73,037 research outputs found
Conceptual modelling: framework, principles, and future research
The conceptual modelling task in a simulation project is very important and yet is still generally regarded as more of an art than a science. The meaning and nature of conceptual modelling are discussed and a framework set out. The overall aim should be to choose the best model for the project and conceptual modelling can be viewed as a difficult optimisation problem that can be tackled effectively using a creative search process that develops alternative models and predicts their performance throughout the project. An experiment relating model characteristics to some aspects of performance is described and this type of experiment may inform the process of predicting model performance. Based on advice from the literature and my own previous work on conceptual modelling 17 principles of conceptual modelling are suggested. Conceptual modelling research is still at an early stage and ideas for future research are proposed
Simplification of UML/OCL schemas for efficient reasoning
Ensuring the correctness of a conceptual schema is an essential task in order to avoid the propagation of errors during software development. The kind of reasoning required to perform such task is known to be exponential for UML class diagrams alone and even harder when considering OCL constraints. Motivated by this issue, we propose an innovative method aimed at removing constraints and other UML elements of the schema to obtain a simplified one that preserve the same reasoning outcomes. In this way, we can reason about the correctness of the initial artifact by reasoning on a simplified version of it. Thus, the efficiency of the reasoning process is significantly improved. In addition, since our method is independent from the reasoning engine used, any reasoning method may benefit from it.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Simplification of Health and Social Services Enrollment and Eligibility: Lessons for California From Interviews in Four States
Explores state officials' and advocates' views on issues involved in streamlining enrollment and eligibility processes, including the importance of staff buy-in, community partners' outreach efforts, and technological challenges and lessons learned
Compositional Verification for Timed Systems Based on Automatic Invariant Generation
We propose a method for compositional verification to address the state space
explosion problem inherent to model-checking timed systems with a large number
of components. The main challenge is to obtain pertinent global timing
constraints from the timings in the components alone. To this end, we make use
of auxiliary clocks to automatically generate new invariants which capture the
constraints induced by the synchronisations between components. The method has
been implemented in the RTD-Finder tool and successfully experimented on
several benchmarks
On the Verification of a WiMax Design Using Symbolic Simulation
In top-down multi-level design methodologies, design descriptions at higher
levels of abstraction are incrementally refined to the final realizations.
Simulation based techniques have traditionally been used to verify that such
model refinements do not change the design functionality. Unfortunately, with
computer simulations it is not possible to completely check that a design
transformation is correct in a reasonable amount of time, as the number of test
patterns required to do so increase exponentially with the number of system
state variables. In this paper, we propose a methodology for the verification
of conformance of models generated at higher levels of abstraction in the
design process to the design specifications. We model the system behavior using
sequence of recurrence equations. We then use symbolic simulation together with
equivalence checking and property checking techniques for design verification.
Using our proposed method, we have verified the equivalence of three WiMax
system models at different levels of design abstraction, and the correctness of
various system properties on those models. Our symbolic modeling and
verification experiments show that the proposed verification methodology
provides performance advantage over its numerical counterpart.Comment: In Proceedings SCSS 2012, arXiv:1307.802
Program Verification in the presence of complex numbers, functions with branch cuts etc
In considering the reliability of numerical programs, it is normal to "limit
our study to the semantics dealing with numerical precision" (Martel, 2005). On
the other hand, there is a great deal of work on the reliability of programs
that essentially ignores the numerics. The thesis of this paper is that there
is a class of problems that fall between these two, which could be described as
"does the low-level arithmetic implement the high-level mathematics". Many of
these problems arise because mathematics, particularly the mathematics of the
complex numbers, is more difficult than expected: for example the complex
function log is not continuous, writing down a program to compute an inverse
function is more complicated than just solving an equation, and many algebraic
simplification rules are not universally valid.
The good news is that these problems are theoretically capable of being
solved, and are practically close to being solved, but not yet solved, in
several real-world examples. However, there is still a long way to go before
implementations match the theoretical possibilities
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