JIMSE 2012 Final CFP: Joint workshop on Intelligent Methods for Software System Engineering *** extended deadline: May 29 ***

[Barbara Plank]

(Apologies for cross-posting)

Final Call for Papers

JIMSE: Joint workshop on Intelligent Methods for Software System Engineering
****************************************************************************

August 27 or 28, 2012
Montpellier, France (ECAI 2012)

Workshop website: https://sites.google.com/site/jimse2012/

*** Submission deadline extended to May 29, 2012 ***

The first Joint workshop on Intelligent Methods for Software System
Engineering will be held in conjunction with the ECAI 2012, the
biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, the leading
conference on Artificial Intelligence in Europe, which will take place
in Montpellier, France, in August, 27-31, 2012.

JIMSE is co-organized by the European Coordination Action EternalS:
Trustworthy Eternal Systems via Evolving Software, Data and Knowledge.

Workshop Description
--------------------

The workshop aims at bringing together worldwide stakeholders and
their related communities to discuss current research trends on the
use of intelligent techniques for effective and efficient design of
software systems. To amplify the impact of the workshop, two different
communities sharing the above-mentioned aim will join for the
organization of a large event. These include:

- The Trustworthy Eternal Systems via Evolving Software, Data and
  Knowledge (EternalS) community, who has been developing in
  conjunction with the homonymous European Coordination Action
  (https://www.eternals.eu/). This includes stakeholders of four broad
  different ICT areas such as: Learning Systems for Knowledge
  Management and Representation, Software Systems, Networked Systems
  and Secure Systems. Such community is sharing competencies and
  technology for reciprocally improving the specific areas, for
  example, applying machine learning for anomaly detection or for
  helping establishing network connection between devices.

- The Intelligent Techniques in Software Engineering (ISEW) community,
  who has been developing through different workshops (see the past
  venues below). The community focuses on intelligent techniques for
  addressing, studying, analyzing and understanding critical software
  development issues, such as software quality and reliability,
  software cost estimation, software requirements, specifications
  engineering and software project management.

The above communities focus on traditional AI technologies such as:
(i) fuzzy logic, artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms;
(ii) statistical machine learning (supervised, unsupervised,
semi-supervised learning) and domain adaptation; and (iii) specific
intelligent approaches for text mining & retrieval, graph mining and
ranking algorithms. These are applied to extract patterns and identify
relations regarding (a) the different phases and needs of software
development and analysis as well as (b) designing effective security
policies and networking systems.


Scope and Topics
----------------

We aim at encouraging cross-fertilization of ideas amongst researchers
from different communities. The topics of the workshop regards (but are not
limited to) the application of the following approaches:

* Machine Learning
* Kernel methods
* Text Mining & Retrieval
* Probabilistic Reasoning
* Model Learning
* Expert Systems
* Neural Networks
* Data Mining
* Evolutionary algorithms
* Ranking Algorithms
* Regression models and Statistical methods

TO:

* Software Requirements
* Software Architecture
* Software Methodologies
* Software Algorithms
* Software Design
* Software Performance
* Engineering
* Software Quality & Reliability
* Object-Oriented Analysis and Design
* Software Maintenance & Testing
* Software Metrics
* Software Project Management
* Software Cost Estimation
* Open Source Software
* Software Repository Management
* Cloud computing.

Additionally, we are particularly interested in contributions describing
interdisciplinary researches between the following broad four ICT areas:

(i) Learning Systems for Knowledge/Information Management and Representation.
This area concerns with research for the development of machine learning models,
mainly with applications in the domain of natural language processing, e.g.,

* Information Extraction
* Information Retrieval
* Data Mining
* Semantic Web
* Speech Processing
* Image processing
* Human Computer Interaction

(ii) Software Systems, for example, described by the following keywords:

* Modeling languages
* Feature description languages
* Software product lines
* Feature-oriented programming
* Delta-oriented programming
* Architectural models of diversity
* Formal Methods
* Software evolution
* Component-based systems

(iii) Networked Systems

This area deals with the connection of networked systems over time,
hence addressing eternal interoperability. Related topics include but
are not limited to:

* Connector theory
* Models at runtime
* Protocol learning
* Protocol synthesis
* Runtime verification & validation
* Model-based monitoring
* Interoperable security, privacy & trust

(iv) Secure Systems

This topic area deals with supporting the supervised evolution of
secure systems from the development, deployment, and operation
perspectives. Research in the context of the so-called Future Internet
is particularly welcome. Topics include, but are not limited to:

* Requirements engineering,
* Risk assessment
* Software architectures
* Modeling techniques
* Model-based security techniques
* Secure programming
* Verification and testing
* Software engineering processes for secure and evolvable systems


Important Dates
---------------

*** May 29, 2012 *** : Paper submission deadline
June 28, 2012: Notification of acceptance
July 15, 2012: Camera-ready deadline
July 22, 2012: send PDF to workshop chairs
August 27 or 28, 2012    JIMSE workshop at ECAI 2012


Submission
----------

To promote discussion and the topics of the workshop, we invite the
submission of abstracts of max. 4 pages including references, pictures
and tables, presenting novel research results.  The abstracts will be
peer reviewed by the Program Committee (double-blind review
process). Final versions of the extended abstracts (max. 10 pages
including references) will be published in online proceedings, while
selected contributions will appear as post-proceedings in the Springer
CCIS (Communications in Computer and Information Science) series
(pending approval). For further details see
http://www.springer.com/series/7899

Papers should be submitted via the Easychair submission system:

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=jimse2012

All submissions should be formatted using the ECAI 2012 style file
that can be found at:

http://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~luc.deraedt/ecai2012-style.zip

As the reviewing will be blind, papers must not include the authors'
names and affiliations.  Submissions should be in English and should
not have been published previously. If essentially identical papers
are submitted to other conferences or workshops as well, this fact
must be indicated at submission time.

The submission deadline is 23:59 CET on May 29, 2012.


Voice your ideas
----------------

The contributions and the outcome of the discussion that will follow
the paper presentation will be considered for inclusion in the roadmap
that the EternalS coordination action is designing for the European
community: https://www.eternals.eu

The roadmap will be an input to the European Community for the definition
of the Work Programme of 2013.


Tentative Program Committee
---------------------------

Andreas Andreou, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Lefteris Angelis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Roberto Basili, University of Rome Tor Vergara, Italy
Helen Berki, University of Tampere, Finland
Götz Botterweck, Lero, Ireland
Sofia Cassel, University of Uppsala, Sweden
Krishna Chandramouli, Queen Mary University of London, UK
James Clarke, Telecommunications Software and Systems Group, Ireland
Anna Corazza, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Sergio Di Martino, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Michael Felderer, University of Innsbruck, Austria
Fausto Giunchiglia, University of Trento, Italy
Reiner Hähnle, TU Darmstadt, Germany
Falk Howar, TU Dordtmund, Germany
Valerie Issarny, INRIA, France
Richard Johansson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Jan Jürjens, TU Dortmund, Germany
George Kakarontzas, Technical University of Larisa, Greece
Achilles Kameas, Hellenic Open University, Greece
Basel Katt, University of Innsbruck, Austria
Chris Lokan, UNSW at ADFA, Australia
Ilaria Matteucci, CNR, Italy
Emilia Mendes, University of Auckland, Νew Zealand
Grzegorz Nalepa, AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland
Claudia Niederee, L3S Research Center Hannover, Germany
Animesh Pathak, INRIA, France
Tomas Piatrik, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Hongyang Qu, University of Oxford, UK
Rick Rabiser, JKU Linz, Austria
Vasile Rus, The University of Memphis, USA
Riccardo Scandariato, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Ina Schaefer, TU Braunschweig, Germany
Holger Schöner, Software Competence Center Hagenberg, Austria
Bernhard Steffen, TU Dortmund, Germany
Christos Tjortjis, The University of Manchester, UK
Grigorios Tsoumakas, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Michalis Vazirgiannis, Athens University of Economics & Business
Maria Virvou, University of Piraeus, Greece
Qianni Zhang, Queen Mary University of London, UK


Workshop Chairs
---------------

Stamatia Bibi (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
Alessandro Moschitti (University of Trento, Italy)
Barbara Plank (University of Trento, Italy)
Ioannis Stamelos (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)

Contact & Website
-----------------

For general questions about the workshop, please send an email to
jimse2012 at gmail.com

Workshop website: https://sites.google.com/site/jimse2012/


More on Topics and Background
-----------------------------

During last years Open Source Software has considerably increased,
enabling free and continuing access to publicly available software
engineering data. In turn, this has promoted research on modeling
software development and investigating its various aspects. Though,
software engineering data is available, two important aspects of a
software system have still to be studied such as (i) its
representation in terms of domain knowledge and (ii) the
representation of its design and implementation history. Successful
models for the above points would allow for the design of radically
different paradigms for software development.

Intelligent techniques can be applied for modeling software-related
tasks and providing effective solutions. Machine learning (ML),
knowledge-based systems, and data mining have already been used in
several Software Engineering (SE) tasks. For example, recent
interdisciplinary research in ML and networking systems has shown that
statistically learning can produce large improvement in both
connecting devices (Bennaceur et al., 2011) and modeling their logic
(behavior) (Lamprecht et al., 2011). Moreover, the role ML in software
for security systems is very effective as shown for example in
(Felderer et al., 2011), whereas knowledge-based approaches seem
promising for improving fast prototyping of new product lines as they
can automatize formal verification processes of workflows (Schaefer &
Sauer, 2011).

SE is a conceptual-intensive activity, requiring extensive domain and
software knowledge (Zhang & Zhai, 2005). Software data, such as
requirements, descriptions, change history, design diagrams, size of
programs, tools, packages and methodologies and the source code itself
contain a wealth of information about a project status, progress and
evolution. Intelligent techniques can be used to analyze such data
from past projects to recognize software problems or to learn its
natural evolution during time.

This is very appealing since suggests methods and techniques for
making systems capable of adapting to changes in user requirements and
application domains. Most software systems nowadays are built
iteratively and incrementally, while integrating and interacting with
components from many other systems. Past development models that
presupposed that software systems would not significantly evolve after
delivery are now outmoded. Hence, SE research is studying the design
and implementation of highly evolvable systems. ML is a promising
research direction for the design of adaptable models as they requires
to manage millions of variables in several dimensions, e.g., time,
location, and security conditions, expressing the diversity of the
context in which systems operate. Finally, knowledge and experience
from the development of previous projects can make the use of
supervised learning possible (i.e., training data is available).

References
----------

S. Bibi, G. Tsoumakas, I. Stamelos, I. Vlahavas, Regression via
Classification applied on Software Defect Estimation, Expert Systems
with Applications Journal of Elsevier, Vol 34(3), pp. 2091-2101.

Peter Hearty, Norman E. Fenton, David Marquez, Martin Neil: Predicting
Project Velocity in XP Using a Learning Dynamic Bayesian Network
Model.  IEEE Trans. Software Eng. 35(1): 124-137 (2009)

Open source project data: www.sourceforge.org

Adriano L.I. Oliveira, Petronio L. Braga, Ricardo M.F. Lima, Márcio L.
Cornélio, GA-based method for feature selection and parameters
optimization for machine learning regression applied to software
effort estimation, Information and Software Technology, Volume 52,
Issue 11, November 2010, Pages 1155-1166

Stamelos, L. Angelis, P. Dimou, E. Sakellaris, On the use of Bayesian
belief networks for the prediction of software productivity,
Inf. Softw.  Technol. 45 (2003) 51–60.

Witten and E. Frank. Data Mining: Practical machine learning tools and
techniques, 2nd Edition. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, 2005.

Eds. Du Zhang , Jeffrey Tsai, “Machine Learning applications in
Software Engineering”, (University of Illinois, Chicago, USA), Series
on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering , Vol. 16, 2005.

AmelBennaceur, Richard Johansson, Alessandro Moschitti,
RominaSpalazzese, Daniel Sykes, RachidSaadi, and
ValrieIssarny. Inferring affordances using learning techniques. In The
First Workshop on Trustworthy Eternal Systems via Evolving Software,
Data and Knowledge: EternalS’11. To appear in CCIS Springer, 2011.

Anna-Lena Lamprecht, TizianaMargaria, Ina Schaefer and Bernhard
Steffen, Comparing Structure-oriented and Behaviour-oriented
Variability Modeling for Workflows. In The First Workshop on
Trustworthy Eternal Systems via Evolving Software, Data and Knowledge:
EternalS’11. To appear in CCIS Springer, 2011.

Ina Schaefer and Thomas Sauer, Towards Verification as a Service. In
The First Workshop on Trustworthy Eternal Systems via Evolving
Software, Data and Knowledge: EternalS’11. To appear in CCIS Springer,
2011.

Felderer, M. and Agreiter, B. and Zech, P. and Breu, R. (2011) A
Classification for Model-Based Security Testing. In: The Third
International Conference on Advances in System Testing and Validation
Lifecycle (VALID 2011).