6 research outputs found

    Abstract State Machines 1988-1998: Commented ASM Bibliography

    Get PDF
    An annotated bibliography of papers which deal with or use Abstract State Machines (ASMs), as of January 1998.Comment: Also maintained as a BibTeX file at http://www.eecs.umich.edu/gasm

    Progress Report : 1991 - 1994

    Get PDF

    An integrated approach to high integrity software verification.

    Get PDF
    Computer software is developed through software engineering. At its most precise, software engineering involves mathematical rigour as formal methods. High integrity software is associated with safety critical and security critical applications, where failure would bring significant costs. The development of high integrity software is subject to stringent standards, prescribing best practises to increase quality. Typically, these standards will strongly encourage or enforce the application of formal methods. The application of formal methods can entail a significant amount of mathematical reasoning. Thus, the development of automated techniques is an active area of research. The trend is to deliver increased automation through two complementary approaches. Firstly, lightweight formal methods are adopted, sacrificing expressive power, breadth of coverage, or both in favour of tractability. Secondly, integrated solutions are sought, exploiting the strengths of different technologies to increase automation. The objective of this thesis is to support the production of high integrity software by automating an aspect of formal methods. To develop tractable techniques we focus on the niche activity of verifying exception freedom. To increase effectiveness, we integrate the complementary technologies of proof planning and program analysis. Our approach is investigated by enhancing the SPARK Approach, as developed by Altran Praxis Limited. Our approach is implemented and evaluated as the SPADEase system. The key contributions of the thesis are summarised below: • Configurable and Sound - Present a configurable and justifiably sound approach to software verification. • Cooperative Integration - Demonstrate that more targeted and effective automation can be achieved through the cooperative integration of distinct technologies. • Proof Discovery - Present proof plans that support the verification of exception freedom. • Invariant Discovery - Present invariant discovery heuristics that support the verification of exception freedom. • Implementation as SPADEase - Implement our approach as SPADEase. • Industrial Evaluation - Evaluate SPADEase against both textbook and industrial subprograms

    A theoretical and practical investigation of tools and techniques for the structuring of data and for modelling its behaviour

    Get PDF
    This thesis is about data and behaviour modelling for information system development. It has been sponsored at different times by two specialist consultancies: CACI Inc International and James Martin Associates. Initially I found problem areas in the field of system development by interviewing practitioners and by consultancy. These initial problem areas were whittled down to: action modelling, entity model clustering and a diagrammer. Action modelling is the modelling of detailed data behaviour using the same structuring concepts as data modelling. It was developed because of a lack of such analysis in systems development. Entity model clustering is about aggregating the entity types in a large entity model to abstract the essential meaning and to identify the most fundamental entity types. It was developed because of a need to summarise large entity relationship models for usability and comprehension. It has been used widely and has many benefits. A parallelism between data and activity modelling was developed as a result of the research into action modelling and entity model clustering. It needed the concepts derived from the other two areas to finally complete the theory, summarised as: every data modelling concept and structure has an exact equivalent in activity modelling and vice-versa. This theory gives a wholeness and completeness to modelling data and activity. A diagrammer was produced for the automatic production and manipulation of entity relationship diagrams from a base description. These diagrams are the basic tool of the data modeller; automating them saves time and potentially raises their accuracy. The main research problem was that few companies were willing to be guinea pigs, so most of the research was developed by thought 'games'. Most areas have been published in refereed publications as this was seen as the best way of establishing their academic credibility. All areas have been incorporated into or had an impact on James Martin Associates and their methodology Information Engineering, which provides a framework for coordinating the research areas. This research can best be techniques for improving summarised as the systems an attempt to find analysis process

    On Modularity In Abstract State Machines

    Get PDF
    In the field of model based formal methods we investigate the Abstract State Machine (ASM) modularity features. With the growing complexity of systems and the experience gained in more than thirty years of ASM method application a need for more manageable models emerged. We mainly investigate the notion of modules in ASMs as independent interacting components and the ability to identify portions of the machine state with the aim of improving the modelling process. In this thesis we provide a language level semantically well defined solution for (1) the definition of ASM modules as independent services and their communication behaviour; (2) a new construct that operates on the global state of an ASM machine that ease the management of state partitions and their identification; (3) a novel transition rule for the management of computations providing different execution strategies and putting termination condition for the machine inside the specification; (4) a data definition convention along with a new transition rule for their manipulation via pattern matching. In our work we build upon CoreASM, a well-known extensible modelling framework and tool environment for ASMs. The semantic of our modularity constructs is compatible with the one defined for the CoreASM interpreter. This ease the implementation of extension plugins for tool support of modularity features. A real world system use case ground model ends the thesis exemplifying the practical usage of our modularity constructs
    corecore