Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation

Autores
Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón; Ponzio, Pablo Daniel; Aguirre, Nazareno Matias; Frias, Marcelo Fabian
Año de publicación
2018
Idioma
inglés
Tipo de recurso
artículo
Estado
versión publicada
Descripción
Formal requirements specifications, eg, software cost reduction (SCR) specifications, are challenging to analyse using automated techniques such as model checking. Since such specifications are meant to capture requirements, they tend to refer to real-world magnitudes often characterized through variables over large domains. At the same time, they feature a high degree of nondeterminism, as opposed to other analysis contexts such as (sequential) program verification. This makes model checking of SCR specifications difficult even for symbolic approaches. Moreover, automated abstraction refinement techniques such as counterexample guided abstraction refinement fail in many cases in this context, since the concrete state space is typically large, and reaching specific states of interest may require complex executions involving many different states, causing these approaches to perform many abstraction refinements, and making them ineffective in practice. In this paper, an approach to tackle the above situation, through a 2-stage abstraction, is presented. The specification is first relaxed, by disregarding the constraints imposed in the specification by physical laws or by the environment, before being fed to a counterexample guided abstraction refinement procedure, tailored to SCR. By relaxing the original specification, shorter spurious counterexamples are produced, favouring the abstraction refinement through the introduction of fewer abstraction predicates. Then, when a counterexample is concretizable with respect to the relaxed (concrete) specification but it is spurious with respect to the original specification, an efficient though incomplete refinement step is applied to the constraints, to cause the removal of the spurious case. This approach is experimentally assessed, comparing it with related techniques in the verification of properties and in automated test case generation, using various SCR specifications drawn from the literature as case studies. The experiments show that this new approach runs faster and scales better to larger, more complex specifications than related techniques.
Fil: Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina
Fil: Ponzio, Pablo Daniel. Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto. Facultad de Cs.exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación. Grupo de Ingeniería de Software; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina
Fil: Aguirre, Nazareno Matias. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto. Facultad de Cs.exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación. Grupo de Ingeniería de Software; Argentina
Fil: Frias, Marcelo Fabian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires. Escuela de Ingeniería; Argentina
Materia
LAZY ABSTRACTION
MODEL CHECKING
REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION
SOFTWARE COST REDUCTION (SCR)
Nivel de accesibilidad
acceso abierto
Condiciones de uso
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ar/
Repositorio
CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Institución
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
OAI Identificador
oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/92885

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spelling Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxationDegiovanni, Renzo GastónPonzio, Pablo DanielAguirre, Nazareno MatiasFrias, Marcelo FabianLAZY ABSTRACTIONMODEL CHECKINGREQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATIONSOFTWARE COST REDUCTION (SCR)https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2.2https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2Formal requirements specifications, eg, software cost reduction (SCR) specifications, are challenging to analyse using automated techniques such as model checking. Since such specifications are meant to capture requirements, they tend to refer to real-world magnitudes often characterized through variables over large domains. At the same time, they feature a high degree of nondeterminism, as opposed to other analysis contexts such as (sequential) program verification. This makes model checking of SCR specifications difficult even for symbolic approaches. Moreover, automated abstraction refinement techniques such as counterexample guided abstraction refinement fail in many cases in this context, since the concrete state space is typically large, and reaching specific states of interest may require complex executions involving many different states, causing these approaches to perform many abstraction refinements, and making them ineffective in practice. In this paper, an approach to tackle the above situation, through a 2-stage abstraction, is presented. The specification is first relaxed, by disregarding the constraints imposed in the specification by physical laws or by the environment, before being fed to a counterexample guided abstraction refinement procedure, tailored to SCR. By relaxing the original specification, shorter spurious counterexamples are produced, favouring the abstraction refinement through the introduction of fewer abstraction predicates. Then, when a counterexample is concretizable with respect to the relaxed (concrete) specification but it is spurious with respect to the original specification, an efficient though incomplete refinement step is applied to the constraints, to cause the removal of the spurious case. This approach is experimentally assessed, comparing it with related techniques in the verification of properties and in automated test case generation, using various SCR specifications drawn from the literature as case studies. The experiments show that this new approach runs faster and scales better to larger, more complex specifications than related techniques.Fil: Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Ponzio, Pablo Daniel. Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto. Facultad de Cs.exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación. Grupo de Ingeniería de Software; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Aguirre, Nazareno Matias. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto. Facultad de Cs.exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación. Grupo de Ingeniería de Software; ArgentinaFil: Frias, Marcelo Fabian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires. Escuela de Ingeniería; ArgentinaJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd2018-03info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501info:ar-repo/semantics/articuloapplication/pdfapplication/pdfapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/11336/92885Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón; Ponzio, Pablo Daniel; Aguirre, Nazareno Matias; Frias, Marcelo Fabian; Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation; John Wiley & Sons Ltd; Software Testing, Verification & Reliability; 28; 2; 3-20180960-08331099-1689CONICET DigitalCONICETenginfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/stvr.1657info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1002/stvr.1657info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ar/reponame:CONICET Digital (CONICET)instname:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas2025-09-03T09:45:47Zoai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/92885instacron:CONICETInstitucionalhttp://ri.conicet.gov.ar/Organismo científico-tecnológicoNo correspondehttp://ri.conicet.gov.ar/oai/requestdasensio@conicet.gov.ar; lcarlino@conicet.gov.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:34982025-09-03 09:45:47.55CONICET Digital (CONICET) - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicasfalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation
title Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation
spellingShingle Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation
Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón
LAZY ABSTRACTION
MODEL CHECKING
REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION
SOFTWARE COST REDUCTION (SCR)
title_short Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation
title_full Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation
title_fullStr Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation
title_full_unstemmed Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation
title_sort Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón
Ponzio, Pablo Daniel
Aguirre, Nazareno Matias
Frias, Marcelo Fabian
author Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón
author_facet Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón
Ponzio, Pablo Daniel
Aguirre, Nazareno Matias
Frias, Marcelo Fabian
author_role author
author2 Ponzio, Pablo Daniel
Aguirre, Nazareno Matias
Frias, Marcelo Fabian
author2_role author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv LAZY ABSTRACTION
MODEL CHECKING
REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION
SOFTWARE COST REDUCTION (SCR)
topic LAZY ABSTRACTION
MODEL CHECKING
REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION
SOFTWARE COST REDUCTION (SCR)
purl_subject.fl_str_mv https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2.2
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv Formal requirements specifications, eg, software cost reduction (SCR) specifications, are challenging to analyse using automated techniques such as model checking. Since such specifications are meant to capture requirements, they tend to refer to real-world magnitudes often characterized through variables over large domains. At the same time, they feature a high degree of nondeterminism, as opposed to other analysis contexts such as (sequential) program verification. This makes model checking of SCR specifications difficult even for symbolic approaches. Moreover, automated abstraction refinement techniques such as counterexample guided abstraction refinement fail in many cases in this context, since the concrete state space is typically large, and reaching specific states of interest may require complex executions involving many different states, causing these approaches to perform many abstraction refinements, and making them ineffective in practice. In this paper, an approach to tackle the above situation, through a 2-stage abstraction, is presented. The specification is first relaxed, by disregarding the constraints imposed in the specification by physical laws or by the environment, before being fed to a counterexample guided abstraction refinement procedure, tailored to SCR. By relaxing the original specification, shorter spurious counterexamples are produced, favouring the abstraction refinement through the introduction of fewer abstraction predicates. Then, when a counterexample is concretizable with respect to the relaxed (concrete) specification but it is spurious with respect to the original specification, an efficient though incomplete refinement step is applied to the constraints, to cause the removal of the spurious case. This approach is experimentally assessed, comparing it with related techniques in the verification of properties and in automated test case generation, using various SCR specifications drawn from the literature as case studies. The experiments show that this new approach runs faster and scales better to larger, more complex specifications than related techniques.
Fil: Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina
Fil: Ponzio, Pablo Daniel. Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto. Facultad de Cs.exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación. Grupo de Ingeniería de Software; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina
Fil: Aguirre, Nazareno Matias. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto. Facultad de Cs.exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación. Grupo de Ingeniería de Software; Argentina
Fil: Frias, Marcelo Fabian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires. Escuela de Ingeniería; Argentina
description Formal requirements specifications, eg, software cost reduction (SCR) specifications, are challenging to analyse using automated techniques such as model checking. Since such specifications are meant to capture requirements, they tend to refer to real-world magnitudes often characterized through variables over large domains. At the same time, they feature a high degree of nondeterminism, as opposed to other analysis contexts such as (sequential) program verification. This makes model checking of SCR specifications difficult even for symbolic approaches. Moreover, automated abstraction refinement techniques such as counterexample guided abstraction refinement fail in many cases in this context, since the concrete state space is typically large, and reaching specific states of interest may require complex executions involving many different states, causing these approaches to perform many abstraction refinements, and making them ineffective in practice. In this paper, an approach to tackle the above situation, through a 2-stage abstraction, is presented. The specification is first relaxed, by disregarding the constraints imposed in the specification by physical laws or by the environment, before being fed to a counterexample guided abstraction refinement procedure, tailored to SCR. By relaxing the original specification, shorter spurious counterexamples are produced, favouring the abstraction refinement through the introduction of fewer abstraction predicates. Then, when a counterexample is concretizable with respect to the relaxed (concrete) specification but it is spurious with respect to the original specification, an efficient though incomplete refinement step is applied to the constraints, to cause the removal of the spurious case. This approach is experimentally assessed, comparing it with related techniques in the verification of properties and in automated test case generation, using various SCR specifications drawn from the literature as case studies. The experiments show that this new approach runs faster and scales better to larger, more complex specifications than related techniques.
publishDate 2018
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2018-03
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
info:ar-repo/semantics/articulo
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/11336/92885
Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón; Ponzio, Pablo Daniel; Aguirre, Nazareno Matias; Frias, Marcelo Fabian; Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation; John Wiley & Sons Ltd; Software Testing, Verification & Reliability; 28; 2; 3-2018
0960-0833
1099-1689
CONICET Digital
CONICET
url http://hdl.handle.net/11336/92885
identifier_str_mv Degiovanni, Renzo Gastón; Ponzio, Pablo Daniel; Aguirre, Nazareno Matias; Frias, Marcelo Fabian; Improving lazy abstraction for SCR specifications through constraint relaxation; John Wiley & Sons Ltd; Software Testing, Verification & Reliability; 28; 2; 3-2018
0960-0833
1099-1689
CONICET Digital
CONICET
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv eng
language eng
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/stvr.1657
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1002/stvr.1657
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ar/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ar/
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv John Wiley & Sons Ltd
publisher.none.fl_str_mv John Wiley & Sons Ltd
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
instname:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
reponame_str CONICET Digital (CONICET)
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instname_str Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
repository.name.fl_str_mv CONICET Digital (CONICET) - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
repository.mail.fl_str_mv dasensio@conicet.gov.ar; lcarlino@conicet.gov.ar
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