Formal methods are mathematically-based techniques, often supported by reasoning tools, that can offer a rigorous and effective way to model, design and analyze computer systems. The purpose of this study is to evaluate international industrial experience in using formal methods. The cases selected are representative of industrial-grade projects and span a variety of application domains. The study had three main objectives: · To better inform deliberations within industry and government on standards and regulations; · To provide an authoritative record on the practical experience of formal methods to date; and À To suggest areas where future research and technology development are needed. This study was undertaken by three experts in formal methods and software engineering: Dan Craigen of ORA Canada, Susan Gerhart of Applied Formal Methods, and Ted Ralston of Ralston Research Associates. Robin Bloomfield of Adelard was involved with the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station Shutdown System case. Support for this study was provided by organizations in Canada and the United States. The Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada (AECB) provided support for Dan Craigen and for the technical editing provided by Karen Summerskill. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratories (NRL), Washington, DC, provided support for all three authors. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provided support for Ted Ralston.

Today, formal methods are widely recognized as an essential step in the design process of industrial safety-critical systems. In its more general definition, the term formal methods encompasses all notations having a precise mathematical semantics, together with their associated analysis methods, that allow description and reasoning about the behavior of a system in a formal manner. Growing out of more than a decade of award-winning collaborative work within the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems: A Survey of Applications presents a number of mainstream formal methods currently used for designing industrial critical systems, with a focus on model checking. The purpose of the book is threefold: to reduce the effort required to learn formal methods, which has been a major drawback for their industrial dissemination; to help designers to adopt the formal methods which are most appropriate for their systems; and to offer a panel of state-of-the-art techniques and tools for analyzing critical systems.

Formal methods are mathematically based techniques, often supported by reasoning tools, that can offer a rigorous and effective way to model, design, and analyze computer systems. The purpose of this study is to evaluate international industrial experience in using formal methods. The cases selected are, we believe, representative of industrial-grade projects and span a variety of application domains. The study had three main objectives: (1) to better inform deliberations within industry and government on standards and regulations; (2) to provide an authoritative record on the practical experience of formal methods to date; and (3) to suggest areas where future research and technology development are needed. This is the second volume of a two volume final report on an international survey of industrial applications of formal methods. In this volume, we provide the details of the 12 case studies. For each of the case studies, we present a case description, summarize the information obtained (from interviews and the literature), provide an evaluation of the case, highlight R & D issues pertaining to formal methods and provide some conclusions. Formal methods, Reasoning tools, System design, Computer systems, Formal specification, Design.

Formal methods are mathematically based techniques, often supported by reasoning tools, that can offer a rigorous and effective way to model, design, and analyze computer systems. The purpose of this study is to evaluate international industrial experience in using formal methods. The cases selected are believed to be representative of industrial grade projects and span a variety of application domains. This volume, the first of a two-volume final report, includes a discussion on formal methods and a brief characterization of the formal and related methods used in the cases. It also contains a summary of the twelve cases, a description of the methodology used in the international survey of experience with formal methods, a cluster-by-cluster analysis of the data, a discussion of the key events and timing associated with each case, and an analysis of the formal methods research and development summary.

Formal methods are mathematically based techniques, often supported by reasoning tools, that can offer a rigorous and effective way to model, design, and analyze computer systems. The purpose of this study is to evaluate international industrial experience in using formal methods. The cases selected are, we believe, representative of industrial-grade projects and span a variety of application domains. The study had three main objectives: to better inform deliberations within industry and government on standards and regulations; to provide an authoritative record on the practical experience of formal methods to date; and to suggest areas where future research and technology development are needed. This is the first volume of a two-volume final report on an international survey of industrial applications of formal methods. This volume describes the study, the formal methods, the cases that were studied, our approach to performing the study, and our analysis, findings, and conclusions. Volume 2 details the 12 case studies. Formal methods, Reasoning tools, System design, Computer systems, Formal specification, Design verification.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th Brazilian Symposium on Formal Methods, SBMF 2012, held in Natal, Brazil, in September 2012; co-located with CBSoft 2012, the Third Brazilian Conference on Software: Theory and Practice. The 14 revised full papers presented together with 2 keynotes were carefully reviewed and selected from 29 submissions. The papers presented cover a broad range of foundational and methodological issues in formal methods for the design and analysis of software and hardware systems as well as applications in various domains.

This extensively revised and updated new edition of Specification of Software Systems builds upon the original focus on software specification with added emphasis on the practice of formal methods for specification and verification activities for different types of software systems and at different stages of developing software systems. Topics and features: provides a wide coverage of formal specification techniques and a clear writing style, supported by end-of-chapter bibliographic notes for further reading; presents a logical structure, with sections devoted to specification fundamentals, basics of formalism, logic, set theory and relations, property-oriented specification methods, and model-based specification techniques; contains end-of-chapter exercises and numerous case studies, with potential course outlines suggested in the Preface; covers Object-Z, B-Method, and Calculus of Communicating Systems; offers material that can be taught with tool-supported laboratory projects.