Together with Cezar Ionescu I am working on “increasingly correct scientific computing” in the context of GSS. Here is a local university news item trying to explain what the Computer Science and Engineering department at Chalmers can contribute towards GSS: http://www.chalmers.se/cse/EN/news/articles/global-systems-science
Introducing a new research area.
Global Systems Science (GSS) is a new research area inspired by global challenges requiring high level modelling across traditional scientific disciplines. Examples include climate change, sustainable energy and financial stability at a global level.
It started from an initiative in the European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology (DG CONNECT) six years ago and it has now reached the state of a call for proposals in Horizon 2020. GSS brings together researchers and practitioners from many fields, but a common characteristic is the aim to develop systems, theories, languages and tools for computer-aided policy making with potentially global implications.
A wordle based on section “3. Enabling Knowledge Technologies” of [Jaeger, Jansson et al., 2013].
At Chalmers and GU we explore global systems science from a computer science standpoint. We view language as an essential instrument of communication and reasoning, and in a scientific context concise and precise language is a key to specify, communicate and implement concepts and ideas.
We use domain specific languages (DSLs) to capture the core of a domain concept (like “vulnerability to climate change”, or “financial contract”) in a way which makes it possible to express problems in a way that can be understood both by the domain expert and by the computer. The CSE department is internationally well known for (programming) language research through our groups in Functional Programming, Programming language based security and Language technology.
Key areas where the CSE department can contribute to Global Systems are:
- High Performance Computing (HPC): Hardware-software co-design, parallelism, novel computer architectures
- Big Data: Algorithms, machine learning, distributed computing, security and integrity
- Programs, Tests, and Proofs: Functional Programming, Property based testing, Formal Methods, Programming Logic
- Narrative and Language technology: Domain specific languages, Reliable Multilingual Digital Communication, Online translation
Contact:
Patrik Jansson
Telephone +46 31 772 54 15
e-mail patrikj@chalmers.se
Congratulations, Patrik, Cezar and Martin! We badly need the kind of tools you are working on. Besides the reasons you indicate I would also highlight the ones given in Antoine Mandel’s post “Towards a common financial language” below. Martin Elsmann’s comment to that post shows why I include him in my congrats.
An additional important reason why your work is so important for GSS is the necessity to develop a broad array of open source models for GSS, including modules that can be plugged into different models.