Rosario Giustolisi: Modelling and Verification of Secure Exams

Springer, 2018, 133 pages, ISBN 978-3-319-67106-2
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319671062

Summary

Exams are an important aspect in assessing people’s skills and as such play a key role to establish meritocracy in modern societies. To be effective, however, exams need to be fair and secure against tampering, which is where Rosario Giustolisi’s book “Modelling and Verification of Secure Exams’’ [5] comes to the rescue. Over 133 pages, the book describes the different aspects of exams in detail and identifies various security-related requirements for them. Moreover, the book describes how to formally model an exam using the applied pi-calculus and how to verify security requirements for it using the ProVerif verifier. Finally, the book presents the outcome of modelling and analysing three popular example protocols. This book might be of interest to everyone who wants to learn more about the nature of exams in general, and in particular about how to model and verify them. To fully appreciate the book, however, some familiarity with the applied pi-calculus and in particular the ProVerif verifier is necessary.

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FME’s Teaching Committee is launching a new tutorial series, planned to be held monthly. We aim to increase the awareness and sharing of tools and techniques used for teaching formal methods. The tutorial will be held online via zoom.

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The Annual General Meeting of FME will take place online, May 6 2021.

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The 70th Business Meeting of FME will take place December 10, 2020.

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CAVlinks: A platform for students and researchers interested in computer-aided verification

CAVlinks is a platform for students and researchers interested in computer-aided verification. The website aims to be an entry point for new students by presenting links to introductory and advanced study material in the areas relevant to CAV (e.g. logics, theoretical CS, and formal methods), by pointing to interesting events (e.g. workshops, student forums, conferences maintained in a public calendar), and by advertising mentoring possibilities.

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André Platzer: Logical Analysis of Hybrid Systems

Springer, 2010, 426 pages, ISBN 978-3-642-14508-7
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-642-14509-4

Summary

This is an extensive book on deductive methods for hybrid systems’ verification, rooted in dynamic logic. The author develops both formal specification languages for hybrid systems and automated verification techniques based on them. The main focus is on the theoretical aspects of the approach, but implementation issues are also widely addressed, and a functioning tool is presented at the end of the book. It presents a powerful formalism for the specification and verification of hybrid systems, with a strong practical impact.

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Two new survey papers offer complementary perspectives on the state of formal methods in 2020.

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FME Fellowship Award

The nominations should be sent to info@fmeurope.org by 31st JANUARY 2021.

Established in 2015 and normally given every three years for technical achievements in advancing, applying, and promoting formal methods, the Formal Methods Europe (FME) Fellowship rewards scientific breakthroughs and pioneering work that have made a difference to the world through advances in formal methods.

Nominees are expected to have made significant contributions through solid theoretical work or practical impact in industry. The development of frameworks and tools, teaching formal methods, as well as publicising formal methods worldwide and attracting people to the community are additional criteria that can strengthen a nomination. All nominations have to be supported by concrete evidence.

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Albert Benveniste, Benoît Caillaud, Dejan Nickovic, Roberto Passerone, Jean-Baptiste Raclet, Philipp Reinkemeier, Alberto Sangiovanni- Vincentelli, Werner Damm, Thomas A. Henzinger and Kim G. Larsen: Contracts for System Design

now Publishers Inc., 2018, 296 pages, ISBN 978-1-68083-402-4
https://www.nowpublishers.com/article/Details/EDA-053

Summary

While a number of theoretical contract frameworks have been proposed in the literature, missing has been a formal statement of what is required in defining a contract theory. This book addresses that gap, presenting a thorough mathematical treatment of contracts with the development of a new meta-theory for contracts as the foundation. That meta-theory is used to provide an understanding of several contract frameworks, allowing the reader to see how each framework fits into the meta-theory and to assess similarities and differences between the individual frameworks.

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