Behavioural validation of software engineering artefacts

Abstract

Software engineering artefacts that define behaviour tend to be of a fragmented nature in order to facilitate their construction, modification, and modular reasoning (e.g. modular code, pre/post-conditions specifications). However, fragmentation makes the validation of global behaviour difficult. Typically synthesis techniques that yield global representations of large and potentially infinite states are used in combination with simulation, animation or partial explorations, tecniques which necesarily loose the global view of system behaviour. I aim to develop abstraction-for-validation techniques that automatically produce finite state abstractions that are sufficiently small to support validating the emergent behaviour of a fragmented description "at a glance".