VVASS 2018: The IEEE QRS 2018 Workshop on Verification and Validation of Adaptive Software Systems
July 16-20, 2018, Lisbon, Portugal, http://vvass2018.ist.tugraz.at

Call for Papers

Among the verification and validation (V&V) strategies software testing methods are the ones most commonly used in industry.
Software testing can be very effective both in revealing failures and assessing functional correctness, however, testing cannot
provide evidence of the absence of faults. More rigorous and effective strategies to reason about correctness range from model
checking to model-based software testing methods. These V&V methods are typically applied at design time. Therefore, the
assessment of system properties occurring during system execution for reassuring these system properties after adaption requires
not only traditional V&V methods to be applied at runtime but also the adoption of novel ones to be applied in the various adaption
phases. For example, the system may be adapted and reach a state that was unforeseen at design time, thus the system has not been
verified for that state. Therefore, the following questions arise:

➢ Which properties can be exclusively verified/tested at design time?
➢ Which properties can be verified/tested at time of system configuration?
➢ Which properties need to be verified/tested at runtime?
➢ Which properties can be verified/tested either at design time, configuration time, or run-time?

Therefore, this workshop brings together academics and practitioners to exchange and discuss the latest synergies on adaptive
systems as well as methods and techniques for V&V of these systems. We explicitly encourage participation of researchers from
different communities that intersect with self-adaptive systems and their V&V. The workshop will be set in an informal and
cooperative atmosphere with a specific format allotted to discussions. Beside of topical cross-fertilization, VVASS 2018 provides
an excellent networking opportunity.

AREAS OF INTEREST
* Simulation and continuous experimentation
.Simulation environments
.Context dependent requirements
.Feedback-loops to handle uncertainties
.Explicit boundaries for adaptive behavior
.Model evolution
.Continuous experimentation and cyber-physical systems

* Case studies and use cases
.Fail-safe, fail-silent, fail-operational systems
.Safety of intended functionality: ISO 26262, ISO/WD PAS 21448
.Adaption mechanisms
.Elastic computing
.Machine-learning based adaptive mechanisms
.Models at runtime
.Case studies from domains such as autonomous driving, advanced driver assistance systems, robotics, industrial automation

* SELF-* and runtime monitoring
.Run-time verification
.V&V monitors
.(Re)configuration
.Adaption properties such as stability, robustness, consistency, security or safety
.Context monitoring
.Context-dependent properties

* Testing methods for adaptive systems
.Test case derivation & selection
.Test execution
.Test oracles
.Model-based testing

WORKSHOP PROCEEDINGS & SPECIAL ISSUE JOURNAL
IEEE Computer Society Conference Publishing Services (CPS) will publish the proceedings. Accepted papers will also be submitted
for inclusion in the IEEE Xplore and to other abstracting and indexing partners such as the Ei Compendex. Authors of all accepted
contributions will be invited to submit an extended version to the Software Quality Journal (Springer). Submission will be evaluated
following the guidelines set by the Software Quality Journal. Only those submissions which satisfy all criteria will be accepted for
publication.

IMPORTANT DATES
* April 15, 2018 Submission deadline
* May 15, 2018 Author notification
* June 1, 2018 Camera-ready articles

SUBMISSION
The organizers and the program committee welcome original manuscripts (not published or considered elsewhere) either in the form
of a full paper (at most 6 pages) or fast abstracts (at most 2 pages) fitting into the listed areas and related areas. Fast abstracts should
sketch position statements that address an important problem for future research or an interesting lesson learned. Each paper should
include a title and the name and affiliation of each author. The format of your submission must follow the guidelines for IEEE
conference proceedings.

COMMITTEE
* Program Chairs
Bernhard Peischl Graz University of Technology, Austria
Benedikt Eberhardinger University of Augsburg, Germany
Josip Bozic Graz University of Technology, Austria

GENERAL INQUIRIES
For more detailed and updated information, please refer to the website: http://vvass2018.ist.tuGraz.at or contact Dr. Bernhard
Peischl (Graz University of Technology, Austria) at bernhard.peischl at ist.tuGraz.at.