Informatics Research Institute (IRIS) July 2004 newsletter

This summer period has been rich in presence and dissemination related activities. Several important conferences, which have enjoyed a great international participation and success, have been organized by IRIS academics in Salford. These include NLDB04, CRIS 2004 and the LTSN workshop. Also, a substantial number of research projects have been secured from national as well as European funding sources. All these activities are contributing to reinforcing the leading position that IRIS is currently enjoying in the field of Informatics. This newsletter gives an overview of all research activities that took place during this reporting period. It is hoped that this will help trigger further collaboration with existing and future colleagues from academia, research and industry to work together towards addressing the many societal and technological challenges engendered by the information age

Message sequence charts in the software engineering process

The software development process benefits from the use of Message Sequence Charts (MSC), which is a graphical language for displyaing the interaction behaviour of a system. We describe canonical applications of MSC independent of any software development methodology. We illustrate the use of MSC with a case study: the Meeting Scheduler

IFIP TC8 information systems : Conception, birth and early years

The paper begins by discussing the conception and birth of IFIP TC8 in Amsterdam in 1975 and 1976, describing the roles of the main players (such as IFIP and IFIP ADP). The background in terms of the IFIP organization and its already extant technical committees is reviewed. The birth pains associated with IFIP TC8’s early existence are also explained. The early meetings of TC8 and its Working Groups are discussed. From 1976 to 1986 formally planned events are discussed, with emphasis on the driving forces influencing the TC8 decision process throughout thiese years. The second half of this paper then reviews the background in the IT world (outside IFIP) as it prevailed in the period leading up to 1976. This backgound is examined in terms the of software and hardware technology of the timeThe past and the future of information systems: 1976-2006 and beyondRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

QuantUM: Quantitative Safety Analysis of UML Models

When developing a safety-critical system it is essential to obtain an assessment of different design alternatives. In particular, an early safety assessment of the architectural design of a system is desirable. In spite of the plethora of available formal quantitative analysis methods it is still difficult for software and system architects to integrate these techniques into their every day work. This is mainly due to the lack of methods that can be directly applied to architecture level models, for instance given as UML diagrams. Also, it is necessary that the description methods used do not require a profound knowledge of formal methods. Our approach bridges this gap and improves the integration of quantitative safety analysis methods into the development process. All inputs of the analysis are specified at the level of a UML model. This model is then automatically translated into the analysis model, and the results of the analysis are consequently represented on the level of the UML model. Thus the analysis model and the formal methods used during the analysis are hidden from the user. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach using an industrial strength case study.Comment: In Proceedings QAPL 2011, arXiv:1107.074