The 14th Overture Workshop: Towards Analytical Tool Chains

This report contains the proceedings from the 14th Overture workshop organized in connection with the Formal Methods 2016 symposium. This includes nine papers describing different technological progress in relation to the Overture/VDM tool support and its connection with other tools such as Crescendo, Symphony, INTO-CPS, TASTE and ViennaTalk

Protection of the Ovine Fetal Gut against Ureaplasma-Induced Chorioamnionitis: A Potential Role for Plant Sterols

Chorioamnionitis, clinically most frequently associated with Ureaplasma, is linked to intestinal inflammation and subsequent gut injury. No treatment is available to prevent chorioamnionitis-driven adverse intestinal outcomes. Evidence is increasing that plant sterols possess immune-modulatory properties. Therefore, we investigated the potential therapeutic effects of plant sterols in lambs intra-amniotically (IA) exposed to Ureaplasma. Fetal lambs were IA exposed to Ureaplasma parvum (U. parvum, UP) for six days from 127 d–133 d of gestational age (GA). The plant sterols β-sitosterol and campesterol, dissolved with β-cyclodextrin (carrier), were given IA every two days from 122 d–131 d GA. Fetal circulatory cytokine levels, gut inflammation, intestinal injury, enterocyte maturation, and mucosal phospholipid and bile acid profiles were measured at 133 d GA (term 150 d). IA plant sterol administration blocked a fetal inflammatory response syndrome. Plant sterols reduced intestinal accumulation of proinflammatory phospholipids and tended to prevent mucosal myeloperoxidase-positive (MPO) cell influx, indicating an inhibition of gut inflammation. IA administration of plant sterols and carrier diminished intestinal mucosal damage, stimulated maturation of the immature epithelium, and partially prevented U. parvum-driven reduction of mucosal bile acids. In conclusion, we show that β-sitosterol and campesterol administration protected the fetus against adverse gut outcomes following UP-driven chorioamnionitis by preventing intestinal and systemic inflammation

An Overview of the ISO/VDM-SL Standard

VDM-SL, the notation incorporated in the formal method VDM, is currently being standardized under auspices of the International Standards Institution (ISO) and the British Standards Institution (BSI). It is one of the few formal languages of which the syntax and the semantics have been completely formally defined. In this paper we present an overview of the standard, including a report on the current status of the standardization effort. 1 Introduction The acceptance of the importance of formal methods for software development, and the industrial application of formal methods are becoming increasingly widespread. Formal methods provide a mathematical approach to the specification and subsequent development of software, thus allowing unambiguous specifications and development steps which can be proved to be correct. One of the most mature formal methods, primarily intended for the formal specification and development of functional aspects of software systems, is the Vienna Development ..

Standards for non-executable specification languages

This paper discusses the impact of the standardization of (non-executable) specification languages; standardization can increase the interest in, and acceptance of, a specification language, and it stimulates the development of tool support for such a language. It is argued why a specification language should preferably be formally defined. The ISO/VDM-SL standard (under construction) is used as an illustration. The fact that many specification languages are non-executable causes problems in the areas of conformance and compliance. These problems are touched upon

Proceedings - 2021 IEEE/ACM 9th International Conference on Formal Methods in Software Engineering, FormaliSE 2021

The proceedings contain 13 papers. The topics discussed include: formal characterization and efficient verification of a biological robustness property; runtime verification under access restrictions; how much specification is enough? mutation analysis for software contracts; formally verified credentials management for industrial control systems; quantifying faultiness: what does it mean to have N faults?; methodology for specification and verification of high-level requirements with MetAcsl; and improved bounded model checking of timed automata

Formal Transformations: Using SA and VDM as Different Views in Software Development

Structured methods and formal methods for software development can supplement each other by eliminating each other's weak points. It is even better if an efficiently high level of integration can be achieved such that the products of each method can automatically be transformed into a product of the other method. In this paper a small case study is presented in which this principle is illustrated. It is shown how data flow diagrams (the main product of Structured Analysis) can automatically be translated into VDM specifications, in this way creating two different views for the analyst/designer on the system being developed: a graphical view (the DFD) and a textual view (the VDM specification)

A Formal Semantics of Data Flow Diagrams

This document presents a full version of the formal semantics of data ow diagrams reported in [Larsen&93]. Data Flow Diagrams are used in Structured Analysis and are based on an abstract model for data flow transformations. The semantics consists of a collection of VDM functions, transforming an abstract syntax representation of a data flow diagram into an abstract syntax representation of a VDM specification. Since this transformation is executable, it becomes possible to provide a software analyst/designer with two `views' of the system being modeled: a graphical view in terms of a data flow diagram, and a textual view in terms of a VDM specification. The specification presented in this document have been processed by The IFAD VDM-SL Toolbox [Lassen93] and the LATEX output is produced directly by means of this tool. The complete transformation has been syntax-checked, type-checked and tested using the IFAD VDM-SL Toolbox [Lassen93]; this has given us confidence that the transformation..