Specification and Construction of Control Flow Semantics

In this paper we propose a visual language CFSL for specifying control flow semantics of programming languages. We also present a translation from CFSL to graph production systems (GPS) for flow graph construction; that is, any CFSL specification, say for a language L, gives rise to a GPS that constructs from any L-program (represented as an abstract syntax graph) the corresponding flow graph. The specification language is rich enough to capture complex language constructs, including all of Java

Ontology-based semantic interpretation of cylindricity specification in the next-generation GPS

Cylindricity specification is one of the most important geometrical specifications in geometrical product development. This specification can be referenced from the rules and examples in tolerance standards and technical handbooks in practice. These rules and examples are described in the form of natural language, which may cause ambiguities since different designers may have different understandings on a rule or an example. To address the ambiguous problem, a categorical data model of cylindricity specification in the next-generation Geometrical Product Specifications (GPS) was proposed at the University of Huddersfield. The modeling language used in the categorical data model is category language. Even though category language can develop a syntactically correct data model, it is difficult to interpret the semantics of the cylindricity specification explicitly. This paper proposes an ontology-based approach to interpret the semantics of cylindricity specification on the basis of the categorical data model. A scheme for translating the category language to the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language (OWL 2) is presented in this approach. Through such a scheme, the categorical data model is translated into a semantically enriched model, i.e. an OWL 2 ontology for cylindricity specification. This ontology can interpret the semantics of cylindricity specification explicitly. As the benefits of such semantic interpretation, consistency checking, inference procedures and semantic queries can be performed on the OWL 2 ontology. The proposed approach could be easily extended to support the semantic interpretations of other kinds of geometrical specifications

An Operational Petri Net Semantics for the Join-Calculus

We present a concurrent operational Petri net semantics for the join-calculus, a process calculus for specifying concurrent and distributed systems. There often is a gap between system specifications and the actual implementations caused by synchrony assumptions on the specification side and asynchronously interacting components in implementations. The join-calculus is promising to reduce this gap by providing an abstract specification language which is asynchronously distributable. Classical process semantics establish an implicit order of actually independent actions, by means of an interleaving. So does the semantics of the join-calculus. To capture such independent actions, step-based semantics, e.g., as defined on Petri nets, are employed. Our Petri net semantics for the join-calculus induces step-behavior in a natural way. We prove our semantics behaviorally equivalent to the original join-calculus semantics by means of a bisimulation. We discuss how join specific assumptions influence an existing notion of distributability based on Petri nets.Comment: In Proceedings EXPRESS/SOS 2012, arXiv:1208.244

Specifying collaborative software: a proposal

The aim of this paper is to illustrate how formal specifications for collaborative interactive systems might be written. It presents a new modelling paradigm for certain systems. It also shows how formal software engineering approaches can be useful. Specifically we choose to specify a simple collaborative editor. This example serves two purposes: it shows how clear and simple a formal specification can be and it provides a basis for making observations about the requirements for a specification language where the target is CSCW systems. The specification of the system has three parts: the semantics of the system; the syntax of the system; the semantics of the collaborative aspects of the system

Scalability using effects

This note is about using computational effects for scalability. With this method, the specification gets more and more complex while its semantics gets more and more correct. We show, from two fundamental examples, that it is possible to design a deduction system for a specification involving an effect without expliciting this effect

Revising Z: part I - logic and semantics

This is the first of two related papers. We introduce a simple specification logic ZC comprising a logic and a semantics (in ZF set theory) within which the logic is sound. We then provide an interpretation for (a rational reconstruction of) the specification language Z within ZC. As a result we obtain a sound logic for Z, including a basic schema calculus