Automata, Computability and Complexity: Theory & Applications

Proving Correctness Properties of Programs and Hardware

  1. Deductive verification
    1. Examples of deductive verification
      1. The Z/EVES verification system was used to discover flaws in the design of control software for an observatory. It was also used in the analysis of crytographic protocols (e.g., Bluetooth) for security properties
  2. Model checking
    1. Descriptions of model checking
      1. Cindy Eisner’s tutorial
      2. An introduction to model checking from embedded.com
    2. CTL*
      1. Wikipedia’s entry
    3. Model-checking tools
      1. SPIN
    4. Examples of the use of model checking
      1. IBM’s RuleBase system has been used to verify general-purpose processors as well as special-purpose ones such as game processors.
      2. Formal Analysis of a Space-Craft Controller Using SPIN
    5. Ordered binary decision trees

State Transition Diagrams

  1. Statecharts
    1. Statecharts: A Visual Formalism for Complex Systems by David Harel
    2. Statecharts in Flash MX for Interactive Simulation
    3. Constructing the User Interface with Statecharts
  2. UML
    1. OMG’s UML Resource page
  3. Other statechart-based systems
    1. An Introduction to SCXML, a tool for building voice and multimodal interfaces
    2. The SCXML standard

Model-Based Test-Case Generation

  1. Model-based-testing.org

Reverse Engineering

  1. Hierarchical regular expressions
    1. Lightweight Source Model Extraction, Murphy and Notkin
  2. Island grammars
    1. Generating Robust Parsers using Island Grammars, Leon Moonen, 2001, introduces island grammars for analyzing legacy software
    2. Lightweight Impact Analysis using Island Grammars, Leon Moonen, 2002, continues the discussion of the 2001 paper
    3. Robust Multilingual Parsing Using Island Grammars, Synytskyy et al, describes the use of island grammars for parsing multilanguage code on the web
    4. Implementation Strategies for Island Grammars, including a survey of the use of island grammars in assessing legacy software
    5. Building Documentation Generators (using island grammars). Describes the use of their system on a 600,000 line legacy Cobol system.
    6. Deriving Tolerant Grammars from a Baseline Grammar. Describes a use of island grammars.

Normal Forms for Relational Databases

The Patent Office: Checking Prior Art