Here is a slightly updated call for papers for ABZ 2018, a conference on state-based formal specification methods that will be organized in Southampton (UK) in June. TLA+ explicitly appears as a formalism of interest, so readers of this group may be interested in submitting papers and/or attending the conference.
ABZ 2018
6th International ABZ (ASM, Alloy, B, TLA, VDM, Z) Conference
June 5th-8th, 2018
Southampton, UK
www.southampton.ac.uk/abz2018----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call for Papers, Answers to the case study, Workshops, Tutorials
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The ABZ conference is dedicated to the cross-fertilization of six related state-based and machine-based formal methods, Abstract State Machines (ASM), Alloy, B, TLA, VDM and Z, that share a common conceptual foundation and are widely used in both academia and industry for the design and analysis of hardware and software systems. It builds on the success of the first ABZ conference held in London in 2008, where the ASM, B and Z conference series merged into a single event, the second ABZ 2010 conference held in Orford (Canada), where the Alloy community joined the event, the ABZ 2012 held in Pisa (Italy), which saw the inclusion of the VDM community, and ABZ 2014 held in Toulouse (France), which brought the inclusion of the TLA community into the ABZ conference series and the ABZ 2016 held in Linz, Austria. The ABZ 2018 conference will be held in Southampton, UK.
ABZ 2018 will have a main conference track, a case study track, tutorials and workshops.
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Invited Speakers
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Jean-Raymond Abrial, Marseille, France
Janet Barnes and Angela Wallenburg, Altran, UK
Daniel Jackson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Klaus-Dieter Schewe, Software Competence Centre Hagenberg, Austria
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Case Study Track
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As successfully practiced at ABZ 2014 and ABZ 2016, the 6th edition of ABZ will again include special sessions dedicated to "Hybrid ERTMS/ETCS Level 3” case study. See
here for a detailed description of this case study.
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Main ABZ Track
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Contributions are solicited on all aspects of the theory and applications of ASMs, Alloy, B, TLA, VDM, Z approaches in software/hardware engineering, including the development of tools and industrial applications. The program spans from theoretical and methodological foundations to practical applications, emphasizing system engineering methods and tools that are distinguished by mathematical rigor and have proved to be industrially viable. The main goal of the conference is to contribute to the integration of accurate state- and machine-based system development methods, clarifying their commonalities and differences to better understand how to combine different approaches for accomplishing the various tasks in modeling, experimental validation, mathematical verification of reliable high-quality hardware/software systems. Although organized to host several formal methods with ASM, Alloy, B, TLA, VDM and Z, in a single event, editorial control of the joint conference is vested in one integrated program committee, which will respectively determine its ASM, Alloy, B, TLA, VDM and Z content, to be presented in parallel conference tracks with a schedule to allow the participants to switch between the sessions.
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Workshop and Tutorial Proposals
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Workshops and tutorials will be associated with the main event ABZ. Proposals are solicited in areas related to the conference topics.
A workshop proposal should contain the title of the workshop, a short description of the scientific content, the names and brief CVs of the workshop organizers, the intended PC for the workshop, the duration of the workshop, and the expected number of participants.
A tutorial proposal should contain the title of the tutorial, a short description of the scientific content, the names and brief CVs of the tutorial presenters and the duration.
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Call For Papers
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Four kinds of contributions are invited:
• Full Research papers: full papers of not more than 14 pages in LNCS format, which have to be original, unpublished and not submitted elsewhere.
• Short presentations of work in progress, and tool demonstrations: This is an excellent opportunity for Ph.D. students to present and validate their work in progress. An extended abstract of not more than 4 pages is expected and will be reviewed.
• Answers to case study papers: full papers of not more than 14 pages in LNCS format reporting on the experiments conducted with any of the state based techniques in the scope of ABZ 2014.
• Application in industry papers: reporting on work or experiences on the application of state based formal methods in industry. An extended abstract of not more than 4 pages is expected and will be reviewed. It is also an interesting option for industrial practitioners who sometimes face too many constraints to prepare a full paper.
Accepted papers will appear in the Springer LNCS proceedings. See
here for submission details. The deadline for abstract submission is January 22, 2018 and for paper submission is January 29, 2018.
-----------------------Important dates-----------------------Abstract submission deadline: January 22, 2018Paper submission deadline: January 29, 2018 (including research/short/case study/industry papers)Tutorial proposal submission: February 16, 2018ABZ 2018 conference: June 5-8, 2018-------------------
Organization
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Conference Chairs:
Michael Butler, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Alexander Raschke, Universität Ulm, Ulm, Germany
Case Study Chairs:
Klaus Reichl, Thales Ground Transport Division, Vienna, Austria
Thai Son Hoang, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Workshop Chairs:
Tutorial Chairs:
Colin Snook, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Publicity Chair
Asieh Salehi, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Program Committee
See
here for the list of program committee