[hpc-announce] PASC21: Call for Minisymposia - deadline 22 Nov, 2020.

[Robinson Tim]

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                             CALL FOR MINISYMPOSIA
                  Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing
                                    PASC21

                             University of Geneva
                             Geneva - Switzerland
                                 5-8 Jul 2021

                      https://pasc21.pasc-conference.org

              Deadline for Submitting an Expression of Interest: 
                         Nov 22, 2020 (no extensions)

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The Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing (PASC) invites minisymposium submissions for PASC21, co-sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and SIGHPC, which will be held at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, from July 5 to 8, 2021.

The PASC Conference series is an international and interdisciplinary platform for the exchange of knowledge in scientific computing and computational science with a strong focus on methods, tools, algorithms, application challenges, and novel techniques and usage of high performance computing.

The technical program of PASC21 is organized around eight scientific domains:

* Chemistry and Materials
* Life Sciences (incl. but not limited to biophysics, genomics, bioinformatics, systems biology, neuroscience and computational biology)
* Physics (incl. but not limited to astrophysics, cosmology, plasma modelling, QCD)
* Climate and Weather
* Solid Earth Dynamics
* Engineering (incl. but not limited to CFD, computational mechanics, computational engineering materials, turbulent flow)
* Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
* Emerging Application Domains (incl. but not limited to social sciences, finance)

A minisymposium is a two-hour session of four 30-minute slots on a topic of current importance in computational science that showcases research related to domain science, applied mathematics, computer science and software engineering, and is an ideal platform for promoting interdisciplinary communication. Proposals that address aspects emphasizing the theme of PASC21 – New Challenges, New Computing Paradigms – are particularly welcome.

Minisymposium organizers who had proposals accepted for the postponed PASC20 conference were invited to present them at PASC21, and abstracts have been published at https://pasc21.pasc-conference.org/program/minisymposia/. We encourage you to examine these abstracts and to submit proposals that would complement the program as it currently stands. Please note that although we welcome proposals in any of the eight PASC scientific domains mentioned above, preference may be given to the following domains in order to provide for overall program balance:

* Chemistry and Materials
* Life Sciences
* Solid Earth Dynamics
* Emerging Application Domains (e.g. urban planning, mobility, disaster response, ...)

Moreover, we particularly welcome proposals that present research related to COVID-19 and/or the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, whether that research be in the area of biology, medicine, or socio-economic modelling.

The minisymposium submission for PASC21 is a two-stage process. The first stage is an expression of interest, which includes a description of the proposed minisymposium (abstract) and suggestions for possible speakers who are experts in their field(s). The expressions of interest will be reviewed by the Minisymposia and Posters Program Committee (https://pasc21.pasc-conference.org/about/minisymposia-and-posters-program-committee). A selection of submissions will be invited to submit a full proposal.

The review process will consider the relevance and timeliness of the proposal topic as well as overall program balance.

The second stage, the full proposal, should include an extended abstract along with the names of possible speakers and presentation titles for four 30-minute presentation slots (typically, these slots are 25-minute talks with 5 minutes for questions). The minisymposium organizer is permitted to give one of the four presentations her/himself. If desired, the fourth 30-minute slot could be a panel discussion or open discussion forum. 

The organizer of a minisymposium takes an "active chair" role in their session – that is, s/he should present a brief overview of the themes of the minisymposium and the state of the art, introduce the speakers and their topics, and facilitate a lively and interactive discussion amongst the speakers and audience throughout the session.
 
SUBMISSION AND REVIEW PROCESS

In order to be allowed to submit a full proposal, minisymposium organizers must first submit an expression of interest.

The expression of interest consists of the following:

* Title
* Scientific domain(s): A primary domain and (preferably) additional domains.
* Organizer details: Full names and contact details of organizers (up to three).
* Abstract: Description of the minisymposium (up to 500 words), including suggestions for topics and speakers. 
* Diversity and Inclusivity: A statement on how you have addressed issues of diversity and inclusivity in proposing speakers.

Following the evaluation of the expressions of interest, organizers may be invited to submit a full proposal. The full proposal consists of the following: 

* Title
* Scientific domain(s): A primary domain and optionally additional domains.
* Organizer details: Full names and contact details of organizers (up to three).
* Presenter details: Full names and contact details of four proposed speakers (three if the minisymposium proposal includes a discussion panel) and proposed titles for their presentations.
* Extended abstract: A description of the minisymposium that outlines the scope, describes the problems being addressed and their importance, and discusses current directions of research and methods being developed to solve these problems (up to 800 words).)
* Abstract for publication: A short abstract for publication in the conference program (no more than 200 words).  

If the proposal is accepted then presentation titles and abstracts (200 words) will be requested from each speaker, and necessary revisions can be made to the minisymposium abstract for publication in the conference program.

The expressions of interest and full proposals will be reviewed based on the following criteria:

* The work should be of significant current interest to the given scientific domain, and ideally, have potential application to other scientific domains.
* Research should be based on state-of-the-art numerical methods.
* The proposal should include speakers from multiple institutions and/or countries, and be designed such that the speakers bring a range of different perspectives and views to the topic.
* The proposal should consider diversity - including women and other underrepresented groups. 

Proposals must be submitted through the PASC21 online submission portal (https://submissions.pasc-conference.org).

SUBMISSION DEADLINES

* 22 November 2020: Deadline for expressions of interest (no extensions)
* 10 December 2020: Decision notifications (invitations to submit full proposals)
* 17 January 2021: Deadline for full proposals (no extensions)
* 17 February 2021: Acceptance notifications 
* 17 March 2021: Deadline for abstracts from presenting speakers 

Deadlines correspond to anywhere on earth ('AoE' or 'UTC-12').

CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION TERMS

Designated presenters may be changed closer to the event according to circumstances.

Please note that PASC21 is unable to reimburse the expenses or waive the registration fees of organizers and speakers. Organizers and speakers must register for the conference and are subject to the corresponding registration fees.

MINISYMPOSIUM AND POSTERS PROGRAM COMMITTEE CHAIRS  

General Chairs
* Sinéad Ryan (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)
* Bastien Chopard (University of Geneva, Switzerland)

Chemistry and Materials
* Silvana Botti (Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Germany)
* David Benoit (University of Hull, UK)

Climate and Weather
* Joachim Biercamp (German Climate Computing Center, Germany)
* Zhenya Song (State Oceanic Administration, China)

Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
* Xiaoye Sherry Li (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, US)
* Stefan Wild (Argonne National Laboratory, US)

Emerging Application Domains
* Andrea Gabrielli (Istituto dei Sistemi Complessi, Italy)
* Philipp Eisenhauer (University of Bonn, Germany)

Engineering
* Ramesh Balakrishnan (Argonne National Laboratory, US)
* Karlene Maskaly (Los Alamos National Laboratory, US)

Life Sciences
* Jean-Philip Piquemal (Sorbonne University, France) 
* Amanda Randles (Duke University, US) 

Physics
* Roger Käppeli (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
* Marina Krstic Marinkovic (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)

Solid Earth Dynamics
* Alice Gabriel (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany)
* Chun Liu (Nanjing University, China)

If you have any questions regarding the submission or reviewing process please email info at pasc-conference.org.