The 1st IEEE International Summer School on E-CARGO and Applications (Online)

July 17-21, 2023

Online Registration

Sponsors:

• IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society

Organizer:

• Technical Committee of Distributed Intelligent Systems

Co-Organizers:

• Technical Committee of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work in Design

• Guangdong Chapter

• Nipissing University, Canada

Acknowledgement:

• Jinling Institute of Technology, China

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Goal

The Environments-Classes, Agents, Roles, Groups, and Objects (E-CARGO) model is an abstract model for complex systems. It has been successfully applied in different applications. It has numerous potentials to promote investigations into academic and industry problems. It fits the SMCS requirements of initiatives. Role Based Collaboration (RBC) and its E-CARGO model have been developed into a powerful tool for investigating collaboration and complex systems. Related research has brought and will bring in exciting improvements to the development, evaluation, and management of systems including collaboration, services, clouds, productions, and administration systems. E-CARGO assists scientists and engineering in formalizing abstract problems, which originally are taken as complex problems, and finally points out solutions to such problems including programming. The E-CARGO model possesses all the preferred properties of a computational model. It has been verified by formalizing and solving significant problems in collaboration and complex systems, e.g., Group Role Assignment (GRA). With the help of E-CARGO, the methodology of RBC can be applied to solve various real-world problems. E-CARGO itself can be extended to formalize abstract problems as innovative investigations in research. On the other hand, the details of each E-CARGO component are still open for renovations for specific fields to make the model easily applied. For example, in programming, we need to specify the primitive elements for each component of E-CARGO. When these primitive elements are well-specified, a new type of modeling or programming language can be developed and applied to solve general problems with software design and implementations. This summer school will extend the applications of E-CARGO and RBC, which promote problem solving for complex systems that are considered in SMCS, such as Cybernetics, Systems Engineering, Human-Machine Systems, and Computational Social Systems.

Motivation

In the field of Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC), many researchers require solid tools to develop their methodologies or solutions to their specific problems in their specific areas. There are many traditional tools for specific areas, such as object or agent models, deep learning, evolutionary computation, or evolutionary optimizations. However, these methodologies and models have their own limitations. Researchers are eager to have a high-level, abstract, but expressive models and methodologies to guide them in understanding the requirement of their specific problems, which are usually very complex. It is very hard for them to grasp the key elements to analyze their problems, specify the requirement, and design a feasible solution.

E-CARGO is a novel model to meet the requirement of researchers in this aspect. Using E-CARGO, researchers master a tool to start to investigate a problem along an easy-to-follow route and can gradually delve into the details of the system or problem they are mainly concerned about. Such a tool helps them to understand their problems or systems in an adaptive and incremental way.

In the summer school, we will demonstrate through lectures and labs many successful stories and case studies for researchers to learn, follow, and practice.

The SMC Society encourages interdisciplinary research and innovations and is a reputational technology incubator. It is the SMC Society that makes E-CARGO develop, expand, and mature.

Attendees

This school is open for everyone and anyone with some familiarity with abstract mathematical structures to learn about the E-CARGO model and RBC theory. Our goal is to make the E-CARGO/RBC theory accessible to, and inclusive of, everyone who is interested. We believe that E-CARGO is for everyone, and are committed to fostering a kind, inclusive environment. From our experience, 4th-year students, graduate students including master’s and PhD’s, and fresh researchers and/or practitioners in STEM majors are better fits.

Tentative Program (July 17, 2023-July 21, 2023)

*Confirmed Panelists: Sam Kwong, Mariagrazia Dotoli, Ljiljana Trajkovic, Peng Shi, Robert Kozma, and Weiming Shen.

Registration

Including: 1) 5-day (10 sessions) of online participation of the summer school program. 2) a certificate for those registered attendees who attend not less than 7 sessions. 3) an author-signed hardcopy book for the top 10 students, and a hardcopy book for the top 11-50 students in performance (Value: $170 including shipping cost): H. Zhu, E-CARGO and Role-Based Collaboration: Modeling and Solving Problems in the Complex World, Wiley-IEEE Press, NJ, USA, Dec. 2021. Note: We will also send out more books based on the budget. The criterion is the registration time, i.e., First In First Serve (FIFS). Before and On May 15, 2023: IEEE SMC student member: Free IEEE SMC member: Free IEEE student member: $35CAD IEEE member: $70CAD Non-IEEE student: $70CAD Non-IEEE member: $140CAD On and After May 16, 2023: IEEE SMC student member: $50CAD IEEE SMC member: $50CAD IEEE student member: $85CAD IEEE member: $120CAD Non-IEEE student: $120CAD Non-IEEE member: $190CAD

Click here to secure your seat!

Organization Committee

General Chair: Haibin Zhu, Nipissing University, Canada Program Co-Chairs: Dongning Liu, Guangdong University of Technology, China Yin Sheng, Hohai University, China Registration Co-Chairs: Xianjun Zhu, Jinling Institute of Technology, China Publicity Co-Chairs: Hua Ma, Hunan Normal University, China Libo Zhang, Southwest University, China Instructors: Haibin Zhu, Nipissing University, Canada Dongning Liu, Guangdong University of Technology, China Yin Sheng, Hohai University, China Lab Instructor: Qian Jiang, Macau University of Science and Technology, China Secretary: Chengyu Peng, Laurentian University, Canada Contact: cpeng@laurentian.ca

Instructors’ Short Bio

Dr. Haibin Zhu is a Full Professor and the Founding Director of the Collaborative Systems Laboratory, Nipissing University, Canada, an affiliate full professor of Concordia Univ. and an adjunct professor of Laurentian Univ., Canada. He received his MS and PhD degrees from National Univ. of Defense Tech., China. He has accomplished over 230+ research works including 40+ IEEE Transactions articles, six books, five book chapters, four journal issues, and four conference proceedings. He is a fellow of I2CICC, a senior member of ACM and IEEE, a full member of Sigma Xi, and a life member of CAST-USA.

He is Vice President, Systems Science and Engineering (SSE) (2023-), member-at-large of the Board of Governors (2022-), a co-chair (2014-) of the technical committee of Distributed Intelligent Systems of IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC) Society (SMCS), and Associate Editor (AE) of IEEE Transactions on SMC: Systems (2018-), IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems(2018-), Frontiers of Computer Science (2021-), and IEEE Canada Review (2017-). He was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE SMC Magazine (2022), AE of IEEE SMC Magazine (2018-2021), Associate Vice President (AVP), SSE (2021), IEEE SMCS, Conference or Program (Co-)Chair for 10+ international conferences, and PC member for 130+ academic conferences.

He is the founding researcher of Role-Based Collaboration and the creator of the E-CARGO model. He is the most productive author in “Collaboration” by IEEE Xplore. He has offered 15+ keynote speeches for international conferences and 90+ invited talks internationally. His research has been sponsored by NSERC, IBM, DNDC, DRDC, and OPIC.

Dr. Dongning Liu is a full professor of the Guangdong University of Technology in China. He is engaged in education and technology transfer on collaborative computing. He is a doctoral supervisor and vice dean of the School of Computer Science and Technology. He has published thirty-two papers on E-CARGO, including thirteen Science Citation Indexed (SCI) journal papers, where eleven are for IEEE Transactions. He is an associate editor for IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Magazine. He is a Technical Committee member of TC on Distributed Intelligent Systems (DIS) of the IEEE Society, a Distinguished Member of the China Computer Federation (CCF), and a Committee member of TC on Cooperative Computing of CCF. (Homepage：http://www.scholat.com/liudn)

Dr. Yin Sheng received the B.S. degree in automation from Nanjing University, Nanjing, in 2009, and Ph.D. degree in management science and engineering in 2015. He was a postgraduate student in control science and engineering with Nanjing University from 2009 to 2011. From 2013 to 2014, he was a Research Assistant with Collaborative Systems Laboratory Nipissing University, North Bay, ON, Canada. He is an associate Professor at Hohai University. He has published nine E-CARGO related papers including two IEEE Transactions journal papers. His current research interests include role-based collaboration, knowledge graphs, and intelligent systems. He was a recipient of the Best Student Paper Award from the 2014 IEEE 11th International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control held in Miami, FL., USA.

Qian Jiang received the B.S. degree in Network Engineering and the M.S. degree in Computer Science and Technology from the School of Computer Science and Technology, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China in 2018 and 2021, respectively. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in Intelligent Science and Systems at the Macao Institute of Systems Engineering, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macao, China. Recently, he has published six E-CARGO-related regular papers on IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, and International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems, respectively. He has served as a reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems. His research interests include Human-Machine Systems, Computational Social Simulation, and Scheduling and Optimization.

Panelists’ Short Bios

Dr. Sam Kwong received a B.Sc. degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, and an M.A.Sc. Degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, and a Ph.D. from the Fern Universität Hagen, Hagen, Germany. From 1985 to 1987, he was a Diagnostic Engineer with Control Data Canada, where he designed the diagnostic software to detect the manufacturing faults of the VLSI chips in the Cyber 430 machine. He later joined Bell Northern Research Canada as a Member of the Scientific Staff, working on the DMS-100 voice network and the DPN-100 data network project. In 1990, he joined the City University of Hong Kong as a Lecturer in the Department of Electronic Engineering. He is currently a Chair Professor in the Department of Computer Science and coauthored three research books, eight book chapters, and over 500 transactions and conference papers. He is the Associate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, and the Journal of Information Science. Prof. Kwong was elevated to IEEE fellow for his contributions to Optimization Techniques for Cybernetics and Video coding in 2014. He is currently the President of IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics from January 2021 to December 2023.

Dr. Mariagrazia Dotoli is a Full Professor in Automatic Control at Politecnico di Bari, Italy, where she is also the Founder and Coordinator of the Italian National PhD Program on Autonomous Systems. She was the Vice Rector for research of Politecnico di Bari and a member elect of the Academic Senate of the same University. She has been a visiting scholar at the Paris 6 University, France, and at the Technical University of Denmark. Her research interests include modeling, identification, management, control and diagnosis of complex systems, including smart cities, energy systems, manufacturing systems, logistics systems, traffic networks, and discrete event systems. She volunteers for the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) in many roles. Most notably, she is currently the Vice President for Membership and Student Activities of the IEEE Systems Man and Cybernetics Society for years 2023-2024. She is a Senior Editor of the IEEE TRANS. ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING and an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANS. ON SYSTEMS MAN AND CYBERNETICS: SYSTEMS. She served in the organization of many well-reputed international conferences. Currently, she is the General chair of the 2024 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering. She is author of 200+ international publications, including 1 textbook (in Italian) and 80+ international journal papers. Her h-index in Google Scholar equals 42.

Dr. Ljiljana Trajkovic received the Dipl. Ing. degree from University of Pristina, Yugoslavia, the M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering and computer engineering from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from University of California at Los Angeles. She is currently a professor in the School of Engineering Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Her research interests include communication networks and dynamical systems. She served as IEEE Division X Delegate/Director and President of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society and the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society. Dr. Trajkovic serves as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems and Associate Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Open Journal of Systems Engineering. She is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Circuits and System Society and the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society. Dr. Trajkovic is a Professional Member of IEEE-HKN and a Life Fellow of the IEEE.

Dr.Peng Shi received the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Newcastle, Australia, the PhD degree in Mathematics from the University of South Australia, the Doctor of Science degree from the University of Glamorgan, UK, and the Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Adelaide, Australia. He is now a Professor at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and the Director of Advanced Unmanned Systems Laboratory, at the University of Adelaide, Australia. His research interests include systems and control theory and applications to autonomous and robotic systems, cyber-physical systems, and multi-agent systems. He received the MA Sargent Medal Award from Engineers Australia in 2022 to recognize his longstanding eminence in science; the Life-time achiever Leader-Board acknowledgement and the Field Leader Honor from THE AUSTRALIAN from 2019-2022; and the Highly Cited Researcher recognition from Web of Sciences every year since 2014. Currently he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, a Senior Editor of IEEE Access, and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on (Artificial Intelligence; and Circuits and Systems—I); Automatica; and Information Sciences. His professional services also include as the President of the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences (2021-), the Vice President of IEEE SMC Society (2021-2022), and IEEE SMC Distinguished Lecturer (2018-2020, 2021-). He is a Fellow of IEEE, IET, IEAust and CAA, a Member of the Academy of Europe, and an Honorary Member of the Romanian Academy of Scientists.

Dr. Robert Kozma (Fellow IEEE, Fellow INNS) is Editor-In-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems. He has been a Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Memphis since 2000, where he is Director of the Center for Large-Scale Intelligent Optimizations and Networks (CLION), FedEx Institute of Technology, University of Memphis, TN, USA. Presently he is President of Kozmos Research Laboratories, Boston, MA, USA, and Professor of Obuda University, Budapset, Hungary. He received an M.Sc. degree in Power Engineering from Moscow Energy University, Soviet Union (1982), another M.Sc. in Mathematics from Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary (1988), a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands (1992). Previously he held faculty positions at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Division of Neurobiology, Department of MCB, University of California at Berkeley (1998-2000); Department of Information Sciences, Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand (1996-1998); Department of Quantum Science and Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan (1993-1996). Past visiting positions include College of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts at Amherst (2016-2020); Sensors Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory (2007-2012); Robotics Lab, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CalTech, Pasadena, CA, USA (2006); Sarnoff Co., Princeton, NJ, USA (2006). His research focuses on the design, analysis, and control of artificial and biological intelligent systems, robust decision support systems, and large-scale graphs and networks, in which areas he authored/edited 9 book volumes, 3 patent submissions, over 300 papers in international journals and proceedings. Dr. Kozma has been President of the International Neural Network Society (INNS) (2017-2018). He served on the Board of Governors (BOG) of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (2016-2018, 2020), the AdCom of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (2009-2012), and BOG of INNS (2007-2012). He is Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE SMC Society (2022-2023), has been Associate Editor of many journals on neural networks, intelligent siganl processing, and cognition. He is recipient of numerous awards, including best paper awards, Meritious Service Award of the IEEE SMC Society, and the INNS Dennis Gabor Award.

Dr. Weiming Shen is a Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China. Prior to joining HUST, he worked for about 20 years at National Research Council Canada as Research Officer, Senior Research Officer, and Principal Research Officer. He is a Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering, Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), and Fellow of Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association. He is an internationally recognized expert on Agent-Based Collaborative Technologies and Applications. During the past three decades, he has been leading a number of major projects on Agents, IoT, and Big Data with smart applications. He has published several books and over 500 papers in scientific journals and international conferences in the related areas. His work has been cited over 18,000 times with an h-index of 65. He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of IET Collaborative Intelligent Manufacturing, an Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member of over ten international journals (including IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering; IEEE Transaction on SMC: Systems; Advanced Engineering Informatics; Computational Intelligence) and served as guest editor for several other international journals. He is the Co-Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design, has been Program Committee Co-Chair of the CSCWD conferences since 2001, and served as General Chair/Co-Chair or Program Committee Chair/Co-Chair for over 30 international conferences.

Online Registration