While formal methods have promised essential benefits for the software development process, industrial development reality nevertheless relies mainly on informal and especially graphical description techniques. This article argues that formal techniques are indeed useful for practical application if put to indirect use. To demonstrate this approach, two pragmatic graphical description technique...

In this paper, a graphical signature generation tool is proposed for diagnosis and parametric estimation for nonlinear systems. This tool is based on the definition of a two-dimensional graphical signature obtained by using the history of the output measurements on some moving-horizon window. The underlying idea is that if each parametric variation deforms this signature in a different way, the...

Minimalist models have been studied for a broad array of tasks in robotics. In this paper, we consider the taskcompleting power of robots in terms of the sensors and actuators with which the robot is equipped. Our goal is to understand the relative power of different sets of sensors and actuators and to determine which of these sets enable the robot to complete its task. We define robots as col...

The paper is concerned with automatic usability assessment, based on heuristic principles. The objective is to lay the ground, albeit still rather informally, of a program of assessing the usability of an interactive system using formal methods. Further research can then extend this into an algebra of interactive systems.

One fundamental problem in software development is how to verify that the product meets its specifications. Fortunately there exist numerous methods for software verification. This process can often be made more effective by automating it. This thesis includes a survey of common techniques in this area, ranging from formal methods to more practical approaches. It also presents an implementation...

Under classical assumptions on the coefficients of the problem (e.g. η − 1 2divb > 0 a.e. in Ω) the matrix A in (2) is definite positive. We solve problem (2) by means of an Optimized Schwarz Method: such methods have been introduced at the continuous level in [4], and at the discrete level in [5]. We design optimized interface conditions directly at the algebraic level, in order to guarantee r...

Introduction: In brachytherapy, radioactive sources are placed close to the tumor, therefore, small changes in their positions can cause large changes in the dose distribution. This emphasizes the need for computerized treatment planning. The usual method for treatment planning of cervix brachytherapy uses conventional radiographs in the Manchester system. Nowadays, because of their advantages ...

In this paper, the interface crack of two non-homogenous functionally graded materials is studied. Subsequently, with employing the displacement method for fracture of mixed-mode stress intensity factors, the continuous variation of material properties are calculated. In this investigation, the displacements are derived with employing of the functional graded material programming and analysis o...