VVASS 2018 - IEEE International Workshop on Verification and Validation of Adaptive Software Systems

The complexity of software and software-enabled systems and the need to reduce and master this complexity has led the software quality community to look for inspiration in diverse fields such as robotics, control theory, and biology. Self-adaptive systems, i.e., systems that are able to adjust their behavior at run-time in response to the perception of the environment and the system itself have become an important topic within different communities. Adaptability requires that software systems need to become more dependable, robust, energy-efficient, customizable, configurable, and resilient. Such desirable functional but also non-functional quality attributes have been investigated in various areas of computer science, e.g., autonomic computing, cyber-physical systems, autonomous robots or mobile ad-hoc networks from their own perspective, however, the common element that enables the provision of adaptability is usually software. In such a context, the task of verification and validation (V&V) is to provide suitable processes and evidence-based methods and techniques to guarantee a number of functional and non-functional properties during the operation of the system. The well-known V&V methods typically rely on stable descriptions of the underlying software and the properties to be verified. However, self-adaptive systems generate new challenges for V&V, as the current techniques do not align well with changing requirements and variable software functionalities.
Therefore, this workshop brings together academics and industrial to exchange and discuss the latest synergies on adaptive systems as well as methods and techniques for V&V of these systems. We explicitly encourage participation of researchers from different communities that intersect with self-adaptive systems and their V&V. The workshop will be set in an informal and cooperative atmosphere with a specific format allotted to discussions. Beside of topical cross-fertilization, VVASS 2018 provides an excellent networking opportunity.