2022 Bellairs CAMPaM workshop 
   

Welcome to the home page of the 17th CAMPaM workshop.

The workshop aims to further the state-of-the-art in Computer Automated Multi-Paradigm Modelling (CAMPaM) - a name (though Hans preferred "Aided" to "Automated") coined by Pieter Mosterman and Hans Vangheluwe in the late '90s - as well as to define future directions of this emerging research area by bringing together world experts in the field for an intense one-week workshop.

The workshop will be held Saturday 2 (arrival) - Saturday 9 (departure) (exceptionally extended to Monday 11 for those participants who arrived late due to cancelled flights) April 2022 at McGill University's Bellairs Research Institute campus. The actual workshop starts on Sunday morning and continues for 5 full days (until Thursday evening). Although it is hence possible to depart on Friday, most participants leave on Saturday to do some sightseeing on Friday (in particular, to visit Crane Beach).
Note that Bellairs has rooms available for an early (1 April) arrival.

The workshop takes the Dagstuhl seminar format --bring a critical mass of top researchers together in a relatively remote location and soon new ideas will flow-- one step further: the Bellairs facilities are relatively primitive (and cheap - though lately prices have been going up in Barbados) and there are no distractions such as typically found in hotels.

Organizers:


Beware of the Covid travel restrictions currently in effect for Barbados. In particular, if you are diagnosed with Covid during your stay on Barbados, you will have to go into quarantine in a Government of Barbados approved facility (hotel, residence) at your own expense. You will not be allowed to stay at Bellairs as it is not equipped for quarantine. This also means you'll have to change your return date (which all airlines now allow for free).

The Barbados Travel Protocols guide (in effect as of 26 February 2022) presents all requirements and steps to follow clearly.

If you travel via another country, you also need to check their travel restrictions.

Note that it is likely that restrictions will be further relaxed by April, but that is not guaranteed.

For those travelling via Canada, travel restrictions have been relaxed as of 28 February. You can find instructions on this Government of Canada Covid-19 page.



From left to right: Arend Rensink, Christopher Gerking, Joeri Exelmans, Ada Diaconescu, Jakob Pietron, Hans Vangheluwe,
Alexander Raschke, Moharram Challenger, Dominique Blouin, Clark Verbrugge, Sadaf Mustafiz

Workshop Subject

Computer Automated Multi-Paradigm Modelling (CAMPaM)

CAMPaM acknowledges that explicit modelling of all parts and aspects of a system under study is the central activity in and main enabler for the model-based analysis, design, realization/deployment, testing, maintenance, ... of complex systems. Because of the heterogeneous nature of for example embedded systems and the many implementation technologies, Multi-Paradigm Modelling is a critical enabler for holistic design approaches (such as mechatronics), to avoid overdesign and to support system integration. Multi-paradigm techniques have been successfully applied in the field of software architectures, control system design, model integrated computing, and tool interoperability. Sixteen CAMPaM workshops at Bellairs '04, '05, '06, '07, '08, '09, '10, '11, '12, '13, '14, '15, '16, '17, '18, '19, many Multi-Paradigm Modelling (MPM) and from 2019 Multi-Paradigm Modelling for Cyber-Physical Systems (MPM4CPS) conference sessions and MoDELS '06 (Genoa), '07 (Nashville), '09 (Denver), '10 (Oslo), '11 (Wellington), '12 (Innsbruck), '13 (Miami), '14 (Valencia), '15 (Ottawa), '19 (Munich), '20 (online), '21 (online) workshops have been held. A special issue of the ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation (TOMACS) was devoted to CAMPaM, and COST Action IC1404 "Multi-Paradigm Modelling for Cyber-Physical Systems" (MPM4CPS) worked 2014 - 2019 on MPM solutions for the design of complex, Cyber-Physical Systems. See also the (very outdated) CAMPaM page for more related material.

The networking of multi-physics (mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, biochemical, ...) with computational systems (control systems, signal processing, logical inferencing, planning, ...) processes, interacting with often uncertain environments, with human actors, in a socio-economic context, leads to so-called Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Multi-Paradigm Modelling aims to tackle the kind of complexity found in CPS and CPSoS (Cyber-Physical Systems of Systems). In the context of Production Systems, MPM can furthermore be used to address the problems typically found in Industry 4.0. In particular, it can be a basis for representing and "slicing" a Digital Twin.

Multi-Paradigm Modelling adresses and integrates several orthogonal research dimensions:

  1. model composition, concerned with architectural (de-)composition. This covers both white-box and black-box composition;

  2. model abstraction, concerned with the (refinement, generalization, ...) relationships between models at different levels of abstraction. In multi-level modelling, often with as a goal to support self-adaptation, these levels may refer to each other;

  3. multi-formalism modelling, concerned with the relations (and transformation) between models described in different formalisms. At the language level, this entails (modular) Modelling Language Engineering (MLE) of hybrid languages.

  4. explicitly modelling the workflows of multi-paradigm activities.
To support the above, the following enabling theories/methods/technologies are considered crucial:
  1. Modular Modelling Language Engineering (MLE) and in particular meta-modelling, concerned with the description (models of models) of the structure (abstract syntax) of classes of models as well as the explicit modelling of language semantics, possibly by specifying the orchestration of existing simulators/executors/analysers. Taking meta-modelling one step further, the structure, look, and behaviour of complete formalism-specific modelling (editing, debugging, ...) environments should be specified and the modelling/simulation/execution/analysis/debugging/... environments automatically synthesized.

  2. the explicit modelling of transformations, treating transformations as first-class models. This leads quite naturally to questions about (meta-)model evolution, higher-order transformations (transforming transformations), co-evolution of models, multi-view modelling and syntactic and semantic model consistency.
CAMPaM explores all possible combinations of the above notions. It combines, transforms and relates formalisms, generates maximally constrained domain- and problem-specific formalisms, methods, and (visual) tools, and verifies consistency between multiple views.

Workshop High-level Goals
  1. The diversity in the research subjects of the attendees provides a fertile ground for cross-correlating research. In particular, since 2008, several of the workshop participants are not Computer Science researchers, but rather domain-experts (mechanical engineering, embedded systems, ...). The result of this interaction will be the application of methods and techniques that are well-known and established in different fields of research (such as meta-modelling, graph transformation, domain-specific modelling, visual modelling environments and component-based modelling) and will lead to cross-disciplinary collaboration. Furthermore, it should make evident the need for advances in and the definition of research along new research directions otherwise overlooked.

  2. A concerted effort of the attendees will result in a consolidation of scattered CAMPaM-related work as well as a common vision on how to best evolve the field of CAMPaM. This vision will include detailed technical perspectives, joint publications, how Multi-Paradigm Modelling and Model-Driven Engineering may be introduced in education, and may improve industrial Systems Engineering practices.


Workshop Focus
This year, we plan to focus on (some of) the following subjects during the workshop. The actual topics are decided at Bellairs during the first day of the workshop based on the particular interests of the participants.
  1. A rigorous definition of "Multi-Paradigm" and foundations of Multi-Paradigm Modelling. This is a continuation of the efforts during the MPM4CPS COST Action (including the development of machine-readable ontologies of MPM and CPS), of work at the 2019 CAMPaM workshop, and of the many miniCAMPaM workshops that were held in Paris, Antwerp, Aachen and Karlsruhe, by the "MPM theory" group. This year, we want to in particular look at the link between foundations and tooling.
  2. Model abstraction, concerned with the (refinement, generalization, ...) relationships between models at different levels of abstraction. In multi-level modelling, often with as a goal to support self-adaptation, these levels may refer to each other.
  3. Foundations of domain-specific modelling with a particular focus on "blended" textual/visual modelling and the modelling/formal analysis/simulation/synthesis of complex user interfaces. Of particular interest is support of "early stage" inter-disciplinary modelling (aka "sketching" or "ideation"). This can for example be achieved by relaxed conformance checking (also known as "a posteriori typing") and the explicit modelling of when which conformance checking needs to be done.
  4. Foundations of collaborative modelling in all its forms: synchronous vs. a-synchronous, same location vs. different location, ... This reveals the distinction between implicit and explicit modelling, which acknowledges that efficient communication (between humans, and between human and computer) often is possible thanks to a lot of implicit knowledge shared by sender and receiver. Sometimes however (part of) the semantics of a modelling language needs to be made explicit as failing to do so means that one of the parties may make wrong assumptions about semantics.
  5. Complex applications and how they on the one hand elicit new CAMPaM challenges driving new research and on the other hand apply and test/validate current CAMPaM state-of-the-art theory, techniques and tools. Application domains of interest are (software-intensive, embedded) Cyber-Physical Systems, with focus on mechatronics and production systems. Other topics may come up depending on the interests of the participants.

Since 2011, we mostly, in addition to a few general presentations, work in small groups (as few as 2 participants) on specific problems. The results are discussed during the plenary evening sessions (19:00 -- 21:00). Such focused discussion are likely to lead more directly to joint publications.

Workshop (high-level) Schedule
  • Saturday (Friday also possible): participants arrive and check into their rooms (in case of early arrival (before 15:00), luggage can be left in the meeting room);
  • Sunday: introduction of participants (5 min per person). Workshop topic selection (from the above list). Possibly some plenary talks about some topics, to make selection easier;
  • Monday: work in small groups on topics, refine and present in the evening;
  • Tuesday: work in small groups on topics, refine and present in the evening. Glassbottom boat trip during afternoon break. This year, we may also postpone this till Friday;
  • Wednesday: continue working in groups. Evening plenary talks;
  • Thursday: participants leaving on Friday pay 10:30 - 11:30. Working groups prepare and give presentations about their work and discuss planning for post-workshop work. Post-mortem analysis of the workshop. Leave at 17:00 for cocktails at Surfside;
  • Friday: participants leaving on Saturday pay 10:30 - 11:30. Crane Beach/Oistins turtles and dinner/bus ride (or other alternatives such as an island tour). Some participants depart;
  • Saturday: participants check out of their rooms by 11:00 and depart.
Maintained by Hans Vangheluwe. Last Modified: 2022/06/24 19:33:41.