Yearly report 1997-1998
SCS European Council

Dr.ir. Alexander Verbraeck, Chairman SCS European Council Board
Philippe Geril, SCS Europe BVBA

1. The SCS European Council Board

The SCS European Council Board has not changed in the past year. In 1999, elections are planned to be held, and until that time the composition of the Council Board will probably remain unchanged.

At each European Simulation Multiconference (June) and European Simulation Symposium (October), Conference Board and Council Board meetings have been held, usually the day after the conferences. For the latter meeting, general chairs and program chairs of future conferences and workshops are invited, so exchange of experiences with organizing conferences is stimulated. The European Council Board has its own mailing list, which is used to distribute information among the Board members. For all meetings, minutes have been distributed among the European Council Board members. All meetings were attended by guests who were interested in future activities and who gave valuable suggestions.

2. 1997/1998 Conferences and Workshops in Europe

The major activity of SCS in Europe is organizing conferences. Each year, a European Simulation Multiconference (ESM) is held in June, and a European Simulation Symposium (ESS) is held in October. The conference attendance for both conferences has stabilized around 170-210 for both conferences. Competition in Europe is tough. Apart from the ESS and ESM conferences, a yearly Concurrent Engineering conference (called CEE) and a Telematics and Multimedia conference (called Euromedia) are organized. It is expected that these fields will benefit largely from simulation and that SCS can bring together researchers and practitioners for these topics by organizing conferences. These efforts might also yield new members for SCS. The first figure shows the total number of attendants and papers per year for all conferences organized by SCS in Europe (top two lines). The bottom two lines show the mean number of attendants and papers per conference.

The separate attendance of the ESM and ESS conferences over the years is shown in the charts below.

The following conferences have been organized by or sponsored by SCS Europe between July 1997 and July 1998:

• ESS'97, October 19-22, 1997 in Passau, Germany
• EUROMEDIA'98, 5-7 January 1998 in Leicester, UK
• ECEC'98, 26-29 April 1998 in Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
• ESM'98, June 16-19, 1998 in Manchester, United Kingdom
• Sponsored: Simulation and Animation '98. March 5-6, 1998, Magdeburg, Germany

The printing of the conference proceedings for the last conferences has been moved from Hungary to The Netherlands under supervision of Prof. Eugene Kerckhoffs. For the ESM and ESS conferences, a CD-Rom was produced. For the other conferences, a CD which contains several conference proceedings will be produced every other year. The production of the ESM and ESS CDS has been sponsored by Systems Modeling Corporation.

Current ESM and ESS conferences follow the following time-schedule:

• Professional Development Seminars or Tutorials on the day before the conference
• Welcome reception on the evening before the conference starts (can be sponsored by a company)
• Opening session on the first conference day, followed by one or two keynote presentations.
• Three slots of five to seven parallel sessions on the first day
• Second day may open with a plenary speaker or several plenary presentations per track
• Three or four slots of five to seven parallel sessions on the second day
• Day 2 is concluded by the Blue Sky meeting
• Social event (i.e. conference dinner) on the second night
• Full or half day parallel sessions on the third day, concluded by the closing session of the conference. During the closing session, the best papers of the conference are awarded. The attendance of the closing session is high (usually 40-60% of the conference participants).
• Several other events are usually planned for the conference participants, but the fee for those events is not included in the conference fee.
• At all conferences, equipment is made available to the conference participants for accessing the Internet: for reading mail, and for browsing the WWW.
• Making available equipment for audiovisual presentations becomes more important at each conference we organize; beamers are considered to be standard conference equipment.
• We think about organizing a vendor buffet or exhibition buffet instead of, or in addition to the conference dinner. A buffet encourages more interaction between conference participants, and it allows the poster presenters to comment on their posters. All costs will be covered by the vendor(s) and/or exhibitors.
• A first experiment with a "partners for projects" session is positive. We will try to bring together potential project partners at all our conferences, and give them a room where they can meet.

3. Future conferences in Europe

Future ESS and ESM conferences are planned until 2002, according to the following schedule:

Most of the conferences will be held on University premises, because we usually can get the rooms and other facilities for free or at very low costs. Since the ESS'8 conference in Genoa, Italy in 1996, the ESS conferences are devoted to simulation in industry. We are now carefully shifting this conference towards an event where simulation users, simulation vendors, simulation professionals, and simulation researchers can meet and exchange experiences and results.

In addition to organizing the two major European conferences, SCS Europe supports local events as well. For the next few years, several smaller country-based meetings are planned that SCS will support financially and by organizational effort. In this way, we hope to create an environment in which local councils and technical councils for SCS can be formed. The Euromedia and CEE conferences currently planned two years in advance. The current calendar of the other conferences, workshops, and sponsored events looks as follows:

The Middle Eastern Simulation Symposium is an experiment to extend the SCS contacts to the Middle East, and to bring together the researchers working in the field of simulation in the Middle East. The symposium will have two major parts: a scientific part with refereed papers and a proceedings, and a part that is focused on forming local chapters in the different countries in the Middle East. These local chapters will be the key contact between SCS and the simulationists in these countries. Dr. Marwan Al-Akaidi of the University of Leicester, UK (a member of the SCS European Council Board) heads the Middle East project.

4. Conference Organization

Planning of future conferences follows a precise schedule, which allows the organizers to start working on the conference three years in advance, and which enables them to use the experiences of previous conference organizers as much as possible. As a rough sketch, the schedule looks as follows:

• T-3 years: First proposal to the conference board with location proposal, first selection of topics, main organizers, ideas about major budget items, and local organization.
• T-2 years: Contract signed, approved budget, final selection of topics, approval of the Board
• T-1,5 years: Local organization starts, Web pages, First Call for Papers
• T-1 year: Call for Papers at the previous conference in the same series

As can be seen from the conference schedule in section 3, the current planning of conferences is until 2002, so the 3 year planning cycle is implemented fully.

The so-called "Conference Matrix" is used in selecting topics and in dividing topics over conferences. The conference matrix is a breakdown of the number of papers per conference in certain categories since the first European SCS conference in 1987. Successful categories and less successful topics can easily be identified.

There is now a written agreement between SCS Europe BVBA and the conference organizers, which clearly shows the responsibilities of each party with respect to the conference budget. Usually, conference organizers make decisions and promises that heavily influence the amount of money spent, but SCS has all the financial risks. After some problems over the budget, an agreement was made that conference organizers can use as a guideline when making decisions that have financial implications. The mutual trust between organizers and the office, however, remains the basis for conference organization in Europe. See also the next section for the conference procedures.

5. Quality and Procedures

During the past two years, there have been three types of submissions for the European SCS conferences (full papers, extended abstracts, and short papers), and three types of papers that can be presented at conferences (extended papers, regular papers, and short papers). Lately, posters have been added to this list. Full paper submissions could lead to, if accepted, regular (80-90%) or extended (10-20%) papers. Accepted extended abstracts were admitted as regular papers. A small number of papers that were interesting for the participants, but not of high enough quality, were accepted as short papers, published in a separate (photocopied) annex to the proceedings. Regular and extended papers appeared both in the main volume of the proceedings.

As of ESM'99, quality of the papers in the conference proceedings will be enhanced even more. Acceptance of papers for the conference proceedings will be on the basis of full papers only. This means that the referees (minimum 3 per paper) can judge the submissions by examining the full contents of the proposed paper, including the abstract, conclusions, and references. This will hopefully also lead to better comments from the referees to the authors. After the authors have made final changes, and put their papers in the right format, the conference proceedings will consist only of the accepted 8 page full papers.

In addition to the full papers, extended abstracts and posters can be submitted, but acceptance of an extended abstract can never lead to publishing in the conference proceedings. From the extended abstracts and a print of the posters, a separate volume of the proceedings will be made (probably by photocopying). This volume will have an ISBN, but from the title it will be made clear that this is not the main scientific volume of the conference. For ESM, this volume will be titled "ESM Short Paper Proceedings". For ESS, it will be titled "ESS Short Papers and Industrial Applications Proceedings". In this way, scientific institutions will see their papers published in a proceedings of much higher quality than before, while young or new authors can still present their work at the conference and industry will be encouraged to submit practical application papers, which will not be refereed in the new, much stricter way.

The way conferences are organized in Europe is also continuously being adapted and refined. The main procedures as they are implemented, are shown in the diagrams below. The conference handbook on the Web is also being extended, so all SCS conference organizers can benefit from the experiences of previous conferences. The SCS European Conference Board meetings (Council Board members plus conference organizers of the next few conferences) are also very helpful in exchanging information with future conference organizers.

6. The SCS European Publishing House

SCS Europe prints and publishes its own proceedings, books, and other material in Europe through the SCS Publishing House. Languages for publication include English, German, and French. Several books, proceedings of a sponsored conference, and a number of dissertations on simulation have been published, and more books and dissertations are planned for the near future. Any author who wants to publish a book on simulation, modeling, or a related field, can submit a proposal to the SCS European Publishing House. The time between submitting the manuscript and finished printing of the books is usually less than three months. All books are high-quality, hard cover books that are, however, produced for a low price. The current list of published books other than regular SCS conference proceedings and CD-Roms looks as follows:

Monographs:

• Peter Eschenbacher. Konzeption einer deklarativen und zustandsorientierten Sprache zur formalen Beschreibung und Simulation von Warteschlangen- und Transportmodellen. 1995
• W. Krug. Intelligentes Simulations und Optimierungssystem für Prozesse der Fertigung, Organisation und Logistik: ARENA / ISSOP. 1997
• Y. Monsef. Modelling and Simulation of Complex Systems: concepts, methods and tools. 1997.
• B. Schmidt, SIMPLEX II. 1995.

Dissertations:

• Thomas Apsel, Konzeption des Aufbaus eines Universell Einsetzbaren Simulationssystem
• Axel Hein, Conjoint Simulation - A Modeling Framework for Combined Performance and Dependability Analysis of Computer Systems
• Peter Heusser, Modelling and Simulation of Boiling Channels - General Front Tracking Approach
• Christian Kelling, Simulationsverfahren für zeiterweiterte Petri-Netze
• Karin Reger, Konzeption und Realisierung der Konfigurierbarkeit universeller Simulationssysteme
• Markus Rümekasten, Hybride, tolerante Synchronisation für die verteilte und parallele Simulation gekoppelter Rechnernetze.
• Nicole J. Saam, Computergestützte Theoriekonstruktion in den Sozialwissenschaften
• Jochen Wittmann, Eine Benutzerschnittstelle fuer die Durchfuehrung von Simulationsexperimenten

Proceedings and other books:

• Eberhard Blümel et al., Managing and Controlling Growing Harbour Terminals. Results of the Copernicus 1994 Project 312 AMCAI, Funded by the European Commission, DG XII. 1997.
• O. Deussen, P. Lorenz (Eds.), Simulation und Animation '97. Proceedings of the March 6-7, 1997 simulation conference in Magdeburg, Germany. 1997.
• P. Lorenz, B. Preim (Eds.), Simulation und Visualisierung '98. Proceedings of the March 5-6, 1998 conference in Magdeburg, Germany. 1998.

7. (Potential) problems for SCS Europe

SCS faces the following problems (or challenges) in Europe during the next few years:

• Competition between SCS and Eurosim. An example is a planned Eurosim congress for 2001 which takes place in the same week as our ESM conference.
• There is no effort for getting more SCS members in Europe, because the current membership structure creates no incentive for Europe to get more SCS members. On the contrary: for the European finances, extra members cost money without any extra earnings.
• The European office in Ghent is currently too small. The capacity of Philippe Geril is insufficient for the large number of events that are currently organized in Europe. Cash flow remains a pressing issue, so it is very difficult to increase the office on a structural basis.
• Relations to industry in Europe are still by far too low; only a small percentage of the conference participants come from industry.
• The ratio between the number of papers per conference and the number of conference participants is 1.1 to 1.2. This is by far too low. Many Europeans are, however, not allowed to go to a conference without presenting an accepted paper.
• The Publishing House sales need to go up: investments are high, and sales still lag behind.
• The amount of publications of Europeans in SCS journals is very low, in spite of the fact that very good papers are presented at European conferences.

8. Last year's action items and future plans

In the list below, the progress on the plans and action items of the European SCS report of last year is shown.

Relationship with Eurosim
One meeting of the SCS-Eurosim liaison committee has been held. Several meetings have taken place with Eurosim board members. The co-operation with ASIM (German speaking part of Eurosim -- the largest of the member societies) is very strong. ESS11, ESS12, ESM15, ESM16, and ESS13 will be organized in close co-operation with ASIM. ASIM and UKSIM also sponsored the Manchester ESM13 conference.

Small European office
No progress until now. The situation is becoming very critical.

Membership in Europe
Small progress: both in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East, several SCS activities have been started. This will certainly lead to more SCS members in these regions. As long as a European council fee is not added to the SCS membership fee, nothing can be done to serve our European members better.

Election preparations
Elections for the European Council Board had already been delayed until 1999. Eugene Kerckhoffs and Ali Riza Kaylan are working out the details.

Small workshops
In August and September 1998, we will test the first two specialized workshops in Bucharest, Rumania and Riga, Latvia. Depending on the evaluation of those workshops, more focused (local) events may be organized during the next few years.

Quality issues
In the section on "quality", several changes than will increase conference quality have been explained. These changes affect both conference organization procedures and paper acceptance management.

Simulation in Industry
The ESS Conferences has been transformed to a "Simulation in Industry" Conference series with a large(r) exhibition and active involvement of industry. Several suggestions for more involvement of industry have been implemented. Other ideas will be implemented in ESS'98.

Publishing House
Several new titles came out last year. A marketing plan with a strategy to increase sales is still needed, however.

Future Technologies and CD-ROM project
The action items on use of the Web and Internet, publishing conference proceedings on CD-Rom, and more use of the database have been implemented. The installation of a full CD-Rom Internet server for all SCS conferences is delayed, but is still on our action list.

There are many plans for the coming years, which have also been outlined in the separate sections. Some of the plans that have not been mentioned above, and on which we are currently working are:

• Strong co-operation with ASIM for publications
• Joint conference co-operation with ASIM
• New features for exhibitors at our conferences (especially at ESS)
• More information in WWW conference organization handbook
• Publish an electronic newsletter, which is e-mailed to our contacts and which can be viewed on the Web
• Install a "partners for projects" session at each conference and an interactive Web-page on which information on projects and wanted partners can be advertized

9. Conclusions

Concluding, we will do our best to continue the innovations we have carried through during the past few years. In ASIM, we found a strong partner, with whom we can co-operate in conference and publication activities. New activities will be started in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East. These activities will hopefully turn out to be beneficial for SCS International as well. Conditions that have to be fulfilled to continue along this path and to reach our long term goals are a structural increase in the European office staff and a European Council membership fee that will enable us to present added value to our SCS members in Europe.

Alexander Verbraeck
Chair SCS European Council Board
29 June 1998