5,973 research outputs found
Petri nets for systems and synthetic biology
We give a description of a Petri net-based framework for
modelling and analysing biochemical pathways, which uni¯es the qualita-
tive, stochastic and continuous paradigms. Each perspective adds its con-
tribution to the understanding of the system, thus the three approaches
do not compete, but complement each other. We illustrate our approach
by applying it to an extended model of the three stage cascade, which
forms the core of the ERK signal transduction pathway. Consequently
our focus is on transient behaviour analysis. We demonstrate how quali-
tative descriptions are abstractions over stochastic or continuous descrip-
tions, and show that the stochastic and continuous models approximate
each other. Although our framework is based on Petri nets, it can be
applied more widely to other formalisms which are used to model and
analyse biochemical networks
Non-null Infinitesimal Micro-steps: a Metric Temporal Logic Approach
Many systems include components interacting with each other that evolve with
possibly very different speeds. To deal with this situation many formal models
adopt the abstraction of "zero-time transitions", which do not consume time.
These however have several drawbacks in terms of naturalness and logic
consistency, as a system is modeled to be in different states at the same time.
We propose a novel approach that exploits concepts from non-standard analysis
to introduce a notion of micro- and macro-steps in an extension of the TRIO
metric temporal logic, called X-TRIO. We use X-TRIO to provide a formal
semantics and an automated verification technique to Stateflow-like notations
used in the design of flexible manufacturing systems.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, submitted to the conference "FORMATS: Formal
Modelling and Analysis of Timed Systems" 201
Capturing Assumptions while Designing a Verification Model for Embedded Systems
A formal proof of a system correctness typically holds under a number of assumptions. Leaving them implicit raises the chance of using the system in a context that violates some assumptions, which in return may invalidate the correctness proof. The goal of this paper is to show how combining informal and formal techniques in the process of modelling and formal verification helps capturing these assumptions. As we focus on embedded systems, the assumptions are about the control software, the system on which the software is running and the system’s environment. We present them as a list written in natural language that supplements the formally verified embedded system model. These two together are a better argument for system correctness than each of these given separately
Probabilistic Model Checking for Energy Analysis in Software Product Lines
In a software product line (SPL), a collection of software products is
defined by their commonalities in terms of features rather than explicitly
specifying all products one-by-one. Several verification techniques were
adapted to establish temporal properties of SPLs. Symbolic and family-based
model checking have been proven to be successful for tackling the combinatorial
blow-up arising when reasoning about several feature combinations. However,
most formal verification approaches for SPLs presented in the literature focus
on the static SPLs, where the features of a product are fixed and cannot be
changed during runtime. This is in contrast to dynamic SPLs, allowing to adapt
feature combinations of a product dynamically after deployment. The main
contribution of the paper is a compositional modeling framework for dynamic
SPLs, which supports probabilistic and nondeterministic choices and allows for
quantitative analysis. We specify the feature changes during runtime within an
automata-based coordination component, enabling to reason over strategies how
to trigger dynamic feature changes for optimizing various quantitative
objectives, e.g., energy or monetary costs and reliability. For our framework
there is a natural and conceptually simple translation into the input language
of the prominent probabilistic model checker PRISM. This facilitates the
application of PRISM's powerful symbolic engine to the operational behavior of
dynamic SPLs and their family-based analysis against various quantitative
queries. We demonstrate feasibility of our approach by a case study issuing an
energy-aware bonding network device.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure
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