Editorial

Formal Aspects of Computing marks the end of the first year of our re-launched format. It has not been an easy year either for the editors or for the ever-patient staff at Springer-Verlag; but it has certainly been successful with first class papers being published soon after acceptance. As with most computing journals, refereeing poses a (potential) bottleneck to getting an author's ideas into print but even here our colleagues at Springer-Verlag have come up with an incentive scheme from which our future referees will benefit and hopefully speed the refereeing process to everyone's advantage. Recently, most editions of the journal have been standard issues with a number of submitted papers. It has been our stated intention since the journal began to have special editions with whole editions on a single topic. We are currently planning such a special edition to mark Rod Burstall's retirement (in fact we have so many excellent papers that there will probably have to be a double edition). This special issue collects a number of papers on X-machines edited by Mike Holcombe and myself. Mike has written a brief introduction and there follow five papers which have all been refereed by experts in the area (I took personal charge of having Mike's paper refereed). The generalisation of the testing theory to non-deterministic stream X-machines is the focus of two articles. Non-determinism can be generalised in several ways. R. Hierons and M. Harman look at quasi-non-deterministic machines and describe an approach to dealing with the generation of test sets for such machines. F. Ipate and M. Holcombe look at another way to view non-determinism and also focus on test set generation, the issue of fairness becomes important if the strong claims about fault detection by the test sets are to be achieved. M. Gheorghe has investigated how a collection of formal grammars can be controlled by a type of generalised stream X-machine so that the languages generated by such a system of grammars can be determined. He has shown that relatively simple grammars can generate very complex languages using this approach. T. Balanescu explores further generalisations of Stream X-machines and discusses how the design for test conditions can be adapted for a specific type of machine. A. Cowling et al. look at communicating X-machine systems and consider how this approach can be used to model message passing using a simple communicating matrix metaphor. Models built this way can be used to generate, automatically, concurrent programs. In a paper to appear in Volume 13, F. Ipate and M. Holcombe look at how the test theory can be adapted to apply to the communicating X-machines systems case. Indeed, Volume 13 already looks to be an exciting mix of scientific contributions – we also expect to back on a more regular publication schedule by the end of 2001.     

基于VC的字模图文系统的设计与实现

摇棒相对于传统的LED电子显示屏能够节约大部分成本。文章给出了摇棒的软件实现方法,该软件能可视化地显示和编辑字模或自画图,操作简单,适合于摇棒或电子显示屏的内容设置。     

Structural system reliability combining the constraint of damage tolerance design

Many papers concerning structural system reliability under the constraint of statical strength have been published in the past 10 years: several preliminary papers combining this with the constraint of fatigue strength also have been published: however papers combining it with the constraint of damage tolerance design are rarely seen. The present paper presents a methodology combining fracture mechanics with structural system reliability theory in order to solve the panel reliability analysis problem based on the requirement of damage tolerance design. The panel under consideration is constituted by a plate and several stringers. Some illustrative examples are given. Based on the physical concepts and computational results some conclusions concerning the reliability and design are drawn.     

一种ARMA谱估计公式

近年来,国内外刊物上发表了一些介绍只估计AR参数的ARMA(p,q)谱估计方法的文 章.本文指出了上述文章中存在的问题,并导出了一种正确的较完善的ARMA(p,q)谱估计 公式.     

Engineering a data dependence test

Many papers have been written dealing with the science of data dependence tests, particularly for dependence of arrays in loops; the techniques typically reduce the dependence problem to an algebraic problem, then solve the algebraic problem by an algorithm which has some desired blend of efficiency, generality or precision. While a sound theoretical basis is necessary for dependence-based tools, these papers often leave out many implementation details. This paper addresses the engineering aspects of data dependence testing, particularly focusing on details that are necessary in any competent implementation of a data dependence test.     

一种具有权限特性的群签名方案

群签名在电子商务与电子政务领域有着广泛的应用.自从1991年第1个群签名方案被提出以来,在过去的15年里,密码学界的研究者们又提出了许多群签名方案.这些方案中有针对群签名方案本身的研究,即提出不同的假设,并在此基础上构建群签名方案;有针对群签名的安全性标准化的研究;还有将群签名同盲签名、前向安全性签名结合在一起构建群盲签名、具有前向安全性的群签名的研究.但到目前为止,没有一篇文章是关于可证明安全性的具有权限特性的群签名方案.在BMW方案的基础上构建了具有权限特性的群签名方案:在BMW方案中加入了权限生成算法,虽然实例生成速度降低,但为群签名方案添加了权限特性;并且,对定理2的证明比BMW方案更加简洁.     

换位原理与几个模态特征公式的有效性

采用换位原理的推理规则能够使得多Agent系统中关于其它Agent的状况和行为的推理变得简明和清晰。本文探讨了几个正规模态特征公式的有效性与框架性质之间的关系，发现一些直观上成立的模态公式也是有条件成立的，并从模态逻辑和Kripke可能世界语义的角度给出了文[1～3]中换位原理（PEP）规则有效性的语义证明。     

Optimization of a supply portfolio in the context of supply chain risk management: literature review

The aim of this paper is to review the literature in the field of supplier selection under supply chain risk management. Collected papers from 2003 to 2014 are analyzed and classified, first, according to the characteristics of the problem they deal with, secondly, according to the approach they propose, and thirdly, according to the techniques they use. The papers have been grouped into five categories: the first group relates to quantitative approaches to supplier selection, the second concerns qualitative approaches, the third consists of hybrid approaches that blend two or more different approaches together, the fourth relates to simulation approaches and the last group to artificial intelligence. The techniques used in each category are outlined. The different approaches and their associated techniques are analyzed and some recommendations are made on improving their efficiency and performance. This paper is thus a systematic scope review of journal articles and conference papers issued during this period. It brings together a collection of 124 papers on the topic of supplier selection under supply chain risk management.     

Editorial

At the time of writing this editorial, subscribers will have just received their copies of the triple issue honouring the work of Rod Burstall. Coordinating this collection was a substantial undertaking; and thanks go to all concerned, particularly to David Rydeheard and Don Sannella and the behind the scenes production staff. We (the journal editors) hope you agree that it was well worth waiting for the fascinating collection. The production and scheduling of that set of papers, and other incidental but cumulative factors, have contributed to recent issues being late. We hope soon to be back close to our planned, evenly timed, publication timetable; however it also seems timely to mention, and to reiterate, some changes which are afoot. As of this issue (14.1) we shall revert to our initial publication frequency of 4 issues per year, but these will be larger than in earlier volumes and will retain the large page format adopted in Volume 12. [A reminder for authors who use LaTeX to use the new class files.] We are now receiving, and publishing, long papers (but still with the option of including supplementary material on the web) and, except in special issues, strive to achieve a reasonable coverage of topics within the given constraints. Although normally skipped over, readers of the journal front matter might notice periodic changes to the editorial board. These usually go unmentioned; our editors (who are working editors, not merely ‘names’) seek no reward or praise. Readers will also notice the recently modernised BCS-FACS logo and a declaration that the journal (although truly international in scope) was founded by (BCS-)FACS, some even to this day refer to it as ‘the FACS journal’, and we are very happy for this to continue. Bringing these two threads together gets me to the point of this digression. Dan Simpson founded the BCS specialist group on Formal Aspects of Computing Science some 25 years ago. Without his radical suggestion that the BCS had a specialist group that actually addressed Computer Science, there would have been no FACS and no FACS journal. Dan has recently finished his spell as Dean in the Faculty of IT at Brighton University and he has also resigned as a member of our editorial board. As you can see, he was active to the very end being responsible for progressing 2 of the 3 papers in this issue. I gather he now intends to concern himself with other matters; I would counsel a less stressful life and more Bob Dylan music. He has been a friend and colleague of many of those associated with the FACS group and its journal; on their behalf may I offer a big ‘thank you’ for all that you have done for us and offer our best wishes for whatever endeavours you are about to embark upon. Very many years ago, at a conference, I heard someone respond in debate “I didn't see who said that but it sounded like Mr Simpson from Teesside … .” – well it's no longer ‘Mr’ nor ‘Teesside’ but I can't believe that we really have seen or heard the last of this Yorkshire lad. Thanks, goodbye and good luck. It is with deep regret that we have to report the death of Ole-Johan Dahl. Professor Dahl was a leader of thought in many fields; his contributions on Object-Oriented languages and methods were recently recognised in his (joint) awards of the IEEE von Neumann prize and the ACM Turing Award. He was also a major contributor to Formal Methods and a future edition of this journal will attempt to mark his contribution. We have lost an editor; our thoughts are with his family who have lost so much more.au     

Research intelligence involving information retrieval – An example of conferences and journals

This paper reports a work that was intended to reveal the connection between topics investigated by conference papers and journal papers. This work selected hundreds of papers in data mining and information retrieval from well-known databases and showed that the topics covered by conference papers in a year often leads to similar topics covered by journal papers in the subsequent year and vice versa. This study used some existing algorithms and combination of these algorithms to proposed a new detective procedure for the researchers to detect the new trend and get the academic intelligence from conferences and journals.The goal of this research is fourfold: First, the research investigates if the conference papers’ themes lead the journal papers’. Second, the research examines how the new research themes can be identified from the conference papers. Third, the research looks at a specific area such as information retrieval and data mining as an illustration. Fourth, the research studies any inconsistencies of the correlation between the conference papers and the journal papers.This study explores the connections between the academic publications. The methodologies of information retrieval and data mining can be exploited to discover the relationships between published papers among all topics. By discovering the connections between conference papers and journal papers, researchers can improve the effectiveness of their research by identifying academic intelligence.This study discusses how conference papers and journal papers are related. The topics of conference papers are identified to determine whether they represent new trend discussed in journal papers. An automatic examination procedure based on information retrieval and data mining is also proposed to minimize the time and human resources required to predict further research developments. This study develops a new procedure and collects a dataset to verify those problems. Analytical results demonstrate that the conference papers submitted to journals papers are similar each year. Conference papers certainly affect the journal papers published over three years. About 87.23% of data points from papers published in 1991–2007 support our assumption. The research is intended to help researchers identify new trend in their research fields, and focus on the urgent topics. This is particularly valuable for new researchers in their field, or those who wish to perform cross-domain studies.     

编程题的计算机阅卷

分析了当前的一些计算机考试系统的特点,指出了其存在的不足之处。为了更加合理和有效地使用计算机进行阅卷,首先提出了几个新概念,然后在此基础上给出了一个编程题的计算机阅卷模式,对其实现流程进行了详细的阐述,最后对结果进行了分析。该系统已经用于实际的教学环节中,收到了良好的效果。     

A micro computer based data base management system for a national engineering conference

A Data Base Management System for a National Engineering Conference has been developed in dBase III on an IBM XT. The system was used to record the papers and participants as they are submitted, to generate the management information data on which the scheduling and room assignments of presentations are based, and finally to print automatically the conference bulletin. The system was designed so that it could handle in excess of 2000 participants, 2000 papers and 50 simultaneous sessions.

Hardware and software requirements are defined and the selection process is reported. Techniques to design the system so that it required minimal training and is virtually user proof are illustrated. The system has been successfully used to manage the Joint ORSA/TIMS National Meeting in Atlanta, 1985 and some practical experience and possible enhancements are given.     

Potential and limitations of the ISBSG dataset in enhancing software engineering research: A mapping review

ContextThe International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG) maintains a software development repository with over 6000 software projects. This dataset makes it possible to estimate a project’s size, effort, duration, and cost.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to determine how and to what extent, ISBSG has been used by researchers from 2000, when the first papers were published, until June of 2012.MethodA systematic mapping review was used as the research method, which was applied to over 129 papers obtained after the filtering process.ResultsThe papers were published in 19 journals and 40 conferences. Thirty-five percent of the papers published between years 2000 and 2011 have received at least one citation in journals and only five papers have received six or more citations. Effort variable is the focus of 70.5% of the papers, 22.5% center their research in a variable different from effort and 7% do not consider any target variable. Additionally, in as many as 70.5% of papers, effort estimation is the research topic, followed by dataset properties (36.4%). The more frequent methods are Regression (61.2%), Machine Learning (35.7%), and Estimation by Analogy (22.5%). ISBSG is used as the only support in 55% of the papers while the remaining papers use complementary datasets. The ISBSG release 10 is used most frequently with 32 references. Finally, some benefits and drawbacks of the usage of ISBSG have been highlighted.ConclusionThis work presents a snapshot of the existing usage of ISBSG in software development research. ISBSG offers a wealth of information regarding practices from a wide range of organizations, applications, and development types, which constitutes its main potential. However, a data preparation process is required before any analysis. Lastly, the potential of ISBSG to develop new research is also outlined.     

Editorial of the Special Issue on Software Modelling and Meta-Modelling

Software modelling is to represent software systems at a high level of abstraction in the form of models, which are often in graphic or formal notations and sometimes a combination of them. In a model, the implementation details are omitted or hidden in order to facilitate both human comprehension and communication and automated reasoning about the system. A large number of modelling languages and/or notations have been proposed in the past decades as a core part of software development methodologies, such as data ow diagrams in the structured analysis and design, UML in object-oriented development, and Petri-net, nite state machine, and statechart etc. in formal methods. With the rapid development of model-driven software development methodology, modelling plays an increasingly important role in software development. Meta-modelling, which models software models, has emerged as one of the key techniques that formalise the de nitions of modelling languages and the speci cation of various processes and transformations of models. It has been an active research topic in the past a few years. This journal special issue aims at reflecting the current frontier in the research on the scienti c and technological principles of software modelling and meta-modelling, and further promoting the research and practices. An open call for papers and some personal invitations were made in the consolidation of submissions to this special issue. A total of 11 submissions were received. The papers included in this special issue are selected based on the reviews by experts in the subject area according to the journal''s procedure and quality standard. Each paper is reviewed by at least two reviewers and some of the papers were revised for two rounds according to the reviewers'' comments. ....     

一种新的加权关联规则模型

关联规则挖掘可以发现大量数据项集之间隐含的关系,在许多领域得到了广泛应用。目前很多关联规则挖掘算法已经被提出,这些算法一般都认为每个数据项的重要性相同。然而在现实中各个项目的重要性往往不同,从决策者角度出发,他们往往会优先考虑利润较高的项目,而忽略利润较低的项目。论文分析了现有加权关联规则文献中存在的问题,提出了一种新的加权关联规则模型,给出了有效挖掘加权频繁项集的MWFI算法。     

Topological and geometrical properties of hexahedral meshes

Over the years, there have been a number of practical studies with working definitions of ‘mesh’ as related to computational simulation, however, there are only a few theoretical papers with formal definitions of mesh. Algebraic topology papers are available that define tetrahedral meshes in terms of simplices. Algebraic topology and polytope theory has also been utilized to define hexahedral meshes. Additional literature is also available describing particular properties of the dual of a mesh. In this paper, we give several formal definitions in relation to hexahedral meshes and the dual of hexahedral meshes. Our main goal is to provide useful, understandable and minimal definitions specifically for computer scientists or mathematicians working in hexahedral meshing. We also extend these definitions to some useful classifications of hexahedral meshes, including definitions for ‘fundamental’ hexahedral meshes and ‘minimal’ hexahedral meshes.     

区间数判断矩阵的一致性研究

研究区间数判断矩阵的一致性问题.首先对现有文献中有关区间数判断矩阵的一致性定义进行了总结、分析,指出定义中存在的不合理性.在此基础上给出区间数判断矩阵的完全一致性、强一致性、一致性和满意一致性定义,讨论这些定义和现有文献中相关定义的关系,论证了一致性等定义的合理性,并给出了一致性判别方法.最后通过算例验证了判别方法的有效性和适用性.     

Introductory paper

This section is based on selected papers from the 6th and 7th ERCIM workshops on Formal Methods in Industrial Critical Systems. These papers either extend the state of the art in model checking and automatic test generation or they address the methodology for applying tools based on formal methods. Also, some important experiences are reported from industrial cases in which formal methods have been applied.     

基于智能移动Agent的C语言考试系统

文中首先分析了计算机辅助教学软件开发的必要性和当前一些计算机考试系统的特点，指出了它们存在的不足之处；然后从系统体系结构、系统操作界面、数据文件结构、试卷生成流程和阅卷模式五个方面对如何设计一个完备的、智能化的C语言计算机考试系统的思路进行了详 细的分析。系统中利用智能移动Agent完成试卷的生成与分发、考试过程的监视、试卷的评阅、考试成绩的回收等任务。在阅卷模式中，系统利用人工智能中可信度等基本概念进行模糊阅卷，能够给出一个合理的分数，同时有效地避免了考生作弊的可能性。系统在实际教学环节节中应用以后，收到了良好的教学效果。