Overview

Most of the middleware used and developed today is characterised by its inflexibility in adapting to different target environments and application areas. This lack of adaptability usually comes from the fact that middleware is traditionally built as a single monolithic entity. This inflexibility usually can be characterised by either the inability to adapt the behaviour of the platform, the inability to adapt its structure, or even both. In application domains such as mobile computing, distributed multimedia, and distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems, where resources are both constrained and variable in time, having the ability to reconfigure the middleware in order to optimise the resource usage and/or provide the desired quality of service (QoS) becomes a key feature.

Applying reflective techniques to middleware in order to "open up" the implementation, is one of the ways to provide a greater degree of configurability and dynamic adaptability at the middleware level. In the past few years, researchers have been experimenting with the use of reflection, component-based software engineering, software architecture design patterns and component frameworks, to achieve these goals.

Following the success of the past two workshops, RM2004 aims at providing researchers with a leading edge view on the state of the art in reflective and adaptive middleware, and with the challenging problems that remain unsolved. This workshop permits researchers from around the world investigating middleware adaptation to interact and share ideas. It will provide the platform to further the application of adaptive middleware techniques to a variety of domains, such as medicine, command and control, homeland security, entertainment and commerce.

Submission Guidelines

Attendance to the workshop is based on the submission of a position paper, poster, or demo. Position papars should not exceed 6 pages of text on letter/A4 paper in ACM format. Document templates for most popular document processing tools can be found at http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html. Poster submissions should be accompanied with a 2-page abstract summarizing the poster. Similarly, demo submissions should be in the form of 2-page abstract.

Papers and extend abstracts should be emailed to Nanbor Wang at <nanbor@txcorp.com> with subject line clearly identifying "RM2004 submission" before submission deadline. All papers and abstracts should be in either PS, PDF or Microsoft Word, format.

All workshop papers will be published via ACM's Digital Library. Selected extended, enhanced papers will be invited for publishing in the IEEE Distributed Systems Online.

Topics of interest to this workshop include, but not limit to the following:

• Design and performance of adaptive reflective middleware platforms
• Application of adaptive and reflective middleware techniques to achieve reconfigurability and/or adaptability
• Application of adaptive and reflective middleware techniques to achieve separation of concerns
• Design of Meta Object Protocols (MOP) for adaptive and reflective middleware
• Experiences with adaptive and reflective technologies in suitable application domains e.g., real-time systems, mobile computing, etc.
• Fundamental developments in the theory and practice of reflection, as it relates to middleware
• Experience with existing mechanisms, such as CORBA portable interceptors, or the OMG Meta- Object Facility
• Consideration of alternative techniques for dynamic configuration and/or reconfiguration
• Examination of potentially complementary techniques, such as aspect-oriented programming
• Techniques to improve performance and/or scalability of adaptive and reflective techniques
• Approaches to maintain the integrity of adaptive and reflective technologies
• Tool support for adaptive and reflective middleware
• Combination of RM and software development techniques, such as design patterns, component frameworks and software architectures
• Design and programming abstractions to manage the complexity of reflective and adaptive mechanisms
• Composition of systemic aspects and adaptive behaviours into component middleware applications
• Abstraction, specification, and modelling of composable systemic aspects and behaviours in component middleware framework.

Important Dates

Program Committee

Organizers

^* Primary Contact