Plenary Lecture
Contemporary Software Science: Theoretical Foundations of Software Engineering
Professor Yingxu Wang
President, International Institute of Cognitive Informatics and Cognitive Computing (ICIC)
Director, Laboratory for Computational Intelligence, Cognitive Systems, and Software Science
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Schulich School of Engineering and Hotchkiss Brain Institute
University of Calgary
Canada
Email: yingxu@ucalgary.ca
Abstract: It was not a surprise that software had not been constrained by any known physical principles and laws. However, it is a surprise that the software community would comfortably accept this exceptional phenomenon without deeply exploring what the fundamental properties, principles, and laws are, which underpin software and software engineering. This indicates an indispensable need of basic studies on software science for exploring a much wider range of scientific foundations for software engineering beyond conventional computer science. This keynote lecture presents the theoretical foundations of software science rooted in contemporary abstract sciences such as denotational mathematics, information science, intelligence science, system science, computer science, cognitive science, cognitive informatics, brain science, formal linguistics, neuroinformatics, cognitive computing, and management science, as well as the domain properties of application fields of software systems. A general mathematical model of software is introduced and a set of fundamental properties and laws of software is revealed. In this approach, any software system is perceived as an application instance based on the generic theories. This leads to the notion of software science as a discipline that studies the formal properties and mathematical models of software, general methodologies for rigorous and efficient software development, and coherent theories and principles underpinning software behaviors and software engineering practices.
Brief Biography of the Speaker: Yingxu Wang is professor of cognitive informatics, brain science, software science, and denotational mathematics, President of International Institute of Cognitive Informatics and Cognitive Computing (ICIC, http://www.ucalgary.ca/icic/). He is a Fellow of ICIC, a Fellow of WIF (UK), a P.Eng of Canada, and a Senior Member of IEEE and ACM. He is/was visiting professor (on sabbatical leave) at Oxford University (1995), Stanford University (2008|2016), UC Berkeley (2008), and MIT (2012), respectively. He received a PhD in Computer Science from the Nottingham Trent University in 1998 and has been a full professor science 1994. He is the founder and steering committee chair of the annual IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Informatics and Cognitive Computing (ICCI*CC) since 2002. He is founding Editor-in-Chief of Int’l Journal of Cognitive Informatics & Natural Intelligence, founding Editor-in-Chief of Int’l Journal of Software Science & Computational Intelligence, Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on SMC - Systems, and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Advanced Mathematics & Applications. Dr. Wang is the initiator of a few cutting-edge research fields such as cognitive informatics, denotational mathematics (concept algebra, process algebra, system algebra, semantic algebra, inference algebra, big data algebra, fuzzy truth algebra, and fuzzy probability algebra, visual semantic algebra, granular algebra), abstract intelligence (?I), the neural circuit theory, mathematical models of the brain, cognitive computing, cognitive learning engines, cognitive knowledge base theory, and basic studies across contemporary disciplines of intelligence science, robotics, knowledge science, computer science, information science, brain science, system science, software science, data science, neuroinformatics, cognitive linguistics, and computational intelligence. He has published 400+ peer reviewed papers and 29 books in aforementioned transdisciplinary fields. He has presented 30 invited keynote speeches in international conferences. He has served as general chairs or program chairs for more than 20 international conferences. He is the recipient of dozens international awards on academic leadership, outstanding contributions, best papers, and teaching in the last three decades. He is one of the popular scholars according to the big data system of ResearchGate worldwide stats.