After a short introduction to the BOS project, we discuss the \why, what and how" of the use of formal methods in the project, some recent experience using Promela/Spin and re ections on the pragmatics of validation.

The recently born expression “analytic narratives” refers to studies that have appeared at the boundaries of history, political science and economics. These studies purport to explain specific historical events by combining the usual narrative way of historians with the analytic tools that economists and political scientists find in rational choice theory. Game theory is prominent among these t...

In this study we attempt to understand why formal evaluations of IT investment projects have not yet become an organizational routine. Using survey data gathered from business and IT managers in Sweden, we tested the research hypotheses about the factors influencing the attitudes and behaviour of managers towards using formal evaluation methods based on the theory of planned behaviour. We found...

A safety case must resolve concerns of two different kinds: how complete and accurate is our knowledge about aspects of the system (e.g., its requirements, environment, implementation, hazards) and how accurate is our reasoning about the design of the system, given our knowledge. The first of these is a form of epistemology and requires human experience and insight, but the second can, in princ...

Formal methods are scarcely used in industrial applications. Industrial strength tools and educational effort do not significantly help in promoting formal methods. Main obstacles to the industrial application of formal methods are lack of flexibility, lack of specialization, and difficulties in interpreting analysis results. This paper argues that graph grammars can help overcoming such limita...

The field of knowledge known as Empirical Software Engineering suggests the application of experimental methods in order to discover and describe characteristics of the process and results derived from new methodologies, such as agile formal methods. In this paper we present the methodology needed for conducting formal experiments and we review related work done in the field of the agile formal...

Interpretation Based Formal Methods and Future Challenges (Electronic Version)

Although Constraint Programming (CP) is considered a useful tool for tackling combinatorial problems, its lack of flexibility when dealing with uncertainties and preferences is still a matter of research. Several formal frameworks for soft constraints have been proposed within the CP community: all of them seem to be theoretically solid, but few practical implementations exist. In this paper we...