CIVIA 2012 - ACM-SAC 2012 CONFERENCE TRACK ON Coordination Models, Languages and Applications

Building on the success of the thirteen previous editions (1998-2011), a special track on coordination models, languages and applications will be held at SAC 2012. 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 multi-agent systems, service-oriented architectures, component-based systems and related middleware platforms. Furthermore, the concept of coordination exists in many other Computer Science areas such as workflow systems, cooperative information systems, distributed artificial intelligence, and internet technologies.

After more than a decade of research, the coordination paradigm is gaining increased momentum in state-of-the-art engineering paradigms such as multi-agent systems and service-oriented architectures: in the first case, coordination abstractions are perceived as essential to design and support the working activities of agent societies; in the latter case, service coordination, orchestration, and choreography are going to be essential aspects of the next generations of systems based on Web services.

The Special Track on Coordination Models, Languages and Applications takes a deliberately broad view of what constitutes coordination. Accordingly, major topics of interest this year will include:

Novel models, languages, programming and implementation techniques
Applications
Internet, Web, and pervasive computing coordinated systems
Coordination of multi-agent systems, including mobile agents, intelligent agents, and agent-based simulations
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
Self-organising and nature-inspired coordination approaches
Coordination technologies, systems and infrastructures
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)
Coordination models and specification in Service-Oriented Architectures, Web Service technologies (orchestration, choreography, etc), and Pervasive Computing