308 research outputs found
Semantic business process management: a vision towards using semantic web services for business process management
Business process management (BPM) is the approach to manage the execution of IT-supported business operations from a business expert's view rather than from a technical perspective. However, the degree of mechanization in BPM is still very limited, creating inertia in the necessary evolution and dynamics of business processes, and BPM does not provide a truly unified view on the process space of an organization. We trace back the problem of mechanization of BPM to an ontological one, i.e. the lack of machine-accessible semantics, and argue that the modeling constructs of semantic Web services frameworks, especially WSMO, are a natural fit to creating such a representation. As a consequence, we propose to combine SWS and BPM and create one consolidated technology, which we call semantic business process management (SBPM
A theory of normed simulations
In existing simulation proof techniques, a single step in a lower-level
specification may be simulated by an extended execution fragment in a
higher-level one. As a result, it is cumbersome to mechanize these techniques
using general purpose theorem provers. Moreover, it is undecidable whether a
given relation is a simulation, even if tautology checking is decidable for the
underlying specification logic. This paper introduces various types of normed
simulations. In a normed simulation, each step in a lower-level specification
can be simulated by at most one step in the higher-level one, for any related
pair of states. In earlier work we demonstrated that normed simulations are
quite useful as a vehicle for the formalization of refinement proofs via
theorem provers. Here we show that normed simulations also have pleasant
theoretical properties: (1) under some reasonable assumptions, it is decidable
whether a given relation is a normed forward simulation, provided tautology
checking is decidable for the underlying logic; (2) at the semantic level,
normed forward and backward simulations together form a complete proof method
for establishing behavior inclusion, provided that the higher-level
specification has finite invisible nondeterminism.Comment: 31 pages, 10figure
Quality-aware model-driven service engineering
Service engineering and service-oriented architecture as an integration and platform technology is a recent approach to software systems integration. Quality aspects
ranging from interoperability to maintainability to performance are of central importance for the integration of heterogeneous, distributed service-based systems. Architecture models can substantially influence quality attributes of the implemented software systems. Besides the benefits of explicit architectures on maintainability and reuse, architectural constraints such as styles, reference architectures and architectural patterns can influence observable software properties such as performance. Empirical performance evaluation is a process of measuring and evaluating the performance of implemented software. We present an approach for addressing the quality of services and service-based systems at the model-level in the context of model-driven service engineering. The focus on architecture-level models is a consequence of the black-box
character of services
A mechanized proof of loop freedom of the (untimed) AODV routing protocol
The Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol allows the nodes
in a Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) or a Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) to know
where to forward data packets. Such a protocol is 'loop free' if it never leads
to routing decisions that forward packets in circles. This paper describes the
mechanization of an existing pen-and-paper proof of loop freedom of AODV in the
interactive theorem prover Isabelle/HOL. The mechanization relies on a novel
compositional approach for lifting invariants to networks of nodes. We exploit
the mechanization to analyse several improvements of AODV and show that
Isabelle/HOL can re-establish most proof obligations automatically and identify
exactly the steps that are no longer valid.Comment: The Isabelle/HOL source files, and a full proof document, are
available in the Archive of Formal Proofs, at
http://afp.sourceforge.net/entries/AODV.shtm
The software factory : an entry for the Encyclopedia of software engineering
Includes bibliographical references (p. 20-21).Michael A. Cusumano
The software factory : an entry for the encyclopedia of software engineering
"Draft: March 1991."Includes bibliographical references (p. 20-21).Michael A. Cusumano
Desen: Specification of Sociotechnical Systems via Patterns of Regulation and Control
We address the problem of engineering a sociotechnical system (STS) with respect to its stakeholdersâ requirements. We motivate a two-tier STS conception comprising a technical tier that provides control mechanisms and describes what actions are allowed by the software components, and a social tier that characterizes the stakeholdersâ expectations of each other in terms of norms. We adopt agents as computational entities, each representing a different stakeholder. Unlike previous approaches, our framework, Desen, incorporates the social dimension into the formal verification process. Thus, Desen supports agents potentially violating applicable normsâa consequence of their autonomy. In addition to requirements verification, Desen supports refinement of STS specifications via design patterns to meet stated requirements. We evaluate Desen at three levels. We illustrate how Desen carries out refinement via the application of patterns on a hospital emergency scenario. We show via a human-subject study that a design process based on our patterns is helpful for participants who are inexperienced in conceptual modeling and norms. We provide an agent-based environment to simulate the hospital emergency scenario to compare STS specifications (including participant solutions from the human-subject study) with metrics indicating social welfare and norm compliance, and other domain dependent metrics
Process algebra as a common framework for hardware/software coverification
This letter presents the practical issues concerning late and insufficient verification of low-level software on hardware platforms developed by our industrial partner. To overcome these issues, we propose a coverification platform based on process algebra. The descriptions of hardware and software, and their interface are translated into a common process-algebraic platform, and formal verification techniques are used to check the conformance of the two descriptions. We present the results of our first attempt towards this goal, discuss the lessons learned, and present the road-map for future research
USTOPIA REQUIREMENTS THOUGHTS ON A USER-FRIENDLY SYSTEM FOR TRANSFORMATION OF PROGRAMS IN ABSTRACTO
Transformational programming is a program development method which is usually applied
using 'pen and paper'. Since this requires a lot of clerical work (copying expressions, con-
sistent substitution) which is tiresome and prone to error, some form of machine support is
desirable. In this paper a number of systems are described that have already been built to
this aim. Some of their shortcomings and limitations are identified. Based on experience
with program transformation and transformation systems, a long list of features is given
that would be useful in an 'utopian' transformation system. This list is presented using
an orthogonal division of the problem area. A number of problems with the realisation of
some aspects of our 'utopian' system are identified, and some areas for further research
are indicated
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