TACoS
International Workshop on
Test and Analysis of Component Based Systems

Barcelona, march 27 - 28, 2004
in conjunction with ETAPS 2004

Sponsored by:
The IEEE Test Technology Technical Council (TTTC)

!!!Tales from TACOS 2003!!

Overview

Component based systems are increasingly used in software development. The lack of information about internals at different development stages and the need of optimizing verification and validation require new approaches to test and analysis. The complexity of the problems requires the synergy of various analysis, testing and design for testability approaches. Main focus of the workshop is on techniques, tools, and experiences on testing, analysis and design for testability of components, component based systems, and configurable products. Special attention will be given to heterogeneous, modular and configurable embedded systems that share hardware and software resources and are available in several versions. Contributions about techniques, tools and research results, as well as contributions on experiences, problems and failures that can help in focusing discussion and research are welcome.

The topics of the workshop include, but are not limited to:
• Verification and validation of components and component based systems
• Verification and validation of product families and configurable systems
• Software test and analysis
• Hardware test and analysis
• Design for testability
• Integration of test and analysis techniques
• Industrial and academic experiences and lessons learned
• Validation and verification of embedded, real time, fault tolerant systems
• Formal methods and their application to component based systems
The workshop is organized as part of the
Quack (A Platform for the Quality of New Generation Integrated Embedded Systems)

Paper submission
Prospective authors are invited to submit full papers in English presenting original research, new ideas or experimental results. Submitted papers must be unpublished and not submitted for publication elsewhere. All abstracts will be carefully referred by the PC.

Submitted papers must not exceed 12 pages in the format specified by Elsevier at the url: http://authors.elsevier.com/

The proceedings will be published in the Electronic Notes in Computer Science Series. Final papers will be no more than 12 pages long in the format specified by Elsevier. Perspective authors are strongly encouraged to use Latex in order to satisfy the submission requirements of Elsevier. Macro files for Latex will be made available at the url http://www.math.tulane.edu/~entcs. Please, download and use the "prentcsmacro.sty" file specifically related to TACoS'04

E-mail addresses and fax numbers of the authors should be included on the title page.

Submissions should be sent in pdf or ps format to the following email address: tacos04@disco.unimib.it

Authors of the best papers will be invited to submit an extended version for a special section of the International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT) on Test and Analysis of Component-based Systems

Important dates
Friday, 19 December 2003: Paper submission (extended deadline)
Friday, 16 January 2004: Notification of acceptance
Tuesday, 10 February 2004: Camera ready copies due

Organization

General Chair:
Mauro Pezzè - Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca - Italy

Program Committee:
Mauro Pezzè - Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca - Italy
Atonia Bertolino –ISTI-CNR Pisa - Italy
Ana Cavalli - Institut National des Télécommunications Evry - France
Marco Di Natale - Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - Italy
Gerhard Fohler - Malardalen University - Sweden
Alessandro Fantechi - Università degli Studi di Firenze - Italy
Reiko Heckel - Universität Paderborn - Germany
Tiziana Margaria - Universität Dortmund - Germany
Angelo Morzenti - Politecnico di Milano - Italy
Henry Muccini - Università degli Studi de L'Aquila - Italy
Elie Najm - Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications, Paris - France
Paolo Prinetto - Politecnico di Torino - Italy
Fernando Rubio - Universidad Complutense de Madrid - Spain
Michal Young - University of Oregon - USA
Alex Orailoglu - University of California in San Diego – USA
Alexander Pretshner – Technische Universität München - Germany
Chantal Robach - Laboratoire Conception et Integration de Systemes - France

Invited Talk

Joachim Wegener (responsible for software analysis and test at Daimler Chrysler Research)

"Test Case Design by means of the Classification-Tree Method and the Classification-Tree Editor CTE"

ABSTRACT
Although black-box tests are very important for the quality assurance of software systems, only a few methods for systematic black-box test case design have found their way into the industrial world. The selection of test cases determines kind and scope of the test. Therefore, the test case design determines the quality of a test.

The Classification-Tree Method is a particularly efficient testing method for which tool support is available in form of the Classification-Tree Editor CTE XL. It supports systematic test case design and gives a compact and clear presentation of the over-all test. Recently, the method found its way into the "certified tester" training program.

The presentation will introduce the classification-tree method, and it will show how the CTE XL can support its efficient application. The presentation will explain how logical dependencies between elements of the classification tree can be defined, in order to exclude inconsistent class combinations from test case design. Furthermore, rules for the generation of black-box test cases can be specified to automate test case design in a manner comparable to e.g. AETG.

Slides of presentation [ .pdf ] are now available !

Related links

ETAPS 2004, march 27, April 4, 2004, Barcelona, Spain- http://www.lsi.upc.es/etaps04/

 

International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT) - http://sttt.cs.uni-dortmund.de/

Final Program of TACoS 2004

Saturday, March 27

9.30 - 9.40 Opening: M. Pezzè

9.40 - 10.30 Keynote speech (char: M. Pezzè)

Test Case Design by means of the Classification-Tree Method and the Classification-Tree Editor CTE.
Joachim Wegener (Daimler Chrysler Research)

10.30 - 11.00 Coffee break

11.00 - 13.00 Paper Session: Test automation (session char: W. Prenninger)

• Introducing Software Test Automation and Test-Driven Development: An Experience Report
  L. Damm, L. Lundberg, D. Olsson (Ericsson, Sweden)
• A Technique for Verifying Component-Based Software
  L. Mariani, M. Pezzè (University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy)
• A framework for the integration of functional and non-functional analysis of software architectures
  V.Cortellessa, A.Di Marco, P.Inverardi, F.Mancinelli (University of L'Aquila, Italy)
• A Dependable Autonomic Computing Environment for Self-Testing of Complex Heterogeneous Systems
  A. Baldini, A. Benso, P. Prinetto (Politecnico di Torino)

13.00 - 14.30 Lunch

14.30 - 15.30 Invited speech (char: R. Heckel)

The xlinkit approach to consistency management: Language, Semantics, and Tools
Wolfgang Emmerich (University College London)

15.30 - 16.00 Coffee break

16.00 - 18.00 Paper session: Model-based testing and analysis (joint with GT-VMT - session char: A. Fantechi)

• Abstractions for Model-Based Testing
  W. Prenninger, A. Pretschner (Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany)
• Toward Translating Design Constraints to Run-Time Assertions
  L. Baresi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy), M. Young (University of Oregon, USA)
• Introducing a Reasonably Complete and Coherent Approach for Model-based Testing
  A. Bertolino (ISTI-CNR, Pisa, Italy), E. Marchetti (ISTI-CNR, Pisa, Italy), H. Muccini (University of L'Aquila, Italy)
• A Dual Language Approach to the Development of Time-Critical Systems with UML
  L. Lavazza (Politecnico di Milano, Italy), A. Morzenti (Politecnico di Milano, Italy), S. Morasca (Università dell'Insubria, Italy)

Sunday, March 28

9.00 - 9.30 Invited presentation (char: P. Prinetto)

QUACK: a platform for the quality of new generation integrated embedded systems
Mauro Pezzè (University of Milano-Bicocca)

9.30 - 10.30 Paper session: Testing of Web applications (session char: P. Prinetto)

• From UML models to automatic generated tests for the dotLRN e-learning platform
  A. Cavalli, S. Maag, S. Papagiannaki, G. Verigakis (Institut National des Telecommunications, France)
• Towards Contract-based Testing of Web Services
  R. Heckel, M. Lohmann (University of Paderborn, Germany)

10.30 - 11.00 Coffee break

11.00 - 12.30 Paper session: Reasoning frameworks for component-based software (session char: H. Muccini)

• An Approach to Behavioral Subtyping Based on Static Analysis
  F. Logozzo (STIX - Ecole Polytechnique, France)
• Towards Testing and Analysis of Systems that Use Serialization
  G. Denaro, L. Mariani (University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy)
• A Compositional Framework for Formally Verifying Modular Systems
  C. A. Furia, M. Rossi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)

12.30 - 14.00 Lunch

14.00 - 14.30 Invited presentation (char: G. Lipari)

HW Testing & SW Testing: Can one learn from the other?
Paolo Prinetto (Politecnico di Torino)

14.30 - 15.30 Paper session: Code-based approaches (session char: G. Lipari)

• Enhancing test coverage by back-tracing model-checker counter examples
  A. Fantechi (University of Firenze, Italy), A. Maggiore (AltraVerifica Ltd, UK), S. Gnesi (ISTI-CNR, Pisa, Italy)
• Testability Analysis of Data-Flow Software
  N. T. Binh, M. Delaunay, C. Robach (LCIS-ESISAR, Valence, France)

15.30 - 16.00 Coffee break

16.00 - 17.30 Paper session: Validation of time-critical systems (session char: G. Denaro)

• Validating Component Integration with C-TILCO: A Case Study
  P. Bellini, P. Nesi, D. Rogai (University of Firenze, Italy)
• A hierarchical framework for component-based real-time systems
  G. Lipari, P. Gai, M. Trimarchi, G. Guidi (Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Pisa, Italy)
• Validation Coverage for a Component-based SDL model of a Railway Signaling System
  M. Banci, M. Becucci, A. Fantechi, E. Spinicci (University of Firenze, Italy)