[hpc-announce] QEST 2021: Early Call for Papers

[Marco Paolieri]

QEST 2021 Early CfP
International Conference on Quantitative Evaluation of SysTems
https://www.qest.org/qest2021/

Co-located at QONFEST with CONCUR, FORMATS, FMICS

**************************************
Important Dates

Abstract Submission:  April  8th, 2021
Paper Submission:     April 15th, 2021
Notification:          June  7th, 2021
Conference:     August 23rd-27th, 2021
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================
Scope and Topics
================

The International Conference on Quantitative Evaluation of SysTems (QEST)
is the leading forum on quantitative evaluation and verification of
computer systems and networks. QEST 2021 is the 18th conference in the
series.

Scientific areas of interest include:
- quantitative specification methods.
- stochastic and non-deterministic models and metrics for performance,
reliability, safety, correctness, and security.
- new algorithms for the analysis or simulation of stochastic,
probabilistic and non-deterministic models.
- (as a recent emphasis) application of data-driven, machine learning
techniques for the quantitative evaluation and verification of systems, in
particular for safety-critical applications (learning for safety, as well
as safe learning).
- case studies that highlight the role of quantitative specification,
modelling and evaluation in the design of systems. Systems of interest
include computer hardware and software architectures, communication
systems, cyber-physical systems, infrastructural systems, security systems
and biological systems.
- papers that describe novel tools to support the practical application of
research results in all of the above areas are also welcome. QEST will set
up a repeatability evaluation process (details below).

QEST is open to both theoretical, experimental and applicative research.
The conference welcomes a diversity of modelling formalisms, programming
languages and methodologies that incorporate quantitative aspects such as
probabilities, temporal properties, rewards and forms of non-determinism.
Papers may advance empirical, simulation and analytic methods, and
industrially-relevant case studies.

In QEST21, we plan to organize a special session under the topic "modelling
and analysis in biology", comprising topics such as epidemiological
systems, systems biology, biological networks, and computational biology.
Contributions in this area are particularly welcome.


===========
Submissions
===========

QEST 2021 considers three types of papers (authors will be able to specify
the type of the contribution at the submission):
 - THEORETICAL/METHODOLOGICAL: to advance the understanding on a topic or
issue, or to describe the development and proposal of new analysis
processes and techniques.
 - APPLICATION: to describe a novel application and compare it with
previous results.
 - TOOL: to develop new tools and the formalisms they support, with a focus
on the software architecture and practical implementation and use. Tools
will be made available to the reviewers.

Paper submission can be REGULAR and SHORT: regular papers must not exceed
16 pages, excluding references, plus 4 pages for the appendix containing
supporting material. Short papers should preferably be limited to 8 pages,
also excluding references.

All submitted papers must be unpublished and not be submitted for
publication elsewhere. Papers should be submitted electronically using
EasyChair [2]. Springer encourages authors to include their ORCIDs in their
papers. Authors should consult Springer's authors' guidelines [0] and use
Springer's LaTeX templates [1] for the preparation of their papers.


===========
Publication
===========

All accepted papers will be presented and discussed at the conference by
one of the authors. The QEST 2021 proceedings will be published in the
Springer LNCS series and indexed by ISI Web of Science, Scopus, ACM Digital
Library, dblp, Google Scholar. All submitted papers will be evaluated by at
least three reviewers on the basis of their originality, technical quality,
scientific or practical contribution to the state of the art, methodology,
clarity, and adequacy of references.


========================
Repeatability Evaluation
========================

Authors of tool papers (both regular and short) are encouraged to make
their tools (source code) and input data available to reviewers;
reproducibility of results will be taken into account during the evaluation
process, and the conference will include the possibility of a demo session
for  interaction with the authors. Authors should present use cases,
distinctive features, and computational/memory requirements through
motivating examples. We expect authors of tool papers (regular and short)
to provide instructions detailing the steps which need to be taken to
reproduce the results presented in the tool papers to ensure
reproducibility.
RE is optional (but recommended) also for other submissions
(theoretical/methodological or application submissions). Successfully
evaluated papers will receive a specific tag in the proceedings.


=============
Special Issue
=============

A selection of the best full papers will be invited to submit an extended
version of their work to a special issue in the ACM Transactions on
Modelling and Computer Simulation (TOMACS) [3].
(Further details will be provided on the website.)

[0]
ftp://ftp.springernature.com/cs-proceeding/svproc/guidelines/Springer_Guidelines_for_Authors_of_Proceedings.pdf
[1] ftp://ftp.springernature.com/cs-proceeding/llncs/llncs2e.zip
[2] https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=qest2021
[3] https://dl.acm.org/journal/tomacs


====================
Organising committee
====================

General Chair (QONFEST):
Benoit Barbot (Université Paris-Est Créteil, FR)

Program Chairs:
Alessandro Abate (Oxford University, UK)
Andrea Marin (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, IT)

Repeatability Evaluation Chair:
David Safranek (Masaryk University, CZ)

Publicity Chair:
Marco Paolieri (University of Southern California, USA)