The first workshop on combining modelling and search-based software engineering will be co-located with the 2013 International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). Modelling plays a vital and pervasive role in software engineering: it provides means to manage complexity via abstraction, and enables the creation of larger, more complex systems.

Search-based software engineering (SBSE) offers a productive and proven approach to software engineering through automated discovery of near-optimal solutions to problems, and has proven itself to be effective on a wide variety of problems.

The goals of this workshop are to highlight that SBSE and modelling have substantial conceptual and technical synergy, and to identify and present opportunities in which they can be combined, whilst also aiming to grow the community working in this area.

• > Search-amenable representations of models
  Can we use direct representations of modelling formalisms (e.g. graphs) or do we need a genotype-phenotype mapping? Are there generic representations for models, or are problem-specific representations more appropriate?
• > Domain-specific search operators
  Are the standard genetic operators enough? Do we need problem-specific operators?
• > Models of metaheuristic techniques
  Can modelling techniques be used to evaluate and compare different metaheuristic techniques? Can modelling a problem formally suggest which metaheuristic technique would be most applicable?
• > Metaheuristic techniques specific to modelling
  Due to the complex nature of models, are current metaheuristic search techniques enough? Do we need new techniques that are tailored to manage the complexity of models?
• > Technique Comparison
  Comparisons of standard metaheuristic techniques against bespoke modelling-specific metaheuristic techniques
• > Applications of search to modelling problems
• > Enabling Integration
  Integrations of search techniques that is enabled through the use of modelling
• > Novel Algorithms
  Novel algorithms for search when applied to modelling formalisms
• > Search techniques applied to metamodels
• > Search techniques applied to operations on models
  Examples include white or black box testing, test case generation
• > Optimising models at runtime
  Can we efficiently use metaheuristic techniques to optimise models that are used during at runtime?
• > Benchmarking
  Proposals of benchmark modelling case studies against which different metaheuristic techniques can be evaluated
• > Tool Papers
  Tool papers related to combining search and modelling
• > Position Papers
  Position statements on ways in which modelling and SBSE could be combined

NEWS: We have extended the paper submission deadline to the 14th February.

• > Paper submission
  7th February 2013
  14th February 2013
• > Author notification
  28th February 2013
• > Camera-ready papers
  7th March 2013

We are delighted to announce that we have an excellent keynote lined up:

• 
  > Keynote : Betty H.C. Cheng
  Harnessing Evolutionary Computation to Enable Dynamically Adaptive Systems to Manage Uncertainty

  Betty H.C. Cheng is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University. Her research interests include dynamically adaptive systems, requirements engineering, model-driven engineering, automated software engineering, and harnessing evolutionary computation to address software engineering problems. These research areas are used to support the development of high-assurance adaptive systems that must continuously deliver acceptable behavior, even in the face of environmental and system uncertainty. Example applications include intelligent transportation and vehicle systems. She collaborates extensively with industrial partners in her research projects in order to ensure real-world relevance of her research and to facilitate technology exchange between academia and industry. Previously, she was awarded a NASA/JPL Faculty Fellowship to investigate the use of new software engineering techniques for a portion of the shuttle software. She spent one sabbatical working with the Motorola Software Labs investigating automated analysis techniques of specifications of telecommunication systems. During her most recent sabbatical, she was awarded an international faculty scholarship to explore research techniques for specifying and managing uncertainty in high-assurance systems. Her research has been funded by several federal funding agencies, including NSF, ONR, DARPA, NASA, AFRL, ARO, and numerous industrial organizations. She serves on the editorial boards for Requirements Engineering Journal, and Software and Systems Modeling, and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. She is the Technical Program Co-Chair for IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE-2013), the premier and flagship conference for software engineering.

The schedule for the day will be as follows:

• 
  > Mark Harman
  University College London, UK
• 
  > Richard Paige
  University of York, UK
• 
  > James Williams
  University of York, UK

• > Marcio de Oliveira Barros
  UNIRIO, Brazil
• > Benoit Baudry
  INRIA Rennes Bretagne-Atlantique, France
• > Lionel Briand
  University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
• > Betty Cheng
  Michigan State University, USA
• > John Clark
  University of York, UK
• > Robert Feldt
  Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
• > Hadi Hemmati
  University of Waterloo, Canada
• > Phil McMinn
  University of Sheffield, UK
• > Simon Poulding
  University of York, UK
• > Houari Sahraoui
  University of Montreal, Canada
• > Outi Sievi-Korte
  Tampere University of Technology, Finland
• > Shin Yoo
  University College London, UK

• > Email
  cmsbse2013 [at] easychair [dot] org
• > Twitter
  @cmsbse13