Objective
The action aims to provide a more comprehensive account of the application of formal, object-oriented techniques to the whole development cycle of large-scale information systems, with emphasis on cooperative requirements analysis, conceptual modelling, specification, reification (implementation), certification, and reconfiguration. To this end, the action addresses the following research issues: semantic domains for object-oriented systems, languages and logics, coping with concurrency, transactional reification, interfacing, reconfiguration and distribution; modularisation and configuration techniques for specification in-the-large of object-based systems; joint use of several specification logics; default-based, modal specification techniques; compositional reasoning; abduction techniques in verification; object-oriented conceptual modelling; formal description of software development processes.
Several alternative semantic domains (eg hidden sorts, D-oids, sheaves, event automata, Kripke structures) have been investigated, compared and used in establishing the semantics of several languages (eg FOOPS, OBLOG, TROLL); techniques have also been proposed for generating an object domain from any given temporal logic.
Nonmonotonic specification: the usefulness of defaults in system specification was demonstrated; different semantics of defaults within propositional OSL have been proposed by imposing alternative preference relations on object life cycles; a metalogic for reasoning about default theories and an abstraction of instantiation mechanisms for defaults are being investigated.
Conceptual modelling: a comparative study of object oriented methods and conceptual modelling languages was carried out; the formal semantics of OMT is being developed with the context of an integration with TROLL; a method was developed for writing and validating CMSL specifications; certification techniques for OBLOG using OSL have been developed and tested.
Software development process: a formal, object oriented metamodel for an application context centred paradigm was proposed and compared to the traditional project centred paradigm.
Most of the actual work is done within the following subgroups: SG1: semantic domains; SG2: concurrency; SG3: configuration; SG4: defaults and reasoning; SG5: conceptual modelling; and SG6: software development process. Work within each subgroup is carried out via e-m, in individual visits to other sites, and in working meetings held on average twice a year. The work is reflected in joint papers and monographs. Most participants have an active role in at least two subgroups. A general meeting (GM) is held once a year for overall coordination and strategic exchange of ideas, back to back with a workshop (WS) open to people from outside IS-CORE (both academia and industry). During the first year the following working meetings have taken place: SG1 meetings in Lisbon (October 5-6, 1992) and Oxford (March 29-31, 1993); SG3 meeting in Lisbon (November 2-4, 1992); SG4 meetings in London (December 4-5, 1992) and Hannover (June 1-3, 1993); SG5 meeting in Braunschweig (October 18-23, 1992). The GM/WS'93 are scheduled for September 1993 in Hannover.
POTENTIAL
In the short term, exploitation of the results produced by IS-CORE will be possible within several R&D projects on languages and methods for information system design where the participants in IS-CORE are engaged, together with industrial partners. In the medium and long term, a wider impact on software engineering can be expected through more effective use of formal, object-oriented methods and specification languages. Work on deductive capabilities should also have an impact on knowledge engineering.
Fields of science
Topic(s)
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1017 LISBOA
Portugal