The Schorr Waite Marking Algorithm Revisited

The Schorr-Waite Marking Algorithm Revisited

Algorithm Synthesis: A Comparative Study

In early 1986, one of us (D.M.S.) was constructing an artificial intelligence system to design algorithms, and the other (A.P.A.) was getting started in program transformations research. We shared an office, and exchanged a few papers on the systematic development of algorithms from specifications. Gradually we realized that we were trying to solve some of the same problems. And so, despite radical differences between ourselves in research approaches, we set out together to see what we could learn from these papers. That's how this book started: a couple of graduate students trying to cope with The Literature. At first, there was just a list of papers. One of us (D.M.S.) tried to cast the papers in a uniform framework by describing the problem spaces searched, an approach used in artificial intelligence for understanding many tasks. The generalized problem space descriptions, though useful, seemed to abstract too much, so we decided to compare papers by different authors dealing with the same algorithm. These comparisons proved crucial: for then we began to see similar key design choices for each algorithm.

Formal Methods and Software Engineering

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods, ICFEM 2014, held in Luxembourg, Luxembourg, in November 2014. The 28 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 73 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics in the area of formal methods and software engineering and are devoted to advancing the state of the art of applying formal methods in practice. They focus in particular on combinations of conceptual and methodological aspects with their formal foundation and tool support.