Elsevier Journal of Systems and Software 

Special Issue

Automated Component-Based Software Engineering

Call for Papers

Deadline: 15 October 2002
Editor-in-Chief: David Card 
Guest Editors: Ivica Crnkovic, Mälardalen University, Västeras (Sweden), 
  Heinz Schmidt, Monash University, Melbourne (Australia), 
  Judith Stafford, Tufts University, Boston (USA), 
  Kurt Wallnau, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (USA) 
BACKGROUND
We depend on software components for everyday activities at work, at home, in traffic and transport, banking, health, telecommunication, defence and other areas. Many times the software components are part of mission-critical functions and services provided in these domains. Primary reasons for component production and deployment are: separability of components from their context; independent component development, testing, configuration and later reuse; upgrade and replacement in running systems. However, compositionality of component-based systems is often taken for granted. Moreover, component technologies are not entirely independent of particular hardware or operating platforms, programming languages or the specific middleware technology in which they are based. Ideally, the development, quality control, and deployment of software components should be automated similarly to other engineering domains, which deal with the construction of large systems from well-understood components with predictable properties, acceptable budget, and time constraints.

Automated component-based software engineering is emerging as a field of study in software engineering. There are many open issues that need to be resolved before a component-based approach can make a significant impact on mission-critical software automation. Methods must be developed that allow measurement and prediction of the functional and extra-functional characteristics such as availability, adaptability, security, and performance. Analysis and design methodologies whose goals are automation or partial automation,  although increasingly in use, are still lacking in the required formalisation and automation support. Middleware technologies such as Microsoft's .NET and Sun Microsystem's  EJB are slowly moving into the domain of automated component-based software engineering. Their emphasis is typically on generation, such as glue code generation or user-interface generation; support for automated testing and quality control is nascent.

Our ability to formally model and reason about component-based systems is vital to any endeavour to automate the process of component development, adaptation, integration and deployment. System integration and changes to architecture may have significant impact on critical system properties and overall system quality; frequently, small structural changes have a discontinuously large impact on such properties.

PAPERS
This JSS special issue is dedicated to Automated Component-Based Software Engineering.

Topics of interest include:

The Journal of Systems and Software seeks to bridge theory and practice. Both theoretical and practical articles are encouraged. However, theoretical articles must include some empirical evaluation, practical demonstration, or substantive discussion of the practical application of the proposed idea.
SUBMISSION
Paper submission October 15, 2002
All reviews back December 15, 2002
Conditional acceptance and notification of authors January 20, 2003
Final manuscript due March 1, 2003
Final acceptance March 15, 2003
Approximate publication date Late 2003

Only original papers, which have not been submitted elsewhere, will be considered for publication.

All papers will be subject to a thorough peer review process.

Authors should format a submission following the instructions for authors below. All manuscripts must be submitted using our online submission system. Submitted manuscripts must be in English, in either PDF or Postscript format.

Go to JSS-ACBSE Submission Page: Submit Paper

Please contact hws@monash.edu.au if you need further instructions regarding the electronic submission.

Guest Editors, Elsevier Science, Inc.

Instructions For Authors

Submission Layout

Submitted papers must be formated as follows:

If you are using LaTeX you might use the following settings to achieve this format 

\documentclass[letterpaper,11pt]{article}
\usepackage{doublespace}
\textwidth 6.2 in 
\textheight 9 in

Bibliographic References

References should be cited in text by the last name of the author of the cited article, followed by a comma and the year of publication, e.g., (Glass, 1993; Glass and Jones, 1993). If there are three or more authors for a cited article, use the last name of the senior author followed by ``et al.,'' e.g., (Glass et al., 1993). If there are citations with the same authors and year, use ``a'' and ``b'' designations, e.g., (Glass et al., 1993a).

The reference list should be typed in alphabetical order, and should conform to the following style:
Journal:
Vandergraft, G., 1968. Spectral Properties of matrices having invariant cones, SIAM J. Appl. Math.6, 1208-1222.
Book:
Varga, R., 1962. Matrix Iterative Analysis, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, p. 219.
Chapter in an Edited Book:
Fan, K.,1950. On systems of linear inequalities. In: Kuhn, H.W., Tucker, A.W. (Eds.), Linear Inequalities and Related Systems, Analysis of Mathematics Studies, No.38. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
Theses and Reports:
Cain, B. E., 1968. Inertia Theory for Operators on a Hilbert Space, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

If you are using LaTeX, simply use the `apalike' bibliographystyle.

Final Camera-Ready Format

The camera-ready format may differ from the above submission format. Depending on the manuscript, the camera-ready version may be some 10-12 pages in the printed journal format. Authors of accepted papers will be advised apppropriately in the letter of acceptance, including any necessary length adjustments.

Please contact hws@monash.edu.au should you need further instructions regarding the submission format.