We invite the submission of papers on Quantitative Aspects of Programming Languages and Systems for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Theoretical Computer Science (TCS). In particular we welcome papers which are revised versions of the submitted to and presented at the QAPL 2011 Workshop in Saarbruecken and QAPL 2012 in Tallinn.

We will also welcome submissions of papers not presented at QAPL, provided they fall into the scope of the call and contain a clear and novel contribution to the field.

• Scope
• Topics
• Submissions
• Important dates
• Editors

Scope

Quantitative aspects of computation are important and sometimes essential in characterising the behaviour and determining the properties of systems. They are related to the use of physical quantities (storage space, time, bandwidth, etc.) as well as mathematical quantities (e.g. probability and measures for reliability, risk and trust). Such quantities play a central role in defining both the model of systems (architecture, language design, semantics) and the methodologies and tools for the analysis and verification of system properties. This special issue will be devoted to research papers which discuss the explicit use of quantitative information such as time and probabilities either directly in the model or as a tool for the analysis of systems. In particular, contributions should focus on:

• the design of probabilistic and real-time languages and the definition of semantical models for such languages;
• the discussion of methodologies for the analysis of probabilistic and timing properties (e.g. security, safety, schedulability) and of other quantifiable properties such as reliability (for hardware components), trustworthiness (in information security) and resource usage (e.g. worst-case memory/stack/cache requirements);
• the probabilistic analysis of systems which do not explicitly incorporate quantitative aspects (e.g. performance, reliability and risk analysis);
• applications to safety-critical systems, communication protocols, control systems, asynchronous hardware, and to any other domain involving quantitative issues.
• the investigation of computational models and paradigms involving quantitative aspects, such as those arising in quantum computation, systems biology, bioinformatics, etc.

Topics

Topics include (but are not limited to) probabilistic, timing and general quantitative aspects in:

Submissions

Papers should be 20-25 pages long, including appendices, and should be formatted according to Elsevier's elsart document style used for articles in the Journal of Theoretical Computer Science (see the Guide for Authors at http://ees.elsevier.com/tcs/). Submissions are through the Elsevier Editorial System for TCS located at http://ees.elsevier.com/tcs/default.asp.

To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for inclusion into the special issue, please make sure you select/specify "SI:TCS_B QAPL 2011/12" when you reach the step in the submission process.

Important dates

• Submission: 3 September 2012 [Extended]
• Notification: 28 February 2013 [Extended]

Editors

• Mieke Massink, CNR-ISTI, Pisa, Italy
• Gethin Norman, University of Glasgow, UK
• Herbert Wiklicky, Imperial College London