24,790 research outputs found
Extending Event-B with discrete timing properties
Event-B is a formal language for systems modelling, based on set theory and predicate logic. It has the advantage of mechanized proof, and it is possible to model a system in several levels of abstraction by using refinement. Discrete timing properties are important in many critical systems. However, modelling of timing properties is not directly supported in Event-B. In this work, we identify three main categories of discrete timing properties for trigger response patterns, deadline, delay and expiry. We introduce language constructs for each of these timing properties that augment the Event-B language. We describe how these constructs have been given a semantics in terms of the standard Event-B constructs. To ease the process of using timing properties in a refinement-based development, we introduce patterns for refining the timing constructs that allow timing properties on abstract models to be replaced by timing properties on refined models. The language constructs and refinement patterns are illustrated through some generic examples.We have developed a tool to support our approach. Our tool is a plug-in to the Rodin tool-set for Event-B and automates the translation of timing properties to Event-B as well as the generation of gluing invariants, required to verify the consistency of timing properties refinement. In the end, we demonstrate the practicality of our approach, by going through the modelling and verifying process of two real-time case studies. The main focus will be the usefulness of the timing refinement patterns in a step-wise modelling and verification process of a real-time system
Knowledge Representation Concepts for Automated SLA Management
Outsourcing of complex IT infrastructure to IT service providers has
increased substantially during the past years. IT service providers must be
able to fulfil their service-quality commitments based upon predefined Service
Level Agreements (SLAs) with the service customer. They need to manage, execute
and maintain thousands of SLAs for different customers and different types of
services, which needs new levels of flexibility and automation not available
with the current technology. The complexity of contractual logic in SLAs
requires new forms of knowledge representation to automatically draw inferences
and execute contractual agreements. A logic-based approach provides several
advantages including automated rule chaining allowing for compact knowledge
representation as well as flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing business
requirements. We suggest adequate logical formalisms for representation and
enforcement of SLA rules and describe a proof-of-concept implementation. The
article describes selected formalisms of the ContractLog KR and their adequacy
for automated SLA management and presents results of experiments to demonstrate
flexibility and scalability of the approach.Comment: Paschke, A. and Bichler, M.: Knowledge Representation Concepts for
Automated SLA Management, Int. Journal of Decision Support Systems (DSS),
submitted 19th March 200
Complexity of Timeline-Based Planning over Dense Temporal Domains: Exploring the Middle Ground
In this paper, we address complexity issues for timeline-based planning over
dense temporal domains. The planning problem is modeled by means of a set of
independent, but interacting, components, each one represented by a number of
state variables, whose behavior over time (timelines) is governed by a set of
temporal constraints (synchronization rules). While the temporal domain is
usually assumed to be discrete, here we consider the dense case. Dense
timeline-based planning has been recently shown to be undecidable in the
general case; decidability (NP-completeness) can be recovered by restricting to
purely existential synchronization rules (trigger-less rules). In this paper,
we investigate the unexplored area of intermediate cases in between these two
extremes. We first show that decidability and non-primitive recursive-hardness
can be proved by admitting synchronization rules with a trigger, but forcing
them to suitably check constraints only in the future with respect to the
trigger (future simple rules). More "tractable" results can be obtained by
additionally constraining the form of intervals in future simple rules:
EXPSPACE-completeness is guaranteed by avoiding singular intervals,
PSPACE-completeness by admitting only intervals of the forms [0,a] and
[b,[.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2018, arXiv:1809.0241
The STRESS Method for Boundary-point Performance Analysis of End-to-end Multicast Timer-Suppression Mechanisms
Evaluation of Internet protocols usually uses random scenarios or scenarios
based on designers' intuition. Such approach may be useful for average-case
analysis but does not cover boundary-point (worst or best-case) scenarios. To
synthesize boundary-point scenarios a more systematic approach is needed.In
this paper, we present a method for automatic synthesis of worst and best case
scenarios for protocol boundary-point evaluation.
Our method uses a fault-oriented test generation (FOTG) algorithm for
searching the protocol and system state space to synthesize these scenarios.
The algorithm is based on a global finite state machine (FSM) model. We extend
the algorithm with timing semantics to handle end-to-end delays and address
performance criteria. We introduce the notion of a virtual LAN to represent
delays of the underlying multicast distribution tree. The algorithms used in
our method utilize implicit backward search using branch and bound techniques
and start from given target events. This aims to reduce the search complexity
drastically. As a case study, we use our method to evaluate variants of the
timer suppression mechanism, used in various multicast protocols, with respect
to two performance criteria: overhead of response messages and response time.
Simulation results for reliable multicast protocols show that our method
provides a scalable way for synthesizing worst-case scenarios automatically.
Results obtained using stress scenarios differ dramatically from those obtained
through average-case analyses. We hope for our method to serve as a model for
applying systematic scenario generation to other multicast protocols.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN) [To
appear
Intelligent agent for formal modelling of temporal multi-agent systems
Software systems are becoming complex and dynamic with the passage of time, and to provide better fault tolerance and resource management they need to have the ability of self-adaptation. Multi-agent systems paradigm is an active area of research for modeling real-time systems. In this research, we have proposed a new agent named SA-ARTIS-agent, which is designed to work in hard real-time temporal constraints with the ability of self-adaptation. This agent can be used for the formal modeling of any self-adaptive real-time multi-agent system. Our agent integrates the MAPE-K feedback loop with ARTIS agent for the provision of self-adaptation. For an unambiguous description, we formally specify our SA-ARTIS-agent using Time-Communicating Object-Z (TCOZ) language. The objective of this research is to provide an intelligent agent with self-adaptive abilities for the execution of tasks with temporal constraints. Previous works in this domain have used Z language which is not expressive to model the distributed communication process of agents. The novelty of our work is that we specified the non-terminating behavior of agents using active class concept of TCOZ and expressed the distributed communication among agents. For communication between active entities, channel communication mechanism of TCOZ is utilized. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed agent using a real-time case study of traffic monitoring system
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