Simulations Special Issue – THE SOCIETAL AND ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF COMPUTER SIMULATIONS [DEADLINE EXTENSION]

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Simulations Special Issue [DEADLINE EXTENSION] THE SOCIETAL AND ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF COMPUTER SIMULATIONS (S18-2)

Guest Editors:
– Juan M. Durán (TU Delft)
– Jeroen van den Hoven (TU Delft)

Computer simulations are a fundamental method for the progress of scientific and engineering research. Jim Gray (2007) called them the third paradigm of research, along with theory, experiment and Big Data (the first, second and fourth paradigm respectively). While the specialised literature has extensively focused on epistemological, ontological and methodological issues of computer simulations (Humphreys, 2004, Winsberg, 2010, Morrison, 2015, Durán, 2018), less has been said on the social and ethical dimensions of computer simulations (Brey 1999, 2008, Tolk and Ören, 2017).

The purpose of the special issue “The societal and ethical dimensions of computer simulations” is to address core questions about the role and use of computer simulations in scientific and engineering practice, as well as their influence in society, democracy, and education, among other contexts. To this end, we invite philosophers, educators, sociologists, engineers, scientists and all researchers interested in studies on computer simulations to submit their work to this special issue (for a list of possible topics, see below).

This special issue of SIMULATION (http://journals.sagepub.com/home/sim) addresses critical concerns in the actual practice and use of computer simulations in scientific and engineering research. To this end, we invite researchers invested in answering these problems to submit to this special issue. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

– Ethics:
• Code of conduct
• Bias simulations, democracy, and justice
• Irresponsible uses of results of simulations
• The profession of designing, programming, and using computer simulations

– Values for design:
• The accountability of designers, programmers, and users of computer simulations
• Responsible innovation with computer simulations
• Shaping policymaking in the light of computer-based research
• Values, uncertainties, and distrust in simulation models

– Education:
• Including methods from computer science in scientific and engineering curricula
• Educating engineers and scientists to simulate-first build-later

– The future of science and engineering:
• Computer simulations as the third paradigm of research
• New forms of scientific and engineering practice
• Computer simulations, AI, and Big Data: the new frontiers of science and engineering

Submission Guidelines: All papers should be developed, formatted and submitted based upon the editorial guidelines provided in the instructions for authors for “Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modelling and Simulation International,” which can be accessed from (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/journal/simulation#submission-guidelines). The authors should choose the Article Type as “Special Issue “at the first step of the submission process and put “Special Issue: S18-2 THE SOCIETAL AND ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF COMPUTER SIMULATION in the title and cover letter of your submissions. The process of review and publication is the same as the regular issue of “Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modelling and Simulation International.”

Due Dates:

NEW submission deadline: September 30, 2019.

If you have questions, please contact: j.m.duran@tudelft.nl.

References:

Brey, Philip. 1999. “The Ethics of Representation and Action in Virtual Reality.” Ethics and Information Technology 1 (1). Kluwer Academic Publishers: 5–14.
Brey, Philip. 2008. “Virtual Reality and Computer Simulation.” In The Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics, edited by Kenneth Einar Himma and Herman T Tavani, 361–84.
Durán, Juan M. 2018. Computer Simulations in Science and Engineering. Concepts – Practices – Perspectives. Springer.
Humphreys, Paul W. 2004. Extending Ourselves: Computational Science, Empiricism, and Scientific Method. Oxford University Press.
Morrison, Margaret. 2015. Reconstructing Reality. Models, Mathematics, and Simulations. Oxford University Press.
Tolk, Andreas, Tuncer I Ören, eds. 2017. The Profession of Modeling and Simulation. Wiley.
Winsberg, Eric. 2010. Science in the Age of Computer Simulation. University of Chicago Press.

Dr. Juan M. Durán
TU Delft
Department of Values, Technology and Innovation
Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management
Jaffalaan 5
2628 BX Delft – B 4.310
The Netherlands
2019 Herbert A. Simon Award – IACAP
juanmduran.net – Academia.edu

HaPoC5: EXTENDED DEADLINE

The submission deadline for Abstract to the 5th International Conference on the History and Philosophy of computing has been extended. New dates:

Submission deadline: May 13, 2019 (extended)
Notification of acceptance/rejection: June 30, 2019
Conference dates: October 28-30, 2019

Post-doc in the project DEMaIn

Hello.

The project DEMaIn (funded by ANR) hires a Ph.D. for a one-year post-doctoral position in Didactics of Mathematics and interactions with Informatics, at the University of Montpellier (France). The researcher will contribute to ongoing didactical engineering work in the fields of the project, and in particular, participate in the experimental setting. The position is for one year, starting in summer or autumn 2019.
(Speaking French is recommended)

Contact: simon.modeste@umontpellier.fr

Regards,
Simon MODESTE

PROGRAMme spring workshop: Machines

It is my pleasure to announce that the next event on the history and philosophy of computer programs within the framework of the PROGRAMme project (https://programme.hypotheses.org/) will be held from June 5-7 2019 at the MESHS, 2 Rue des Canonniers, 59000 Lille, espace Baïetto and Salle 002.

On June 5 we will have the last session of the academic year of the Lille-Paris séminaire HEPIC (Histoire et Philosophie de l’informatique et du calcul) around the topic: /Computing – a human activity?/ Speakers are:

13h-14h15: David Aubin (Université de Paris 6), Astronomical tables as work, 16th-18th centuries
14h15-14h30: pause
14h30-15h45: Stephen Kell (University of Kent), Software against humanity? An Illichian perspective on the industrial era of software
15h45-16h15: pause
16h15-17h30: Christiane Floyd (Technical University of Vienna), The move to activity-centered views of software development

From June 6-7 the Spring workshop 2019 of the PROGRAMme project is organized. It is the second in a series of four workshops. Each focuses on one of the PROGRAMme project’s main clusters in connection to the other three. The second workshop will focus on the cluster Machines and so offers reflections on a set of historical, philosophical and epistemological question on Computing Machines, broadly interpreted, and this in relation to the other three clusters (Logic; Programming languages and notations; Systems).

In order to register, please send a mail with your affiliation to: liesbeth.demol@univ-lille3.fr *before May 20 2019*. Registration is free but required in order to attend.

For more details, including the program, see:

https://programme.hypotheses.org/spring-workshop-i-machines

Organizor of the workshop: Liesbeth De Mol (CNRS, UMR 8163 STL, Université de Lille 3)

Organizers of the séminaire are: Liesbeth De Mol (CNRS, UMR 8163 STL, Université de Lille), Alberto Naibo (IHPST, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, ENS), Maël Pegny (IHPST, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, ENS)

The workshop is supported by l’UMR 8163 Savoirs, Textes, Langage (https://stl.univ-lille.fr/); l’ANR PROGRAMme (https://programme.hypotheses.org/), le platforme DATA de la MESHS (projet HEPIC, https://www.meshs.fr/page/hepic).

The séminaire is supported by: l’UMR 8590 IHPST (http://www.ihpst.cnrs.fr/); l’UMR 8163 Savoirs, Textes, Langage (https://stl.univ-lille.fr/); l’ANR PROGRAMme (https://programme.hypotheses.org/), le platforme DATA de la MESHS (projet HEPIC, https://www.meshs.fr/page/hepic).

HaPoC 2019: 3rd Call for Abstracts

5th International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Computing
28-30 October 2019
Bergamo, Italy
Website: https://hapoc2019.sciencesconf.org
Email: hapoc2019@sciencesconf.org

Today more than ever computers have taken center stage in our lives: science, economy, politics, art, there is no single human endeavour that has been left unaffected by Information Technologies. Whether this impact is positive or negative, is still very much up for debate. People connected to the Internet can enjoy an unprecedented amount of information and computing power at their disposal, but more and more negative side effects of a widespread use of computers are brought to our attention: automation bias, echo chambers, shortened attention spans, job displacement, election hacking are just a few examples. The latest AI-hype fuelled by computationally feasible machine learning techniques have brought to reality philosophical topics previously relegated to mental experiments and theoretical discourses. The trolley problem has never been more popular thanks to self-driving cars. The need to conduct a systematic and well-informed discussion in a context ranging from theoretical and mathematical problems to labour and resource exploitation issues is evident. The broken dialogue between young and aggressively finance-oriented tech moguls and old-school politicians fumbling for regulation of little-known phenomena is not promising.

HaPoC’s appeal to historical and philosophical reflection aims at addressing this shortcoming. We aim to bring together researchers exploring the various aspects of computation: historians, philosophers, computer scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, designers, manufacturers, practitioners, artists, logicians, mathematicians, each with their own experience and expertise, all part of a society impacted by computation, and all necessary to the creation of a better discourse.

Main Topics

For HaPoC 2019, we welcome contributions from scholars who intend to participate in the debate on the impact of computers on culture, science, and society from the perspective of their area of expertise, and who are open to engage in interdisciplinary discussions across multiple fields. Topics include but are not limited to:
– History of computation, computers, algorithms, programs, paradigms, software and hardware companies and communities, …
– Philosophy of computation, philosophy of the mind in relation with computer science, ethics of computer science, epistemology of computer science…
– Foundational issues of computation, limits of computability, the Church-Turing thesis, formal systems, semantic of programs, …
– Computation in the Sciences, experiments and simulations with computers, big data analytics, epistemological issues, …
– Computation in Society, social networks, news and content distribution, automation, digital divide, privacy and security, …
– Computation in the Arts, digital art, interactivity, computer games, affective computing, human-computer interaction, …

How to submit

We cordially invite researchers working in a field relevant to the main topics of the conference to submit a short abstract of 180-200 words and an extended abstract of at most a 1000 words (references included) through EasyChair at:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=hapoc2019

Accepted papers will be presented in 30 minute slots including discussion. Abstracts must be written in English. Please note that the format of uploaded files must be in .pdf. Submissions without extended abstract will not be considered.

IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline: April 30, 2019
Notification of acceptance/rejection: June 30, 2019
Conference dates: October 28-30, 2019

Travel Grants

The HaPoC Council is happy to announce the availability of four HAPOC travel grants of $250 each to support participation at the conference. An accepted paper is required in order to be eligible for the grant. In order to apply, please send the following details to info@hapoc.org:

CV and a brief (up to 200 words) description of why you require financial support
The title of your HaPoC 2019 submission
Detailed budget indicating any other funding possibilities (if available)

Post-proceedings

A special issue of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews (Taylor & Francis)

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/yisr20/current

will be dedicated to the works presented at HaPoC 2019. The tentative calendar is as follows:

HaPoC conference: 28-30 October 2019
Special Issue Call for Papers: December 2019
Deadline for submissions: 01 June 2020
Reviewing process: July to September 2020
Notifications: 30 September 2020
Deadline for revised papers: 31 December 2020
Special Issue publication: beginning of 2021

2 HaPoC Symposia at CLMPST2019

The 16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON LOGIC, METHODOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY will be held in Prague (Czech Republic) from 5th to 10th August 2019. The Commission for the History and Philosophy of Computing will contribute to the programme with 2 Symposia:

– BigData: Philosophy of Big Data (organised by Paula Quinon, International Center for Formal Ontology, Warsaw University of Technology / Department of Philosophy, Lund University)
Jens Ulrik Hansen, Philosophizing on Big Data, Data Science, and AI
Gregory Wheeler, Prolegomena to Machine Epistemology
Wolfgang Pietsch, On the epistemology of data science – the rise of a new inductivism
Domenico Napoletani, Marco Panza and Daniele C. Struppa, Finding a Way Back: Philosophy of Data Science on Its Practice
Sabina Leonelli, Semantic interoperability: The oldest challenge and newest frontier of Big Data
Helena Kossowska, Big Data in Life Science
Alejandro Espinosa‐Rada, Big data needed for network science or network science for social networks?

– IdCFAS: Identity in Computational Formal and Applied Systems (organised by Nicola Angius, Università degli Studi di Sassari and Giuseppe Primiero, Università degli Studi di Milano)
Ansten Klev, Definitional Identity in Arithmetics
Alberto Naibo and Luca Tranchini, Harmony, Stability, and the intensional account of proof-theoretic semantics
Massimiliano Carrara, Copies and Replicas of Computational Artefacts
Nicola Angius and Giuseppe Primiero, Second-Order Properties of Copied Computational Artefacts
Roberta Ferrario, Organisations and variable embodiments