Formal and Informal Methods for Multi-Core Design Space Exploration

We propose a tool-supported methodology for design-space exploration for embedded systems. It provides means to define high-level models of applications and multi-processor architectures and evaluate the performance of different deployment (mapping, scheduling) strategies while taking uncertainty into account. We argue that this extension of the scope of formal verification is important for the viability of the domain.Comment: In Proceedings QAPL 2014, arXiv:1406.156

Higher-Order Process Modeling: Product-Lining, Variability Modeling and Beyond

We present a graphical and dynamic framework for binding and execution of business) process models. It is tailored to integrate 1) ad hoc processes modeled graphically, 2) third party services discovered in the (Inter)net, and 3) (dynamically) synthesized process chains that solve situation-specific tasks, with the synthesis taking place not only at design time, but also at runtime. Key to our approach is the introduction of type-safe stacked second-order execution contexts that allow for higher-order process modeling. Tamed by our underlying strict service-oriented notion of abstraction, this approach is tailored also to be used by application experts with little technical knowledge: users can select, modify, construct and then pass (component) processes during process execution as if they were data. We illustrate the impact and essence of our framework along a concrete, realistic (business) process modeling scenario: the development of Springer's browser-based Online Conference Service (OCS). The most advanced feature of our new framework allows one to combine online synthesis with the integration of the synthesized process into the running application. This ability leads to a particularly flexible way of implementing self-adaption, and to a particularly concise and powerful way of achieving variability not only at design time, but also at runtime.Comment: In Proceedings Festschrift for Dave Schmidt, arXiv:1309.455

Software quality tools and techniques presented in FASE’17

Software quality assurance aims to ensure that the software product meets the quality standards expected by the customer. This special issue of Software Tools for Technology Transfer is concerned with the foundations on which software quality assurance is built. It introduces the papers that focus on this topic and that have been selected from the 20th International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering (FASE’17)

VerifyThis 2015 A program verification competition

VerifyThis 2015 was a one-day program verification competition which took place on April 12th, 2015 in London, UK, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS 2015). It was the fourth instalment in the VerifyThis competition series. This article provides an overview of the VerifyThis 2015 event, the challenges that were posed during the competition, and a high-level overview of the solutions to these challenges. It concludes with the results of the competition and some ideas and thoughts for future instalments of VerifyThis