Reliable Software Technologies Ada Europe 2001

The Sixth International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies, Ada- Europe 2001, took place in Leuven, Belgium, May 14-18, 2001. It was sponsored by Ada-Europe, the European federation of national Ada societies, in cooperation with ACM SIGAda, and it was organized by members of the K.U. Leuven and Ada- Belgium. This was the 21st consecutive year of Ada-Europe conferences and the sixth year of the conference focusing on the area of reliable software technologies. The use of software components in embedded systems is almost ubiquitous: planes fly by wire, train signalling systems are now computer based, mobile phones are digital devices, and biological, chemical, and manufacturing plants are controlled by software, to name only a few examples. Also other, non-embedded, mission-critical systems depend more and more upon software. For these products and processes, reliability is a key success factor, and often a safety-critical hard requirement. It is well known and has often been experienced that quality cannot be added to software as a mere afterthought. This also holds for reliability. Moreover, the reliability of a system is not due to and cannot be built upon a single technology. A wide range of approaches is needed, the most difficult issue being their purposeful integration. Goals of reliability must be precisely defined and included in the requirements, the development process must be controlled to achieve these goals, and sound development methods must be used to fulfill these non-functional requirements.

The Sixth International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies, Ada- Europe 2001, took place in Leuven, Belgium, May 14-18, 2001. It was sponsored by Ada-Europe, the European federation of national Ada societies, in cooperation with ACM SIGAda, and it was organized by members of the K.U. Leuven and Ada- Belgium. This was the 21st consecutive year of Ada-Europe conferences and the sixth year of the conference focusing on the area of reliable software technologies. The use of software components in embedded systems is almost ubiquitous: planes fly by wire, train signalling systems are now computer based, mobile phones are digital devices, and biological, chemical, and manufacturing plants are controlled by software, to name only a few examples. Also other, non-embedded, mission-critical systems depend more and more upon software. For these products and processes, reliability is a key success factor, and often a safety-critical hard requirement. It is well known and has often been experienced that quality cannot be added to software as a mere afterthought. This also holds for reliability. Moreover, the reliability of a system is not due to and cannot be built upon a single technology. A wide range of approaches is needed, the most difficult issue being their purposeful integration. Goals of reliability must be precisely defined and included in the requirements, the development process must be controlled to achieve these goals, and sound development methods must be used to fulfill these non-functional requirements.

Reliable Software Technologies is an annual series of international conferences devoted to the promotion and advancement of all aspects of reliable software technologies. The objective of this series of conferences, initiated and sponsored by Ada-Europe, the European federation of national Ada societies, is to provide a forum to promote the development of reliable softwares both as an industrial technique and an academic discipline. Previous editions of the Reliable Software Technologies conference were held in: Porto (Portugal) in 2006, York (UK) in 2005, Palma de Mallorca (Spain) in 2004,Toulouse (France) in 2003,Vienna (Austria) in 2002,Leuven (Belgium) in 2001,Potsdam(Germany)in2000,Santander(Spain)in1999,Uppsala(Sweden) in 1998, London (UK) in 1997 and Montreux (Switzerland) in 1996. The 12th International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies took place in Geneva, Switzerland, June 25-29, 2007, under the continued sponsoring ofAda-Europe,incooperationwithACMSIGAda.Itwasorganizedbymembers of the University of Applied Sciences, Western Switzerland (Engineering School of Geneva), in collaboration with colleagues from various places in Europe. The 13th conference, in 2008, will take place in Venice, Italy.

th The 13 edition of the International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies (Ada-Europe 2008) marked its arrival in Italy by selecting the splendid venue of Venice. It did so after having been hosted twice in Switzerland, Spain and the UK (Montreux for its inauguration in 1996 and Geneva in 2007; Santander in 1999 and Palma de Mallorca in 2004; London in 1997 and York in 2005), and having visited Sweden (Uppsala, 1998), Germany (Potsdam, 2000), Belgium (Leuven, 2001), Austria (Vienna, 2002), France (Toulouse, 2003) and Portugal (Porto, 2006). It was certainly high time that the conference came to Italy! The conference series, which is run and sponsored by Ada-Europe, chooses its yearly venue following two driving criteria: to celebrate the activity of one of its national member societies in a particular country, and/or to facilitate the formation, or the growth, of a national community around all aspects of reliable software technologies. The success of this year’s conference, beside the richness of its technical and social program, will thus be measured by its lasting effects. We can only hope that the latter will be as good and vast as the former! Owing to the absence of a national society associated with Ada-Europe in Italy, the organization of the conference was technically sustained by selected members of the Board of Ada-Europe, its governing body, with some invaluable local support.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies, Ada-Europe 2002, held in Vienna, Austria, in June 2002. The 24 revised full papers presented together with four invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the proceedings. The papers are organized in topical sections on embedded systems, case studies, real-time systems, high-integrity systems, Ada language issues, program analysis, tools, distributed systems, and libraries and APIs.

The refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies, Ada-Europe 2003, held in Toulouse, France in June 2003. The 29 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on Ravenscar, language issues, static analysis, distributed information systems, software metrics, software components, formal specification, real-time kernel, software testing, and real-time systems design.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies, Ada-Europe 2004, held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain in June 2004. The 23 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on static analysis, distributed systems, real-time systems, reflection and XML, testing, critical systems modeling, scheduling, and application programming interfaces.