Master of Mathematics

I graduated from the University of Waterloo with the degree of
Master of Mathematics in Computer Science in Spring 2020.
My research at the Waterloo Formal Methods[1] group focused on
formal logic, model checking, and verification; under supervision
of Prof. Nancy Day[2].

     A Comprehensive Study of Declarative Modelling Languages

Thesis
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Reference version: pdf[3] | bib[4]
LaTeX sources: tar.gz[5] | zip[6]

Abstract:

  Declarative behavioural modelling is a powerful modelling
  paradigm that enables users to model system functionality
  abstractly and formally.  An abstract model is a concise and
  compact representation of key characteristics of a system, and
  enables the stakeholders to reason about the correctness of the
  system in the early stages of development.

  There are many different declarative languages and they have
  greatly varying constructs for representing a transition system,
  and they sometimes differ in rather subtle ways.  In this
  thesis, we compare seven formal declarative modelling languages
  B, Event-B, Alloy, Dash, TLA+, PlusCal, and AsmetaL on several
  criteria.  We classify these criteria under three main
  categories: structuring transition systems (control modelling),
  data descriptions in transition systems (data modelling), and
  modularity aspects of modelling.  We developed this comparison
  by completing a set of case studies across the data-
  vs. control-oriented spectrum in all of the above languages.

  Structurally, a transition system is comprised of a
  snapshot declaration and snapshot space, initialization, and a
  transition relation, which is potentially composed of individual
  transitions.  We meticulously outline the differences between
  the languages with respect to how the modeller would express
  each of the above components of a transition system in each
  language, and include discussions regarding stuttering and
  inconsistencies in the transition relation.  Data-related
  aspects of a formal model include use of basic and composite
  datatypes, well-formedness and typechecking, and separation
  of name spaces with respect to global and local variables.
  Modularity criteria includes subtransition systems and data
  decomposition.  We employ a series of small and concise
  exemplars we have devised to highlight these differences in
  each language.  To help modellers answer the important question
  of which declarative modelling language may be most suited for
  modelling their system, we present recommendations based on our
  observations about the differentiating characteristics of each
  of these languages.

License:

  This thesis is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
  modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
  published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of
  the License, or (at your option) any later version.

  This thesis is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  GNU General Public License for more details.

  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
  License along with this thesis.  If not, see
  <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

A copy of the GNU General Public License is available from the
COPYING file included in both of the LaTeX source archives linked
above, and also the COPYING.GPL[7] file on this site.

Presentation
------------

Reference version: (coming soon)
LaTeX sources: (coming soon)

This is the presentation I delivered to my supervisor and the
second readers of my thesis on Jun 30, 2020, as announced on the
Cheriton School of Computer Science website[8].

Models
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Reference version: (coming soon)

[1] https://watform.uwaterloo.ca
[2] https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~nday/
[3] https://kelar.org/~bandali/theses/bandali-mmath-thesis.pdf
    gopher://kelar.org/d/~bandali/theses/bandali-mmath-thesis.pdf
[4] https://kelar.org/~bandali/theses/bandali-mmath-thesis.bib
    gopher://kelar.org/0/~bandali/theses/bandali-mmath-thesis.bib
[5] https://kelar.org/~bandali/theses/bandali-mmath-thesis.tar.gz
    gopher://kelar.org/5/~bandali/theses/bandali-mmath-thesis.tar.gz
[6] https://kelar.org/~bandali/theses/bandali-mmath-thesis.zip
    gopher://kelar.org/5/~bandali/theses/bandali-mmath-thesis.zip
[7] https://kelar.org/~bandali/COPYING.GPL
    gopher://kelar.org/0/~bandali/COPYING.GPL
[8] https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/events/masters-thesis-presentation-formal-methods-comprehensive-study-declarative-modelling-languages

Copyright (c) 2020 Amin Bandali.  This work is licensed under
GNU GPLv3+.