The presence and use of real-time systems is becoming increasingly common. Examples of such systems range from nuclear reactors, to automotive controllers, and also entertainment software such as games and graphics animation. The growing importance of rea.

This book includes a range of techniques for developing digital signal processing code; tips and tricks for optimizing DSP software; and various options available for constructing DSP systems from numerous software components.

The research described in this monograph concerns the formal specification and compositional verification of real-time systems. A real-time programminglanguage is considered in which concurrent processes communicate by synchronous message passing along unidirectional channels. To specifiy functional and timing properties of programs, two formalisms are investigated: one using a real-time version of temporal logic, called Metric Temporal Logic, and another which is basedon extended Hoare triples. Metric Temporal Logic provides a concise notationto express timing properties and to axiomatize the programming language, whereas Hoare-style formulae are especially convenient for the verification of sequential constructs. For both approaches a compositional proof system has been formulated to verify that a program satisfies a specification. To deduce timing properties of programs, first maximal parallelism is assumed, modeling the situation in which each process has itsown processor. Next, this model is generalized to multiprogramming where several processes may share a processor and scheduling is based on priorities. The proof systems are shown to be sound and relatively complete with respect to a denotational semantics of the programming language. The theory is illustrated by an example of a watchdog timer.

For real-time systems, the worst-case execution time (WCET) is the key objective to be considered. Traditionally, code for real-time systems is generated without taking this objective into account and the WCET is computed only after code generation. Worst-Case Execution Time Aware Compilation Techniques for Real-Time Systems presents the first comprehensive approach integrating WCET considerations into the code generation process. Based on the proposed reconciliation between a compiler and a timing analyzer, a wide range of novel optimization techniques is provided. Among others, the techniques cover source code and assembly level optimizations, exploit machine learning techniques and address the design of modern systems that have to meet multiple objectives. Using these optimizations, the WCET of real-time applications can be reduced by about 30% to 45% on the average. This opens opportunities for decreasing clock speeds, costs and energy consumption of embedded processors. The proposed techniques can be used for all types real-time systems, including automotive and avionics IT systems.

ETAPS'99 is the second instance of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software. ETAPS is an annual federated conference that was established in 1998 by combining a number of existing and new conferences. This year it comprises ve conferences (FOSSACS, FASE, ESOP, CC, TACAS), four satellite workshops (CMCS, AS, WAGA, CoFI), seven invited lectures, two invited tutorials, and six contributed tutorials. The events that comprise ETAPS address various aspects of the system - velopment process, including speci cation, design, implementation, analysis and improvement. The languages, methodologies and tools which support these - tivities are all well within its scope. Dieren t blends of theory and practice are represented, with an inclination towards theory with a practical motivation on one hand and soundly-based practice on the other. Many of the issues involved in software design apply to systems in general, including hardware systems, and the emphasis on software is not intended to be exclusive.

The aim of the CEEMAS conference series is to provide a biennial forum for the presentation of multi-agent research and development results. With its p- ticular geographicalorientation towards Central and Eastern Europe, CEEMAS has become an internationally recognised event with participants from all over the world. After the successful CEEMAS conferences in St. Petersburg (1999), Cracow (2001) and Prague (2003), the 2005 CEEMAS conference takes place in Budapest. The programme committee of the conference series consists of est- lished researchers from the region and renowned international colleagues, sh- ing the prominent rank of CEEMAS among the leading events in multi-agent systems. In the very competitive ?eld of agent oriented conferences and workshops nowadays(suchasAAMAS,WI/IAT,EUMAS,CIA,MATES)thespecialpro?le of CEEMAS is that it is trying to bridge the gap between applied research achievements and theoretical research activities. Our ambition is to provide a forum for presenting theoretical research with an evident application potential, implemented application prototypes and their properties, as well as industrial case studies of successful (but also unsuccessful) agent technology deployments. This is why the CEEMAS proceedings volume provides a collection of research and application papers. The technical research paper section of the proceedings (see pages 11–499) contains pure research papers as well as research results in application settings while the application papers section (see pages 500–530) contains papers focused on application aspects. The goal is to demonstrate the real life value and commercial reality of multi-agent systems as well as to foster communication between academia and industry in this ?eld.

This book constitutes the joint refereed proceedings of six international workshops held as part of OTM 2003 in Catania, Sicily, Italy, in November 2003. The 80 revised full workshop papers presented together with various abstracts and summaries were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 170 submissions. In accordance with the workshops, the papers are organized in topical main sections on industrial issues, human computer interface for the semantic Web and Web applications, Java technologies for real-time and embedded systems, regulatory ontologies and the modelling of complaint regulations, metadata for security, and reliable and secure middleware.