1,107 research outputs found
Using formal metamodels to check consistency of functional views in information systems specification
UML notations require adaptation for applications such as Information Systems (IS). Thus we have defined IS-UML. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we propose an extension to this language to deal with functional aspects of IS. We use two views to specify IS transactions: the first one is defined as a combination of behavioural UML diagrams (collaboration and state diagrams), and the second one is based on the definition of specific classes of an extended class diagram. The final objective of the article is to consider consistency issues between the various diagrams of an IS-UML specification. In common with other UML languages, we use a metamodel to define IS-UML. We use class diagrams to summarize the metamodel structure and a formal language, B, for the full metamodel. This allows us to formally express consistency checks and mapping rules between specific metamodel concepts. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
Building an interactive 3D animation system
The continued improvement and proliferation of graphics hardware for workstations and personal computers has brought increasing prominence to a newer style of software application program. This style relies on fast, high quality graphics displays coupled with expressive input devices to achieve real-time animation and direct-manipulation interaction metaphors. Such applications impose a rather different conceptual approach, on both the user and the programmer, than more traditional software. The application program can be thought of increasingly as a virtual machine, with a tangible two or three dimensional appearance, behavior and tactile response. Dynamic graphics techniques are now considered essential for making computers easier to use, and interactive and graphical interfaces that allow the presentation and the direct manipulation of information in a pictorial form is now an important part of most of modern graphics software tools211-24
Teaching object-oriented programming using BETA
This paper describes the approach to teaching object-oriented programming at Aarhus University. This includes a brief discussion of the conceptual approach to teaching object-oriented programming. The BETA language is used as a basis for the teaching. The paper includes a brief description of BETA. Finally a presentation of the BETA Macintosh environment is given. This environment makes it easy for students to create object-oriented applications
Specification Reuse using Data Refinement in Dafny
Data refinement is a technique for transforming system specifications into system implementation that differs in data types. It gives us the freedom to write specifications in a way that is independent of its implementation; moreover we can generate multiple implementations without changing the system specifications, the client does not have to worry about the underlying implementation. Abstraction Invariant is used to relate the high level abstract specification to its concrete implementation.
Dafny is a research language developed by Microsoft. Its main focus is data refinement. The language provides the rich mathematical properties such as sequences, sets and multi-set, along with functions, predicates, methods and user defined data types. In Dafny the Abstraction Invariant is in the form of a function, which is added as a pre and post conditions to all of methods and functions. Given this function one can verify that the code is providing the implementation that satisfies its specifications even when the specification is defined in term of one data structure and the code is implemented in term of another data structure. Dafny works with Boogie which is a static program verifier and the SMT solver Z3. These are the main underlying technologies for verification: Dafny code is translated in to Boogie from which the verification conditions are generated for Z3 in order to verify the program.
In this research the programmer over head is identified when replacing one implementation to another in terms of underlying data structure change while preserving the client specification. The motivation behind this work is to assist programmers to come up with a quick solution in situations such as “slow system performance” with new system implementation. Moreover, a semi automatic tool is developed for transforming one implementation to another without changing the client specifications. The result is the generation of a semi verified program whose implementation is in terms of a data structure other than that used in the specifications. The verification can be fully automatic through the provision of implementation details from the user
Structuring fault-tolerant object-oriented systems using inheritance and delegation
PhD ThesisMany entities in the real world that a software system has to interact with, e.g.,
for controlling or monitoring purposes, exhibit different behaviour phases in their
lifetime, in particular depending on whether or not they are functioning correctly.
That is, these entities exhibit not only a normal behaviour phase but also one or
more abnormal behaviour phases associated with the various faults which occur
in the environment. These faults are referred to as environmental faults. In the
object-oriented software, real-world entities are modeled as objects. In a classbased
object-oriented language, such as C++, all objects of a given class must
follow the same external behaviour, i.e., they have the same interface and associated
implementation. However this requires that each object permanently belong
to a particular class, imposing constraints on the mutability of the behaviour for
an individual object. This thesis proposes solutions to the problem of finding
means whereby objects representing real-world entities which exhibit various behaviour
phases can make corresponding changes in their own behaviour in a clear
and explicit way, rather than through status-checking code which is normally
embedded in the implementation of various methods.
Our proposed solution is (i) to define a hierarchy of different subclasses related to
an object which corresponds to an external entity, each subclass implementing a
different behaviour phase that the external entity can exhibit, and (ii) to arrange
that each object forward the execution of its operations to the currently appropriate
instance of this hierarchy of subclasses. We thus propose an object-oriented
approach for the provision of environmental fault tolerance, which encapsulates
the abnormal behaviour of "faulty" entities as objects (instances of the above
mentioned subclasses). These abnormal behaviour variants are defined statically,
and runtime access to them is implemented through a delegation mechanism which
depends on the current phase of behaviour. Thus specific reconfiguration changes
at the level of objects can be easily incorporated to a software system for tolerating
environmental faults
Applications and Meaning of Inheritance in Software Specifications
We present a novel inheritance mechanism for a
specification language. This mechanism supports stepwise
refinement by combining constraints that can be
inherited from several sources. Inheritance in specifications
differs from inheritance in programming languages.
The proposed mechanism has been designed
specifically to support computer-aided requirements
analysis. The main design issues for the mechanism
are explained, and the application of the mechanism
to requirements analysis is illustrated via examples.This research was supported in part by the Army Research Office under grant number ARO-145-91. This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant number CCR-9058453
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