=====================================================================
CALL FOR PAPERS
(Deadline: February 17, 2012)

Eighth International ACM Sigsoft Conference on the
Quality of Software Architectures (QoSA 2012)

Bertinoro, Italy, June 25-28, 2012
http://qosa.ipd.kit.edu/qosa_2012/

(QoSA 2012 is part of CompArch 2012: http://comparch2012.dei.polimi.it/)
======================================================================

* Deadline for Abstracts: 17 February 2012
* Deadline for Paper Submission: 28 February 2012
* Notification to Authors: 9 April 2012

* A special issue of the journal Science
of Computer Programming
wil publish extended versions of the best papers of QoSA 2012.

* Invited talk will be given by Johan Bendz, convenor of
the ISO/IEC-JTC1-SC7 Working Group on Software Architecture.

======================================================================

SCOPE

The goal of QoSA (Quality of Software Architectures) is to address the quality
aspects of software architecture, focusing broadly on its quality
characteristics and how these relate to the design of software architectures.
Specific issues of interest are defining and modeling quality measures,
evaluating and managing architecture quality, linking architecture to
requirements and implementation, and preserving architecture quality throughout
the system lifetime.

QoSA is the premier forum for the presentation of new results in the area of
software architecture quality. It brings together researchers, practitioners
and students who are concerned with software architecture quality in a holistic
way. As a working conference QoSA has a strong practical bias, encompassing
research papers, industrial reports and invited talks from renowned speakers.

This year the main theme of QoSA is "Evolving Architectures". Papers addressing
both novel research results advancing the state-of-the-art of the field and
experience learned from industrial case studies are welcome. Reflecting the
practical emphasis of QoSA, papers showcasing applications along with a sound
conceptual contribution are particularly welcome. In addition to mature
research papers this year we also welcome position papers presenting
ground-breaking and more risky innovative research ideas, methods, and
proposals that address unexplored areas of research and challenge current
thinking and/or practices.

TOPICS

Topics of interest for the conference include (but are not limited to) the
following themes:

Architecture Design

* design decisions and their influence on the quality of software architecture
* maintaining software architectures in the presence of change
* architectural refactorings and their implications for quality
* architectural standards and reference architectures
* model-driven methods and tools for architecture design and implementation

Architecture Evaluation

* quality assessment of legacy systems and third party applications
* empirical validation, testing, prototyping and simulation for assessing
architecture quality
* quality attributes of software architectures
* methods and processes for evaluating architecture quality
* model-driven evaluation of software architecture quality
* evaluating the effects of architectural adaptations at run-time
* lessons learned and empirical validation of theories and frameworks on
architecture quality

Architecture Management

* assessment and enforcement of architectural conformance throughout
the software lifecycle
* traceability of software architecture to requirements and implementation
* models and tools for coping with software architecture evolution
* applications to industrial case studies and use cases

SUBMISSIONS

We solicit two types of submissions: regular papers and position papers.

* Regular papers should describe original and significant results of
theoretical,
empirical, conceptual, or experimental research and
industrial practice. Regular papers are limited to 10 pages.

* Position papers describe novel ideas or innovative proposals whose aim
is to stimulate discussion related to experiences and ideas, rather than
to present mature results. Position papers are limited to 6 pages.

All accepted contributions will be published in the ACM digital library. Papers
should respect the standard ACM format for conference proceedings (see
http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html). Manuscripts must be
submitted through the Easychair submission system available online at
http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=qosa2012.

All contributions will be subject to a rigorous selection process by the
international Program Committee, with a stress on originality, usefulness,
practicality and overall quality. Papers must not have been previously
published or being currently submitted elsewhere. If accepted, the paper must
be personally presented at the QoSA 2012 Conference by one of the authors. A
selection of the best papers of the conference will be invited to submit
extended versions to a special issue of the Science of Computer Programming
journal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/scico/).

IMPORTANT DATES

* Abstract submission deadline: February 17, 2012
* Papers submission deadline: February 28, 2012
* Notification to authors: April 9, 2012
* Camera-ready version: May 1, 2012
* Conference: June 26-28, 2012

INVITED SPEAKER

Johan Bendz, Convenor, ISO/IEC-JTC1-SC7 Working Group on Software Architecture

GENERAL CHAIR

Raffaela Mirandola, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Vincenzo Grassi, Universita di Roma Tor Vergata, Italy

PC CO-CHAIRS:

Barbora Buhnova, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Antonio Vallecillo, University of Malaga, Spain

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Muhammad Ali Babar, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Colin Atkinson, University of Mannheim, Germany
Mehmet Aksit, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Steffen Becker, Universität Paderborn, Germany
Jan Bosch, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Marko Boskovic, Athabasca University, Canada
Michel Chaudron, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Ivica Crnkovic, Mälardalen University, Sweden
Carlos Cuesta, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
Antinisca Di Marco, Universita' dell'Aquila, Italy
Xavier Franch, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
Geri Georg, Colorado State University, USA
Anirüddha Gokhalé, Vanderbilt University, USA
Ian Gorton, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA
Jens Happe, SAP Research, Germany
George Heineman, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA
Rich Hilliard, IEEE, USA
Jan Kofron, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Samuel Kounev, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Heiko Koziolek, ABB, Germany
José Merseguer, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
Robert Nord, Software Engineering Institute, USA
Sven Overhage, University of Augsburg, Germany
Claus Pahl, Dublin City University, Ireland
Richard Paige, University of York, UK
Dorina Petriu, Carleton University, Canada
Alfonso Pierantonio, Universita' dell'Aquila, Italy
Frantisek Plasil, Charles University, Czech Republic
Marek Prochazka, European Space Agency/ESTEC, The Netherlands
Ralf Reussner, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Roshanak Roshandel, Seattle University, USA
Antonino Sabetta, SAP Research Sophia-Antipolis, France
Jean-Guy Schneider, Swinburne University, Australia
Judith Stafford, Tufts University, USA
Michael Stal, Siemens, Germany
Clemens Szyperski, Microsoft, USA
Bedir Tekinerdogan, Bilkent University, Turkey
Hans van Vliet, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands