Software Technology Track

Track Chair

Hesham El-Rewini
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Southern Methodist University
PO Box 750122
Dallas, Texas 75275-0122
Email: rewini@engr.smu.edu
Tel: 214-768-3278, Fax: 214-768-3085

Advances in Software Specification and Verification

The Advances in Software Specification and Verification minitrack focuses on research and applications that will drive widespread use of rigorous specification and verification technologies, particularly for large-scale systems that exhibit severe consequences of failure. Topics include new specification and verification techniques, scale-up to large systems, complexity reduction, specification and verification of system survivability properties, development of engineering practices and tools, and case studies.

We focus on advanced techniques for rigorous software specification and verification, with special emphasis on the following areas:

1. Methods for scale up of specification and verification techniques
2. Methods for complexity reduction in specifications
3. Linkage of specification and verification
4. Specification and verification of survivability properties
5. Development of engineering practices and tools
6. Industry specification and verification case studies

Topics include but are not limited to:

• New techniques for specification of software systems
• Trace- and sequence-based approaches to specification
• Complexity reduction methods for scaling up specification and verification techniques
• Developing specifications that enable effective verification
• Specifying and verifying non-functional properties including security and survivability
• Specification and verification techniques for legacy and component-based systems
• New model-checking-based approaches to verification
• Industrial case studies in software specification and verification
• Technology transfer of specification and verification techniques
• Engineering practices for specification and verification
• Tools for specification and verification support

Minitrack Chairs

Domain-Specific Languages for Software Engineering

This Minitrack will be based on the experience reports of researchers and practitioners actively involved in the development of languages for software engineering. It should be of interest to anyone concerned with:

• concepts and paradigms of programming languages
• programmming language design and implementation
• use of domain-specific languages to solve different software engineering problems

The purpose of the minitrack is to bring together an international audience of researchers and practitioners with similar interests and experience. It covers a wide range of domain-specific languages applied to different software engineering problems. The minitrack will focus principally on practical issues such as design, implementation, and use of domain-specific languages as an element of software engineering practice.

The themes and goals of the Domain-Specific Languages for Software Engineering minitrack are relevant to, and complement, the proposed topics for the HICSS Software Technology Track. Specifically, this minitrack fits well with the following topics in the Call for Minitrack Proposals:

• Collaboration technology
• Component programming
• Coordination technology
• Distributed parallel programming
• Emerging programming models
• Internet applications
• Inter-operable and open systems
• System integration

Minitrack Chairs

Enterprise Application Integration: Methodologies, Architectures and Technologies

• (extensions of) XML to descrive and query E-Services (e.g., ebXML, the Component Collaboration Architecture (CCA) specifiction, ..)
• middleware standards (COM+, CORBA,..): how can they adequately support E-Services
• reference-models and blueprinting (e.g., how does MySAP.com deal with E-Services, repositories and EAI?)
• tools for enterprise modelling (DEM, Workflow, ARIS,..)
• wrapper technologies and tools
• interface standards (IDL, CDL, EPR BAPI's, Microsoft Biztalk, OFX,...)
• standard modelling languages (UML) and model interchange formats (XMI)

Minitrack Chairs

Integrated Modeling of Distributed Systems and Workflow Applications

• identifying common problems and solutions in distributed software and workflow systems
• using workflow terminology for an easier understanding of distributed systems
• common techniques for modeling structure and behaviour in a consistent manner
• importance of and techniques for resource management in both areas
• architectures supporting distributed software and workflow change management
• implementing workflow systems using distributed software, e.g. middleware
• experience reports discussing structural and behavioural modeling problems from real-life projects in both areas

Minitrack Chairs

Mobile Applications

This Minitrack will address two broad topics: mobile computing and mobile agents. Mobile computing refers to people, devices and objects on the move. This is probably the largest and most diverse category of research, addressing the use of networked PDAs, in-field information systems, mobile commerce, vehicle telematics and other cellular subscriber services.

Mobile agents are programs that move through computer networks and autonomously carry out tasks. Most research on mobile agents has focused on mobility per se, that is, the seamless migration of processes across a network. Issues such as negotiation and coordination among agents have only begun to be addressed.

We invite contributions to this Minitrack which address questions such as the following:

• How can conventional applications be extended to be mobile?
• How are mobile applications and mobile applications development different from conventional applications and development?
• What are some principles, frameworks and models that can enable mobile software developers to rapidly field test and evaluate programs?
• What are user-centered mobile applications like?
• How can we develop context-aware applications?
• Which development tools are most useful?
• How can agents flexibly recognize and make use of changing sets of resources in their environments?
• How can mobile agent architectures and systems address problems of negotiation and coordination among agents?

Minitrack Chairs

Mobile Computing and Wireless Network

• Resource management in cellular and satellite networks
• Mobility management
• Data management issues, query processing, data delivery
• QoS routing in multimedia wireless networks
• Fixed and dynamic channel assignment
• Multiple access schemes for mobile radio networks
• Energy efficient protocols for mobile radio networks
• Sensor networks
• Wireless ATM and LANs
• Routing, broadcasting and multicasting in wireless networks
• Fault tolerance and security issues.

Minitrack Chairs

Important Deadlines (in 2001):

• A 300-word abstract by April 30 (late submissions may also be considered).
• Feedback to author on abstract by April 30
• Eight copies of the manuscript by June 1
• Notification of accepted papers by August 31
• Camera-ready copies of accepted manuscripts and registrations are due by October 1.

• Submit your abstract and manuscript to one of the minitrack coordinators.
• Manuscripts should have an abstract and be 22-25 typewritten, double-spaced pages in length.
• Papers must not have been previously presented or published, nor currently submitted for journal publication. Each manuscript will be refereed.
• Individuals interested in refereeing papers should contact the minitrack coordinators directly.

Peer-2-Peer Ecommerce Systems and Applications

The purpose of this minitrack is to provide a forum for researchers and practicioners to discuss information system issues related to the emerging peer-2-peer paradigm. Examples of such systems are found in B2B ecommerce (e.g. electronic marketplaces, mySAP, etc.) and C2C ecommerce (e.g. information exchange communities such as Napster, Gnutella, etc.). These systems are characterized by an increasing decentralisation and autonomy of components.

Contributions of interest will be those that describe novel business interaction and user coordination models, the supporting information systems and new types of systems and applications supporting the peer-2-peer paradigm. Thus we envisage an interdisciplinary forum which brings together participants with technology background and practitioners from both the industry and the open source community to discuss and evaluate the technology aspect as well as The interplay between technological capabilities and new emerging forms of commercial electronic interaction.

Topics related to the paradigm of peer-2-peer ecommerce include, but are not limited to, the following:

• security and payment mechanisms
• mobile objects
• languages for electronic goods, services and commerce
• community platforms
• self organizing information systems
• auction, negotation and bidding mechanisms
• multi-agent systems
• electronic marketplaces
• support for virtual enterprises
• crossorganizational workflow management
• real time management information systems
• content exchange and management

Minitrack Chairs

Trading of Intangible Goods

Trading intangibles draws upon most of the sub-disciplines of distributed computing and tele-communications. Topics addressed by the minitrack include (but they are not limited to) the following:

• generic frameworks and architectures supporting the development, warehousing, offering, ordering, searching for, deployment, delivery, accounting, billing, and payment of information services, digital content, and other intangible goods as well as tools and methods for the audit, both internal and external, of e-commerce trading systems.
• Methods and tools to enhance electronic documents and audit trails to ensure they possess at least the same level of authenticity as their paper equivalents., including for example, identification and authentication techniques such as digital certificates; digital signatures; timestamping; and notarisation.
• methods and tools supporting the storage, administration, provision of intangibles in relation to the needs and preferences of individual customers and customer communities.
• methods and tools supporting the advertising and negotiation of offers related to customers interests and preferences and providers capacities and situation, including, for example, ontologies for product description and multimedia catalogues and advertising.
• methods and tools for copyright protection and content administration and authorisation, such as electronic water-marking, IPR protection, licensing and versioning, and digital signatures.
• protocols and services for personalised and quality-oriented delivery to individuals and groups of customers.
• protocols and services for personalised and quality-oriented generation of usage information, billing, and payment, including on-line, incremental, and micro-payment.
• methods and tools for post-sales activities, such as user support, updates, and dispute handling.
• methods and tools for the support of e-government for informing the general public as well as handling the wide range of legal and administrative aspects of the governments at all levels(such as tax and duty structures and mechanisms for collection).
• methods and tools for the audit of e-commerce transactions
• methods and tools for the support of access, use and trading of knowledge and generalised information, when handled as an intangible good and reflected as structured, semistructured and unstructured digital multimedia information which can copyrighted or not. This would include the automatic production of intangible goods by deriving information and knowledge from people as well as data warehouses and communication traffic analysis.

With the increasing digitalisation of data used in daily life, like music, documents, construction plans, road maps, government services etc., the trading of intangible goods becomes increasingly important in Electronic Commerce. In contrast to trading tangible goods - where electronic procedures (advertisement, ordering, payment) are only complementing the physical provision and delivery of goods - the trading of intangibles involves electronic procedures from the establishment of the initial contact between consumers and merchants up to post-sales support and dispute handling. Production, storage, administration, advertisement, ordering, delivery, accounting and billing, payment, and even quality control and customer care, all can be done and are being done by electronic means and on the basis of information- and communication platforms.

The minitrack aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from key technology areas to discuss most recent findings and to address complementary research and technology development issues.

• definitions and descriptions of the scope of the intangible goods "knowledge", "information" and "services"
• knowledge and information models for the specification of intangible goods
• e-goverment technologies for services and processes modelled as intangible goods.
• catalogues, profiles and ontologies for product, service, contract and property description
• push-pull technologies for intangible goods' trading
• technologies for online negotiations and contracting
• copyright protection, IPR handling, electronic watermarking technologies and applications
• security, authorisation, authentication, digital signatures, smart cards
• personalised and quality-oriented delivery - push-pull technologies for intangible goods
• on-line, incremental, micro-payment accounting and billing technologies
• post-sales, incl. user support, updates, dispute handling
• technologies for legal and administrative aspects, incl. taxation, protection
• audit practices

Minitrack Chairs

Vaggelis Ouzounis Senior Scientist  Competence Center for Electronic Commerce  GMD FOKUS  Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 31  D-10589 Berlin, Germany  Tel: +49 30 3463 7108  Fax: +49 30 3463 8000  ouzounis@fokus.gmd.de http://www.fokus.gmd.de/usr/vaggelis.ouzounis

Fred Wall HM Customs & Excise Thomas Paine House  Torrens Street  London EC1V 1TA, United Kingdom  Tel: +44 (020) 7 865 3128 Fax: +44 (020) 7 865 3122 Fred.wall@hmce.gsi.gov.uk