12 April 2005, co-located with ZB 2005
REFINE 2005 - BCS FACS - EPSRC RefineNet
Refinement is one of the cornerstones of a formal approach to software engineering: the process of developing a more detailed design or implementation from an abstract specification through a sequence of mathematically-based steps that maintain correctness with respect to the original specification.
The aim of this BCS FACS Refinement Workshop, organised by the EPSRC supported RefineNet network is to bring together people who are interested in the development of more concrete designs or executable programs from abstract specifications using formal notations, tool support for formal software development, and practical experience with formal refinement methodologies.
The purpose of the workshop is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, and discussion of common ground and key differences.
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
Submissions will be reviewed, and workshop proceedings will appear in Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science. BCS-FACS will provide a best paper prize. An agreement in principle has been reached with the journal Formal Aspects of Computing to produce a special issue, consisting of developments and extensions of the best workshop papers. These would be refereed in the usual fashion prior to acceptance by the journal.
The Refinement workshop will take place on April 12th, the day before the ZB conference at the University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.
Papers should be submitted in Postscript or PDF format by e-mail to reach John Derrick by 5 January, 2005. They should be no longer than 16 pages (A4, using a 10pt font).
This workshop continues a long tradition in refinement workshops run under the auspices of the British Computer Society (BCS) FACS special interest group. Running since 1988, previous refinement workshops have been held at Cambridge, London, Bath etc.
In 1998 the BCS refinement workshop was combined with the Australasian Refinement Workshop to form the International Refinement Workshop, hosted at alongside Formal Methods Pacific 1998 at The Australian National University.
In 2002, the Refinement Workshop was held as an FME workshop in Copenhagen. Proceedings appeared in ENTCS Vol.70(3), and a special issue of the Formal Aspects of Computing journal based on the workshop appeared in 2003 (Vol. 15:1-2).
The Workshop Webpage will be available from www.refinenet.org.uk