the TACAS PC before their discussion phase so that the quality of the artifact could be
considered prior to the TACAS decision making. Each artifact was evaluated independently by at least three reviewers. All accepted papers with accepted artifacts
received a badge which is added to the title page of the respective paper if desired by
the authors.
The AEC used a two-phase reviewing process: reviewers first performed an initial
check to see whether the artifact was technically usable and whether the accompanying
instructions were consistent, followed by a full evaluation of the artifact. The main
criteria for artifact acceptance was consistency with the paper, with completeness, and
documentation being handled in a more lenient manner as long as the artifact was
useful overall.
In the first round, out of 44 artifact submissions, 29 were accepted and 15 were
rejected. This corresponds to an acceptance rate of 66%. Out of the 36 artifacts for
regular tool papers and tool demonstration papers, 25 artifacts were accepted and 11
artifacts were rejected resulting in an acceptance rate of 69%. In all but five cases, tool
papers whose artifacts did not pass the evaluation were rejected. Those 5 artifacts were
invited for submission in the second evaluation round and 3 of these artifacts were
resubmitted and successfully evaluated. Overall, out of the 20 artifacts submitted to the
second evaluation round, 17 were accepted and 3 were rejected resulting in an
acceptance rate of 85%.
TACAS 2020 also hosted the 9th International Competition on Software Verification (SV-COMP 2020), chaired and organized by Dirk Beyer. The competition had
again a high participation: 28 verification systems with developers from 11 countries
were submitted for the systematic comparative evaluation, including 3 submissions
from industry. Six teams contributed validators for verification witnesses. The TACAS
proceedings includes the competition report and short papers describing 11 of the
participating verification systems. These papers were reviewed by a separate
SV-COMP program committee; each of the papers was assessed by at least three
reviewers. Two sessions in the TACAS program were reserved for the presentation
of the results: the summary by the SV-COMP chair and the participating tools by the
developer teams in the first session, and the open community meeting in the second
session.
We are grateful to everyone who helped to make TACAS 2020 a success. In
particular, we would like to thank all PC members, external reviewers, and the
members of the AEC for their detailed and informed reviews and for their discussions
during the virtual PC and AEC meetings. The collection and selection of papers was
organized through the EasyChair Conference System and the proceedings volumes
were published with the help of Springer; we thank them all for their assistance. We
viii
Preface
considered prior to the TACAS decision making. Each artifact was evaluated independently by at least three reviewers. All accepted papers with accepted artifacts
received a badge which is added to the title page of the respective paper if desired by
the authors.
The AEC used a two-phase reviewing process: reviewers first performed an initial
check to see whether the artifact was technically usable and whether the accompanying
instructions were consistent, followed by a full evaluation of the artifact. The main
criteria for artifact acceptance was consistency with the paper, with completeness, and
documentation being handled in a more lenient manner as long as the artifact was
useful overall.
In the first round, out of 44 artifact submissions, 29 were accepted and 15 were
rejected. This corresponds to an acceptance rate of 66%. Out of the 36 artifacts for
regular tool papers and tool demonstration papers, 25 artifacts were accepted and 11
artifacts were rejected resulting in an acceptance rate of 69%. In all but five cases, tool
papers whose artifacts did not pass the evaluation were rejected. Those 5 artifacts were
invited for submission in the second evaluation round and 3 of these artifacts were
resubmitted and successfully evaluated. Overall, out of the 20 artifacts submitted to the
second evaluation round, 17 were accepted and 3 were rejected resulting in an
acceptance rate of 85%.
TACAS 2020 also hosted the 9th International Competition on Software Verification (SV-COMP 2020), chaired and organized by Dirk Beyer. The competition had
again a high participation: 28 verification systems with developers from 11 countries
were submitted for the systematic comparative evaluation, including 3 submissions
from industry. Six teams contributed validators for verification witnesses. The TACAS
proceedings includes the competition report and short papers describing 11 of the
participating verification systems. These papers were reviewed by a separate
SV-COMP program committee; each of the papers was assessed by at least three
reviewers. Two sessions in the TACAS program were reserved for the presentation
of the results: the summary by the SV-COMP chair and the participating tools by the
developer teams in the first session, and the open community meeting in the second
session.
We are grateful to everyone who helped to make TACAS 2020 a success. In
particular, we would like to thank all PC members, external reviewers, and the
members of the AEC for their detailed and informed reviews and for their discussions
during the virtual PC and AEC meetings. The collection and selection of papers was
organized through the EasyChair Conference System and the proceedings volumes
were published with the help of Springer; we thank them all for their assistance. We
viii
Preface