From Monitoring Templates to Security Monitoring and Threat Detection

This paper presents our pattern-based approach to run-time requirements monitoring and threat detection being developed as part of an approach to build frameworks supporting the construction of secure and dependable systems for ambient intelligence. Our patterns infra-structure is based on templates. From templates we generate event-calculus formulas expressing security requirements to monitor at run-time. From these theories we generate attack signatures, describing threats or possible attacks to the system. At run-time, we evaluate the likelihood of threats from run-time observations using a probabilistic model based on Bayesian networks

Sound and Relaxed Behavioural Inheritance

Object-oriented (OO) inheritance establishes taxonomies of OO classes. Behavioural inheritance (BI), a strong version, emphasises substitutability: objects of child classes replace objects of their ascendant classes without any observable effect difference on the system. BI is related to data refinement, but refinement's constrictions rule out many useful OO subclassings. This paper revisits BI at the light of Z and the theory of data refinement. It studies existing solutions to this problem, criticises them, and proposes improved relaxations. The results are applicable to any OO language that supports design-by-contract (DbC). The paper's contributions include three novel BI relaxations supported by a mathematical model with proofs carried out in the Isabelle proof assistant, and an examination of BI in the DbC languages Eiffel, JML and Spec#

Using VCL as an Aspect-Oriented Approach to Requirements Modelling

Software systems are becoming larger and more complex. By tackling the modularisation of crosscutting concerns, aspect-orientation draws attention to modularity as a means to address the problems of scalability, complexity and evolution in software systems development. Aspect-oriented modelling (AOM) applies aspect-orientation to the construction of models. Most existing AOM approaches are designed without a formal semantics, and use multi-view partial descriptions of behaviour. This paper presents an AOM approach based on the Visual Contract Language (VCL): a visual language for abstract and precise modelling, designed with a formal semantics, and comprising a novel approach to visual behavioural modelling based on design by contract where behavioural descriptions are total. By applying VCL to a large case study of a car-crash crisis management system, the paper demonstrates how modularity of VCL's constructs, at different levels of granularity, help to tackle complexity. In particular, it shows how VCL's package construct and its associated composition mechanisms are key in supporting separation of concerns, coarse-grained problem decomposition and aspect-orientation. The case study's modelling solution has a clear and well-defined modular structure; the backbone of this structure is a collection of packages encapsulating local solutions to concerns

Assessing composition in modeling approaches

Modeling approaches are based on various paradigms, e.g., aspect-oriented, feature-oriented, object-oriented, and logic-based. Modeling approaches may cover requirements models to low-level design models, are developed for various purposes, use various means of composition, and thus are difficult to compare. However, such comparisons are critical to help practitioners know under which conditions approaches are most applicable, and how they might be successfully generalized and combined to achieve end-to-end methods. This paper reports on work done at the 2nd International Comparing Modeling Approaches (CMA) workshop towards the goal of identifying potential comprehensive modeling methodologies with a particular emphasis on composition: (i) an improved set of comparison criteria; (ii) 19 assessments of modeling approaches based on the comparison criteria and a common, focused case study

Specifying Structural Properties and Their Constraints Formally, Visually and Modularly Using VCL

The value of visual representations in software engineering is widely recognised. This paper addresses the problem of formality and rigour in visual-based descriptions of software systems. It proposes a new language, VCL, designed to be visual, formal and modular, targeting abstract specification at level of requirements, and that aims at expressing visually what is not visually expressible using mainstream visual languages, such as UML. This paper presents and illustrates VCL's approach to structural modelling based on the VCL notations of structural and constraint diagrams with a case study. VCL's contributions lie in its modularity mechanisms, and the support for two alternative styles of visual constraint modelling (one closer to set theory expressions and based on Euler diagrams, the other closer to predicate calculus and based on object graphs)

Simulation of Bottle Conveyors – Opportunities of the Discrete Element Method (DEM): Simulation of Bottle Conveyors – Opportunities of theDiscrete Element Method (DEM)

The Discrete Element Method (DEM) provides an approach to recognition of the problems within bottle conveyors at an early stage of the engineering process. Key points in bottle conveyor systems, such as buffers, ejectors, diverters and transfers can be numerically analyzed. It is possible to calculate forces on lateral guides and forces between bottles within accumulation situations. The DEM provides an alternative opportunity for the virtual process optimization and numeric case studies of conveying systems at beverage and food industries.Die diskrete Elementmethode (DEM) ermöglicht in einem frühen Stadium des Engineering-Prozesses die Erkennung von Problemen in Flaschenförderern. Wichtige Systemelemente wie Puffer, Ausschleuser, Weichen und Übergabestellen können numerisch analysiert werden. Es ist somit u. a. möglich, Kräfte auf Seitenführungen und Kräfte zwischen den Flaschen innerhalb von Stausituationen zu berechnen. Die DEM bietet eine alternative Möglichkeit für die virtuelle Prozessoptimierung und die Durchführung numerischer Fallstudien von Fördersystemen u. a. in der Getränke- und Lebensmittelindustrie