CASCON

Welcome to CASCON 2006!In 1991 the Centre for Advanced Studies established an annual conference to showcase the accomplishments of CAS projects. For fifteen years, CASCON (CAS Conference) with its theme, Meeting of Minds, has been the showcase event of the year for CAS. With over 1500 attendees, CASCON, sponsored by the IBM Toronto Lab and CAS, in partnership with the National Research Council Canada, has evolved into a comprehensive forum that addresses questions and developments surrounding technology at large with paper tracks, workshops and the renowned Technology Showcase. Capturing the minds of thought leaders from around the world, this conference is where innovations from the academic, public and industrial sectors converge. While CASCON has grown into an international conference, it is still the key event in Canada where important contacts are made and valuable alliances are formed.This year's conference brings an exciting mix of keynote and Frontiers of Software Practice (FoSP) plenary sessions, papers presentations, workshops, demos, and posters, and promises to be a catalyst for new ideas and collaboration. Each aspect of the conference is a result of the efforts of the many CASCON organizers and all of the participants of CASCON 2006 and we thank them for their time, enthusiasm, and commitment to innovation and collaboration.The papers presented in this year's proceedings were selected from an impressive set of submissions. The program committee led by co-chairs, Hakan Erdogmus, of the National Research Council Canada, and Eleni Stroulia, of the University of Alberta, spent many hours soliciting high quality papers, ensuring expert reviews of each paper, and making the difficult decision to select 24 full papers and 11 short papers for presentation at the conference and publication in the proceedings. As with previous years, full and short papers are also available online in the ACM Digital Library http://www.acm.org/CASCON 2006 has evolved to a meeting of minds in a new sense, as we connect in real-time between the CASCON Toronto conference and the CASCON Dublin conference, with its paper abstracts included within these proceedings as well.