This volume presents the latest research worldwide on communications protocols, emphasizing specification and compliance testing. It presents the complete proceedings of the fifteenth meeting on `Protocol Specification, Testing and Verification' arranged by the International Federation for Information Processing.

For more than a decade, researchers and engineers have been addressing the problem of the application of formal description techniques to protocol specification, implementation, testing and verification. This book identifies the many successes that have been achieved within the industrial framework and the difficulties encountered in applying theoretical methods to practical situations. Issues discussed include: testing and certification; verification; validation; environments and automated tools; formal specifications; protocol conversion; implementation; specification languages and models. Consideration is also given to the concerns surrounding education available to students and the need to upgrade and develop this through sponsorship of a study of an appropriate curriculum at both undergraduate and graduate levels. It is hoped this publication will stimulate such support and inspire further research in this important arena.

This PSTV'94 Symposium is the fourteenth of a series of annual meetings organized under the auspices of IFIP W.G. 6.1, a Working Group dedicated to "Architectures and Protocols for Computer Networks". This is the oldest and most established symposium in the emerging field of protocol engineering which has spawn many international conferences including FORTE (International Conference on Formal Description Tech niques), IWPTS (International Workshop on Protocol Test Systems), ICNP (Interna tional Conference on Network Protocols) and CAY (Conference on Computer-Aided Verification). The main objective of this PSTV symposium is to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners in industry and academia interested in advances in using formal methods and methodologies to specify, develop, test and verify communication protocols and distributed systems. This year's PSTV symposium enjoys a nice mixture of formal methods and practical issues in network protocols through the invited addresses of three outstanding speakers, Ed Brinksma (University of Twente), Raj Jain (Ohio State University) and David Tennenhouse (MIT) as well as 5 tutorials, in addition to 9 techni cal sessions and two practical panel sessions. The 5 tutorials are offered on the first day in two parallel tracks for intensive exposure on hot topics of current interest. This year, out of 51 submissions the Program Committee selected 18 regular papers (with an allotment of 16 pages in the Proceedings) and 9 mini-papers (of 8 pages).

FORTE/PSTV '97 addresses Formal Description Techniques (FDTs) applicable to Distributed Systems and Communication Protocols (such as Estelle, LOTOS, SDL, ASN.1, TTCN, Z, Automata, Process Algebra, Logic). The conference is a forum for presentation of the state-of-the-art in theory, application, tools and industrialization of FDTs, and provides an excellent orientation for newcomers.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of 11 IPPS/SPDP '98 Workshops held in conjunction with the 13th International Parallel Processing Symposium and the 10th Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing in San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA in April 1999. The 126 revised papers presented were carefully selected from a wealth of papers submitted. The papers are organised in topical sections on biologically inspired solutions to parallel processing problems: High-Level Parallel Programming Models and Supportive Environments; Biologically Inspired Solutions to Parallel Processing; Parallel and Distributed Real-Time Systems; Run-Time Systems for Parallel Programming; Reconfigurable Architectures; Java for Parallel and Distributed Computing; Optics and Computer Science; Solving Irregularly Structured Problems in Parallel; Personal Computer Based Workstation Networks; Formal Methods for Parallel Programming; Embedded HPC Systems and Applications.

AMAST’s goal is to advance awareness of algebraic and logical methodology as part of the fundamental basis of software technology. Ten years and seven conferences after the start of the AMAST movement, I believe we are attaining this. The movement has propagated throughout the world, assembling many enthusiastic specialists who have participated not only in the conferences, which are now annual, but also in the innumerable other activities that AMAST promotes and supports. We are now facing the Seventh International Conference on Algebraic Methodology and Software Technology (AMAST’98). The previous meetings were held in Iowa City, USA (1989 and 1991), in Enschede, The Netherlands (1993), in Montreal, Canada (1995), in Munich, Germany (1996), and in Sydney, Australia (1997). This time it is Brazil’s turn, in a very special part of this colorful country – Amazonia. Thus, “if we have done more it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” The effort started by Teodor Rus, Arthur Fleck, and William A. Kirk at AMAST’89 was consolidated in AMAST'91 by Teodor Rus, Maurice Nivat, Charles Rattray, and Giuseppe Scollo. Then came modular construction of the building, wonderfully carried out by Giuseppe Scollo, Vangalur Alagar, Martin Wirsing, and Michael Johnson, as Program Chairs of the AMAST conferences held between 1993 and 1997.