QEST 2021 Early CfP
https://www.qest.org/qest2021/

Co-located at QONFEST with CONCUR, FORMATS, FMICS

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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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)