Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States Final Report

On April 9, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. issued Executive Order 14023 establishing this Commission, to consist of “individuals having experience with and knowledge of the Federal judiciary and the Supreme Court of the United States.” The Order charged the Commission with producing a report for the President that addresses three sets of questions. First, the Report should include “[a]n account of the contemporary commentary and debate about the role and operation of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system and about the functioning of the constitutional process by which the President nominates and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints Justices to the Supreme Court.” Second, the Report should consider the “historical background of other periods in the Nation’s history when the Supreme Court’s role and the nominations and advice-and-consent process were subject to critical assessment and prompted proposals for reform.” Third, the Report should provide an analysis of the principal arguments for and against particular proposals to reform the Supreme Court, “including an appraisal of [their] merits and legality,” and should be informed by “a broad spectrum of ideas.” The Report begins by explaining the genesis of today’s Court reform debate, including by identifying developments that gave rise to President Biden’s decision to issue the April 2021 Executive Order, particularly the debates surrounding the most recent nominations. This Introduction emphasizes that the Court’s composition and jurisprudence long have been subjects of public controversy and debate in the nation’s civic life: The Court serves as a crucial guardian of the rule of law and also plays a central role in major social and political conflicts. Its decisions have profound effects on the life of the nation. Though conflict surrounding the processes by which the President nominates and the Senate confirms Justices is not new, it has become more intensely partisan in recent years. The Introduction also articulates three common and interrelated ideas frequently invoked in reform debates and throughout the Chapters of the Report: the importance of protecting or enhancing the Court’s legitimacy; the role of judicial independence in our system of government; and the value of democracy and its relationship to the Supreme Court’s decisionmaking. These important ideas can mean different things to different people. The Introduction discusses the range of meanings ascribed to these terms, with the aim of clarifying how they are deployed in arguments for and against reform

A step towards refining and translating B control annotations to Handel-C

The design and implementation of critical controllers benefit from development in a formal method such as the B-Method. However, B does not support direct specification of executions, but this is a requirement in controller design. The aim here is to develop a set of annotations so that they can be used by a B design engineer to capture execution requirements while creating the B model. The annotations, once shown to be consistent with the B machine, can be used independently to assess the correctness of the proposed CSP controllers. CSP parallel to B is an alternative formal method integration that can be used to develop critical controllers with both state and event behaviour. The advantage of using annotations is that the execution requirements can be captured and shown to be consistent with the state during operation development, and that a control loop invariant to establish correctness does not have to be independently developed. Handel-C is used on route to hardware synthesis as it supports the implementation of concurrency and the manipulation of state. Annotations are again used to guide the translation of the B and control annotations into Handel-C. This work has three main aims. First, we introduce a set of annotations to describe control directives to permit controller development in B. The annotations capture execution requirements. They give rise to proof obligations that when discharged prove that the annotations are consistent with the machine they are written in, and therefore will not cause the machine to diverge. Second, we prove that CSP controllers that are consistent with the annotations will preserve the non-divergence property established between the machine and the annotations. Third, we show how annotation refinement is possible, and show a range of mappings from annotated B and consistent controllers to Handel-C. The development of mappings demonstrates the feasibility of automatic translation of annotated B to Handel-C. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

A step towards refining and translating B control annotations to Handel-C

The design and implementation of critical controllers benefit from development in a formal method such as the B-Method. However, B does not support direct specification of executions, but this is a requirement in controller design. The aim here is to develop a set of annotations so that they can be used by a B design engineer to capture execution requirements while creating the B model. The annotations, once shown to be consistent with the B machine, can be used independently to assess the correctness of the proposed CSP controllers. CSP parallel to B is an alternative formal method integration that can be used to develop critical controllers with both state and event behaviour. The advantage of using annotations is that the execution requirements can be captured and shown to be consistent with the state during operation development, and that a control loop invariant to establish correctness does not have to be independently developed. Handel-C is used on route to hardware synthesis as it supports the implementation of concurrency and the manipulation of state. Annotations are again used to guide the translation of the B and control annotations into Handel-C. This work has three main aims. First, we introduce a set of annotations to describe control directives to permit controller development in B. The annotations capture execution requirements. They give rise to proof obligations that when discharged prove that the annotations are consistent with the machine they are written in, and therefore will not cause the machine to diverge. Second, we prove that CSP controllers that are consistent with the annotations will preserve the non-divergence property established between the machine and the annotations. Third, we show how annotation refinement is possible, and show a range of mappings from annotated B and consistent controllers to Handel-C. The development of mappings demonstrates the feasibility of automatic translation of annotated B to Handel-C. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Experiments in Translating CSP||B to Handel-C

This paper considers the issues involved in translating specifications described in the CSP||B formal method into Handel-C. There have previously been approaches to translating CSP descriptions to Handel-C, and the work presented ill this paper is part of a programme of work to extend it to include the B component of a CSP parallel to B description. Handel-C is a suitable target language because of its capability of programming communication and state. and its compilation route to hardware. The paper presents two case studies that investigate aspects of the translation: a buffer case study, and all abstract arbiter case Study. These investigations have exposed a number of issues relating to the translation of the B component, and have identified a range of options available, informing more recent work oil the development of a style for CSP parallel to B specifications particularly appropriate to translation to Handel-C

A Step towards Merging xUML and CSP||B

Much research work has been done on linking UML, and formal methods but few have focused on using formal methods to check the integrity of the UML models so that the models can be verified. In this paper we focus on executable UML and on the issues related to concurrent state machines. We show that one integrated formal methods approach, CSP parallel to B, has the potential to be tailored to support reasoning about concurrent state machines and in turn expose any weaknesses in the UML model. We identify future avenues of research so that a system methodology based on executable UML can be enhanced by formal reasoning

A step towards merging xUML and CSP ∥ B

Much research work has been done on linking UML and formal methods but few have focused on using formal methods to check the integrity of the UML models so that the models can be verified. In this paper we focus on executable UML and on the issues related to concurrent state machines. We show that one integrated formal methods approach, CSP || B, has the potential to be tailored to support reasoning about concurrent state machines and in turn expose any weaknesses in the UML model. We identify future avenues of research so that a system methodology based on executable UML can be enhanced by formal reasoning

Design principles of the SystemCSP software framework

SystemCSP is a graphical design specification language aimed to serve as a basis for the specification of formally verifiable component-based designs. This paper defines a mapping from SystemCSP designs to a software implementation. The possibility to reuse existing practical implementations was analyzed. Comparison is given for different types of execution engines usable in implementing concurrent systems. The main part of the text introduces and explains the design principles behind the software implementation. A synchronization mechanism is introduced that can handle CSP kind of events with event ends possibly scattered on different nodes and OS threads, and with any number of participating event ends, possibly guarded by alternative constructs