Ralph H. Sprague, Jr.
Department of Decision Sciences
University of Hawaii
2404 Maile Way, C-202
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
Phone: (808) 956-7082
Fax: (808) 956-9889
E-mail: sprague@hawaii.edu
The past several years have seen marked changes in the institutional structures of the electric power industry in many countries. In most cases the driving forces for change have come from the governments. Often the objective is to introduce more competition and to increase private sector ownership of the electric supply industry. The overall aim regardless of the drivers, is to reduce the price of electricity and increase customer responsiveness by methods other than direct regulation.
Primary examples of institutional change include unbundling of services and equipment, the introduction of non-utility or third party generation, proposals for and implementation of new bidding or auction arrangements for pricing electricity and corporatisation, among others. In most cases each element includes ownership changes, a competitive market with new procedures and a re-vamping of the regulatory process. Each of these elements has and will continue to have its own impact on the planning, operation, cost and reliability of power systems. This minitrack is especially interested in identifying the effects and impacts of institutional change (proposed or in place). It is especially interested in new tools and methodology, that is, the technical underpinnings needed to transition the system from the old to the new. Therefore, papers on topics related to the affected elements of restructuring of an electric power industry will be entertained.
Robert J. Thomas
School of Electrical Engineering
428 Phillips Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
E-mail: rjt1@cornell.edu
(607) 255-5083 (office)
(607) 255-8871 (fax)
(607) 844-9345 (home)
Modern computer systems and applications embody many different characteristics and properties that are currently addressed, studied, and optimized independently. Nevertheless, although it is of basic importance to focus on these aspects independently, as a whole these properties feature a complex interrelationship, and thus a higher-level view of the complete project becomes mandatory.
While perhaps some of the earlier computer systems could be described, designed and implemented with a particular focus on one objective (such as fault-tolerance or timeliness), or using a single method such as Structured Programming), it is very questionable whether such modern and future applications can be. Nowadays almost all electronic products are becoming more and more software based: complex computer systems are becoming common in many sectors, such as manufacturing, communications, defense, transportation, aerospace, hazardous environments, energy, health care, etc. These systems feature a number of different characteristics (such as distributed processing, heterogeneous computational paradigms, high speed networks, novel bus systems, or special-purpose hardware enhancements in general) and performance requirements (such as real-time behavior, fault tolerance, security, adaptability, development time and cost, long life concerns). The concurrent satisfaction of the systems requirements have a considerable impact on the hardware characteristics and vice-versa. The analysis of the complete project, as a whole, is a major point in the design of the computer system itself and plays a basic role throughout the entire system life.
The ECCS Minitrack will bring together industrial, academic, and government
experts from these various disciplines, to determine how the disciplines'
problems and solution techniques interact within the whole system. Researchers,
practitioners, tool developers and users, and technology transition experts
are all welcome.
Alberto Broggi
Dip. Ingegneria dell'Informazione
Universita' di Parma
I-43100 Parma
ITALY
FAX: +39-521-905723
E-mail: a.broggi@computer.org
Web page: http://www.ce.unipr.it/~broggi
Mike Hinchey
Real-Time Computing Labortory, CIS
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Newark, NJ 07102
FAX: (201) 596-5777
E-mail: michael.hinchey@ul.ie
Alexander D. Stoyen
President & CEO
21st Century Systems, Inc.
420 Hardscrabble Road
Chappaqua, NY 10514-3030
Tel: (914) 769-2939
Fax: (914) 769-0949
E-mail: alex@21csi.com
The minitrack concerns software engineering techniques specifically addressing the development, verification, and validation of critical software. These systems include software control for aircraft, spacecraft, medical diagnosis and treatment devices, industrial process control, and ground transportation.
In particular, work will be solicited in the following areas:
* Verification techniques such as statistical testing, code and document
inspection, and formal verification of code and design.
* Specification techniques based on formal languages and models.
* Requirements definition and hazard analysis.
* Techniques for distributed consensus, real-time data sharing and fault
isolation.
* Hardware-software interfaces for high integrity systems.
* Development of human-computer interfaces to minimize errors.
* Case studies.
James D. Kiper
Department of Systems Analysis
Miami University
Oxford OH 45956
513 529 5931 (voice)
513 529 1524 (fax)
kiperjd@muohio.edu
James E. Tomayko
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh PA 15213
412 268 5576 (fax)
jet@cs.cmu.edu
This minitrack concerns software engineering techniques specifically addressing the development, verification, and validation of secure software systems.
Secure software systems are in the forefront again. Techniques originally developed in the 1970s and 1980s for specification and verification of multilevel secure operating systems and network devices are a foundation for today's multilevel networks.
The early security researchers did not envision the widespread public use of secure transaction systems for the Internet economy. Underlying the innocuous browser icons for secure transactions are authentication and privacy schemes that require systematic validation and verification. Security problems with browsers, as well as possible privacy intrusions such as cookies, are reported in the popular press. In particular, work will be solicited in the following areas:
* Specification and modeling techniques for multilevel systems and networks.
* Formal and structured approaches to security verification and validation.
* Requirements definition and hazard analysis.
* Case studies.
Brent Auernheimer (primary contact)
Department of Computer Science
California State University
Fresno CA 93740
209 278 2573 (voice)
209 278 4197 (fax)
brent@CSUFresno.edu
Deborah Frincke
Department of Computer Science
University of Idaho
Moscow ID 83844-1010
208 885 6589 (voice)
frincke@cs.uidaho.edu
Software process improvement efforts rely on the successful integration of many technical, people, and methodological issues. This provides the opportunity for rich socio-technical and interdisciplinary research studies in addition to those studies that focus on process and/or enabling technology issues. Papers are welcome which deal with issues related to models, methodologies, metrics, organizational, management, people and team, and technical aspects of Software Process Improvement. Both conceptual and empirical work dealing with any stage of software process improvement initiatives is appropriate.
Gene McGuire
Associate Professor
Computer Science and Information Systems
American University
Clark Hall, Rm. 123
4400 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20016-8116
Phone: (202) 885-3268
Fax: (202) 885-1479
Email: mcguire@american.edu
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