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Automatically Discovering Properties That Specify the Latent Behavior of UML Models

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Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 6394))

Abstract

Formal analysis can be used to verify that a model of the system adheres to its requirements. As such, traditional formal analysis focuses on whether known (desired) system properties are satisfied. In contrast, this paper proposes an automated approach to generating temporal logic properties that specify the latent behavior of existing UML models; these are unknown properties exhibited by the system that may or may not be desirable. A key component of our approach is Marple, a evolutionary-computation tool that leverages natural selection to discover a set of properties that cover different regions of the model state space. The Marple-discovered properties can be used to refine the models to either remove unwanted behavior or to explicitly document a desirable property as required system behavior. We use Marple to discover unwanted latent behavior in two applications: an autonomous robot navigation system and an automotive door locking control system obtained from one of our industrial collaborators.

This work has been supported in part by NSF grants EIA-0000433, CNS-0551622, CCF-0541131, IIP-0700329, CCF-0750787, Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research under Grant No. N00014-01-1-0744, Siemens Corporate Research, and a Quality Fund Program grant from Michigan State University.

We gratefully acknowledge the feedback and insight provided by the reviewers of our earlier work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, 3115 Engineering Building East Lansing, Michigan, 48824, USA

    Heather J. Goldsby & Betty H. C. Cheng

Authors
  1. Heather J. Goldsby
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  2. Betty H. C. Cheng
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, K1S 5BG, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Dorina C. Petriu

  2. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Flight Software Systems Engineering and Srchitecture Group, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, 91109, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Nicolas Rouquette

  3. SINTEF IKT, Forskningsveien 1, 0373, Oslo, Norway

    Øystein Haugen

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Goldsby, H.J., Cheng, B.H.C. (2010). Automatically Discovering Properties That Specify the Latent Behavior of UML Models . In: Petriu, D.C., Rouquette, N., Haugen, Ø. (eds) Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems. MODELS 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6394. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16145-2_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16145-2_22

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-16144-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-16145-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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