University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ · 18-22 September 2017

Aims and Scope

The aim of the Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems conference series (SASO) is to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of research on the foundations of engineered systems that self-adapt and self-organize. The complexity of current and emerging networks, software, and services can be characterized by issues such as scale, heterogeneity, openness, and dynamics in the environment. This has led the software engineering, distributed systems, and management communities to look for inspiration in diverse fields (e.g., complex systems, control theory, artificial intelligence, chemistry, psychology, sociology, and biology) to find new ways of designing and managing such computing systems in a principled way. In this endeavor, self-organization and self-adaptation have emerged as two promising interrelated approaches. They form the basis for many other so-called self-* properties, such as self-configuration, self-healing, or self-optimization. SASO aims to be an interdisciplinary meeting, where contributions from participants with different backgrounds leads to the fostering of a cross-pollination of ideas, and where innovative theories, frameworks, methodologies, tools, and applications can emerge. The eleventh edition of the SASO conference embraces this inter-disciplinary nature, and welcomes novel contributions to both the foundational and application-focused dimensions of self-adaptive and self-organizing systems research. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Systems theory: nature-inspired and socially-inspired paradigms and heuristics; inter-operation of self-* mechanisms; theoretical frameworks and models; control theory;
• System properties: robustness; resilience; stability; anti-fragility; diversity; self-reference and reflection; emergent behavior; computational awareness and self-awareness;
• Systems engineering: reusable mechanisms and algorithms; design patterns; architectures; methodologies; software and middleware development frameworks and methods; platforms and toolkits; multi-agent systems;
• Theory and practice of organization: self-governance, change management, electronic institutions, distributed consensus, commons, knowledge management, and the general use of rules, policies, etc. in self-* systems
• Theory and practice of adaptation: mechanisms for adaptation, including evolution, logic, learning; adaptability, plasticity, flexibility
• Socio-technical systems: human and social factors; visualization; crowdsourcing and collective awareness; humans-in-the-loop; ethics and humanities in self-* systems;
• Data-driven approaches: data mining; machine learning; data science and other statistical techniques to analyze, understand, and manage behavior of complex systems;
• Self-adaptive and self-organizing hardware: self-* materials; self-construction; reconfigurable hardware;
• Education: experience reports; curricula; innovative course concepts; methodological aspects of self-* systems education;
• Applications and experiences with self-* systems in any of the following domains are of particular interest:
  • Smart systems: smart grids, smart cities, smart environments, smart homes, etc.
  • Industrial automation: embedded self-* systems, adaptive industrial plants, Industry 4.0, cyber physical systems
  • Transportation: autonomous vehicles, traffic optimization
  • Autonomous systems: aerial vehicles, undersea vehicles, autonomous robotics
  • Internet of Things: self-* for network management, self-* applied to cyber security

We are looking for contributions that present new fundamental understanding of self-adaptive and self-organizing systems and how they can be engineered and used, including: novel theoretical or experimental results, novel design patterns, mechanisms, system architectures, frameworks, tools, and practical experiences in building or deploying systems and applications. Contributions contrasting different approaches for engineering a given family of systems, or demonstrating the applicability of a certain approach for different systems, are equally encouraged. Likewise, papers describing substantial innovation or insights in the use and communication of self-* systems in the classroom are welcome. Where relevant and appropriate, accepted papers will also be encouraged to participate in the Demo or Poster Sessions.

Important Dates

Abstract submission	May 1, 2017
Paper submission	May 10, 2017
Notification	June 30, 2017
Camera ready copy due	July 12, 2017
Conference	September 18-22, 2017

Submission Instructions

Submissions can be up to 10 pages, formatted according to the standard IEEE Computer Society Press proceedings style guide, and submitted electronically in PDF format. Please submit your papers using the SASO 2017 conference management system: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=saso2017. The proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Society Press, and made available as a part of the IEEE Digital Library. Note that a separate Call for Poster and Demo Submissions will also be issued. As per the standard IEEE policies, all submissions should be original, i.e., they should not have been previously published in any conference proceedings, book, or journal and should not currently be under review for another archival conference. We also highlight IEEE’s policies regarding plagiarism and self-plagiarism (http://www.ieee.org/…/ID_Plagiarism.html).

Review Criteria

Papers should present novel ideas in the cross-disciplinary research context described in this call, motivated by problems from current practice or applied research. Both theoretical and empirical contributions should be highlighted, substantiated by formal analysis, simulation, experimental evaluations, or comparative studies, etc. Appropriate references must be made to related work. Because SASO is a cross-disciplinary conference, we encourage papers to be intelligible and relevant to researchers who are not members of the same specialized sub-field. Authors are also encouraged to submit papers describing applications. Application papers should provide an indication of the real-world relevance of the problem that is solved, including a description of the domain, and an evaluation of performance, usability, or comparison to alternative approaches. Experience papers are also welcome, especially if they highlight insights into any aspect of design, implementation or management of self-* systems that would be of benefit to practitioners and the SASO community. All submissions will be rigorously peer reviewed and evaluated based on the quality of their technical contribution, originality, soundness, significance, presentation, understanding of the state of the art, and overall quality.

Contact Information

Conference General Chair

Ada Diaconescu Telecom Paris-Tech, Paris, FR

Program Chairs

Peter Lewis, Aston University, Birmingham, UK Sam Malek, University of California, Irvine, USA Hella Seebach, Augsburg University, Augsburg, DE

Another masterly rendering of military history, this time looking at the secret war.

Hastings is disparaging – with reason – of many of the claims of secret services: the information obtained by diplomats often seems radically superior and more reliable than that obtained by spies, perhaps not least because it’s being interpreted in a cooler and less personally dangerous atmosphere. It’s hard to disagree as far as the Second World War is concerned, given that barely a single spy changed the course of the war to any measurable degree.

There are two exceptions to Hastings’ conclusion, however. One of code-breaking, where he provides a carefully balanced and even-handed treatment of all sides’ cryptographic skills. He places the British efforts in a context that’s all the stronger because he dispenses with myth while still being left with a story of epic successes: the codebreakers were able at times to exert a major influence on tactics and strategy, even while being stymied at others.

The second is the handling of double agents, and here it is the Russian efforts that really stand out. While the British XX committee scored major successes, the Russian deceptions were incredible in both their depth and extent, often completely masking the armies’ intentions even after they had started manoeuvring. In many ways the Russians achieved by stealth what Operation Fortitude achieved by physical deception, and on an enormously larger scale. It was particularly interesting that Hastings pulled out the contribution of “Rudolf Abel”, which I’d just read about in Abel: The True Story of the Spy They Traded for Gary Powers, and whose contributions really deserve to be better known.

5/5. Finished Tuesday 31 January, 2017.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

A science fiction utopian classic: how would one go about setting up an anarchist society, and what might then happen? Le Guin answers the first question by requiring a new language, new forms of relationships, new ways of naming children, and an organising principle based around the collective opinion of one’s fellow-citizens in the absence of any form of compulsion. As to the second, she sees the potential for human pride and ambition even in the face of a social order explicitly predicated against them. Any desire of which someone disapproves can always be characterised as self-interest (“egoising”), which will be met with disapproval.

There are plenty of echoes in this story of the Soviet Union, especially prior to the Second World War, in which noble ambitions to re-make society showed that they could be used and weaponised by someone who was prepared to act ruthlessly in their own interest. It’s the way in which someone acts that often conditions how people interpret their actions, giving power to anyone able to connive with a pious expression.

4/5. Finished Friday 27 January, 2017.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

A timely and excellent exploration of a forgotten battlefield.

It’s easy to reduce the Second World War to the extermination camps, resistance, and large-scale battles. This book tells the story of the civilian terror visited on the people of Eastern Europe before, during, and after the period we usually regard as “fighting”. From Stalin’s Great Terror, through the Nazi occupation, and then the reprisals that Stalin re-visited on the “Bloodlands”, it’s an almost inconceivable story of loss and random death that Snyder manages to tell without falling into any of the traps or tropes that he might have done. He keeps his perspective while telling of the death of (literally) millions, with a good eye for the individual story and copious support from documents and eye witnesses. It’s a uniquely valuable contribution to the literature on the war, and doubly valuable today when nationalism is once again on the march. Without thinking history will repeat itself, it still does no harm to be reminded of what can happen.

5/5. Finished Thursday 29 December, 2016.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)