The introduction of formal methods into the commercial community has been slow. This might, in part, be due to lack of guidance for program managers responsible for execution of a program, who must justify added expense or time to delivery. This paper first provides managers with guidance in deciding if a particular project is a good candidate for the use of formal methods. After the go/no go c...

This paper describes the application of heterogeneous algebraic system for the construction of the formal model of object database instead of object algebra. Complete formalization of the operation of intersection of class specifications is given.

The use of proof plans in formal methods Citation for published version: Bundy, A 1990, 'The use of proof plans in formal methods'. in A Miola (ed.), Design and implementation of General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that ...

The traditional notion of the curriculum as a fixed list of topics to be studied sequentially is under strain as pressure for flexibility in education increases. However, curriculum flexibility can lead to curriculum complexity, hindering learners in the development of their competences. This article presents a formal model for the description of curricula, designed to underpin guidance support...

The aim of the article is to provide a comprehensive survey of formal methods currently widely used to model the gradation of beliefs. Thus, it brings together in an insightful way several frameworks representing probabilistic, multi-valued and graded modalities’ approaches. They enable to express, in various manners, uncertainty of agents’ beliefs and, even more, the process of persuasion whic...

Although Advance Selling and Probabilistic Selling differ in both motivation and implementation, we argue that they share a common characteristic—both offer consumers a choice involving buyer uncertainty. We develop a formal model to examine the general economics of purchase options that involve buyer uncertainty, explore the differences in buyer uncertainty created via these two strategies, an...

We provide a formal model of entrepreneurship in human development. The framework is provided by the capabilities approach (CA). Hence we extend not only the conceptualisation of entrepreneurship in development, but the reach of the CA into entrepreneurship. From a CA view, entrepreneurship is not only a production factor, or a means to an end, as is often taken to be the case by economists, bu...

We describe a meta-method for formal method integration [Pai97]. The approach is applied to combining formal methods with other formal and semiformal methods. We discuss the theory behind formal method integration, present two example combinations, and use an integrated method in solving a small problem.