TAP 2021: International Conference on Tests and Proofs Bergen or Online Bergen, Norway, June 21-25, 2021 |
Conference website | https://www.univ-orleans.fr/lifo/events/TAP2021/ |
Submission link | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tap2021 |
Abstract registration deadline | March 1, 2021 |
Submission deadline | March 8, 2021 |
The TAP conference promotes research in verification and formal methods that targets the interplay of proofs and testing: the advancement of techniques of each kind and their combination, with the ultimate goal of improving software and system dependability.
Research in verification has seen a steady convergence ofheterogeneous techniques and a synergy between the traditionallydistinct areas of testing (and dynamic analysis) and of proving (andstatic analysis). Formal techniques for counter-example generationbased on, for example, symbolic execution, SAT/SMT-solving or modelchecking, furnish evidence for the potential of a combination of testand proof. The combination of predicate abstraction with testing-liketechniques based on exhaustive enumeration opens the perspective fornovel techniques of proving correctness. On the practical side,testing offers cost-effective debugging techniques of specificationsor crucial parts of program proofs (such as invariants). Last but notleast, testing is indispensable when it comes to the validation of theunderlying assumptions of complex system models involving hardware orsystem environments. Over the years, there is growing acceptance inresearch communities that testing and proving are complementary ratherthan mutually exclusive techniques.
The TAP conference aims to promote research in the intersection oftesting and proving by bringing together researchers and practitionersfrom both areas of verification.
Previous TAPs
- TAP 2020, 14th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, proceedings only
- TAP 2019, 13th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Porto, Portugal, October 9-11, 2019
- TAP 2018, 12th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Toulouse, France, June 27-29, 2018
- TAP 2017, 11th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Marburg, Germany, July 19-20, 2017
- TAP 2016, 10th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Vienna, Austria, July 5-7, 2016
- TAP 2015, 9th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, L'Aquila, Italy, July 22-24, 2015
- TAP 2014, 8th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, York, UK, July 24-25, 2014
- TAP 2013, 7th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Budapest, Hungary, June 18-19, 2013
- TAP 2012, 6th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Besancon, France, July 1-2, 2012
- TAP 2011, 5th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Zurich, Switzerland, June 30 - July 1, 2011
- TAP 2010, 4th Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Malaga, Spain, July 1-2, 2010
- TAP 2009, 3rd Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Zurich, Switzerland, July 2-3, 2009
- TAP 2008, 2nd Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Prato, Italy, April 9-11, 2008
- TAP 2007, 1st Intl. Conf. on Tests and Proofs, Zurich, Switzerland, February 12-13, 2007
Submission Guidelines
TAP's scope encompasses many aspects of verification technology, including foundational work, tool development, and empirical research. Its topics of interest center around the connection between proofs (and other static techniques) and testing (and other dynamic techniques). Papers are solicited on, but not limited to, the following topics:
- Verification and analysis techniques combining proofs and tests,
- Program proving with the aid of testing techniques,
- Deductive techniques supporting the automated generation of test vectors and oracles (theorem proving, model checking, symbolic execution, SAT/SMT solving, constraint logic programming, etc.),
- Deductive techniques supporting novel definitions of coverage criteria,
- Specification inference by deductive and dynamic methods,
- Testing and runtime analysis of formal specifications,
- Search-based technics for proving and testing,
- Verification of verification tools and environments,
- Applications of test and proof techniques in new domains,
- such as security, configuration management, learning,
- Combined approaches of test and proof in the context of formal certifications (Common Criteria, CENELEC, …), and
- Case studies, tool and framework descriptions, and experience
TAP 2021 accepts papers of four kinds:
- Regular research papers: full submissions describing original research, of up to 16 pages (excluding references).
- Tool demonstration papers: submissions describing the design and implementation of an analysis/verification tool or framework, of up to 8 pages (excluding references). The tool/framework described in a tool demonstration paper should be available for public use.
- Short papers: submissions describing preliminary findings, proofs of concepts, and exploratory studies, of up to 6 pages (excluding references).
- Journal-first extended abstracts, of up to 4 pages, summarizing recently published articles in high-quality journals. The aim of journal-first papers is to further enrich the program of TAP, as well as to provide an more flexible path to dissemination of results in the field. The summarized journal article should have been published (or accepted) by 1 July 2020 or later, and report new results (as opposed as simply extending prior conference work with 'appendix' material, or minor enhancements). Journal-first submissions must be marked as such in the submission’s title, and must explicitly include full bibliographic details (including a DOI) of the journal publication they are based on.
Accepted papers will be published in the Springer LNCS series. Selected papers will be invited for a journal special issue.
All submissions for review and publication must follow the publication format of the Springer LNCS. Authors should consult Springer’s authors’ guidelines and use their proceedings templates, either for LaTeX or for Word, for the preparation of their papers. Springer encourages authors to include their ORCIDs in their papers. In addition, the corresponding author of each paper, acting on behalf of all of the authors of that paper, must complete and sign a Consent-to-Publish form. The corresponding author signing the copyright form should match the corresponding author marked on the paper.
See also guidelines and templates (Word, LaTeX) at https://www.springer.com/de/it-informatik/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines. The maximum number of pages is based on this format.
Please submit your abstract and paper via EasyChair: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tap2021.
Make sure to correctly enter all authors in the correct order. Later addition of authors is not possible. Titles can be changed only if required by the program committee.
Please provide a meaningful abstract and carefully choose keywords since they are important in assigning reviewers to your work.
By submitting a paper to TAP, authors warrant that the work is original and that the paper or a similar contribution is neither published nor considered for publication elsewhere.
Artifact Evaluation
Authors of all accepted papers will be invited to submit (but are not required to submit) the relevant artifact for evaluation by the artifact-evaluation committee (AEC). The AEC will read the paper and evaluate the artifact on the following criteria:
- consistency with and replicability of results in the paper,
- completeness,
- documentation, and
- ease of use.
Papers with positively evaluated artifact get a functional or reusable badge on the first page of their paper and can add an appendix of 1-2 pages to their camera-ready paper. Papers with artifacts publicly available under a DOI get an availability badge on the first page of their paper.
For further details on artifact submission, please have a look at the call for artifact submissions.
Contact
All questions about submissions should be emailed to the TAP 2021 chairs.