Promoting the Application of SCILAB

and

Broadcasting the Scientific Spirit

2007 SCILAB Contest in China and International Workshop on Open Source Software Research, Development and Industrial Application

11-13, May, 2007
Nanhai, Foshan, Guangzhou, PR China

 

Background

SCILAB is the famous open source software for scientific computing taken in charge since 2003 by Scilab Consortium (www.scilab.org). SCILAB has been extensively received by scientists, engineers and technicians, and practitioners in both academia and industry. It has been recognized as the best substitute for commercial software like Matlab, Xmath and Matrix, and distributed currently at the rate of more than 20,000 copies per month all over the world.

SCILAB has brought us not only powerful functions in scientific computing, but also its free spirit of open source. At present, Scilab Consortium at INRIA is devoted to promoting the open source software to the world, particularly in China. The free spirit of open source software and technology makes far-reaching sense to China's software industry in terms of liberalization from the international commercial software companies. Therefore, research institutes and government organizations concerned in China and France have co-developed and been supporting SCILAB activities in China. Evidences would show that SCILAB promotion in China has set up a link between researchers in both China and France, and provides the opportunities for Chinese researchers, engineers and students to study and to express their talent by means of competition and communication with industrial partners in both countries. Since 2002, the SCILAB competition has been arranged in China once a year under the auspices of LIAMA, SCILAB university partners, and INRIA in France. The five annual events were held in Shanghai, Xi'an, Xiamen, Wuhan and Hangzhou respectively.

2007 SCILAB Contest in China and International Workshop on SCILAB Research Development and Industrial Application (SCC-IWSRDIA'07) will be held at the International Conference Center, Peach Garden Hotel, Nanhai, Foshan, Guangdong, China.

 

2007 SCILAB Events

The major events include:

(i)SCILAB Awards Ceremony,

(ii)International Workshop, and

(iii)“SCILAB Industrial Day”. Through these events, industrial partners and university partners from both China and France will have a chance to communicate freely with each other.

Main Theme

2007 SCILAB Contest and Workshop will pursue the spirit of “Freedom, Sharing, and Cooperation”; advocate the application of open source software, and promote the development of open source software in China.

Objectives

• To advocate the spirit of freedom and co-creation in scientific research.
• To promote the application of scientific computation software in education throughout China.
• To promote the use of legal software in China.
• To accelerate the development of open source software in China.
• To enhance the exchange and collaboration between France and China.
• To explore new cooperation models between industries and universities.

Arrangement of 2007 SCILAB Events

The events will be held from May 11th to 13th, 2007. The Opening and Awards Ceremony of the SCILAB Contest will be held in the morning of May 11th, 2007 at Nanguo Taoyuan International Conference Center in Foshan, Guangdong province. Guided by the spirit of “freedom and sharing”, the Conference will take the SCILAB Contest as the main event, and explore deeply on issues like “the industrial application of SCILAB”, “the application of open source software”, and “the developing trend of open source technology”. Meanwhile various other activities will be held, including an exhibition of open source software and technology achievements and products; promotion of investment projects for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The success of the last five China SCILAB Contests has resulted in wide and significant impact among research institutes and universities throughout the country. Guests of Honor will be invited from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, French Embassy, LIAMA, and Ecole Centrale de Pekined to deliver Keynote Speeches at the Conference.

Representatives from industrial organizations and enterprises which have successfully applied Open source software and technology in their production environments will be invited to present their cases in the Conference. These representatives would be mainly coming from China, France, Japan, India and USA. The Conference Organizatingl Committee will also invite domestic and overseas media to report on the Conference events. Internet media including various portal websites will broadcast live news on various SCILAB events.

Official website: http://nanhai.neusoft.edu.cn/scilab%20/index.html

2007 SCILAB Contest & SCC-IWSRDIA'07 Workshop

1. Rules of Contest

Eligibility:
Academic staff and students of university and research institute, engineers of industrial and business organizations, and all other professionals.

Requirement of Contest Works:

• Contest works should be based on free SCILAB toolboxes. Please refer to the latest toolboxes and source codes released;
• Contestants may select any topic for their work. The work should include demonstrations, examples, online assistants and documents.
• Demonstration program is to be written in SCILAB and other language, for example, FORTRAN, C++, Java, and so on. Toolbox should run on SCILAB 4.1 or higher.

Submission of the toolbox

For each toolbox the contestant has to give:

• One page in English with the name of the toolbox, the authors and their affiliation, and a brief description of the toolbox.
• A paper in English which describes the requirements for using the toolbox such as the operating system (Windows, Linux…), the compilers (C, C++…), the libraries (JAVA…), Scilab version and other relevant information if needed, together with a small user’s guide which explains how to install the toolbox with Scilab.

Important Technical points

The purpose of following technical points is that your toolbox can be used by other people using Scilab. After the requirements for using the toolbox are fulfilled, the user must be able to use the toolbox with his standard Scilab version. This is an important point because then your toolbox can be put on Scilab Web site and so be easily available for all Scilab community.

• The Scilab distribution that must be used for the contest is the official stable version 4.1. It can be downloaded from Scilab Web site www.scilab.org or other mirror sites.

• The toolbox will be given as a compressed file using standard file compressor such as zip or gzip. The compressed file must only include the toolbox and possibly all what is necessary to use it (such as additional libraries for instance): the toolbox must work with standard Scilab versions already installed.

• The toolbox must include on-line help files describing its purpose and the on-line help of each user callable Scilab function if any. The help files must be written using the standard XML language using Scilab DTD.

• A demonstration of the toolbox, using for instance Scilab “demo” files, will be appreciated.

• For building and loading toolboxes into Scilab, standard “builder.sce” and “loader.sce” files can be defined using the “get_absolute_file_path”, “genlib”, “ilib_build”, etc… Scilab functions. These functions allow, in most cases, to create system independent “loader.sce” and “builder.sce” files.

Award Selection:

The Award Selection process includes three stages:
(i) shortlist of entries by an Expert Team,
(ii) peer-evaluation on the Internet, and
(iii) final selection by French Scientists.

In the first stage, 20 works will be shortlisted from all the received submissions. Peer-evaluation on the Internet will be made by all contestants. Finally, the French Scientist Team will decide on the awards to be given, taking into consideration the results of the first and second stages.

Prizes:

1. First prize: up to TWO awards will be given. (For each Award, a maximum of two students will be invited to visit the SCILAB team in INRIA for two months, and one academic advisor will be invited to visit INRIA for one week).
2. Second prize: up to TEN awards will be given. (Each Award: RMB 1000).
3. Third prize: up to TEN awards will be given. (Each Award: RMB 500).
   

2. International Workshop on SCILAB Research Development and Industrial Application (SCC-IWSRDIA'07)

Prospective authors are invited to submit papers reporting original and previously unpublished work. Papers are to be submitted electronically, as PDF or WORD files. The required format for the paper is shown in Appendix I. Only full papers received before the deadline will be considered for review. The maximum length of each paper is limited to Six A4 pages. Proposals of special sessions and tutorials on hot topics are welcome.

Topics to be covered include (but are not limited to):

• Numerical Analysis
• Scientific Computation
• Computational Mathematics
• Mathematical Software
• Programming Techniques and Languages
• Parallel Algorithms and its Applications
• Symbolic and Algebraic Manipulation
• Neural Networks
• Fuzzy Logic
• Evolutionary Computing
• Analysis of Algorithms
• Problem Complexity
• Mathematical Logic
• Formal Languages
• Data Structures
• Data Bases
• Information Systems
• Artificial Intelligence
• Expert Systems
• Simulation and Modeling
• Computer Graphics
• Software Engineering
• Image Processing
• Computer Applications & Organization Software
• Computing Methodologies
• Communications Network Technology
• Robot Technology
• Sensors and Applications
• Manufacturing Systems
• Intelligent Transportation Systems
• Virtual Reality Technology
• Human Computer Interfacing
• Multimedia Technology
• Computer Vision
• Voice Recognition
• Engineering Diagnostics
• Software Quality & Security Management

All technical papers, in accordance with the Author Guidelines shown below, should be submitted in electronic format to the SCILAB 2007 Editorial Committee through Dr. Alan Kin Tak Lau, whose Email address is: mmktlau@inet.polyu.edu.hk

The proceedings of SCC-IWSRDIA'07 Workshop will be published in a hard copy form.

see attached doc file:

3. 2007 International Forum On SCILAB And Open Source Software Industrial Applications (2007 SCILAB Industry Day)

The 2007 International Forum on SCILAB Industrial Application focuses on detailing current SCILAB applications in some major industries of China and forecasts SCILAB future applications. An “SCILAB Industry Day” will be set up for the first time in China. During this event renowned academics and professionals from various business and industries will be invited to exchange their views on the current development trend of free software and open source technology. Based on the recommendations generated from the 2007 SCILAB International Forum, it is envisaged that a Blueprint for Future SCILAB Development in China would be developed.

4. Organization

Sponsors:

• LIAMA;
• INRIA/SCILAB Consortium - France;
• Ecole Centrale de Pekin;
• Nanhai Neusoft Institute of Information (NNII);
• The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Co-sponsored by:

French Embassy in China
Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASIA)
Beihang University
Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence
Intelligent Automation Committee, Chinese Association of Automation
Robot Competitions Working Committee, Chinese Association of Automation

In Cooperation with:

France Telecom, R & D Beijing
Thomson Broad Hand R & D Beijing
Bull Information Systems Beijing
Ecole Centrale de Pékin, China

International Committee

Zengqi SUN	China(Chairman)
Li YANG	China (Co-Chairman)
Eric TT WONG	HK SAR, China(Co-Chairman)
Tiejun WU	China
Claude GOMEZ NG	France
Shiyin QIN	China
Jixin QIAN	China
Baogang HU	China
Shi LI	China
Alan Kin-tak Lau	HK SAR, China
Xingbo WANG	China
Longhua MA	China
Ping LI	China
Hui WANG	China
Huazhong XU	China
Yaonan WANG	China
Changle ZHOU	China
Jun CAI	China
Xinmin DAI	China
Xiaofeng LIN	China
Qizhi ZHANG	China
Zhengzhong HE	China
Dong ZHANG	China
Wansen WANG	China
Wei PAN	China
Xinhan HUANG	China
Xiadong LY	China
Ding LIU	China
Kejun WANG	China
Feng GAO	China
Junping DU	China
Yu HE	China
Xianrong CHANG	China
Kang CHENG	China
Maurice GOURSAT	France
Serge STEER	France
Ramine NIKOUKHAH	France
Marc JAEGER	France
Roberto BUCHER	Switzerland
Tianzi JIANG	China
Stéphane GRUMBACH	France
Marc ZOLVER	France

International Advisory Committee

Youxian SUN	China
Bo ZHANG	China
Songde MA	China
Jixin Qian	China
Maurice ROBIN	France

 

SCC-IWSRDIA'07 Workshop Organizing Committee

Li YANG	China(Chairman)
Shi LI	China(Co-Chairman)
Eric TT WONG	Hong Kong, China(Co-Chairman)
Claude GOMEZ	France
Xingbo WANG	China
Jing WANG	China
Alan Kin Tak LAU	Hong Kong, China

Contact Information:

Jing Wang, Director of Science Research Office, NNII
Email: mailto:SCILAB2007@gmail.com
Tel: 0757-86684655
Fax: 0757-86684612

Schedule of SCILAB 2007:

Date	Time	Activity
10 May, 2007	0900 - 1200 hrs 1400 - 1700 hrs	Registration of participants
11 May, 2007	0900 - 1200 hrs	Opening Ceremony (Award Ceremony for SCILAB Contest) Note: Mr. Antoine Petit, Director of the Research Center of INRIA Rocquencourt, has kindly agreed to participate in the Opening Ceremony.
	1400 - 1700 hrs	Session 1: Scilab workshop discussion Session 2: Scilab industrial application  discussion
	From 1900 hrs	Conference Banquet
12  May, 2007	0900 - 1200 hrs	Session1: Scilab workshop discussion Session2: Free software and open source technology discussion
	1400 - 1700 hrs	Session1: Scilab workshop discussion Session2: Free software and open  source technology discussion
13 May, 2007	0900 - 1200 hrs	Product exhibition and information exchange
	1400 - 1700 hrs	Visiting (Institute of Neusoft, other Industrial Partners)
	From 1900 hrs	Farewell Banquet

Important Dates

Deadline of registration: 31st March, 2007
Deadline of paper submission for (SCC-IWSRDIA'07) Workshop: 31st March, 2007
Deadline of Contest Works Submission: 10th April 10, 2007
Acceptance Notification: 20th April, 2007