postdoc position in Formal Specification Languages

[Tineke de Bunje <bunje@natlab.research.philips.com>]

[Tineke de Bunje has asked for the following announcement to be
 forwarded to possible candidates in the CoFI project.  It is hoped 
 that it could provide a starting-point for collaboration between CoFI
 and DeStijl. --PDM]

***************************************************************************

VACANCY 

project: HCM DeStijl

vacancy: 1 postdoc position in Formal Specification Languages:
         at Utrecht University, the Netherlands
         
details:

DeStijl (Design and Specification Through Interfacing and Joining
Languages) is a HCM (Human Capital and Mobility) project about formal
wide-spectrum specification and design languages, such as COLD, VDM
(-SL and Irish schools), RAISE, Z, ASL, VVSL. The project has
basically been divided in the work packages 'Unification and
Integration', 'Assessment' (of the different languages) and 'Case
studies' (in the different languages or their combinations).

Recurring themes are e.g. modularity in language design, parallel
processes, types, and parametrization.
 
The duration of the project will be three years, starting
1995. Participants in the project are Utrecht University, University
of Groningen, Philips Research Laboratories, Trinity College Dublin,
Technical University of Denmark, University of Munich.

On short notice one postdoc position of 1 year can be fulfilled at
Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

In close cooperation with Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven,
the Utrecht posted postdoc will be required to perform a case study
in combining different language features for a concrete application.
A more detailed description of the case study follows.

Since the ideas evolving from the first years of DeStijl must be
integrated here, the postdocs in Denmark and Munich will be consulted
quite often. It is expected that the postdoc will bring experience
with formal wide-spectrum languages. Some knowledge of either object
modelling techniques (OMT) or testing multimedia systems might be
advantageous.

prerequisites:

Only non-Dutch European Community (or associated) members can apply
for the Utrecht HCM position. Ph.D. in Computing Science or related
field is preferred.  Extensive experience in a formal specification
language is a definite requirement.

information:

For more information, contact either the project contact at Utrecht
University (Bas.vanVlijmen@phil.ruu.nl) or the project contact at
Philips Nat.Lab. (bunje@natlab.research.philips.com). For general
information about DeStijl, contact prof. Gerard Renardel (grl@cs.rug.nl).


Description of the case study 
=============================

The aim of the case study will be twofold : 

- validate the approaches to language engineering
  that are developed in DeStijl thus far

- produce a solid base for combining a static description
  of a system with the description of its dynamic behaviour

More concrete :

The concrete example on which the work will be focussed, is an
existing description of a multimedia application in which statecharts
are used to model the dynamic behaviour inclusive timing.

Furthermore, OMT classes and function descriptions of Fusion are used
to model the object view and the functional view.  These together give
the static description of the application, in the sense that the
vocabulary is established and the operations are described in
isolation.

The static description is formalized by using a fragment of COLD-1.

In short, the problem is how to guarantee that these different
descriptions are consistent and that they describe the same thing from
different viewpoints or at different levels of abstraction.

The study may investigate the OMT/ COLD-1 / statecharts combination,
but also other languages for static descriptions and descriptions of
dynamic behaviour can be chosen.

Furthermore, it may concentrate as well on the combination of static
descriptions (formal and informal) and dynamic descriptions in general.

There are several ways in which one may attack the problem.  For
example, one may look for a unifying formalism together with a formal
semantics in which the different descriptions can be translated. 
Another approach might be to investigate the ways in which the
different aspects of the descriptions can be combined and how to deal
with overlap.

Also other approaches might be feasible.

----------------------------------------------------------
Tineke de Bunje             Philips Research Laboratories Eindhoven
Building: WL p 316          Prof. Holstlaan 4
Phone: +31 40 2743932       5656 AA  Eindhoven
Fax:   +31 40 2744004       The Netherlands
E-mail: bunje@natlab.research.philips.com