The Workshop 
The Feature Interaction Workshop is the primary international forum for discussion and reporting on the Feature Interaction problem. Being a workshop the forum is more than simply conference presentations. The workshop includes: 

• Invited speakers
• Presentations
• Posters
• Focussed workshop discussions
• Feature Interaction Contest

FIW'00 is the sixth in a series of workshops addressing the issue of feature interactions. The workshop aims to bring together representatives of both the Telecommunications industry and the research community; working on various aspects of feature interactions in order to discuss possible solutions and their practical applications, 
as well as setting directions for further research. Active debates will be encouraged; participants are invited to contribute topics for discussion. Tool demonstrations are also warmly welcomed. 

The Feature Interaction problem 
Feature interaction occurs when one telecommunications feature modifies or subverts the operation of another one. This phenomenon is not unique to the domain of telecommunications systems, but can also occur in any large and distributed software system that is subject to continuous changes. Growing competition and the 
increasing number of stakeholders in the telecommunications markets put more and more pressure on service providers to rapidly introduce new services without compromising their quality. Undesired interactions can both lower this quality and delay service provisioning. Therefore, the problem of feature interactions in telecommunications and other software systems is of great importance. In recent years, a lot of attention has been devoted to the development of methods for detection and resolution of feature interactions. However, the problem remains very complex, and this complexity is only expected to grow in the future with the provisioning of new broadband, multimedia and mobility services, and with the introduction of more advances service architectures. 

Topics 
We propose to focus the workshop on the topics listed below. However, contributions extending beyond this list and addressing other issues related to the interaction problem (e.g. classification, taxonomy or Benchmarking) will be welcomed as well. 
 

• Current industrial practice and experience
interaction management, organisational solutions, software frameworks,IN-ISDN-GSM-PSTN inter-working, etc.
• Enterprise-level aspects of the interaction problem
multi-provider environment, business models and processes, responsibility for interaction handling, legal and regulatory aspects, etc.
• Mechanisms for off-line interaction detection and resolution
service modelling, formal validation, testing techniques, software tool support, scalability and efficiency, filtering methods, etc. 
• Mechanisms for on-line interaction detection and resolution 
management solutions, runtime mechanisms, signalling capabilities,inter-working of domains and platforms, etc. 
• Feature interactions in mobile and broadband services 
proliferation of the problem, inter-working with existing networks, new manifestations and  problem areas, etc. 
• Feature interactions in emerging architectures 
Internet and Internet telephony, agent architectures, TINA and CORBA, etc. 
• User-centric view on the interaction problem 
usage scenarios,behaviour modelling, statistical usage profiles, service reliability aspects,  etc. 
• Software-engineering view on the interaction problem 
requirements engineering, service software design, quality aspects, etc. 

Posters  
To stimulate discussion amongst participants, authors and contest entrants will be required to display a poster at the workshop. Participants (not presenting a paper) may also display a poster.  The poster format is unconstrained (typically A2 size), but they should give a "flavour" of the research, or the number and nature of interactions found (in the case of a contest entry). 

The Feature Interaction Detection Contest 
The workshop will continue the tradition of a feature interaction detection contest (established at the 5th workshop), with the goal of providing a simple comparison of different automated tools for feature interaction detection. Any automated tool for detecting feature interactions may be entered (as long as it was not developed by a contest committee member). 

Contestants are also required to submit short papers describing the tools, techniques and the outcomes of the contest entry (n.b this will provide a brief but essential overview for the contest judges).  A selection of papers  
describing contest entries will appear in the workshop publication.  

The requirements for the contest features will be available via the workshop web page. Further details concerning what the contestants should submit and when, will be given with the requirements. 

Submission Deadlines 
December 1, 1999        Deadline for paper submissions. 
April 17, 2000               Deadline for poster submission. 

Details of electronic submission will be available from this web page. 

Workshop Location 
Located on the banks of the River Clyde, Glasgow is Scotland's largest city. The city had its beginnings in a monk's cell when St Mungo founded a religious community in the sixth century. With historical references to "the dear green place" easily forgotten with Glasgow's industrial past, Glasgow has now reinvented itself. Boasting all the benefits and attractions of a major cosmopolitan city; it has art galleries and exhibitions, opera, dance, theatre, cinema, clubs and music concerts to suit all tastes. It is also renowned as a shopping centre, with some of the world's most innovative designers choosing to open outlets here. The URL http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/  has more information on the city. 

The Workshop will be held the Teachers Building in Glasgow. The former headquarters of Teacher's Whisky has been refurbished to form a regional centre for the Institute of Electrigal Engineers. A testimony that Scotland largest export is no longer whiskey but Personal Computers! The centre is located in the centre of the city adjacent to railway and underground termini. URL http://www.iee.org.uk/SEC/building.htm has more information, with maps and transport details. Block bookings have been made at a  selection of close by hotels; details will be made available nearer the workshop. 

The workshop dinner will be to the north of the city in a castle surrounded by the Campsie Fells. Of course this would be incomplete without a visit to the local distillery on the way!  The trip will include a visit to the Glengoyne Distillery. To build up a thirst try URL http://www.glengoynedistillery.co.uk 

Contacts 
All questions, replies, and submissions to Organising Committee and Program Committees should be sent to: 
FIW00@eee.strath.ac.uk  

Workshop Co-Chairs  
Dr. Evan Magill                                               Dr. Muffy Calder 

Communications Division                              Department of Computing Science 
Electronic & Electrical Engineering              University of Glasgow 
University of Strathclyde                               Glasgow  G12 8QQ 
204 George Street                                          U.K. 
Glasgow G1 1XW 
U.K. 

Email   e.magill@eee.strath.ac.uk               Email:  muffy@dcs.gla.ac.uk 
Phone:          +44 141 548 2521                    Phone:          +44 141 330 4969 
Fax:            +44 141 552 4968                      Fax:            +44 141 330 4913