ICSOFT 2012 - ICSOFT 2012, the 7th International Conference on Software Paradigm Trends

The purpose of the ICSOFT 2012, the 7th International Conference on Software Paradigm Trends, is to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners interested on information technology and software development. This seventh edition will focus in priority on the four main paradigms that have been intensively studied during the last decade for software and system design, namely: Models, Aspects, Services and Context.

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is an approach to the design and development of software and systems that relies on exploiting high-level models and computer-based automation to achieve significant improvements in both productivity and quality. Model Driven Engineering has been popularized during the last decade by a specific incarnation, model-driven architecture (MDA) of OMG (Object management group).

Aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) is an established technology for separation of concerns (SOC) in software development. The techniques of AOSD make it possible to modularize crosscutting aspects of a system. Like objects, aspects may arise at any stage of the software lifecycle, including requirements specification, design, implementation, etc. In recent years, AOSD has been applied successfully for developing complex modern systems - particularly software and software-intensive systems.

Services are autonomous platform-independent computational elements that can be described, published, discovered, orchestrated and programmed using XML artifacts for the purpose of developing massively distributed interoperable applications. During the last decade, Service Oriented Computing (SOC) has been introduced as a new paradigm for distributed computing and e-business processing that has evolved from object-oriented and component computing to enable building agile networks of collaborating business applications distributed within and across organizational boundaries.

The term context awareness was first coined by Schilit in 1994. Context encompasses all of the information relevant to an interaction between a service and its set of users including the participants as well. In the scope of pervasive computing, a context aware application is a class of application that has raised increasing interest in the research community. These applications can capture dynamically and take advantage of contextual information.

These four paradigms will drive the design and development of future software systems encompassing a large number of research topics and applications: from programming issues to the more abstract theoretical aspects of software engineering; from databases and data-warehouses to the most complex management information systems; knowledge-base systems; Distributed systems, ubiquity, data quality and many other topics are included in the scope of ICSOFT. Ideas on how to analyze and approach problems by combining these paradigms, either in the scope of R&D projects, engineering or business applications, are welcome. Papers describing new methods or technologies, advanced prototypes, systems, tools and techniques and general survey papers indicating future directions around these paradigms are also encouraged. Papers describing original work are invited in any of the areas listed below. Accepted papers, presented at the conference by one of the authors, will be published on the Proceedings of ICSOFT, with an ISBN. Acceptance will be based on quality, relevance and originality. Both full research reports and work-in-progress reports are welcome. There will be both oral and poster sessions.

Special sessions, dedicated to case-studies and commercial presentations, as well as tutorials dedicated to technical/scientific topics are also envisaged: companies interested in presenting their products/methodologies or researchers interested in holding a tutorial, workshop or special session are invited to contact the conference secretariat or visit the conference website.

CONFERENCE AREAS
Each of these topic areas is expanded below but the sub-topics list is not exhaustive. Papers may address one or more of the listed sub-topics, although authors should not feel limited by them. Unlisted but related sub-topics are also acceptable, provided they fit in one of the following main topic areas:

1. MODELS
2. ASPECTS
3. SERVICES
4. CONTEXT

AREA 1: MODELS

Domain-Specific Languages
Metamodeling
Model Analysis and Checking
Model Transformation
Model Evolution
Model Execution and Simulation
Model Testing
Model Composition
Model Versioning
Model Tools
Modeling Languages
AREA 2: ASPECTS

Aspect Analysis and Design
Domain Engineering
Modularity with Aspects
Aspects Interference and Composition
Aspects Testing and Verification
Aspects Evaluation and Metrics
Advice/Pointcut Specification
Aspect Mining
AREA 3: SERVICES

Service Technology and Infrastructure Issues
Service Registration, Update, De-registration
Service Discovery, Selection and Replacement
Service Invocation, Interaction, Monitoring
Service Choreography, Mediation, Orchestration
Principles of SOC/SOA, Service Science
Service Modelling Approaches
Services Applications
Service Interoperability, Matching and Composition
AREA 4: CONTEXT

Context-Aware Systems
Context Identification
Context Formalization
Context Representation
Context Analysis
Context Design
Context Sensitive Applications
Context Aggregation and Inference
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
ICSOFT 2012 will have several invited keynote speakers, who are internationally recognized experts in their areas. Their names are not yet confirmed.