Preface

This volume contains the proceedings of the First International Workshop on Hybrid Systems and Biology (HSB 2012), that will be held in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on the 3rd September, 2012. HSB 2012 is a satellite event of the 23rd International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2012).

This workshop aims at collecting scientists working in the area of hybrid modeling applied to systems biology, in order to discuss about current achieved goals, current challenges and future possible developments.

In particular, the workshop focused on:

• hybrid models of biological systems (case studies of genetic, cellular networks, models of tissues, etc.);

• models of biological systems with hybrid behavior;

• computational and mathematical analysis techniques for hybrid systems (i.e. reachability, model checking, abstract interpretation, bifurcation theory for hybrid dynamical systems, stability analysis, etc.), with applications in Systems Biology;

• hybrid system identification techniques;

• efficient simulation techniques for hybrid systems;

• hybrid modeling languages for biology systems;

• hybrid systems coping with incomplete and uncertain information;

• hierarchical simulation (stochastic/deterministic) methods for biological systems;

• abstraction and approximation techniques;

• hybrid systems modeling for synthetic biology;

• hybrid control of biological systems;

• sensitivity analysis for hybrid systems;

• behaviour-driven parameters identification for hybrid systems;

• analysis and simulation tools.

The workshop programme included the keynote presentation of Radu Grosu (Vienna University of Technology, Austria).  Furthermore, 11 regular papers were selected out of 20 submissions by the Program Committee of HSB 2012, which comprised of:

• Marco Antoniotti, University of Milano Bicocca, Italy

• Ezio Bartocci (co-chair), TU Wien, Austria

• Gregory Batt, INRIA Paris-Rocquencourt, France

• Luca Bortolussi (co-chair), Univerity of Trieste, Italy

• Alberto Casagrande, University of Trieste, Italy

• Edmund Clarke, Carnegie Mellon, USA

• Thao Dang, VERIMAG Lab, Grenoble, France

• Alexandre Donzé, UC Berkley, USA

• James R. Faeder, University of Pittsburgh, USA

• Jasmin Fisher, Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK

• Vashti Galpin, University of Edinburgh, UK

• Colas Le Guernic, DGA-MI, France

• Oded Maler, VERIMAG Lab, Grenoble, France

• Emanuela Merelli, University of Camerino, Italy

• Bud Mishra, NYU, USA

• Carla Piazza, University of Udine, Italy

• Alberto Policriti, University of Udine, Italy

• Scott A. Smolka, University of Stony Brook, USA

• Gouhei Tanaka, University of Tokyo, Japan

• Verena Wolf, Saarland University, Germany

• Paolo Zuliani, Carnegie Mellon, USA

All regular papers were reviewed by at least three reviewers. After the workshop, the authors of regular papers were asked to submit a revised version, incorporating the comments made during the discussion at the workshop, which are included in this volume.

We would like to thank the CONCUR organisers and furthermore all the authors, the invited speaker, the programme committee and the external referees for their valuable contributions.

August 2012

Ezio Bartocci and Luca Bortolussi

Program Co-chairs