Silvia Bonfanti

Asm2C++: A tool for code generation from abstract state machines to Arduino

This paper presents Asm2C++, a tool that automatically generates executable C++ code for Arduino from a formal specification given as Abstract State Machines (ASMs). The code generation process follows the model-driven engineering approach, where the code is obtained from a formal abstract model by applying certain transformation rules. The translation process is highly configurable in order to correctly integrate the underlying hardware. The advantage of the Asm2C++ tool is that it is part of the Asmeta framework that allows to analyze, verify, and validate the correctness of a formal model.

A Low-cost Virtual Reality Game for Amblyopia Rehabilitation

The paper presents the design and development of a mobile application realizing a video game that aims at treating amblyopia by using a Google Cardboard. Google Cardboard is a low cost device able to reproduce virtual reality by means of a smartphone. The proposed video game engaged the patient in a car racing game and it displays the same image to the eyes, but with some differences that stimulate the lazy eye more than the normal eye.

Visual Notation and Patterns for Abstract State Machines

Formal models are a rigorous way to specify informal system requirements. However, they are not widely used in practice, since they are considered difficult to develop and understand. Visualization is often considered a good means for people to communicate and to get a common understanding. We here make a proposal of a visual notation for Abstract State Machines (ASMs), and we introduce visual trees that visualize ASM transition rules. In addition to these graphical components that are based only on the syntactical structure of the model, we also present visual patterns that permit to visualize part of the behavior of the machine. A tool is also available to graphically represent ASM models using the proposed notation.

How to Assure Correctness and Safety of Medical Software: The Hemodialysis Machine Case Study

Medical devices are nowadays more and more software dependent, and software malfunctioning can lead to injuries or death for patients. Several standards have been proposed for the development and the validation of medical devices, but they establish general guidelines on the use of common software engineering activities without any indication regarding methods and techniques to assure safety and reliability. This paper takes advantage of the Hemodialysis machine case study to present a formal development process supporting most of the engineering activities required by the standards, and provides rigorous approaches for system validation and verification. The process is based on the Abstract State Machine formal method and its model refinement principle.

Integrating formal methods into medical software development: The ASM approach

Abstract Medical devices are safety-critical systems since their malfunctions can seriously compromise human safety. Correct operation of a medical device depends upon the controlling software, whose development should adhere to certification standards. However, these standards provide general descriptions of common software engineering activities without any indication regarding particular methods and techniques to assure safety and reliability. This paper discusses how to integrate the use of a formal approach into the current normative for the medical software development. The rigorous process is based on the Abstract State Machine (ASM) formal method, its refinement principle, and model analysis approaches the method supports. The hemodialysis machine case study is used to show how the ASM-based design process covers most of the engineering activities required by the related standards, and provides rigorous approaches for medical software validation and verification.

A Mobile Application for the Stereoacuity Test

The research paper concerns the development of a new mobile application emulating measurements of stereoacuity using Google Cardboard. Stereoacuity test is based on binocular vision that is the skill of human beings and most animals to recreate depth sense in visual scene. Google Cardboard is a very low cost device permitting to recreate depth sense of images showed on the screen of a smartphone. Proposed solution exploits Google Cardboard to recreate and manage depth sense through our mobile application that has been developed for Android devices. First, we describe the research context as well as the aim of our research project. Then, we introduce the concept of stereopsis and technology used for emulating stereoacuity test. Finally, we portray preliminary tests made so far and achieved results are discussed.

Unified Syntax for Abstract State Machines

The paper presents our efforts in defining UASM, a unified syntax for Abstract State Machines ASMs, based on the syntaxes of two of the main ASM frameworks, CoreASM and ASMETA, which have been adapted to accept UASM as input syntax of all their validation and verification tools.

A systematic literature review of the use of formal methods in medical software systems.

The use of formal methods is often recommended to guarantee the provision of necessary services and to assess the correctness of critical properties, such as functional safety, cybersecurity, and reliability, in medical and health care devices. In the past, several formal and rigorous methods have been proposed and consequently applied for trustworthy development of medical software and systems. In this paper, we perform a systematic literature review on the available state of the art in this domain. We collect the relevant literature on the use of formal methods for modeling, design, development, verification, and validation of software‐intensive medical systems. We apply standard systematic literature review techniques and run several queries in well‐known repositories to obtain information that can be useful for people who are either already working in this field or planning to start. Our study covers both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the subject.

Generation of Behavior-Driven Development C++ Tests from Abstract State Machine Scenarios

In this paper, we present the AsmetaVBDD tool that automatically translates the scenarios written in the AValLa language (used by the asmeta validator (AsmetaV)) into Behavior-Driven Development scenarios for C++.

Validation of Transformation from Abstract State Machine Models to C++ Code

The automatic transformation of models to code is one of the most important cornerstones in the model-driven engineering paradigm. Starting from system models, users are able to automatically generate machine code in a seamless manner with an assurance of potential bug freeness of the generated code. Asm2C++ [4] is the tool that transforms Abstract State Machine models to Open image in new window code. However, no validation activities have been performed in the past to guarantee the correctness of the transformation process. In this paper, we define a mechanism to test the correctness of the model-to-code transformation with respect to two main criteria: syntactical correctness and semantic correctness, which is based on the definition of conformance between the specification and the code. Using this approach, we have devised a process able to test the generated code by reusing unit tests. Coverage measures give a user the confidence that the generated code has the same behavior as specified by the ASM model.