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AST 2021: 2nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Automation of Software Test

Call for Papers
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Conference website: https://conf.researchr.org/home/icse-2021/ast-2021
Co-located with the 43rd Int. Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2021

The increasing complexity, pervasiveness and inter-connection of software systems on the one hand, and the ever-shrinking development cycles and time-to-market on the other, make the automation of software test (AST) an urgent requirement today more than ever. Despite significant achievements both in theory and practice, AST remains a challenging research area.

Important dates
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* Abstract Submission deadline: January 5, 2021
* Submission deadline: January 12, 2021
* Notification of acceptance: February 22, 2021
* Camera-ready version: March 22, 2021
* Conference dates: May 20-21, 2021 

Conference Theme
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The AST 2021 conference theme is "Automatic Software Testing from the Trenches".
Software testing automation is a discipline that has produced noteworthy research in the last decade. The search for solutions to automatically test any concept of software is critical, mainly to fulfil the ever-increasing demands from the industry. Many times, however, industry needs differ from the research agenda, as companies need to prioritise reducing cost and time-to-market. In this edition of AST 2021, our goal is to advance previous efforts in creating a bridge between theory and practice. AST 2021 will offer a forum of discussion about solutions, experiences or conclusions obtained from the trenches. 
We invite contributions that focus on: i) lessons learned about experiments of automatic testing in practice; ii) experiences of the adoption of testing tools, methods and techniques; iii) best practices to follow in testing and their measurable consequences; and iv) theorical approaches that are applicable to the industry in the context of AST.

Topics of Interest
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Submissions on the AST 2021 theme are especially encouraged, but papers on other topics relevant to the automation of software test are also welcome.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:
* Test automation of large, complex system
* Metrics for testing - test efficiency, test coverage
* Tools for model-based V&V
* Test-driven development
* Standardisation of test tools
* Test coverage metrics and criteria
* Product line testing
* Formal methods and theories for testing and test automation
* Test case generation based on formal and semi-formal models
* Testing with software usage models
* Testing of reactive and object-oriented systems
* Software simulation by models, forecasts of behavior and properties
* Application of model checking in testing
* Tools for security specification, models, protocols, testing and evaluation
* Theoretical foundations of test automation
* Models as test oracles; test validation with models
* Testing anomaly detectors
* Testing cyber physical systems
* Automated usability and user experience testing

Submission
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Three types of submissions are invited:
* Regular Papers (up to 10 pages for all material)
  o Research Paper
  o Industrial Case Study
* Short Papers (up to 4 pages for all material)
  o Research Paper
  o Industrial Case Study
  o Doctoral Student Research
* Industrial Abstracts (up to 2 pages)

Doctoral students working on software testing are encouraged to submit a short paper of their work. AST will have an independent session to bring doctoral students working on software testing with experts together, to discuss their research in a constructive and international atmosphere. The first author in a submission must be the doctoral student and the second author the advisor. Authors of selected submissions will be invited to make a brief presentation followed by a constructive discussion.

Industrial abstracts require the first author to come from industry. Authors of accepted papers are invited to present their work together with regular papers. 

Best papers will be invited to submit an extended journal version.

The submission website is: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ast2021

Organizers
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General Chair: 
  María José Escalona (Univ. of Seville, Spain) 

Program Co-Chairs: 
  Alejandra Garrido (University La Plata, Argentina) 
  Breno Miranda (Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil) 
  Javier Tuya (University of Oviedo, Spain)

Program Committee
  Benoit Baudry (KTH, Sweden)
  Wing-Kwong Chan (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
  Shing-Chi Cheung (HKUST, Hong Kong)
  Guglielmo De Angelis (IASI-CNR, Italy)
  Claudio de la Riva (University of Oviedo, Spain)
  Hyunsook Do (North Dakota State University, USA)
  Shawn Gao (Midea Emerging Technology Center, USA)
  Francisco Gortazar (URJC, Spain)
  Julián Grigera (LIFIA, UNLP, Argentina) 
  Gregory Kapfhammer (Allegheny College, USA)
  Yves Le Traon (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg)
  Francesca Lonetti (CNR-ISTI, Italy)
  Leonardo Mariani (University of Milano Bicocca, Italy)
  Henry Muccini (University of L'Aquila, Italy)
  Amit Paradkar (IBM Watson Research Center, USA)
  Roberto Pietrantuono (Univ. of Naples, Italy)
  Alexander Pretschner (TU Munich, Germany)
  Saurabh Sinha (IBM Research, USA)
  Paul Strooper (University of Queensland, Australia)
  Rajesh Subramanyan (Siemens, USA)
  Leopoldo Teixeira (Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil)
  Andreas Ulrich (Siemens AG, Germany)
  Neil Walkinshaw (University of Sheffield, UK)
  Eric Wong (Univ. of Texas at Dallas, USA)
  Shin Yoo (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea)