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20-12-2015
MODEST
international working
group on
MODelling of Economies and Societies
in Transition
Co-ordinators:
Zbigniew Nahorski and Jan W. Owsiński
nahorski@ibspan.waw.pl
owsinski@ibspan.waw.pl
Newelska 6, 01-447 Warszawa, Poland; Facsimile: (48 22)
38 10 105
Newsletter
sent out irregularly, mainly
on the basis of what's new
Edited etc. by Jan Owsiński
Issue no. 18, Autumn 2015
Contents:
1. MODEST 2014 meeting in Warsaw: some remarks
2. Invitation to the next MODEST Workshop
3. EURO 2016 Conference in Poznań
4. Proposals and suggestions
1. MODEST 2014 meeting in Warsaw: some
remarks
The last Workshop of the EWG MODEST, as this was already repeated several
times, took place on September 24-26 (Wednesday-Friday) 2014 in Warsaw. The
(broader) BOS 2014 meeting, with which the MODEST Workshop was affiliated,
was, quite traditionally, organised jointly with the Systems Research
Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. One of the sessions of BOS 2016
was explicitly hosted by MODEST, while some other MODEST-related papers were
presented in other sessions of the broader Conference, appropriate mention
having been duly made.
The papers that were presented formally in the framework of the MODEST
Workshop were authored by scholars from Poland, Sweden, Spain, Algeria, and
United Kingdom. Some of you might remember that to our regret, the announced
papers by authors coming from Russia and Ukraine could not be presented due
to the inability of their authors to join the Workshop. This is, an evidence
on how the bad political events influence in a disruptive manner the
scientific exchange (even if MODEST Workshop seems to be somewhat of an
exception, since Russian and Ukrainian scientists do, in fact, make it now
to various international meetings, the fact that this actually happened
cannot simply be denied).
By the time of this Newsletter, all of the papers from the Workshop have
either been published with selected journals, either Polish or international,
or are headed towards publication, meaning that they were finally accepted
to appear in the forthcoming issues. The mechanism of publishing the higher
quality papers through specialised journals shall be maintained in the
future, but for the next workshop a change is envisaged, see further on…
2. Invitation to the next MODEST Workshop
In the previous issue of the Newsletter we announced that the next MODEST
Workshop shall not take place Warsaw, like the two recent ones, but, instead,
in Poznań, in 2016, affiliated, this time, primarily with the EURO-k
Conference, which is scheduled to take place on 3-6 July 2016. It was also
expected that the bi-annual BOS Conference of the Polish Operational and
Systems Research Society (here: BOS 2016) shall also be associated with the
EURO 2016 in Poznań. Yet, it was decided, for several reasons, including the
difference in fees, that the two events shall be separated. We return to the
announcement of EURO 2016 in the next section of this Newsletter.
Thus, please feel invited to MODEST 2016 Workshop in Warsaw, again, to take
place on October 13th-14th, 2016 (Thursday-Friday), in Palais Staszic, a
traditional centre of scientific events and institutions, in the very heart
of Warsaw. The Initial Registration Form for this meeting is being
distributed along with the present Newsletter.
It is planned that the higher quality papers from the Workshop, included in
the publishing process of the BOS 2016 Conference, shall be directed to
selected journals, like this was done for the last two meetings, but, in
addition, the possibility is also envisaged (with, indeed, concrete steps
having been taken already) to include a group of papers in a volume
published through a known international publishing house.
The current proposal for the themes of the Workshop, a slight variation from
the previous proposals – not precluding any other issues, pertaining to
modelling and analysis of the transformation processes and phenomena –
includes: (i) the continuing crisis and its impact for the transforming
economies (and, indeed, the more general transformations, apparently needed),
with special emphasis on the role of financial institutions; (ii) the actual
status and role of the information society / knowledge economy paradigms
under different change circumstances; and (iii) the summary net impact and
mechanisms of the greening of economy. To those, we would like to add, given
the present global change and turmoil symptoms: (iv) the economic war and
its repercussions – the victims and the beneficiaries, and (v) the economics
and impacts of migrations: reasons, mechanisms, and consequences.
We certainly look forward to your contributions to and an active
participation in the meeting.
3. EURO 2016 Conference in Poznań
Although it was decided to hold the MODEST 2016 Workshop and the BOS 2016
Conference separated from the EURO 2016 meeting in Poznań, we would like to
invite all of you to this key event, gathering usually around two thousand
participants from around the world. Polish Operational and Systems Research
Society shall be also the organiser of this event, acting in concert with
EURO, and with the local organisers.
Not only is Poznań an interesting, attractive, vibrant urban centre, with an
important academic community, but it also boasts high level skills in
organising and running international events. The academic community in
Poznań is indeed broad, including a number of universities, some of them of
quite significant international renown (e.g. the statistical school,
associated with the University of Agriculture). There is, as well a strong
representation in the domains of operational research and the methodologies,
pertaining to it, special emphasis obviously being placed on computer
science and its applications.
We are certain that you shall by no means regret the decision to go to
Poznań for EURO 2016. Check the website of the Conference:
www.euro2016.poznan.pl/.
4. Proposals and suggestions
As usual, we return to the possible subjects of joint work within the MODEST
community. Thus, in the previous Newsletters we forwarded some suggestions
concerning the potential fields of collaboration, e.g. within the framework
of bilateral or broader, multinational European projects. We come back
herewith to these ideas, with additional information and one more domain of
potential joint work. Let us emphasise that in all those fields not only
definite research work is, of course, being carried out, but, actually, some
collaborative work is, as well, underway.
These activities, and the related ideas, concentrate around the following
four themes (which, of course, do by no means limit the potential scope of
concepts for future collaborative work):
-
modeling for the evaluation of the
consequences of and design of changes in the Common Agricultural Policy;
there are already a number of models that supposedly do the job, but
what virtually all of them lack is the micro- or landscape, or community
dimension (or, at a bare minimum – the one of a municipality); on the
other hand there is also a gap on the real macro scale meaning aggregate
effects for the EU and the world; in conditions of the current crisis
the knowledge of potential consequences of various policies and
instruments at the scale of the real processes, and not only somewhat
abstract aggregates, becomes even more important;
-
assessing and modeling the role of ICT in
development (place and role in the feedback loop), especially in terms
of development dynamics from various starting points, and the
possibility of short-cuts; here, as well, the local and regional
dimension is of importance; again, this applies equally to the macro-
and the real micro- dimensions, in economic and spatial terms;
-
modeling the consequences of policies
related to the “green paths”, and the possibility of making (or leaving
open and effectively available) the truly “optimum” choices and avoiding
the “green paradoxes”, without bearing too much of economic and social
costs that would impair short- and medium-term competitiveness; this
involves an intricate interplay of time horizons, investment and risk,
mainly associated with energy; the recent events on the world scene, oil
prices and global-warming-related undertakings included, show it very
clearly that the respective models are indeed necessary, and, at that, a
variety of them, that could grasp the different aspects and perspectives
on these issues;
-
development of the methodologies related
to decision making under uncertainty in situations of emergency, with
the use of decision rules, decision trees, fuzzy and intuitionistic
logic, and respective linguistic representations; this set of
methodological tools might be of high value in devising decision support
systems for the high-risk operations with limited information and high
uncertainty;
-
the economic war, its instruments,
mechanisms, and its consequences – the historical precedents, the impact
on the adversaries, the true victims and the actual beneficiaries; this,
set against the surprisingly rich background of the current events,
starting with winter 2013/2014, seems to be a subject that has three
exceptionally significant aspects: (I) the capacity to wage the economic
war, along with the expected effects in formal, “official” terms; (II)
the role of the economic war in uncovering the veiled bottom line facts
of the economic situation and economic policies; and (III) the true
victims and the actual beneficiaries of such circumstances.
Should you be interested in collaboration on
these themes, or in coining other ones of potential
interest to members of MODEST, please, contact us about it.
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