Sensitivity analysis: the SAMO conference at Bocconi

On July 19-22, with 100 multidisciplinary papers ranging from seismic risk assessment to finance

Herschel Rabitz (Princeton University), the polymath with more than 750 publications under his belt, George Apostolakis, commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the philosopher of science Jerry Ravetz (Said Business School, University of Oxford) are among the keynote speakers of SAMO 2010, the Sixth International Conference on Sensitivity Analysis of Model Output, to be held at Università Bocconi on July 19-22.

Jointly organized by the Econometrics and Applied Statistics (EAS) Unit of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (Ispra site) and ELEUSI, the Centre for Research and Systematic Use of Information of Università Bocconi, the conference includes 100 papers submitted, eight keynote speeches given by some of the top researchers in the field, 16 posters and 74 contributed presentations divided into 16 sessions.

The sensitivity analysis of complex mathematical models allows the measurement of the effects of a change in one or more model input variables on the model’s output. Considering that the use of mathematical models is widespread, the sensitivity analysis’ applications “range from seismic risk assessment, to nanotechnologies, architecture building, environmental models, biological models, industrial safety assessment and many others”, Emanuele Borgonovo (Università Bocconi), Andrea Saltelli (JRC) and Stefano Tarantola (JRC), the local organizers, write in the conference presentation, referring to the interdisciplinary nature of the topics presented at SAMO 2010.

The abstracts of the articles are available onlinein Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, Volume 2, Issue 6