WORIE 2023 : 12th Workshop on the Reliability of Intelligent Environments

WORIE 2023


Computer Hardware Design Computer Networks & Wireless Communication Computing Systems Engineering & Computer Science (General) Automation & Control Theory



MOTIVATION



Intelligent Environments and related systems (such as Ambient Intelligence systems, Pervasive/Ubiquitous Computing systems, Smart Environments, Multi‐Agent Systems, Cyber-Physical Systems, etc.)  are rising as ones of the technical fields with the highest potential to make an impact in daily human life during the near future. Developments in these areas are achieved by a complex juxtaposition of complex technical fields. In fact, the underlying software has to be context‐aware and consider multiple elements, such as the environment that has to control (building, office, vehicle, city,…), the sensors and actuators deployed in it, the communication protocols and networks used for data transmission, different types of users and the existing interactions between these elements. Many of them are error prone: sensors are often unreliable, networks are sometimes unstable and users can put systems to the test in circumstances that were not initially foreseen. In addition, as it is well‐known, software is greatly difficult to develop, and even big companies like NASA, Microsoft, Intel, and BMW, which can afford powerful teams of experienced development engineers, have paid with both reputation and economic losses, and even with human lives, the fact of not being able to detect certain software bugs within their products. Therefore, developing this type of systems is a complex task.  Moreover, some of such systems will be given the tremendous responsibility to take care of humans. Think for example on how much interest there is on the development of systems to support independent living. These systems are intended to give peace of mind to elderly people and their relatives, trusting that the system will be able to do many things for them, including safety related issues, like detecting whether the occupant of the house has fallen or is unwell in some way. Other system examples are unmanned cars and other autonomous systems that are supposed to perform tasks for us, which can have disastrous consequences if something goes wrong. Consequently, our community should develop appropriate standards and specific methodologies to ensure we do our outmost to deliver safe and reliable systems as well as to extend the current state of the art in this development and research area. Given the specific blend of components in this area, we cannot just transfer developments made in other areas (although, of course, they should be taken into account to inform the process). This event will aim to bring together researchers and practitioners to focus on all aspects of the development process that can contribute to make Intelligent Environments and related systems safer and more secure and reliable, as well as to provide methodologies that can increase the user confidence in these developments. To achieve this, some isolated proposals have started to appear recently, but the seriousness of the topic deserves a more thorough and unified approach from our community.



TOPICS



Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following ones, all of them applied to increase the reliability, security and safety of Intelligent Environments and related systems:




  • Requirement specification

  • Elicitation of user requirements

  • Modelling notations

  • Rule‐based modelling

  • Integration of modelling and specification

  • Workflow modelling

  • Simulation

  • Human‐centred design

  • Software Engineering techniques

  • Testing

  • Validation

  • Formal and semi‐formal methods

  • Verification of system correctness

  • Model checking

  • Combination of verification methods

  • Quality assessment

  • Technical frameworks

  • Development methodologies

  • Support tools

  • Applications and case studies

  • Formal analysis and design



PUBLICATION



All accepted papers will be published in an Open Access volume within the Book Series on Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments Series (IOS Press). As of 2015, the Workshops Proceedings published by this Book Series are indexed in the Conference Proceedings Citation Index ‐ Science (CPCI‐S) by Thomson Reuters. Previous editions were indexed by Scopus.



Authors of selected papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers to the Journal of Reliable Intelligent Environments (http://www.springer.com/computer/hardware/journal/40860), which is currently indexed within the second quartile (Q2) in SJR (Scimago Journal Rank). These invitations will be sent by email after the event has been held.



SUBMISSIONS



Authors wishing to participate in this event should: 



(1) Format their papers according to the IOS Press style, with a length of at least 6 but no more than 10 pages. Latex and Word templates can be found in https://www.iospress.com/book‐article‐instructions. 



(2) Submit the papers using the CMT account for this workshop (https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/WoRIE2023). See more details about this on the web page of the workshop. 



All submitted papers will be reviewed by several reviewers with expertise in the area in order to provide constructive feedback to their authors and select the best ones for their presentation in the workshop and their publication in the proceedings.  



 



WORKSHOP FORMAT



The workshop will start with a keynote speech related with some of the topics addressed in it. The core of the event will be the presentation of recent advances in research and applications on such topics, followed by a short debate (questions & answers section) aiming to encourage a critical reflection on the corresponding subject. Presentations can also contain demos or videos about tools and applications. After the presentations of the selected papers, a panel made up of all the participants will discuss on critical issues that should be addressed at both academic and professional level to improve the safety, security and reliability of Intelligent Environments. Interaction will be encouraged throughout the event.