CM 2002

Building on the success of the four previous editions (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001), a special track on coordination models, languages and applications will be held at SAC 2002. Over the last decade, we have witnessed the emergence of models, formalisms and mechanisms to describe concurrent and distributed computations and systems based on the concept of coordination. The purpose of a coordination model is to enable the integration of a number of possibly heterogeneous components (processes, objects, agents) in such a way that the resulting ensemble can execute as a whole, forming a software system with desired characteristics and functionalities which possibly takes advantage of parallel and distributed systems. The coordination paradigm is closely related to other contemporary software engineering approaches such as component-based systems and middleware platforms. Furthermore, the concept of coordination exists in many other Computer Science areas such as Cooperative Information Systems, Distributed Artificial Intelligence, and Internet Technologies.

The Special Track on Coordination Models, Languages and Applications deliberately takes a broad view of what is coordination: this term covers here traditional models and languages (e.g., the ones based on the Shared Dataspace and CHAM metaphors), but also other related notions and formalisms such as configuration and architectural description frameworks, models of multi-agent planning, organization and decision-making, systems modeling abstractions and languages, programming skeletons, etc.

Correspondingly, in addition to the traditional areas covering data- driven (such as Linda) and control-driven (such as Manifold) models and languages, this Special Track aims at putting together contributions from all the many areas where the concept of coordination is relevant, such as multi-agent systems, software architectures, middleware platforms, groupware and workflow management, etc, providing them with a common forum where to discuss their different viewpoints and share ideas. On this very subject, it is worth to remind that the last editions of this Track were undoubtedly successful under many points of view, but in particular in attracting relevant and consistent contributions from many different research communities.

This track on coordination is held for the fourth time as part of ACM SAC's events.

• Novel models, languages, programming and implementation techniques
• Applications (especially where the industry is involved)
• Theoretical aspects (semantics, reasoning, verification)
• Coordination of multi-agent systems, including mobile and intelligent agents
• Software architectures and software engineering techniques
• Configuration and Architecture Description Languages
• Middleware platforms (e.g. CORBA)
• All aspects related to the modeling of Information Systems (groupware, Internet and the Web, workflow management, CSCW)
• Coordination technologies, systems and infrastructures
• Internet- and Web-based coordinated systems
• Relationship with other computational models such as object oriented, declarative (functional, logic, constraint) programming or extensions of them with coordination capabilities