The PASC Conference series is an international and interdisciplinary platform for the exchange of competences in scientific computing and computational science with a strong focus on methods, tools, algorithms, application challenges, and novel techniques and usage of high performance computing.

The Conference is co-sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the PASC structuring project and it is managed by the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS). The local host of PASC20 is the University of Geneva, Switzerland's second largest university.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference has been postponed to 2021. The new dates for the conference – PASC21 – are July 5 to 7, 2021, at the same location – the University of Geneva (Uni Mail), in Geneva, Switzerland. We invite you to save the dates, and we look forward to welcoming you in Geneva next year.

The technical program of PASC20 is organized around eight scientific domains:

• Climate and Weather
• Chemistry and Materials
• Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
• Emerging Application Domains (incl. but not limited to social sciences, finance, …)
• Engineering (incl. but not limited to CFD, computational mechanics, computational engineering materials, turbulent flow, …)
• Life Sciences (incl. but not limited to biophysics, genomics, bioinformatics, systems biology, neuroscience and computational biology, …)
• Physics (incl. but not limited to astrophysics, cosmology, plasma modelling, QCD, …)
• Solid Earth Dynamics

A minisymposium is a two-hour session of four 30-minute slots on a topic of current importance in computational science that showcases research related to domain science, applied mathematics, computer science and software engineering, and is an ideal platform for promoting interdisciplinary communication. Proposals that address aspects emphasizing the theme of PASC20 – New Challenges, New Computing Paradigms – are particularly welcome.

The minisymposium submission for PASC20 is a two-stage process. The first stage is an expression of interest, which includes a description of the proposed minisymposium (abstract) and suggestions for possible speakers who are experts in their field(s). The expressions of interest will be reviewed by the Minisymposia and Posters Program Committee. A selection of submissions will be invited to submit a full proposal.

The review process will consider the relevance and timeliness of the proposal topic as well as overall program balance.

The second stage, the full proposal, should include an extended abstract along with the names of possible speakers and presentation titles for four 30-minute presentation slots (typically, these slots are 25-minute talks with 5 minutes for questions). The minisymposium organizer is permitted to give one of the four presentations her/himself. If desired, the fourth 30-minute slot could be a panel discussion or open discussion forum. Please note that until final decisions are made, submissions should be considered as proposals, and no guarantees should be made by organizers to speakers named on their proposals.

The organizer of a minisymposium takes an "active chair" role in their session – that is, s/he should present a brief overview of the themes of the minisymposium and the state of the art, introduce the speakers and their topics, and facilitate a lively and interactive discussion amongst the speakers and audience throughout the session.

 

SUBMISSION AND REVIEW PROCESS

In order to be allowed to submit a full proposal, minisymposium organizers must first submit an expression of interest.

The expression of interest consists of the following:

• Title
• Scientific domain(s): A primary domain and (preferably) additional domains.
• Organizer details: Names and contact details of organizers (up to three).
• Abstract: Description of the minisymposium (up to 500 words), including suggestions for topics and speakers.

Following the evaluation of the expressions of interest, organizers may be invited to submit a full proposal. The full proposal consists of the following:

• Title
• Scientific domain(s): A primary domain and optionally additional domains.
• Organizer details: Names and contact details of organizers (up to three).
• Presenter details: Names and contact details of four proposed speakers (three if the minisymposium proposal includes a discussion panel) and proposed titles for their presentations.
• Extended abstract: A description of the minisymposium that outlines the scope, describes the problems being addressed and their importance, and discusses current directions of research and methods being developed to solve these problems (up to 800 words)
• Abstract for publication: A short abstract for publication in the conference program (no more than 200 words).

If the proposal is accepted then presentation titles and abstracts (200 words) will be requested from each speaker, and necessary revisions can be made to the minisymposium abstract for publication in the conference program.

Domain experts from the Minisymposium and Posters Committee will assess the expressions of interest and full proposals based on the following criteria:

• The work should be of significant current interest to the given scientific domain, and ideally, have potential application to other scientific domains
• Research should be based on state-of-the-art numerical methods
• The proposal should include speakers from multiple institutions and/or countries, and be designed such that the speakers bring a range of different perspectives and views to the topic
• The proposal should consider diversity - including women and other underrepresented groups

Proposals must be submitted through the PASC20 online submission portal.

SUBMISSION DEADLINES

• 06 December 2019: Deadline for expressions of interest (NO EXTENSIONS!)
• 17 December 2019: Decision notifications (invitations to submit full proposals)
• 17 January 2020: Deadline for full submissions (NO EXTENSIONS!)
• 21 February 2020: Acceptance notifications
• 22 March 2020: Deadline for abstracts from presenting speakers

Deadlines correspond to anywhere on earth ('AoE' or 'UTC-12').

We look forward to receiving your submissions.

CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION TERMS

Please note that PASC20 is unable to reimburse the expenses or waive the registration fees of organizers and speakers. All organizers and speakers must register for the conference and are subject to the corresponding registration fees.