IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS SOCIETY TECHNICAL COMMITTEE
ON DISCRETE EVENT SYSTEMS

    Ryan J. Leduc
    Chair, IEEE CSS Technical Committee on DES
    Dept. of Computing and Software
    McMaster University
    1280 Main Street West
    Hamilton, Ontario
    Canada L8S 4K1

    Phone: (905) 525-9140 Ext. 27962
    Fax: (905) 524-0340
    e-mail: leduc@mcmaster.ca
    WWW: http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~leduc/

DESTC Web Page: http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/destc/

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Contents:

1. Editorial

2. Announcements
 2.1 PhD: Ghent University, Belgium

3. Conferences
 3.1 Intelligent Systems and Control (ISC 2008), Orlando, Florida, USA,
     November 16 - 18, 2008
 3.2 5th International Colloquium on Theoretical Aspects of Computing (ICTAC
      2008), The Marmara, Istanbul, Turkey, September 1 - 3, 2008
 3.3 46th ANNUAL ALLERTON CONFERENCE ON COMMUNICATION, CONTROL, AND
     COMPUTING, Allerton House, Illinois, September 24 - 26, 2008

4. Journals
 4.1 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems, Volume 18, Number 1, March 2008
 4.2 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Volume: 53,
     Issue: 3, April 2008
 4.3 Selections from Automatica, Volume 44, Issue 4, April 2008

Welcome to the newsletter of the IEEE Control Systems Technical Committee on Discrete Event Systems!

See http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/destc/ for information on the DESTC.

Personal note from the editor:

Welcome to the April 2008 edition of the newsletter,

Ryan

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc aT mcmaster dOt ca>

PHD: GHENT UNIVERSITY, BELGIUM

The SYSTeMS research group at Ghent University, Ghent, Begium, invites
application for up to 3 Ph.D. student positions in the domain of
modelling and control of networks of dynamical systems.

Ghent University is one of the top universities in Belgium, that has
consistently ranked high in list of “most desirable place to work” (see
e.g. http://www.the-scientist.com/2007/11/1/65/1/). Ghent is a very
attractive city to live in, with a large number of international
postgraduate students.

The SYSTeMS group at Ghent University. carries out research in various
areas of nonlinear dynamical systems: networks, hybrid systems,
optimization, machine learning, data mining, evolutionary optimization,
synchronisation of oscillators, control of discrete event systems,
recursive state estimation and fault detection, feedback control for
on-line management of networks and  imprecise probabilities as
knowledge representations.

Requirements
A candidate for these positions should have a Master degree or
equivalent in electrical or mechnaical engineering, mathematics, or
applied physics. He/she should have a strong interest in research in
the field of dynamical systems.

Profiles:
Candidates with a broad range of interests, covering all areas of
research of the SYSTeMS group, are invited. Two of the candidates are
expected to specifically work on research in two recently approved FP7
research projects, “Control for coordination of Distributed Systems
C4C” and “Distributed Supervisory Control of large Plants DISC”. These
projects involve cooperation with other top European universities and
with several industrial companies.

The challenging research work deals with network modelling, control
design and state estimation for networks of hybrid systems. Case
studies include road traffic management and power systems control.
Starting dates for these positions are between May and September, 2008.
Remuneration is according to the salary scales for doctoral
researchers, currently approximately 24000EURO
gross, incl. health insurance (depending on family situation this
amounts to approximately 16000EURO net)).

Interested candidates should send a detailed c.v., and the names and
e-mail addresses of 3 independent academic referees, to Prof. Rene Boel
at: rene.boel@UGent.be

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc aT mcmaster dOt ca>

INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS AND CONTROL (ISC 2008)
Orlando, Florida, USA
November 16 - 18, 2008

Call for Papers

Please submit your papers as well as proposals for tutorials, special
sessions, and panel sessions by June 1, 2008. See the Call for Papers
here.

Date

ISC 2008 will take place from November 16 - 18, 2008.

The 12th IASTED International Conference on Intelligent Systems and
Control (ISC 2008) is a major contact venue for reiscrch scientists,
engineers, and practitioners throughout the world to present their
latest developments and applications in this field. isc 2008 aims to
strengthen relations among universities, reiscrch laboratories and
industry. All papers submitted to this conference will be double blind
evaluated by at least two reviewers. Acceptance will be based primarily
on originality and contribution.
ISC 2008 will be held in conjunction with the IASTED International
Conferences on:

    * Parallel and Distributed Computing and Systems (PDCS 2008)
    * Software Engineering and Applications (SEA 2008)


Sponsors

ISC 2008 is sponsored by the International Association of Science and
Technology for Development (IASTED), with the assistance of the:

    * Technical Committee on Control
    * Technical Committee on Intelligent Systems and Control


Topics

Topics include, but are not limited to:

    * Intelligent and Hybrid Control Systems
	  o Planning Systems
	  o Genetic Algorithms and Evolutionary Control
    * Adaptive and Robust Control
	  o Model Predictive Control
	  o Advanced Control Strategies
    * System Identification, Optimization, and Automation
	  o Industrial Automation
	  o Discrete Event Systems
    * Intelligent Data Systems and Computing
	  o Knowledge Representation
	  o Fusion
    * Applications
	  o Telecommunications
	  o Biomedical Engineering

and many more...

Location

52 million tourists flock to Orlando each year to take in its wealth of
attractions, relaxing beaches, and abundant golf courses. Orlando is
the proud home of the Walt Disney World Resort, iscWorld, and the
Universal Studios Orlando Resort, and is consistently ranked as a top
vacation destination, boasting more theme parks and entertainment
attractions than any other city in the world. Florida's cultural scene
is sure to whet the more mature appetite with several thriving
community theatre organizations, Cirque du Soleil performances, plenty
of museums including Kennedy Space Centre and the Ormond Beach Art
Museum, and tons of shopping in some of America's largest malls. If
you'd like to enjoy Florida's tropical weather, stroll through one of
Orlando's many parks or sunbathe on one of three pristine beaches in
the area.

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc aT mcmaster dOt ca>

5TH INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM ON THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF COMPUTING (ICTAC
2008)
The Marmara, Istanbul, Turkey
September 1 - 3, 2008

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS

             1-3 September 2008 The Marmara, Istanbul, Turkey

  (Tutorials & Workshops 30-31 August 2008, Sabanci University, Istanbul)

The ICTAC series, founded by the United Nations University's  
International Institute of Software Technology (UNU-IIST), brings
together practitioners and  researchers from academia, industry and
government to present research and to exchange ideas and
experience addressing challenges in both theoretical aspects of  
computing and in the exploitation of theory through methods and tools
for system  development. A further aim is to promote cooperation in
research and education between   participants and
institutions from developing and industrial countries, as in the United  
Nations University's mandate. The previous four ICTAC events were held
in   Guiyang, China (2004), Hanoi, Vietnam (2005), Tunis, Tunisia
(2006) and Macau (2007).

In 2008, topics include, but are not limited to:

-  software specification, refinement, verification and testing
-  model checking and theorem proving
-  software architectures
-  coordination and feature interaction
-  integration of theories, formal and engineering methods and tools
-  models of concurrency, security, and mobility
-  parallel, distributed, and internet-based (grid) computing
-  real-time, embedded and hybrid systems
-  automata theory and formal languages
-  principles and semantics of languages
-  logics and their applications
-  type and category theory in computer science
-  case studies, theories, tools and experiments of verified systems
-  service-oriented architectures: models and development methods
-  domain modelling and domain-specific technology: examples,  
frameworks and experience

We particularly welcome submissions for a special track on Tool Support  
for Formal Methods of System Development: from the foundations of
tools, through   their design to application and evaluation.

Paper Submissions
-----------------
Submissions to the conference must not have been published or be  
concurrently considered for publication elsewhere. All submissions will
be judged on   the basis of originality, contribution to the field,
technical and presentation   quality, and relevance to the conference.
Papers should be in English and should not exceed 15 pages LNCS format
(see http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html  for details).
Submission constitutes a commitment to attend and present a paper, if  
accepted.

Proceedings of the previous ICTAC colloquia were published by Springer  
in the LNCS series. We plan to do the same this year.

Submission Procedure: Further information and instructions can be found  
at the conference website http://www.ictac.net/ictac08

Tutorials & Workshops: We welcome proposals for tutorials and workshops  
relevant to the ICTAC themes to take place on 30-31 August 2008.
Proposers should   contact the Organising Chair
(yenigun@sabanciuniv.edu). The closing date for workshop proposals
is 7 April 2008, with notification on 30 April 2008. The closing date  
for tutorial proposals is 9 June 2008, with notification on 30 June 2008.

Important Dates
---------------
Papers:
Submission: 11 April 2008
Notification of acceptance: 19 May 2008
Final copy for proceedings: 2 June 2008
ICTAC 2008: 1-3 September 2008

Workshops:
Submission: 7 April 2008
Notification of acceptance: 30 April 2008
ICTAC 2008 Workshops & Tutorials: 30-31 August 2008

Tutorials:
Submission: 9 June 2008
Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2008
ICTAC 2008 Workshops & Tutorials: 30-31 August 2008

*** INVITED SPEAKERS :  Jean-Raymond Abrial, Jan Peleska and Bill  
Roscoe ***

Chairs & Contacts
-----------------

General Chair: Mike Reed, UNU-IIST

Organising Chair: Husnu Yenigun (yenigun@sabanciuniv.edu), Sabanci  
University, Istanbul

Programme Chairs:
John Fitzgerald, Newcastle University, UK (John.Fitzgerald@ncl.ac.uk)
Anne Haxthausen, Technical University of Denmark (ah@imm.dtu.dk)

Publicity Chair: Jeremy Bryans, Newcastle University, UK

Steering Committee: John Fitzgerald, UK; Martin Leucker, Germany;  
Zhiming Liu
(Chair), UNU-IIST, Macao; Tobias Nipkow, Germany; Augusto Sampaio,  
Brazil; Natarajan
Shankar, USA; Jim Woodcock, UK

Programme Committee: Keijiro Araki, JP;  Jonathan Bowen, UK; Michael  
Butler, UK; Ana Cavalcanti, UK; Patrice Chalin, CA; Christine Choppy,
FR; Jim Davies,  UK; Jin Song Dong, SA; George Eleftherakis, GR; Esra
Erdem ,TR; Wan Fokkink, NL; Marcelo Frias, AR; Kokichi Futatsugi, JP;
Chris George, UNU-IIST; Lindsay Groves, NZ;  Michael R.
Hansen, DK; Ian Hayes, AU; Dang Van Hung, VN; Tomasz Janowski,  
UNU-IIST; He Jifeng, CN; Joe Kiniry, IE; Maciej Koutny, UK; Kung-Kiu
Lau, UK; Martin  Leucker, DE; Joe Morris, IE; Peter Mosses, UK;
Paritosh K Pandya, IN;  Ernst-Rüdiger  Olderog, DE;
Anders Ravn, DK; Wolfgang Reisig, DE; Augusto Sampaio, BR; Bernhard  
Schaetz, DE; Natarajan Shankar, USA; Serdar Tasiran, TR; Helen
Treharne, UK; Alan   Wassyng, CA; Jim Woodcock, UK; Naijun Zhan, CN; Ji
Wang, CN

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc aT mcmaster dOt ca>

46TH ANNUAL ALLERTON CONFERENCE ON COMMUNICATION, CONTROL, AND
COMPUTING
Allerton House, Illinois
September 24 - 26, 2008

 Papers presenting original research are solicited in the areas of
communication systems, communication and computer networks, detection
and estimation theory, information theory, error control coding, source
coding and data compression, queueing networks, control systems, robust
and nonlinear control, adaptive control, optimization, dynamic games,
large- scale systems, robotics and automation, manufacturing systems,
discrete event systems, intelligent control, multivariable control,
computer vision-based control, learning theory, neural networks, VLSI
architectures for communications and signal processing, and automated
highway systems.

Manuscripts must be submitted by Tuesday, July 1, 2008, following the
instructions at the Conference website:
http://www.comm.csl.uiuc.edu/allerton.

Allerton House is located twenty-six miles southwest of the
Urbana-Champaign campus of the University in a wooded area on the
Sangamon River. It is part of the fifteen-hundred acre Robert Allerton
Park, a complex of natural and man-made beauty designated as a National
natural landmark. Allerton Park has twenty miles of well-maintained
trails and a living gallery of formal gardens, studded with
sculptures collected from around the world.

Conference Co-Chairs: Pierre Moulin and Carolyn Beck
Email: allerton@csl.uiuc.edu
URL: http://www.comm.csl.uiuc.edu/allerton
Sponsors: Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc aT mcmaster DOt ca>

DISCRETE EVENT DYNAMIC SYSTEMS
VOLUME 18, NUMBER 1
MARCH, 2008

1) An Algorithmic Toolbox for Network Calculus

Anne Bouillard and Eric Thierry  

Abstract:

Network calculus offers powerful tools to analyze the performances in
communication networks, in particular to obtain deterministic bounds.
This theory is based on a strong mathematical ground, notably by the
use of (min,+) algebra. However, the algorithmic aspects of this theory
have not been much addressed yet. This paper is an attempt to provide
some efficient algorithms implementing network calculus operations for
some classical functions. Some functions which are often used are the
piecewise affine functions which ultimately have a constant growth. As
a first step towards algorithmic design, we present a class containing
these functions and closed under the main network calculus operations
(min, max, +, , convolution, subadditive closure, deconvolution): the
piecewise affine functions which are ultimately pseudo-periodic. They
can be finitely described, which enables us to propose some algorithms
for each of the network calculus operations. We finally analyze their
computational complexity.

2) Compositionally Progressive Solutions of Synchronous FSM Equations

Nina Yevtushenko, Tiziano Villa, Robert K. Brayton, Alex Petrenko and
Alberto L. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli  

Abstract:

The paper addresses the problem of designing a component that combined
with a known part of a system, called the context FSM, is a reduction
of a given specification FSM. We study compositionally progressive
solutions of synchronous FSM equations. Such solutions, when combined
with the context, do not block any input that may occur in the
specification, so they are of practical use. We show that, if a
synchronous FSM equation has a compositionally progressive solution,
then there is a largest regular compositionally progressive solution
including all of them. We provide two different algorithms to compute a
largest regular compositionally progressive solution: one deletes all
compositionally non-progressive strings from a largest solution, the
other splits states of a largest solution and then removes those
inducing a non-progressive composition.

3) Minimizing Place Capacities of Weighted Event Graphs for Enforcing
Liveness

Olivier Marchetti and Alix Munier-Kordon  

Abstract:

This paper addresses the problem of minimizing place capacities of
weighted event graphs in order to enforce liveness. Necessary and
sufficient conditions of the solution existence are derived. Lower
bounds of place capacities while preserving liveness are established
and a polynomial algorithm is proposed to determine an initial marking
leading to these lower bounds while preserving the liveness.

4) Analyzing Security Protocols Using Time-Bounded Task-PIOAs

Ran Canetti, Ling Cheung, Dilsun Kaynar, Moses Liskov, Nancy Lynch,
Olivier Pereira and Roberto Segala  

Abstract:

This paper presents the time-bounded task-PIOA modeling framework, an
extension of the probabilistic input/output automata (PIOA) framework
that can be used for modeling and verifying security protocols.
Time-bounded task-PIOAs can describe probabilistic and nondeterministic
behavior, as well as time-bounded computation. Together, these features
support modeling of important aspects of security protocols, including
secrecy requirements and limitations on the computational power of
adversarial parties. They also support security protocol verification
using methods that are compatible with less formal approaches used in
the computational cryptography research community. We illustrate the
use of our framework by outlining a proof of functional correctness and
security properties for a well-known oblivious transfer protocol.

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc aT mcmaster dOt ca>

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL
VOLUME: 53, ISSUE: 3
APRIL, 2008

1) A Note on the Properties of the Supremal Controllable Sublanguage in
Pushdown Systems

Griffin, C.

Abstract: 

 Consider an event alphabet $Sigma$ . The supervisory control theory of
Ramadge and Wonham asks the question: given a plant model $G$  with
language ${cal L}_{rm M}(G) subseteq Sigma^{*}$ and another language $K
subseteq {cal L}_{rm M}(G)$, is there a supervisor $varphi$  such that
${cal L}_{rm M}(varphi/G)=K$ ? Ramadge and Wonham showed that a
necessary condition for this to be true is the so-called
controllability of $K$ with respect to  ${cal L}_{rm M}(G)$. They
showed that when $G$ is a finite-state automaton and $K$ is a regular
language (also generated by a finite state automaton), then there is a
regular supremal controllable sublanguage $hbox{sup}_{rm C}(K) subseteq
K$ that is effectively constructable from generators of  $K$ and $G$ .
In this paper, we show: 1) there is an algorithm to compute the
supremal controllable sublanguage of a prefix closed  $K$ accepted by a
deterministic pushdown automaton (DPDA) when the plant language is also
prefix closed and accepted by a finite state automaton and 2) in this
case, we show that this supremal controllable sublanguage is also
accepted by a DPDA.

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc aT mcmaster dOt ca>

SELECTIONS FROM AUTOMATICA
VOLUME 44, ISSUE 4
APRIL, 2008

1) Nonblocking supervisory control of timed discrete event systems
under communication delays: The existence conditions

Seong-Jin Parka, E-mail The Corresponding Author and Kwang-Hyun Cho

Abstract: 

This paper addresses the problem of nonblocking supervisory control of
timed discrete event systems under communication delays based on the
framework proposed by Brandin and Wonham. For such a system, a
supervisory control command could be applied to the system after some
time-delay limited by a finite bound corresponding to the maximal
number of tick occurrences, and some uncontrollable events may
unexpectedly occur within this time-delay. This paper presents the
necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a nonblocking
supervisor that can achieve a given language specification in
consideration of such delayed communications.

2) Supervisory control of modular systems with global specification 
   languages

J. Komenda, J.H. van Schuppen, B. Gaudin, H. Marchand

Abstract:

The paper presents sufficient conditions for modular (supervisory)
control synthesis to equal global control synthesis. In modular control
synthesis a supervisory control is synthesized for each module
separately and the supervisory control consists of the parallel
composition of the modular supervisory controls. The general case of
the specification that is indecomposable and not necessarily contained
in the plant language, which is often the case in practice, is
considered. The usual assumption that all shared events are
controllable is relaxed by introducing two new structural conditions
relying on the global mutual controllability condition. The novel
concept used as a sufficient structural condition is strong global
mutual controllability. The main result uses a weaker condition called
global mutual controllability together with local consistency of the
specification. An example illustrates the approach.

web site: click here