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CALL FOR PAPERS

2nd International Workshop on Variability in Software Architecture (VARSA 2012)
August 20, 2012, Helsinki, Finland

at the Joint 10th Working IEEE / IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA)
& 6th European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA)

http://sites.google.com/site/varsa2012/
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Papers with the highest evaluations may be considered for a special issue of the Journal of Systems and Software (JSS) on "Variability in Software Architecture".

MOTIVATION AND OBJECTIVES
Variability is the ability of a software system or artifact to be adapted for specific contexts in a preplanned manner. Many of today's software systems are built with variability in mind, e.g., product lines and families, self-adaptive systems, open platforms, or service-based systems with dynamic runtime composition of web services. Variability is reflected in and facilitated through the software architecture. Also, as the software architecture is a reference point for many development activities and for achieving quality attributes, variability should be treated as a first-class and cross-cutting concern in software architecture. VARSA 2012 aims at identifying critical challenges and progressing the state-of-the-art on variability in software architecture. The goal is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in a) variability as it occurs in software architecture, particularly in relation to quality attributes, b) how variability can be facilitated in architecture descriptions, and means to achieve variability, c) particular challenges of variability in software architecture (e.g., in the context of new architecture paradigms or unprecedented systems, and d) variability as a key technique to realize self-adaptation of software-intensive systems at the architecture level.

TOPICS OF INTEREST
Topics of the workshop include but are not limited to:
- Variability in software architecture as a cross-cutting concern beyond product line architectures.
- Architecture viewpoints and views to manage variability.
- The role of variability in architecture knowledge and design decisions.
- Reference architectures for variability-intensive systems.
- Architecture patterns, styles and tactics for variability.
- Consistency, traceability and evolution in the context of variability in software architecture.
- Handling variability from requirements to architectures and throughout the software life cycle.
- Variability in self-adaptive systems and architectures.
- Variability in the architecture of dynamic software product lines.
- Variability in the architecture of large-scale systems and eco-systems.
- Variability in unprecedented systems, in emerging architecture paradigms (e.g., SOA, REST), and in new and critical domains.
- Variability and quality attributes.
- Design time and runtime variability in software architecture.
We are particularly interested in industrial experiences, best practices, lessons learned, etc.

PAPER SUBMISSION
We welcome a) future trend papers, describing ongoing research, new results, and future trends (up to 4 pages), b) research papers describing innovative and significant original research in the field (up to 8 pages), and c) industrial papers describing industrial experience, case studies, challenges, problems and solutions (up to 8 pages). Submissions must follow the IEEE conference proceedings format. Please submit your contributions (in PDF) through https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=varsa2012.

IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline: May 4, 2012
Notification of acceptance: June 8, 2012
Camera-ready due: June 21, 2012

ORGANIZERS
Matthias Galster, U of Groningen, Netherlands
Danny Weyns, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Paris Avgeriou, U of Groningen, Netherlands
Martin Becker, Fraunhofer IESE, Germany

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Jesper Andersson, Linnaeus University, Sweden.
Len Bass, NICTA, Australia.
David Benavides, University of Seville, Spain.
Jan Bosch, Chalmers University, Sweden.
Paul Clements, BigLever Software Inc., USA.
Hassan Gomaa, George Mason University, USA.
Rich Hilliard, Consulting Software Systems Architect, USA.
Jens Knodel, Fraunhofer IESE, Germany.
Kai Koskimies, Tampere University of Technology, Finland.
Philippe Kruchten, University of British Columbia, Canada.
Patricia Lago, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Gerrit Muller, Buskerud University College, Norway.
Martin Naedele, ABB Corporate Research, Switzerland.
Elisa Yumi Nakagawa, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Claus Pahl, Dublin City University, Ireland.
Klaus Schmid, University of Hildesheim, Germany.
Michael Stal, Siemens, Germany.
Bedir Tekinerdogan, Bilkent University, Turkey.
Tim Trew, NDS Ltd, UK.
Eddy Truyen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
Uwe Zdun, University of Vienna, Austria.