TACAS 2014 call for papers

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CALL FOR PAPERS

TACAS 2014
An ETAPS Member Conference

20th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the
Construction and Analysis of Systems

http://www.etaps.org/2014/tacas

Abstract Submission: 4 October 2013
Paper Submission: 11 October 2013
Author Notification: 20 December 2013
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TACAS is a forum for researchers, developers and users interested in
rigorously based tools and algorithms for the construction and
analysis of systems. The conference serves to bridge the gaps between
different communities with this common interest and to support them
in their quest to improve the utility, reliability, flexibility and
efficiency of tools and algorithms for building systems.

Theoretical papers with clear relevance for tool construction and
analysis, as well as tool descriptions and case studies with a
conceptual message, are all encouraged. The topics covered by the
conference include, but are not limited to:

- Specification and verification techniques
- Software and hardware verification
- Analytical techniques for real-time, hybrid, or stochastic systems
- Analytical techniques for safety, security, or dependability
- Model checking
- Theorem proving
- SAT and SMT solvers
- Static and dynamic program analysis
- Testing
- Abstraction techniques for modeling and verification
- Compositional and refinement-based methodologies
- System construction and transformation techniques
- Tool environments and tool architectures
- Applications and case studies

=== Paper categories: ===

TACAS accepts four types of submissions: research papers, case study
papers, regular tool papers, and tool demonstration papers.

- Research papers clearly identify and justify a principled advance
to the theoretical foundations for the construction and analysis of
systems and, where applicable, are supported by experimental
validation. Research papers can have a maximum of 15 pages.

- Case study papers report on case studies (preferably in a "real
life" setting). They should provide information about the following
aspects: the system being studied and why it is of interest, the
goals of the study, the challenges the system poses to automated
analysis, research methodologies and the approach used, the degree to
which goals were attained, and how the results can be generalized to
other problems and domains. Case study papers can have a maximum of
15 pages.

- Regular tool papers present a new tool, a new tool component, or
novel extensions to an existing tool. They should provide a short
description of the theoretical foundations with relevant citations,
and emphasize the design and implementation concerns including
software architecture and core data structures. A regular tool paper
should give a clear account of the tool's functionality, discuss the
tool's practical capabilities with reference to the type and size of
problems it can handle, experience with realistic case studies, and
where applicable, provide a rigorous experimental evaluation. Papers
that present extensions to existing tools should clearly focus on the
improvements or extensions with respect to previously published
versions of the tool, preferably substantiated by data on
enhancements in terms of resources and capabilities. We strongly
suggest authors make their tools available via the web, even if only
for the evaluation process. Tool papers can have a maximum of 15
pages.

- Tool demonstration papers focus on the usage aspects of tools. The
described tools must be publicly available. Theoretical foundations
and experimental evaluation are not required, however, a motivation
as to why the tool is interesting and significant should be provided.
Tool demonstration papers can have a maximum of 6 pages. They should
have an appendix of up to 6 additional pages with details on the
actual demonstration.

The proceedings will be published in the Advanced Research in
Computing and Software Science (ARCoSS) subline of Springer's Lecture
Notes in Computer Science series. Papers of all four types will
appear in the proceedings and have presentations during the
conference.

=== Submission: ===

A condition of submission is that, if the submission is accepted, one
of the authors attends the conference to give the presentation.
Submitted papers must be in English presenting unpublished research
not submitted for publication elsewhere. In particular, simultaneous
submission of the same contribution to multiple ETAPS conferences is
forbidden. Papers must follow the formatting guidelines specified by
Springer at the URL: http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html
and be submitted electronically in pdf through Easychair:
https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=tacas2014.
Submissions not adhering to the specified format and length may be
rejected immediately.

=== Competition on Software Verification: ===

TACAS 2014 hosts the third competition on software verification with
the goal to evaluate technology transfer and compare state-of-the-art
software verifiers with respect to effectiveness and efficiency. More
information can be found on the competition website:
http://sv-comp.sosy-lab.org/2014.

=== Invited Speaker: ===

Orna Kupferman (Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel)

=== Programme Chairs: ===

Erika Ábrahám (RWTH Aachen University, Germany)
Klaus Havelund (NASA JPL, USA)

=== Tool Chair: ===

Nikolaj Bjørner (Microsoft Research, USA)

=== Programme Committee: ===

Christel Baier (Technical University of Dresden, Germany)
Saddek Bensalem (VERIMAG/UJF, France)
Nathalie Bertrand (IRISA Rennes, France)
Armin Biere (Johannes Kepler University, Austria)
Nikolaj Bjørner (Microsoft Research, USA)
Rance Cleaveland (University of Maryland, USA)
Alessandro Cimatti (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy)
Cindy Eisner (IBM Research Haifa, Israel)
Martin Fränzle (Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany)
Patrice Godefroid (Microsoft Research, Redmond, USA)
Susanne Graf (Verimag, France)
Orna Grumberg (Technion, Israel)
Boudewijn Haverkort (University of Twente, the Netherlands)
Gerard Holzmann (NASA JPL, USA)
Barbara Jobstmann (CNRS, Verimag, France)
Joost-Pieter Katoen (RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and
University of Twente, the Netherlands)
Kim Larsen (Aalborg University, Denmark)
Roland Meyer (TU Kaiserslautern, Germany)
Corina Pasareanu (NASA Ames Research Center, USA)
Doron Peled (Bar Ilan University, Israel)
Paul Pettersson (Mälardalen University, Sweden)
Nir Piterman (University of Leicester, UK)
Sriram Sankaranarayanan (University of Colorado Boulder, USA)
Natasha Sharygina (Universita della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland)
Scott Smolka (Stony Brook University, USA)
Bernhard Steffen (University of Dortmund, Germany)
Marielle Stoelinga (University of Twente, the Netherlands)
Fritz Vaandrager (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
Willem Visser (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa)
Ralf Wimmer (University of Freiburg, Germany)
Lenore Zuck (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)

=== Steering Committee: ===

Rance Cleaveland (University of Maryland, USA)
Holger Hermanns (Saarland University, Germany)
Kim G. Larsen (Aalborg University, Denmark)
Bernhard Steffen (TU Munich, Germany)
Lenore Zuck (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)