Third ERCIM FMICS International Workshop
by Diego Latella
The third ERCIM International Workshop on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems (FMICS) was held at CWI, Amsterdam, on 25-26 May 1998.
The success of the meeting was evidenced by the lively discussions and exchanges of opinion between the approximately 40 participants from both academia and industry. Four invited speakers gave the following talks:
- Wam J. Fokking Univ. of Wales Swansea, United Kingdom: 'Verification of Interlockings: from Control Tables to Ladder Logic Diagrams'
- Gea Kolk Holland Railconsult, The Netherlands: 'Formal Methods: Possibilities and Difficulties in a Railway Environment from a User Perspective'
- Hubert Garavel INRIA Rhone-Alpes, France: 'Towards a Second Generation of FDT Rationale for the Design of E-LOTOS'
- Rance Cleaveland North Carolina State University, USA: 'Verifying Active Structural Control Systems: a Case Study in Formal Analysis'.
14 additional presentations were given on various aspects of formal methods and their application to case studies.
During the meeting a report was delivered on the status of the Working Group:
- a special issue of the Kluwer AP Journal on Formal Methods in Systems Design dedicated to the 1st FMICS workshop (Oxford, March 1996) has been published (Vol. 12 n. 2)
- a special issue of the Springer Journal on Formal Aspects of Computing dedicated to the second FMICS workshop (Cesena, July 1997) is now in preparation
- a special issue of the Elsevier journal on Science of Computer Programming on the Application of Formal Methods to the Industry which contains contributions from Working Group members is also forthcoming
- an ERCIM fellowship in the field has been granted at INRIA and CWI.
The Proceedings of FMICS '98 were published by CWI (ISBN 90 6196 480 6) while a selection of the papers presented during the workshop will be published in a special issue of Formal Aspects of Computing.
GMD-FOKUS and CNR have both offered to organize FMICS'99. A decision will be taken soon.
For more information on the FMICS Working Group of ERCIM, see:
http://fdt.cnuce.cnr.it/~latella/FMICS/WgDescription.html
Please contact:
Diego Latella - CNUCE-CNR
FMICS-WG Chair
E-mail: d.latella@cnuce.cnr.itJan Friso Groote - CWI
FMICS 98 PC Chair
E-mail: jfg@cwi.nl