-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=- Preliminary Announcement and Call for Papers FMOODS'97 Canterbury 21st-23rd July, 1997 United Kingdom Second IFIP International workshop on Formal Methods for Open Object-based Distributed Systems -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-= The first FMOODS workshop was successfully held in Paris in March 1996 and the proceedings have been published by Chapman and Hall. OBJECTIVES Object-based Distributed Computing is being established as the most pertinent basis for the support of large, heterogeneous computing and telecommunications systems. Indeed, several important international organisations, such as ITU, ISO, OMG, TINA-C, etc. are defining similar distributed object-based frameworks as a foundation for open distributed computing. The advent of Open Object-based Distributed Systems - OODS - brings new challenges and opportunities for the use and development of formal methods. New architectures and system models are emerging (e.g., the enterprise, information, computational and engineering viewpoints of the ITU-T/ISO/IEC ODP Reference Model) which require formal notational support. Usual design issues such as specification, verification, refinement, and testing need to take into account new dimensions introduced by distribution and openness, such as quality of service and dependability constraints, dynamic binding and reconfiguration, consistency between multiple models and viewpoints, etc. OODS is a challenging research context and a source of motivation for semantical models of object-based systems and notations (e.g. concurrent and distributed OO languages), for the evolution of standardised formal description techniques (e.g. SDL, LOTOS, Estelle, Z, ...), for the application and assessment of logic based approaches (e.g. temporal logic, TLA, ...), for better understanding and information modeling of business requirements, and for the further development and use of Object Oriented methodologies and tools (OMT, HOOD, Fusion, ...). The objective of FMOODS is to provide an integrated forum for the presentation of research in several related fields, and the exchange of ideas and experiences in the topics concerned with the formal methods support for Open Object-based Distributed Systems. TOPICS Topics of interest include but are not limited to: - formal models for object-based distributed computing - semantics of object-based distributed systems and programming languages - formal techniques in object-based and object-oriented specification, analysis and design - refinement and transformation of specifications - multiple viewpoint modelling and consistency between different models - formal techniques in distributed systems verification and testing - types, service types and subtyping - specification, verification and testing of quality of service constraints - formal methods and object life cycle - rigorous specifications of business semantics and their refinement into system specifications - beyond IDL: semantics specification patterns PROGRAM COMMITTEE Gul Agha - U. of Illinois, Urbana, USA Patrick Bellot - ENST, Paris, France Gregor Bochmann - U. Montreal, Canada Howard Bowman, UKC, Kent, UK Ed Brinksma, U. Twente, Netherlands John Derrick, UKC, Kent, UK Michel Diaz - LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France Kokichi Futasugui - Jaist, Ishikawa, Japan Reinhard Gotzhein - U. Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany Haim Kilov - IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, New York, USA Guy Leduc - U. of Liege, Liege, Belgium Luigi Logrippo - U. of Ottawa, Canada Jan de Meer - GMD Fokus, Berlin, Germany Elie Najm - ENST, Paris, France Oscar Nierstrasz - U. of Bern, Bern, Switzerland Claudia Linnhoff-Popien, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany Kerry Raymond - DSTC, Brisbane, Australia Omar Rafiq - U. of Pau, Pau, France Gerd Schuermann - GMD Fokus, Berlin, Germany Jacob Slonim - IBM, Toronto, Canada Jean-Bernard Stefani - FT/CNET, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France Sebastiano Trigila - F. Ugo Bordoni, Roma, Italy Juan Quemada - ETSI Telecomunicacion, Madrid, Spain PROGRAM CHAIRS Howard Bowman John Derrick H.Bowman@ukc.ac.uk J.Derrick@ukc.ac.uk Tel: + 44 1227 827913 Tel: + 44 1227 827570 Fax: + 44 1227 762811 Computing Laboratory University of Kent at Canterbury Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ, United Kingdom EVALUATION AND PUBLICATION OF SUBMITTED PAPERS Submitted manuscripts will be evaluated and selected for presentation in the workshop. The proceedings of FMOODS'96 have been published by Chapman and Hall, the publisher of IFIP events; FMOODS'97 will be similarly published. The proceedings will be made available at the workshop. It is also anticipated that a selection of the highest quality papers will be published in a journal special issue on the conference. INSTRUCTIONS TO THE AUTHORS Authors are invited to submit full original research papers, up to 16 pages (including bibliography), 12 point, single spaced, including an informative abstract, names and affiliations of all authors, and a list of keywords facilitating the assignment of papers to referees. IMPORTANT DATES 14th January 1997 Submission deadline 18th March 1997 Notification of acceptance 18th April 1997 Camera ready copy for proceedings due FTP SUBMISSION Manuscripts in plain (ASCII) text or PostScript format are welcome (possibly compressed with 'compress' or 'gzip'). Use anonymous FTP to mango.ukc.ac.uk directory "/pub/hidden/fmoods97" using the last name of the contact person as a filename. Note that files deposited in the submission directory can only be written once and cannot be read or deleted afterwards. After having downloaded your manuscript file into the submission directory, you should notify your submission by e-mail to: >>> fmoods97-submit@ukc.ac.uk <<< Your notification e-mail should be in plain text (ASCII) and should include: - the title of your paper - the name of the authors and their institutions - a list of keywords - an abstract of your paper - the name and postal, fax and e-mail addresses of the contact person - the name and format of your submission file Your submission and notification will be acknowledged. E-MAIL SUBMISSION Should ftp submission be impossible, you may choose to submit your paper with electronic mail. Submissions should be made in two separate e-mails: a Manuscript e-mail and a Notification e-mail. Send your Manuscript in postscript format (possibly uuencoded and compressed with 'compress' or 'gzip') to the following address: >>> fmoods97-submit@ukc.ac.uk <<< Send your Notification e-mail to: >>> fmoods97-submit@ukc.ac.uk <<< Your notification e-mail should be in plain text (ASCII) and should include: - the title of your paper - the name of the authors and their institutions - a list of keywords - an abstract of your paper - the name and postal, fax and e-mail addresses of the contact person Your submission and notification will be acknowledged. POSTAL SUBMISSION Should electronic submission be impossible, please send 5 copies of your manuscript to: Howard Bowman Computing Laboratory University of Kent at Canterbury Canterbury Kent CT2 7NF United Kingdom INQUIRIES Should you need any organisational information, please send a message to: fmoods97-request@ukc.ac.uk Should you have any scientific enquiries, please send a message to one of the chairpersons: H.Bowman@ukc.ac.uk or J.Derrick@ukc.ac.uk. ORGANISATION COMMITTEE Eerke Boiten - University of Kent Charles Briscoe-Smith - University of Kent Geraldina Fernandes - University of Kent Olga Fernandes - University of Kent Donna Lindsey - University of Kent Erik Poll - University of Kent Helena Rodrigues - University of Kent Maarten Steen - University of Kent WWW Further details of FMOODS 97 and an HTML version of the present call for papers can be accessed at the following web page. http://alethea.ukc.ac.uk/Dept/Computing/Research/NDS/FMOODS/ RELATED EVENTS ECOOP'97 11th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Jyvaskyla, Finland, June 9-13, 1997. Information is available at the following WEB sites: http://www.ecoop97.jyu.fi and http://wwwtrese.cs.utwente.nl/ecoop97