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Mardi Gras Conference 2008

Call for Papers

The Center for Computation & Technology at LSU, in cooperation with ACM SIGAPP, is hosting the 15th Mardi Gras Conference, 30 January - 2 February 2008, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Mardi Gras conferences take place annually, concentrating each year on a different computational theme of current relevance.

This Year's Theme:

From lightweight mash-ups to lambda grids: Understanding the spectrum of distributed computing requirements, applications, tools, infrastructures, interoperability, and the incremental adoption of key capabilities.
Description: The field of distributed computing has been recognized for decades but only in the last few years has there been a vast expansion of distributed computing approaches and tools that are gaining serious, wide-spread use. This wide-spread use goes far beyond computational science and engineering, to include business, government, art, and popular culture. While the fundamental requirements of distributed computing are generally understood, the ubiquitous availability of networks and servers has enabled the development of many different tools to suit the needs of different communities. Besides what have become traditional grids, there is growing use of lambda grids, enterprise service buses, service-oriented architectures, and Web 2.0. All of these approaches enable the sharing of resources in "virtual organizations" but with widely differing support for discoverability, reliability, security, management, quality-of-service, etc. In all cases, interoperability at the infrastructure level and at the application domain level is a critical issue.

While network connectivity has become ubiquitous, and has enabled the creation of virtual organizations, it is still an open issue how tightly coupled these organizations can be. Bandwidth and latency determine how interactive and collaborative distributed participants can work together. Hence, advanced networks such as lambda networks (dedicated optical networks) have the potential for enhancing interactiveness on a large-scale, and actually being an enabling technology for application domains that require tight coupling.

The goal of Mardi Gras 2008 is to improve our understanding of the drivers for all of these technologies, how they relate to one another, and how user communities can transition from simpler approaches, like Web 2.0 mash-ups, to more full-service grids, when better discovery, reliability, security, etc., are needed -- while achieving sufficient interoperability -- and how tightly coupled virtual organizations can be.

To this end, we are seeking the best, most insightful papers on all of these technologies, and the application domains that are driving their requirements and development.
 
Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Application case studies in all areas, e.g., geospatial, disaster response/management, science, engineering, commerce, finance, art, etc.
  • Innovative and advanced scenarios, e.g., dynamic data-driven, interactive, collaborative, tele-immersive, adaptive, etc.
  • Tools for developing and deploying applications, e.g., middleware, toolkits, portals, problem solving environments, production environments, virtual organizations, etc.
  • Application APIs and programming models
  • High speed and optical networks
  • Distributed algorithms
  • Workflow management
  • Resource management and scheduling
  • Education

Paper Submission:

We invite authors to submit original and unpublished work (also not submitted elsewhere for review) reporting solid and innovative results and positions on any of the conference topics. Papers should not exceed 8 single-spaced pages of text using 10-point size type on 8.5 x 11 inch paper (see ACM author instructions, a LaTeX style sheet and Word format is available, too.) All bibliographical references, tables, and figures must be included in these 8 pages. Submissions that exceed the 8-page limit will not be reviewed. Authors should submit a PDF file that will print on a PostScript printer. Electronic submission is required, to http://www.easychair.org/MG08/. Submission implies the willingness of at least one of the authors to register and present the paper if it is accepted.

Proceedings:

All submissions will be peer-reviewed, and accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings. The proceedings will be distributed on CD at the conference. The copyrights for the proceedings papers will be held by ACM, and the proceedings will be hosted in the ACM Digital Library.

Program Committee:

Program Chair:
Craig A. Lee
 
Program Vice-Chairs:
Geoffrey Fox, Indiana University, Emerging Technologies
Liping Di, George Mason University, Data-Intensive Applications
Bill St. Arnaud, CANARIE, Network-Intensive Applications
Franck Cappello, INRIA, Middleware and Distributed Infrastructures
 
Program Committee Members:

Due Dates:

Submission: Oct 31, 2007 (changed due to change in proceedings publication method, no further extensions)
Notification: Nov 28, 2007
Final Papers: Dec 14, 2007
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