Events

Research Seminar Wednesday 25 March 2015
Title: Using Analytical and Empirical Techniques for Medical Device Number Entry Systems Design

Speaker: Dr. Abigail Cauchi, CTN, BCU

Time: 11:00-13:00, Wednesday 25 March 2015

Venue: MP435, Birmingham City University

Format: The seminar intends to be informal, talk by Dr. Abigail Cauchi  in the first hour, followed by discussions in the 2nd hour.


 * Abstract

User interfaces that employ the same display and buttons may look the same but can work very differently depending on how they are implemented. In healthcare, it is critical that interfaces that look the same are the same. Hospitals typically have many types of similar infusion pumps, with different software versions, and variation between pump behavior may lead to unexpected adverse events. For example, when entering drug doses into infusion pumps that use the same display and button designs, different results may arise when pushing identical sequences of buttons. These differences are a result of subtle implementation differences and may lead to under-dose or over-dose errors.

This seminar explores different implementations of a 5-key interface for entering numbers using a new user interface analysis technique, Differential Formal Analysis. Using Differential Formal Analysis different 5-key interfaces are analyzed based on log data collected from 19 infusion pumps over a 3 year period from a UK hospital. A comparison is made between domain specific results and generic results from Differential Formal Analysis performed using random data. Finally, Differential Formal Analysis is compared to empirical techniques that study the same problem and we discuss how analytical and empirical techniques can be used together for safety critical design.

ProCoS Workshop 2015
Date/Time: Monday 9 March - Tuesday 10 March 2015

Venue: BCS, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA


 * Co-chairs


 * Prof. Jonathan Bowen, Birmingham City University, UK
 * Prof. Mike Hinchey, LERO, University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland
 * Prof. Dr Ernst-Rüdiger Olderog, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany

See ProCoS Working 2015 for further information.

Seminar 18 March 2015
Title: Formal modeling train control system using simulink/stateflow"

Speaker: Dr. Jondon Lv, Visiting Scholar of University of Birmingham from Beijing Jiaotong University, China

Time: 11:00-13:00, Wednesday 18 March 2015

Venue: MP435, Birmingham City University


 * Abstract

As a safety-critical system, It is necessary to use formal modelling and verification to guarantee the correctness of high-speed train control. However, formal modelling and verification are hard and infeasible in practice, as the system become more and more complicated. On the other hand, it is more convenient to model a complicated system in a graphical way. In particular, a graphical model is fairly intuitive, which has been used widely in industry. To improve the reliability of a high-speed train control system, constructing a graphical model for the system and then detecting its bugs by simulation sounds very effective.

In industry area, simulink is widely used to model and simulate dynamical systems in a comprehensive and graphical way, in which models are described as block diagrams(boxes with inputs/outputs). Stateflow can produce simulink blocks, fed with simulink inputs and producing simulink outputs, which can “execute” simulink blocks as actions to describe the system dynamic behaviors. Stateflow integration with Simulink (simulink/stateflow) sounds to be useful to model the behaviors of train control system.

Thus. First I give an introduction about train control system and its main features. second, I give a short introduce about simulink/stateflow informally. Finally, I will show a simple formal modeling of Scenario of train control system. A more complex user-defined train control system pattern based on simulink/stateflow can also be discussed if time is enough.

Seminar 22-10-2014 [02]
Title: Developing reusable .Net Software Components

Speaker: Gopal Singh Jamnal, Visiting student, Centre for Software Engineering, School of Computing, Telecommunication and Networks, Faculty of CEBE, Birmingham City University

Chair: Professor Zhiming Liu

Time: 12:00-13:00, Wednesday 22 2014

Venue: MP 380

Abstract

Software Development with reuse and for reuse is the foundation of CBSE (Component based software engineering) which allow faster development at lower cost and better usability. A reusable software component works as a plug and play device, which abstract the software complexity and increase performance. This presentation address reuse guidelines based framework (known as .NET Guider) for guidelines based component development for reuse in .NET family and a RV(reuse value) metric. We have demonstrated our approach by designing a binary component as part of development for reuse based on our own .NET Reuse Guider framework. This presentation provides a number reuse analysis and metrics and a prototype(.Net Guider) tool which sits on top of the .NET architecture with built-in software development & reuse knowledge.

About the Speaker

NSc in Software Engineering, three years of Software Development life cycle experience in Designed and Developed Software’s according to Business Requirements. In depth knowledge of Microsoft.Net Technologies, SQL Server administration and working knowledge of ERP systems (Microsoft Dynamic Navision, Ramco ERP System). In addition 5 years of experience in Infrastructure Service management with customer handling and interaction.

Software-Skills:

MS Visual-Studio 2008/2010, MS-SQL Server2005/2008, SSRS, Crystal-reports Window Server2003/2008, Eclipse IDE, Microsoft Dynamic Navision (ERP), Ramco erp system.

Publication:

Ramachandran, M. and Jamnal, G.S (2014), Developing reusable .net Software Component                                                         Proceeding of SAI (Science & Information) conference, London, UK, IEEE digital library and Springe.

Seminar 15-10-2014 [01]
Title:     A Hybrid Model of Connectors in Cyber Physical Systems

Speaker: Xiaohong Chen, Centre for Software Engineering, School of Computing, Telecommunication and Networks, Faculty of CEBE, Birmingham City University

Chair: Professor Jonathan Bowen

Time: 16:00-17:00, Wednesday 15 October 2014

Venue: MP380

Compositional coordination models and languages play an important role in cyber-physical systems (CPSs), in which discrete and continuous dynamics co-exist and interact with each other. In this talk, we introduce a formal model for  describing hybrid behaviours of connectors in CPSs. We extend  the constraint automata model, which is used as  the semantic model for the exogenous channel based  coordination language Reo to capture the dynamic behaviour of  connectors in CPSs  In addition to the formalism, we also provide a  compositional approach for constructing the product  automata for a Reo circuit.
 * Abstract

Xiaohong Chen (he can also be called Hreada)  a Ph.D. student under the supervision  Professor Zhiming Liu and  Professor Jonathan Bowen in  the Centre for Software Engineering at the School of Computing, Telecommunication and  Networks, Faculty of Computing  Engineering and Telecommunication, Birmingham City University. He joined Birmingham  City University on October 2014. He graduated with a  bachelor's degree from Peking University in July 2014. The research  interests of Xiaohong Chen is in theories, techniques and tools of component-based software modelling, dsign and verification. This talk  is to introduce  his recent work on a semantic model for CPS components. The work has been accepted by the 16th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods (ICFEM2014) to be held in November 2014 in Luxembourg.
 * Biography

Summer School on Engineering Trustworthy Software Systems 8-13 August 2014
The Centre for Software Engineering of BCU, together with South West University in Chongqing (China) jointly organised the summers on 8-13 August 2013. Professor Zhiming Liu is a Co-organisation Chair, he and Professor Jonathan Bowen taught the courses on Formal Software Architecture Modelling and Validation and the Z Notation, respectively.

Attendance
The meeting was attended by:


 * Professor Zhiming Liu
 * Professor Jonathan Bowen
 * Dr Michael Boyd
 * William Campbell
 * Gurvinder Dubb
 * Dr Jagdev Bhogal
 * Rehan Bhana
 * Dr Thomas Lancaster
 * Dr David Gibson
 * Dr Cain Evans

Research introductions
The purpose of this meeting was to form a Centre for Software Engineering (CSE) Research Group. Staff members were invited to discuss their research interests. Everyone found this exercise very useful because staff members learnt more about each other and about overlapping areas of interest. The CTN school research activity is set to grow with 4 new members of staff experienced in research joining in August. Interviews have also taken place to recruit up to 12 PhD students.

Concluding remarks
The plan is to hold a regular monthly research meeting for the CSE Research Group. Future research meetings will be focused on helping team members progress with their research. Meetings will be interactive and cover areas such as:


 * problem discussions of work in progress in order to obtain ideas and/or suggested solutions
 * helping team members to apply skills/expertise/models to applications
 * providing information on funding opportunities
 * suggesting grant proposals for larger research problems