Call for Papers
for the
Fourth International Workshop on
FORMAL APPROACHES TO TESTING OF SOFTWARE
(FATES 2004)

In affiliation with the
19th IEEE International Conference on
AUTOMATED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
(ASE 2004)

Linz, Austria, September 21, 2004


Motivation

The combination of formal methods and software testing is one of the
most challenging areas of research in computer science. Formal methods
traditionally aim at verifying and proving correctness of systems,
while testing can only show the presence of errors, but not their
absence.

Formal methods support the specification and verification of software
systems by means of techniques derived from mathematics and logic, but
the use of formal methods is not restricted to the early development
phases of a software system only. The testing phases can benefit from
formal methods as well. Effective and efficient test cases may be
generated automatically from formal system models or be developed
based on a formal analysis of the system. In addition, testing with
formal approaches proves to be a good starting point for introducing
formal methods into earlier phases of software development.

Objective and Scope

The aim of the FATES workshop is to be a forum for researchers,
developers, and testers to discuss latest ideas about the use of
formal methods in software testing. The workshop organizers try to
ensure that plenty of scope will be given for lively discussions on
recent advances in this area. The topics of interest include:


* Different techniques in testing: combined verification and testing
approaches, analysis techniques that support testing, black-box
testing, integration testing, etc.

* Different aspects of testing: test derivation, test selection, test
implementation and execution, test result analysis, test stop
criteria, etc.

* Different testing techniques in OO, extreme programming, aspect
oriented programming, etc.

* Different types of testing: functional, interoperability,
performance, security, robustness, etc.

* Different formal models: automata, logical, process algebra,
algebraic data types, grammars, Markov-chains, etc.

* Different modelling languages: UML, SDL, MSC, LOTOS, Z, VDM, TTCN-3,
Timed Automata, synchronous languages, etc.

* Different application areas: communication systems, control systems,
embedded software, Web-based systems, sensor networks, etc.

* Different algorithms related to testing for model and program
analysis: automatic partitioning, coverage analysis, test derivation
(online and offline), test data selection, etc.

* Different testing tools based on formal methods and application
experiences.

Since testing in general is also a topic of the ASE 2004 main
conference that starts after the FATES 2004 workshop, the emphasis
here is made on the use of formal methods in testing.

Submissions

Each submission must explain the contribution and novelty in the field
making clear the current status of the work. The following types of
contributions to FATES are solicited:

* Research papers (up to 15 pages)
* Experience reports (up to 15 pages)
* Work-in-progress or position papers (up to 8 pages)

If a submission is not a research paper, the kind of submission (i.e.,
experience report, work-in-progress paper, or position paper) has to be
stated explicitly before the title on the first page of the document.
All contributions will be reviewed by the Program Committee for
technical quality and for compliance with the workshop objectives. All
articles have to be submitted electronically in PDF or Postscript format
(fates.cs.auc.dk/) and have to follow the Springer LNCS paper
format (www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html).

Accepted papers will be published as a Technical Report and distributed
among the participants of the workshop. The publication of post-workshop
proceedings by Springer in the LNCS series is under negotiation.

Important dates

* Submission deadline: June 21, 2004
* Notification of Acceptance: July 26, 2004
* Camera ready copies due: August 30, 2004
* Workshop: September 21, 2004


Program Committee Co-Chairs

Jens Grabowski, Institute for Informatics, University of Göttingen, Germany
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., phone: +49 (551) 3914690

Brian Nielsen, Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University, Denmark
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., phone: +45 (96) 35 88 83

Program Committee

Rachel Cardell-Oliver, The University of Western Australia, Crawley,
Australia
Shing-Chi Cheung, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
Marie-Claude Gaudel, Université de Paris-Sud, France
Wolfgang Grieskamp, Microsoft Research, USA
Robert M. Hierons, Brunel University, UK
Thierry Jéron, IRISA/INRIA, France
David Lee, Bell Labs, Beijing, China
Jose Carlos Maldonado, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Manuel Nunez, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Jeff Offutt, George Mason University, USA
Alexandre Petrenko, Computer Research Institute of Montréal, Canada
Ina Schieferdecker, Fraunhofer FOKUS, Berlin, Germany
Jan Tretmans, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Andreas Ulrich, Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, Munich, Germany
Carsten Weise, Ericsson Eurolab Deutschland GmbH, Germany
Clay Williams, IBM Research, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, New York, USA

Further Information

For further information see the FATES 2004 Web site
(fates.cs.auc.dk/), the ASE 2004 Web site
(www.ase-conference.org/), or contact directly one of the program
committee co-chairs.


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Prof. Dr. Jens Grabowski
Institute for Informatics phone: +49 551 39 14690
University of Goettingen fax: +49 551 39 14415
Lotzestrasse 16-18
DE-37083 Göttingen This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(Germany) www.swe.informatik.uni-goettingen.de
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