Welcome to SMCtools 2007

International Workshop on Tools for solving Structured Markov Chains    (Nantes, France / October 26, 2007)

The Workshop on Tools for solving Structured Markov Chains (SMCtools) is a one-day event held in conjunction with the Second International Conference on Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools (VALUETOOLS'07), which will be held in Nantes, France, on October 26, 2007.

Scope

Performance evaluation methodologies based on structured Markov chains have taken a more prominent role over the last two decades. During this time, due to the strong exploitation of the involved structures, the techniques used to assess the performance measures of interest have advanced significantly in terms of their efficiency, while becoming more complex at the same time. This increased complexity often acts as an opposing force to a more wide spread use of these advanced methodologies.
Making these novel techniques more accessible via a set of software tools is therefore essential to further promote their integration in the system design.
This workshop solicits papers on software tools for solving structured Markov chains (MCs); topics include (but are not restricted to):

• Infinite (countable/continuous) and finite (large) MCs
• Continuous- and discrete-time MCs
• Markov decision processes
• Bounding and approximation methods for large MCs
• Skip-free (QBD, M/G/1, GI/M/1 type) and non-skip-free MCs
• Level dependent and independent MCs
• Tree-structured and tree-like MCs
• Fluid flow queues
• MCs with a regenerative structure
• MCs with tensor structure
• Nearly completely decomposable MCs
• Queuing systems with an underlying structured MC
• Logics and MCs

Applications of large MCs for:

• Performance of computer and communication systems
• Dependability and security analysis
• Computation of PageRank
• Information retrieval
• Analysis of biological systems

Tools for computing the following type of performance measures are requested:

• Transient and steady state probabilities
• First passage times
• Decay rates, loss rates
• Distributions and moments

Important dates

Submission

Prospective authors are encouraged to submit a PDF version of the full paper in ACM conference proceedings format, which is limited to 10 two-column pages in a font no smaller than 10-points. For details, please visit the web page of the workshop under www.valuetools.org.
All submitted papers will go through a peer review process. Paper submission will be handled electronically through Cocus. All accepted papers will be made available in Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Digital Library.