[TYPES/announce] TOMACS special issue on FORECAST: call for papers

[Michele Loreti]

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*                           SPECIAL ISSUE                             *        
*          Formal Methods for the Quantitative Evaluation of          * 
*                     Collective Adaptive Systems                     *  
*                                                                     *
*     ACM Transaction on Modeling and Computer Simulation (TOMACS)    *     
*              http://tomacs.acm.org/SI-forecast.cfm                  *
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Guest Editors:
* Maurice H. ter Beek, ISTI-CNR, Pisa, Italy
* Michele Loreti, University of Florence, Italy

Submission deadline: 
* January 27, 2017.


Collective Adaptive Systems (CAS) consist of a large number of spatially
distributed heterogeneous entities with decentralised control and
varying degrees of complex autonomous behaviour that may be competing
for shared resources even when collaborating to reach common goals. It
is important to carry out thorough quantitative modelling and analysis
and verification of their design to investigate all aspects of their
behaviour before they are put into operation. This requires combinations
of formal methods and applied mathematics which moreover scale to
large-scale CAS.

In connection with the FORECAST workshop on FORmal methods for the
quantitative Evaluation of Collective Adaptive SysTems, held in Vienna,
Austria on July 8th, 2016, we solicit articles for a special issue of
ACM TOMACS on Formal methods for the quantitative Evaluation of
Collective Adaptive Systems. The primary goal of this special issue is
to raise awareness of the particularities of CAS and the design and
control problems which they bring.

The special issue thus welcomes research papers containing novel,
previously unpublished results in all areas related to Formal Methods
for the Quantitative Evaluation of Collective Adaptive Systems  (on the
crossroads of formal methods, applied mathematics, and software
engineering), including but not limited to the following:
* Qualitative and quantitative modelling techniques and languages for CAS;
* Techniques and tools for verifying, validating, testing and simulating CAS;
* Multi-scale and spatio-temporal modelling and analysis methods for CAS;
* Dependable, reliable and autonomic computing;
* Monitoring and runtime verification of CAS;
* Specification and analysis of socio-technical CAS including smart cities 
  and applications.

We encourage presenters and attendees of FORECAST 2016 to submit an
extended version of their paper to this special issue. We very much also
welcome papers from authors who did not attend. Previously published
papers must contain at least 30%-40% new material to be considered for
the special issue.

The issue is planned to appear during fall 2017. For the editorial
policy, instructions to authors, and further details, please consult the
author guidelines of ACM TOMACS.

When submitting your paper, select the appropriate paper type, Special
Issue on FORECAST, and make sure that you carefully follow the
submission instructions. In the letter to the guest editors please
explain, if your paper is based on a previously published paper, how you
extend the previous publication and describe explicitly the new research
contribution added to the TOMACS submission.

TOMACS is one of the two ACM journals that offer authors the possibility
to have their accepted papers checked for reproducible research results
and reusable and accessible artifacts (see also author guidelines of ACM
TOMACS)  and assign, if successfully evaluated, an according badge to
those (see the result and artifact review and badging policy of ACM). If
you would like your paper to take part in this please say so in your
letter to the guest editors.