*********************************************************************** First Call for Papers ABZ 2024: 10th International Conference on Rigorous State Based Methods Bergamo, University of Bergamo, Italy June 25-28, 2024 https://abz-conf.org/site/2024/ *********************************************************************** ---------------- Important dates ---------------- Workshops/Tutorials Workshop proposal submission: December 01, 2023 Workshop notification: December 15, 2023 Tutorial proposal submission: March 16, 2024 Case Study Track Abstract submission: February 03, 2024 Paper submission: February 10, 2024 Notification: April 6, 2024 Final version: April 10, 2024 Main Track Abstract submission: February 03, 2024 Paper submission: February 10, 2024 (including research/short/industry/journal-first papers) Notification: April 6, 2024 Final version: April 10, 2024 Doctoral Symposium Paper submission: February 24, 2024 Notification: April 6, 2024 Final version: April 10, 2024 Conference Workshops and Tutorials: June 25, 2024 ABZ 2024 conference: June 26-28, 2024 ---------- About ABZ ---------- The ABZ conference is dedicated to the cross-fertilization of state-based and machine-based formal methods, like Abstract State Machines (ASM), Alloy, B, TLA, VDM, and Z, that share a common conceptual foundation and are widely used in academia and industry to design and analyze hardware and software systems. The conference aims to exchange knowledge and experience among the research communities around different formal methods. The name ABZ refers to the first conference in London in 2008, where the ASM, B, and Z conference series were merged into a joint event. In the following years, other formal methods were added, e.g., Alloy in 2010 (Orford, Canada), VDM in 2012 (Pisa, Italy), and TLA + in 2014 (Toulouse, France). After the successful 2016 conferences in Linz, Austria, and 2018 in Southampton, UK, it was decided to name the conference "ABZ: International Conference on Rigorous State Based Methods" to stress the openness for further state-based formal methods. We hope to continue many fruitful discussions between representatives of the individual methods in the past, which will bring us closer to the common goal of this research community: the creation of reliable and safe software. ABZ2020 and ABZ2021 were planned in Ulm but virtually organized. With the edition 2023 in Nancy, the ABZ conference returned to be a live event. ABZ 2024 will have a main conference track, a case study track, a doctoral symposium, tutorials, and workshops. --------------- Main ABZ Track --------------- Contributions are solicited on all aspects of the theory and applications of ASMs, Alloy, B, TLA, VDM, Z, and other state-based rigor approaches in software/hardware engineering, including developing tools and industrial applications. The program spans from theoretical and methodological foundations to practical applications, emphasizing system engineering methods and tools that are distinguished by mathematical rigor and have proved to be industrially viable. The main goal of the conference is to contribute to the integration of accurate state- and machine-based system development methods, clarifying their commonalities and differences to understand better how to combine different approaches for accomplishing the various tasks in modeling, experimental validation, and mathematical verification of reliable, high-quality hardware/software systems. Although organized to host several formal methods in a single event, editorial control of the joint conference is vested in one integrated program committee. ----------------- Case Study Track ----------------- As successfully practiced since ABZ 2014, the 10th edition of ABZ will again include special sessions dedicated to an industrial case study. We explicitly invite you to also submit contributions to case studies from previous conferences, which substantially extend the solutions presented in one aspect or another. Possible enhancements could be new proof techniques, more elegant modeling, generation, verification, or validation of executable code, etc. See https://abz-conf.org/site/2024/casestudy/ for a detailed description of the new case study and links to the previous ones. -------------------------------- Workshop and Tutorial Proposals -------------------------------- Workshops and tutorials will be associated with the main event ABZ. Proposals are solicited in areas related to the conference topics. A workshop proposal should contain the workshop title and acronym, the contact information for the workshop organizers, an abstract for the ABZ 2024 website (if the workshop is accepted), the description of the workshop, and the expected format (organization, duration, expected participants, etc.). A tutorial proposal should contain the title of the tutorial, the contact information of the tutorial presenter(s), the tutorial summary, and a brief CV of the tutorial presenters for the ABZ 2024 website (if accepted), and the tutorial format (organization, duration, etc.). Proposals can be sent to claudio.menghi@unibg.it and alexander.raschke@uni-ulm.de ------------ Submissions ------------ Four kinds of contributions are invited: * Full research papers: Full research papers must be original, unpublished, and not submitted elsewhere. A paper of up to 16 pages (excluding references) in LNCS format is expected and will be reviewed. * Short papers: Short papers to present and validate a work in progress or tool demonstrations. A paper of no more than 6 pages (excluding references) in LNCS format is expected and will be reviewed. * Application in industry papers: Reporting on work or experiences on applying state-based formal methods in industry. A paper of no more than 8 pages (excluding references) in LNCS format is expected and will be reviewed. It is also an exciting option for industrial practitioners who sometimes need more time to prepare a full paper. * Journal-First papers: The journal-first paper summarizes recently published papers in high-quality journals. Journal-first papers aim to enrich the program by further ABZ and to provide more visibility to an already published journal paper in the scope of the ABZ conference. An extended abstract of no more than 6 pages (excluding references) in LNCS format is expected and will be reviewed. * Case study papers: Full papers reporting on the experiments conducted with any of the state-based techniques in the scope of the ABZ 2024 case study. A paper of up to 16 pages (excluding references) in LNCS format is expected and will be reviewed. We also expect a link to a webpage to download the produced models. * Contribution to the doctoral symposium: This is an excellent opportunity for Ph.D. students to present their ongoing work and receive valuable feedback from the ABZ community. A paper of at most 4 pages (excluding references) in LNCS format is expected and will be reviewed. Accepted papers will appear in the Springer LNCS proceedings. The deadlines for the different kinds of contributions are above. ------------------- Organization ------------------- Conference Chairs: Michael Leuschel (CoChair), Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany Elvinia Riccobene (CoChair), Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy Case Study Chair: Silvia Bonfanti, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy Angelo Gargantini, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy Workshop/Tutorial Chairs Claudio Menghi, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy Alexander Raschke, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany Doctoral Symposium Chairs Philipp Körner, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany Chiara Braghin, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy Local Chair: Patrizia Scandurra, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy For further questions concerning ABZ 2024, please get in touch with us at abz2024@unibg.it or elvinia.riccobene@unimi.it