515 research outputs found
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Using formal methods to support testing
Formal methods and testing are two important approaches that assist in the development of high quality software. While traditionally these approaches have been seen as rivals, in recent
years a new consensus has developed in which they are seen as complementary. This article reviews the state of the art regarding ways in which the presence of a formal specification can be used to assist testing
A reification calculus for model-oriented software specification
This paper presents a transformational approach to the derivation of
implementations from model-oriented specifications of abstract data types.
The purpose of this research is to reduce the number of formal proofs required
in model refinement, which hinder software development. It is shown to be appli-
cable to the transformation of models written in Meta-iv (the specification lan-
guage of Vdm) towards their refinement into, for example, Pascal or relational
DBMSs. The approach includes the automatic synthesis of retrieve functions
between models, and data-type invariants.
The underlying algebraic semantics is the so-called final semantics “`a la Wand”:
a specification “is” a model (heterogeneous algebra) which is the final ob ject (up
to isomorphism) in the category of all its implementations.
The transformational calculus approached in this paper follows from exploring
the properties of finite, recursively defined sets.
This work extends the well-known strategy of program transformation to model
transformation, adding to previous work on a transformational style for operation-
decomposition in META-IV. The model-calculus is also useful for improving
model-oriented specifications.(undefined
Prospects for discovery and spin discrimination of dark matter in Higgs portal DM models and their extensions at 100 TeV collider
We study the discovery and discriminating prospects of the Higgs portal dark
matter (DM) models for scalar, fermion and vector DM and their extensions in
proton-proton () collisions. The DM associated production in
dileptonic final states is considered, in which the stransverse mass of two
leptons is found to be effective in suppressing the Standard Model backgrounds
along with the missing transverse energy and the angle between two leptons. The
distributions of missing transverse energy and polar angle between two leptons
are used for a discrimination of the spin nature of DM. For the proposed
benchmark points, the discovery/exclusion can be made with an integrated
luminosity less than 1 ab given a 1\% systematic uncertainty, while the
spin discrimination require integrated luminosity of a few O(10) ab
given a 0.5\% systematic uncertainty. The DM phenomenology is also discussed. A
consistent DM candidate can be obtained either by extending our model where the
Higgs portal couples to excited dark states that decay into DM, or modifying
the coupling form into pseudoscalar.Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures; discussions of systematic uncertainty added;
matches the published versio
SAGA: A project to automate the management of software production systems
The Software Automation, Generation and Administration (SAGA) project is investigating the design and construction of practical software engineering environments for developing and maintaining aerospace systems and applications software. The research includes the practical organization of the software lifecycle, configuration management, software requirements specifications, executable specifications, design methodologies, programming, verification, validation and testing, version control, maintenance, the reuse of software, software libraries, documentation, and automated management
A Historical Perspective on Runtime Assertion Checking in Software Development
This report presents initial results in the area of software testing and analysis produced as part of the Software Engineering Impact Project. The report describes the historical development of runtime assertion checking, including a description of the origins of and significant features associated with assertion checking mechanisms, and initial findings about current industrial use. A future report will provide a more comprehensive assessment of development practice, for which we invite readers of this report to contribute information
Extended static checking by calculation using the pointfree transform
The pointfree transform offers to the predicate calculus what the La- place transform offers to the differential/integral calculus: the possibility of chang- ing the underlying mathematical space so as to enable agile algebraic calculation. This paper addresses the foundations of the transform and its application to a calculational approach to extended static checking (ESC) in the context of ab- stract modeling. In particular, a calculus is given whose rules help in breaking the complexity of the proof obligations involved in static checking arguments. The close connection between such calculus and that of weakest pre-conditions makes it possible to use the latter in ESC proof obligation discharge, where point- free notation is again used, this time to calculate with invariant properties to be maintained.
A connection with the “everything is a relation” lemma of Alloy is estab- lished, showing how close to each other the pointfree and Alloy notations are. The main advantage of this connection is that of complementing pen-and-paper pointfree calculations with model checking support wherever validating sizable abstract models.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT
Second-Order Functions and Theorems in ACL2
SOFT ('Second-Order Functions and Theorems') is a tool to mimic second-order
functions and theorems in the first-order logic of ACL2. Second-order functions
are mimicked by first-order functions that reference explicitly designated
uninterpreted functions that mimic function variables. First-order theorems
over these second-order functions mimic second-order theorems universally
quantified over function variables. Instances of second-order functions and
theorems are systematically generated by replacing function variables with
functions. SOFT can be used to carry out program refinement inside ACL2, by
constructing a sequence of increasingly stronger second-order predicates over
one or more target functions: the sequence starts with a predicate that
specifies requirements for the target functions, and ends with a predicate that
provides executable definitions for the target functions.Comment: In Proceedings ACL2 2015, arXiv:1509.0552
Introduction to the Literature on Semantics
An introduction to the literature on semantics. Included are pointers to the literature on axiomatic semantics, denotational semantics, operational semantics, and type theory
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