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Building Specifications in the Event-B Institution: A Summary

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Rigorous State-Based Methods (ABZ 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14010))

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Abstract

This “journal-first” paper summarises a publication by the same authors in the journal Logical Methods in Computer Science which describes a formal semantics for the Event-B specification language using the theory of institutions. It defines an institution for Event-B and shows how the constructs of the Event-B specification language can be mapped into our institution. This algebraic semantics distinguishes three constituent sub-languages of Event-B: the superstructure, infrastructure and mathematical languages. An important impact of this work is that our semantics provides access to the generic modularisation constructs available in institutions, including specification-building operators for parameterisation and refinement. We demonstrate how these features subsume and enhance the corresponding features already present in Event-B through a detailed study of their use in a worked example. Further benefits of the institutional approach are its provision for mathematically definable interoperability to facilitate heterogeneous specification.

This work was initially funded by a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Grant from the Irish Research Council. It has subsequently been supported by EPSRC Hubs for Robotics and AI in Hazardous Environments: EP/R026092 (FAIR-SPACE), and a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship.

Farrell and Monahan dedicate this paper to the memory of Dr. James F. Power who passed away before he could see this work accepted for publication. We thank him for his contributions and encouragement throughout this project.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Marie Farrell

  2. Department of Computer Science and Hamilton Institute, Maynooth University, Co. Kildare, Ireland

    Rosemary Monahan & James F. Power

Authors
  1. Marie Farrell
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  2. Rosemary Monahan
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  3. James F. Power
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marie Farrell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

    Uwe Glässer

  2. University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Jose Creissac Campos

  3. Université de Lorraine, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Dominique Méry

  4. University of Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Philippe Palanque

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Farrell, M., Monahan, R., Power, J.F. (2023). Building Specifications in the Event-B Institution: A Summary. In: Glässer, U., Creissac Campos, J., Méry, D., Palanque, P. (eds) Rigorous State-Based Methods. ABZ 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14010. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33163-3_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33163-3_19

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-33162-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-33163-3

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