ACM SAC Session on Coordination

CALL FOR PAPERS AND REFEREES

21st ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2006)
http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2006/

Special Track on Coordination Models, Languages and Applications
http://confs.deis-ce.unibo.it/sac/sac2006
http://sac2006cm.cs.fit.edu/

April 23-27, 2006,
Dijon, France

NEW!!!!
Submissions are now open using THIS URL

SAC 2006

For the past twenty years, the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing has been a primary gathering forum for applied computer scientists, computer engineers, software engineers, and application developers from around the world. SAC 2006 is sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Applied Computing, and is hosted by Bourgogne University, Dijon, France

Coordination Models, Languages and Applications Track

Building on the success of the seven previous editions (1998-2005), a special track on coordination models, languages and applications will be held at SAC 2006. Over the last decade, we have witnessed the emergence of models, formalisms and mechanisms to describe concurrent and distributed computations and systems based on the concept of coordination. The purpose of a coordination model is to enable the integration   of a number   of, possibly heterogeneous, components (processes, objects, agents) in such a way that the resulting ensemble can execute as a whole, forming a software system with desired characteristics and functionalities which possibly takes advantage of parallel and distributed systems. The coordination paradigm is closely related to other contemporary software engineering approaches such as component-based systems and middleware platforms. Furthermore, the concept of coordination exists in many other Computer Science areas such as   Cooperative Information Systems, Distributed Artificial Intelligence, and Internet Technologies.

The Special Track on Coordination Models, Languages and Applications

The track deliberately takes a broad view of what is coordination: this term covers here traditional models and languages (e.g., the ones based on the Shared Dataspace and CHAM metaphors), but also other related notions and formalisms   such as configuration and architectural description frameworks, models of multi-agent planning, organization and decision-making, systems modeling abstractions and languages,
programming skeletons, etc.

Correspondingly, in addition to the traditional areas covering data-driven (such as Linda) and control-driven (such as Manifold) models and languages,   this   Special   Track aims   at putting together
contributions from all the many areas where the concept of coordination is relevant, such as multi-agent systems, software architectures, middleware platforms,   groupware and   workflow management, etc.,
providing them with a forum where they can discuss their different viewpoints and share ideas.   On this very subject, it is worth to remind that the last editions of this Track were undoubtedly successful
under many points of view, but in particular in attracting relevant and consistent contributions from many different research communities.

According to that, major topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following:

Novel models, languages, programming and implementation techniques
Applications
Internet- and Web-based coordinated systems
Coordination of multi-agent systems (MAS), including mobile and intelligent agents
Languages for service description and composition
Models, frameworks and tools for Group Decision Making
All aspects related to Cooperative Information Systems (e.g. workflow management, CSCW)
Software architectures and software engineering techniques
Configuration and Architecture Description Languages
Middleware platforms (e.g. CORBA, Jini)
Coordination technologies, systems and infrastructures
Emergent Coordination and Self-organization.
Relationship with other computational models such as object oriented, declarative (functional, logic, constraint) programming or their extensions with coordination capabilities
Formal aspects (semantics, reasoning, verification)

Proceedings and Post-proceedings

Papers accepted for the Special Track on Coordination Models, Languages and Applications will be published by ACM both in the SAC 2006 proceedings and in the Digital Library.

It is worth to notice that after the last editions of the Special Track on Coordination, four special issues were published, namely

"Coordination Models and Languages in AI"
Applied Artificial Intelligence 15(1)
http://lia.deis.unibo.it/journals/aai2001/

"Coordination as a Paradigm for Systems Integration"
Journal of Systems Integration 10(2)
http://lia.deis.unibo.it/journals/josi2001/

"Coordination and Knowledge Engineering"
The Knowledge Engineering Review 17(4)
http://uk.cambridge.org/journals/ker/

"Coordination and Collaboration Technologies"
Journal of Cooperative Information Systems 13(1)
http://www.worldscinet.com/ijcis/ijcis.shtml

and

"Coordination Systems"
Journal of Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/77004395

while a sixty one

"Role of Contexts for Coordination in MAS"
Web Intelligence and Agent Systems Journal
http://www.iospress.nl/html/15701263.php

is currently under preparation.

So, among the papers accepted and presented this year at the SAC 2006 Special Track on Coordination, a further selection is likely to be performed after the symposium to produce a special issue of some
international journal: several contacts are currently ongoing.

Track Program Chairmen

Ronaldo Menezes
Department of Computer Sciences
Florida Institute of Technology
150 West University Blvd.
Melbourne, FL 32901
voice# +1 (321) 674-7623
fax# +1 (321) 674-7046
rmenezes[at]cs.fit.edu

Alessandro Ricci
DEIS
Universitá di Bologna
Via Venezia 52
Cesena - Italy
voice# +39 054 733921
fax# +39 054 7339208
aricci[at]deis.unibo.it

Guidelines for Submission

Original papers from the above-mentioned or other related areas will be considered.   This includes three categories of submissions: 1) original and unpublished research; 2) reports of innovative computing
applications in the arts, sciences, engineering, business, government, education and industry; and   3) reports of successful   technology transfer to new problem domains.   Each submitted paper will be fully
refereed and undergo a blind review process    by at least   three referees. The accepted papers in all categories will be published in the ACM SAC 2006 proceedings.

Submission Format

Submit your paper electronically in either PDF or postscript format. Please note: neither hardcopy nor fax submissions will be accepted. Submissions should be printable on a standard printer on common paperformats like letter and DIN A4. Please use a Postscript previewer such as Ghostview to check the portability of Postscript documents.

The author(s) name(s) and address(es) must not appear in the body of the paper, and self-reference should be in the third person. This is to facilitate blind review.

The body of the paper should not exceed 4,000 words. Accepted full papers should not exceed 5 pages in a double column format (with the option, at additional expense, to add three more pages). Accepted poster papers will be published as extended 2-page abstracts in the symposium proceedings.

All submissions must be received by September 3, 2005.
Submission should be made using THIS LINK

Submission Procedure

Submission is a two-step process. Please follow these instructions in order to submit a paper:

Use the abstract submission interface to provide the main information on your paper. You will be given an ID/password which must later be used to access the system during the following steps, so be careful to remember it.
Once an abstract has been submitted, you can access the paper submission interface to upload the file of your complete paper. ID/password allow to revise the summary form information and to upload modified versions of the submission. Please use the ID in all future correspondence about your paper.

Referees

Over the last eight years, the Special Track on Coordination Models, Languages and Applications has built its success also over the work of many volunteer referees. Anyone wishing to review papers should express
her/his intention by sending an email to the chairmen

Track Home Page

Further information can be found at the special track home pages:

http://confs.deis-ce.unibo.it/sac/sac2006
http://sac2006cm.cs.fit.edu/

Important Dates

September 3, 2005: Paper Submission
October 15, 2005: Author Notification
November 5, 2005: Camera-Ready Copy