Formal specificationIn computer science, formal specifications are mathematically based techniques whose purpose are to help with the implementation of systems and software. They are used to describe a system, to analyze its behavior, and to aid in its design by verifying key properties of interest through rigorous and effective reasoning tools. These specifications are formal in the sense that they have a syntax, their semantics fall within one domain, and they are able to be used to infer useful information.
Kripke structure (model checking)This article describes Kripke structures as used in model checking. For a more general description, see Kripke semantics. A Kripke structure is a variation of the transition system, originally proposed by Saul Kripke, used in model checking to represent the behavior of a system. It consists of a graph whose nodes represent the reachable states of the system and whose edges represent state transitions, together with a labelling function which maps each node to a set of properties that hold in the corresponding state.
Specification (technical standard)A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard. There are different types of technical or engineering specifications (specs), and the term is used differently in different technical contexts. They often refer to particular documents, and/or particular information within them. The word specification is broadly defined as "to state explicitly or in detail" or "to be specific".
First-order logicFirst-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantified variables over non-logical objects, and allows the use of sentences that contain variables, so that rather than propositions such as "Socrates is a man", one can have expressions in the form "there exists x such that x is Socrates and x is a man", where "there exists" is a quantifier, while x is a variable.
Specification languageA specification language is a formal language in computer science used during systems analysis, requirements analysis, and systems design to describe a system at a much higher level than a programming language, which is used to produce the executable code for a system. Specification languages are generally not directly executed. They are meant to describe the what, not the how. Indeed, it is considered as an error if a requirement specification is cluttered with unnecessary implementation detail.
Computation tree logicComputation tree logic (CTL) is a branching-time logic, meaning that its model of time is a tree-like structure in which the future is not determined; there are different paths in the future, any one of which might be an actual path that is realized. It is used in formal verification of software or hardware artifacts, typically by software applications known as model checkers, which determine if a given artifact possesses safety or liveness properties. For example, CTL can specify that when some initial condition is satisfied (e.
Monadic second-order logicIn mathematical logic, monadic second-order logic (MSO) is the fragment of second-order logic where the second-order quantification is limited to quantification over sets. It is particularly important in the logic of graphs, because of Courcelle's theorem, which provides algorithms for evaluating monadic second-order formulas over graphs of bounded treewidth. It is also of fundamental importance in automata theory, where the Büchi–Elgot–Trakhtenbrot theorem gives a logical characterization of the regular languages.
Internet botAn Internet bot, web robot, robot or simply bot is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity on the Internet, such as messaging, on a large scale. An Internet bot plays the client role in a client–server model whereas the server role is usually played by web servers. Internet bots are able to perform tasks, that are simple and repetitive, much faster than a person could ever do.
Linear temporal logicIn logic, linear temporal logic or linear-time temporal logic (LTL) is a modal temporal logic with modalities referring to time. In LTL, one can encode formulae about the future of paths, e.g., a condition will eventually be true, a condition will be true until another fact becomes true, etc. It is a fragment of the more complex CTL*, which additionally allows branching time and quantifiers. LTL is sometimes called propositional temporal logic, abbreviated PTL.
Programming language theoryProgramming language theory (PLT) is a branch of computer science that deals with the design, implementation, analysis, characterization, and classification of formal languages known as programming languages. Programming language theory is closely related to other fields including mathematics, software engineering, and linguistics. There are a number of academic conferences and journals in the area. History of programming languages and Programming language#History In some ways, the history of programming language theory predates even the development of programming languages themselves.
