Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 10:12:10 BST To: re-world@doc.ic.ac.uk From: acwf@doc.ic.ac.uk (Anthony Finkelstein) X-Sender: acwf@gummo.doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING NEWSLETTER (7) ****************REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING NEWSLETTER******************** No. 7. 1. A Guerilla Manual (Anthony Finkelstein) 2. Research Issues in the Intersection Between SE & AI (Steve Fickas) 3. International Conference on RE 1994 CFP - a reminder (Al Davis) 4. Configurable Distributed Systems Workshop CFP (Jim Purtilo) Contents Contributions to: re-list@doc.ic.ac.uk (will be moderated) Subscription or Removal to: re-request@doc.ic.ac.uk Back issues can be obtained via anonymous ftp from ftp-host: dse.doc.ic.ac.uk (IP number: 146.169.2.20). Directory: requirements. Files are called renl1, renl2, etc. If you cannot use ftp then you can get any back issues using email. Send email containing the following to ftpmail@doc.ic.ac.uk open dse.doc.ic.ac.uk cd requirements get quit ********************************************************************** From: acwf@doc.ic.ac.uk (Anthony Finkelstein) Subject: A Guerilla Manual Many software engineers will have seen a bootleg copy of Dan Berry's excellent report on the "Academic Legitimacy of the Software Engineering Discipline" (it used to have a subtitle - "dealing with resistant colleagues and departments"). Until recently this was only available under the counter. However it is now a CMU TR (CMU/SEI-92-TR-34) and is available by anonymous ftp from ftp.sei.cmu.edu in the directory pub/documents/92_reports in file tr34.92.ps I cannot recommend it too highly! ********************************************************************** From: fickas@maxwell.cs.uoregon.edu Subject: Research Issues in the Intersection Between SE & AI CALL FOR PARTICIPATION RESEARCH ISSUES IN THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE A two-day workshop held in conjunction with the 16th International Conference on Software Engineering Sorrento, Italy, May 16-17, 1994 ACM SIGSOFT and IEEE-CS Sponsorship Pending The purpose of this workshop is to make a realistic assessment of the availability and applicability of AI techniques to address critical Software Engineering problems in understanding, developing and maintaining complex software systems. The assessment will be done through a set of industry-submitted problems drawn from real world contexts. One or more of these problems will become workshop case studies that will be matched to potential AI technologies. The goal of the workshop is to use this matching process to (1) make an honest assessment of the state of the art of AI&SE, and (2) identify areas for improvement. In general, we wish to find collaborative projects in which AI types and practicing software engineers work together on a problem, perhaps analyzing some old dusty code, or perhaps working through some real requirements, or perhaps doing a domain analysis. We anticipate that the outcome of the workshop will be an increased awareness of SE problems on the part of AI researchers, an increased awareness of the current potential for AI technology, the identification of new avenues for research, and suggestions for how AI research can be fruitfully coupled to real-world SE problems. The workshop will be two days long, immediately preceding ICSE-16, at the ICSE hotel in Sorrento, Italy. Results from the workshop will be presented during a special session of ICSE-16. BACKGROUND Awareness of SE problems has grown within the research community, along with the perception that they are both interesting and applicable to AI technology. At the same time, work in AI has become more applications-oriented and a number of research groups have made progress in prototype systems relevant to SE. This trend is reflected in a number of recent workshops in the areas of AI and SE. However, these workshops have tended to emphasize the AI component of this joint area, have usually been held in conjunction with AI Conferences, and have often under-represented the SE community. This workshop is an attempt to better balance the field by engaging both Software Engineers and Artificial Intelligence researchers in an in-depth look at the intersection of these two vibrant areas of research and practical problems. In particular, we hope to draw attendees from two general groups. The first group might be called "Potential AI users" - industry groups with SE problems that they believe could benefit from AI technology. Attendees from this group will be invited to submit SE problems grounded, as much as possible, in the real-world situation in which they arose. The second group might be called "AI providers" - research groups working in the area of AI and SE or traditional AI researchers whom can make a strong case that their technology is applicable to SE. This group will be asked to present and discuss their technology and research results in the context of the real-world problems provided by the first group. SUBMISSIONS - - From "Potential AI users": submit (1) an SE problem your organization is concerned with (e.g., version management, requirements engineering, verification, validation and testing), and (2) the real-world context that this problem arose in. We are looking for a wide range of application areas and problems; particular submitters may be invited to expand their problem into a case study descfor detailed examination at the Workshop. - - From "AI providers": submit (1) a description of your research, and (2) its potential to address a practical SE problem. While keeping the description relatively short, please give sufficient detail so that your work can be matched to an appropriate case study. For more theoretical AI work, you must make a strong and specific case that your technology is potentially applicable to a specific SE problem area. - - From "pre-matched pairs": if an AI user group and an AI provider group have previously collaborated and have results to report (either positive or negative), we encourage them to jointly submit a (1) description of the problem, (2) the AI approach, and (3) the results. We expect each party in the collaboration to contribute to the submission. All types of submission are due by December 15, 1993. Electronic submissions are acceptable. Send your submissions to the first co-chair listed below. WORKSHOP ORGANIZATION Once submissions from groups are received, two things will happen. First, a set of problems will be selected for inclusion as case studies at the workshop. We will solicit more detail about these problems from their submitters and a packet of case studies will be distributed to the attendees. Second, a set of AI providers will be assigned to each problem. Both industry and AI representatives will be asked to make a workshop presentation that relates their interest in the corresponding case study. It is anticipated that this presentation will be worked on jointly through electronic mail prior to the Workshop. At the workshop itself, each case study will be briefly described and then followed by selected presentations from representatives of the linked software engineering and AI groups, with ample time for open discussion. We also anticipate possible panel discussions on common discussion of future research directions and collaboration opportunities. IMPORTANT DATES Submisssion deadline: December 15, 1993 Notification of Acceptance: January 31, 1994 Organizing Committee Chairs: Steve Fickas Peter G. Selfridge Department of Computer Science AT&T Bell Laboratories University of Oregon Room 2B-425 Eugene, Oregon 97403 600 Mountain Avenue Tel: +1+503-346-3964 Murray Hill, NJ 07974 fickas@cs.uoregon.edu Tel: +1+908-582-6801 pgs@research.att.com ********************************************************************** Subject ICRE 19194 From: adavis@mozart.uccs.edu (Al Davis) C A L L F O R P A P E R S IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING An "IEEE Software" Technology Transfer Conference April 18-22, 1994 Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA and Taipei, Taiwan, ROC Sponsored by IEEE Computer Society - Technical Committee on Software Engineering In Association with AIAA, CITTI, MCI, & Taiwan Directorate General of Telecommunications ICRE '94 is a new international conference designed to offer an opportunity for requirements engineering practitioners and researchers to exchange experiences and new technology. The conference offers high quality paper and panel sessions, tutorials, keyote speakers, and a practical workshop. The conference will have three areas of focus: - Experiences, problems and recommendations of and for practitioners - Research results ripe for exploitation (i.e., "ripe fruits" of technology) - Research with long term goals ________________________________________________________ Topics within requirements engineering include, but are not limited to: - Case Studies - Requirements Capture and/or Analysis - Requirements Reuse - Principles, Appoaches and Standards - Animation and Prototyping - Req'ts Specification and/or Validation - Taxonomies of Requirements - Philosophical and Social Underpinnings - Multiple Views of Requirements - Requirements Engineering Environments - Requirements Process Models - Representations, Languages and Notations - Issues, Problem Areas and Recommendations by Practitioners ________________________________________________________ Send seven copies of papers (4000 to 6000 words including a 150 word abstract) or panel proposals (1 to 2 page discussion plus panel member names) to: >From North and South America, and Europe: Dr. Pei Hsia ICRE Program Co-Chair University of Texas at Arlington Computer Science and Engineering Dept Box 19015 Arlington, TX 76019-0015 USA >From Asia, Africa, Australia, and Pacific: Dr. Chyan-Goei Chung ICRE Program Co-Chair National Chiao Tung University Computer Science and Info. Eng'g Dept 1001 Ta Hsueh Rd Hsin-chu, Taiwan 30050 ROC ________________________________________________________ Key Dates: Paper Submissions and Panel Proposals Due: August 6, 1993 Authors Notified of Acceptance: October 18, 1993 Final Camera-Ready Manuscripts Due: December 15, 1993 ________________________________________________________ This conference will be held simultaneously in Taipei and Colorado Springs, with live satellite broadcasts in both directions. Please indicate with your submission: (1) principal author's affiliation, address, telephone, FAX, and email, (2) preferred preentation location (U.S. or Taiwan), and (3) the conference focus most appropriate for your submission (current experience, ripe fruit, or long-term research). ________________________________________________________ The best papers of the conference will receive special recognition and will be recommended for publication in IEEE Software. Steering Committee: H. Black (Israel) C. Chang (USA) A. Davis (USA) M. Dorfman (USA) I. Ho (ROC) P. Hsia (USA) J. Siddiqi (UK) Conference Co-Chairs: Alan M. Davis University of Colorado Colorado Springs, CO 80933-7150 P. C. Chen Ministry of Transp. & Comm. 31 Aikuo E. Rd. Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. Workshop Chair: Jawed Siddiqi Sheffield City Polytechnic Napier St. Sheffield, SI IWB, UK Program Co-Chairs: Pei Hsia Chyan-Goei Chung Program Committee: M. Alford (USA) S. Andriole (USA) E. Bersoff (USA) H. Black (Israel) J. Brackett (USA) C. Chang (USA) J. Y. Chen (ROC) P. Coad (USA) M. Dorfman (USA) S. Fickas (USA) A. Finkelstein (UK) S. Gerhart (USA) J. Goguen (UK) I. Ho (ROC) S. Isoda (Japan) K. Jordan (USA) D. Kung (USA) I. P. Lin (ROC) Luqi (USA) T. Nakajima (Japan) K. Nakamura (Japan) C. Potts (USA) C. Ramamoorthy (USA) W. Royce (USA) C. Shekaran (USA) J. Siddiqi (UK) C. Singer (USA) R. Thayer (USA) Y. Toyoshima (Japan) J. Tsai (USA) I. Whyte (UK) G. Wittenstein (USA) J. Wood (USA) R. Yeh (USA) G. Zelesnik (USA) ********************************************************************** Subject: Configurable Distributed Systems From: purtilo@cs.UMD.EDU (Jim Purtilo) CALL FOR PAPERS SECOND INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON CONFIGURABLE DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS Carnegie Mellon University March 21-23, 1994 Software Engineering Institute In cooperation with IEEE Pittsburgh, PA USA Computer Society, ACM, and IEE (all proposed) General Chair: Mario Barbacci Program Committee Co-Chairs: James Purtilo Jeff Kramer This workshop will be concerned with methods, tools and techniques for configuring and managing software for distributed applications. These applications are usually configured by programmers who must identify the desired software components, bind them together and then map them onto the underlying host architectures. Therefore, papers addressing any aspect of this configuration process are invited. Like the previous workshop, papers addressing the issues of dynamic reconfiguration --- that is, controlling how the logical configuration evolves during execution --- are of particular interest. -- Language and tool support for configuration and reconfiguration -- Configuration (and reconfiguration) management -- Specification and modelling of reconfigurable systems -- Instrumentation and visualization of distributed systems -- Methods for software maintenance in highly-available configurations -- Configuration of mixed-language applications -- Methods to identify network components/services for use in configurations -- Use of multi-media / hyper-media in configurations -- Performance criteria for managing allocations and reconfiguration -- Tools and techniques for managing very large scale configurations We invite submission of case studies, documenting substantial experiences which can contribute to our community's understanding of configurable distributed systems. These papers should be identified as such by the author, and will be reviewed based upon their potential for helping communicate `lessons learned.' A proceedings will be published in time to be available at the meeting. Based upon feedback solicited at the meeting from attendees, the program committee will select a subset of papers to be submitted as a special issue of a suitable journal or as a book. (Papers selected from the previous meeting, held in London, are due to appear in the March 1993 issue of the IEE's Software Engineering Journal.) Prospective authors are invited to consider the summary from our last meeting, as reported in Conferences section of IEEE Computer Magazine, in the September 1992 issue. SUBMISSION: Five copies of the complete paper should be submitted to either of the two program chairs. Papers must be written in English, and should be no more than twenty pages (double spaced) in length, including figures. But because we are also interested in the most timely reports of research achievements, we will also accept extended abstracts for consideration; these should be at least five pages in length, and should clearly articulate the main points and results which would appear in the full paper, should it be accepted. Since our community is, after all, a distributed and configurable `system', electronic submission of Postscript by email is acceptable with prior arrangement to ensure compatibility of the medium. Please feel free to contact CDS@cs.umd.edu for further information. CONTACT INFO: James Purtilo Jeff Kramer University of Maryland Imperial College Computer Science Department Department of Computing A.V. Williams Building 180 Queens Gate College Park, MD 20742, USA London SW7 2BZ, UK purtilo@cs.umd.edu jk@doc.ic.ac.uk 301 405 2706 +44 01 589-5111 x5058 DATES: August 20, 1993 Deadline for submission November 5, 1993 Authors are notified December 17, 1993 Final papers are due for proceedings **********************************************************************