[TYPES/announce] CFP: Second Workshop on Programming Methods for Mobile and Pervasive Systems (PMMPS'11)

[Dominic Duggan]

[Papers on types are for mobile and pervasive systems are welcome.]

Second International Workshop on Programming Methods
for Mobile and Pervasive Systems (PMMPS'10)
http://www.pmmps.org

San Francisco, CA, USA, June 12, 2011.

Colocated with Pervasive 2011, the 9th International Conference
on Pervasive Computing (Pervasive'11)
http://www.pervasiveconference.org/2011/

Pervasive mobile computing is here, but how these devices and services
should be programmed is still something of a mystery.  There is a great deal
of experience to draw upon in systems development, but many of the tools
and methodologies for developing such applications comes from
ancillary disciplines such as user interface design and distributed
computing.  Programming mobile and pervasive applications is more than than
building client-server or peer-peer systems with mobility, and it is more
than providing usable interfaces for mobile devices that may interact with
the surrounding context: it includes aspects such as disconnected and
low-attention working, spontaneous collaboration, evolving and uncertain
security regimes, and integration into services and workflows hosted on the
internet.  In the past, efforts have focused on the form of human-device
interfaces that can be built using mobile and distributed computing tools,
or
on human computer interface design based on, for example, the limited
screen resolution and real estate provided by a smartphone.  Much of the
challenge in building pervasive systems is in bringing together users'
expectations of their interactions with the system with the model of a
physical and virtual environment with which users interact in the context of
the pervasive application.  An example of this is provided by mobile
computer gaming, which may provide augmented or semi-immersive user
experiences that project a virtual game reality, including other gamers,
onto the physical environment experienced by each user.

Developers of distributed systems have several tools to draw upon that
increase their productivity, and raise the level of abstraction at which
they
work.  Remote procedure call and reliable message queues are examples of
tools that have succeeded in the past to mask remote communication in
client-server and business-to-business applications.  Transactions and
nested transactions have provided essential support for handling failures,
while other tools such as failure detectors and append-only logs have been
proposed in the context of building fault-tolerant distributed applications.
 For middleware applications, programming environments such as Eclipse,
NetBeans and Visual Studio automate some of the aspects of configuring and
deploying resources, such as configuring JCA connectors to backend
databases.  However, it is now well accepted that these techniques perform
poorly in semi-connected, sensor-driven, pervasive and dynamic environments.
What are the corresponding tools that designers and implementors for mobile
and pervasive applications should be able to draw upon?  We can indeed see
users at various levels of sophistication and user interface, from software
developers working with middleware tools to end users writing scripts.  What
support would be useful to users at all of these levels of sophistication.

Another aspects of mobile and pervasive computing is that devices
increasingly must take on some "intelligence" to perform their tasks,
requiring adaptive and autonomous behaviour on the part of the systems
developed.  Mobile personal devices such as telephones are envisioned as
"intelligent assistants" that may compensate for the limitations of the user
interface by asynchronously performing interactions with other devices on
behalf of the device owner.  Such devices may tailor their behaviour both to
the current location and to the ambient context, which includes nearby
devices.  Smart spaces may in turn adapt their behaviour based on mobile
devices in their vicinity, for example, turning off lights when people are
not present or choosing not to divulge confidential information while
untrusted parties are present.  At the infrastructural level, autonomic
network management adapts network behaviour to maintain quality of service
over dynamic changes in load and environment, taking advantage of the
capabilitiew of the devices actually being used for interaction. Wireless
sensor networks must demonstrate stable and long-lived behaviour with little
or no human intervention. Cognitive radio supposes a device that senses its
radio environments and adapts to available frequencies and protocols, as
part of its interaction with that environment.

The International Workshop on Programming Methods for Mobile and
Pervasive Systems (PMMPS) is intended to bring together researchers in
programming languages, software architecture and design, and pervasive
systems to present and discuss results and approaches to the development of
mobile and pervasive systems. The goal is to begin the process of developing
the software design and development tools necessary for the next generation
of services in dynamic environments, including mobile and pervasive
computing, wireless sensor networks, and adaptive devices.

Potential workshop participants should submit a paper on topics relevant to
programming models for mobile and pervasive systems. We are primarily
seeking short position papers (2-4 pages), although full papers that have
not been published and are not under consideration elsewhere will also be
considered (a maximum of 10 pages). Position papers that lay out some of the
challenges to programming mobile and pervasive systems, including past
failures, are welcome.  Papers longer than 10 pages may be automatically
rejected by the chairs or workshop committee. From the submissions, the
program committee will strive to balance participation between academia and
industry and across topics. Selected papers will appear on the workshop web
site; PMMPS has no formal published proceedings. Authors of selected papers
will be invited to submit extended versions for publication in an
appropriate journal (under negotiation).

Submission deadline: February 4, 2011.
Notification: March 11, 2011.
Workshop: June 12, 2011.

Both new ideas and *critical evaluation of earlier approaches* are welcome.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/pipermail/types-announce/attachments/20110124/b2a8e72a/attachment.html>