BEval: A Plug-in to Extend Atelier B with Current Verification Technologies

This paper presents BEval, an extension of Atelier B to improve automation in the verification activities in the B method or Event-B. It combines a tool for managing and verifying software projects (Atelier B) and a model checker/animator (ProB) so that the verification conditions generated in the former are evaluated with the latter. In our experiments, the two main verification strategies (manual and automatic) showed significant improvement as ProB's evaluator proves complementary to Atelier B built-in provers. We conducted experiments with the B model of a micro-controller instruction set; several verification conditions, that we were not able to discharge automatically or manually with AtelierB's provers, were automatically verified using BEval.Comment: In Proceedings LAFM 2013, arXiv:1401.056

STAR framework revisited: Curriculum for user-centered design summer schools

Annually, an interdisciplinary community of students, researchers and practitioners from computer engineering, social sciences, Human Computer Interaction, visual communication and other related disciplines, gather together for 2-to-5 weeks to participate in intensive summer school sessions. Although the overall theme and the participants vary each year, these programs remain focused on the teaching and practice of User-Centered Design (UCD) in the context of the local community where the academy is conducted. By listening to lectures, working in ateliers, living with target users and facing real-world design problems, participants experientially learn a mixture of IxD processes, ethnographic methods, prototyping techniques and teamwork skills, despite the program's short duration. Intensive design summer academies like this are essential, as they offer an environment for experimentation that is difficult to create in other educational settings. However, organizing and implementing these programs in ways that optimize the learning process is challenging. As past participants, atelier leaders and instructors for a variety of summer workshops, the authors made several poignant observations about the need for an educational framework to facilitate learning and to address the students' diverse cultural backgrounds, educational disciplines, learning techniques and cultural markers. Upon further examination of the educational literature, ethnographic observation during subsequent summer sessions and interviews of past students, atelier leaders, lecturers and organizers, the authors proposed the STAR Framework for design summer schools. [see Schadewitz, Adler, Moncur, Roberts, 2006] While this framework offers organizers clear direction on structuring IxD summer schools, it provides little guidance on the curriculum itself. It has become clear that special attention must also be paid to the content, order and delivery of the curriculum, particularly given the limited time frame of the session. Building upon the established framework, this paper proposes a curricular construct that will maximize knowledge transfer within the summer school context

Seeking the real : the special case of Peter Zumthor

Peter Zumthor writes about "developing an architecture which sets out from and returns to real things" referring to both his own design process and the qualities he wishes his architecture to convey. In an architecture culture long accustomed to media saturation and the image, the phrase 'real things' is provocative and potentially archaic. This paper examines what Zumthor means by that term by investigating how he establishes the core ideas or principles that come to inform design development; namely, by his approach to a brief, a site, and a context. The paper draws on his writings as well as our own experience of being in his buildings, particularly through a rare interview that we conducted with him in his new house and atelier in Haldenstein

Intervista ad Annick Bizouerne

intervista ad Annick Bizouerne capo progetto del progetto urbano di Rive Gauche a Parigi.Interview with Annick Bizouerne Project Manager for the urban project Paris Rive Gauche

Who watches the watchers: Validating the ProB Validation Tool

Over the years, ProB has moved from a tool that complemented proving, to a development environment that is now sometimes used instead of proving for applications, such as exhaustive model checking or data validation. This has led to much more stringent requirements on the integrity of ProB. In this paper we present a summary of our validation efforts for ProB, in particular within the context of the norm EN 50128 and safety critical applications in the railway domain.Comment: In Proceedings F-IDE 2014, arXiv:1404.578