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Igor Melatti, Robert Palmer, Geoffrey Sawaya, Yu Yang, Robert Mike Kirby, and Ganesh Gopalakrishnan. "Parallel and distributed model checking in Eddy." Int. J. Softw. Tools Technol. Transf. 11, no. 1 (2009): 13–25. Springer-Verlag. ISSN: 1433-2779. DOI: 10.1007/s10009-008-0094-x.
Abstract: Model checking of safety properties can be scaled up by pooling the CPU and memory resources of multiple computers. As compute clusters containing 100s of nodes, with each node realized using multi-core (e.g., 2) CPUs will be widespread, a model checker based on the parallel (shared memory) and distributed (message passing) paradigms will more efficiently use the hardware resources. Such a model checker can be designed by having each node employ two shared memory threads that run on the (typically) two CPUs of a node, with one thread responsible for state generation, and the other for efficient communication, including (1) performing overlapped asynchronous message passing, and (2) aggregating the states to be sent into larger chunks in order to improve communication network utilization. We present the design details of such a novel model checking architecture called Eddy. We describe the design rationale, details of how the threads interact and yield control, exchange messages, as well as detect termination. We have realized an instance of this architecture for the Murphi modeling language. Called Eddy_Murphi, we report its performance over the number of nodes as well as communication parameters such as those controlling state aggregation. Nearly linear reduction of compute time with increasing number of nodes is observed. Our thread task partition is done in such a way that it is modular, easy to port across different modeling languages, and easy to tune across a variety of platforms.
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Benedetto Intrigila, Igor Melatti, Alberto Tofani, and Guido Macchiarelli. "Computational models of myocardial endomysial collagen arrangement." Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 86, no. 3 (2007): 232–244. Elsevier North-Holland, Inc.. ISSN: 0169-2607. DOI: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2007.03.004.
Abstract: Collagen extracellular matrix is one of the factors related to high passive stiffness of cardiac muscle. However, the architecture and the mechanical aspects of the cardiac collagen matrix are not completely known. In particular, endomysial collagen contribution to the passive mechanics of cardiac muscle as well as its micro anatomical arrangement is still a matter of debate. In order to investigate mechanical and structural properties of endomysial collagen, we consider two alternative computational models of some specific aspects of the cardiac muscle. These two models represent two different views of endomysial collagen distribution: (1) the traditional view and (2) a new view suggested by the data obtained from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in NaOH macerated samples (a method for isolating collagen from the other tissue). We model the myocardial tissue as a net of spring elements representing the cardiomyocytes together with the endomysial collagen distribution. Each element is a viscous elastic spring, characterized by an elastic and a viscous constant. We connect these springs to imitate the interconnections between collagen fibers. Then we apply to the net of springs some external forces of suitable magnitude and direction, obtaining an extension of the net itself. In our setting, the ratio forces magnitude /net extension is intended to model the stress /strain ratio of a microscopical portion of the myocardial tissue. To solve the problem of the correct identification of the values of the different parameters involved, we use an artificial neural network approach. In particular, we use this technique to learn, given a distribution of external forces, the elastic constants of the springs needed to obtain a desired extension as an equilibrium position. Our experimental findings show that, in the model of collagen distribution structured according to the new view, a given stress /strain ratio (of the net of springs, in the sense specified above) is obtained with much smaller (w.r.t. the other model, corresponding to the traditional view) elasticity constants of the springs. This seems to indicate that by an appropriate structure, a given stiffness of the myocardial tissue can be obtained with endomysial collagen fibers of much smaller size.
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Igor Melatti, and Enrico Tronci. "Exploiting Hub States in Automatic Verification." In Automated Technology for Verification and Analysis: Third International Symposium, ATVA 2005, Taipei, Taiwan, October 4-7, 2005, Proceedings, edited by D.A. Peled and Y.-K. Tsay, 54–68. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3707. Springer, 2005. ISSN: 3-540-29209-8. DOI: 10.1007/11562948_7.
Abstract: In this paper we present a new algorithm to counteract state explosion when using Explicit State Space Exploration to verify protocol-like systems. We sketch the implementation of our algorithm within the Caching Mur$\varphi$ verifier and give experimental results showing its effectiveness. We show experimentally that, when memory is a scarce resource, our algorithm improves on the time performances of Caching Mur$\varphi$ verification algorithm, saving between 16% and 68% (45% on average) in computation time.
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Igor Melatti, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Integrating RAM and Disk Based Verification within the Mur$\varphi$ Verifier." In Correct Hardware Design and Verification Methods, 12th IFIP WG 10.5 Advanced Research Working Conference, CHARME 2003, L'Aquila, Italy, October 21-24, 2003, Proceedings, edited by D. Geist and E. Tronci, 277–282. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2860. Springer, 2003. ISSN: 3-540-20363-X. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-39724-3_25.
Abstract: We present a verification algorithm that can automatically switch from RAM based verification to disk based verification without discarding the work done during the RAM based verification phase. This avoids having to choose beforehand the proper verification algorithm. Our experimental results show that typically our integrated algorithm is as fast as (sometime faster than) the fastest of the two base (i.e. RAM based and disk based) verification algorithms.
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Federico Mari, Igor Melatti, Ivano Salvo, and Enrico Tronci. From Boolean Functional Equations to Control Software. Vol. abs/1106.0468. CoRR, Technical Report, 2011. http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.0468 (accessed June 26, 2024).
Abstract: Many software as well digital hardware automatic synthesis methods define the set of implementations meeting the given system specifications with a boolean relation K. In such a context a fundamental step in the software (hardware) synthesis process is finding effective solutions to the functional equation defined by K. This entails finding a (set of) boolean function(s) F (typically represented using OBDDs, Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams) such that: 1) for all x for which K is satisfiable, K(x, F(x)) = 1 holds; 2) the implementation of F is efficient with respect to given implementation parameters such as code size or execution time. While this problem has been widely studied in digital hardware synthesis, little has been done in a software synthesis context. Unfortunately the approaches developed for hardware synthesis cannot be directly used in a software context. This motivates investigation of effective methods to solve the above problem when F has to be implemented with software. In this paper we present an algorithm that, from an OBDD representation for K, generates a C code implementation for F that has the same size as the OBDD for F and a WCET (Worst Case Execution Time) at most O(nr), being n = |x| the number of arguments of functions in F and r the number of functions in F.
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Vadim Alimguzhin, Federico Mari, Igor Melatti, Ivano Salvo, and Enrico Tronci. Automatic Control Software Synthesis for Quantized Discrete Time Hybrid Systems. Vol. abs/1207.4098. CoRR, Technical Report, 2012. http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.4098 (accessed June 26, 2024).
Abstract: Many Embedded Systems are indeed Software Based Control Systems, that is control systems whose controller consists of control software running on a microcontroller device. This motivates investigation on Formal Model Based Design approaches for automatic synthesis of embedded systems control software. This paper addresses control software synthesis for discrete time nonlinear systems. We present a methodology to overapproximate the dynamics of a discrete time nonlinear hybrid system H by means of a discrete time linear hybrid system L(H), in such a way that controllers for L(H) are guaranteed to be controllers for H. We present experimental results on the inverted pendulum, a challenging and meaningful benchmark in nonlinear Hybrid Systems control.
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Vadim Alimguzhin, Federico Mari, Igor Melatti, Ivano Salvo, and Enrico Tronci. On Model Based Synthesis of Embedded Control Software. Vol. abs/1207.4474. CoRR, Technical Report, 2012. http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.4474 (accessed June 26, 2024).
Abstract: Many Embedded Systems are indeed Software Based Control Systems (SBCSs), that is control systems whose controller consists of control software running on a microcontroller device. This motivates investigation on Formal Model Based Design approaches for control software. Given the formal model of a plant as a Discrete Time Linear Hybrid System and the implementation specifications (that is, number of bits in the Analog-to-Digital (AD) conversion) correct-by-construction control software can be automatically generated from System Level Formal Specifications of the closed loop system (that is, safety and liveness requirements), by computing a suitable finite abstraction of the plant.
With respect to given implementation specifications, the automatically generated code implements a time optimal control strategy (in terms of set-up time), has a Worst Case Execution Time linear in the number of AD bits $b$, but unfortunately, its size grows exponentially with respect to $b$. In many embedded systems, there are severe restrictions on the computational resources (such as memory or computational power) available to microcontroller devices.
This paper addresses model based synthesis of control software by trading system level non-functional requirements (such us optimal set-up time, ripple) with software non-functional requirements (its footprint). Our experimental results show the effectiveness of our approach: for the inverted pendulum benchmark, by using a quantization schema with 12 bits, the size of the small controller is less than 6% of the size of the time optimal one.
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Vadim Alimguzhin, Federico Mari, Igor Melatti, Ivano Salvo, and Enrico Tronci. A Map-Reduce Parallel Approach to Automatic Synthesis of Control Software. Vol. abs/1210.2276. CoRR, Technical Report, 2012. http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.2276 (accessed June 26, 2024).
Abstract: Many Control Systems are indeed Software Based Control Systems, i.e. control systems whose controller consists of control software running on a microcontroller device. This motivates investigation on Formal Model Based Design approaches for automatic synthesis of control software.
Available algorithms and tools (e.g., QKS) may require weeks or even months of computation to synthesize control software for large-size systems. This motivates search for parallel algorithms for control software synthesis.
In this paper, we present a map-reduce style parallel algorithm for control software synthesis when the controlled system (plant) is modeled as discrete time linear hybrid system. Furthermore we present an MPI-based implementation PQKS of our algorithm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first parallel approach for control software synthesis.
We experimentally show effectiveness of PQKS on two classical control synthesis problems: the inverted pendulum and the multi-input buck DC/DC converter. Experiments show that PQKS efficiency is above 65%. As an example, PQKS requires about 16 hours to complete the synthesis of control software for the pendulum on a cluster with 60 processors, instead of the 25 days needed by the sequential algorithm in QKS.
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Federico Mari, Igor Melatti, Ivano Salvo, and Enrico Tronci. "Control Software Visualization." In Proceedings of INFOCOMP 2012, The Second International Conference on Advanced Communications and Computation, 15–20. ThinkMind, 2012. ISSN: 978-1-61208-226-4.
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Federico Mari, Igor Melatti, Ivano Salvo, and Enrico Tronci. "Linear Constraints as a Modeling Language for Discrete Time Hybrid Systems." In Proceedings of ICSEA 2012, The Seventh International Conference on Software Engineering Advances, 664–671. ThinkMind, 2012.
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