Specifications in an arbitrary institution

Specifications in an Arbitrary Institution

A formalism for constructing and using axiomatic specifications in an arbitrary logical system is presented. This builds on the framework provided by Goguen and Burstall’s work on the notion of an institution as a formalisation of the concept of a logical system for writing specifications. We show how to introduce free variables into the sentences of an arbitrary institution and how to add quan...

Building Specifications in an Arbitrary Institution

A set of operat ions for construct ing a lgebra ic specif icat ions in an arbi t rary logical system is presented. This builds on the f ramework provided by Goguen and Burstal l 's work on the not ion of an inst i tut ion as a formal isat ion of the concept of a logical system for wri t ing specif icat ions. We show how to introduce free variables into the sentences of an arbi t rary institutio...

Modularity of Ontologies in an Arbitrary Institution

The notion of module extraction has been studied extensively in the ontology community. The idea is to extract, from a large ontology, those axioms that are relevant to certain concepts of interest (formalised as a subsignature). The technical concept used for the definition of module extraction is that of inseparability, which is related to indistinguishability known from observational specifi...

An Institution for Imperative RSL Specifications

Behavioural Semantics of Algebraic Specifications in Arbitrary Logical Systems

Behavioural semantics for specifications plays a crucial role in the formalization of the developments process, where a specification need not to be implemented exactly but only so that the required system behaviour is achieved. There are two main approaches to the definition of behavioural semantics: the internal one (called behavioural semantics) and external one (called abstractor semantics)...