Formal verification of PLC programs using the B Method

PLCs (acronym for Programmable Logic Controllers) perform control operations, receiving information from the environment, processing it and modifying this same environment according to the results produced. They are commonly used in industry in several applications, from mass transport to petroleum industry. As the complexity of these applications increase, and as various are safety critical, a necessity for ensuring that they are reliable arouses. Testing and simulation are the de-facto methods used in the industry to do so, but they can leave flaws undiscovered. Formal methods can provide more confidence in an application s safety, once they permit their mathematical verification. We make use of the B Method, which has been successfully applied in the formal verification of industrial systems, is supported by several tools and can handle decomposition, refinement, and verification of correctness according to the specification. The method we developed and present in this work automatically generates B models from PLC programs and verify them in terms of safety constraints, manually derived from the system requirements. The scope of our method is the PLC programming languages presented in the IEC 61131-3 standard, although we are also able to verify programs not fully compliant with the standard. Our approach aims to ease the integration of formal methods in the industry through the abbreviation of the effort to perform formal verification in PLCs

Avaliação da execução de aplicações orientadas à dados na arquitetura de redes em chip IPNoSys

The increasing complexity of integrated circuits has boosted the development of communications architectures like Networks-on-Chip (NoCs), as an architecture; alternative for interconnection of Systems-on-Chip (SoC). Networks-on-Chip complain for component reuse, parallelism and scalability, enhancing reusability in projects of dedicated applications. In the literature, lots of proposals have been made, suggesting different configurations for networks-on-chip architectures. Among all networks-on-chip considered, the architecture of IPNoSys is a non conventional one, since it allows the execution of operations, while the communication process is performed. This study aims to evaluate the execution of data-flow based applications on IPNoSys, focusing on their adaptation against the design constraints. Data-flow based applications are characterized by the flowing of continuous stream of data, on which operations are executed. We expect that these type of applications can be improved when running on IPNoSys, because they have a programming model similar to the execution model of this network. By observing the behavior of these applications when running on IPNoSys, were performed changes in the execution model of the network IPNoSys, allowing the implementation of an instruction level parallelism. For these purposes, analysis of the implementations of dataflow applications were performed and compared

LWiSSy: uma linguagem específica de domínio para modelagem de sistemas de redes de sensores e atuadores sem fio

The field of Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSAN) is fast increasing and has attracted the interest of both the research community and the industry because of several factors, such as the applicability of such networks in different application domains (aviation, civil engineering, medicine, and others). Moreover, advances in wireless communication and the reduction of hardware components size also contributed for a fast spread of these networks. However, there are still several challenges and open issues that need to be tackled in order to achieve the full potential of WSAN usage. The development of WSAN systems is one of the most relevant of these challenges considering the number of variables involved in this process. Currently, a broad range of WSAN platforms and low level programming languages are available to build WSAN systems. Thus, developers need to deal with details of different sensor platforms and low-level programming abstractions of sensor operational systems on one hand, and they also need to have specific (high level) knowledge about the distinct application domains, on the other hand. Therefore, in order to decouple the handling of these two different levels of knowledge, making easier the development process of WSAN systems, we propose LWiSSy (Domain Language for Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks Systems), a domain specific language (DSL) for WSAN. The use of DSLs raises the abstraction level during the programming of systems and modularizes the system building in several steps. Thus, LWiSSy allows the domain experts to directly contribute in the development of WSANs without having knowledge on low level sensor platforms, and network experts to program sensor nodes to meet application requirements without having specific knowledge on the application domain. Additionally, LWiSSy enables the system decomposition in different levels of abstraction according to structural and behavioral features and granularities (network, node group and single node level programming)

Avaliando a robustez e manutenibilidade do comportamento excepcional de aplicações C#

Mainstream programming languages provide built-in exception handling mechanisms to support robust and maintainable implementation of exception handling in software systems. Most of these modern languages, such as C#, Ruby, Python and many others, are often claimed to have more appropriated exception handling mechanisms. They reduce programming constraints on exception handling to favor agile changes in the source code. These languages provide what we call maintenance-driven exception handling mechanisms. It is expected that the adoption of these mechanisms improve software maintainability without hindering software robustness. However, there is still little empirical knowledge about the impact that adopting these mechanisms have on software robustness. This work addresses this gap by conducting an empirical study aimed at understanding the relationship between changes in C# programs and their robustness. In particular, we evaluated how changes in the normal and exceptional code were related to exception handling faults. We applied a change impact analysis and a control flow analysis in 100 versions of 16 C# programs. The results showed that: (i) most of the problems hindering software robustness in those programs are caused by changes in the normal code, (ii) many potential faults were introduced even when improving exception handling in C# code, and (iii) faults are often facilitated by the maintenance-driven flexibility of the exception handling mechanism. Moreover, we present a series of change scenarios that decrease the program robustness

Um método semi-automatizado para elicitação de requisitos de acessibilidade Web

In the context of Software Engineering, web accessibility is gaining more room, establishing itself as an important quality attribute. This fact is due to initiatives of institutions such as the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and the introduction of norms and laws such as Section 508 that underlie the importance of developing accessible Web sites and applications. Despite these improvements, the lack of web accessibility is still a persistent problem, and could be related to the moment or phase in which this requirement is solved within the development process. From the moment when Web accessibility is generally regarded as a programming problem or treated when the application is already developed entirely. Thus, consider accessibility already during activities of analysis and requirements specification shows itself a strategy to facilitate project progress, avoiding rework in advanced phases of software development because of possible errors, or omissions in the elicitation. The objective of this research is to develop a method and a tool to support requirements elicitation of web accessibility. The strategy for the requirements elicitation of this method is grounded by the Goal-Oriented approach NFR Framework and the use of catalogs NFRs, created based on the guidelines contained in WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guideline) proposed by W3C

Atratividade cultural e potencialidade turística: análise do evento Auto de Natal (Natal RN)

Inserted in the schedule for Christmas celebration in the city of Natal, capital of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, the spectacle so called Auto de Natal mixes the Christmas story of Jesus birth with cultural and natural heritage of the state, making possible the integration of professionals from various fields, such as: literature, theater, dance and music. Important for local identity, Auto de Natal integrates elements of intangible heritage in the state. In this context, the research analyzed the perceptions of those who were involved in the production, presentation and organization of the event, planned to be culturally attractive to tourism. For this, it was used the descriptive and exploratory method, making use of documental, bibliographic and field researches. It was applied qualitative techniques to the interpretation of the interviews, while it was applied quantitative techniques to analyze the questionnaires. The research has discovered that Auto de Natal has the potential to add value to Cultural Tourism, diversifying the tourism product. The research has also observed that most of the respondents recognized Auto de Natal as intangible heritage, and concluded that the Christmas theme, which is alluding to the nomenclature of destiny, needs to be well-done to attract more tourists to experience the Natal in Natal

Verificação formal automatizada para sistemas de raciocínio procedural (PRS) utilizando redes de petri coloridas (RPC)

Este trabalho apresenta uma técnica de verificação formal de Sistemas de Raciocínio Procedural, PRS (Procedural Reasoning System), uma linguagem de programação que utiliza a abordagem do raciocínio procedural. Esta técnica baseia-se na utilização de regras de conversão entre programas PRS e Redes de Petri Coloridas (RPC). Para isso, são apresentadas regras de conversão de um sub-conjunto bem expressivo da maioria da sintaxe utilizada na linguagem PRS para RPC. A fim de proceder fia verificação formal do programa PRS especificado, uma vez que se disponha da rede de Petri equivalente ao programa PRS, utilizamos o formalismo das RPCs (verificação das propriedades estruturais e comportamentais) para analisarmos formalmente o programa PRS equivalente. Utilizamos uma ferramenta computacional disponível para desenhar, simular e analisar as redes de Petri coloridas geradas. Uma vez que disponhamos das regras de conversão PRS-RPC, podemos ser levados a querer fazer esta conversão de maneira estritamente manual. No entanto, a probabilidade de introdução de erros na conversão é grande, fazendo com que o esforço necessário para garantirmos a corretude da conversão manual seja da mesma ordem de grandeza que a eliminação de eventuais erros diretamente no programa PRS original. Assim, a conversão automatizada é de suma importância para evitar que a conversão manual nos leve a erros indesejáveis, podendo invalidar todo o processo de conversão. A principal contribuição deste trabalho de pesquisa diz respeito ao desenvolvimento de uma técnica de verificação formal automatizada que consiste basicamente em duas etapas distintas, embora inter-relacionadas. A primeira fase diz respeito fias regras de conversão de PRS para RPC. A segunda fase é concernente ao desenvolvimento de um conversor para fazer a transformação de maneira automatizada dos programas PRS para as RPCs. A conversão automática é possível, porque todas as regras de conversão apresentadas seguem leis de formação genéricas, passíveis de serem incluídas em algoritmos

O problema do caixeiro alugador com coleta de bonus: um estudo algoritmico

This paper introduces a new variant of the Traveling Car Renter Problem, named Prizecollecting Traveling Car Renter Problem. In this problem, a set of vertices, each associated with a bonus, and a set of vehicles are given. The objective is to determine a cycle that visits some vertices collecting, at least, a pre-defined bonus, and minimizing the cost of the tour that can be traveled with different vehicles. A mathematical formulation is presented and implemented in a solver to produce results for sixty-two instances. The proposed problem is also subject of an experimental study based on the algorithmic application of four metaheuristics representing the best adaptations of the state of the art of the heuristic programming.We also provide new local search operators which exploit the neighborhoods of the problem, construction procedures and adjustments, created specifically for the addressed problem. Comparative computational experiments and performance tests are performed on a sample of 80 instances, aiming to offer a competitive algorithm to the problem. We conclude that memetic algorithms, computational transgenetic and a hybrid evolutive algorithm are competitive in tests performed

Detecção de áreas degradadas na sub-bacia hidrográfica do rio taperoá/pb, utilizando parâmetros físicos dos sensores modis/terra e tm/landsat

This study includes the results of the analysis of areas susceptible to degradation by remote sensing in semi-arid region, which is a matter of concern and affects the whole population and the catalyst of this process occurs by the deforestation of the savanna and improper practices by the use of soil. The objective of this research is to use biophysical parameters of the MODIS / Terra and images TM/Landsat-5 to determine areas susceptible to degradation in semi-arid Paraiba. The study area is located in the central interior of Paraíba, in the sub-basin of the River Taperoá, with average annual rainfall below 400 mm and average annual temperature of 28 ° C. To draw up the map of vegetation were used TM/Landsat-5 images, specifically, the composition 5R4G3B colored, commonly used for mapping land use. This map was produced by unsupervised classification by maximum likelihood. The legend corresponds to the following targets: savanna vegetation sparse and dense, riparian vegetation and exposed soil. The biophysical parameters used in the MODIS were emissivity, albedo and vegetation index for NDVI (NDVI). The GIS computer programs used were Modis Reprojections Tools and System Information Processing Georeferenced (SPRING), which was set up and worked the bank of information from sensors MODIS and TM and ArcGIS software for making maps more customizable. Initially, we evaluated the behavior of the vegetation emissivity by adapting equation Bastiaanssen on NDVI for spatialize emissivity and observe changes during the year 2006. The albedo was used to view your percentage of increase in the periods December 2003 and 2004. The image sensor of Landsat TM were used for the month of December 2005, according to the availability of images and in periods of low emissivity. For these applications were made in language programs for GIS Algebraic Space (LEGAL), which is a routine programming SPRING, which allows you to perform various types of algebras of spatial data and maps. For the detection of areas susceptible to environmental degradation took into account the behavior of the emissivity of the savanna that showed seasonal coinciding with the rainy season, reaching a maximum emissivity in the months April to July and in the remaining months of a low emissivity . With the images of the albedo of December 2003 and 2004, it was verified the percentage increase, which allowed the generation of two distinct classes: areas with increased variation percentage of 1 to 11.6% and the percentage change in areas with less than 1 % albedo. It was then possible to generate the map of susceptibility to environmental degradation, with the intersection of the class of exposed soil with varying percentage of the albedo, resulting in classes susceptibility to environmental degradation