mural: A Formal Development Support System

mural: A Formal Development Support System
Author: C.B. Jones
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1447131800

Formal methods enable computer architecture and software design to be mathematically proved correct before they are implemented. The complexity and time-consuming nature of such proofs have limited the applications of formal methods in the main to defence and safety-critical applications. The mural project (a joint Alvey-funded project between Manchester University and Rutherford Appleton Laboratories) has developed a software support system to help the user of formal methods. mural has created a user-friendly software environment (with extensive use of windows) that makes best use of human talents to produce computer systems that are proved to be correctly designed. Professor Cliff Jones is internationally known as the developer of the VDM system of formal notation (Vienna Development Method). This book describes the requirements, concepts, and realisation of the mural system. The authors present systematically and completely the results of this substantial research project, from the basic theoretical level to its effective implementation. The book will be of equal interest to academics working on formal methods at research level (and perhaps to graduate research students), and to practitioners and software engineers who are using - or who will have to use for defence contracts, etc. - formal methods.

Understanding Formal Methods

Understanding Formal Methods
Author: Jean-Francois Monin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1447100433

This is an excellent introduction to formal methods which will bring anyone who needs to know about this important topic up to speed. It is comprehensive, giving the reader all the information needed to explore the field of formal methods in more detail. It offers: a guide to the mathematics required; comprehensive but easy-to-understand introductions to various methods; a run-down of how formal methods can help to develop high-quality systems that come in on time, within budget, and according to requirements.

Specification of Software Systems

Specification of Software Systems
Author: V.S. Alagar
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 654
Release: 2011-03-19
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0857292773

This extensively revised and updated new edition of Specification of Software Systems builds upon the original focus on software specification with added emphasis on the practice of formal methods for specification and verification activities for different types of software systems and at different stages of developing software systems. Topics and features: provides a wide coverage of formal specification techniques and a clear writing style, supported by end-of-chapter bibliographic notes for further reading; presents a logical structure, with sections devoted to specification fundamentals, basics of formalism, logic, set theory and relations, property-oriented specification methods, and model-based specification techniques; contains end-of-chapter exercises and numerous case studies, with potential course outlines suggested in the Preface; covers Object-Z, B-Method, and Calculus of Communicating Systems; offers material that can be taught with tool-supported laboratory projects.

Proof in VDM: Case Studies

Proof in VDM: Case Studies
Author: Juan C. Bicarregui
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1447115325

Not so many years ago, it would have been difficult to find more than a handful of examples of the use of formal methods in industry. Today however, the industrial application of formal methods is becoming increasingly common in a variety of application areas, particularly those with a safety, security or financially critical aspects. Furthermore, in situations where a particularly high level of assurance is required, formal proof is broadly accepted as being of value. Perhaps the major benefit of formalisation is that it enables formal symbolic manip ulation of elements of a design and hence can provide developers with a variety of analyses which facilitate the detection of faults. Proof is just one of these possible formal activities, others, such as test case generation and animation, have also been shown to be effective bug finders. Proof can be used for both validation and verifi cation. Validation of a specification can be achieved by proving formal statements conjectured about the required behaviours of the system. Verification of the cor rectness of successive designs can be achieved by proof of a prescribed set of proof obligations generated from the specifications.

Theory and Formal Methods 1993

Theory and Formal Methods 1993
Author: Geoffrey Burn
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1447135032

This volume contains the proceedings of the fIrst workshop held by the Theory and Formal Methods Section ofthe Imperial College Department of Computing. It contains papers from almost every member of the Section, from our long-term academic visitors, and from those who have recently left us. The papers fall into four broad areas: • semantics • concurrency • logic • specification with some papers spanning a number of disciplines. The subject material varies from work on mathematical foundations to practical applications of this theory, expressing the Section's commitment to both the foundations of computer science, and the application of theory to real computing problems. In preparing the workshop and these proceedings, care was taken to ensure that there were papers overviewing a field, as well as ones whose primary aim was to present new scientifIc results. This had a dual purpose: to bring our Section members up to speed in some of the areas being worked on by the Section; and to provide the reader of the proceedings not only with a good introduction to many of the specifIc areas being investigated by the Section, but also with details of some of our latest results. All the papers presented at the workshop were revised following comments made by the workshop participants, and all were subsequently reviewed by at least two people before producing the fInal versions contained in this volume.

Microprocessor Based Protection Systems

Microprocessor Based Protection Systems
Author: A.R. Churchley
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 310
Release: 1991-11-30
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9781851666119

From a symposium, or perhaps a series of symposia (no information is provided) 15 papers discuss the use of computers to control potentially hazardous industrial processes. The sections cover guidelines, standards, and design; reliability analysis; software production and research; and industrial applications. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Generic Development Language Deva

The Generic Development Language Deva
Author: Matthias Weber
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 266
Release: 1993-10-28
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9783540573357

This book summarizes work done by the authors under the Esprit Tool Use project (1985-1990), at GMD in Karlsruhe and at Berlin University of Technology. It provides a comprehensive description of the generic development language Deva designed by the authors. Much of the research reported in this monograph is inspired by the work of Michel Sintzoff on formal program development; he contributed an enlightening Foreword. Deva is essentially a typed functional language with certain deduction rules. The difference with ordinary languages is, of course, the application domain: the types serve here to express propositions such as specifications or programs, rather than just data classes. Its practical applicability was tested on several non-trivial case studies. The whole book is written using the DVWEB system, a WEB for Deva, beeing implemented at the Berlin University of Technology.

6th Refinement Workshop

6th Refinement Workshop
Author: David Till
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1447132408

The Sixth Refinement Workshop took place at City University in London from 5th to 7th January 1994. The present volume includes all of the papers which were submitted and accepted for presentation, together with two papers by invited speakers. The workshops in the series have generally occurred at one year intervals but in this last case a two year period had elapsed. These workshops have established themselves as an important event in the calendar for all those who are interested in progress in the underlying theory of refinement and in the take-up by industry of the methods supported by that theory. One of the proposed themes of the sixth workshop was the reporting of successful adoption in industry of rigorous software development methods. The programme committee was perhaps slightly disappointed by the response from industry to the call in this respect. However, the recent period could be characterised as one of consolidation, when those companies which have made the decision that formal development methods are important to their business have been adopting them where appropriate and finding them to be worthwhile. On the other hand,. the difficult economic climate which exists in most parts of the developed world is perhaps not the context within which companies still dubious about the benefits are goil'\g to opt for making major changes in their working practices.

5th Refinement Workshop

5th Refinement Workshop
Author: Cliff B. Jones
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1447135504

Refinement is the term used to describe systematic and formal methods of specifying hard- and software and transforming the specifications into designs and implementations. The value of formal methods in producing reliable hard- and software is widely appreciated by academics and workers in industry, despite the fact that certain research areas, such as the application to industrial-scale problems, are still in their infancy. This volume contains the papers presented at the 5th Refinement Workshop held in London, 8-10 January 1992. Its theme was the theory and practice of software specifications, which is the transformation of formal software specifications into more correct specifications, designs and codes. This has been an important area of research for the last 5 years and the workshop addressed specific issues and problems related to it. Among the topics discussed in this volume are: the role of refinement in software development, parallel designs and implementations, methods and tools for verification of critical properties, refinement and confidentiality, concurrent processes as objects, the compliance of Ada programs with Z specifications and a tactic driven refinement tool. This is the latest refinement workshop proceedings to be published in the Workshops in Computing series (the 3rd and 4th workshops having appeared in 1990 and 1991 respectively). It will be of interest to academic and industrial researchers, postgraduate students and research-oriented developers in the computer industry.