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Changes are inevitable in software due to technology advancements, and changes in business requirements. Making changes in the software by insertion, deletion or modification of new code may lead to malfunctioning of the old code. Hence, there is a need for a priori analysis to ensure and capture these types of changes to run the software smoothly. Making changes in the software while it is in use is called dynamic evolution. Due to the lack of formal modeling and verification, this dynamic evolution process of software systems has not become prominent. Hence, we used the bigraphical reactive system (BRS) technique to ensure that changes do not break the software functionality (adversely affect the system). BRS provides a powerful framework for modeling, analyzing, and verifying the dynamic evolution of software systems, resulting in ensuring the reliability and correctness of evolving software system. In this paper, we proposed a formal method technique for modeling and verifying the dynamic evolution process (changing user requirements at run time) using the BRS. We used a bigraph to model software architectures and described the evolution rules for supporting the dynamic changes of the software system. Finally, we have used the BigMC model checker tool to validate this model with its properties and provide associated verification procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

STARK is a widely used transparent proof system that uses low-degree tests for proving the correctness of a computer program. STARK consumes an intermediate representation known as AIR that is more appropriate for programs with a relatively short and structured description. However, an AIR is not able to succinctly express non-equality constraints, leading to the incorporation of unwanted polynomials. We present the eSTARK protocol, a new probabilistic proof that generalizes the STARK family through the introduction of a more generic intermediate representation called eAIR. We describe eSTARK in the polynomial IOP model, which combines the optimized version of the STARK protocol with the incorporation of three arguments into the protocol. We also explain various techniques that enhance the vanilla STARK complexity, including optimizations applied to polynomial computations, and analyze the tradeoffs between controlling the constraint degree either at the representation of the AIR or inside the eSTARK itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Architecture specifications such as Armv8-A and RISC-V are the ultimate foundation for software verification and the correctness criteria for hardware verification. They should define the allowed sequential and relaxed-memory concurrency behaviour of programs, but hitherto there has been no integration of full-scale instruction-set architecture (ISA) semantics with axiomatic concurrency models, either in mathematics or in tools. These ISA semantics can be surprisingly large and intricate, e.g. 100k + lines for Armv8-A. In this paper we present a tool, Isla, for computing the allowed behaviours of concurrent litmus tests with respect to full-scale ISA definitions, in the Sail language, and arbitrary axiomatic relaxed-memory concurrency models, in the Cat language. It is based on a generic symbolic engine for Sail ISA specifications. We equip the tool with a web interface to make it widely accessible, and illustrate and evaluate it for Armv8-A and RISC-V. The symbolic execution engine is valuable also for other verification tasks: it has been used in automated ISA test generation for the Arm Morello prototype architecture, extending Armv8-A with CHERI capabilities, and for Iris program-logic reasoning about binary code above the Armv8-A and RISC-V ISA specifications. By using full-scale and authoritative ISA semantics, Isla lets one evaluate litmus tests using arbitrary user instructions with high confidence. Moreover, because these ISA specifications give detailed and validated definitions of the sequential aspects of systems functionality, as used by hypervisors and operating systems, e.g. instruction fetch, exceptions, and address translation, our tool provides a basis for developing concurrency semantics for these. We demonstrate this for the Armv8-A instruction-fetch and virtual-memory models and examples of Simner et al. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing number of software applications incorporating machine learning (ML) solutions has led to the need for testing techniques. However, testing ML software requires tremendous human effort to design realistic and relevant test inputs and to judge software output correctness according to human common sense. Even when misbehavior is exposed, it is often unclear whether the defect is inside ML API or the surrounding code and how to fix the implementation. This article tackles these challenges by proposing Keeper, an automated testing and fixing tool for ML software. The core idea of Keeper is designing pseudo-inverse functions that semantically reverse the corresponding ML task in an empirical way and proxy common human judgment of real-world data. It incorporates these functions into a symbolic execution engine to generate tests. Keeper also detects code smells that degrade software performance. Once misbehavior is exposed, Keeper attempts to change how ML APIs are used to alleviate the misbehavior. Our evaluation on a variety of applications shows that Keeper greatly improves branch coverage, while identifying 74 previously unknown failures and 19 code smells from 56 out of 104 applications. Our user studies show that 78% of end-users and 95% of developers agree with Keeper's detection and fixing results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To improve breast radiographers' individual performance by using automated software to assess the correctness of breast positioning and compression in tomosynthesis screening. Materials and methods: In this retrospective longitudinal analysis of prospective cohorts, six breast radiographers with varying experience in the field were asked to use automated software to improve their performance in breast compression and positioning. The software tool automatically analyzes craniocaudal (CC) and mediolateral oblique (MLO) views for their positioning quality by scoring them according to PGMI classifications (perfect, good, moderate, inadequate) and checking whether the compression pressure is within the target range. The positioning and compression data from the studies acquired before the start of the project were used as individual baselines, while the data obtained after the training were used to test whether conscious use of the software could help the radiographers improve their performance. The percentage of views rated perfect or good and the percentage of views in target compression were used as overall metrics to assess changes in performance. Results: Following the use of the software, all radiographers significantly increased the percentage of images rated as perfect or good in both CCs and MLOs. Individual improvements ranged from 7 to 14% for CC and 10 to 16% for MLO views. Moreover, most radiographers exhibited improved compression performance in CCs, with improvements up to 16%. Conclusion: Active use of a software tool to automatically assess the correctness of breast compression and positioning in breast cancer screening can improve the performance of radiographers. Clinical relevance statement: This study suggests that the use of a software tool for automatically evaluating correctness of breast compression and positioning in breast cancer screening can improve the performance of radiographers on these metrics, which may ultimately lead to improved screening outcomes. Key Points: • Proper breast positioning and compression are critical in breast cancer screening to ensure accurate diagnosis. • Active use of the software increased the quality of craniocaudal and mediolateral oblique views acquired by all radiographers. • Improved performance of radiographers is expected to improve screening outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Software complexity is the very essence of computer programming. As the complexity increases, the potential risks and defects of software systems will increase. This makes the software correctness analysis and the software quality improvement more difficult. In this paper, we present a quantitative metric to describe the complexity of a hierarchical software and a Complexity‐oriented Software Architecture Refactoring (CoSSR) approach to reduce the complexity. The main idea is to identify and then reassemble subcomponents into one hierarchical component, which achieves minimum complexity in terms of the solution algorithm. Moreover, our algorithm can be improved by introducing partition constraint, heuristic search strategy, and spectral clustering. We implement the proposed method as an automated refactoring tool and demonstrate our algorithm through a case study of battery management system (BMS). The results show that our approach is more efficient and effective to reduce the complexity of hierarchical software system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional requirement verification methods often fail to fully consider the modeling of time-dependent behaviors during system execution, which may lead to inconsistent system requirements, thereby compromise software reliability and correctness. To address this limitation, this paper proposes the Scenario-Specific Verification Method for System Requirements Consistency via Time Modeling. The Scenario-Specific Verification Method converts use case descriptions and problem graphs into Clock Constraint Specification Language (CCSL) constraints, transformed into clock graphs for verifying requirement consistency. The resulting constraints are solved with the Z3 solver to validate correctness, thereby enhancing system reliability. The novel time modeling approach provides techniques for verifying temporal dependencies in requirements. A case study demonstrates the efficiency and accuracy of the Scenario-Specific Verification Method in detecting inconsistencies. The main contributions include that a technique is demonstrated to formalize use case descriptions as CCSL constraints, improving on natural language and a method is presented utilizing CCSL time modeling and clock graphs to analyze requirements for consistency. Overall, an innovative solution for requirement verification using time modeling is offered by this paper, contributing to the enhancement of system development process reliability and correctness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local-first software manages and processes private data locally while still enabling collaboration between multiple parties connected via partially unreliable networks. Such software typically involves interactions with users and the execution environment (the outside world). The unpredictability of such interactions paired with their decentralized nature make reasoning about the correctness of local-first software a challenging endeavor. Yet, existing solutions to develop local-first software do not provide support for automated safety guarantees and instead expect developers to reason about concurrent interactions in an environment with unreliable network conditions. We propose LoRe, a programming model and compiler that automatically verifies developer-supplied safety properties for local-first applications. LoRe combines the declarative data flow of reactive programming with static analysis and verification techniques to precisely determine concurrent interactions that violate safety invariants and to selectively employ strong consistency through coordination where required. We propose a formalized proof principle and demonstrate how to automate the process in a prototype implementation that outputs verified executable code. Our evaluation shows that LoRe simplifies the development of safe local-first software when compared to state-of-the-art approaches and that verification times are acceptable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical and heat limits of the semiconductor technology require the adaptation of heterogeneous architectures in supercomputers to maintain a continuous increase of computing performance. The coexistence of general-purpose cores and accelerator cores, which usually employ different hardware architectures, can lead to bit-level differences, especially when we try to maximize the performance on both kinds of cores. Such differences further lead to unavoidable computational perturbations through temporal integration, which can blend with software or human errors. Software correctness verification in the form of quality assurance is a critically important step in the development and optimization of Earth system models (ESMs) on heterogeneous many-core systems with mixed perturbations of software changes and hardware updates. We have developed a deep learning-based consistency test approach for Earth System Models referred to as ESM-DCT. The ESM-DCT is based on the unsupervised bidirectional gate recurrent unit-autoencoder (BGRU-AE) model, which can still detect the existence of software or human errors when taking hardware-related perturbations into account. We use the Community Earth System Model (CESM) on the new Sunway system as an example of large-scale ESMs to evaluate the ESM-DCT. The results show that facing with the mixed perturbations caused by hardware designs and software changes in heterogeneous computing, the ESM-DCT can detect software or human errors when determining whether or not the model simulation is consistent with the original results in homogeneous computing. Our ESM-DCT tool provides an efficient and objective approach for verifying the reliability of the development and optimization of scientific computing models on the heterogeneous many-core systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analytical study was carried out on an anchored circular pit with a submerged free surface in layered soil. The seepage field around the anchor circular pit was divided into three zones. Separate variable method was used to obtain the graded solution forms of head distribution in the column coordinate system for each of the three regions. Combined with the continuity condition between the regions the Bessel function orthogonality was used to obtain the explicit analytical solution of the seepage field in each region, and the infiltration line was determined. Comparison with the calculation results of Plaxis 2D 8.5 software verified the correctness of the analytical solution. Based on the analytical solution, the influence of the radius of the pit and the distance of the retaining wall from the top surface of the impermeable layer on the total head distribution on both sides of the retaining wall was analyzed. And the variation in the infiltration line was determined with the above parameters. The results show that as the pit radius, r, decreased, the total head on both sides of the retaining wall gradually increased, and the height of the submerged surface drop also increased. As the distance, a, between the retaining wall and the impermeable boundary at the bottom increased, the hydraulic head on the outer side of the retaining wall decreased and the head on the inner side increased. The height of the submerged surface drop increased with decreasing depth of insertion of the retaining wall. The depth of insertion of the retaining wall had a greater influence on the degree of diving surface drop than the pit radius. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Model transformations are the key technique in Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) to manipulate and construct models. As a consequence, the correctness of software systems built with MDE approaches relies mainly on the correctness of model transformations, and thus, detecting and locating bugs in model transformations have been popular research topics in recent years. This surge of work has led to a vast literature on model transformation testing and debugging, which makes it challenging to gain a comprehensive view of the current state-of-the-art. This is an obstacle for newcomers to this topic and MDE practitioners to apply these approaches. This article presents a survey on testing and debugging model transformations based on the analysis of 140 papers on the topics. We explore the trends, advances, and evolution over the years, bringing together previously disparate streams of work and providing a comprehensive view of these thriving areas. In addition, we present a conceptual framework to understand and categorize the different proposals. Finally, we identify several open research challenges and propose specific action points for the model transformation community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software testing is the methodology of analyzing the nature of software to test if it works as anticipated so as to boost its reliability and quality. These two characteristics are very critical in the software applications of present times. When testers want to perform scenario evaluations, test oracles are generally employed in the third phase. Upon test case execution and test outcome generation, it is essential to validate the results so as to establish the software behavior's correctness. By choosing a feasible technique for the test case optimization and prioritization as along with an appropriate assessment of the application, leads to a reduction in the fault detection work with minimal loss of information and would also greatly reduce the cost for clearing up. A hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) with Stochastic Diffusion Search (PSO-SDS) based Neural Network, and a hybrid Harmony Search with Stochastic Diffusion Search (HS-SDS) based Neural Network has been proposed in this work. Further to evaluate the performance, it is compared with PSO-SDS based artificial Neural Network (PSO-SDS ANN) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The Misclassification of correction output (MCO) of HS-SDS Neural Network is 6.37 for 5 iterations and is well suited for automated testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consistency is a significant indicator to measure the correctness of a software system in its lifecycle. It is inevitable to introduce inconsistencies between different software artifacts in the software development process. In practice, developers perform consistency checking to detect inconsistencies, and apply their corresponding repairs to restore consistencies. Even if all inconsistencies can be repaired, how to preserve consistencies in the subsequent evolution should be considered. Consistency management (consistency checking and consistency preservation) is a challenging task, especially in the multi-view model-driven software development process. Although there are some efforts to discuss consistency management, most of them lack the support of formal methods. Our work aims to provide a framework for formal consistency management, which may be used in the practical software development process. A formal model, called a Structure model, is first presented for specifying the overall model-based structure of the software system. Next, the definition of consistency is given based on consistency rules. We then investigate consistency preservation under the following two situations. One is that if the initial system is inconsistent, then the consistency can be restored through repairs. The other is that if the initial system is consistent, then the consistency can be maintained through update propagation. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we finally present a case study with a prototype tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we consider authors' information and computational system for energy facilities' impact assessment on the environment. The necessity of such assessments and development of this system is substantiated. We developed this system as a Web application using the agent-service approach. To develop a database for the system, we utilized ontological engineering of energy and ecology. For assessments, we developed a set of information susbsystems that use approved regulatory methods. Our system can be used for assessment of the impact of both existing and planning energy facilities and also for planning measures to reduce the harmful impact of such facilities. We also performed a set of computational experiments in order to test the developed system. Experiments have shown the correctness of the methods used, and the results of one of them are presented in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, neural networks are being widely implemented for the diagnosis of various diseases, including cancer of various localizations and stages. The vast majority of such solutions use supervised or unsupervised convolutional neural networks, which require a great deal of training data. Using unsupervised image segmentation algorithms can be considered the preferred trend since their use significantly reduces the complexity of neural network training. So, developing unsupervised image segmentation algorithms is one of the topical tasks of machine learning. This year, a team of developers from Google, MIT, and Cornell University developed the STEGO algorithm, which is an unsupervised and non-convolutional neural network. As its author stated, the STEGO algorithm performs well at image segmentation problems compared with other machine learning models. And this algorithm does not need a large amount of training data, unlike convolutional neural networks, which are widely used for medical image analysis. So, the aim of this work is to check the possibility of using this neural network for scintigraphy image segmentation by testing whether the STEGO algorithm is relevant when applied to a scintigraphy dataset. To achieve this goal, the intersection over union metric (IoU) was chosen for evaluating the correctness of the detection of the location of metastases. The training dataset consists of scintigraphic images of patients with various types of cancer and various metastasis appearances. Another version of this metric (mIoU, mean intersection over union) was also used by the creators of STEGO to assess the quality of the model to segment images with different kinds of content. Since the calculated metrics are not good enough, the use of this algorithm for scintigraphic image analysis is not possible or requires the development of a special methodology for this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum computing is expected to exponentially outperform classic computing on a broad set of problems, including encryption, machine learning, and simulations. It has an impact yet to explore on all software lifecycle's processes and techniques. Testing quantum software raises a significant number of challenges due to the unique properties of quantum physics—such as superposition and entanglementand the stochastic behavior of quantum systems. It is, therefore, an open research issue. In this work, we offer a systematic mapping study of quantum software testing engineering, presenting a comprehensive view of the current state of the art. The main identified trends in testing techniques are (1) the statistic approaches based on repeated measurements and (2) the use of Hoare‐like logics to reason about software correctness. Another relevant line of research is reversible circuit testing, which is partially applicable to quantum software unitary testing. Finally, we have observed a flourishing of secondary studies and frameworks supporting testing processes from 2018 onwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Merkle Multi-branch Hash Tree-based data integrity auditing scheme is proposed. • We conduct correctness analysis and security analysis of the scheme. • Five experiments are conducted with a real-world 5G user prediction dataset. • Theoretical and experimental Results show that our scheme perform better than other schemes. In the Beyond 5th Generation (B5G) mobile communication network, data transmission speed will be higher, and communication time latency will be minimized, it also brings new security challenges to data management and privacy protection. Aiming at the problems faced by the data integrity audit for B5G network cloud storage, such as complex dynamic data updating, a large number of users, we propose a Merkle Multi-branch Hash Tree (MMHT)-based data integrity auditing scheme for B5G network cloud storage. The scheme involves five entities and eight phases. We propose a multi-branch double-linked Merkle Hash Tree structure to store and audit dynamic data. We conduct correctness analysis and security analysis to this scheme. The results show that our scheme can meet the requirements of data integrity audit and counter six types of data integrity attack. We conduct theoretical comparative analysis. Compared with other schemes, the computational overhead of data owner (DO) is reduced by m times (m represents the number of data blocks). Relevant experiments are conducted with a 5G real-world dataset, and the experiments show that on the order of million data, the construction time of MHT is about 2.48 times that of MMHT in terms of Merkle tree. The verification time of MHT is about 12.83 times that of MMHT. When the data scale reaches millions, the time to generate user keys in the 4G environment is 6.49 times that of in the B5G environment. When the number of bilinear pairings reaches one million, the verification time of Third-Party Auditors (TPA) for 10,000 encrypted data entries is only 1.07 times that of 1,000 entries, indicating that our scheme can be scaled for use with large datasets. Compared with other schemes, our solution improves the efficiency and security of dynamic data integrity auditing in the B5G network environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Systematic Literature Review (SLR) provides a thorough analysis of the most pertinent research with regard to testing Blockchain oriented Software (BoS). Indeed, it is highly required to test and check the correctness of such kind of software systems before their deployment since they are immutable and cannot be modified once deployed. All the selected primary studies, published between 2017 and October 2022, make use of dynamic testing techniques in order to ensure the trustworthiness and the quality of BoS and to check functional and non-functional aspects such as security and performance. First of all, we study 53 research papers from various electronic databases and classify them according to several factors including (i) the accessibility of smart contract code, (ii) the adopted testing techniques and (iii) the supported vulnerabilities. Then, we emphasize works' benefits and drawbacks while providing a summary about the work done on test generation and selection in this field. At the end, we identify research challenges and potential research opportunities with the aim of giving research lines not yet explored. • Discuss motivations for applying software testing techniques in the context of Blockchain-oriented Software (BoS). • Review of the recently proposed dynamic testing approaches for BoS. • Categorize the studied papers according to several criteria. • Discuss the research challenges and the future direction in the area of testing BoS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context. Several Research areas emerged and have been proceeding independently when in fact they have much in common. These include: mutant subsumption and mutant set minimization; relative correctness and the semantic definition of faults; differentiator sets and their application to test diversity; generate-and–validate methods of program repair; test suite coverage metrics. Objective. Highlight their analogies, commonalities and overlaps; explore their potential for synergy and shared research goals; unify several disparate concepts around a minimal set of artifacts. Method. Introduce and analyze a minimal set of concepts that enable us to model these disparate research efforts, and explore how these models may enable us to share insights between different research directions, and advance their respective goals. Results. Capturing absolute (total and partial) correctness and relative (total and partial) correctness with a single concept: detector sets. Using the same concept to quantify the effectiveness of test suites, and prove that the proposed measure satisfies appealing monotonicity properties. Using the measure of test suite effectiveness to model mutant set minimization as an optimization problem, characterized by an objective function and a constraint. Generalizing the concept of mutant subsumption using the concept of differentiator sets. Identifying analogies between detector sets and differentiator sets, and inferring relationships between subsumption and relative correctness. Conclusion. This paper does not aim to answer any pressing research question as much as it aims to raise research questions that use the insights gained from one research venue to gain a fresh perspective on a related research issue. • We point out that two concepts that were introduced independently in 2014 are actually equivalent: mutant subsumption , a partial ordering between mutants of a base program, which ranks mutants according to their ability to detect faults; relative correctness , a partial ordering between programs, which ranks candidate program according to how close they are to being correct with respect to a specification. • We revisit the concept of detector set of a program with respect to a specification, and show how it can be used to redefine the properties of absolute (total and partial) correctness and relative (total and partial) correctness. • We revisit the concept of differentiator set and show how it can be used to generalize the definition of mutant subsumption by considering the possibility that programs and their mutants may fail to converge for some inputs. • We use the concept of detector set to define a measure of test suite effectiveness (semantic coverage), which has a number of appealing motonicity properties. • We recast the problem of mutant set minimization as an optimization problem, by providing explicit definitions of the effectiveness of a mutant set, and showing that existing minimization algorithms preserve the effectiveness of mutant sets, as defined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classifications are widely used in semantic networks and decision support systems based on formal knowledge and are part of computer ontologies. Classifications and computer ontologies built on them are the result of the work of one or more experts. As a result, such classifications reflect the subjective view of the author or authors on the world and the relationship between the classes (concepts) of the created classification. In the work, the authors propose an approach that will allow assessing how correctly the classification is constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the effect of sports training auxiliary decision, this paper combines the needs of sports training auxiliary system to carry out functional analysis and improve the traditional machine learning algorithm. The domain adversarial neural network based on maximum entropy loss combines the ability of maximum entropy loss to process misclassified samples and uses classification loss and domain adversarial loss to solve the problem of inconsistent edge distribution of category features between domains. Moreover, this paper takes sports decision as the core and introduces tasks of different difficulty and video training into research. In addition, this paper uses simulation software to measure the correctness of sports training in different scenarios and the data of the response latency and applies the neural network algorithm to the construction of the sports training auxiliary decision system. Finally, this paper designs experiments to study sports training recognition and sports training decision-making and builds an intelligent system through a simulation platform. The experimental research results show that the system constructed in this paper has a good sports training auxiliary decision function. The reliability of the method in this article can be verified in practice in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A design method of electromagnetic metamaterial based on Lie symmetry of Maxwell's equation is proposed, which is applied to the modulation of electromagnetic wave/light. Firstly, the electromagnetic control model based on metamaterials is introduced. Then, according to the theory of Transformation Optics (TO), Lie symmetry analysis is applied to the coordinate transformation of material physical space, and the key core is the determining equations of Lie symmetry derived. Secondly, the analytical forms of constitutive parameters (permittivity and permeability) of metamaterials are introduced, which can be used to design all kinds of electromagnetic metamaterials. Finally, the Lie symmetry method is applied to the control of electromagnetic beam width. The results show that the metamaterial based on Lie symmetry of Maxwell's equation has good field distribution, and it overcomes the single subjectivity of traditional coordinate transformation in optical transformation. The wave simulation by COMSOL Multiphysics software verifies the correctness of Lie symmetry method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatic code generation plays an important role in ensuring the reliability and correctness of software programs. Reliable programs can be obtained automatically from verified program specifications by code generators. The target languages of the existing code generators are mainly functional languages, which are relatively less used than C/C + +. As C/C + + is widely used in the industry and many fundamental software facilities and the correctness verification of C/C + + programs is difficult and cumbersome, this paper provides an automatic conversion framework that allows to generate C + + implementation from verified Isabelle/HOL specifications. The framework is characterized by combining the verification convenience of Isabelle/HOL and the efficiency of C + +. Since the correctness of the functional Isabelle/HOL specification can be guaranteed by interactive proofs, the correctness of the relevant generated C + + implementation can also be maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access control policies are crucial in securing data in information systems. Unfortunately, often times, such policies are poorly documented, and gaps between their specification and implementation prevent the system users, and even its developers, from understanding the overall enforced policy of a system. To tackle this problem, we propose the first of its kind systematic approach for learning the enforced authorizations from a target system by interacting with and observing it as a black box. The black-box view of the target system provides the advantage of learning its overall access control policy without dealing with its internal design complexities. Furthermore, compared to the previous literature on policy mining and policy inference, we avoid exhaustive exploration of the authorization space by minimizing our observations. We focus on learning relationship-based access control (ReBAC) policy, and show how we can construct a deterministic finite automaton (DFA) to formally characterize such an enforced policy. We theoretically analyze our proposed learning approach by studying its termination, correctness, and complexity. Furthermore, we conduct extensive experimental analysis based on realistic application scenarios to establish its cost, quality of learning, and scalability in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is aimed at investigating the motion conditions of the wheeled vibro-impact locomotion system equipped with the twin crank-slider excitation mechanism and the additional braking mechanisms allowing only one-way rotation of the wheels. The novelty of the present research consists in the improved mathematical model describing the motion conditions of the vibro-impact system and the proposed parameters optimization technique that allows for maximizing the average translational velocity of the wheeled platform. The main idea of this technique is to provide the maximal velocities of internal bodies when they get in contact with the corresponding impact plates. The numerical modeling results describing the dynamic behavior of the vibro-impact system are obtained in Mathematica software and substantiate the correctness of the developed mathematical model and of the proposed parameters optimization technique. The paper can be of significant practical and scientific interest for researchers and engineers studying and improving the vibratory locomotion systems, e.g., for inspecting and cleaning the pipelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, wireless power transmission (WPT) technology based on magnetic resonance has been extensively studied. However, in contrast to that in the air, wireless power transmission in seawater medium will be accompanied by inevitable energy loss, that is, eddy current loss (ECL), which will increase with the frequency and coil current. In this article, an equivalent circuit model of the eddy current loss of underwater wireless power transmission is established, two methods to reduce the eddy current loss are proposed, and the optimal modulus ratio for the coil current of the dual-coil wireless power transmission system to reduce eddy current loss is calculated. Electromagnetic field (EMF) simulation software verifies the correctness of the two methods, and it is concluded that increasing the phase difference of the coil current or controlling the coil current ratio to ensure that the optimal modulus ratio is in a certain range can reduce the eddy current loss effectively and improve the energy transmission efficiency of the system by about 4~5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Airborne health management systems prevent functional failure caused by errors or faults in airborne software. The on-the-fly repairing of atomicity violations in ARINC 653 concurrent software is critical for guaranteeing the correctness of software execution. This paper introduces RAV (Repairing Atomicity Violation), which efficiently treats atomicity violations. RAV diagnoses an error on the fly by utilizing the training results of software and treats to control access to the shared variable of the thread where the error has occurred. The evaluation of RAV measured the time overhead by applying methods found in previous works and RAV to five synthesis programs containing an atomicity violation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Full a posteriori verification of the correctness of modern software systems is practically infeasible due to the sheer complexity resulting from their intrinsic concurrent nature. An alternative approach consists of ensuring correctness by construction. We discuss the Rigorous System Design (RSD) approach, which relies on a sequence of semantics-preserving transformations to obtain an implementation of the system from a high-level model while preserving all the properties established along the way. In particular, we highlight some of the key requirements for the feasibility of such an approach, namely availability of (1) methods and tools for the design of correct-by-construction high-level models and (2) definition and proof of the validity of suitable domain-specific abstractions. We summarise the results of the extended versions of seven papers selected among those presented at the 1 st and the 2 nd International Workshops on Methods and Tools for Rigorous System Design (MeTRiD 2018–2019), indicating how they contribute to the advancement of the RSD approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article mainly analyzes the free vibration characteristic of the sandwich piezoelectric beam under elastic boundary conditions and thermal environment. According to the first-order shear deformation theory and Hamilton's principle, the thermo-electro-elastic coupling equations of the sandwich piezoelectric beam are obtained. Meanwhile, elastic boundary conditions composed of an array of springs are introduced, and the displacement variables and external potential energy of the beam are expressed as wave functions. By using the method of reverberation-ray matrix to integrate and solve the governing equations, a search algorithm based on golden-section search is introduced to calculate the required frequency parameters. A series of numerical results are compared with those reported in literature studies and obtained by simulation software to verify the correctness and versatility of the search algorithm. In addition, three parametric research cases are proposed to investigate the frequency parameters of sandwich piezoelectric beams with elastic restraint conditions, material parameters, thickness ratio, different temperature rises, and external electric potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decades, software traceability has been studied in a large number of studies, from different perspectives (e.g., how to create traces and what are its benefits). This large body of knowledge needs to be better explored and exploited by both practitioners and researchers: We need an overview of different aspects of traceability and a structured way to assess and compare existing work in order to extend it with new research or apply it in practice, Thus, we have conducted a secondary study on this large corpus of primary studies, focusing on empirical studies on software traceability, without setting any further restrictions in terms of investigating a specific domain or concrete artifacts. The study explores the goals of existing approaches and the empirical methods used for their evaluation. Its main contributions are the investigation of (a) the type of artifacts linked through traceability approaches; (b) the benefits of using artifact traceability approaches; (c) the ways of measuring their benefit; and (d) the research methods used. The results of the study suggest that (i) requirements artifacts are dominant in traceability; (ii) the research corpus focuses on the proposal of novel techniques for establishing traceability; and (iii) the main benefits are the improvement of software correctness and maintainability. Finally, although many studies include some empirical validation, there is still room for improvements and research methods that can be used more extensively. The obtained results are discussed under the prism of both researchers and practitioners and are compared against the state‐of‐the‐art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

C#, Dart, Pyret, Racket, TypeScript, VB: many recent languages integrate dynamic and static types via gradual typing. We systematically develop four calculi for gradual typing and the relations between them, building on and strengthening previous work. The calculi are as follows: $\lambda{B}$ , based on the blame calculus of Wadler and Findler (2009); $\lambda{C}$ , inspired by the coercion calculus of Henglein (1994); $\lambda{S}$ inspired by the space-efficient calculus of Herman, Tomb, and Flanagan (2006); and $\lambda{T}$ based on the threesome calculus of Siek and Wadler (2010). While $\lambda{B}$ and $\lambda{T}$ are little changed from previous work, $\lambda{C}$ and $\lambda{S}$ are new. Together, $\lambda{B}$ , $\lambda{C}$ , $\lambda{S}$ , and $\lambda{T}$ provide a coherent foundation for design, implementation, and optimization of gradual types. We define translations from $\lambda{B}$ to $\lambda{C}$ , from $\lambda{C}$ to $\lambda{S}$ , and from $\lambda{S}$ to $\lambda{T}$. Much previous work lacked proofs of correctness or had weak correctness criteria; here we demonstrate the strongest correctness criterion one could hope for, that each of the translations is fully abstract. Each of the calculi reinforces the design of the others: $\lambda{C}$ has a particularly simple definition, and the subtle definition of blame safety for $\lambda{B}$ is justified by the simple definition of blame safety for $\lambda{C}$. Our calculus $\lambda{S}$ is implementation-ready: the first space-efficient calculus that is both straightforward to implement and easy to understand. We give two applications: first, using full abstraction from $\lambda{C}$ to $\lambda{S}$ to establish an equational theory of coercions; and second, using full abstraction from $\lambda{B}$ to $\lambda{S}$ to easily establish the Fundamental Property of Casts, which required a custom bisimulation and six lemmas in earlier work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the development of software, a programmer will commit many logical errors unknowingly such that the software is not in accordance with the requirements. Such logical errors affect the correctness of the software. The requirements specify some important properties of the software and this knowledge about it will allow to know the behavior of the software which can be leveraged to find certain logical errors. This paper proposes a method which helps to find bugs as well as describes a way by which the programmer can specify software requirements. Based on these programmer specified requirements, the system can be automatically used to verify the software. Also, the method proposed in this paper does not need to use the expected result of a test case to verify the software's correctness. The proposed algorithm completely relies on the requirements specified by the programmer for finding bugs in the software. The software verification process and the algorithm used is explained with the help of a case study. The paper highlights the advantages of the method and algorithm proposed for software verification along with the implementation details. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We re-examine previous constructions of infinite binary words containing few distinct squares with the goal of finding the "simplest", in a certain sense. We exhibit several new constructions. Rather than using tedious case-based arguments to prove that the constructions have the desired property, we rely instead on theorem-proving software for their correctness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relational databases are one of the main technologies supporting information assets in today's organizations. They are designed to store, organize and retrieve digital information, and are such a fundamental part of information systems that most would not be able to function without them. Very often, the information contained in databases is irreplaceable or prohibitively expensive to reacquire; therefore, steps must be taken to ensure that the information within databases is preserved. This paper describes a methodology for long-term preservation of relational databases based on information extraction and format migration to a preservation format. It also presents a tool that was developed to support this methodology: Database Preservation Toolkit (DBPTK), as well as the processes and formats needed to preserve databases. The DBPTK connects to live relational databases and extracts information into formats more adequate for long-term preservation. Supported preservation formats include the SIARD 2, created by a cooperation between the Swiss Federal Archives and the E-ARK project that is becoming a standard in the area. DBPTK has a flexible plugin-based architecture enabling its use for other purposes like database upgrade and database migration between different systems. Presented real case scenarios demonstrate the usefulness, correctness and performance of the tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can we be certain that software is reliable? Is there any method that can verify the correctness of software for all cases of interest? Computer scientists and software engineers have informally assumed that there is no fully general solution to the verification problem. In this paper, we survey approaches to the problem of software verification and offer a new proof for why there can be no general solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With advances in experimental quantum computing, the requirement for verifying the correctness of quantum computation is urgent. The recent protocols of device‐independent verifiable blind quantum computation provide a fruitful solution. However, all existing approaches have relatively high overhead. In this paper, we present a parallel self‐testing technology to extract the presence of tensor products of Pauli observables on maximally entangled state. We then utilize our parallel self‐testing to propose a device‐independent verification protocol. Finally, compared to other existing protocols, our scheme has a lower overhead, which costs O(n11logn) Bell pairs, where n is the size of original computation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feature-based software birthmark is an essential property of software that can be used for the detection of software theft and many other purposes like to assess the security in end-to-end communication systems. Research on feature-based software birthmark shows that using the feature-based software birthmark joint with the practice of software birthmark estimation together can deliver a right and influential method for detecting software piracy and the amount of piracy done by a software. This can also guide developers in improving security of end-to-end communication system. Modern day software industry and systems are in demand to have an unbiased method for comparing the features-based birthmark of software competently, and more concretely for the detecting software piracy and assessing the security of end-to-end communication systems. In this paper, we proposed a mathematical model, which is based on a differential system, to present feature-based software birthmark. The model presented in this paper provides an exclusive way for the features-based birthmark of software and then can be used for comparing birthmark and assessing security of end-to-end communication systems. The results of this method show that the proposed model is efficient in terms of effectiveness and correctness for the features-based software birthmark comparison and security assessment purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large strain self-weight consolidation is widely used for the management of the dredged material (DM) in dredged material disposal sites. A multilayer vacuum extraction method, which consists of a settling column, pore pressure measurement apparatus and multilayer vacuum extraction apparatus, is developed. The interface height, water content, excess pore water pressure, grain size distribution, as well as the compressibility and permeability relationships involved in self-weight consolidation are determined. Experimental results show that the measured data are reasonable and the method is feasible. Gibson's governing equation for one-dimensional finite strain consolidation is discretised using a modified upwind difference form, and a corresponding computer program is compiled. It is found that the interface height settlement, void ratio and excess pore water pressure approximate laboratory experimental results. Therefore, the rationality of the analytical model and finite difference numerical solution as well as the correctness of the computer program are validated. The model possibly provides a satisfactory prediction for the self-weight consolidation of the DM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This survey provides an overview of the scientific literature on timing verification techniques for multi-core real-time systems. It reviews the key results in the field from its origins around 2006 to the latest research published up to the end of 2018. The survey highlights the key issues involved in providing guarantees of timing correctness for multi-core systems. A detailed review is provided covering four main categories: full integration, temporal isolation, integrating interference effects into schedulability analysis, and mapping and allocation. The survey concludes with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of these different approaches, identifying open issues, key challenges, and possible directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the setting of secure two-party computation, two mutually distrusting parties wish to compute some function of their inputs while preserving, to the extent possible, various security properties such as privacy, correctness, and more. One desirable property is fairness which guarantees, informally, that if one party receives its output, then the other party does too. Cleve [1986] showed that complete fairness cannot be achieved in general without an honest majority. Since then, the accepted folklore has been that nothing non-trivial can be computed with complete fairness in the two-party setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, verifiable random function (VRF) has been frequently applied in secure consensus protocols and e-lottery system to achieve random selection. In this context, how to build various secure verifiable random function to suit increasing application requirements receives much attention. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new type of anonymous verifiable random function (AVRF). Concretely, the proposed anonymous verifiable random function achieves identity anonymity of prover based on the Decision Linear assumption that is secure in bilinear groups in contrast to the known anonymous verifiable random function which is relied on the Decisional Diffie–Hellman (DDH) assumption. The anonymity indicates that the verifier cannot recognize the prover's identity. In addition, our proposed AVRF is also unbiasable. It can provide unpredictability under malicious key generation. Security analysis shows that the proposed scheme satisfies correctness, uniqueness, pseudorandomness, anonymity and unbiasability. Theoretical analysis results indicate that our anonymous verifiable random function is relatively efficient, and its proof size is constant regardless of input size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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