Call for Presentations

Introduction

The thirteenth annual HCSS Conference will be held May 7-10, 2013 at the Historic Inns of Annapolis in Annapolis, Maryland. You are invited to submit a proposal to present a talk at this year's conference. As an added feature at the 2013 HCSS Conference, you are also invited to participate in a poster session. See details below for more information.

Background

Our security, safety, privacy, and well-being are all increasingly dependent upon the correctness, reliability, resilience, and integrity of software-intensive systems of all kinds, including cyber-physical systems (CPS). Our systems must be capable of interacting correctly, safely, and securely with humans and the physical world even while they operate in changing, difficult-to-predict, and possibly malicious environments. New foundations in science, technology, and advanced practice continue to be needed. Moreover, these methods and tools have to be transitioned into mainstream use to build and assure these systems—and to move towards more effective models for acceptance and certification.

Conference Scope, Goals, and Vision

The High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) Conference, now in its second decade, draws together researchers, practitioners, and management leaders from government, universities, and industry. The conference provides a forum for dialogue centered upon the development of scientific foundations for the assured engineering of software-intensive complex computing systems and the transition of science into practice. The technical emphasis of the HCSS conference is on mathematically-based tools and techniques, scientific foundations supporting evidence creation, systems assurance, and security. The HCSS vision is one of engaging and growing a community—including researchers and skilled practitioners—that is focused around the creation of dependable systems that are capable, efficient, and responsive; that can work in dangerous or inaccessible environments; that can support large-scale, distributed coordination; that augment human capabilities; that can advance the mission of national security; and that enhance quality of life, safety, and security.

Conference Themes

The 2013 HCSS Conference week will highlight daily themes including on the following topics:

• Automatic theorem proving and SMT: With the rapidly increasing power and applicability of automated theorem proving and SMT tools, both new and existing tools can benefit tremendously from the reduction of both decidable and undecidable programs to these off-the-shelf tools.  Furthermore, developers of automated reasoning tools are actively looking to increase the applicability and performance of their tools based on customer need.  The idea of this day is to get prover developers together with users of the tools to discuss what is possible today, and what will be possible tomorrow.  
• Javascript:  Javascript is the modern day x86 (messy but omnipresent). In order to make off-the-shelf systems robust and secure, we must consider ways of writing and reasoning about Javascript code.  The purpose of this day’s theme will be to gather experts in programming, networking, program verification/analysis, etc to discuss the current advances in the area of Javascript-based development.  Note that presentations on tools or techniques that address problems similar to Javascript are also welcome.
• Boundary between hardware and software: The dramatic increase in computational performance and power requirements combined with the leveling-off of microprocessor clock speeds forces us to rethink traditional abstractions between hardware and software.  For example, weak memory concurrency gives increased performance at the cost of the traditional idea of sequential consistency. On this day we aim to bring together those working at different levels of abstraction in computer systems to discuss common techniques, goals, and to learn about techniques unique to their area that may be applicable in others.

Note that presentations on other related themes are also encouraged. 

Conference Presentations

The conference program features invited speakers, panel discussions, poster presentations, and a technical track of contributed papers.

Technical Track Presentations

The technical track features two kinds of talks:

• Experience reports. These talks inform participants about how emerging HCSS and CPS techniques play out in real-world applications, focusing especially on lessons learned and insights gained. While experience reports do not have to be highly technical, they should emphasize substantive reflection on all aspects of experience, building on data and direct experience. Experience reports can focus on topics such as transitioning science into practice, architecture and requirements, the use of advanced languages and tools, evaluation and assessment, team practice and tooling, supply-chain issues, and so on.
• Technical talks. These talks focus on informing the audience regarding specific techniques or methods, ideally from the point of view of someone with experience in practice. There is a wide range of relevant topics and themes including analysis of concurrency, use of hybrid reasioning approaches, theorem proving, separation logic, analysis, synthesis, analytics, and modeling particular techniques. Such talks should nonetheless be accessible to the broad HCSS and CPS audience.

If you are interested in offering a talk on one of this year's topics or themes—or nominating someone else to be invited to do so—please upload an abstract of  one page or less for your proposed talk or a one paragraph description of your nominee’s proposed talk by Friday, March 22nd, 2013 to

http://cps-vo.org/group/hcss_conference/cfp2013

Slide presentations and supporting documents of accepted talks should be submitted in pdf format no later than Friday, April 27, 2013.

Poster Presentations

If you are interested in participating in the poster session, please upload an abstract of your proposed poster theme with title by Friday, March 22nd, 2013 at

http://cps-vo.org/group/hcss_conference/cfposters2013

Posters should provide an overview of the HCSS Conference theme or research topic and/or results, with effective use of appropriate graphics. Only a limited number of posters will be accepted due to space availability. All posters for display should be printed in a 3’x4’ size format. Notifications of accepted posters will be made by Friday, March 29, 2013. Content designs of accepted posters can be submitted electronically in either Adobe InDesign (preferred) or pdf formats also by Friday, April 27, 2013. The conference organizers will print posters free of charge if design content is electronically submitted by the April 27 due date. After April 27, poster session participants will be responsible for the printing and delivery of their own posters. The conference organizers will provide easels and basic setup for all poster displays. Poster session participants should contact the conference organizers in advance if additional materials or props are desired.

Additional Information

Further instructions for electronically submitting final slide presentations of accepted talks and poster designs will be provided in the notification message that will be sent on Friday, March 29, 2013. Abstracts of accepted talks and posters will be published in the 2013 HCSS Conference proceedings.

Important Dates

Friday, March 22, 2013 — Abstracts of proposed talks and poster topics submission deadline  

Friday, March 29, 2013 — Notifications of acceptance/rejection

Friday, April 27, 2013 — Final slide presentations and poster designs submission deadline

May 7-10, 2013 — HCSS Conference in Annapolis

Planning Committee

Co-Chairs
Byron Cook, Microsoft
Ray Richards, Rockwell Collins

Steering Group
Kathleen Fisher, DARPA
Helen Gill, NSF
John Launchbury, Galois
Brad Martin, NSA
Bill Scherlis, CMU
Frank Seaton Taylor, NSA
Tim Thimmesch, NSA

Organizers
Katie Dey, Vanderbilt University
Anne Dyson, Vanderbilt University
Frankie Denise King, Vanderbilt University