Automated reasoning

Declerck, G., Charlet, J. (2011). Intelligence Artificielle, ontologies et connaissances en médecine. Les limites de la mécanisation de la pensée

by Gunnar Declerck

Prepublication version
Complete reference :
Declerck, G., Charlet, J. (2011). Intelligence Artificielle, ontologies et connaissances en médecine. Les limites de la mécanisation de la pensée. Revue d’Intelligence Artificielle (RIA), vol. 25, n°4, pp. 445-472, n° spécial « Intelligence artificielle et santé »

This theoretical article aims to draw up an inventory of the latest advances in medical knowledge engineering in the... more This theoretical article aims to draw up an inventory of the latest advances in medical knowledge engineering in the specific area of ontologies and knowledge based systems design. Echoing the debates that animated the landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from the 1970s under the impetus of Dreyfus HL, it aims to show that most of the difficulties currently faced by medical knowledge engineering are inherent in the nature of AI, whose project is the mechanization of cognitive activity. As such it promotes the idea that only a fair understanding of what machines can do, given their machinic character itself, and remains, despite its cognitive finitude, a property of human being, may offer to balancing the scales between tasks that can be allocated to machines and those that have to be left in charge of humans.

PSpace Tableau Algorithms for Acyclic Modalized ALC.

by Vasant Honavar

Tao, J., Slutzki, G., and Honavar, V. (2011). PSpace Tableau Algorithms for Acyclic Modalized ALC. Journal of Automated Reasoning.

We study ALCKm and ALCS4m, which extend the description logic ALC by adding modal operators of the basic multi-modal... more We study ALCKm and ALCS4m, which extend the description logic ALC by adding modal operators of the basic multi-modal logics Km and S4m. We develop a sound and complete tableau algorithm ΛK for answering ALCKm queries w.r.t. an ALCKm knowledge base with an acyclic TBox. Defining tableau expansion rules in the presence of acyclic definitions by considering only the concept names on the left-hand side of TBox definitions or their negations, we are able to give a PSpace implementa- tion for ΛK. We then consider answering ALCS4m queries w.r.t. an ALCS4m knowl- edge base (with an acyclic TBox) in which the epistemic operators correspond to those of classical multi-modal logic S4m. The expansion rules in the tableau algorithm ΛS4 are designed to syntactically incorporate the epistemic properties. Blocking is corpo-rated into the tableau expansion rules to ensure termination. We also provide a PSpace implementation for ΛS4. In light of the fact that the satisfiability problem for ALCKm with general TBox and no epistemic properties (i.e., KALC) is NEXPTIME-complete, we conclude that both ALCKm and ALCS4m offer computationally manageable and practically useful fragments of KALC.

Managing multiple software product lines using merging techniques

by Mathieu Acher

Slicing Feature Models

by Mathieu Acher

Reverse Engineering Architectural Feature Models

by Mathieu Acher

Reverse engineering the variability of an existing system is a challenging activity. The architect knowledge is... more Reverse engineering the variability of an existing system is a challenging activity. The architect knowledge is essential to identify variation points and explicit constraints between features, for instance in feature models (FMs), but the manual creation of FMs is both time-consuming and error-prone. On a large scale, it is very difficult for an architect to guarantee that the resulting FM ensures a safe composition of the architectural elements when some features are selected. In this paper, we present a comprehensive, tool supported process for reverse engineering architectural FMs. We develop automated techniques to extract and combine different variability descriptions of an architecture. Then, alignment and reasoning techniques are applied to integrate the architect knowledge and reinforce the extracted FM. We illustrate the reverse engineering process when applied to a representative software system, FraSCAti, and we report on our experience in this context.

Comparing approaches to implement feature model composition

by Mathieu Acher

Modeling Variability from Requirements to Runtime

by Mathieu Acher

Managing feature models with familiar: a demonstration of the language and its tool support

by Mathieu Acher

Managing variability in workflow with feature model composition operators

by Mathieu Acher

Validation of UML conceptual schemas with OCL constraints and operations

by Anna Queralt

Search and check. Problem solving by problem reduction

by Mariusz Urbanski

Bolotov A., Łupkowski P., Urbański M. (2006). Search and check. Problem solving by problem reduction, in: A. Cader et al. (eds.), Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing, Academic Publishing House EXIT, Warszawa, p. 505-510.

In this paper we outline a goal-directed abductive problemsolving procedure, developed within the framework of... more In this paper we outline a goal-directed abductive problemsolving procedure, developed within the framework of Inferential Erotetic
Logic. This procedure is considered to be the core procedure of a reasoning engine for multi-layer self-organizing systems, which will, in particular, automatically manage reconfiguration of components in a given system in a safe and optimal way and its adaptation.

Search and check. Problem solving by problem reduction

by Pawel Lupkowski

Bolotov A., Łupkowski P., Urbański M. (2006). Search and check. Problem solving by problem reduction, in: A. Cader et al. (eds.), Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing, Academic Publishing House EXIT, Warszawa, p. 505-510.

In this paper we outline a goal-directed abductive problemsolving procedure, developed within the framework of... more In this paper we outline a goal-directed abductive problemsolving procedure, developed within the framework of Inferential Erotetic
Logic. This procedure is considered to be the core procedure of a reasoning engine for multi-layer self-organizing systems, which will, in particular, automatically manage reconfiguration of components in a given system in a safe and optimal way and its adaptation.

Adaptive tutorial dialogue systems using deep NLP techniques

by Manuel Marques-Pita

Verification of Java implementations against Class-Z Specifications

by Jon Nicholson

MSc Thesis

This project is aimed at those who wish to learn more about the verification of Java implementations against ClassZ... more This project is aimed at those who wish to learn more about the verification of Java implementations against ClassZ specifications. It is not intended as an introduction or tutorial to ClassZ as that is outside the scope of this dissertation. It does however provide an account of the research undertaken to produce a working verification system for the TTPToolkit, and in depth discussions thereafter. All this leads to the conclusion that it is both possible to create such a package to a basic level, but there is much work to be done on both the current TTPToolkit and the verification implementation to accomplish more advanced features.

On the Theoretical Foundations of LePUS3 and its Application to Object-Oriented Design Verification

by Jon Nicholson

Phd thesis

Software systems are the most complex artefacts ever produced by humans, and managing their complexity is one of the... more Software systems are the most complex artefacts ever produced by humans, and managing their complexity is one of the central challenges of software engineering. One major source of complexity arises from maintaining consistency between a program and its design documentation. Design verification reduces such complexity by improving consistency between design and implementation. Fully automated tools are of paramount importance so that the budget, time and quality trade-off is minimized.
This thesis combines aspects of both the theory and practise of design verification. We begin by defining a theory of classes abstracted and refined from the theoretical foundations of LePUS3, and developed in the Typed Predicate Logic. LePUS3 is a promising formal and visual design description language for the decidable aspects of object-oriented design. Our theory fixes many of the criticisms of LePUS3 and is also more expressive, rigorous, and extensible.
We then move onto the practise of design verification, which we define for a restricted subset of our theory. We demonstrate our design verification method in three case studies: verifying an implementation of the Composite design motif in Java’s Abstract Window Toolkit, verifying a selection of requirements of a JUnit test case, and verifying instantiations of Java’s generic lists.
This form of design verification is fully automatic, which we illustrate in a proof-of-concept tool: the Two-Tier Programming Toolkit. The Toolkit, which is designed for round-trip engineering, has been examined in a very small empirical study that showed a marked improvement to the productivity of its users.
The result of this research is a powerful new rigorous design description language that can be easily extended and applied to both the theoretical investigation of object-oriented design, and practical application to the improvement and understanding of new and existing software.

Safe Controllers Design for Industrial Automation Systems

by José Creissac Campos

José Machado, Eurico Seabra, José C. Campos, Filomena Soares and Celina P. Leão.
Computers & Industrial Engineering, 60(4):635-653, May 2011.

The design of safe industrial controllers is one of the most important domains related to Automation Systems research.... more The design of safe industrial controllers is one of the most important domains related to Automation Systems research. To support it, synthesis and analysis techniques are available. Among the analysis techniques, two of the most important are Simulation and Formal Verification. In this paper these two techniques are used together in a complementary way. Understanding plant behaviour is essential for obtaining safe industrial systems controllers; hence, plant modelling is crucial to the success of these techniques. A two step approach is presented: first, the use of Simulation and, second, the use of Formal Verification of Industrial Systems Specifications. The specification and plant models used for each technique are described. Simulation and Formal Verification results are presented and discussed. The approach presented in the paper can be applied to real industrial systems, and obtain safe controllers for hybrid plants. The Modelica modelling language and Dymola simulation environment are used for Simulation purposes, and Timed Automata formalism and the UPPAAL real-time model-checker are used for Formal Verification purposes.

Using Task Knowledge to Guide Interactor Specifications Analysis

by José Creissac Campos

Connecting Rigorous System Analysis to Experience-Centered Design

by José Creissac Campos

Property Patterns for the Formal Verification of Automated Production Systems

by José Creissac Campos

Verifying User Interface Behaviour With Model Checking

by José Creissac Campos