2021-06-22: ACM SIGSIM PADS Trip Report

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The 2021 ACM SIGSIM Principles of Advanced Discrete Simulations (PADS) was held at Old Dominion University Virginia Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation Center (VMASC) on May 31-June 2, 2021, as a virtual conference. The PADS conference series started in 1986, as Parallel and Distributed Simulation methods and applications became SIGSIM PADS, the flagship conference of ACM SIGSIM. 2021 ACM SIGSIM PADS is the 9th SIGSIM PADS and the 35th conference overall. The conference series captures the new advancements in modeling and simulations, and it was the first time I attended a conference in the simulation. The conference consists of 5 sessions for presenting accepted papers, two keynote sessions, two editorial sessions, and a Ph.D. colloquium.

Day 1 (May 31)

Day 1 started with the session from general chair Dr. Saikou Diallo, general co-chair Dr. Andreas Tolk, and Program chair Dr. Philippe Giabbanelli where they reviewed the history of the conference series and frontiers for the simulation. An important aspect was the possible frontiers in quantum computing in modeling and simulation highlighted by the trends in quantum computing.

The first session of the day was the session on Machine Learning and Simulation, starting with the best paper of the conference, "Data-driven Microscopic Traffic Modelling and Simulation using Dynamic LSTM," which encompasses an LSTM model for real-world traffic data with online learning. 

Furthermore, the session included the runner-up paper titled "Differentiable Agent-Based Simulation for Gradient Guided Simulation-Based Optimizations", which incorporates the automatic differentiation in time-driven agent-based simulations.

The second session of the morning was on Agent-Based Modeling, which improved agent-based modeling and digital twins. The paper explores the idea of digital twins and applications in smart cities encompassing IoT.


The second presentation was on the consistency and causality in agent-based modeling, proposing a conflict resolution methodology, and the final presentation was on how Agent-Based modeling can be applied in Computational Social Sciences in understanding popular and unpopular social norms.

 

The evening session of the conference started with the keynote session from Dr. Jon Cline from MITRE Corporation. The session covered various modeling systems for different ecological systems, including modeling migratory animal behavior.

 

The next session was the Ph.D. colloquium, where students presented their research to the community. The session had 11 student presentations ranging from parallel computing to advance concepts in modeling and simulations. The presentations covered parallel computing in discrete event scheduling, heterogeneous platform simulations, and network emulation.

Then the session continued onto projects in agent-based modeling. The session covered projects with agent-based modeling in a wide range of applications. The topics included urban shrinkage, deep learning, game theory, and social complexity.

Day 1 of the conference concluded with the Ph.D. final session of the Ph.D. colloquium, with projects in advanced techniques in modeling and simulation. The projects focused on combining aspects of machine learning for improving modeling and simulation.

 

Day 2 (June 1) 

The second day of the conference started with the "breakfast with editor" session, where the participants can discuss various aspects relating to publishing with an editor. The editors for the session were Dr. Anthony Chang, Editor-in-Chief, Intelligence-Based Medicine (Elsevier), and Dr. Navonil Mustafee, Joint Editor, Journal of Simulation (Taylor & Francis). The presentation covered topics such as interdisciplinary research, reproducibility, and the impact of machine learning. Furthermore, the editors provided insights on maintaining the review processes, maintaining the quality of research, and setting directions for journals.

Then the conference continued with the remaining paper presentations of the conference, starting with papers in advances in simulation and execution. The articles concentrated mainly on parallel computing and avenues of improvement.

Next were the presentations on distributed environments, which covered topics of IoT and distributed virtual environments.

The evening session began with the second keynote speech of the conference by Dr. Donald Combs. Dr. Combs is the Vice President and Dean of the School of Health Professions at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS). The speech title was "The digital patient and the digital neighborhood." It highlighted the importance of modeling and simulation in healthcare through the complexity of the healthcare system and the ongoing pandemic.

The final presentation session of the conference concentrated on discrete event Simulations. The presentations covered broader aspects of discrete event simulations, such as real-time and parallel simulations, to applications such as in UAVs.

After two successful days, the conference concluded with the special hour facilitated by Dr. Andreas Tolk from MITRE Corporation.

 Best paper: Data-driven Microscopic Traffic Modelling and Simulation using Dynamic LSTM

 Runner-up: Differentiable Agent-Based Simulation for Gradient-Guided Simulation-Based Optimization

-- Bhanuka (@mahanama94)

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