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ABZ 2021: 8th International Conference on Rigorous State Based Methods

Ulm University, Ulm, Germany

June 7-11, 2021

https://abz2021.uni-ulm.de

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The ABZ conference is dedicated to the cross-fertilization of
state-based and machine-based formal methods, like 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. The conference
aims for a vital exchange of knowledge and experience among the research
communities around different formal methods.

The name ABZ goes back to the first conference in London in 2008, where
the ASM, B and Z conference series were merged into a joint event. In
the following years other formal methods were added, e.g. Alloy in 2010
(Orford, Canada), VDM in 2012 (Pisa, Italy), and TLA+ in 2014
(Toulouse, France). After the also successful 2016 conferences in Linz,
Austria and 2018 in Southampton, UK, it was decided to name the
conference "ABZ: International Conference on Rigorous State Based
Methods", to stress the openness for further state-based formal methods.
Unfortunately, ABZ 2020 had to be postponed to 2021.
With ABZ2020, we experimented the two-steps-conference with a first
selection of submissions published in LNCS proceedings and those
selected papers will be presented at the 2021 session. We hope to
continue many fruitful discussions between representatives of the
individual methods in the past, which will bring us closer to the
common goal of this research community: the creation of reliable and
safe software.

ABZ 2021 will have a main conference track, a case study track, a
doctoral symposium, tutorials, and workshops.


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Important dates
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Workshops/Tutorials
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Workshop proposal submission: January 15, 2021
Workshop notification: January 29, 2021
Tutorial proposal submission: March 01, 2021

Main Track
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Abstract submission: February 15, 2021
Paper submission: February 22, 2021 (including research/short/industry/
case study papers)
Notification: March 29, 2021
Final version: April 12, 2021

Doctoral Symposium
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Paper submission: April 03, 2021
Notification: April 08, 2021
Final version: April 15, 2021


ABZ 2021 conference: June 7-11, 2021


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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 and other state-based rigour
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 in a single event, editorial control of the joint
conference is vested in one integrated program committee.


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Case Study Track
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As successfully practiced since ABZ 2014, the 8th edition of ABZ will
again include special sessions dedicated to an industrial case study.
Due to the postponement of the ABZ 2020 conference, we decided not to
provide a new case study. Nevertheless, new contributions to the
automotive case study are welcome!

We explicitly invite you to also submit contributions to case studies
from previous conferences, which substantially extend the solutions
presented there in one aspect or another. Possible enhancements could be
new proof techniques, more elegant modeling, generation, verification,
or validation of executable code, etc.

See https://abz2021.uni-ulm.de/case-study for a detailed description of
the case study and links to previous ones.


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Doctoral Symposium
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ABZ 2021 will include a doctoral symposium. PhD students are encouraged
to report on their ongoing work or research plans and receive a valuable
feedback from the ABZ community. The papers are not peer reviewed, but
checked by a small PC. Accepted papers are also included in the ABZ
proceedings.

More details can be found at https://abz2021.uni-ulm.de/phd-symposium


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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.

Please submit your proposals to abz2021@uni-ulm.de.


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Submissions
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Papers should be original work, not published or submitted elsewhere, in
Springer LNCS format, written in English, submitted through EasyChair:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=abz2021

Five kinds of contributions are invited:

• Regular papers:
Full papers of not more than 14 pages, which have to be original,
unpublished and not submitted elsewhere.

• Short papers and tool demonstrations:
An extended abstract of not more than 4 pages is expected and will
be reviewed.

• 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.

• Case study papers:
Full papers of not more than 14 pages reporting on the experiments
conducted with any of the state based techniques in the scope of
ABZ 2021. We also expect a link to a webpage, where the produced
models can be downloaded.

• Contribution to doctoral symposium:
Short papers of not more than 4 pages

All page limits include references and appendices. The deadlines for the
different kinds of contributions see above. Each paper will be evaluated
by at least three members of the Programme Committee.

Accepted submissions will appear in the Springer LNCS proceedings. It is
planned to continue the cooperation with the journals SCP and STTT, where
in the past extended versions of selected papers were invited for
publication in special issues.

For each accepted paper, at least one author is expected to present the
paper at the conference as a registered participant.


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Organization
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Conference Chairs:
Alexander Raschke, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany Dominique Méry,
LORIA-Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France

Publicity Chair:
Jakob Pietron, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany


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Program Committee
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TBD



For further questions concerning ABZ 2021, please contact us at
abz2021@uni-ulm.de