Jingde Cheng

Slicing concurrent programs

This paper extends the notion of slicing, which was originally proposed and studied for sequential programs, to concurrent programs and presents a graph-theoretical approach to slicing concurrent programs. In addition to the usual control and data dependences proposed and studied for sequential programs, the paper introduces three new types of primary program dependences in concurrent programs, named the selection dependence, synchronization dependence, and communication dependence. The paper also propose a new program representation for concurrent programs, named the Process Dependence Net (PDN), which is an arc-classified digraph to explicitly represent the five types of primary program dependences in the programs. As a result, various notions about slicing concurrent programs can be formally defined based on the representation, and the problem of slicing a concurrent program can be simply reduced to a vertex reachability problem in its PDN representation.

A Strong Relevant Logic Model of Epistemic Processes in Schientific Discovery

This paper presents some significant fundamental observations and/or assumptions on scientific discovery processes and their automation, shows why classical mathematical logic, its various classical conservative extensions, and traditional (weak) relevant logics cannot satisfactorily underlie epistemic processes in scientific discovery, and presents a strong relevant logic model of epistemic processes in scientific discovery.

Static slicing of concurrent object-oriented programs

Program slicing has many applications such as program debugging, testing, maintenance, and complexity measurement. This paper concerns the problem of slicing concurrent object-oriented programs that has not been addressed in the literatures until now. To solve this problem, we propose a new program dependence representation named the system dependence net (SDN), which extends previous program dependence representations to represent concurrent object-oriented programs. An SDN of a concurrent object-oriented program consists of a collection of procedure dependence nets each representing a main procedure, a free standing procedure, or a method in a class of the program, and some additional arcs to represent direct dependences between a call and the called procedure/method and transitive interprocedural data dependences. We construct the SDN to represent not only object-oriented features but also concurrency issues in a concurrent object-oriented program. Once a concurrent object-oriented program is represented by its SDN, the slices of the program can be computed based on the SDN as a simple vertex reachability problem in the net.

A general framework for debugging

The state of the art of debugging is examined. A debugged process model that serves as the basis of a general debugging framework is described. The relationship of the model to traditional debugging processes and support tools is discussed. A minimal set of requirements for a general debugging framework is described in terms of both the theory behind debugging methodologies and the support tools. An execution monitor, Eden, that serves as a debugging tool within this general framework is described.<<ETX>>

Dependence analysis of parallel and distributed programs and its applications

This paper surveys the program dependence analysis technique for parallel and/or distributed programs and its applications from the viewpoint of software engineering. We present primary program dependences which may exist in a parallel and/or distributed program, a general approach to define, analyze, and represent these program dependences formally, and applications of an explicit program dependence based representation for parallel and/or distributed programs in various software engineering activities. We also suggest some research problems an this direction.

EnCal: An Automated Forward Deduction System for General-Purpose Entailment Calculus

This paper presents the fundamental design ideas, working principles, and implementation of an automated forward deduction system for general-purpose entailment calculus, named EnCal, shows its potential applications in knowledge acquisition, reasoning rule generation, and theorem finding, reports some current results of our experiments with EnCal, and suggests some important research problems.

Connecting components with soft system buses: a new methodology for design, development, and maintenance of reconfigurable, ubiquitous, and persistent reactive systems

From the viewpoints of ubiquitous computing and component-based software engineering, this paper proposes a new methodology for design, development, and maintenance of reconfigurable, ubiquitous, and persistent reactive systems: using soft system buses to connect all components of a reactive system such that no direct interaction is allowed between any two components. Following this methodology, system designers and developers can build persistently reactive systems such that they can be easily maintained, upgraded, and reconfigurated during continuous running by replacing an old or problematic component with a newer or sounder one, removing some useless components, and adding some new components for satisfying new requirements.

Formal verification of security specifications with common criteria

This paper proposes a formalization and verification technique for security specifications, based on common criteria. Generally, it is difficult to define reliable security properties that should be applied to validate an information system. Therefore, we have applied security functional requirements that are defined in the ISO/IEC 15408 common criteria to the formal verification of security specifications. We formalized the security criteria of ISO/IEC 15408 and developed a process, using Z notation, for verifying security specifications. We also demonstrate some examples of the verification instances using the theorem prover Z/EVES. In the verification process, one can verify strictly whether specifications satisfy the security criteria defined in ISO/IEC 15408.

Process dependence net of distributed programs and its applications in development of distributed systems

In addition to the usual control and data dependences proposed and studied for sequential and centralized programs, this paper introduces three new types of primary program dependences in concurrent and distributed programs, named the selection dependence, synchronization dependence, and communication dependence, and a new program representation for concurrent and distributed programs, named the process dependence net (PDN), which is an arc-classified digraph to explicitly represent the five types of primary program dependences in the programs. The paper also shows some applications of the representation.<<ETX>>

Comparing Persistent Computing with Autonomic Computing

This paper presents a comparative study to examine the relationship between autonomic computing and persistent computing from the various aspects including motivation problems, ideas, purposes, goals, underlying principles, design methodologies, and architectures