ABZ 2010 Conference

Abstract State Machines (ASM), Alloy, B and Z

February 23-25, 2010
Orford, Québec, Canada
http://abzconference.org

Call for Papers


Important dates:

September 21, 2009: Submission of full papers.
October 11, 2009: Submission of extended abstracts for
short presentations.
November 3,2009: Communication about acceptance /
rejection of submitted papers and
extended abstracts.
November 17, 2009: Camera-ready version of the accepted
full papers and one-page abstract for
the short presentations.
November 17, 2009: Submission of tutorial proposals.
February 22, 2010: Tutorials and Workshops.
February 23-25, 2010: Main ABZ 2010 conference.

Abstract State Machines (ASM), Alloy, B and Z are four
rigorous methods 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
ABZ conference is dedicated to the cross-fertilization of
these four related state-based and machine-based formal
methods. It builds on the success of first ABZ conference
held in London in 2008, where the ASM, B and Z conference
series merged into a single event.

The papers will be published in a volume of Springer's LNCS
series. Contributions are solicited on all aspects of the
theory and applications of ASMs, Alloy, B, Z and related
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. A 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 related
approaches for accomplishing the various tasks in
modelling, experimental validation, and mathematical
verification of reliable high-quality hardware/software
systems.

The conference will consist of a one-day common program of
invited lectures and two days of contributed papers.
Although organized logistically as a single, integral event,
editorial control of the joint conference remains vested in
four separate programme committees, which will respectively
determine its ASM, Alloy, B and Z content, to be presented
in parallel conference tracks with a schedule to allow the
participants to switch between the sessions. It will be
preceded by a day of tutorials and workshops.

Two kinds of contributions are invited:

1. Research papers: full papers of not more than 14 pages
in LNCS format, which have to be original, unpublished and
not submitted elsewhere.

2. Short presentations of work in progress, industrial
experience reports and tool demonstrations. This is an
excellent opportunity for Ph.D. students to present and
validate their work in progress. It is also an interesting
option for industrial practitioners who sometimes face too
many constraints to prepare a full paper. An extended
abstract of not more than 3 pages is expected and will be
reviewed. A volume of accepted extended abstracts will be
made available on the conference web site, and a one-page
abstract of each presentation will be published in the
Proceedings.

Short paper presentations will be mixed with full paper
presentations in the program, to foster discussions and
interactions between all participants.

Tutorial Proposals

Tutorial proposals are solicited in areas related to the
conference topics. Proposals should be sent to Marc
Frappier (marc.frappier@usherbrooke.ca) .

Conference Chair:
Marc Frappier, University of Sherbrooke, Canada

Program Chairs:
Uwe Glaesser, Simon Fraser University, Canada (ASM)
Sarfraz Khurshid, University of Texas at Austin, USA (Alloy)
Régine Laleau, University of Paris-Est, France (B)
Steve Reeves, University of Waikato, New Zealand (Z)

Program Committee:

Yamine Ait Ameur, LISI/ENSMA-UP, France
Rob Arthan, Lemma 1 Ltd., UK
Richard Banach, University of Manchester, UK
Juan Bicarregui, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK
Eerke Boiten, University of Kent, UK
Egon Börger, University of Pisa, Italy
Jonathan Bowen, Museophile Limited / King's College London, UK
Michael Butler, University of Southampton, UK
Ana Calvacanti, University of York, UK
Alessandra Cavarra, Oxford University, UK
John Derrick, University of Sheffield, UK
Juergen Dingel, Queen's University, Canada
Daniel Dolle, Siemens Transportation Systems, France
Andriy Dunets, Universität Augsburg, Germany
Steve Dunne, University of Teesside, UK
Neil Evans, AWE plc Aldermaston, UK
Mamoun Filali, CNRS-IRIT, University of Toulouse, France
Kathi Fisler, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA
Andreas Friesen, SAP Research, Germany
Frédéric Gervais, LACL, University of Paris-Est, France
Susanne Graf, Verimag, France
Anthony Hall, independent consultant, UK
Ian Hayes, University of Queensland, Australia
Martin Henson, University of Essex, UK
Rob Hierons, Brunel University, UK
Daniel Jackson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Jonathan Jacky, University of Washington, USA
Jacques Julliand, LIFC, University of Besançon, France
Viktor Kuncak, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Daniel LeBerre, Universite d'Artois, France
Michael Leuschel, University of Düsseldorf, Germany
Darko Marinov, University of Illinois, USA
Annabelle McIver, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Dominique Mery, LORIA, University of Nancy, France
Anamaria Martins Moreira, UFRN, Natal, Brazil
Jose Oliveira, University of Minho, Portugal
Marie-Laure Potet, VERIMAG, Grenoble, France
Andreas Prinz, Agder University College, Norway
Burkhardt Renz, University of Applied Sciences Gieben-Friedberg, Germany
Elvinia Riccobene, University of Milan, Italy
Ken Robinson, University of New South Wales, Australia
Thomas Santen, European Microsoft Innovation Center, Germany
Klaus-Dieter Schewe, Massey Univesity, New Zealand
Emil Sekerinski, McMaster University, Canada
Anatol Slissenko, University of Paris 12, France
Kevin Sullivan, University of Virginia, USA
Mana Taghdiri, Mathworks, USA
Helen Treharne, University of Surrey, UK
Jan Van den Bussche, University of Hasselt, Belgium
Mandana Vaziri, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA
Margus Veanes, Microsoft Research, USA
Laurent Voisin, Systerel, France
Marina Waldén, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
Chuck Wallace, Michigan Technological University, USA
Pamela Zave, AT&T Laboratories, USA

Venue:

The conference will take place in Orford, Québec, Canada.
Orford is located in the picturesque Eastern Townships, at
the entrance of the Mount Orford National Park. The
conference being held in the winter season, participants
can enjoy the natural beauty of the national park and its
winter sports facilities (skiing, snowboarding,
cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, skating). The area is
also well known for its excellent cuisine and recreational
infrastructure.

Supported by:

ASM User Group
Association de Pilotage des Conférences B
Université de Sherbrooke
Université Paris-Est
Z User Group

Information on how to submit papers, to register, to reach
Orford, weather conditions, etc., will be available in due
time at http://abzconference.org. For questions concerning
ABZ 2010, contact Prof. Marc Frappier
marc.frappier@usherbrooke.ca.