A verification concept for SDL systems and its application to the Abracadabra protocol

SDL is a specification language to specify distributed systems. Especially it is suitable for communication protocols. In some cases however it is not enough to describe just the behaviour of a protocol, but there are formulated some additional properties as requirements of the SDL system. A formalism convenient to describe them is for example first order logic. Our approach is to prove such properties with methods of automated reasoning after transforming the SDL specification into a first order logic specification. The proofs are done with the program verification system Tatzelwurm, especially with its prover. Practical experience shows that it is convenient to do a proof in two steps. In the first step the behaviour of the system is calculated out of the behaviour of the agents. The proofs of this step is independent of the property to prove. In this report we give a proof methods containing instructions how the arguments are applied during these proofs. It is shown how reachability analysis is done during a formal proof and how fairness arguments are applied. The report contains two papers, where the first one describes the formal basis of the method and shows the proof obligations occurring verifying a communication protocol. The second paper shows how some tedious tasks can be done more elegant using rewrite rules and recursive equations. In the appendix we give two examples out of the verification of the Abracadabra Protocol

Artificial intelligence research community and associations in Poland

In last years Artificial Intelligence presented a tremendous progress by offering a variety of novel methods, tools and their spectacular applications. Besides showing scientific breakthroughs it attracted interest both of the general public and industry. It also opened heated debates on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on changing the economy and society. Having in mind this international landscape, in this short paper we discuss the Polish AI research community, some of its main achievements, opportunities and limitations. We put this discussion in the context of the current developments in the international AI community. Moreover, we refer to activities of Polish scientific associations and their initiative of founding Polish Alliance for the Development of Artificial Intelligence (PP-RAI). Finally two last editions of PP-RAI joint conferences are summarized

Design descriptions to support reasoning about tolerances

This thesis is concerned with the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques to support human designers. The thesis argues that support for human designers can be improved by adopting an Al-based rather than a geometry-based approach to engineering design. Design Support Systems (DSSs) are proposed as an effective means of delivering this improved support. Representing and reasoning about tolerance statements in design is introduced as a valid area to test these claims. Tolerance statements describe the allowable variations in the geometry of a designed artefact. Two distinct, but related problems involving the use of toler¬ ance statements in design are tackled, namely: tolerance combination (including the way tolerance distributions combine), and tolerance allocation. The problem of tolerance combination (and distribution) involves determining the necessary consequences of the application of known tolerance statements to one or more designed artefact features. Tolerance allocation concerns the assignment of tol¬ erance statements during the design process. Solutions to this second problem are essential before manufactured instances of designed artefacts can be tested for compliance with design descriptions. The use of an experimental DSS, the Edinburgh Designer System (EDS), to solve design problems is illustrated. The implementation of techniques to im¬ prove the support of tolerance combination and tolerance allocation is described and where possible has been tested using EDS. The way that design is situated within the product creation process is investigated and the derivation of parts list information from an EDS design description is demonstrated. The thesis con¬ cludes that the Al-based approach can improve support for human designers, but that further research will be required to demonstrate the effective delivery of this support through DSSs

Abstract Representation of Music: A Type-Based Knowledge Representation Framework

The wholesale efficacy of computer-based music research is contingent on the sharing and reuse of information and analysis methods amongst researchers across the constituent disciplines. However, computer systems for the analysis and manipulation of musical data are generally not interoperable. Knowledge representation has been extensively used in the domain of music to harness the benefits of formal conceptual modelling combined with logic based automated inference. However, the available knowledge representation languages lack sufficient logical expressivity to support sophisticated musicological concepts. In this thesis we present a type-based framework for abstract representation of musical knowledge. The core of the framework is a multiple-hierarchical information model called a constituent structure, which accommodates diverse kinds of musical information. The framework includes a specification logic for expressing formal descriptions of the components of the representation. We give a formal specification for the framework in the Calculus of Inductive Constructions, an expressive logical language which lends itself to the abstract specification of data types and information structures. We give an implementation of our framework using Semantic Web ontologies and JavaScript. The ontologies capture the core structural aspects of the representation, while the JavaScript tools implement the functionality of the abstract specification. We describe how our framework supports three music analysis tasks: pattern search and discovery, paradigmatic analysis and hierarchical set-class analysis, detailing how constituent structures are used to represent both the input and output of these analyses including sophisticated structural annotations. We present a simple demonstrator application, built with the JavaScript tools, which performs simple analysis and visualisation of linked data documents structured by the ontologies. We conclude with a summary of the contributions of the thesis and a discussion of the type-based approach to knowledge representation, as well as a number of avenues for future work in this area

Daffodil: Strategic Support during the Information Search Process in Digital Libraries

Sowohl die rechnergestützte Informationssuche in einer realen Bibliothek als auch die in einer digitalen Bibliothek stellen heute immer noch ein zeitaufwändiges und damit teures Unterfangen dar. Als wesentliche Gründe können drei Problembereiche identifiziert werden. Zum Ersten existieren zahlreiche Zugangspunkte mit jeweils unterschiedlichen Formularen, Anfragesprachen und unterschiedlicher inhaltlicher Qualität. Zum Zweiten fehlt eine dringend benötigte anbieterübergreifende Integration der Informationen und Dienste. Zum Dritten schließlich wird der Benutzer durch die unbefriedigende Funktionalität nicht ausreichend in seinem Informationssuchprozess unterstützt. Alle diese Punkte führen letztendlich zu langwierigen und damit teuren Suchprozessen. Diese Dissertation stellt sich der Aufgabe, den oben genannten Problembereichen in geeigneter Weise zu begegnen und eine adäquate Lösung zu erarbeiten. Dazu erhält der Benutzer durch "strategische Unterstützung" in Form von verschiedenen integrierten Diensten von einem aktiven System eine Hilfestellung, um so sein Informationsbedürfnis effektiv und effizient befriedigen zu können. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit, die durch eine ausführliche Evaluation belegt worden sind, bieten sowohl theoretische als auch praktische Lösungen zur Entwicklung und zur Nutzung von digitalen Bibliotheken: * Der theoretische Teil zeigt ein Modell für verteilte Bibliotheksdienste auf, strukturiert diese und stellt sie in einen Gesamtzusammenhang. Dadurch wird die Modellierung neuer Dienste erleichtert und ein positiver Nutzen kann schon im Vorfeld diskutiert werden. * Der praktische Teil basiert auf dem entwickelten Modell und ermöglicht * den Benutzern, effektiv und effizient einer umfassenden Literatursuche nachzugehen und diese auch nachhaltig zu verwalten. * den Entwicklern von digitalen Bibliotheken durch Zugriff auf eine Vielzahl von Basisdiensten darüber hinausgehende Dienste zu entwickeln. Insgesamt kann das DAFFODIL-System als Basisarchitektur für die Entwicklung und Evaluation von digitalen Bibliotheken verwendet werden und trägt somit zur wissenschaftlichen Forschung in diesem Bereich bei

Enhance DBMS capabilities using semantic data modelling approach.

by Yip Wai Man.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990.Bibliography: leaves 132-135.ABSTRACTACKNOWLEDGEMENTSPART IChapter 1 --- OVERVIEW ON SEMANTIC DATA MODELLING APPROACH … --- p.1Chapter 2 --- SCOPE OF RESEARCH --- p.4Chapter 3 --- CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE OF SAM* --- p.7Chapter 3.1 --- Concepts and Associations --- p.7Chapter 3.1.1 --- Membership Association --- p.8Chapter 3.1.2 --- Aggregation Association --- p.8Chapter 3.1.3 --- Generalization Association --- p.9Chapter 3.1.4 --- Interaction Association --- p.10Chapter 3.1.5 --- Composition Association --- p.11Chapter 3.1.6 --- Cross-Product Association --- p.12Chapter 3.1.7 --- Summary Association --- p.13Chapter 3.2 --- An Example --- p.14Chapter 3.3 --- Occurrences --- p.15PART IIChapter 4 --- SYSTEM OVERVIEW --- p.17Chapter 4.1 --- System Objectives --- p.17Chapter 4.1.1 --- Data Level --- p.17Chapter 4.1.2 --- Meta-Data Level --- p.18Chapter 4.2 --- System Characteristics --- p.19Chapter 4.3 --- Design Considerations --- p.20Chapter 5 --- IMPLEMENTATION CONSIDERATIONS --- p.23Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.23Chapter 5.2 --- Data Definition Language for Schema --- p.24Chapter 5.3 --- Construction of Directed Acyclic Graph --- p.27Chapter 5.4 --- Query Manipulation Language --- p.28Chapter 5.4.1 --- Semantic Manipulation Language --- p.29Chapter 5.4.1.1 --- Locate Concepts --- p.30Chapter 5.4.1.2 --- Retrieve Information About Concepts --- p.30Chapter 5.4.1.3 --- Find a Path Between Two Concepts --- p.31Chapter 5.4.2 --- Occurrence Manipulation Language --- p.32Chapter 5.5 --- Examples --- p.35Chapter 6 --- RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS --- p.41Chapter 6.1 --- Allow Non-Homogeneity of Facts about Entities --- p.41Chapter 6.2 --- Field Name is Information --- p.42Chapter 6.3 --- Description of Group of Information --- p.43Chapter 6.4 --- Explicitly Description of Interaction --- p.43Chapter 6.5 --- Information about Entities --- p.44Chapter 6.6 --- Automatically Joining Tables --- p.45Chapter 6.7 --- Automatically Union Tables --- p.45Chapter 6.8 --- Automatically Select Tables --- p.46Chapter 6.9 --- Ambiguity --- p.47Chapter 6.10 --- Normalization --- p.47Chapter 6.11 --- Update --- p.50PART IIIChapter 7 --- SCHEMA VERIFICATION --- p.55Chapter 7.1 --- Introduction --- p.55Chapter 7.2 --- Need of Schema Verification --- p.57Chapter 7.3 --- Integrity Constraint Handling Vs Schema Verification --- p.58Chapter 8 --- AUTOMATIC THEOREM PROVING --- p.60Chapter 8.1 --- Overview --- p.60Chapter 8.2 --- A Discussion on Some Automatic Theorem Proving Methods --- p.61Chapter 8.2.1 --- Resolution --- p.61Chapter 8.2.2 --- Natural Deduction --- p.63Chapter 8.2.3 --- Tableau Proof Methods --- p.65Chapter 8.2.4 --- Connection Method --- p.67Chapter 8.3 --- Comparison of Automatic Theorem Proving Methods --- p.70Chapter 8.3.1 --- Proof Procedure --- p.70Chapter 8.3.2 --- Overhead --- p.70Chapter 8.3.3 --- Unification --- p.71Chapter 8.3.4 --- Heuristics --- p.72Chapter 8.3.5 --- Getting Lost --- p.73Chapter 8.4 --- The Choice of Tool for Schema Verification --- p.73Chapter 9 --- IMPROVEMENT OF CONNECTION METHOD --- p.77Chapter 9.1 --- Motivation of Improving Connection Method --- p.77Chapter 9.2 --- Redundancy Handled by the Original Algorithm --- p.78Chapter 9.3 --- Design Philosophy of the Improved Version --- p.82Chapter 9.4 --- Primary Connection Method Algorithm --- p.83Chapter 9.5 --- AND/OR Connection Graph --- p.89Chapter 9.6 --- Graph Traversal Procedure --- p.91Chapter 9.7 --- Elimination Redundancy Using AND/OR Connection Graph --- p.94Chapter 9.8 --- Further Improvement on Graph Traversal --- p.96Chapter 9.9 --- Comparison with Original Connection Method Algorithm --- p.97Chapter 9.10 --- Application of Connection Method to Schema Verification --- p.98Chapter 9.10.1 --- Express Constraint in Well Formed Formula --- p.98Chapter 9.10.2 --- Convert Formula into Negation Normal Form --- p.101Chapter 9.10.3 --- Verification --- p.101PART IVChapter 10 --- FURTHER DEVELOPMENT --- p.103Chapter 10.1 --- Intelligent Front-End --- p.103Chapter 10.2 --- On Connection Method --- p.104Chapter 10.3 --- Many-Sorted Calculus --- p.104Chapter 11 --- CONCLUSION --- p.107APPENDICESChapter A --- COMPARISON OF SEMANTIC DATA MODELS --- p.110Chapter B --- CONSTRUCTION OP OCCURRENCES --- p.111Chapter C --- SYNTAX OF DDL FOR THE SCHEMA --- p.113Chapter D --- SYNTAX OF SEMANTIC MANIPULATION LANGUAGE --- p.116Chapter E --- TESTING SCHEMA FOR FUND INVESTMENT DBMS --- p.118Chapter F --- TESTING SCHEMA FOR STOCK INVESTMENT DBMS --- p.121Chapter G --- CONNECTION METHOD --- p.124Chapter H --- COMPARISON BETWEEN RESOLUTION AND CONNECTION METHOD --- p.128REFERENCES --- p.13