[TYPES/announce] 'Collective Adaptive Systems' (CAS) track at the ACM SAC 2017

[Francesco Tiezzi]

[Apologies if you got multiple copies of this email.]

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  COLLECTIVE ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS
  Special Track of the 32nd ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC'17)

  http://sac-cas2017.apice.unibo.it

  April 3 - 7, 2017
  Marrakech, Morocco
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Nowadays, most aspects of our daily life are affected by pervasive
technology, consisting of massive numbers of heterogeneous units/nodes
(computers, devices, software applications, smart objects, etc.), complex
interactions, and humans-in-the-loop. The distributed and open nature of
these systems and their large scale make sensing, decision-making, planning
and acting possibly highly dispersed: this may cause on the one hand the
emergence of unexpected phenomena, but on the other hand it can be the key
to support inherent adaptation and resilience.

These complex systems are typically referred to as Collective Adaptive
Systems (CAS). They have to be equipped with dynamic and autonomous
adaptation capabilities, to deal with changes in their working environments
and within themselves. CAS involve huge collections of cooperating
components, trading off individual tasks, properties, objectives and
actions, with overall system goals.

To properly engineer and exploit CAS, a deep scientific understanding of
the principles underpinning their operation is required. The development of
CAS is closely related to other contemporary (software) engineering
approaches, such as component-based systems and middleware platforms, as
well as other Computer Science areas, such as Distributed Artificial
Intelligence, Formal Methods, Agent-based Programming, Pervasive Computing,
Internet of Things, and Autonomic Computing. This track aims at providing a
common forum for discussing the various different viewpoints over CAS,
attracting relevant and consistent contributions from different research
communities, with the ultimate goal of filling the gap between theory and
practice, hence paving the way towards implementation of relevant
applications.

The Special Track on Collective Adaptive Systems takes deliberately a broad
view of what CAS are and how they should be designed, analysed, built and
deployed. In particular, the track's interest is both in the foundational
view (e.g., theories, methods, formalisms, models) and the practical
aspects (e.g., development methodologies, programming languages,
middleware, development and runtime environments, tools). Moreover, also
applications of CAS solutions to real-world case studies are welcomed.

Major topics of interest this year will include the following:
- Novel models, languages, programming and implementation techniques for CAS
- CAS technologies and infrastructures
- CAS applications
- Scenarios, case studies and experience reports of CAS
- Formal aspects (semantics, reasoning, verification) in CAS development
- Business Processes in CAS
- Self-* and emerging properties of CAS
- Security and privacy in CAS
- Policy-based coordination and self-adaptation in CAS
- Middleware platforms for CAS
- Software architectures and engineering methodologies for CAS


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  Important Dates
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Sep 15, 2016: Papers and SRC research abstracts submission
Nov 10, 2016: Author notification
Nov 25, 2016: Camera-ready copies
Dec 10, 2016: Author registration


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  Program Co-Chairs
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Mirko Viroli
  Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, Italy
  http://mirkoviroli.apice.unibo.it
  email: mirko.viroli at unibo.it

Francesco Tiezzi
  University of Camerino, Italy
  http://tiezzi.unicam.it/
  email: francesco.tiezzi@ unicam.it


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  Program Committee Members
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Jacob Beal, BBN Technologies, USA
Olivier Boissier, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne, France
Tomas Bures, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic
Siobhan Clarke, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Daniel Coore, University of the West Indies, Jamaica
Ferruccio Damiani, University of Torino, Italy
Rocco De Nicola, IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy
Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo, University of Geneve, Switzerland
Simon Dobson, University of St Andrews
Schahram Dustdar, TU Wien, Austria
Kurt Geihs, Universitaet Kassel, Germany
Jane Hillston, University of Edinburgh, UK
Christine Julien, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Hung La, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
Peter Lewis, Aston University, UK
Alberto Lluch Lafuente, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
Michele Loreti, University of Firenze, Italy
Andrea Omicini, University of Bologna, Italy
Carlo Pinciroli, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada
Rosario Pugliese, University of Firenze, Italy
Barbara Re, University of Camerino, Italy
Jan-Philipp Steghöfer, Chalmers | University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Martin Wirsing, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen, Germany
Franco Zambonelli, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy


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  Proceedings
---------------

Papers accepted for the Special Track on Collective Adaptive Systems will
be published by ACM both in the SAC 2017 proceedings and in the Digital
Library.

CAS Special Track organisers also plan to invite authors of selected papers
for a Special Issue in a high impact journal, such as ACM Transactions on
Autonomous and Adaptive Systems or Science of Computer Programming.


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  Paper submission and format
-------------------------------

All papers should represent original and previously unpublished works that
currently are not under review in any conference or journal.

The author(s) name(s) and address(es) must NOT appear in the body of the
paper, and self-reference should be in the third person. This is to
facilitate blind review. Only the title should be shown at the first page
without the authors' information.

Submitted papers must be in the ACM two-column page format (doc template,
pdf template, latex template). The length of the papers is 6 pages
(included in the registration) plus up to 2 extra pages (at extra charge),
i.e. total 8 pages
maximum.

Paper registration is required, allowing the inclusion of the paper/poster
in the conference proceedings. An author or a proxy attending SAC MUST
present the paper: This is a requirement for the paper/poster to be
included in the ACM/IEEE digital library. No-show of scheduled papers and
posters will result in excluding them from the ACM/IEEE digital library.

Submission is entirely automated via the STAR Submission System, which is
available from:
- (for regular papers) https://www.softconf.com/h/sac2017/
- (for SRC papers) https://www.softconf.com/h/sac-src2017/


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  Poster Sessions
-------------------

Papers that received high reviews (that is acceptable by reviewer
standards) but were not accepted due to space limitation can be invited for
the poster session. Poster should be not longer than 3 pages (included in
the registration) plus 1 extra page (at extra charge), i.e. total 4 pages
maximum. The poster session procedures and details will be posted on SAC
2017 website as soon as they become available.


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  Student research abstracts competition
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Graduate students are invited to submit Student Research Competition (SRC)
abstracts (maximum of 2 pages in ACM camera-ready format) following the
instructions published at SAC 2017 website. Submission of the same abstract
to multiple tracks is not allowed. All research abstract submissions will
be reviewed by researchers and practitioners with expertise in the track
focus area to which they are submitted. Authors of selected abstracts (up
to 20 students) will have the opportunity to give poster and oral
presentations of their work and compete for three top-winning places. The
winners will receive medals, cash awards, and SIGAPP recognition
certificates during the conference banquet. Invited students receive SRC
travel support (US$500) and are eligible to apply to the SIGAPP Student
Travel Award Program (STAP) for additional travel support.
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