233,571 research outputs found
Frameworks: the future of formal software development?
It could be argued that the primary issue to be dealt with in software engineering today is re-use of software. Current software development rarely, if ever, starts from nothing. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the development of specifications. To overcome this problem, various works have attempted to show how specifications can be built using architectural principles. We discuss one such approach in particular, the Architectural Semantics of Open Distributed Processing. We show the limitations of this work with regard to the architecting of specifications and propose a new approach, based on frameworks. To highlight the approach we use the work currently being done in the TOSCA project in its development of a service creation and validation environment for telecommunication services
Applying formal methods to standard development: the open distributed processing experience
Since their introduction, formal methods have been applied in various ways to different standards. This paper gives an account of these applications, focusing on one application in particular: the development of a framework for creating standards for Open Distributed Processing (ODP). Following an introduction to ODP, the paper gives an insight into the current work on formalising the architecture of the
Reference Model of ODP (RM-ODP), highlighting the advantages to be gained. The different approaches currently being taken are shown, together with their associated advantages and disadvantages. The paper concludes that there is no one all-purpose approach which can be used
in preference to all others, but that a combination of approaches is desirable to best fulfil the potential of formal methods in developing an architectural semantics for OD
New Methods, Current Trends and Software Infrastructure for NLP
The increasing use of `new methods' in NLP, which the NeMLaP conference
series exemplifies, occurs in the context of a wider shift in the nature and
concerns of the discipline. This paper begins with a short review of this
context and significant trends in the field. The review motivates and leads to
a set of requirements for support software of general utility for NLP research
and development workers. A freely-available system designed to meet these
requirements is described (called GATE - a General Architecture for Text
Engineering). Information Extraction (IE), in the sense defined by the Message
Understanding Conferences (ARPA \cite{Arp95}), is an NLP application in which
many of the new methods have found a home (Hobbs \cite{Hob93}; Jacobs ed.
\cite{Jac92}). An IE system based on GATE is also available for research
purposes, and this is described. Lastly we review related work.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, uses nemlap.sty (included
- …