This article deals with the problem of dynamic role-playing in Multi-Agent organisations. The approach presented uses a formal specification notation and is based upon a formal framework which defines the concepts of role, interaction and organisation. Within this framework the problem of dynamic role-playing specification is related to the merging of specifications. The formal notation used co...

In this paper we compare the formal specification languages Z and Abstract Machine Notation (AMN); the latter of which is due to Abrial. The strategy adopted is that of presenting the same specification both in Z and AMN and of commenting on salient differences as they arise. The specification chosen is a slightly revised version of the specification of an Internal Telephone Number Database fou...

This paper describes, in outline, our experiences in structuring and presenting formal requirements specifications, and in particular the insights gained from an action research study undertaken within the Western Australian state government. The overall aim of the project was to evaluate and enhance an information systems development method, known as FOOM (Formal Object Oriented Method). FOOM ...

Many researches to testing object-oriented programs (OOPs) have been proposed for the past decade. However, most of these researches have centered only around the class-level testing instead of the whole profiles of OOP development. This paper presents a framework to test OOPs from em formal specification to em test data generation. The formal specification of object-oriented program is specifi...

Algebraic automata is getting much importance in theoretical computer science because of its various applications, for example, in optimization of programs, verification of protocols, cryptography and modeling biological phenomena. Design of a complex system not only requires functionality but it also needs to capture its control behaviour. This paper is a part of our ongoing research on integr...

This paper introduces the idea of continuous time into COOZ, an object-oriented extension of Z notation, through establishing absolute clock and object clock. Then we use Duration Calculus to specify the real-time and history constraints of objects. By these means, COOZ is adapted to formal specifications of real-time and concurrent systems. A case study of automatic fire alarm system and the c...

There is growing interest in animating formal specifications for the purpose of better understanding the requirements and for validating the specification. Formal specifications in a non-executable language offer challenges for animation systems, for example, dealing effectively with infinite data sets, sensibly animating functions which are not computable and determining a sensible set of inpu...

Formal methods such as Z and Petri nets can be used to specify invariants that should hold during the execution of component-based applications such as those regarding changes in the architecture of the application and valid sequences of architecture reconfigurations. Integrating logic for checking and enforcing these invariants into the application’s implementation is generally done by adding ...

This paper focuses on the use of ISO Standard Z and CADiZ in the formal validation of Stateflow models against requirements-oriented assumptions. It documents some of what the Simulink/Stateflow Analyser tool does in support of the Practical Formal Specification method. The tool aims to automate the formal validations of the method, so that users of Simulink/Stateflow can benefit from them. The...

Current World Wide Web means to display pages to end user, while the Semantic Web is a vision of a next-generation network focuses on "Meaning" instead of merely pasting arbitrary text on a page. An intelligent software agents use information to organize and filter data to meet the user's needs. DAML+OIL and Web Ontology Language OWL are the current environments to create Ontology over RDF and ...