Formal Specification-Based Testing with Buchi-Automata

CS Colloquium

Date: Tuesday 3/27/2012
Time: 3:30-4:20pm
Location: Room EP 122

The speaker this week is Li Tan, WSU
The talk is titled: Formal Specification-Based Testing with Buchi-Automata

Abstract:
Buchi automata have been widely used for specifying linear temporal properties of reactive systems and they are also instrumental for designing efficient model-checking algorithms. In this talk I will present our work that extends specification-based testing to Buchi automata. A key question in specification-based testing is how to measure the quality (relevancy) of test cases with respect to system specification. I will discuss two state coverage metrics for measuring how well a test suite covers a Buchi-automaton-based requirement. Compared with previous work on specification-based testing with temporal logics which are based on the syntactical structure of a temporal logic specification, our new approach emphasizes on testing the semantics relevancy of the specification with respect to the system under test. The new approach improves the effectiveness of specification-based testing with temporal logics, as demonstrated by our experimental results. I will also discuss a model-checking-assisted test generation algorithm that improves the efficiency of test generation.

A Hybrid Model for Very High-Level Threads

CS Colloquium

Date: Tuesday 3/20/2012
Time: 3:30-4:20pm
Location: Room EP 122

The speaker this week is Jafar Al-Gharaibeh
The talk is titled: A Hybrid Model for Very High-Level Threads

Abstract:
Languages with multiple paradigms or other special-purpose features often are implemented in ways that make true concurrency difficult in the virtual machine or runtime system. Several popular languages feature a global interpreter lock that limits them to pseudo-concurrency. This talk presents lessons learned in developing true concurrency for a goal-directed, object-oriented language called Unicon. Parts of the work were anticipated, such as switching to thread-safe C library functions, while other parts were a surprise, such as eliminating race conditions in self-modifying virtual machine instructions.

Evolutionary Computation and Biology

CS Colloquium, March 6, 2012

Where: EP 122

When: March 6, 3:30 - 4:20 PM

Speaker: Dr. Robert Heckendorn

Title: How Can Problem Structure Analysis from Evolutionary Computation be Applied to Biological Problems?

Abstract: In Biology, understanding the interaction of genes with other genes and their environment is critical to understanding how organisms function and evolve. In Computer Science, understanding the "structure" of a problem representation is critical to understanding how to effectively solve an optimization problem using evolutionary computation. While these two problems are very similar, there are some severe practical differences in these two fields. In this talk I will discuss my effort to adapt the analysis techniques found Evolutionary Computation to the needs of biologists. I will discuss some specific algorithms under development in collaboration with researchers at BEACON Center for Evolution in Action at Michigan State and give some examples from real biological problems. (BEACON is an NSF Center for the study of Evolution in Action).