Formal Semantics for Ward & Mellor's TRANSFORMATION SCHEMA's and its Application to Fault-Tolerant Systems

A family of formal semantics is given for the Essential Model of the Transformation Schema of Ward & Mellor using recent techniques developed for defining the semantics of Statecharts by Pnueli and Huizing. A number of ambiguities and inconsistencies in Ward & Mellor's original definition is resolved. The models developed closely resemble those used for synchronous languages. Each model has its own application area, e.g., one fits best for fault-tolerant systems

A Deductive Proof System for Multithreaded Java with Exceptions

Besides the features of a class-based object-oriented language, Java integrates concurrency via its thread-classes, allowing for a multithreaded flow of control.Besides that, the language offers a flexible exception mechanism for handling errors or exceptional program conditions. To reason about safety-properties Java-programs and extending previous work on the proof theory for monitor synchronization, we introduce in this report an assertional proof method for JavaMT (Multi-Threaded Java), a small concurrent sublanguage of Java, covering concurrency and especially (exception handling). We show soundness and relative completeness of the proof method

Dagstuhl-Manifest zur Strategischen Bedeutung des Software Engineering in Deutschland

Im Rahmen des Dagstuhl Perspektiven Workshop 05402 "Challenges for Software Engineering Research" haben führende Software Engineering Professoren den derzeitigen Stand der Softwaretechnik in Deutschland charakterisiert und Handlungsempfehlungen für Wirtschaft, Forschung und Politik abgeleitet. Das Manifest fasst die diese Empfehlungen und die Bedeutung und Entwicklung des Fachgebiets prägnant zusammen

The cooperation test:a syntax-directed verification method

The cooperation test was originally conceived to capture the proof theoretical analogue of distributed message passing between disjoint processes, as opposed to the interference test, being the proof theoretical analogue of concurrency based on interference by jointly shared variables. Since then the cooperation test has been applied to characterize concurrent communication in Hoare’s Communicating Sequential Processes, Ichbiah’s ADA, and Brinch Hansen’s Distributed Processes, supported by soundness and completeness proofs. An overview is given of the rationale underlying this characterization, culminating in the development of proof systems for monitor based programming languages for concurrency which combine distributed message passing between processes with interference through local variables of a process which are shared between its subprocesses