CALL FOR PAPERS - IWPSE 2015

********************************************************************

14th International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution
30 & 31 August, 2015, Bergamo, Italy
Co-located with ESEC/FSE 2015

http://iwpse15.libresoft.es/

Abstracts: 28th May; Submissions: 5th June

Main topic: Replication

OVERVIEW
********************************************************************

Research in software evolution and evolvability has been thriving in
the past years, with a constant stream of new formalisms, tools,
techniques, and development methodologies.
Research in software evolution has two goals. The first is to
facilitate the way software systems can be changed so they become
long-lived; this includes coping with demands from users and with the
increasing complexity and volatility of contexts in which such systems may
operate. The second goal is to understand and if possible control the
processes by which demand for these changes come about.

IWPSE’2015 invites high-quality papers presenting experiments, surveys,
approaches, techniques and tools related to the evolution of software systems.

The 2015 edition of IWPSE will be held in Bergamo, Italy,
as a co-located event of ESEC/FSE 2015, the 10th joint meeting of
the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM
SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering.


TOPICS
********************************************************************

The acceptance of empirical hypotheses should be supported by several and
diverse types of replications. Replication studies make a critical evaluation
of previous empirical studies for overlooked factors of the initial studies,
for instance:
a) initial assumptions have evolved, changed, or are not relevant anymore
b) limited generalization, including: aspects that were previously ignored
but that may affect the conclusions, conclusions that might only apply
to certain types of applications, relations that have only been tested in
certain types of applications but there are reasons to believe that it will not
hold for other types of applications, etc.
c) examples of inconsistent or divergent results across studies about the
same phenomena, including alternative hypotheses or differences in the
experiment that could explain the divergence of results

There are different types of replication depending on whether or not the
experiment (model, variables and statistical method) and the data are the same.
For instance,
a) Same experiment & Same data: aimed at evaluating the certainty of
current knowledge (i.e., confirming or disputing previous results).
b) Different experiment & Same data: aimed at improving the model.
c) Same experiment & Different data: aimed at identifying limitations to
the generality of the conclusions (or to problems with the data).

The first two types of replication are likely to be underreported due to the
low contribution attributed to confirmatory results, and to their obliviousness
with issues of the initial studies (either from the data or from missing
variables). Nevertheless, they are crucial to understand the sensitivity of
the conclusions to the variables analyzed.

We are also interested in meta-studies that analyze the replicability of
empirical studies on software evolution i.e., are all the details needed
reported? at sufficient detail? to what extent original data can be reanalyzed?
and to what extent the original experiment can be followed?

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Application areas: distributed, embedded, real-time, ultra large scale,
and self-adaptive systems, web services, mobile computing, information
systems, systems of systems, etc.
- Paradigms: support and barriers to evolution in aspect-oriented, agile,
component-based, and model-driven software development, service-oriented
architectures,etc.
- Technical aspects: co-evolution and inconsistency management, impact
analysis and change propagation, dynamic reconfiguration and updating;
architectures, tools, languages and notations for supporting evolution, etc.
- Managerial aspects: effort and cost estimation, risk analysis, software
quality, productivity, process support, training, awareness, etc.
- Empirical studies related to software evolution.
- Mining software repositories approaches and techniques supporting software
evolution.
- Industrial experience on successes and failures related to software
evolution.
- Interdisciplinary approaches: adaptation of evolutionary concepts and
measures from other disciplines (biology, geology, etc.) to software
evolution.
- Theories and models to explain and understand software evolution.

NOVELTIES
********************************************************************

1. We will have a couple of papers selected papers for extended discussion
one chosen by the program committee and another one chosen by the audience
(via Twitter).

2. Given that the focus of this year's workshop is on replication we expect
the tool demos to be given as tutorials / hands-on demos that would allow the
workshop participants to use third party tools for their studies.

3. We expect all attendants who want to do so to give a lightning talk (5 min)
explaining their motivation for attending the workshop. Once the
camera ready is over, we will contact registered participants for a one-page
abstract or slide that summarizes their lightning talk.



SUBMISSION AND PUBLICATION
********************************************************************

Four types of submissions are possible: position papers (up to 2 pages),
tool papers (up to 5 pages) and research or industrial papers (up to 10 pages).

Position papers may present wild and speculative ideas, and will be judged on
the potential to generate interesting discussions at the workshop.

Tool papers may describe tools developed in academia or industry. The workshop
will include one or more sessions for tool demos. We are particularly interested
on tools that allow replication of software evolution studies.

Research papers should describe innovative research, while industrial papers may
describe the application or adaptation of known solutions to industrial case
studies, and reflect on lessons learnt.

Proceedings of the workshop will be published in the ACM digital
library. All submissions must be original work, and must not have been
previously published, nor be under consideration for publication.

Papers must strictly adhere to the ACM proceedings format. They
must be submitted as PDF with the EasyChair conference system:

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=iwpse15


IMPORTANT DATES
********************************************************************

Abstract submission: 28th May
Paper submission: 5th June
Notification of acceptance: 29th June
Camera-ready submission: 15th July
IWPSE 2015: 30th & 31st August


WORKSHOP COMMITTEES
********************************************************************

Workshop co-chairs:
* Gregorio Robles, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain
* Angela Lozano, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

Program committee:
* Bram Adams, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada
* Tom Arbuckle, University of Limerick, Ireland
* Árpád Beszédes, University of Szeged, Hungary
* Rafael Capilla, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
* Andrea Capiluppi, Brunel University, United Kingdom
* Massimiliano Di Penta, University of Sannio, Italy
* Tamás Gergely, University of Szeged, Hungary
* Mike Godfrey, University of Waterloo, Canada
* Andrian Marcus, University of Texas at Dallas, USA
* Alessandro Murgia, University of Antwerp, Belgium
* Carlos Noguera, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
* Martin Pinzger, University of Klagenfurt, Austria
* Denys Poshyvanyk, College of William and Mary, USA
* Daniel Rodriguez, The University of Alcalá, Spain
* Mark Van Den Brand, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
* Michel Wermelinger, The Open University, United Kingdom
* Andy Zaidman, TU Delft, The Netherlands