===================================================================== CALL FOR PAPERS The First International Workshop on Cyber-Physical Systems (WCPS2008) --- in conjunction with ICDCS 2008, June 20, 2008, Beijing, China Conference http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/icdcs/ Workshop http://www.qhdctc.com/wcps2008/ Important Dates: Paper submission: November 26, 2007 Notification of acceptance: Feb. 11, 2008 Camera ready papers: March 9, 2008 We are currently witnessing the emergence an infrastructure for a technical, economic and social revolution that is enabled by Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Cyber-physical systems are physical and engineered systems whose operations are integrated, monitored, and controlled by a computational core. The integration of computational and physical processes exhibit complicated behavior that can not be analyzed by the computational or physical sciences alone. These systems also transcend traditional computer-controlled systems because of their scale, dependence on man-machine interaction and their rich communication infrastructure that is enabled by the Internet. Some of the most challenging R&D software problems for cyber-physical systems are those associated with producing distributed, real-time, and embedded platforms and applications, and where computers control physical, chemical, or biological processes or devices. Examples of such systems include airplanes and air traffic control systems, automobiles, power grids, oil refineries, and patient monitoring systems. Despite advances in standards-based commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies, key challenges must be addressed before COTS software can be used to build mission-critical distributed real-time embedded (DRE) systems effectively and productively. Furthermore, there are existing critical infrastructures that oversee the operations of everything from nuclear power plants to traffic lights and yet they may not even be able to accept static upgrades, or patches, or any dynamic change of behavior, but they will remain with us for quite some time. Dynamically retrofitting these systems while maintaining their stability within a cyber environment is a significant challenge yet to be overcome. The International Workshop on Cyber-Physical Systems (WCPS2008) is an international forum for researchers to exchange information regarding advancements in the state of the art and practice of CPS, as well as to identify the emerging research topics and define the future of CPS. The technical program of WCPS2008 will consist of invited talks, paper presentations, and panel discussions. Topics of Interest In summary, the main topics of interest are on grand challenges, requirements, architectures, innovations and abstractions for Cyber-Physical Systems as well as technical challenges to interface and manipulate the Physical World. In particular, we are seeking papers in, but not limited to, the following main areas: [Architecture and infrastructure] Current architectures for cyber physical systems tend to be based on layers of network, OS, and middleware that have evolved over decades in the context of general-purpose computing systems. One goal of this topic area is to seek architectural abstractions, mechanisms, and formalisms that are better suited to the needs of cyber-physical systems. Some example topics include: approaches for refactoring the technology base to collapse/remove layers; techniques for managing QoS properties top-to-bottom; and end-to-end in ultra-large-scale cyber-physical systems. [Fundamental system services] Decades of experience with enterprise systems have yielded reasonably good abstractions and technologies for developing reusable services, such as transactions, discovery, naming, and event notification. There is much less consensus and experience, however, on the appropriate abstractions and technologies for fundamental system services in cyber-physical systems. Some example topics include 'multi-ility' services, such as security, reliable, and predictable replica-based fault detection and isolation frameworks that can operate in resource-constrained safety- and mission-critical CPS environments. [Service composition/synthesis] This area involves rigorous, evidence-producing composition (and composites) of system services, often using novel languages and models of computation. Some example topics include "type systems for QoS contracts" or "checkable properties of dynamic event structures" or "synthesis of mixed-criticality RTOS tailored for domain X". The time and scheduling, behavioral interaction, and partitioning/isolation will be central cross-cutting issues. [Interaction and coordination] A single critical infrastructure facility can have thousands of devices, such as in supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, that spread over hundreds of miles. The devices themselves are typically in a physically protected environment; yet the interactions among them, on the other hand, go through the cyber space which poses a challenge to us and calls for a paradigm that is interaction and coordination centric. [Proactive monitoring] There are numerous existing systems, such as chemical plants, oil refiners, power grids, that have been in existence and correctly functioning for many years, and until now were not considered vulnerable because these systems were not envisioned to run in the cyber environment which has become today's reality. Theses systems face the high risk of being a terrorist target though cyber invasions. On the other side, it is out of the question that we re-build or prescribe a complete upgrade of all these systems. Worse yet, it may even be too expensive to take the mentality of ``dispatch-and- then-patch''. Therefore, external, lightweight and proactive monitoring of the systems is essential in building or retrofitting CPS. [Applications and experiences] New CPS applications and experiences, such as Tele-Physical Services, Smart Transportation, etc. We learn from our past experiences: through our encounters with real-life applications and experiences with new technologies, we develop the skill set and tools to perform better in the future. Paper Submission The workshop solicits original and previously unpublished papers reporting results from research and/or industrial experience as well as discussion of grand challenges and requirements. Submit a full paper of 6 pages (IEEE Computer Society proceedings Manuscripts: two columns, single-spaced), including figures and references, using 10 font size, and number each page. You can confirm the IEEE Computer Society proceedings Manuscripts at the following web page. URL: http://computer.org/cspress/instruct.htm. Contact author must input the following information at the WCPS2008 web site: paper title, authors' names, affiliations, postal address, phone, fax, and e-mail address of the author, about 200-250 word abstract, and keywords. Prepare your paper in PDF file (Adobe format), and send it through the following web site. The submission web site is: http://www.qhdctc.com/wcps2008/ Submission of a paper implies that should the paper be accepted, at least one of the authors will register and present the paper in the workshop. Each accepted paper must have a full registration in order to include the paper in the conference proceedings. Accepted papers will be given guidelines in preparing and submitting the final manuscript(s) together with the notification of acceptance. Organization Committee General Co-Chairs: Aloysius K. Mok, University of Texas at Austin, USA Shangping Ren, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA Carolyn Talcott, SRI, International,USA Steering Committee Helen Gill, National Science Foundation, USA Tei-Wei Kuo, National Taiwan University, Taiwan Raj Rajkumar, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Wei Zhao, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA Publicity Chair Limin Shen, Yanshan University, China Partial Program Committee Gul Agha, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Luca de Alfaro, Stanford University Rajeev Alur, University of Pennsylvania Albert M. K. Cheng, University of Houston Jeff Grey, University of Alabama at Birmingham Chris Gill, Washington University in St. Louis Joseph Giordano, Dolphin Technologies Steve Goddard, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Zonghua Gu, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Joshua Guttman, Mitre Tom Henzinger, University of California at Berkeley Sharon Hu, University of Notre Dame Jane Liu, Academia Sinica, Taiwan Steve Liu, Texas A&M University Ying Lu, University of Nebraska - Lincoln Chenyang Lu, Washington University in St.Louis Jerzy M. Nogiec, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Jens Palsberg, University of California at Los Angeles Joseph Sifakis, VERIMAG Laboratory, France Kang Shin, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor Oleg Sokolsky, University of Pennsylvania Jeffrey Tsai, University of Illinois at Chicago Shambhu Upadhyaya, University at Buffalo Jan Vitek, Purdue University Shengquan Wang, University of Michigan - Dearborn I-Ling Yen, University of Texas at Dallas Limin Shen, Yanshan University, China --------------------------------- Dr. Shangping Ren Department of Computer Science Illinois Institute of Technology 10 W. 31st Street Chicago, IL 60616 Phone (312) 567-5215 Fax (312) 567-5067 Web www.cs.iit.edu/~ren ------------------------------