The number of Web applications handling online transaction is increasing, but verification of the correctness of the Web application design has been done manually. This paper proposes a method for modeling Web applications using two finite-state automata, i.e., a page automaton which species Web page transitions, and an internal state automaton which species internal state transitions of the Web application. General assertions for checking Web application design are proposed, and a theoretical result for deadlock-freeness of Web application is also shown. An example Web application is modeled by the proposed method and checked using the model checker Spin.

Based on the existing models and methodologies for software process improvement (SPI), an evolution management framework (EMF) is proposed. This methodology uses best practices of various existing models and methodologies, extends or adapts them, and puts them into the context of embedded software engineering development environments.

A methodology for the description of system requirements and formal specifications of reactive systems and the synthesis of formal specifications is presented. Based on a hierarchical structure of system properties, a hierarchical assertion language is used as a requirement language and hierarchical state transition systems are used as formal specifications. Sound and complete formal specifications are synthesized from system requirements automatically. Modularity and reusability are supported by the introduction of requirement and specification modules and a partial order relation over these modules. The methodology has a practical significance because desired specifications of reactive systems can be derived or synthesized from user requirements on system functions in a systematic and stepwise way.

In order to achieve a more convenient and intelligent handling of LOTOS specifications, an approach is proposed wherein specifications are translated into an appropriate equational logic language and interpreted. LOTOS has an excellent formal model for describing communication processes and equational logic languages have the capability of inferencing and data abstraction. Naturally, the marriage of LOTOS and equational logic provides a powerful framework with features that could not be realized in existing technologies. To demonstrate this potential, AMLOG is chosen as the appropriate equational logic language. Apart from rapid prototyping of specifications, some of the exciting possibilities of the new framework that are demonstrated include stepwise refinement and testing for correctness of specifications, facilities for property checking and verification of bisimulation equivalences. Also, the derivation of behavior expressions from trace histories is shown. The approach, extensible to other FDTs as well, is a step towards realizing an intelligent communication protocol specification environment.

Entities in communication systems behave under sets of communication rules (protocols) and their behaviours are related to each other. Using this relationship, we present a synthesis algorithm to derive a structured protocol model by generating a peer entity from a given entity automatically. The given entity is in the form of a communicating process, which is natural in the context of communication protocols. We prove that the synthesized protocol model consisting of the generated entity and the peer entity is safe: i.e. logical errors free, collectively represented as deadlock free and is bisimulated by both entities. Unlike many previous works, where FSMs (Finite State Machines) are used to synthesize protocol model we present our synthesis algorithm for the process-algebraic language LOTOS, which is one of the FDTs developed by ISO.

There has been an effort towards developing a specification language for describing processes. To this end, Formal Description Techniques (FDTs) have been proposed. FDTs in general fare well in describing a target system unambiguously, precisely, and completely. However, the drawback of these FDTs are that they are generally not user-friendly (easy to read) and are difficult to write. These drawbacks could be overcome by a new technique of automatic synthesis of formal specifications from user requirements. A state transition system is an underling structure for formal description techniques and used as a formal specification itself. In this paper, we propose an automatic transformation from user requirements into formal specification represented as state transition systems and its connection with partial logical Petri nets.

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