[FOM] Call for Papers: Models for Formal Analysis of Real Systems (MARS'15)

[Rob van Glabbeek]

Second Call for Papers:

                             Workshop on
              Models for Formal Analysis of Real Systems
                             (MARS 2015)

                       Affiliated With LPAR 20

                     November 23, 2015 Suva, Fiji

		   http://hoefner-online.de/mars15/

Aim: Logics and techniques for automated reasoning have often been
developed with formal analysis and formal verification in mind. To
show applicability, toy examples or tiny case studies are typically
presented in research papers. Since the theory needs to be developed
first, this approach is reasonable.
  However, to show that a developed approach actually scales to real
systems, large case studies are essential. The development of formal
models of real systems usually requires a perfect understanding of
informal descriptions of the system-sometimes found in RFCs or other
standard documents-which are usually just written in English. Based on
the type of system, an adequate specification formalism needs to be
chosen, and the informal specification translated into it. Abstraction
from unimportant details then yields an accurate, formal model of the
real system.
  The process of developing a detailed and accurate model usually takes
a large amount of time, often months or years; without even starting a
formal analysis. When publishing the results on a formal analysis in a
scientific paper, details of the model have to be skipped due to lack
of space, and often the lessons learnt from modelling are not
discussed since they are not the main focus of the paper.
  The workshop aims at discussing exactly these unmentioned lessons.
Examples are:

  * Which formalism is chosen, and why?
  * Which abstractions have to be made and why?
  * How are important characteristics of the system modelled?
  * Were there any complications while modelling the system?
  * Which measures were taken to guarantee the accuracy of the model?

The workshop emphasises modelling over verification. In particular, we
invite papers that present full Models of Real Systems, which may lay
the basis for future formal analysis. The workshop will bring together
researchers from different communities that all aim at verifying real
systems and are developing formal models for such systems. Areas where
large models often occur are within networks, (trustworthy) systems
and software verification (from byte code up to programming- and
specification languages). An aim of the workshop is to present
different modelling approaches and discuss pros and cons for each of them.

SUBMISSION:

Submissions must be unpublished and not be submitted for publication elsewhere.
Contributions are limited to 8 pages EPTCS style (http://style.eptcs.org)
(not counting the appendix), but shorter extended abstracts are welcome.
Appendices (of arbitrary length) can be used to present all details of
a formalised model; the appendices will be part of the proceedings.
Submissions must be in English and submitted in PDF format via EasyChair (TBC).

All submissions will be peer reviewed by at least three referees based
on their novelty, relevance and technical merit. The proceedings will be 
published as part of the open access series Electronic Proceedings 
in Theoretical Computer Science (EPTCS).

IMPORTANT DATES (AoE):

 * Submission of abstracts: Monday 24 August 2015
 * Submission: Monday 31 August 2015
 * Notification: Friday 9 October 2015
 * Final version: Monday 2 November 2015
 * Workshop: Monday 23 November 2015

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE:

Rance Cleaveland        (University of Maryland, USA)
Hubert Garavel          (INRIA, France)
Rob van Glabbeek  (co-chair) (NICTA, Sydney, Australia)
Jan Friso Groote  (co-chair) (Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands)
He Jifeng               (East China Normal University, China)
Holger Hermanns         (Saarland University, Germany)
Peter Hoefner     (co-chair) (NICTA, Sydney, Australia)
Gerald Holzmann 	(NASA/JPL, USA)
Magnus Myreen 		(Chalmers University, Sweden)
Viet Yen Nguyen 	(Fraunhofer IESE, Germany)
Bill Roscoe 		(University of Oxford, UK)
Pamela Zave             (AT&T Laboratories, USA)

PROGRAMME CHAIRS and WORKSHOP ORGANISERS:

Rob van Glabbeek  (NICTA, Sydney, Australia)
Jan Friso Groote  (Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands)
Peter Hoefner      (NICTA, Sydney, Australia)

CONTACT:

   mars15 at cs.stanford.edu