The organizers for this year’s second KDD workshop on Data Mining Applications in Sustainability (SustKDD 2012) have issued a call for papers. The workshop seeks to bring together researchers working on applications of Knowledge Discovery and Data-mining (KDD) to sustainability in diverse areas, especially in infrastructures such as IT, Smart Grids, water, and transportation.

From the call for papers (following the link):

In recent years, climate change, depletion of natural resources, and rising energy costs have led to an increased emphasis on sustainability. A widely accepted definition of sustainability, attributed to the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations, states that sustainable development is that which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

 

In practice, a common heuristic for making technological systems environmentally sustainable is to make them eco-efficient, i.e., build using the least amount of the most appropriate materials and consuming the least amount of the most appropriate sources of energy throughout their lifetime.

 

Sustainability is a difficult goal to achieve, because the systems under consideration comprise complex, inter-connected entities about whom first principles modeling is intractable. Therefore data-driven methods hold significant promise.

Specific application domain areas of interest include:

• Power Grid/Smart grid
• Water Infrastructure
• Transportation
• Building Energy Management
• Information Technology (IT)

The deadline for paper submissions is next Wednesday, May 23rd.

To learn more, check out the SustKDD 2012 website, or contact any of the organizing committee members directly.