[Apologies for multiple copies]

*****    1st Interaction and Concurrency Experience (ICE'08)   *****
             Synchronous and Asynchronous Interactions
                 in Concurrent Distributed Systems

Satellite workshop of ICALP 2008
6th of July 2008
Reykjavik, Iceland

Homepage: http://ice08.dimi.uniud.it/

(Sponsored by the ESF project AutoMathA)


Interaction and Concurrency Experiences (ICEs) is intended as a
series of international scientific meetings oriented to researchers
in various fields of theoretical computer science. The timeliness
and novelty of these events relies both on the variety of the topics
that will be treated on each event and on the adopted paper
selection mechanism.

Every experience will focus on a different specific topic which
affects several areas of computer science; A thorough scientific
debate among PC and authors of submitted papers will parallel the
reviewing process; After the paper selection phase, papers will be
published on the web and the discussion will be extended to
perspective participants.

-- SCOPE --

The scope of this first experience is to include theoretical and
applied aspects of interactions and the synchronization mechanisms
used among actors of concurrent or distributed systems. The
workshop intends to attract researchers interested in models,
verification, tools, and programming primitives concerning such
complex interactions.

Synchronisation mechanisms are one of the key aspects in
concurrency and they are becoming enormously relevant in modern
distributed systems. Theoretical models, design and verification of
interaction protocols and programming practice must take
synchronisations into account for specifying, implementing and
reasoning on systems where computations are spread across possibly
many actors that interact within a precise interaction framework.

At a low level of abstraction, systems can be classified according
to a wide spectrum, ranging between the two extremes of
(completely) synchronous or asynchronous interactions. In fact,
such a classification can be given according to the assumptions
made on, e.g., the number of participants or the time interactions
need to be effected. Significantly, the behaviour of such systems
can be investigated using different assumptions that yield
different expressiveness or complexity results.

Several recent theoretical results shed light on the interrelations
between synchronous and asynchronous interaction mechanisms (e.g.,
expressiveness results for distributed algorithms, relations among
observational semantics of (a)synchronous models). Interaction
mechanisms have also been studied in relation to other features of
systems such as mobility (e.g., name passing process calculi,
graph-based models).

-- TOPICS --

Topics of interest include, but shall not be limited to:
- models, logic and types for interactions;
- synchronous/asynchronous mechanisms;
- expressiveness results;
- timed and hybrid interactions;
- verification, analysis and tools;
- programming primitives for interactions;
- interactions as coordination mechanisms;
- interactions inspired by emerging computational models (systems
 biology, quantum computing, etc.).

-- INVITED SPEAKERS --

- Catuscia Palamidessi (École Polytechnique)
- Joseph Sifakis (Verimag): Joint with SOS'08

-- SELECTION PROCEDURE --

The workshop proposes an innovative paper selection process based
on an interactive discussion amongst authors and PC members. We are
confident that an interactive selection phase could considerably
improve the quality of the papers, the reviews and the discussion
during the workshop.

After the submission deadline expires, each PC member will select a
number of suitable papers to review before the start of the
discussion phase. Each paper will have at least three anonymous
reviewers.

At the beginning of the discussion, each submitted paper will be
published on a Wiki and associated with a discussion forum. The
access to the forum will be restricted to the authors of the
associated paper and to all the PC members. The latter will be able
to anonymously post comments/questions which the authors will reply
to. Authors will obviously have access only to forums associated
with their own papers. Thus, the discussion on forums (and hence the
reviewing process of papers) may be enhanced by the additional
comments of interested PC members.

-- THE PUBLIC WIKI --

After the notification, the accepted papers will be published on a
public forum, the rationale being to initiate public discussions
that will trigger and stimulate the scientific debate of the
workshop. We argue that this will drive the workshop debate and let
perspective participants to interact with each other well in advance
with respect to the modus operandi of a traditional event.

-- SUBMISSION GUIDELINES --

Papers must report previously unpublished work and not be submitted
concurrently to another conference with refereed proceedings.
Programme Committee members, barring the co-chairs, may (and indeed
are encouraged) to contribute. Accepted papers must be presented at
the workshop by one of the authors.

There is no specific page limit, but authors should strive for
brevity. Papers should take the form of a pdf file in ENTCS format
and must be submitted electronically via the ICE'08 easychair
conference site (http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ice08).

-- GRANTS --

A special grant for the best student/young researcher best paper
will be awarded to cover part of his/her travel expenses.

-- DISSEMINATION --

The post-proceedings of the workshop will be published in a volume
of the Electronic Notes on Theoretical Computer Science series. If
the quality and quantity of the submissions warrant it, we plan to
arrange a special issue of an archival journal devoted to extended
versions of selected papers from the workshop. We might also expect
this to be a joint special issue within ICE'08 and SOS'08.


-- IMPORTANT DATES --

- Abstract submission: 14 April 2008
- Submission deadline: 18 April 2008
- Reviews due: 11 May 2008
- Discussion: from 12 May to 21 May 2008
- Notification to authors: 25 May 2008
- Workshop: 6 July 2008

-- PROGRAM COMMITTEE --

- Simon Bliudze (VERIMAG)
- Michele Boreale (Università di Firenze)
- Marco Carbone (Queen Mary)
- Vincent Danos (Paris VII & CNRS)
- Azadeh Farzan (Carnegie Mellon University)
- Fabio Gadducci (Università di Pisa)
- Blaise Genest (CNRS, Rennes)
- Ichiro Hasuo (University of Kyoto - Radboud University Nijmegen)
- Thomas Hildebrandt (ITU-Copenhagen)
- Barbara Koenig (University of Duisburg-Essen)
- Jean Krivine (École Polytechnique)
- Ruggero Lanotte (Università dell'Insubria)
- Francesco Logozzo (Microsoft Research)
- Gavin Lowe (Oxford)
- Hernan Melgratti (UBA, Buenos Aires)
- Mohamad Reza Mousavi (Eindhoven University)
- Julian Rathke (University of Southampton)
- Frank Valencia (École Polytechnique)
- Daniele Varacca (Paris VII)
- Herbert Wiklicky (Imperial College)

-- ICEcreamers --

- Filippo Bonchi (Università di Pisa)
- Davide Grohmann (Università di Udine)
- Paola Spoletini (Università dell'Insubria)
- Angelo Troina (Università di Torino)
- Emilio Tuosto (University of Leicester)