Friday, September 28, 2007

CFP: IPSN: International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks

Note: submit papers no longer than 12 pages at 10pt in IEEE conference format

IPSN 08 CALL FOR PAPERS

The 7th International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks

April 22-24, 2008, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

http://ipsn.acm.org/2008

*Co-located with IEEE Real Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS '08) and International Conference on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (HSCC '08)*


The International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN) is a leading, single-track, annual forum that brings together researchers from academia, industry, and government to present and discuss recent advances in sensor network research and applications. The conference covers both theoretical and experimental research, as it pertains to sensor networks, in a broad range of disciplines including signal and image processing, information and coding theory, databases and information management, distributed algorithms, networks and protocols, wireless communications, machine learning, and embedded systems design.

The conference features two interleaved tracks, the Information Processing (IP) track, and the Sensor Platforms, Tools and Design Methods (SPOTS) track, with two separate program committees to evaluate their submissions. Authors should carefully review the intended foci of these two tracks to decide which track is better suited for their work, and they are encouraged to contact the cognizant program chairs with questions or clarifications. The Information Processing (IP) track will focus on algorithms, systems, and theory pertaining to information processing using networks of embedded sensors. Topics covered in this track include, but are not limited to:

* Applications of sensor networks
* Coding, compression and information theory
* Data processing, storage and management
* Detection, classification, estimation, tracking
* Distributed algorithms and reasoning
* Distributed and collaborative signal processing
* Fault tolerance
* Location and time services
* Operating systems
* Network health monitoring
* Network protocols for sensor networks
* Programming models and languages
* Real-time scheduling
* Security
* Sensor tasking, control, and actuation

The Sensor Platforms, Tools, and Design Methods (SPOTS) track will focus on platforms and tools designed for networked embedded sensors. Submission should refer to specific hardware, software, and system design and implementation, focusing on new architectures, modeling, evaluation, design methods, implementations, tools, or deployment experiences. Results focused on the analysis and processing aspects of data collected from deployments should be submitted to the IP track. Topics covered in the SPOTS track include, but are not limited to:

* Case studies that highlight challenges in and advantages of platforms, designs, operations, and tools
* Embedded software for sensor networks
* Design exploration and optimization tools
* Sensor network components and device platforms
* System design and implementation
* System modeling, simulation, measurements, and analysis


Organization Committee

General Chair: Bill Kaiser (UCLA)
Information Proc. Track Co-Chairs: Sam Madden (MIT), Subhash Suri (UC Santa Barbara)
SPOTS Track Co-Chairs: Jie Liu (Microsoft Research), Andreas Savvides (Yale)
Poster Chair: Andreas Terzis (Johns Hopkins University)
Demonstration Chair: Ralph Kling (Crossbow)
Competition Chair: Kamin Whitehouse (University of Virginia)
Finance Chair: Tarek Abdelzaher (UIUC)
Web Chair: Jie Gao (SUNY)
Publicity Chair: Ying Zhang (PARC)
Local Arrangements: Chris Gill and Chenyang Lu (Washington University in St. Louis)

Important Dates:

Abstracts Due: Fri, Oct 26th, 2007
Papers Due: Fri, Nov 2nd, 2007
Conference: Tue-Thur, Apr. 22-24th, 2008


Submission Guidelines:

All papers must be submitted electronically, in Portable Document Format (PDF). Instructions for submission will be availab\
le at the IPSN'08 website: http://ipsn.acm.org/2008/

Submissions must meet the following criteria:
* A paper must be original material that has neither been previously published nor is currently under review by another conference or journal.
* Submitted papers should be no longer than 12 pages at 10pt in IEEE conference format.

Each paper will be reviewed by the TPC of the track to which it is submitted, and all accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings. Following the tradition of previous IPSN conferences, an accepted paper will be allocated either an oral presentation slot or a poster presentation outlet together with a brief oral advertisement slot. The choice of the presentation style is determined entirely by the nature of results, and not by their quality.

What are Cyber-Physical Systems?

Professor Edward A. Lee wrote the following about the Center for Hybrid and Embedded Software Systems (CHESS) and Cyber-Physical Systems:

The Center for Hybrid and Embedded Software Systems (CHESS) is building foundational theories and practical tools for systems that combine computation, networking, and physical dynamics. In such systems, embedded computers and networks monitor and control physical processes in feedback loops where physical processes affect computations and vice versa. For the last 30 years or so, computers have been increasingly embedded in stand-alone, self-contained products. We are poised, however, for a revolutionary transformation as these embedded computers become networked. The transformation is analogous to the enormous increment in the utility of personal computers with the advent of the web. Just as personal computers changed from word processors to global communications devices and information portals, embedded computers will change from small self-contained boxes to cyber-physical systems, which sense, monitor and control our intrinsically distributed human environment.

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are integrations of computation,
networking, and physical processes. Embedded computers and networks monitor and control the physical processes, usually with feedback loops where physical processes affect computations and vice versa. The economic and societal potential of such systems is vastly greater than what has been realized, and major investments are being ade worldwide to develop the technology. There are considerable challenges, particularly because the physical components of such systems introduce safety and reliability requirements qualitatively different from those in general-purpose computing. Moreover, the standard abstractions used in computing do not fit the physical parts of the system well.

Applications of CPS arguably have the potential to dwarf the 20th
century IT revolution. They include high confidence medical devices and systems, assisted living, traffic control and safety, advanced automotive systems, process control, energy conservation, environmental control, avionics, instrumentation, critical infrastructure control (electric power, water resources, and communications systems for example), distributed robotics (telepresence, telemedicine), defense systems, manufacturing, and smart structures. It is easy to envision new capabilities, such as distributed micro power generation coupled into the power grid, where timing precision and security issues loom large. Transportation systems could benefit considerably from better embedded intelligence in automobiles, which could improve safety and efficiency. Networked autonomous vehicles could dramatically enhance the effectiveness of our military and could offer substantially more effective disaster recovery techniques. Networked building control systems (such as HVAC and lighting) could significantly improve energy efficiency and demand variability, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and our greenhouse gas emissions. In communications, cognitive radio could benefit enormously from distributed consensus about available bandwidth and from distributed control technologies. Financial networks could be dramatically changed by precision timing. Large scale services systems leveraging RFID and other technologies for tracking of goods and services could acquire the nature of distributed real-time control systems. Distributed real-time games that integrate sensors and actuators could change the (relatively passive) nature of on-line social interactions. The positive economic impact of any one of these applications areas would be enormous.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

CFP: TACAS 2008: Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems

CALL FOR PAPERS: TACAS 2008

14th International Conference on

Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems

http://www.cs.stonybrook.edu/~tacas2008/

Part of ETAPS 2008, March 29 - April 6, 2008, Budapest, Hungary


IMPORTANT DATES
---------------

* 5 Oct 2007: Submission deadline (strict) for abstracts of research and
tool demonstration papers

* 12 Oct 2007: Submission deadline (strict) for full versions of
research and tool demonstration papers

* 7 Dec 2007: Notification of acceptance

* 4 Jan 2008: Camera-ready versions due

CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION
----------------------

TACAS is a forum for researchers, developers and users interested in rigorously based tools and algorithms for the construction and analysis of systems. TACAS is a member conference of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS). The conference serves to bridge the gaps between different communities that share common interests in, and techniques for, tool development and its algorithmic foundations. The research areas covered by such communities include but are not limited to formal methods, software and hardware verification, static analysis, programming languages, software engineering, real-time systems, communications protocols, and biological systems. The TACAS forum provides a venue for such communities at which common problems, heuristics, algorithms, data structures and methodologies can be discussed and explored. In doing so, TACAS aims to support researchers in their quest to improve the utility, reliability, flexibility and efficiency of tools and algorithms for building systems.

Tool descriptions and case studies with a conceptual message, as well as theoretical papers with clear relevance for tool construction are all encouraged. The specific topics covered by the conference include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Specification and verification techniques for finite and infinite-state systems
* Software and hardware verification
* Theorem-proving and model-checking
* System construction and transformation techniques
* Static and run-time analysis
* Abstraction techniques for modeling and validation
* Compositional and refinement-based methodologies
* Testing and test-case generation
* Analytical techniques for secure, real-time, hybrid, critical, biological or dependable systems
* Integration of formal methods and static analysis in high-level hardware design or software environments
* Tool environments and tool architectures
* SAT solvers
* Applications and case studies

As TACAS addresses a heterogeneous audience, potential authors are strongly encouraged to write about their ideas and findings in general and jargon-independent, rather than in application- and domain-specific, terms. Authors reporting on tools or case studies are strongly encouraged to indicate how their experimental results can be reproduced and confirmed independently.

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
-------------------

Patricia Bouyer (CNRS, France)
Ed Brinksma (ESI and U. of Twente, The Netherlands)
Tevfik Bultan (U. of California, Santa Barbara, USA)
Rance Cleaveland (U. of Maryland & Fraunhofer USA Inc, USA)
Byron Cook (Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK)
Bruno Dutertre (SRI, Menlo Park, California, USA)
Patrice Godefroid (Microsoft Research, Redmond , USA)
Orna Grumberg (TECHNION, Israel Institute of Technology
Aarti Gupta (NEC Laboratories America Inc, USA)
Fritz Henglein (U. of Copenhagen, Denmark)
Michael Huth (Imperial College, London, UK)
Joxan Jaffar (National U. of Singapore)
Kurt Jensen (U. of Aarhus, Denmark)
Jens Knoop (Technical University, Vienna, Austria)
Barbara Koenig (U. of Duisburg-Essen, Germany)
Marta Kwiatkowska (U. of Birmingham, UK)
Kim Larsen (Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark)
Nancy Lynch (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
Kedar Namjoshi (Bell Labs, Murray Hill, USA)
Paul Pettersson (Malardalen University, Sweden)
Sriram Rajamani (Microsoft Research, Bangalore, India)
C.R. Ramakrishnan (Stony Brook University, New York, USA)
Jakob Rehof (U. of Dortmund, Germany)
Bill Roscoe (Oxford University, UK)
Mooly Sagiv (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
Stefan Schwoon (U. of Stuttgart, Germany)
Bernhard Steffen (U. of Dortmund, Germany)
Lenore Zuck (U. of Illinois, Chicago, USA)

INVITED SPEAKER
---------------
Sharad Malik , Princeton, USA

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
---------------------

Papers should be submitted using the TACAS 2008 Conference Service. As with other ETAPS conferences, TACAS accepts two types of contributions:

* research papers and
* tool demonstration papers.

Both types of contributions will appear in the proceedings and have oral presentations during the conference.



Research papers:
----------------

Research papers cover one or more of the topics above, including tool development and case studies from a perspective of scientific research. Research papers are evaluated by the TACAS Program Committee. Submitted research papers must:

* be in English and have a maximum of 15 pages (including figures and bibliography)
* present original research which is unpublished and not submitted elsewhere (conferences or journals) -- in particular, simultaneous submission of the same contribution to multiple ETAPS conferences is forbidden
* use the Springer LNCS style
* be submitted electronically in Postscript or PDF form via the TACAS 2008 Conference Service (abstract no later than 5 October, 2007, and full paper no later than 12 October, 2007)

Submissions deviating from these instructions may be rejected without review. Any questions regarding this policy should be directed to the Program Committee Co-Chairs C. R. Ramakrishnan (www.cs.stonybrook.edu/~cram/) or Jakob Rehof (ls14-www.cs.uni-dortmund.de/LS14/Team/Lehrstuhlinhaber/Rehof.html) prior to submitting.


Tool demonstration papers:
--------------------------

Tool demonstration papers present tools based on aforementioned technologies (e.g., theorem-proving, model-checking, static analysis, or other formal methods) or fall into the above application areas (e.g., system construction and transformation, testing, analysis of real-time, hybrid or biological systems, etc.). Tool demonstration papers are evaluated by the TACAS Tool Chair, Byron Cook (http://research.microsoft.com/users/bycook/default.htm) with the help of the Programme Committee.

Submitted tool demonstration papers must:

* be in English and have a maximum of 4 pages
* have an appendix (not included in the 4 page count) that provides a detailed description of:
- how the oral presentation will be conducted, e.g. illustrated by a number of snapshots
- the availability of the tool, the number and types of users, other information which may illustrate the maturity and robustness of the tool
- if applicable, a link to a web-page for the tool (The appendix will not be included in the proceedings, but during the evaluation of the tool demonstration papers it will be equally important as the pages submitted for publication in the proceedings.)
* use the Springer-Verlag LNCS style
* clearly describe the enhancements and novel features of the tool in case that one of its previous versions has already been presented at meetings or published in some form
* be submitted electronically in Postscript or PDF form via the TACAS 2008 Conference Service (abstract no later than 5 October, 2007, and full paper no later than 12 October, 2007)

Submissions deviating from these instructions may be rejected without review. Any questions regarding this policy should be directed to the Tool Chair Byron Cook.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Call for submissions: EDAA PhD Forum 200

EDAA PhD Forum 2008


Call for Submissions

The PhD forum is part of the DATE Conference and hosted by the European Design Automation Association (EDAA).
The PhD Forum is a great opportunity for PhD students to present their thesis work to a broad audience in the system design and design automation community from both industry and academia.
The PhD Forum may also help students to establish contacts for entering the job market. In addition, representatives from industry and academia get a glance of state-of-the-art in system design and design automation.

Eligibility
===========
Students who
* have finished their PhD thesis within the last 12 months or
* students who are close to finish to their thesis work can present their work at the PhD forum.

Benefits
========
* a poster presentation in A0 format at the DATE PhD Forum
* contacts to professionals from industry and academia
* possibility to distribute flyers summarizing the PhD work
* possibility to apply for EDAA travel grants once the PhD thesis is accepted for presentation at the PhD Forum
* a (free) dinner reception

Submission
===========
Send an e-mail to Paul.Pop@imm.dtu.dk with the subject line "DATE PhD Forum", containing:
* full contact address, with affiliation, phone, fax
* a 1-page extended abstract describing the novelties and advantages of the thesis work of not more than 800 words (PDF) . The abstract should also include name and affiliation. Figures may be included as far as the 1-page limit is not exceeded.
* either (a) a University-approved thesis proposal (PDF) or (b) one published paper (PDF)

Important dates
===============
* Submission deadline: 1st November, 2007
* Notification of acceptance: 17th December, 2007
* Presentation at DATE: 10th March, 2008

Contact
=======
Paul Pop
www.imm.dtu.dk/~pop
EDAA is a non-profit association. Its purpose is to operate for educational, scientific and technical purposes for the benefit of the international electronics design and design automation community. The Association, in the field of design and design automation of electronic circuits and systems, promotes a series of high quality technical international conferences and workshops across Europe and cooperates actively to maintain harmonious relationships with other national and international technical societies and groups promoting the purpose of the Association. EDAA is the main sponsor of DATE, the premier Design, Automation and Test Conference and Exhibition in Europe .

http://www.edaa.com

CFP: RTSS Ph.D. Student Forum

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

RTSS 2007, Dec 3-6th, Tuscon, Arizona, announces:
A Ph.D. Student Forum on Deeply Embedded Real-Time Computing

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation
Chairs: Xue Liu (McGill), Tarek Abdelzaher (UIUC)

DEADLINE: October 1st

Ph.D. students are invited to submit 2-page contributions by October 1st describing a novel idea in deeply embedded cyber-physical computing. The goal is to encourage constructive debate on emerging research topics. Authors of accepted contributions will be expected to travel to RTSS and make a presentation on their topic at the forum, as well as an optional demonstration. There is no forum registration fee for authors. Award certificates will be given for the most innovative application, the most interesting interdisciplinary research problem, the best system architecture, and the best demo.
In addition, authors of all accepted forum contributions will receive an RTSS registration fee waiver and prepaid 3 night free accommodation at the conference hotel or equivalent.

(See Ph.D. Student Forum on www.rtss.org)

Monday, September 24, 2007

HSCC Call for Papers

Call for Papers: HSCC'08
HSCC'08: Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control
http://www.hscc08.gatech.edu/.
April 22-24, 2008, St. Louis, MO, USA

HSCC-08 is part of the inaugural CPSWEEK, together with the Real Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS '08) and the International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN '08). It is a single-track conference focusing on research in embedded, reactive systems involving the interplay between symbolic/switching and continuous dynamical behaviors.

Submissions are invited in all areas pertaining to the design, analysis, control, optimization, implementation, and applications of hybrid dynamical systems. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Models of heterogeneous systems
  • Computability and complexity
  • Real-time computing and control
  • Embedded and resource-aware control
  • Control and estimation over wireless networks
  • Tools for analysis, verification, control, and design
  • Programming languages support and implementation
  • Applications, including automotive, communication networks, avionics, energy systems, transportation networks, biology and other sciences, manufacturing, and robotics


The manuscripts are due on October 12, 2007, and detailed submission instructions are available at the conference website at http://www.hscc08.gatech.edu/.

NSF's Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation

NSF's Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation program is a followup to the NSF Information Technology Research (ITR)s, one of which funded Center for Hybrid and Embedded Software Systems (CHESS). The Cyber-Enable Discovery and Innovation program is due to start in 2007.

Christine Avanessians receives Vodafone Undergraduate Fellowship

Christine Avanessians was selected to receive a highly competitive 2007 Vodafone - US Foundation "Undergraduate Fellowship.". Christine is working with Professor Edward A. Lee on the Ptolemy Project. Christine's efforts thus far have been focussed on transforming models using XSLT.