dispersed: this may cause on the one hand the emergence of unexpected phenomena, but on the other hand it can be the key to support inherent adaptation and resilience. These complex systems are typically referred to as Collective Adaptive Systems (CAS). They have to be equipped with dynamic and autonomous adaptation capabilities, to deal with changes in their working environments and within themselves. CAS involve huge collections of cooperating components, trading off individual tasks, properties, objectives and actions, with overall system goals. To properly engineer and exploit CAS, a deep scientific understanding of the principles underpinning their operation is required. The development of CAS is closely related to other contemporary (software) engineering approaches, such as component-based systems and middleware platforms, as well as other Computer Science areas, such as Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Formal Methods, Agent-based Programming, Pervasive Computing, Internet of Things, and Autonomic Computing. This track aims at providing a common forum for discussing the various different viewpoints over CAS, attracting relevant and consistent contributions from different research communities, with the ultimate goal of filling the gap between theory and practice, hence paving the way towards implementation of relevant applications. The Special Track on Collective Adaptive Systems takes deliberately a broad view of what CAS are and how they should be designed, analysed, built and deployed. In particular, the track’s interest is both in the foundational view (e.g., theories, methods, formalisms, models) and the practical aspects (e.g., development methodologies, programming languages, middleware, development and runtime environments, tools). Moreover, also applications of CAS solutions to real-world case studies are welcomed. Major topics of interest this year will include the following:
  • Novel models, languages, programming and implementation techniques for CAS
  • CAS technologies and infrastructures
  • CAS applications
  • Scenarios, case studies and experience reports of CAS
  • Formal aspects (semantics, reasoning, verification) in CAS development
  • Business Processes in CAS - Self-* and emerging properties of CAS
  • Security and privacy in CAS - Policy-based coordination and self-adaptation in CAS
  • Middleware platforms for CAS
  • Software architectures and engineering methodologies for CAS

Important Dates

Sep 15, 2016: Papers and SRC research abstracts submission Nov 10, 2016: Author notification Nov 25, 2016: Camera-ready copies Dec 10, 2016: Author registration

Programme Co-Chairs

Mirko Viroli Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, Italy http://mirkoviroli.apice.unibo.it email: mirko.viroli@unibo.it Francesco Tiezzi University of Camerino, Italy http://tiezzi.unicam.it/ email: francesco.tiezzi@ unicam.it

Program Committee Members

  • Jacob Beal, BBN Technologies, USA
  • Olivier Boissier, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne, France
  • Tomas Bures, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic
  • Siobhan Clarke, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
  • Daniel Coore, University of the West Indies, Jamaica
  • Ferruccio Damiani, University of Torino, Italy Rocco De Nicola, IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy
  • Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo, University of Geneve, Switzerland
  • Simon Dobson, University of St Andrews
  • Schahram Dustdar, TU Wien, Austria
  • Kurt Geihs, Universitaet Kassel, Germany
  • Jane Hillston, University of Edinburgh, UK
  • Christine Julien, University of Texas at Austin, USA
  • Hung La, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
  • Peter Lewis, Aston University, UK
  • Alberto Lluch Lafuente, DTU, Denmark
  • Michele Loreti, University of Firenze, Italy
  • Andrea Omicini, University of Bologna, Italy
  • Carlo Pinciroli, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada
  • Rosario Pugliese, University of Firenze, Italy
  • Barbara Re, University of Camerino, Italy
  • Jan-Philipp Steghöfer, Chalmers Technical University, Sweden
  • Martin Wirsing, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen, Germany
  • Franco Zambonelli, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

Proceedings

Papers accepted for the Special Track on Collective Adaptive Systems will be published by ACM both in the SAC 2017 proceedings and in the Digital Library. CAS Special Track organisers also plan to invite authors of selected papers for a Special Issue in a high impact journal, such as ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems or Science of Computer Programming.

Paper submission and format

All papers should represent original and previously unpublished works that currently are not under review in any conference or journal. The author(s) name(s) and address(es) must NOT appear in the body of the paper, and self-reference should be in the third person. This is to facilitate blind review. Only the title should be shown at the first page without the authors’ information. Submitted papers must be in the ACM two-column page format (doc template, pdf template, latex template). The length of the papers is 6 pages (included in the registration) plus up to 2 extra pages (at extra charge), i.e. total 8 pages maximum. Paper registration is required, allowing the inclusion of the paper/poster in the conference proceedings. An author or a proxy attending SAC MUST present the paper: This is a requirement for the paper/poster to be included in the ACM/IEEE digital library. No-show of scheduled papers and posters will result in excluding them from the ACM/IEEE digital library. Submission is entirely automated via the STAR Submission System, which is available from:

Poster Sessions

Papers that received high reviews (that is acceptable by reviewer standards) but were not accepted due to space limitation can be invited for the poster session. Poster should be not longer than 3 pages (included in the registration) plus 1 extra page (at extra charge), i.e. total 4 pages maximum. The poster session procedures and details will be posted on SAC 2017 website as soon as they become available.

Student research abstracts competition

Graduate students are invited to submit Student Research Competition (SRC) abstracts (maximum of 2 pages in ACM camera-ready format) following the instructions published at SAC 2017 website. Submission of the same abstract to multiple tracks is not allowed. All research abstract submissions will be reviewed by researchers and practitioners with expertise in the track focus area to which they are submitted. Authors of selected abstracts (up to 20 students) will have the opportunity to give poster and oral presentations of their work and compete for three top-winning places. The winners will receive medals, cash awards, and SIGAPP recognition certificates during the conference banquet. Invited students receive SRC travel support (US$500) and are eligible to apply to the SIGAPP Student Travel Award Program (STAP) for additional travel support.
Posted on Saturday 18 June, 2016

Who Owns the Future?

Jaron Lanier (2013)

A fascinating, if ultimately incomplete, exploration of the alternatives to the current web architecture that prioritises the needs of companies over those of consumers – or producers, if the truth be told. Lanier approaches the problems strictly from the perspective of information and information processing, with a clarity that I, even as a computer scientist, find refreshingly complete: it’s as though he’s willing to encompass some of the logical consequences that even professionals shy away from.

The central argument is that internet users, and especially users of social networks, are providing too much information for free to companies that then profit from it. Lanier suggests some alternative approaches to this, where content and expertise give rise to micro-payment compensation in cash or some other medium of exchange. The problem is that this is a tall order against the structures that have already grown up, and it’s unclear that it’s now possible to change tack as radically as would be required. Still, in many ways that makes this work all the more important, and it’s a great contribution to the broader literature on e-commerce and digital living.

3/5. Finished Saturday 18 June, 2016.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Posted on Thursday 16 June, 2016

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)

A book that it’s perhaps hard for a white, middle-aged, Englishman to review, but still a powerful indictment of how America still relates to its black (and other) populations – made all the more poignant by the current spate of police shootings and the contentious presidential campaign that’s unmistakeably racist. Coates chooses to frame his argument in terms of physical threat, using it as both a metaphor and as an entrance to the more general sense of fear and danger still felt by many. He doesn’t avoid the changing face of oppression over the years, but still holds that there’s a danger to being black in America that it’s hard for whites (and non-Americans) to fully understand: perhaps the closest we can come to it in the UK would be the feelings of Catholics in Northern Ireland during the height of the Troubles, which was a story of privilege and discrimination that I remember being hard to accept at the time.

4/5. Finished Thursday 16 June, 2016.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Posted on Saturday 4 June, 2016

Peacemaking, 1919

Harold Nicolson (1933)

A minor participant’s view of the making of the Treaty of Versailles.

It’s strange to see the inside view: strange to realise that the things that later generations perceived were mistakes were often understood to be mistakes at the time – but that events carried the negotiators along, and their differing beliefs and goals, as well as their incongruent personalities, made it impossible to avoid the consequences. Many world statesmen appear, and most come out reasonably well – the exception being Woodrow Wilson. This book is a great precursor, and complement, to the histories of the run-up to the next war and helps contextualise many of the events that often seem inexplicable.

4/5. Finished Saturday 4 June, 2016.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)