"Boring formal methods" or "Sherlock Holmes deduction methods"?

This paper provides an overview of common challenges in teaching of logic and formal methods to Computer Science and IT students. We discuss our experiences from the course IN3050: Applied Logic in Engineering, introduced as a "logic for everybody" elective course at at TU Munich, Germany, to engage pupils studying Computer Science, IT and engineering subjects on Bachelor and Master levels. Our goal was to overcome the bias that logic and formal methods are not only very complicated but also very boring to study and to apply. In this paper, we present the core structure of the course, provide examples of exercises and evaluate the course based on the students' surveys.Comment: Preprint. Accepted to the Software Technologies: Applications and Foundations (STAF 2016). Final version published by Springer International Publishing AG. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1602.0517

Bisimulation, Logic and Reachability Analysis for Markovian Systems

In the recent years, there have been a large amount of investigations on safety verification of uncertain continuous systems. In engineering and applied mathematics, this verification is called stochastic reachability analysis, while in computer science this is called probabilistic model checking (PMC). In the context of this work, we consider the two terms interchangeable. It is worthy to note that PMC has been mostly considered for discrete systems. Therefore, there is an issue of improving the application of computer science techniques in the formal verification of continuous stochastic systems. We present a new probabilistic logic of model theoretic nature. The terms of this logic express reachability properties and the logic formulas express statistical properties of terms. Moreover, we show that this logic characterizes a bisimulation relation for continuous time continuous space Markov processes. For this logic we define a new semantics using state space symmetries. This is a recent concept that was successfully used in model checking. Using this semantics, we prove a full abstraction result. Furthermore, we prove a result that can be used in model checking, namely that the bisimulation preserves the probabilities of the reachable sets

Model Driven Mutation Applied to Adaptative Systems Testing

Dynamically Adaptive Systems modify their behav- ior and structure in response to changes in their surrounding environment and according to an adaptation logic. Critical sys- tems increasingly incorporate dynamic adaptation capabilities; examples include disaster relief and space exploration systems. In this paper, we focus on mutation testing of the adaptation logic. We propose a fault model for adaptation logics that classifies faults into environmental completeness and adaptation correct- ness. Since there are several adaptation logic languages relying on the same underlying concepts, the fault model is expressed independently from specific adaptation languages. Taking benefit from model-driven engineering technology, we express these common concepts in a metamodel and define the operational semantics of mutation operators at this level. Mutation is applied on model elements and model transformations are used to propagate these changes to a given adaptation policy in the chosen formalism. Preliminary results on an adaptive web server highlight the difficulty of killing mutants for adaptive systems, and thus the difficulty of generating efficient tests.Comment: IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation, Mutation Analysis Workshop (Mutation 2011), Berlin : Allemagne (2011

Analytical modelling in Dynamo

BIM is applied as modern database for civil engineering. Its recent development allows to preserve both structure geometrical and analytical information. The analytical model described in the paper is derived directly from BIM model of a structure automatically but in most cases it requires manual improvements before being sent to FEM software. Dynamo visual programming language was used to handle the analytical data. Authors developed a program which corrects faulty analytical model obtained from BIM geometry, thus providing better automation for preparing FEM model. Program logic is explained and test cases shown

Designing Normative Theories for Ethical and Legal Reasoning: LogiKEy Framework, Methodology, and Tool Support

A framework and methodology---termed LogiKEy---for the design and engineering of ethical reasoners, normative theories and deontic logics is presented. The overall motivation is the development of suitable means for the control and governance of intelligent autonomous systems. LogiKEy's unifying formal framework is based on semantical embeddings of deontic logics, logic combinations and ethico-legal domain theories in expressive classic higher-order logic (HOL). This meta-logical approach enables the provision of powerful tool support in LogiKEy: off-the-shelf theorem provers and model finders for HOL are assisting the LogiKEy designer of ethical intelligent agents to flexibly experiment with underlying logics and their combinations, with ethico-legal domain theories, and with concrete examples---all at the same time. Continuous improvements of these off-the-shelf provers, without further ado, leverage the reasoning performance in LogiKEy. Case studies, in which the LogiKEy framework and methodology has been applied and tested, give evidence that HOL's undecidability often does not hinder efficient experimentation.Comment: 50 pages; 10 figure

Fuzzy expert system and its utility in various field

Today’s Fuzzy Logic plays an important role in every field of our life. Fuzzy expert system presents expertise knowledge and it has been effectively applied to solve the problems, classification and modeling in such diverse areas as science, engineering, business and medicine. This paper provides an overview of this fuzzy tool and highlights the basic feature of expert system with fuzzy logic.&nbsp

Synthetic biology for evolutionary engineering: from perturbation of genotype to acquisition of desired phenotype

With the increased attention on bio-based industry, demands for techniques that enable fast and effective strain improvement have been dramatically increased. Evolutionary engineering, which is less dependent on biological information, has been applied to strain improvement. Currently, synthetic biology has made great innovations in evolutionary engineering, particularly in the development of synthetic tools for phenotypic perturbation. Furthermore, discovering biological parts with regulatory roles and devising novel genetic circuits have promoted high-throughput screening and selection. In this review, we first briefly explain basics of synthetic biology tools for mutagenesis and screening of improved variants, and then describe how these strategies have been improved and applied to phenotypic engineering. Evolutionary engineering using advanced synthetic biology tools will enable further innovation in phenotypic engineering through the development of novel genetic parts and assembly into well-designed logic circuits that perform complex tasks.11Ysciescopu