Series Of International Workshops Research Articles

A Toolkit for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Parliamentary Public Engagement

There is a growing acceptance among Australian parliaments that enhancing the quality and diversity of engagement between the public and Australian parliaments is essential to preserving trust in democratic institutions and managing community expectations of transparency and accountability for parliamentary lawmaking and government decision-making. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital engagement techniques became increasingly attractive to parliaments with the potential to improve both the quality and efficiency of public engagement in lawmaking, savings, and possible improvements in democratic participation. To capitalise on these potential benefits, and to avoid any unjustifiable risks, parliaments must understand the importance of connecting the people to their parliaments and which practices and technologies could be used to improve the quality and diversity of public engagement with parliaments in Australia. Drawing upon insights shared during a series of international workshops on public engagement by the International Parliamentary Engagement Network (‘IPEN’), this article aims to describe the key ingredients for effective evaluation of public engagement by parliaments and share the toolkit developed by the IPEN workshops.

In Memoriam: Mats Morell

In Memoriam: Mats Morell

A quarter century of WMO-Organized international cooperation in monsoon research : International Workshop on Monsoons

Over the last 25 years, the World Meteorological Organization through its Working Group on Tropical Meteorology Research carried out a major international collaboration effort to foster monsoon research and forecast centered around the series of International Workshops on Monsoons (IWM). This paper reviews the history of this activity and discusses its development and evolution that contributed significantly to the progress of monsoon research and forecast. Throughout this period the concept, scope and depth of monsoon research have all advanced considerably.

Studies on a Global History of Music: A Balzan Musicology Project

Studies on a Global History of Music: A Balzan Musicology Project

FantaSEAS Project: Incorporating Inspiring Ocean Science in the Popular Media

Abstract One of the goals of the UN Oceans Decade is “an inspiring and engaging ocean where society understands and values the ocean in relation to human well-being and sustainable development.” The UN Ocean Decade also calls for promoting diversity in ocean science, engaging multiple stakeholders, including industries and the wider public, as well as promoting ocean science literacy. The FANTASeas project aims to do this.One major source of inspiration for the general public for millennia has been art and literature. Over the past century, key sources of public inspiration when it comes to science include science fiction and fantasy in books, movies, TV shows, comics and, recently, computer games. Most famously, the TV show Star Trek inspired a generation of space scientists.The idea behind this project is to promote and facilitate the production of popular artistic and literary projects that incorporate ocean science to enhance both ocean literacy and to create more inspirational ocean-related projects.It is proposed that a series of international workshops be organized to connect ocean scientists with novelists, writers, and designers from the: (a) computer gaming; (b) tabletop gaming; (c) TV and movie; and (d) comic and graphic novel industries.

Special Issue: Tribomechadynamics

Tribomechadynamics is a nascent field of mechanical engineering that has emerged from the integration of tribology, contact mechanics, and structural and nonlinear dynamics. The principle challenge identified within the tribomechadynamics community is how to predict the nonlinear response of a structure with frictional interfaces. This challenge is exacerbated by frictional interfaces exhibiting wear and evolving, sometimes quite dramatically, over time, which can have profound effects on the nonlinear dynamic response of a structure (in particular, the hysteretic behavior and the amplitude-dependent natural frequencies and damping ratios of the structure). By necessity, tribomechadynamic studies span length scales from nanometers to decameters and time scales from microseconds to years. Consequently, this presents a number of formidable challenges for both experimentation and computational efforts, as detailed throughout this special issue.The origins of tribomechadynamics can be traced back to the Structural Dynamics 2000 workshop in 1999 [1] hosted by Los Alamos National Laboratories and a subsequent workshop on the Development of Methodologies for Constructing Predictive Models of Structures With Joints and Interfaces in 2000 [2] hosted by Sandia National Laboratories. At these two workshops, researchers in structural and nonlinear dynamics from the defense, aerospace, naval, automotive, and manufacturing communities (both in terms of industry, government, and academia) realized that the problems that each community had been grappling with isolation were common to the other communities as well. In each of these communities, the greatest impediment to improving system design was the inability to predict the response of a structure with frictional interfaces. Existing approaches focused on calibrated modeling efforts (e.g., Ref. [3]), in which a linear model was updated to include nonlinear contributions after test hardware had been fabricated and experimentally assessed. This approach, however, is nonsustainable as it incurs a high cost for design revisions since the frictional properties and wear cannot be predicted a priori. Further, the lack of a predictive model for friction and wear costs the global economy approximately $1 trillion per year [4] through design inefficiency (e.g., overdesigned joints that contribute extra mass to a structure and thus degrade its fuel efficiency), extraneous fabrication and testing to update and revise preliminary designs, and mechanical failures due to fretting fatigue or other joints-related issues.The realization that a predictive model of frictional interfaces was a common limiting factor for multiple communities led to a series of international workshops on joint mechanics [5–8]. In these workshops, researchers from scales spanning the atomic to deca-meters systems charted a roadmap for developing a predictive model of interfacial behavior. One consensus from these workshops was that there was insufficient integration, even within the same organizations, of tribology, contact mechanics, and structural and nonlinear dynamics. This led to the formal definition of tribomechadynamics in 2018 [9]. While the concept of integrating some elements of tribology, contact mechanics, and structural or nonlinear dynamics is not novel, the importance of defining the field of tribomechadynamics is that it is an intentional emphasis of the need for integrating these different disciplines. This intentional emphasis has already resonated through a wide set of communities (ranging from traveling waves in belt drives to violin string–bow interactions), as evidenced by the participation at the Tribomechadynamics 2020 Conference. Several of the best presentations from this conference, including the two best student paper award winners (Özge Akar of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and Mengshi Jin of Tongji University), have been included in this special issue.

Creating sustainable health care systems.

In order to create sustainable health systems, many countries are introducing ways to prioritise health services underpinned by a process of health technology assessment. While this approach requires technical judgements of clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness, these are embedded in a wider set of social (societal) value judgements, including fairness, responsiveness to need, non-discrimination and obligations of accountability and transparency. Implementing controversial decisions faces legal, political and public challenge. To help generate acceptance for the need for health prioritisation and the resulting decisions, the purpose of this paper is to develop a novel way of encouraging key stakeholders, especially patients and the public, to become involved in the prioritisation process. Through a multidisciplinary collaboration involving a series of international workshops, ethical and political theory (including accountability for reasonableness) have been applied to develop a practical way forward through the creation of a values framework. The authors have tested this framework in England and in New Zealand using a mixed-methods approach. A social values framework that consists of content and process values has been developed and converted into an online decision-making audit tool. The authors have developed an easy to use method to help stakeholders (including the public) to understand the need for prioritisation of health services and to encourage their involvement. It provides a pragmatic way of harmonising different perspectives aimed at maximising health experience. All health care systems are facing increasing demands within finite resources. Although many countries are introducing ways to prioritise health services, the decisions often face legal, political, commercial and ethical challenge. The research will help health systems to respond to these challenges. This study helps in increasing public involvement in complex health challenges. No other groups have used this combination of approaches to address this issue.

Social Work Artfully: Beyond Borders and Boundaries by Christina Sinding and Hazel Barnes (Eds.).

Social Work Artfully: Beyond Borders and Boundaries emerged from a meeting between Dr. Hazel Barnes (from Johannesburg) and Christine Sinding (from Ontario), while at the 2010 African Research Conference. This fruitful initial encounter, along with subsequent conversations, set the stage for the creation of both a series of international workshops and what would become Social Work Artfully.

5th International Workshop on Statistical Physics and Mathematics for Complex Systems (SPMCS2017)

PrefaceThis volume contains 21 contributed papers presented at the 5th International Workshop on Statistical Physics and Mathematics for Complex Systems (SPMCS) held during October 12-15, 2017 in Wuhan, China. Each paper was peer-reviewed by at least one referee chosen from a distinguished international panel.The previous four workshops of this series were organized in 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014 in Le Mans of France, Wuhan of China, Kazan of Russia, and Yichang of China respectively.The SPMCS international workshop series is destined mainly to communicate and exchange research results and information on the fundamental challenges and questions in the vanguard of statistical physics, thermodynamics and mathematics for complex systems. Topics to be covered but not limited to:• Fundamental aspects in the application of statistical physics and thermodynamics to complex systems and their modeling• Finite-size and nonextensive systems• Fluctuation theorems and equalities, quantum thermodynamics• Variational principle and optimization methods for random dynamics• Social, economic, biological and technological network structure and dynamic processes• Equilibrium and non-equilibrium phase transitions• Temporal network and multi-layer network• Dynamic processes on complex networks• Metaphysics and philosophical reflection on the foundation of physics in generalMore than 90 participants from 8 countries participated in SPMCS-2017. 47 oral contributions were presented at the workshop.We would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the Scientific Program Committee, many of whom acted as reviewers of the papers and responded promptly. We would also like to thank all the guest editors who have done excellent review jobs. Special thanks shall go to the organizing committee, the session chairs, the technicians and the students for the smooth running of the whole workshop. The workshop was also partially supported by Central China Normal University and the Programme of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities under grant NO. B08033. Special thanks are due to Ms Juy Zhu who has done excellent editing work with great effort.Editors: Wei Li, Sumiyoshi Abe, and Alexandre Wang

Improvement of clinical immunofixation electrophoresis assay for C3 nephritic factor

Human cell differentiation molecules is a new terminology coined by the 8th International Workshop on Human Leukocyte Differentiation Antigens in 2004 to describe surface molecules associated with human cell differentiation. These molecules have been characterized in a series of international workshops studying a large number of monoclonal antibodies. The antibodies have been grouped according to their patterns of reactivity and are referred to as “clusters of differentiation (CD).”

How the NEUWAVE workshop series has pushed neutron imaging developments

ABSTRACTIn 2008, a series of international workshops—named NEUtron WAVElength-dependent Imaging (NEUWAVE)—was initiated after several decisions were taken to build new neutron spallation sources in the world, namely target station two of ISIS in the UK, J-PARC in Japan, SNS in the US, and the future ESS, now being built in Sweden. The aim was to collect existing knowledge about energy-dependent effects in neutron imaging, but also to develop new energy-selective imaging methods for the upcoming spallation sources, and also for steady-state sources using energy selecting devices for neutrons. The special format was a workshop with plenty of discussions but without explicit publications, where participants discussed not their past work, but their ideas and future plans. This paper gives a résumé after nine such meetings and highlights the most important progress features. The series will continue in 2019 with NEUWAVE-10 to be organized by Paul Scherrer Institut.

Modelling large deformation and soil–water–structure interaction with material point method: Briefing on MPM2017 conference

The 1st International Conference on the Material Point Method for “Modelling Large Deformation and Soil–Water– Structure Interaction” (MPM2017) was held in Delft, The Netherlands on 10–13 January 2017. This is the first conference organised by the Anura3D MPM Research Community, following a series of international workshops and symposia previously held in The Netherlands, UK, Spain and Italy, as part of the European Commission FP7 Marie-Curie project MPM-DREDGE. We are delighted to present seven contributions in this Special Column of the Journal of Hydrodynamics, and take this opportunity to announce that the 2nd conference, MPM2019, will be held in Cambridge, UK in January 2019.

Introduction to the special issue on the International Web Rule Symposia 2012–2014

The annual International Web Rule Symposium (RuleML) is an international conference on research, applications, languages, and standards for rule technologies. It has evolved from an annual series of international workshops since 2002, international conferences in 2005 and 2006, and international symposia since 2007. It is the flagship event of the Rule Markup and Modeling Initiative (RuleML, http://ruleml.org), a nonprofit umbrella organization of several technical groups from academia, industry, and government working on rule technology and its applications. RuleML is the leading conference to build bridges between academia and industry in the field of rules and its applications, especially as part of the semantic technology stack. It is devoted to rule-based programming and rule-based systems including production rules systems, logic programming rule engines, and business rules engines/business rules management systems; Semantic Web rule languages and rule standards (e.g., RuleML, SWRL, RIF, PRR, SBVR, DMN, CL, Prolog); rule-based event processing languages and technologies; and research on inference rules, transformation rules, decision rules, production rules, and ECA rules.

9th International Workshop on Processing and Applications of Superconducting (RE)BCO Large Grain Materials (PASREG2015)

The 9th International Workshop on Processing and Applications of Superconducting (RE)BCO Large Grain Materials (PASREG 2015) was held at the University of Liege, Belgium on September 02- 04, 2015, as a satellite conference of the European Conference on Applied Superconductivity (EUCAS 2015). The Chairman was Philippe Vanderbemden; Benoît Vanderheyden, David Cardwell, and Herbert C. Freyhardt served as Co-Chairmen. PASREG 2015 was the ninth in a series of international workshops previously held in Cambridge, UK (1997), Morioka, Japan (1999), Seattle, USA (2001), Jena, Germany (2003), Tokyo, Japan (2005), Cambridge, UK (2007), Washington D.C., USA (2010), and Tainan, Taiwan (2012).PASREG 2015 covered novel and important processing aspects of bulk High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) as well as bulk MgB2. Besides processing, the workshop highlighted advanced material characterization technologies and activation techniques, which revealed the superior superconducting properties of bulk HTS and MgB2. Novel developments and innovative applications involving bulk superconductors complemented the discussion and exchange of information. The workshop was attended by 63 participants from 19 different countries. A total of 50 contributions were presented, of which 31 were presented in oral form and 19 were presented as posters.Together with a ‘Special Issue’ of Superconductor Science and Technology, these proceedings gather a selection of original research papers presented at the workshop (including both oral and poster presentations). We greatly acknowledge all the effort of the authors.Philippe VanderbemdenBenoît VanderheydenHerbert FreyhardtDavid Cardwell

CoSMoS special issue editorial

Complex Systems Modelling and Simulation (CoSMoS) was a 4 year EPSRC funded research project at the Universities of York and Kent in the UK. As part of that project, the research team developed the CoSMoS approach to assist the building and use of fit-for-purpose computational simulations of complex systems, and initiated a series of international workshops to disseminate best practice in CoSMoS. This special issue brings together several authors from the first six workshops.

Opportunities and limitations of molecular methods for quantifying microbial compliance parameters in EU bathing waters

The debate over the suitability of molecular biological methods for the enumeration of regulatory microbial parameters (e.g. Faecal Indicator Organisms [FIOs]) in bathing waters versus the use of traditional culture-based methods is of current interest to regulators and the science community. Culture-based methods require a 24–48hour turn-around time from receipt at the laboratory to reporting, whilst quantitative molecular tools provide a more rapid assay (approximately 2–3h). Traditional culturing methods are therefore often viewed as slow and ‘out-dated’, although they still deliver an internationally ‘accepted’ evidence-base. In contrast, molecular tools have the potential for rapid analysis and their operational utility and associated limitations and uncertainties should be assessed in light of their use for regulatory monitoring. Here we report on the recommendations from a series of international workshops, chaired by a UK Working Group (WG) comprised of scientists, regulators, policy makers and other stakeholders, which explored and interrogated both molecular (principally quantitative polymerase chain reaction [qPCR]) and culture-based tools for FIO monitoring under the European Bathing Water Directive. Through detailed analysis of policy implications, regulatory barriers, stakeholder engagement, and the needs of the end-user, the WG identified a series of key concerns that require critical appraisal before a potential shift from culture-based approaches to the employment of molecular biological methods for bathing water regulation could be justified.

Preface

This Special Issue of Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering contains ten selected papers presented at the Neural Coding 2012 workshop. Neuroscience is traditionally very close to mathematics which stems from the famous theoretical work of McCulloch--Pitts and Hodgkin--Huxley in the middle of the previous century. Great progress has been made since those times and through the decades this fruitful combination of disciplines continue. The workshop was held in the beautiful town of Prague in the Czech Republic, September 2-7, 2012. This was the 10th of a series of international workshops on this subject, the first one also held in Prague (1995), then in Versailles (1997), Osaka (1999), Plymouth (2001), Aulla (2003), Marburg (2005), Montevideo (2007), Tainan (2009), and in Limassol (2010). As in the previous workshops, this was a single track multidisciplinary event bringing together experimental and computational neuroscientists with ample time for informal discussions in a convivial atmosphere. The Neural Coding Workshops are traditionally biennial symposia each lasting 5 or 6 days. They are relatively small in size, interdisciplinary with major emphasis on the search for common principles in neural coding. The workshop was conceived to bring together scientists from different disciplines for an in-depth discussion of model-building and computational strategies.

A 2013 workshop: vaccine and drug ontology studies (VDOS 2013)

The 2013 “Vaccine and Drug Ontology Studies” (VDOS 2013) international workshop series focuses on vaccine- and drug-related ontology modeling and applications. Drugs and vaccines have contributed to dramatic improvements in public health worldwide. Over the last decade, tremendous efforts have been made in the biomedical ontology community to ontologically represent various areas associated with vaccines and drugs – extending existing clinical terminology systems such as SNOMED, RxNorm, NDF-RT, and MedDRA, as well as developing new models such as Vaccine Ontology. The VDOS workshop series provides a platform for discussing innovative solutions as well as the challenges in the development and applications of biomedical ontologies for representing and analyzing drugs and vaccines, their administration, host immune responses, adverse events, and other related topics. The six full-length papers included in this thematic issue focuses on three main areas: (i) ontology development and representation, (ii) ontology mapping, maintaining and auditing, and (iii) ontology applications.

Co-Design: Fundamental Issues and Guidelines for Designers: Beyond the Castle Case Study

In this paper we describe a high profile project to reimagine a large green space in the heart of the city of Lancaster in the UK. This co-design project involved professional designers, but also 2500 people with 700 of these making an active co-design contribution. This project forms the basis of a discussion of how we used a series of events to help participants reach their full creative co-design potential.From this case study we go on to develop a framework of recommendations to help designers reflect on their normal practice and how they need to operate within a co-design project. These recommendations seek to maximise the benefits of this approach and produce good design outcomes. This framework has been evaluated in a series of international workshops in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Utilizing a phylogenetic plant classification for systematic arrangements in botanic gardens and herbaria

The use of different and often outmoded systems for the arrangement of collections in botanic gardens and herbaria hampers international research because it makes finding the location of a specific genus and family unpredictable. Following a series of international workshops, intended to develop a set of widely accepted circumscriptions of vascular plant families, a European and Australian consortium, the Vascular Plant Classification Committee (VPCC), was formed in 2008 to address the challenge of harmonizing collections (of living and preserved material and associated literary archives) across Europe and Australia; this was envisaged as an ambitious first step towards a globally accepted alignment of family circumscriptions and the use of an accepted unified linear sequence. In 2009, agreement on this was reached among six of the largest European botanical organizations, a pioneering scientific and political accomplishment. Global acceptance of this arrangement is now beginning to gather pace. A network of organizations adopting this new classification and sequence (or intending to, when resources allow) is developing and now reaches across five continents. In this article, we outline the aims of and progress made by the VPCC, and acknowledge the resources required for the reorganization of large collections, with a particular focus on those at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The importance of a dynamic sequence, reflective of taxonomic changes, and the ways in which such changes can be incorporated into collections are discussed. © 2013 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2013, 172, 127–141.