CALL FOR PAPERS Special Section on Formal Approach The IEICE Transactions on Information and Systems announces a forthcoming special issue on Formal Approach to be published in May 2011. Formal methods and techniques play a key role in the design and development of highly reliable hardware, software, and systems. The last decades have seen various new techniques and deep theoretical results using formal methods in surprisingly many fields such as modeling, requirements analysis, specification, automatic generation of codes, test, verification, maintenance, and reuse. They are rapidly extending its application domains as a result of the recent growth of information and communication technologies. The Special Section on Formal Approach aims at stimulating research on formal approach to information systems, ranging from fundamental theory to case studies in practical systems. Our emphasis is put on the cross-fertilization of related research fields and encouragement of young researchers. Topics: The major topics are listed below, but we solicit submissions in all areas of formal approaches, i.e., first to formalize information systems and their environment, next to analyze their behavior and to derive their properties rigorously, and then to solve various problems in designing and managing the systems. Theory: Logic, Automata and Formal Languages, Rewrite Systems, and other Models of Computation. Formal Specification: Petri Net, Process Algebra, Timed Automata, Statechart, and UML. Verification Method: Model Checking, Automatic and Semi-Automatic Theorem Proving, Test, and Formalization and Verification of Information Security. Formal Approaches to Various Systems such as Database Systems, Distributed Systems, and Embedded Systems, using above theories and techniques. Submission Instructions: The deadline for submission is July 19, 2010, 23:59 JST. Manuscripts should be carefully prepared according to the guideline in the ``Information for Authors'' (available at http://www.ieice.org/eng/shiori/mokuji_iss.html). The preferred length of the manuscript is 8 pages. Only electronic submission through the web page is accepted. 1. Submit a complete paper and electronic files (TeX/Word files, figures, authors' photos and biography) for publishing using the IEICE Web site https://review.ieice.org/regist_e.aspx Authors should choose ``[Special ED] Formal Approach'' as a ``Type of Section (Issue)/Transactions'' on the online screen. 2. Send signed and completed forms of ``Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement'' and ``Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration'' (which will be generated when you submit a paper) by e-mail (preferable) or postal mail to Prof. Yasunori Ishihara, the guest editor. Please mark ``[Special ED] Formal Approach'' on the envelope. Editorial Committee: Guest Editor: Yasunori Ishihara (Osaka Univ.) Members: Takahito Aoto (Tohoku Univ.), Zhenjiang Hu (National Institute of Informatics), Yoshinao Isobe (AIST), Yukiyoshi Kameyama (Univ. of Tsukuba), Yoshinobu Kawabe (Aichi Institute of Technology), Masahito Kurihara (Hokkaido Univ.), Kazuhiro Ogata (JAIST), Hiroshi Sakamoto (Kyushu Institute of Technology), Hiroyuki Seki (NAIST), Yasuyuki Tsukada (NTT), Tomohiro Yoneda (National Institute of Informatics), Shoji Yuen (Nagoya Univ.) Further information may be obtained from the web page at: http://www-infosec.ist.osaka-u.ac.jp/FA/ All inquiries should be sent to the guest editor: Yasunori Ishihara Graduate School of Information Science and Technology Osaka University 1-5, Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871 Japan FAX: +81-6-6879-4519 Important Notice. (1) At least one of the authors must be an IEICE member when the manuscript is submitted for review. For the application of IEICE membership, visit http://www.ieice.org/eng/member/OM-appli.html. (2) If accepted for publication, authors are required to pay the page charges covering part of the cost of publication.