• [2012.05.09] International Workshop on Emerging Frontiers in System and Control
• [2011.05.25] Prof. Chenyang Lu gave a talk
• [2011.05.20] Dr. Paul Werbos gave a talk
• [2011.03.23] Prof. Costas J. Spanos from University of California, Berkeley gave a talk
• [2010.11.26] CFINS professors attended the celebration workshop and party at HKUST for Prof. Cao's retirement
• [2010.11.26] Prof. Le-Yuan Shi Has Been Elevated to IEEE Fellow
• [2010.09.26] Our Center won support from Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities
• [2010.09.14] The professors and students of CFINS attending the CASE 2010
• [2010.09.06] Prof. Qianchuan Zhao received one project from National Sciences Foundation of China (NSFC)
• [2010.07.12] Prof. Shankar Sastry was awarded the Guest Professorship in Department of Automation
• [2010.07.07-07.10] The 8th World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation
• [2010.07.05] Prof. Michael Fu from University of Maryland gave a talk
• [2010.07.05] Prof. Zhijie Jerry Shi from University of Connecticut gave a talk
• [2010.06.21] Guoyu Tu defended ph.d. thesis
• [2010.05.29] Prof. Ho is visiting CFINS in May
• [2010.05.26] Prof. Jie Wang from University of Massachusetts at Lowell gave a talk
• [2010.03.29] Dr. Qing-Shan Jia visited Prof. Xi-Ren Cao
• [2010.03.09] Call for papers - Ho-Pan-Qing-Yi Best Paper Award
• [2009.12.16] The professors and students of CFINS attending the CDC’09
• [2009.12.15] The workshop of Five Decades of Ho-ntrol and Ho-ptimization
• [2009.12.14] CFINS held Work Summing-up Meeting
• [2009.12.11] Prof. Yu-Chi Ho from Harvard University gave a talk
• [2009.12.10] Prof. Xiaohong Guan's visit to Prof. Peter B. Luh's lab in University of Connecticut
• [2009.12.08] Prof. Javier Contreras form University of Castilla - La Mancha Gave a Talk
• [2009.11.28] The 231th Tsinghua Forum for Doctoral Candidates
• [2009.11.18] Sharing Precious Experiences in a Special Session, Prof. Ho Began His Visit to CFINS
• [2009.11.11] The paper on modeling the dynamics of public opinions published by CFINS student and faculty members is recommended and reported
• [2009.10.19] Prof. Hao TANG from HeFei University of Technology Gave a Talk
• [2009.10.17] CFINS Phd Students Mingyang Li and Li Zhao Visit Professor Ho
• [2009.10.16] Prof. CAO Ming form National University of Groningen Gave a Talk
• [2009.10.11-10.14] Prof. Cao and Dr. Jia gave invited talks in INFORMS Annual Meeting 2009
• [2009.09.15] Prof. Loo Hay Lee form NUS Gave a Talk on OCBA Approach
• [2009.09.15] Tsinghua University-UTC Joint Laboratory visited UTRC's headquarters
• [2009.09.14] Prof. Peter B. Luh and Prof. Qianchuan Zhao attended a joint workshop
• [2009.07.01] Prof. Dimitri P. Bertsekas from MIT gave an talk
• [2009.06.25] Prof. Dimitri P. Bertsekas starts visiting CFINS
• [2009.06.24] Prof. Chun-Hung Chen form George Mason Univ. gave a talk
• [2009.06.22] Prof. Shi, Leyuan from UW-Madison gave an talk
• [2009.06.09] Attending IFAC INCOM'09
• [2009.06.05] Prof. Peter B. Luh from UConn gave an talk
• [2009.06.02] Prof. Shi, Leyuan starts visiting CFINS
• [2009.05.24] Prof. Peter B. Luh starts visiting CFINS
• [2009.05.21] Prof. Chen Xi visited Prof. Xunyu Zhou
• [2009.05.16] Prof. Xi-Ren Cao starts visiting CFINS
• [2009.04.12] Prof. Xi-Ren Cao starts visiting CFINS
• [2009.03.14] Prof. TONG Lang starts visiting CFINS
• [2009.02.20] Lecture: Will The Internet Soon Outsmart Humans?, Prof. Weibo Gong, UMass
• [2008.12.22] Prof. Qianchuan Zhao accepted an interview with Elsevier
• [2008.11.28] Dr. Mike Tao Zhang from Spansion Inc. gave an talk
• [2008.10.22] Prof. Li QIU from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology gave an talk
• [2008.10.16] Prof. Qianchuan Zhao and Dr. Qing-Shan Jia visited Prof. Dimitri P. Bertsekas
• [2008.10.14] Prof. Qianchuan Zhao and Dr. Qing-Shan Jia visited Prof. Yu-Chi Ho
• [2008.10.12] INFORMS Annual meeting 2008
• [2008.10.11] Prof. Qianchuan Zhao and Dr. Qing-Shan Jia visited Prof. Chun-Hung Chen
• [2008.9] Two Ph.D. candidates at CFINS visited Prof. Ho
• [2008.9] Two Ph.D. candidates at CFINS visited Prof. Luh
• Old news & events

Organized by Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems, Tsinghua University Institute of Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Sponsored by IEEE Control Systems Society IEEE Control Systems Society Beijing Chapter Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology

Chair: Xiaohong Guan

Co-Chair: Yiguang Hong

Program Chair: Qingshan Jia

Date: May 18 (Friday), 2012

Location: Lecture Hall of FIT Building, Tsinghua University

For more details please download this file: Workshop.Agenda.updated on 20120514p.pdf

Invited by CFINS, Professor Chenyang Lu has visited CFINS recently. Prof. Lu is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University. He gave a talk on "Real-Time Scheduling for Wireless Control Networks: a WirelessHART Case Study" at Room 511 Main Building in the morning of 2011.5.25. Audiences from various departments or schools attended the talk, and have a great discussion with Prof. Lu.

Invited by CFINS, Dr. Paul Werbos has visited CFINS recently. Dr. Werbos is Program Director for Energy, Power and Adaptive Systems National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov).He gave a talk on "Strategy to Reach a Truly Intelligent Power Grid" at Room 511 Main Building in the morning of 2011.5.18. Over fifty audiences from various departments or schools attended the talk, and have a great discussion with Dr. Werbos. Prof. Peter Luh, Prof. Xiaohong Guan and Prof. Lang Tong (our 111 international collaboration project member) have also attended the talk.

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Invited by Professor Xiaohong Guan, Professor Costas J. Spanos has visited CFINS recently. Professor Spanos is the chair of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of University of California, Berkeley. He gave a talk on "The Self-Optimizing Building" at FIT-1-415 in the afternoon. Over thirty audiences from the Department of Automation and the Department of Electronic Engineering attended the talk, and have a great discussion with Professor Spanos. Prof. Qing-Shan Jia has also attended the talk.

The funding for the Foundation of Intelligent and Networked Systems in our department, which is led by Prof. Guan, has been extended to another five years in the last year. Prof. Spanos is a member of this project (known as the 111 international collaboration project), and thus will spend more time in Tsinghua in the next five years.

On Nov. 26, 2010, the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology threw a half-day workshop “Good, Bad, or Optimal?” and a great celebration dinner party for Prof. Xi-Ren Cao’s retirement at HKUST. In the half-day workshop, Prof. Guan gave a talk titled “Energy Efficient Buildings Facilitated by Smart Grid” which covered some of CFINS’s recent progress in building energy saving. In the dinner party, Prof. Zhao presented a gift to Prof. Cao to thank his contributions to CFINS in the past ten years. Prof. Xi Chen and Dr. Qing-Shan Jia also attended the workshop and the dinner party.

Great Congratulations to Prof. Le-Yuan Shi for Her Elevation to IEEE Fellow!

The IEEE Board of Directors, following a rigorous evaluation procedure, at its meeting on November, 2010, elevated Prof. Le-Yuan Shi to IEEE Fellow, effective 1 January 2011, with the citation "for contributions to nested partitions optimization methodology".

Our Center won support from Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities(National 111 International Collaboration Project), which has been jointly organized by Ministry of Education and State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs. It aims to upgrade the scientific renewal and peers competition of Chinese universities by establishing innovation centers and gathering groups of first-class minds from around the world.

The 6th IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE) was held during August 21-24, 2010 in Toronto, Canada. Two papers listed following of CFINS were accepted by the conference. Prof. Xiaohong Guan, Prof. Peter Luh, Prof. Qianchuan Zhao, Prof. Xi Chen, and two CFINS students, Yiping Qi and Biao Sun attended the CASE’2010. Yiping Qi presented the paper jointly with Prof. Chen Xi. Biao Sun presented the paper jointly with Prof. Peter Luh, Prof. Qing-Shan Jia, Dr. Ziyan Jiang from Department of Building Science (DBS) and Prof. Fulin Wang from DBS, and Dr. Chen Song from UTRC.

[1] Biao Sun, Peter B. Luh, Fellow, IEEE, Qing-Shan Jia, Member, IEEE, Ziyan Jiang, Fulin Wang, and Chen Song, An Integrated Control of Shading Blinds, Natural Ventilation, and HVAC Systems for Energy Saving and Human Comfort.

[2] Yiping Qi and Xi Chen, Stochastic Optimization of Hydro-thermal System with Annual Water Consumption Constraints.

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Prof. Qianchuan Zhao received one project from National Sciences Foundation of China (NSFC): Timing analysis and control of networked DEDS, PI Prof. Qianchuan Zhao (Approval No. 61074034, Jan 2011 - Dec 2013) .

Professor Shankar Sastry, the dean of the Engineering School of UC Berkeley, member of National Academy of Engineering, was awarded the Guest Professorship in Department of Automation, Tsinghua University on July 12, 2010. A ceremony was held in the Tsinghua National Laboratory of Information Science and Technology. Professor Si Yuan, the vice president of Tsinghua University, Professor Zhisheng Niu, the vice dean of School of Information Science and Technology, Professor Donghua Zhou, the chair of Department of Automation, Professor Zuo Zhang, the departmental committee of the CPC, Professor Xiaohong Guan, the director of Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems (CFINS), Professor Qianchuan Zhao, the vice director of CFINS, and other professors and students of Department of Automation attended this ceremony. Professor Sastry has been working to establish more collaboration between UC Berkeley and Tsinghua. His Guest Professorship in our department lays a good foundation for further collaborations between the two universities in energy saving in buildings, smart power grid, and wireless sensor network, just to name a few, in the near future.

Picture 1 (from left to right): Vice President Yuan and Professor Sastry.

Picture 2 (from left to right): Profs. Niu, Zhang, Yuan, Sastry, Zhou, and Guan.

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Prof. Luh, Prof. Cao, Prof. Guan, and Dr. Jia from CFINS attended the 8th World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation (WCICA 2010) in Jinan, Shandong Province during July 7 to July 10. The Ho-Pan-Qing-Yi Best Paper Award in Discrete Event Dynamic Systems this year was awarded to the following paper. The authors jointly share 1,000 USD donated by Prof. Yu-Chi Ho, the chief scientist of CFINS. Tang, H. and Arai, T., “Look-ahead control of conveyor-serviced production station by using potential-based online policy iteration,” International Journal of Control, 2009, 82(10): 1917-1928.

Professor Michael Fu from University of Maryland started visit of CFINS and gave a talk entitled “Stochastic Gradient Estimation: Survey and Recent Research” on 2010.7.2.

Abstract: Stochastic Gradient Estimation: Survey and Recent Research

We review the main techniques for stochastic gradient estimation, where direct unbiased estimators are obtained for simulation models. The techniques discussed are perturbation analysis, the likelihood ratio (score function) method, and weak derivatives. Some recent research results are also presented.

Biography of Prof. Michael Fu

MICHAEL C. FU is Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Management Science in the Robert H.~Smith School of Business, with a joint appointment in the Institute for Systems Research and affiliate faculty appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, all at the University of Maryland. He received degrees in mathematics and EE/CS from MIT, and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Harvard University. His research interests include simulation optimization and applied probability, with applications in supply chain management and financial engineering. He has published four books: Conditional Monte Carlo: Gradient Estimation and Optimization Applications (1997), which received the INFORMS Simulation Society Outstanding Publication Award in 1998; Simulation-based Algorithms for Markov Decision Processes (2007); Perspectives in Operations Research (2006); and Advances in Mathematical Finance (2007). He served as Stochastic Models and Simulation Department Editor of Management Science from 2006-2008, and IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, and as Simulation Area Editor of Operations Research 2000-2005, and is Program Chair for the 2011 Winter Simulation Conference. He was named a University of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher for 2004-2005, and is a Fellow of INFORMS and IEEE.

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Professor Zhijie Jerry Shi from Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Connecticut (UConn) visited CFINS on 2010.7.2 and gave a talk entitled “Towards Comprehensive Countermeasures to Power Analysis Attacks”.

Abstract: Towards Comprehensive Countermeasures to Power Analysis Attacks

Cryptographic algorithms are critical elements of the security of computer systems. They are used to achieve basic security functions such as confidentiality, data integrity, and authentication. Evident by enormous numbers of successful attacks, simply adopting cryptographic algorithms does not ensure the security of the system. The implementations of cryptographic algorithms are as important as the design. During a cryptographic operation, computer systems leak a lot of side-channel information, including timing, power, electromagnetic radiation, visible light, error message, etc. Side-channel attacks exploit the side-channel information from the implementation to obtain the secret data that have been processed. They are very effective even if the cryptographic algorithms are secure against the conventional attacks based on mathematical analysis of the input and output data. In this presentation, we discuss several techniques that mitigate power analysis attacks, including window-based countermeasure for elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and register file with redundant flipped copies.

Biography of Prof. Zhijie Jerry Shi

Zhijie Jerry Shi is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Connecticut (UConn). He received his Ph.D. degree from Princeton University in 2004 and his M.S. and B.S. degrees from Tsinghua University, China, in 1996 and 1992, respectively. Professor Shi received USA NSF CAREER award in 2006. His current research interests include hardware mechanisms for secure and reliable computing, side channel attacks and countermeasures, primitives for ultra-efficient cipher designs, sensor network security, application specific instruction-set instruction processor(ASIP) and embedded system designs, and underwater sensor networks.

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Guoyu Tu defended the final thesis for the ph.d. degree successfully.

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During the past week, he has given detailed and constructive comments to a group of graduate students and some senior undergraduate students. He not only commented on their research proposals, but also gave the general advices on how to give a technical talk. The students are now revising their research proposals according to the feedback, and are preparing for the second round discussions. Besides the technical discussions with the students, Prof. Ho will also check the research progress in the several main research directions in CFINS, and will provide guidance.

Invited by Prof. Weibo Gong and Dr. Qingshan Jia in CFINS, Prof. Jie Wang from University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Chair of the Department of Computer Science at UMASS Lowell, gave a talk titled “Constructing Spatial Barriers with Underwater Sensor Networks” in FIT-1-415, at 10:00am on May 26th 2010. Dr. Jia hosted the talk, and Prof. Xi Chen in CFINS and other students attended the talk. The audiences introduced their own research interests to Prof. Wang after the talk. In the afternoon, Prof. Wang gave another seminar on knowledge discovery in computer science department. Dr. Jia and several other students from CFINS also attended that seminar.

Dr. Qing-Shan Jia visited Prof. Xi-Ren Cao at the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, the Hong Kong University of Science and Engineering. Dr. Jia will stay for three months and collaborate with Prof. Cao on event-based dynamic programming.

See Chinese Version

The combined 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) and 28th Chinese Control Conference (CCC) was held Wednesday through Friday, December 16-18, 2009 in Shanghai, China. Three papers listed following of CFINS were accepted by the conference. The professors and students of CFINS attended the CDC’09.

The annual IEEE Conference on Decision and Control is internationally recognized as the premier scientific and engineering conference dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practice of systems and control. It is the first the IEEE Control Systems Society has chosen to hold its flagship conference in China.

[1] Qing-Shan Jia, Improved Constrained Ordinal Optimization for Simulation-Based Constrained Optimization.

[2] Jianghai Li, Qing-Shan Jia, Xiaohong Guan, Xi Chen, Tracking Moving Object Via a Sensor Network with Partial Information Broadcasting Scheme.

[3] Qing-Shan Jia, Min Xie, Felix F. Wu, Ordinal Optimization Based Security Dispatching in Deregulated Power Systems.

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On Dec., 15th, 2009, a workshop named Five Decades of Ho-ntrol and Ho-ptimization was held in Shanghai International Convention Center. The workshop was one of the pre-conference workshops of 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. The workshop was dedicated to Prof.Yu-Chi Larry Ho who started his professional career in the systems and control community fifty years ago, by some of his former students who are very active in this field. The workshop was organized by Christos G. Cassandras from Boston University and Weibo Gong from University of Massachusetts. Nine talks are given, including Dah Ming Chiu from Chinese University of Hong Kong, Xi-Ren Cao from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Pirooz Vakili from Boston University, Leyuan Shi from University of Wisconsin-Madison, Qing-Shan Jia from Tsinghua University, Peter B. Luh from University of Connecticut, and Jian-Qiang Hu from Fudan University.

For more details please see http://www.ieeecss.org/CAB/conferences/cdc2009/index.php?page=workshops#Cassandras

On December 14, 2009, during the Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), CFINS teachers summed up the past work and discussed the future development plans.

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On 10:30am of December 11th, Prof. Yu-Chi Ho from Harvard University gave a talk titled A Personal Account of the Past, Present, and Future of Control Theory and Systems－Living the Experience from 1959-2009, in Room 511, Central Building. Prof. Dong-Hua Zhou, Prof. Zuo Zhang, Prof. Xi Chen, Dr. Qing-Shan JIA, and many students attended this talk. After the talk, Prof. Yu-Chi Ho had a good discussion with the audience.

Abstract: A Personal Account of the Past, Present, and Future of Control Theory and Systems－Living the Experience from 1959-2009

I shall use my personal experience from 1959-2009 to illustrate in a bigger context the history and future prospects of this relatively mature discipline.

Biography of Prof. Yu-Chi Ho

Prof. Yu-Chi Ho received his S.B. and S.M. degrees in Electrical Engineering from M.I.T. and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. Except for three years of full time industrial work he has been on the Harvard faculty. Since 1969 he has been Gordon McKay Professor of Engineering and AppliedMathematics. In 1988, he was appointed to the T. Jefferson Coolidge Chair in Applied Mathematics and Gordon McKay Professor of Systems Engineering at Harvard and as visiting professor to the Cockrell Family Regent’s Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas, Austin. In 2001, he retired from teaching duties at Harvard and became a Research Professor (2001–2006) and also was appointed to be a chair professor and chief scientist (part time), at the Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems (CFINS), Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing China.

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Professor Xiaohong Guan, who is in University of Connecticut (UCONN) participating in the ceremony for the UCONN Distinguished Engineering Awards, visited Professor Peter B. Luh's lab in UCONN in the morning of December 10 (EST). Although Professor Luh is currently visiting National Taiwan University, Professor Guan still had a good discussion with the students in the lab. Professor Guan shared with the stuednts his studying experience in UCONN more than 20 years ago, and gave many valuable suggestions on doing research work. Meanwhile, the lab showed Professor Guan the newly implemented video tele-conference system, and made a test connection with the system in Xi'an Jiaotong Unversity.

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Invited by Dr. Qingshan Jia in CFINS, Prof. Javier Contreras from University of Castilla - La Mancha gave a talk titled Finding multiple Nash equilibria in a spot market: an EPEC approach in FIT-3-415, at 17:30pm on D9c. 8th. Dr. Jia hosted the talk, and Many students from CFINS and other institutes attended the talk. The talk delivered plenty useful information and interested the audiences much. Prof. Javier had a good discussion with the audiences after the talk.

Abstract: Finding multiple Nash equilibria in a spot market: an EPEC approach

In competitive electricity markets, generating companies (GENCOs) offer their energy offers simultaneously to obtain the maximum profit on a daily basis. We find the optimal solution to the individual GENCO’s problem using a bilevel noncooperative game model, implemented as a Mathematical Problem with Equilibrium Constraints (MPEC). We also show that the market equilibrium, where each GENCO solves its own MPEC problem, can be set as an Equilibrium Problem with Equilibrium Constraints (EPEC). The nonconvex and nonlinear EPEC is approximated by a MILP problem. A search methodology is implemented to find the multiple Nash equilibria by adding linear constrains to the EPEC. Finally we show some examples to illustrate our MPEC and EPEC models.

Biographical Sketch:

Javier Contreras (IEEE Senior Member 05) was born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1965. He received a B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Zaragoza, an M.Sc. from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989, 1992, and 1997. His research interests include power systems planning, operations and economics, and electricity markets. He is currently Associate Professor at the Universidad de de Castilla - La Mancha, Ciudad Real, Spain.

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The 231th Tsinghua forum for Doctoral candidates was held successfully at Sanbao from Nov. 28th to Nov. 29th. Five Ph.D. candidates of CFINS, including Shuqiao Zhou, Hengtao Wang, Liyuan Sun, Da Wang and Qiang Li took part in the forum. Lec. Qing-Shan Jia of CFINS was invited to judge at the forum.

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Prof. Ho arrived in Beijing from the States and began his visit to CFINS on Nov. 18th. On Nov. 19th, he held a special session to share his experiences with students from CFINS and other departments, in FIT-1-315 at 16:00pm. Students asked questions on study, research, and career planning, and Prof. Ho gave answers to all the questions patiently and elaborately. The session was hosted by Dr. Qing-Shan Jia.

Prof. Ho has shared plenty of his experiences of teaching, researching, and daily life through his blog on the Science Net website. His blog articles are more than precious treasure for young scholars. All of the students have read the articles before the session and already gained much. They all prepared many questions to consult Prof. Ho, including those that are not mentioned in the blog articles. They actively asked the questions during the session, and finally appreciated the articles better with Prof. Ho's answer. They gave Prof. Ho a big applause at the end.

There will be another session in the next week in which Prof. Ho will share more of his life experiences.

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The paper "Bursty Propagation Model for Incidental Events in Blog Networks", coauthored by Ph.D student Li Zhao and faculty members Ruixi Yuan, Xiaohong Guan and Qingshan Jia of CFINS, is recommended and reported several times by Chinese academic organizations and news media.

On June 25, 2009, this paper was recommended to the media among the six key scientific papers on the 6th media reception of the year held by the Academic Department of China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). The paper published by CFINS was the only one recommended by Journal of Software (JOS). JOS made a presentation entitled "New Progress in the Study of Hot Topic Propagation in Blogosphere" in the above media reception. Science and Technology Review (STR) spoke highly of this paper in an article named "Domestic Journal Highlights" in a special section of the 13th issue of 2009. The paper was submitted to JOS in March 2008, accepted in October 2008 and was published in May 2009.

Related links:

The 6th media reception of the year, on the website of CAST: http://www.cast.org.cn/n35081/n35533/n38575/11330979.html

Memorable Events, on the website of JOS: http://www.jos.org.cn/ch/reader/view_fixed_content.aspx?id=qkjs

Domestic Journal Highlights, on the website of STR: http://www.kjdb.org/qikan/manage/wenzhang/200913015.pdf

Invited by Prof. Qianchuan Zhao in CFINS, Prof. Hao TANG from HeFei University of Technology gave a talk titled Semi-Markov Reinforcement Learning without Models and its Application in production systems in Room 3-620, FIT Building, at 5pm on Oct. 19th. He also introduced University of HeFei University, especially the lab of distributed control. Prof. Zhao hosted the talk and many students from CFINS attended the talk. The talk delivered plenty useful information and interested the audiences much. Prof. TANG had a good discussion with the audiences after the talk.

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CFINS Phd Students MIngyang Li and Li Zhao went to Lexington, Massachusetts to visit Professor Ho at his home on October 17, 2009. Professor Ho had lunch with the two students and talked with them on problems widely concerned by young students such as study, research, living and career development. Mingyang Li and Li Zhao are both CFINS students participating in the one year joint training Phd program sponsored by Chinese Scholarship Council. They are currently visiting, respectively, University of Connecticut (UCONN) and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

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Invited by Dr. Qingshan Jia in CFINS, Prof. CAO Ming from National University of Groningen, the Netherlands gave a talk titled Human-Robot Interactive Decision-Making in Room 407, Central Building, at 15:00pm on Oct. 16th. He also introduced University of Groningen and the recruitment information after the talk. Dr. Jia hosted the talk, and Many students from CFINS and other institutes attended the talk. The talk delivered plenty useful information and interested the audiences much. Prof. CAO had a good discussion with the audiences after the talk.

Abstract: Human-Robot Interactive Decision-Making

Profitable integration of human and robot decision-making dynamics should take advantage of strengths of human decision-makers as well as strengths of robotic agents. A major challenge in achieving this goal is understanding how humans make decisions and what are their associated strengths and weaknesses. Correspondingly, a central tenet of this work is to leverage the experimental and modeling work of psychologists and behavioral scientists on human decision-making. We focus on a well-studied class of sequential binary decision-making tasks. We introduce a decision-making problem associated with a collective robotic foraging task that integrates human and robotic decision making dynamics with feedback. To explore the integrated decision dynamics, we present two models of human decision-making and with these models we prove convergence of the human behavior to the observed aggregate decision-making. We also show how adaptive laws for the robot feedback that use only local information can be applied to help the human make optimal decisions.

Biography Sketch

Ming Cao is currently an assistant professor of Discrete Technology and Production Automation with Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He received the Bachelor degree in 1999 and the Master degree in 2002 from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and the Ph.D degree in 2007 from Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA, all in electrical engineering. From September 2007 to August 2008, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. He worked as a Research Intern during the summer of 2006 with the Mathematical Sciences Department at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, NY, USA. His main research interest is in autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, mobile sensor networks and social robotics. Since 2009, he has been an associate editor for Systems and Control Letters responsible for the area of cooperative control and multi-agent systems.

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Prof. Xi-Ren Cao and Dr. Qing-Shan Jia attended the INFORMS Annual Meeting 2009 in San Diego, CA. Prof. Cao gave two invited talks, titled "Singular Stochastic Control and Composite Markov Processes" and "Stochastic Control of Continuous-Time and Continuous-State Systems via Direct Comparison". Dr. Jia gave the invited talk "The Instance Risk of Simulation-Based Optimization Algorithms", which was a joint work with Prof. Qian-Chuan Zhao. They met various CFINS friends such as Prof. Chun -Hung Chen, Prof. Ek-Peng Chew, Prof. Michael Fu, Prof. Jianqiang Hu, Prof. Loo-Hay Lee, and Prof. Leyuan Shi (in alphabetic order).

Invited by Dr. Qingshan Jia in CFINS, Prof. Loo Hay Lee from National University of Singapore (NUS) gave a talk titled Optimal Computing Budget Allocation Approach for Simulation Optimization Problem in Room 407, Central Building, at 14:30pm on Sep. 14th. He also introduced NUS and the recruitment information of graduate students after the talk. Dr. Jia hosted the talk. Prof. Qianchuan Zhao and many students from CFINS and other departments of the university attended the talk. The talk delivered plenty useful information and interested the audiences much. Prof. Lee had a good discussion with the audiences after the talk.

Abstract: Optimal Computing Budget Allocation Approach for Simulation Optimization Problem

In this talk, we will present the optimal computing budget allocation algorithm for simulation optimization problems. Some new developments for the algorithms will be discussed, and we will also present its extensions to multi-objective problems, and convergent properties for the approach.

Biography Sketch

Loo Hay LEE is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at National University of Singapore and was a visiting professor at the Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research at George Mason University. He received his B.S (Electrical Engineering) degree from the National Taiwan University in 1992 and his S.M and PhD degrees in 1994 and 1997 from Harvard University. He is currently a senior member of IEEE, and member of ORSS, and INFORMS. His research focuses on the simulation-based optimization, port operations and the modeling and analysis for the logistics and supply chain system. He is an associate editor for IIE Transactions, Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, the Asia Pacific Journal of Operational Research, Advanced Operations Research and a member in the advisory board for OR Spectrum.

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See the Chinese Version.

Invited by Prof. Loo Hay Lee in National University of Singapore (NUS), our Chair Professor Group Member Professor Peter Luh and our Professor Qianchuan Zhao gave talks at “A JOINT WORKSHOP on Simulation Optimization hosted by Dept of Industrial & Systems Engineering, NUS, Singapore & IEEE Engineering Management Society, Singapore Chapter”.

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Invited by Prof. Qianchuan Zhao in CFINS, Prof. Dimitri P. Bertsekas from MIT gave a talk titled Approximate Dynamic Programming and Applications: An Overview in Room 511, Central Building, at 10:00am on Jun. 30th. Prof. Xiaohong Guan hosted and many students from CFINS and other laboratorys attended the talk. The talk delivered plenty useful information and interested the audiences much. Prof. Dimitri P. Bertsekas had a good discussion with the audiences after talk.

Abstract: Approximate Dynamic Programming and Applications: An Overview

Dynamic programming is a very general optimization method for sequential decision making, with many practical applications in engineering design, operations research, optimal resource allocation, automatic control, dynamic planning, economics and finance, and combinatorial optimization. Among optimization methods, it has the broadest range of applications:  deterministic, stochastic, discrete, and continuous problems.  However, it suffers from the curse of dimensionality: an exponential growth of computational requirements as the problem size increases.

This has led to extensive work over the last twenty years on the methodology of neuro-dynamic programming/reinforcement learning, which is based on various types of approximations and simulation, and can deal with problems of very large size. One key idea is to construct off-line, using simulation, an (approximate) scoring function which is used in real-time to rank decisions at any system state that may arise. This is much like what is done in computer chess and computer backgammon, where positions are evaluated by means of a scoring function, and the move that leads to the position with the best score is chosen. Another important idea is to use simulation and/or heuristics to compute on-line the values of an approximate scoring function. This talk will overview these methodologies, emphasizing on-line methods. A followup talk will emphasize off-line methods, and discuss recent extensions to Monte-Carlo methods for approximate solution of large systems of equations arising in broader scientific computation contexts.

Biography of Prof. Dimitri P. Bertsekas

Dimitri P. Bertsekas received his undergraduate degree in engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Bertsekas has held faculty positions with the Engineering-Economic Systems Dept., Stanford University (1971-1974) and the Electrical Engineering Dept. of the University of Illinois, Urbana  (1974-1979). Since 1979 he has been teaching at the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), where he is currently McAfee Professor of Engineering. He consults regularly with private industry and has held editorial positions in several journals. His research at  M.I.T. spans several fields, including optimization, control, large-scale computation, and data communication networks, and is closely  tied to his teaching and book authoring activities. He has written numerous research papers, and fourteen books, several of which are used as textbooks in MIT classes.

Professor Bertsekas was awarded the INFORMS 1997 Prize for Research  Excellence in the Interface Between Operations Research and Computer  Science for his book "Neuro-Dynamic Programming" (co-authored with John Tsitsiklis), the 2000 Greek National Award for Operations  Research, and the 2001 ACC John R. Ragazzini Education Award. In  2001, he was elected to the United States National Academy of  Engineering.

Dr. Bertsekas' recent books are "Dynamic Programming and Optimal Control: 3rd Edition" (2007), "Introduction to Probability: 2nd Edition" (2008), and Convex Optimization Theory (2009), all published by Athena Scientific.

Besides his professional activities, Professor Bertsekas is interested in travel, portrait, and landscape photography. His pictures have been exhibited on several occasions at M.I.T., and can also be accessed from his www site.

Besides his professional activities, Professor Bertsekas is interested in travel, portrait, and landscape photography. His pictures have been exhibited on several occasions at M.I.T., and can also be accessed from his www site.

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Prof. Dimitri P. Bertsekas starts visiting CFINS on June 22th.

Invited by Dr. Qingshan Jia in CFINS, Prof. Chun-Hung Chen from George Mason University gave a talk titled Ordinal Optimization and Optimal Computing Budget Allocation in Room 407, Central Building, at 10:00am on Jun. 24th. Dr. Jia hosted and many students from CFINS and other laboratorys attended the talk. The talk delivered plenty useful information and interested the audiences much. Prof. Chen had a good discussion with the audiences after talk.

Abstract: Ordinal Optimization and Optimal Computing Budget Allocation, Prof. Chun-Hung Chen, GMU

Ordinal Optimization (OO) has emerged as an efficient technique for simulation and optimization. Exponential convergence rates can be achieved in many cases. Optimal Computing Budget Allocation (OCBA) is developed to maximize the computational efficiency by determining the optimal computing resource allocation among a fixed set of simulated designs, no matter the goal is to find the best design and a subset of good designs. OCBA can further enhance the efficiency of OO for stochastic simulation optimization. In this talk, we will present the basic idea of OCBA and its recent development. By integrating with search methods such as Nested Partition scheme invented by Prof. Shi, OCBA can effectively handle large-scale simulation optimization.

Biography of Prof. Chun-Hung Chen

Chun-Hung Chen received his Ph.D. degree in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University in 1994 and is currently a Professor of Systems Engineering & Operations Research at George Mason University. Dr. Chen was an Assistant Professor of Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania before joining GMU. His research interests are mainly in development of very efficient methodology for stochastic simulation optimization and its applications to air traffic management, rail transportation, semiconductor manufacturing, healthcare, supply chain management, and missile defense system. Dr. Chen received the Best Automation Paper Award from the 2003 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1994 Eliahu I. Jury Award from Harvard University, and the 1992 MasPar Parallel Computer Challenge Award. Dr. Chen has served as Co-Editor of the Proceedings of the 2002 Winter Simulation Conference and Program Co-Chair for 2007 Informs Simulation Society Workshop.  He is currently a simulation department editor for IIE Transactions, associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, area editor of Journal of Simulation Modeling Practice and Theory, and associate editor of International Journal of Simulation and Process Modeling.

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Prof. Shi, Leyuan from UW-Madison gave a talk titled Advanced Development of Nested Partitions Method in Room 511, Central Building, at 10:00am on Jun. 22th. Dr. Jia hosted and many students from CFINS and other laboratorys attended the talk. The talk delivered plenty useful information and interested the audiences much. Prof. Shi had a good discussion with the audiences after talk.

Abstract: Advanced Development of Nested Partitions Method

In this talk, we present two research results: 1) a new framework that integrates lower-bound and upper-bound methods into the Nested Partitions (NP) method. We have applied this method to a very difficult lot sizing problem-- the Multi-Item Capacitated Lot-Sizing Problems with Set-Up Times. The problem is to schedule N different items with given machine capacities over a finite horizon of T periods. Computational results based on benchmark test problems show that our method is computationally tractable and outperforms all other state-of-the-art approaches found in the literature.2) our ongoing work on the development of Stochastic Lower Bound with Extreme Value theory. We propose statistical promising indexes for Nested Partitions based on the implementation of the extreme value theory. We further develop an approach to estimate the correctness of NP moves, which can be very useful in determining a good algorithm setting. An additional benefit of using the statistical promising index in NP is that statistical bounds can be obtained with little computational burden. These bounds are problem-independent and can be handy to use when traditional bounding techniques are ineffective. Initial results are also presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Biography of Prof. Leyuan Shi

Professor of Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

BS 1982, mathematics, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China

MS 1985, applied mathematics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

MS 1990, applied mathematics, Harvard University

PhD 1992, applied mathematics, Harvard University

Professor Shi's research has been in developing theory and methodology for design and optimization of complex systems such as supply chain networks, manufacturing systems and communication networks. Her interest in this area has spanned three levels: semantic modeling and design of systems, sensitivity analysis via discrete-event simulation, and control and optimization. Research interests: simulation modeling, large-scale optimization, supply chain optimization, production planning and scheduling computational efficiency, and opens up a new door to re-examine old methods and create new ones.

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Prof. Homin Yan and Qianchuan Zhao presented at 13th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing(INCOM'09) which was held June 03-05.

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On 15:00pm of Jun. 4th, Prof. Peter B. Luh from University of Connecticut gave a talk titled Toward a New Framework for Population-Based Optimization Methods, in Room 511, Central Building. Prof. Xiao-Hong GUAN, the director of CFINS, hosted the talk. Prof. Rui-Xi Yuan, Prof. Ling Wang, Dr. Qing-Shan JIA, and many students attended this talk. After the talk, Prof. Peter B. Luh had a good discussion with the audience.

Abstract：Toward a New Framework for Population-Based Optimization Methods

Combinatorial optimization problems arise in many applications, e.g., task assignment, facility location, and elevator scheduling. A variety of population-based methods have been used to solve these problems, such as genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), estimation of distribution algorithms (EDA), and nested partitions (NP). Some of them, however, lack global convergence guarantee such as PSO, or require strict convergence assumptions such as NP.? To enhance these methods in terms of convergence, a novel framework towards unifying the seemingly unrelated methods is established as iterative sampling and updating of a population distribution, and the methods that fit into this framework are called population distribution-based methods. Global convergence conditions for this framework are innovatively developed by building a shadow NP structure for the population evolution process. The result is generic and is capable of covering or enhancing the current convergence results of many methods including GA, PSO, EDA, and NP. It can be further exploited to improve algorithm performance or computational efficiency, and opens up a new door to re-examine old methods and create new ones.

Biography of Prof. Peter B. Luh

Peter B. Luh received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University, M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from M.I.T., and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. He has been with the University of Connecticut since 1980, and currently is the SNET Professor of Communications & Information Technologies and Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a Fellow of IEEE, the Vice President for Publication Activities for IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, an Associate Editor of IIE Transactions on Design and Manufacturing, and was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the new IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (2003-2007), the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation (1999-2003). He is also a member of the Chair Professors Group, Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems Dept. of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

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Prof. Shi, Leyuan starts visiting CFINS on May 27.

Professor Peter B. Luh starts visiting CFINS on May 24, and will stay until June 19.

During May 6-19, 2009, Prof. Xi Chen visited Prof. Xunyu Zhou at University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. They had good discussions on stochastic control and applications. In particular, to Prof. Chen’s reseach on water resource scheduling, Prof. Xunyu Zhou gave valuable comments and suggestions.

During May 16-19 and 25-27, Prof. Xi-Ren Cao visits CFINS.

During April 12-17, Prof. Xi-Ren Cao visits CFINS.

Prof. TONG Lang starts visiting CFINS. During his stay, he will discuss various research problems in cognitive radio with the research team in CFINS.

For more information, please click the link: http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=216967

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(Source: Scholars Yuguo Zhang's Blog)

(See the Chinese Version)

Invited by Prof. Xiao-Hong GUAN, on 14:30pm of Nov. 28th, Dr. Mike Tao Zhang from Spansion Inc. gave a talk titled Advanced Planning / Scheduling (APS) in Semiconductor Manufacturing: Challenges and Opportunities, in Room 1-515, FIT Building. Prof. Xiao-Hong GUAN, the director of CFINS, hosted the talk. Prof. Qian-Chuan ZHAO, Lec. Qing-Shan JIA, and students from Dept. of Industrial Engineering and our department attended this talk. After the talk, Dr. Mike Tao Zhang had a good discussion with the audience.

Abstract: Advanced Planning / Scheduling (APS) in Semiconductor Manufacturing: Challenges and Opportunities

Semiconductor manufacturing is a highly competitive business due to complicated production processes, sophisticated equipment, and fluctuating demand. I summarize the challenges and opportunities of semiconductor manufacturing and provide my thoughts on the solution with three applications for case study. As an example of planning optimization, I describe a planning methodology to generate a complete capacity planning solution using mixed-integer linear programming (MILP). This methodology has been successfully implemented in Intel’s global semiconductor assembly and test manufacturing (ATM) since 2004. As an example of queuing modeling, I analyze the correlations between the arrival and the service processes and their impact on cycle time. As an example of simulation, I model a supply chain from fabs, assembly & test sites, to distribution centers for a typical product family. I conduct detailed sensitivity analysis and identify the tens of million USD cost saving opportunities through subcon consolidation and a centralized die hub.

Biography of Dr. Mike Tao Zhang

Mike Tao Zhang (S’98–M’01–SM’05) received the M.S. and the Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, in 2000 and 2001 respectively, as well as the Management of Technology certificate from the Haas School of Business and the College of Engineering, in 2000, all at the University of California, Berkeley in 3 years.

Dr. Zhang is Vice President of the US-China Green Energy Council. He is a senior manager/director of Automation and Industrial Engineering at Spansion Inc., the world largest NOR Flash memory provider. He is also a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Prior to that, he was a department manager and a staff technologist at Intel. He was awarded three patents and published over 50 papers and four books/book chapters. His research interests are industrial automation, manufacturing systems, operations research/management, and supply chain management.

Dr. Zhang is a Member of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, and also a Senior Member of IEEE and IIE (the Institute of Industrial Engineers). He is Co-Chair of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING and a Guest Editor of Assembly Automation and the IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION MAGAZINE. He is Program Chair of the 2007 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering. He is also the recipient of the Li Foundation Heritage Prize for Outstanding Achievement (two awardees per year in the U.S.), the Outstanding Young Industrial Engineer Business/Industry Award by the Institute of Industrial Engineers (one awardee per year worldwide), and the Early Career Industry/Government Award by IEEE RAS (one awardee per year worldwide). He is listed in Marquis Who's Who in the World.

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Invited by Prof. Xiao-Hong GUAN, on 14:30pm of Oct. 26th, Prof. Li QIU from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology gave a talk titled Measure of Instability and Multivariable Networked Stabilization with Channel Resource Allocation, in Room 1-515, FIT Building. Prof. Xiao-Hong GUAN, the director of CFINS, hosted the talk. Prof. Chun-Di MU, Prof. Chun-Wen LI and Lec. Li LI from Dept. of Automation, Lec. Qing-Shan JIA and students of CFINS, and some students from our department attended this talk. After the talk, Prof. QIU had a good discussion with the audience.

Abstract: Measure of Instability and Multivariable Networked Stabilization with Channel Resource Allocation

In this talk, we will survey the history of an instability measure of an LTI system and its connections with various feedback control problem. Then we will present its connections to networked control problems of multivariable systems. In such problems, communication resource allocation among various signal transmission channels becomes a design issue in addition to the usual controller design. We will see that some optimal and robust control problems arising in networked control are nontraditional and highly nonconvex but can be nicely and analytically solved, and the solutions are given in terms of the instability measure. The results to be reported are the recent findings in the joint research with Professor Guoxiang Gu of LSU.

Biography of Prof. Li QIU

Professor Li Qiu received the B.Eng. degree from Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, China, in 1981, and the M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., Canada, in 1987 and 1990, respectively, all in electrical engineering. He joined Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR, China, in 1993, where he is now a professor of Electronic and Computer Engineering.

Professor Qiu’s research interests include system, control, information theory, and mathematics for information technology. He served as an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control and an associate editor of Automatica. He is now a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Control Systems Society and the general chair of the 7th Asian Control Conference, which is to be held in Hong Kong in 2009. He is a fellow of IEEE.

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Prof. Qianchuan Zhao and Dr. Qing-Shan Jia visited Prof. Dimitri P. Bertsekas at Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston. They exchanged some recent development on approximate dynamic programming and multi-objective Markov decision processes. Yanjia Zhao, a PhD student in CFINS who is currently visiting Prof. Bertsekas and Prof. John N. Tsitsiklis at MIT joined the discussion. Prof. Zhao and Dr. Jia invited Prof. Bertsekas to visit CFINS. Dr. Bertsekas accepted the invitation happily.

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Prof. Qianchuan Zhao and Dr. Qing-Shan Jia visited Prof. Yu-Chi Ho at Boston. They discussed various topics on ordinal optimization and the development of CFINS.

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Prof. Qianchuan Zhao and Dr. Qing-Shan Jia attended the INFORMS Annual meeting 2008 at Washington D.C.. They were invited to give talks in the special session “Efficient Simulation and Optimization” organized by Prof. Chun-Hung Chen from George Mason University, U.S.A. and Prof. Loo Hay Lee from National University of Singapore, Singapore. Prof. Zhao gave the talk “Ordinal Optimization: Soft Optimization for Hard Problems”and Dr. Jia gave the talk “Applications of Ordinal Optimization: Some Examples” . Prof. Yu-Chi Ho, Prof. Qianchuan Zhao and Dr. Qing-Shan Jia are the authors of both talks. Prof. Zhao and Dr. Jia met various international friends during the meeting.

 

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Prof. Qianchuan Zhao and Dr. Qing-Shan Jia visited Prof. Chun-Hung Chen at George Mason University at Washington D.C.. They exchanged the latest development in Optimal Computing Budget Allocation and ordinal optimization and discussed potential collaborations. Figures from left to right in the following photo are:Prof. Chun-Hung Chen, Prof. Qianchuan Zhao, Dr. Qing-Shan Jia, Mr. Donghai He

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Two Ph.D. candidates at CFINS, Yanjia Zhao and Mingyang Li, visited Prof. Ho on Sep. 19, 2008, and discussed with Prof. Ho about their research progress in Ph.D. thesis. After that, they visited Minute Man National Historical Park together.

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Two Ph.D. candidates at CFINS, Yanjia Zhao and Mingyang Li,visited Prof. Peter B. Luh at University of Connecticut on Sep. 20 and 21.After that, they had a tour in the campus of UConn.

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Old news & events in last years for your information.