Specification language is used to provide enough information for the model of the cryptographic protocol. This paper first extends strand space model to dynamic strand model, and then a formal specification language f...Specification language is used to provide enough information for the model of the cryptographic protocol. This paper first extends strand space model to dynamic strand model, and then a formal specification language for this model is defined by using BNF grammar. Compared with those in literatures, it is simpler because of only concerning the algebraic properties of cryptographic protocols.展开更多
Specifying software requirements is an important, complicated and error prone task. It involves the collaboration of several people specifying requirements that are gathered through several stakeholders. During this p...Specifying software requirements is an important, complicated and error prone task. It involves the collaboration of several people specifying requirements that are gathered through several stakeholders. During this process, developers working in parallel introduce and make modifications to requirements until reaching a specification that satisfies the stakeholders’ requirements. Merge conflicts are inevitable when integrating the modifications made by different developers to a shared specification. Thus, detecting and resolving these conflicts is critical to ensure a consistent resulting specification. A conflicts detection approach for merging Object-Oriented formal specifications is proposed in this paper. Conflicts are classified, formally defined and detected based on the results of a proposed differencing algorithm. The proposed approach has been empirically evaluated, and the experimental results are discussed in this paper.展开更多
UML Diagrams are considered as a main component in requirement engineering process and these become an industry standard in many organizations. UML diagrams are useful to show an interaction, behavior and structure of...UML Diagrams are considered as a main component in requirement engineering process and these become an industry standard in many organizations. UML diagrams are useful to show an interaction, behavior and structure of the system. Similarly, in requirement engineering, formal specification methods are also being used in crucial systems where precise information is required. It is necessary to integrate System Models with such formal methods to overcome the requirements errors i.e. contradiction, ambiguities, vagueness, incompleteness and mixed values of abstraction. Our objective is to integrate the Formal Specification Language (Z) with UML Sequence diagram, as sequence diagram is an interaction diagram which shows the interaction and proper sequence of components (Methods, procedures etc.) of the system. In this paper, we focus on components of UML Sequence diagram and then implement these components in formal specification language Z. And the results of this research papers are complete integrated components of Sequence diagram with Z schemas, which are verified by using tools and model based testing technique of Formal Specifications. Results can be more improved by integrating remaining components of Sequence and other UML diagrams into Formal Specification Language.展开更多
The FIPA specification of MAS (multi agent system)is accepted by most of the applications of MAS in the world, and has been used in many projects. This paper draws an Abstract architecture from the FIPA based MAS, and...The FIPA specification of MAS (multi agent system)is accepted by most of the applications of MAS in the world, and has been used in many projects. This paper draws an Abstract architecture from the FIPA based MAS, and gives formalization about it.展开更多
The lack of existing solutions makes it really hard to understand formal specification languages since the application domain for representations is useful for the purpose of carrying out certain software engineering ...The lack of existing solutions makes it really hard to understand formal specification languages since the application domain for representations is useful for the purpose of carrying out certain software engineering operations such as slicing and the computation of program metrics.A Z specification dependence graph is presented in this letter. It draws on the strengths of a range of earlier works and adapts them, if necessary, to the Z language.展开更多
Various extensions of UML have been developed to meet the challenges of designing modern software systems, such as agent based electronic commerce applications. Recent advances in model checking technology have led i...Various extensions of UML have been developed to meet the challenges of designing modern software systems, such as agent based electronic commerce applications. Recent advances in model checking technology have led it to be introduced into the development of approaches and tools to check the correctness of electronic commerce protocols. This paper focuses on the research of a method that connects an extension of AUML to model checker SPIN/Promela for the specification and verification of agent interaction protocols (AIP) in electronic commerce. The method presented here allows us to combine the benefits of visual specification with the power of some static analysis and model checking. Some algorithms and rules are developed to permit all visual modeling constructs translated mechanically into some Promela models of AIP, as supported by the model checker SPIN. Moreover, a process is illustrated to guide the specification and verification of AIP. The method is demonstrated thoroughly using the e commerce protocol NetBill as an example.展开更多
The past decade witnessed rapid development of constraint satisfaction technologies, where algorithms are now able to cope with larger and harder problems. However, owing to the fact that constraints are inherently de...The past decade witnessed rapid development of constraint satisfaction technologies, where algorithms are now able to cope with larger and harder problems. However, owing to the fact that constraints are inherently declarative, attention is quickly turning toward developing high-level programming languages within which such problems can be modeled and also solved. Along these lines, this paper presents DEPICT, the language. Its use is illustrated through modeling a number of benchmark examples. The paper continues with a description of a prototype system within which such models may be interpreted. The paper concludes with a description of a sample run of this interpreter showing how a problem modeled as such is typically solved.展开更多
Formal methods can be used at any stage of product development process to improve the software quality and efficiency using mathematical models for analysis and verification. From last decade, researchers and practiti...Formal methods can be used at any stage of product development process to improve the software quality and efficiency using mathematical models for analysis and verification. From last decade, researchers and practitioners are trying to establish successful transfer of practices of formal methods into industrial process development. In the last couple of years, numerous analysis approaches and formal methods have been applied in different settings to improve software quality. In today’s highly competitive software development industry, companies are striving to deliver fast with low cost and improve quality solutions and agile methodologies have proved their efficiency in acquiring these. Here, we will present an integration of formal methods, specifications and verification practices in the most renowned process development methodology of agile i.e. extreme programming with a conceptual solution. That leads towards the development of a complete formalized XP process in future. This will help the practitioners to understand the effectiveness of formal methods using in agile methods that can be helpful in utilizing the benefits of formal methods in industry.展开更多
This paper presents an approach for extending the constraint model defined for conformity testing of a given method of class to its overriding method in subclass using inheritance principle. The first objective of the...This paper presents an approach for extending the constraint model defined for conformity testing of a given method of class to its overriding method in subclass using inheritance principle. The first objective of the proposed work is to find the relationship between the test model of an overriding method and its overridden method using the constraint propagation. In this context the approach shows that the test cases developed for testing an original method can be used for testing its overriding method in a subclass and then the number of test cases can be reduced considerably. The second objective is the use of invalid data which do not satisfy the precondition constraint and induce valid output values for introducing a new concept of test called secure testing. The implementation of this approach is based on a random generation of test data and analysis by formal proof.展开更多
Data integration requires managing heterogeneous schema information. A federated database system integrates heterogeneous, autonomous database systems on the schema level, whereby both local applications and global ap...Data integration requires managing heterogeneous schema information. A federated database system integrates heterogeneous, autonomous database systems on the schema level, whereby both local applications and global applications accessing multiple component database systems are supported. Such a federated database system is a complex system of systems which requires a well-designed organization at the system and software architecture level. A specific challenge that federated database systems face is the organization of schemas into a schema architecture. This paper provides a detailed, formal investigation of variability in the family of schema architectures, which are central components in the architecture of federated database systems. It is shown how the variability of specific architectures can be compared to the reference architecture and to each other. To achieve this, we combine the semi-formal object-oriented modeling language UML with the formal object-oriented specification language Object-Z. Appropriate use of inheritance in the formal specification, as enabled by Object-Z, greatly supports specifying and analyzing the variability among the studied schema architectures. The investigation also serves to illustrate the employed specification techniques for analyzing and comparing software architecture specifications.展开更多
Abstract Separation kernels are fundamental software of safety and security-critical systems, which provide their hosted applications with spatial and temporal separation as well as controlled information flows among ...Abstract Separation kernels are fundamental software of safety and security-critical systems, which provide their hosted applications with spatial and temporal separation as well as controlled information flows among partitions. The application of separation kernels in critical domain demands the correctness of the kernel by formal verification. To the best of our knowledge, there is no survey paper on this topic. This paper presents an overview of formal specification and verification of separation kernels. We first present the back- ground including the concept of separation kernel and the comparisons among different kernels. Then, we survey the state of the art on this topic since 2000. Finally, we summa- rize research work by detailed comparison and discussion.展开更多
There is a growing tendency for people in the community of object-oriented methods to use preand post-conditions to write formal specifications for opera- tions （methods） of classes. The motivation for trying to tak...There is a growing tendency for people in the community of object-oriented methods to use preand post-conditions to write formal specifications for opera- tions （methods） of classes. The motivation for trying to take advantage of well established formalism in precisely defining the functionality of operations is laudable, but unfortunately this exercise may be flawed because the use of pre- and post-conditions containing method calls （or similar） with side effects are likely to cause confusion in the interpretation of specifications. This paper analyzes, with comprehensible examples, why using pre-post notation is not effective to specify operations in objectoriented systems in general, discusses existing approaches to using pre-post notation for object-oriented systems, and offers some solutions to the problem.展开更多
文摘Specification language is used to provide enough information for the model of the cryptographic protocol. This paper first extends strand space model to dynamic strand model, and then a formal specification language for this model is defined by using BNF grammar. Compared with those in literatures, it is simpler because of only concerning the algebraic properties of cryptographic protocols.
文摘Specifying software requirements is an important, complicated and error prone task. It involves the collaboration of several people specifying requirements that are gathered through several stakeholders. During this process, developers working in parallel introduce and make modifications to requirements until reaching a specification that satisfies the stakeholders’ requirements. Merge conflicts are inevitable when integrating the modifications made by different developers to a shared specification. Thus, detecting and resolving these conflicts is critical to ensure a consistent resulting specification. A conflicts detection approach for merging Object-Oriented formal specifications is proposed in this paper. Conflicts are classified, formally defined and detected based on the results of a proposed differencing algorithm. The proposed approach has been empirically evaluated, and the experimental results are discussed in this paper.
文摘UML Diagrams are considered as a main component in requirement engineering process and these become an industry standard in many organizations. UML diagrams are useful to show an interaction, behavior and structure of the system. Similarly, in requirement engineering, formal specification methods are also being used in crucial systems where precise information is required. It is necessary to integrate System Models with such formal methods to overcome the requirements errors i.e. contradiction, ambiguities, vagueness, incompleteness and mixed values of abstraction. Our objective is to integrate the Formal Specification Language (Z) with UML Sequence diagram, as sequence diagram is an interaction diagram which shows the interaction and proper sequence of components (Methods, procedures etc.) of the system. In this paper, we focus on components of UML Sequence diagram and then implement these components in formal specification language Z. And the results of this research papers are complete integrated components of Sequence diagram with Z schemas, which are verified by using tools and model based testing technique of Formal Specifications. Results can be more improved by integrating remaining components of Sequence and other UML diagrams into Formal Specification Language.
文摘The FIPA specification of MAS (multi agent system)is accepted by most of the applications of MAS in the world, and has been used in many projects. This paper draws an Abstract architecture from the FIPA based MAS, and gives formalization about it.
文摘The lack of existing solutions makes it really hard to understand formal specification languages since the application domain for representations is useful for the purpose of carrying out certain software engineering operations such as slicing and the computation of program metrics.A Z specification dependence graph is presented in this letter. It draws on the strengths of a range of earlier works and adapts them, if necessary, to the Z language.
基金Supported by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong(DAG99/0 0 .EG0 5 ) the Sino-French Advanced ResearchProgram 2 0 0 0 (PR
文摘Various extensions of UML have been developed to meet the challenges of designing modern software systems, such as agent based electronic commerce applications. Recent advances in model checking technology have led it to be introduced into the development of approaches and tools to check the correctness of electronic commerce protocols. This paper focuses on the research of a method that connects an extension of AUML to model checker SPIN/Promela for the specification and verification of agent interaction protocols (AIP) in electronic commerce. The method presented here allows us to combine the benefits of visual specification with the power of some static analysis and model checking. Some algorithms and rules are developed to permit all visual modeling constructs translated mechanically into some Promela models of AIP, as supported by the model checker SPIN. Moreover, a process is illustrated to guide the specification and verification of AIP. The method is demonstrated thoroughly using the e commerce protocol NetBill as an example.
基金This work was supported by Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research.
文摘The past decade witnessed rapid development of constraint satisfaction technologies, where algorithms are now able to cope with larger and harder problems. However, owing to the fact that constraints are inherently declarative, attention is quickly turning toward developing high-level programming languages within which such problems can be modeled and also solved. Along these lines, this paper presents DEPICT, the language. Its use is illustrated through modeling a number of benchmark examples. The paper continues with a description of a prototype system within which such models may be interpreted. The paper concludes with a description of a sample run of this interpreter showing how a problem modeled as such is typically solved.
文摘Formal methods can be used at any stage of product development process to improve the software quality and efficiency using mathematical models for analysis and verification. From last decade, researchers and practitioners are trying to establish successful transfer of practices of formal methods into industrial process development. In the last couple of years, numerous analysis approaches and formal methods have been applied in different settings to improve software quality. In today’s highly competitive software development industry, companies are striving to deliver fast with low cost and improve quality solutions and agile methodologies have proved their efficiency in acquiring these. Here, we will present an integration of formal methods, specifications and verification practices in the most renowned process development methodology of agile i.e. extreme programming with a conceptual solution. That leads towards the development of a complete formalized XP process in future. This will help the practitioners to understand the effectiveness of formal methods using in agile methods that can be helpful in utilizing the benefits of formal methods in industry.
文摘This paper presents an approach for extending the constraint model defined for conformity testing of a given method of class to its overriding method in subclass using inheritance principle. The first objective of the proposed work is to find the relationship between the test model of an overriding method and its overridden method using the constraint propagation. In this context the approach shows that the test cases developed for testing an original method can be used for testing its overriding method in a subclass and then the number of test cases can be reduced considerably. The second objective is the use of invalid data which do not satisfy the precondition constraint and induce valid output values for introducing a new concept of test called secure testing. The implementation of this approach is based on a random generation of test data and analysis by formal proof.
文摘Data integration requires managing heterogeneous schema information. A federated database system integrates heterogeneous, autonomous database systems on the schema level, whereby both local applications and global applications accessing multiple component database systems are supported. Such a federated database system is a complex system of systems which requires a well-designed organization at the system and software architecture level. A specific challenge that federated database systems face is the organization of schemas into a schema architecture. This paper provides a detailed, formal investigation of variability in the family of schema architectures, which are central components in the architecture of federated database systems. It is shown how the variability of specific architectures can be compared to the reference architecture and to each other. To achieve this, we combine the semi-formal object-oriented modeling language UML with the formal object-oriented specification language Object-Z. Appropriate use of inheritance in the formal specification, as enabled by Object-Z, greatly supports specifying and analyzing the variability among the studied schema architectures. The investigation also serves to illustrate the employed specification techniques for analyzing and comparing software architecture specifications.
文摘Abstract Separation kernels are fundamental software of safety and security-critical systems, which provide their hosted applications with spatial and temporal separation as well as controlled information flows among partitions. The application of separation kernels in critical domain demands the correctness of the kernel by formal verification. To the best of our knowledge, there is no survey paper on this topic. This paper presents an overview of formal specification and verification of separation kernels. We first present the back- ground including the concept of separation kernel and the comparisons among different kernels. Then, we survey the state of the art on this topic since 2000. Finally, we summa- rize research work by detailed comparison and discussion.
文摘There is a growing tendency for people in the community of object-oriented methods to use preand post-conditions to write formal specifications for opera- tions （methods） of classes. The motivation for trying to take advantage of well established formalism in precisely defining the functionality of operations is laudable, but unfortunately this exercise may be flawed because the use of pre- and post-conditions containing method calls （or similar） with side effects are likely to cause confusion in the interpretation of specifications. This paper analyzes, with comprehensible examples, why using pre-post notation is not effective to specify operations in objectoriented systems in general, discusses existing approaches to using pre-post notation for object-oriented systems, and offers some solutions to the problem.
