Formal Methods for Specifying and Analyzing Complex Software Systems

2006 ◽  
pp. 123-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xudong He ◽  
Huiqun Yu ◽  
Yi Deng
Keyword(s):  
Formal Methods ◽  
Software Systems

Measuring the Progress of a System Development

2014 ◽  
pp. 1415-1439
Author(s):  
Marta (Plaska) Olszewska ◽  
Marina Waldén
Keyword(s):  
Formal Methods ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Formal Specification ◽  
System Development ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
System Construction ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
And Control

For most of the developers and managers, the structure and the behaviour of software systems represented in a graphical manner is more understandable than a formal specification of a system or than plain code. Our previous work combined the intuitiveness of UML with the development rigour brought by formal methods and created progress diagrams. In progress diagrams, the design decisions within a system refinement chain are assisted by the application of patterns and illustrated in a comprehensible and compact manner. In order to rigorously assess and control the design process, we need to thoroughly monitor it. In this chapter we show how the application of generic refinement patterns is reflected in measurements. We establish measures for the evaluation of the design progress of the system, where the progress diagrams are assessed from the size and structural complexity perspective. Our motivation is to support the system developers and managers in making the design decisions that regard the system construction.

Formal Approaches to Systems Analysis Using UML

2002 ◽  
pp. 324-341
Author(s):  
Jonathan Whittle
Keyword(s):  
Formal Methods ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Industry Standard ◽  
Mathematical Techniques ◽  
Software Lifecycle ◽  
Modeling Level

Formal methods, whereby a system is described and/or analyzed using precise mathematical techniques, is a well-established and yet, under-used approach for developing software systems. One of the reasons for this is that project deadlines often impose an unsatisfactory development strategy in which code is produced on an ad hoc basis without proper thought about the requirements and design of the piece of software in mind. The result is a large, often poorly documented and un-modular monolith of code that does not lend itself to formal analysis. Because of their complexity, formal methods work best when code is well structured, e.g., when they are applied at the modeling level. UML is a modeling language that is easily learned by system developers and, more importantly, an industry standard, which supports communication between the various project stakeholders. The increased popularity of UML provides a real opportunity for formal methods to be used on a daily basis within the software lifecycle. Unfortunately, the lack of precision of UML means that many formal techniques cannot be applied directly. If formal methods are to be given the place they deserve within UML, a more precise description of UML must be developed. This chapter surveys recent attempts to provide such a description, as well as techniques for analyzing UML models formally.

scholarly journals Monitoring and Testing Based on Multi-Level Program Specifications

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
Alexander Konstantinovich Petrenko ◽  
Denis Valentinovich Efremov ◽  
Eugeny Valerievich Kornykhin ◽  
Alexey Vladimirovich Khoroshilov ◽  
Ilya Viktorovich Shchepetkov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Formal Verification ◽  
Formal Methods ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Iterative Development ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Large Software ◽  
Implementation Level

Research on formal methods of software development and verification focuses on building specifications using incremental and iterative development methodologies. The presence of several levels of specifications simplifies proving of properties, since it is possible to reuse the proofs that were performed for more abstract layers of the model. It is desirable to use the same models that were used for formal verification also in testing of real systems for compliance with the requirements set by these models. In practice, large software systems are described by multi-level models. There was no experience of using such models as the basis for testing and monitoring. The paper discusses various methods for developing multi-level models, new opportunities that can be obtained through a combination of functional specifications and implementation-level refinements, limitations that must be considered during testing and monitoring of real systems for compliance with multi-level models.

Measuring the Progress of a System Development

2012 ◽  
pp. 417-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta (Plaska) Olszewska ◽  
Marina Waldén
Keyword(s):  
Formal Methods ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Formal Specification ◽  
System Development ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
System Construction ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
And Control

For most of the developers and managers, the structure and the behaviour of software systems represented in a graphical manner is more understandable than a formal specification of a system or than plain code. Our previous work combined the intuitiveness of UML with the development rigour brought by formal methods and created progress diagrams. In progress diagrams, the design decisions within a system refinement chain are assisted by the application of patterns and illustrated in a comprehensible and compact manner. In order to rigorously assess and control the design process, we need to thoroughly monitor it. In this chapter we show how the application of generic refinement patterns is reflected in measurements. We establish measures for the evaluation of the design progress of the system, where the progress diagrams are assessed from the size and structural complexity perspective. Our motivation is to support the system developers and managers in making the design decisions that regard the system construction.

Formal Methods for Specifying and Analyzing Complex Software Systems

2010 ◽  
pp. 243-264
Author(s):  
Xudong He ◽  
Huiqun Yu ◽  
Yi Deng
Keyword(s):  
Formal Methods ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Grand Challenge ◽  
Software System ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
System Specification

Software has been a major enabling technology for advancing modern society, and is now an indispensable part of daily life. Because of the increased complexity of these software systems, and their critical societal role, more effective software development and analysis technologies are needed. How to develop and ensure the dependability of these complex software systems is a grand challenge. It is well known that a highly dependable complex software system cannot be developed without a rigorous development process and a precise specification and design documentation. Formal methods are one of the most promising technologies for precisely specifying, modeling, and analyzing complex software systems. Although past research experience and practice in computer science have convincingly shown that it is not possible to formally verify program behavior and properties at the program source code level due to its extreme huge size and complexity, recently advances in applying formal methods during software specification and design, especially at software architecture level, have demonstrated significant benefits of using formal methods. In this chapter, we will review several well-known formal methods for software system specification and analysis. We will present recent advances of using these formal methods for specifying, modeling, and analyzing software architectural design.

Validation and Verification of Software Systems Using Virtual Reality and Coloured Petri Nets

2007 ◽  
pp. 28-54
Author(s):  
Hyggo Almeida ◽  
Leandro Silva ◽  
Glauber Ferreira ◽  
Emerson Loureiro ◽  
Angelo Perkusich
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Embedded System ◽  
Petri Nets ◽  
Formal Methods ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Coloured Petri Nets ◽  
Validation And Verification ◽  
Verification Techniques

Validation and verification techniques have been identified as suitable mechanisms to determine if the software meets the needs of the user and to verify if the software works correctly. However, the existing verification techniques do not support friendly visualization. Also, validation techniques with friendly visualization mechanisms do not allow the verification of the system’s correctness. In this chapter, we present a method for the validation and verification of software systems through the integration of formal methods and virtual reality. Furthermore, a software tool associated with such a method is also described along with an embedded system case study.

Novel Developments in Formal Methods for Human Factors Engineering

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 715-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew L. Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Human Factors ◽  
Formal Methods ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Computer Hardware ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Human Factors Engineering ◽  
Safe Operation ◽  
Analysis And Design ◽  
Tools And Techniques

Formal methods are robust tools and techniques for modeling, specifying, and mathematically proving properties about (verifying) systems. They are particularly good at both finding unexpected problems that arise from complex system interactions and proving that specific types of problems will never manifest. Formal methods have predominantly been used in the analysis and design of computer hardware and software systems. However, a growing research area within the human factors engineering community has been examining how formal methods can be used to prove whether problems exist in systems that rely on human-automation and human-human interaction for their safe operation. This symposium contains four papers by researchers who have been pushing the boundaries of where and how formal methods can be used in human factors engineering.

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