Final Report Summary - MEALS (Mobility between Europe and Argentina applying Logics to Systems)
Inspections, walkthroughs and other reviews aim at ensuring that the results of each step in software development correctly embrace the intentions of the previous step. Testing in the sense of executing the software is only one of multiple techniques used in computer system verification. Systematic computer system verification helps prevent software problems from reaching the production environment.
Researchers working on the 'Mobility between Europe and Argentina applying logics to systems' (MEALS) project propose a mathematical approach to analyse systems at early development stages.
The project is financed by the 7th Framework programme under Marie Curie's International Research Staff Exchange Scheme, and has offered Argentinian and European researchers the possibility to jointly carry out their project by exchanging research visits in this four-years programme. The project started on 1st of October, 2011, and terminated on September 30, 2015. It involved 11 scientific and academic institutions, seven from Europe and four from Argentina, comprising a total of about 100 researchers.
The participating researchers joined their efforts to formulate advanced methods for formal specifications that help with the development and implementation of computer systems and software. These specifications are "formal" in the sense that they are expressed in a language whose vocabulary, syntax and semantics are formally defined. In other words, the specifications language is based on mathematics.
Within this project, mathematics-based tools and techniques were developed to describe any computer system and aid in its design. These include tools to model and analyse different types of systems, including embedded controllers, distributed systems and web services, in order to study key properties related to functional correctness, security issues, performance profiles, fault tolerance, and many other nowadays indispensable features.
Over the past four years, the MEALS project has been the source network for a total of at least 329 peer-reviewed publications in conferences or journals. Five carefully planned MEALS gatherings, workshops and dissemination events gave the project an effective structure for knowledge transfer, community building, and result dissemination, aimed at a sustained transcontinental collaboration. These events provided the central opportunities for presenting, discussing, relating and expanding the three foci of the project: specification, verification, and synthesis. The ideas were further developed through a total of 213 transatlantic research visits and intensive and frequent teleconferencing.
The project thereby managed to considerably advance the state-of-the art in five tightly interconnected thematic work packages:
1. Quantitative Analysis of Concurrent Program Behaviour,
2. Reasoning Tasks for Specification and Verification,
3. Security and Information Flow Properties,
4. Synthesis in Model-based Systems Engineering,
5. Foundations for the Elaboration and Analysis of Requirements Specifications,
The crosscutting concern of all these work packages has been the development of formal techniques for the specification, verification and synthesis of dependable ubiquitous computing systems. In this manner, we jointly developed rigorous specification and analysis techniques for both the required system functionality as well as its behavior, encompassing the key aspects related to functional correctness, security issues, performance profiles, fault tolerance.
By verifying these key aspects through rigorous and effective reasoning tools, it is possible to demonstrate that a system design matches the desired specification. The MEALS tools and techniques provide the core means for revealing incorrect designs before any major investment. The ultimate aim is to extend the industrial use of formal verification techniques and significantly improve the quality of software being developed in the near future.
Over the project lifetime the project tied together the partners more and more. Remarkably, the detailed research progress relied to a considerable extent on internet-based electronic teleconferencing. This made it possible to arrive at strong results while using less resources than planned initially. In fact, more and deeper results wrt. several objectives were achieved than initially envisioned. In total more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals, international conferences and workshops were made possible by this Marie Curie's International Research Staff Exchange Scheme
Researchers working on the 'Mobility between Europe and Argentina applying logics to systems' (MEALS) project propose a mathematical approach to analyse systems at early development stages.
The project is financed by the 7th Framework programme under Marie Curie's International Research Staff Exchange Scheme, and has offered Argentinian and European researchers the possibility to jointly carry out their project by exchanging research visits in this four-years programme. The project started on 1st of October, 2011, and terminated on September 30, 2015. It involved 11 scientific and academic institutions, seven from Europe and four from Argentina, comprising a total of about 100 researchers.
The participating researchers joined their efforts to formulate advanced methods for formal specifications that help with the development and implementation of computer systems and software. These specifications are "formal" in the sense that they are expressed in a language whose vocabulary, syntax and semantics are formally defined. In other words, the specifications language is based on mathematics.
Within this project, mathematics-based tools and techniques were developed to describe any computer system and aid in its design. These include tools to model and analyse different types of systems, including embedded controllers, distributed systems and web services, in order to study key properties related to functional correctness, security issues, performance profiles, fault tolerance, and many other nowadays indispensable features.
Over the past four years, the MEALS project has been the source network for a total of at least 329 peer-reviewed publications in conferences or journals. Five carefully planned MEALS gatherings, workshops and dissemination events gave the project an effective structure for knowledge transfer, community building, and result dissemination, aimed at a sustained transcontinental collaboration. These events provided the central opportunities for presenting, discussing, relating and expanding the three foci of the project: specification, verification, and synthesis. The ideas were further developed through a total of 213 transatlantic research visits and intensive and frequent teleconferencing.
The project thereby managed to considerably advance the state-of-the art in five tightly interconnected thematic work packages:
1. Quantitative Analysis of Concurrent Program Behaviour,
2. Reasoning Tasks for Specification and Verification,
3. Security and Information Flow Properties,
4. Synthesis in Model-based Systems Engineering,
5. Foundations for the Elaboration and Analysis of Requirements Specifications,
The crosscutting concern of all these work packages has been the development of formal techniques for the specification, verification and synthesis of dependable ubiquitous computing systems. In this manner, we jointly developed rigorous specification and analysis techniques for both the required system functionality as well as its behavior, encompassing the key aspects related to functional correctness, security issues, performance profiles, fault tolerance.
By verifying these key aspects through rigorous and effective reasoning tools, it is possible to demonstrate that a system design matches the desired specification. The MEALS tools and techniques provide the core means for revealing incorrect designs before any major investment. The ultimate aim is to extend the industrial use of formal verification techniques and significantly improve the quality of software being developed in the near future.
Over the project lifetime the project tied together the partners more and more. Remarkably, the detailed research progress relied to a considerable extent on internet-based electronic teleconferencing. This made it possible to arrive at strong results while using less resources than planned initially. In fact, more and deeper results wrt. several objectives were achieved than initially envisioned. In total more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals, international conferences and workshops were made possible by this Marie Curie's International Research Staff Exchange Scheme