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Concise Guide to Formal Methods

Theory, Fundamentals and Industry Applications

  • Textbook
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Gerard O'Regan

    1. SQC Consulting, Mallow, County Cork, Ireland

    View author publications

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  • Presents a broad and concise account of formal methods, covering both theory and applications
  • Discusses a selection of formal methods and tools to support formal methods
  • Introduces the fundamental concepts in software reliability and dependability engineering, prepositional and predicate logic, model checking, and proof and theorem provers
  • Describes advanced topics in logic such as fuzzy logic, undefined values, temporal logic and intuitionist logic
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science (UTICS)

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Table of contents (20 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxvi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Software Engineering

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 1-25

  3. Software Reliability and Dependability

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 27-40

  4. Overview of Formal Methods

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 41-63

  5. Sets, Relations and Functions

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 65-92

  6. A Short History of Logic

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 93-108

  7. Propositional and Predicate Logic

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 109-135

  8. Advanced Topics in Logic

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 137-154

  9. Z Formal Specification Language

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 155-171

  10. Vienna Development Method

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 173-186

  11. Irish School of VDM

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 187-204

  12. Unified Modelling Language

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 205-218

  13. Dijkstra, Hoare and Parnas

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 219-241

  14. Automata Theory

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 243-252

  15. Model Checking

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 253-262

  16. The Nature of Theorem Proving

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 263-271

  17. Probability and Statistics

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 273-289

  18. Industrial Tools for Formal Methods

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 291-299

  19. Technology Transfer to Industry

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 301-309

  20. Epilogue

    • Gerard O’Regan
    Pages 311-314
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Keywords

About this book

This invaluable textbook/reference provides an easy-to-read guide to the fundamentals of formal methods, highlighting the rich applications of formal methods across a diverse range of areas of computing.

Topics and features: introduces the key concepts in software engineering, software reliability and dependability, formal methods, and discrete mathematics; presents a short history of logic, from Aristotle’s syllogistic logic and the logic of the Stoics, through Boole’s symbolic logic, to Frege’s work on predicate logic; covers propositional and predicate logic, as well as more advanced topics such as fuzzy logic, temporal logic, intuitionistic logic, undefined values, and the applications of logic to AI; examines the Z specification language, the Vienna Development Method (VDM) and Irish School of VDM, and the unified modelling language (UML); discusses Dijkstra’s calculus of weakest preconditions, Hoare’s axiomatic semantics of programming languages, and the classical approachof Parnas and his tabular expressions; provides coverage of automata theory, probability and statistics, model checking, and the nature of proof and theorem proving; reviews a selection of tools available to support the formal methodist, and considers the transfer of formal methods to industry; includes review questions and highlights key topics in every chapter, and supplies a helpful glossary at the end of the book.

This stimulating guide provides a broad and accessible overview of formal methods for students of computer science and mathematics curious as to how formal methods are applied to the field of computing.

Authors and Affiliations

  • SQC Consulting, Mallow, County Cork, Ireland

    Gerard O'Regan

About the author

Dr. Gerard O'Regan is a CMMI software process improvement consultant with research interests including software quality and software process improvement, mathematical approaches to software quality, and the history of computing. He is the author of such Springer titles as Concise Guide to Software Engineering, Guide to Discrete Mathematics, Introduction to the History of Computing, Pillars of Computing, Introduction to Software Quality, Giants of Computing, and Mathematics in Computing.

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