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Toward Further Development
of Asian Control Conference
̶ In Commemoration of the 10th Meeting of ASCC ̶
Kota Kinabalu, June 1, 2015
Etsujiro Shimemura
Myoung Sam Ko
Professor Emeritus
Waseda University
and
Japan Advanced Institute of
Science and Technology
Professor Emeritus
Seoul National University
Abstract
Asian Control Conference was founded in 1992. The first meeting was held in summer 1994
in Tokyo. Two decades have passed since the first meeting. The preparation to establish the
new control conference in Asia had started around 1989. The start was a simple and naïve
talk among the participants from Asia in the international meeting in Europe; “We would like
to have our own conference in Asia.” This idea grew up to the desire to have the new
conference in Asia.
Many discussion meetings were organized in the years 1990 and 1991 in the various places;
in Tokyo, in Kobe, in Seoul, in Taipei, in Kaohsiung, in Honolulu etc. These activities converged
to the Preparatory Meeting in October 1991 in Tokyo. The Prospectus was adopted
summarizing the important issues of the two-day discussion. The adopted Prospectus was the
fundamental document for the further movement.
The most important issues of the Prospectus were “why, what and how”. The answers to
these questions gave the framework for the philosophy of the conference. The philosophy is
reflected later in the provisions of the Constitution. The philosophy of establishing ASCC is;
ASCC is the international conference held in Asia. It is for the development of control science
and technology of Asia and the world. ASCC is organized and managed by the voluntary
persons independently of the country.
These fundamental philosophy and concept shall be kept always in mind of the people of
organization, management and participation. They shall be the lighthouse for the future
development of Asian Control Conference.
Another important issue is the quality of the meeting. ASCC shall be the first class world
control conference. It is the duty for all the people concerned to raise the reputation of the
meeting. Especially it is asked for the participants to keep the quality of the meeting. The high
quality of the meeting is only achieved by that of the contributed papers. It is also important
for you to be international. For that you shall broaden your academic society worldwide.
Text of the Speech
1* Thank you very much Professor Won, President of the Asian Control Association, Professor
Rubiyah Yusof, Professor Kitajima, General Chair and Co-Chair, Professor Mori, Technical
Program Chair of the 10th meeting of the Asian Control Conference, Distinguished Guests,
Colleagues, Students, Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is my great honor to make a commemorative speech on opening the 10th meeting. To
my regret, Professor Myoung Sam Ko, my dear colleague who had sweated together in
establishing the ASCC is not present today for health reasons.
2 The first meeting of the Asian Control Conference was held in summer 1994 in Tokyo. Two
decades have passed since the first meeting.
3 During these twenty years nine meetings were successfully held in the various cities of
Asia. I would like to show my sincere respect and appreciation to those who were in
charge of the organization and management of the past meetings.
Twenty years were enough for the young participants of the first meeting to grow into the
active professionals. Let me introduce an example; One of the recipients of the Shimemura
Young Author Prize at the first meeting, he was a research assistant at that time, is now an
outstanding young professor at the leading university in Tokyo.
* The paragraph number corresponds to the page number of the slide.
4 I am very happy to be here with you, dear participants, at the commemorative 10th
meeting. I express my deep gratitude to the members and the staff of the organizing
committee for their preparation work.
5 As an organization the ASCC had started in 1992 by enacting the Constitution. In that
sense the year 1992 is the year to be remembered as the starting point of the history of
the ASCC.
Today I would like to put emphasis of the talk on the prehistory of the ASCC till the official
start in 1992. Because all the fundamentals of the conference were discussed and
determined in the prehistoric time.
6 The control people in Asia had been in an unfavorable situation with respect to the
international meeting for a long time. We had to go a long way to Europe or to U.S. to
attend a meeting.
An unfavorable situation did not only mean the inconvenience of a long distance travel.
The more important issue was that most of the international meetings in the past were
organized by the non-Asian people.
It became our common hope and then a strong desire that Asia shall have sometime in
the near future a standing international conference of our own as the progressive market
of knowledge of the world.
The informal talks about the new conference began spontaneously toward the end of
1980’s.
7 To realize the dream to establish a new control conference in Asia we have organized
many local meetings in the various places during the years 1990 and 1991. At least
thirteen such meetings are recorded in my diary of those days. In every meeting our idea
was taken positively and friendly by the participants. The discussion was warmed up with
a hope of Asia to play a major role at the international control academia.
Among those meetings there was an unforgettable one with the young people mostly
from Taiwan. It was a casual meeting on a terrace under the stars during the CDC in
Honolulu in winter 1990.
We talked all night long and I was greatly encouraged by their enthusiastic support for
the project.
8 Those in time-and-space distributed discussions converged to the Preparatory Meeting in
October 1991.
In that meeting we have discussed the philosophy of establishment, the structure, the
organization and management and other important issues of the new conference.
The last agenda was to adopt the Prospectus, which should be the fundamental
document for our further movement to establish the conference.
This was a goal for the first phase and at the same time a starting line of the second
phase of the project of establishing the new conference. To cope with various tasks in the
second phase of the preparation the Preparatory Committee was organized.
9 Let us review some points of importance of the Prospectus, because all the important
details to form the new conference are described in the Prospectus. It consists of five
chapters.
10 In the first chapter two reasons were pointed out for the necessity of the new conference
in Asia.
The first point is a simple and naïve question; Is it unnatural and unreasonable that we
should go a long way to Europe or to U.S. to meet the Asian neighbors?
The second point is more positive. We ourselves should regard Asia as an important
component of the field of activity, and at the same time we should make the control
people of the world to recognize Asia to be a respectable part of the world control
society.
11 From these reasons it was a natural conclusion that we should have a standing control
conference in Asia. In the second chapter of the Prospectus the definition of the
conference is clearly stated.
There are three points to characterize the Asian Control Conference;
The first point is that it is an international conference, not an Asian regional conference.
The second is that it is the conference held in Asia. This second point is the key to have
the modifier “Asian” to the name of the conference.
The third is a declaration of the aim of the conference; we serve to the progress of the
control science and technology of the world.
12 After the intensive work by the Preparatory Committee we finally declared the
establishment of the Asian Control Conference on May 10, 1992 in Tokyo.
Now it will be appropriate to refer to the definition of the term “Asia” in the name of the
conference. We had spent a lot of time on this issue discussing cautiously from every
point of view.
13 Our final conclusion was the following; we do not go deep into the precise geographical,
geopolitical or political definition of Asia, but we will flexibly understand Asia to be the
non-European, non-American and non-African part of the world. And we judge whether
the candidate city for the next meeting fits the name of Asia when we decide the venue
of the meeting.
This idea was originally proposed by our Australian colleague Professor Robin Evans. I am
deeply grateful to him for a tolerant view on this issue. By this understanding of the
concept of Asia the ASCC has secured a very broad region of the globe from the East to
the West and from the North to the South as the basis for its activity.
14 I will show you the most important part of the Constitution, which declare the philosophy
of the ASCC. As you see they stand on the contents of the Prospectus.
15 Right after the establishment there was an unofficial inquiry from the IFAC side on the
possibility of ranking the ASCC to its regional activity in Asia. There was of course no
objection to cooperate with the IFAC, but we could not admit to be included in the IFAC as
its subordinate organization from the beginning.
Furthermore we had and still have our own politically sensitive situation in Asia. Our
organization and activity should be independent of the framework of the country to keep
the openness to all the scientists and engineers of the world. So that we have to be very
cautious of not too much being involved with the IFAC. Because the IFAC is the country
based organization.
The President of the IFAC at that time, Professor Brian Anderson took our reaction
favorably and we came to an agreement to cooperate with each other as the independent
organizations.
16 I really appreciate Professor Anderson for his warm understanding. Since the start of the
Asian Control Conference we have very good relations with the IFAC.
17 The ASCC had started as an independent organization in 1992. It had no standing
foundation for the organization and management. Every meeting had been organized and
managed by the Steering Committee each time for that meeting.
18 In 2006, 14 years after the start of the ASCC the Asian Control Association was
established as an organization of scientists and engineers of Asia. Since then the ASCC is
operated as one of the activities of the ACA.
It was to be welcome that ASCC obtained the stable foundation for the organization and
management under the ACA. I do not know what had been discussed and agreed at that
time how to rank the Constitution of ASCC in the organization of ACA. But I believe and
hope that the philosophy of the ASCC which is declared in the Constitution shall alive as
they are as long as the ASCC survives.
19 To conclude my talk I would like to summarize the philosophy of the establishment once
again.
ASCC shall be the standing international conference held in Asia for the whole world.
ASCC shall be organized and managed independently of the country.
These are the spirit of establishing the Asian Control Conference.
I hope the spirit of establishment will be respected as the basis of the further
development of the Asian Control Conference.
20 The most crucial issue for the international conference is its quality. A high level of quality
is of the primary importance for the meeting.
It is you, my dear participants, who can lift the evaluation of the ASCC up to the most
valuable control conference of the world.
To achieve that requirement I ask you to
Participate in the ASCC with your best paper of the year. That is the first thing for you to
do to raise the quality of the conference,
Invite your qualified non-Asian friends to the ASCC. For that;
Broaden your academic friends worldwide.
A good mixture of the participants from every part of the world is the most visible index
to be international. This helps to raise the quality of the conference as well.
21
22 I would like to express my sincere gratitude and deep regret to late Professor Marzuki
Khalid for his major contribution with a strong leadership in the early stage of planning
the 10th meeting.
At the end of the talk I do hope the Asian Control Conference will develop to one of the
most important and respected international control conference at the earliest
opportunity.
Thank you very much for your attention.
̶ In Commemoration of the 10th Meeting of ASCC ̶
Kota Kinabalu, June 1, 2015
Etsujiro Shimemura
Myoung Sam Ko
Professor Emeritus
Waseda University
and
Japan Advanced Institute of
Science and Technology
Professor Emeritus
Seoul National University
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Events
Informal talk
Organized local meetings
Preparatory Meeting
Establishment of ASCC
1st Meeting Tokyo
1997
2000
2002
2004
2006
2009
2nd Meeting
3rd Meeting
4th Meeting
5th Meeting
6th Meeting
7th Meeting
2011
2013
2015
Seoul
Shanghai
Singapore
Melbourne
Bali
Hong Kong
8th Meeting Kaohsiung
9th Meeting Istanbul
10th Meeting Kota Kinabalu
ASCC
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How was ASCC born?
― Background ―
• Most major international conferences in the field
of control had been held either in Europe or U.S.
in the past.
• IFAC World Congress 1981 in Kyoto demonstrated
the Asian power to host a big international
conference.
• The Asian control people became conscious of
necessity to have their own conference as the
platform to exchange the ideas, to discuss with
the colleagues of the world.
6
How was ASCC born?
― Way to the birth ―
• Many discussion meetings to establish a new
conference were organized in 1990 and 1991.
• A growing expectation to establish the conference
took shape of the Preparatory Meeting in 1991.
• Six volunteers had met in Tokyo. They adopted the
Prospectus, organized the Preparatory Committee.
• On May 10, 1992 Asian Control Conference has
been established by enacting the Constitution.
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Preparatory Meeting
Tokyo, October 25-26, 1991
Yufan Zheng
Takehiko Tomita
Chin E. Lin
Myoung Sam Ko
Hiroyuki Tamura
Etsujiro Shimemura
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Prospectus to Establish
Asian Control Conference
Tokyo, October 26, 1991
1. Why we need a new Conference?
2. What is the aim of the Conference?
3. How is the Conference organized and managed?
4. How is the Conference financed?
5. Others
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1. Why we need a new Conference?
Most international conferences have thus far been held
in Europe or the U.S., and the researchers in Asia have
only participated in those conferences, without having
an opportunity to get acquainted with each other,
notwithstanding the fact that they are close neighbors.
It is important for us to continue to broaden an
international contact with a worldwide scope as before,
but the importance of including Asia in our own scope,
drawing the attention of researchers of the world to Asia,
and making them add Asia to their scope should be also
recognized.
10
In order accomplish this, it is desired not only that we
will be more active in organizing various international
conferences in Asia, but also we should have a regularly
held international conference of high world reputation in
Asia, as the gathering point for us and for the
researchers of the world.
2. What is the aim of the Conference?
The Asian Control Conference will be an international
conference in the field of control science and technology
and their related areas to be held regularly in Asia. It will
be aimed at promoting the innovative development of
control science and technology in Asia, and will thereby
contribute to the progress of control science and
technology in the world.
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Establishment of
Asian Control Conference
On May 10, 1992 the Preparatory Committee was held in
Tokyo, adopting the Constitution and Supplementary
Arrangement to the Constitution, and the Asian Control
Conference started officially.
Member of the Preparatory Committee
Robin Evans
Myoung Sam Ko*
Wook Hyun Kwon
Chang Chieh Hang
Chin E. Lin
Etsujiro Shimemura
Hiroyuki Tamura
Ying-Ping Zheng
Yufan Zheng*
*M.S. Ko and Y.F. Zheng could not attend, leaving their votes to the chairman.
12
The first meeting of the Steering Committee
Tokyo, May 10, 1992
Ishijima
Tamura
Hang
Kwon
Tomita
Shimemura
Evans
Zheng
Lin
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Philosophy of Establishment
― From the provisions of the Constitution ―
Article Ⅱ Section 2. (Purpose)
Its purposes are: (a) to promote the innovative
development of control science and technology in
Asia, (b) to contribute thereby to the progress of
control science and technology of the world.
Article Ⅲ Section 1. (Conference)
……. The Conference shall be an international
conference, which shall be open to all interested
parties.
14
In 1992 ASCC and IFAC have signed the Agreement of the
Mutual Cooperation to further the professional interests of
control scientists and engineers of the world.
15
ASCC Reception on the occasion of IFAC World Congress
Sydney, July 20, 1993
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1992
1994
1997
2000
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2004
2006
2009
2011
2013
2015
ASCC
Established
Tokyo
Seoul
Shanghai
Singapore
Melbourne
Bali
Hong Kong
Kaohsiung
Istanbul
Kota Kinabalu
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1992
1994
1997
2000
2002
2004
2006
2009
2011
2013
2015
ASCC
Established
Tokyo
1996
Seoul
ACPA
Shanghai
Singapore
Melbourne
Bali
2006 ACA
Hong Kong
Kaohsiung
Istanbul
Kota Kinabalu
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Spirit of Asian Control Conference
― The essentials revisited―
• ASCC shall be the international conference held in
Asia contributing to the progress of control
science and technology not only of Asia but also of
the world.
• ASCC shall be organized and managed by the
voluntary persons. It shall be independent of the
country in order to keep openness to all interested
parties.
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Acknowledgment
The authors express their sincere appreciation
for the devotion of the colleagues who had
worked together toward establishing
Asian Control Conference.
21
This talk is dedicated to the memory of the late
Professor Datuk Dr. Marzuki Khalid.
He had laid the foundation of this meeting,
but could not share the joy of seeing its success.
Thank you very much for your attention.
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