We define a notion of equivalence for designs containing black boxes i.e., components whose functionality is not known: these arise naturally in the course of hierarchical design. Using this notion, we describe a sound and complete methodology for optimizing such designs.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a unified formal framework for complex systems modeling. To this aim, we define a unified semantics for systems including integration operators. We consider complex systems as functional blackboxes (with internal states), whose structure and behaviors can be constructed through a recursive integration of heterogeneous components. We first introduce ...

Konzeptuelle Modelle sind ein wichtiges Element modellgetriebener Softwareentwicklung, sowohl in der Beschreibung von Systemen als auch in der Metamodellierung domänenspezifischer Sprachen. Zu ihrer Beschreibung haben sich UML und OCL (und angelehnte Sprachen) als ein de facto Standard durchgesetzt. Validierung und Verifikation der Modelle sind hierbei wichtige Instrumente zur Sicherstellung de...

Understanding decision-making processes within dynamic task environments via embodied computational cognitive models proves to be a challenge for the modeling community (see Gonzalez, Lerch, & Lebiere, 2003 for an example). Decisions made by an agent may be the result of explicit, strategic moves, or result from implicit, costbenefit tradeoffs occurring at the level of 1/3 of a second. Understa...

0164-1212/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Inc. A doi:10.1016/j.jss.2008.04.006 q This paper is a revised and extended version of Au presented at EWSA2006. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Aut Mostarda), [email protected] (A. Navarra), tivo 1 Hereafter the terms component and component insta Building a distributed system from third-party components i...

There exist many tools for capturing imprecision in probabilistic representations. Among them are random sets, possibility distributions, probability intervals, and the more recents Ferson’s p-boxes and Neumaier’s clouds. Both for theoretical and practical considerations, it is very useful to know whether one representation can be turned into or approximated by other ones. In the companion pape...

in the editorial published in this journal, daniels and colleagues argue that his and sabin’s accountability for reasonableness (a4r) framework should be used to handle ethical issues in the health technology assessment (hta)-process, especially concerning fairness. in contrast to this suggestion, it is argued that such an approach risks suffering from the irrrelevance or insufficiency they war...

Software testing is the process used to measure the quality of developed computer software. It exhibits all mistakes, errors and flaws in the developed software. In this paper, the three most prevalent and commonly used software testing techniques for detecting errors are described and compared, they are: white box testing, black box testing and grey box testing. Keywords— Black box, Demonstrat...

As developers of SageMath, we show how open software facilitates corrections. “Commercial computer algebra systems are black boxes, and their algorithms are opaque to the users,” complained a trio ofmathematicianswhose “misfortunes” are detailed in a recent Notices article [2]. “We reported the bug on October 7, 2013...By June 2014, nothing had changed ...All we could do was wait.”