WG 10.3 Report, July 2006

Here are the highlights of IFIP Working Group 10.3 activities between August 2005 and July 2006.

Conferences sponsored by WG 10.3

1. Network and Parallel Computing is a new China-based conference series, which was founded by Kemal Ebcioglu and Guang Gao at IFIP WG 10.3, and by Guo-Jie Li at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The first NPC conference took place in Wuhan, China from October 18 to 20, 2004. Network and Parallel Computing 2005 (NPC 2005), the second in this new series, was held in Beijing, China from November 30 to December 3, 2005, jointly with two other parallel computing conferences (the CI6016 event). Distinguished keynote speakers included Jack Dongarra (University of Tennessee) and Tony Hey (Microsoft) -- both WG 10.3 members. The NPC 2005 proceedings were published as part of the Springer LNCS series. 320 papers were submitted to NPC 2005, of which 48 full papers and 20 short papers were accepted.

   The NPC steering committee decided to hold NPC outside of China once every three years. NPC 2006 will be held in Tokyo, Japan, October 2-4, 2006, with Jack Dongarra (University of Tennessee, and WG 10.3 member) and Kei Hiraki (University of Tokyo) as general co-chairs and Yoichi Muraoka (Waseda University) as program chair. NPC 2007 will be held in Dalian, China, in October 2007. Over time, we expect NPC to become a flagship conference in parallel computing.

2. Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques (PACT) is another highly regarded flagship conference of WG 10.3, which has been continuing for many years. PACT 2005 was held in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA, September 17-21, 2005. There were 180 total attendees at the conference and its workshops. 119 papers were submitted, and 30 papers were accepted. The keynote speakers were Justin Rattner (Intel), and Guy Steele (SUN). The program chair was Kathryn McKinley (U. of Texas, Austin) and the General Chair was Josep Torrellas (U. of Illinois). PACT 2006 will be held in Seattle, Washington, USA, September 16-20, 2006.
3. Euro-par can be called the most significant European event in the field of parallel computing. Euro-par 2005 was held in Lisbon, Portugal from August 30 to September 2, 2005. There were 388 submissions, out of which 121 papers were accepted. The conference had 240 attendees. Euro-par 2006 will be held in Dresden, Germany, from August 29 to September 1, 2006.
4. SBAC-PAD 2005 (17th International Symposium on Computer Architecture and High Performance Computing) was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 24-27, 2005. SBAC-PAD 2006 will be held October 17-20, in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
5. The International Conference on High Performance Computing 2005, HiPC 2005, was held in Goa, India, December 18-21, 2005. HiPC 2006 will be held December 18-21, Bangalore, India.
6. The 20th International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences (ISCIS 20) was held at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, October 26-28, 2005. ISCIS 21 will be held November 1-3, 2006, at Sabanci University, again in Istanbul, Turkey.
7. The Architecture of Computer Systems Conference 2006 (ARCS 2006) was held from March 13 to 16 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. ARCS 2007 will be held at ETH Zurich, March 12-15, 2007.
8. The 5th IFIP Working Conference on Distributed and Parallel Embedded Systems (DIPES 2006), sponsored by multiple IFIP working groups including WG 10.3, will be held in October 11-13, 2006 in Braga, Portugal. DIPES is held bi-annually: DIPES 2004 was held as a track of IFIP WCC 2004, August 23-26, Toulouse, France.
9. A second in a series of new conferences, International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems 2006 (DCOSS '06), was held June 18-20, 2006, in San Francisco, California, USA. DCOSS'07 will be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 17-19, 2007. The DCOSS proceedings are being published as part of the Springer LNCS series.
10. WG 10.3 is also an active organizer of the new Biologically Inspired Collaborative Computing Conference, a collective TC10 effort (BICC 2006, August 20-25, 2006, Santiago, Chile, part of WCC 2006).

WG 10.3 special journal issue in Parallel Processing Letters

WG 10.3 e-Seminar series/technical working sessions

WG 10.3 membership changes; Chair stepping down

Activities are continuing for recruiting top quality new members. A new batch of candidates is presently being discussed, and will soon be added to the Working Group.

Kemal Ebcioglu will be stepping down as WG 10.3 chair this year. The new WG 10.3 chair election is expected to occur shortly.

Attendance in the TC10 meeting

The WG 10.3 Chair attended the 2005 TC10 meeting, which was held in Paderborn, Germany, January 17-18, 2006.