Modelling of Software-Intensive Systems 

  Announcements

The (written) theory exam takes place on Monday 13 January 2014, 09:00 -- 12:00 in M.G.005. Use of your notes or other materials such as laptops is not allowed (aka "closed book").

Here is a list of Exam Topics/Questions


The course will make extensive use of the object-oriented programming language Python. We will advise you to spend the first few weeks (while there are no MoSIS classes) learning the language.

A useful tutorial can be found at: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/

The course will be taught
  • 10:45 - 12:30 on Tuesday theory (during most of the term) in M.G.015, lab in M.G.025 when appropriate, and some oral evaluation sessions (location go be announced).
  • 10:45 - 12:30 on Thursday (theory) in M.G.04

Schedule (partial)

Week

Date

Type

Room

Subject
1 Tuesday 24 September 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.015 Course introduction: goals, structure, evaluation, planning, Python!
Causes of complexity, Software Intensive Systems
1 Thursday 24 September 10:45 -- 12:45 Academic opening and Studay - no class
2 Tuesday 1 October 10:45 -- 12:45 No class
2 Thursday 3 October 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory/Assignment G.004 Class Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams, Regular Expressions, FSA -- requirements checking assignment
3 Tuesday 8 October 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.015 Causes of complexity, Software Intensive Systems
3 Thursday 10 October 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.004 EESTEC presentation by Simon Van Mierlo
The structure of modelling languages
Algebraic Causal Block Diagrams (un-timed)
4 Tuesday 15 October 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.015 Algebraic Causal Block Diagrams, loop detection and solving
Discrete-Time Causal Block Diagrams
4 Thursday 17 October 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.004 Continuous-Time Causal Block Diagrams
5 Monday 21 October Deadline Assignment 1: Requirements Checking
5 Tuesday 22 October 10:45 -- 12:45 Assignment G.015 Causal Block Diagrams assignments (#2 - #3), introduction to the code base
5 Thursday 24 October 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.004 Continuous-Time Causal Block Diagrams
6 Tuesday 29 October 10:45 -- 12:45 Oral Evaluation G.317 Assignment 1: Requirements Checking
6 Thursday 31 October 10:45 -- 12:45 No class
7 Monday 4 November Deadline Assignment 2: Algebraic and Discrete-Time CBDs
7 Tuesday 5 November 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.015 Petri nets intro with pipe2, assignment (#4)
7 Thursday 7 November 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.004 Petri nets
7 Sunday 10 November Deadline Assignment 3: Continuous-Time CBD
8 Tuesday 12 November 10:45 -- 12:45 Oral Evaluation G.317 Assignments 2 and 3: Algebraic, Discrete-Time and Continuous-Time CBDs
8 Thursday 14 November 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.004 Petri nets (analysis)
9 Tuesday 19 November Deadline Assignment 4: Petri Nets
9 Tuesday 19 November 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.015 Petri nets (analysis)
Higraphs and Statecharts
9 Thursday 21 November 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.004 Statecharts
9 Sunday 24 November Deadline Assignment 4: Petri Nets
10 Tuesday 26 November 10:45 -- 12:45 Assignment G.025 Statecharts hands-on, assignment (#5)
10 Thursday 28 November 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.004 Event Scheduling, Activity Scanning
11 Tuesday 3 December 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.015 Gathering statistics
Atomic DEVS
11 Thursday 5 December 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory/Assignment G.004 Coupled DEVS (flattening)
DEVS assignment (#6)
11 Sunday 8 December Deadline Assignment 5: Statecharts
12 Thursday 12 December 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.004 Systems Theory
12 Friday 13 December 10:45 -- 12:45 Oral Evaluation G.317 Assignment 4: Petri nets and Assignment 5: Statecharts
13 Tuesday 17 December 10:45 -- 12:45 Theory G.015 Population Dynamics and Forrester System Dynamics
Course overview: how it all fits together
Exam questions
13 Wednesday 18 December Deadline Assignment 6: DEVS
13 Thursday 19 December 10:45 -- 12:45 Oral Evaluation G.317 Assignment 6: DEVS
Monday 13 January 09:00 -- 12:00 Theory Exam G.005 Selected Topics

  Lectures

Overview
presentation [pdf]

Modelling and Simulation to Tackle Complexity
presentation [pdf] exploring the causes of complexity.

Modelling and Simulation Foundations: Systems Specification
presentation [pdf]
notes [pdf]

Formalisms: Causal Block Diagrams (CBDs)
(old) Blackboard Scribbles.
Topological Sorting and Strong Component algorithms.
Lecture on Algebraic and Discrete-Time CBDs [video].
Lecture on Continuous-Time CBDs [video].
Note: the above are not recordings of this year's class, but rather of an older version of the course, with the same content however.

Formalisms: Petri Nets
presentation[pdf]
Christos G. Cassandras. Discrete Event Systems. Irwin, 1993. Chapters 4, 5. [pdf (MoSIS access only)].
Carl Adam Petri. Kommunikation mit Automaten. 1962. (this is Petri's doctoral dissertation).
Tadao Murata. Petri nets: Properties, analysis and applications. Proceedings of the IEEE, 77(4):541-580, April 1989.
James L. Peterson. Petri Net Theory and the Modeling of Systems. Prentice Hall, 1981.

Formalisms: Statecharts
presentation[pdf].
David Harel. Statecharts: A Visual Formalism for Complex Systems. Science of Computer Programming. Volume 8. 1987. pp. 231 - 274. [pdf].
David Harel. On Visual Formalisms. Communications of the ACM. Volume 31, No. 5. 1988. pp. 514 - 530. [pdf] [pdf (MoSIS access only)].
David Harel and Amnon Naamad, The STATEMATE semantics of statecharts. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) Volume 5 , Issue 4 (October 1996) pp.293 - 333. [pdf] [pdf (MoSIS access only)].
D. Harel and M. Politi. Modeling Reactive Systems with Statecharts: The STATEMATE Approach. McGraw-Hill, 1998. (available online).
Michael von der Beeck. A structured operational semantics for UML-statecharts. Software and Systems Modeling. Volume 1, No. 2 pp.130 - 141. December 2002. [pdf].

Formalisms: Event-Scheduling Discrete-Event
presentation[pdf].

Formalisms: Discrete-EVent System Specification (DEVS)
presentation[pdf].
notes[pdf].

Formalisms: (Forrester) System Dynamics
presentation[pdf].


  Assignments

  1. Checking requirements using Sequence Diagrams and Trace Matches
  2. Causal Block Diagrams (un-timed, discrete-time)
  3. Causal Block Diagrams (continuous-time)
  4. Petri net modelling and analysis
  5. Statecharts modelling, simulation, synthesis, and testing of a digital watch
  6. DEVS modelling and simulation of Traffic.

These assignments will be completed in groups of two students (optionally alone). Your solutions should be submitted to Blackboard. During the evaluation moments (see schedule), you will clarify your solution individually.

Oral Evaluation Assignment 1: Requirements Checking

Date: 29 October 2013

Place: G.317 (Bart Meyers' office, 3rd floor)

Arianit Pajaziti and Leonard Elezi10:40
Daan Janssens and Stefaan Kenis10:50
Hans Vercauteren and Fabio Jeurissen11:00
Hanton11:10
Ken Vanherpen11:20
Dylan Kiss and Bavo Vander Henst11:40
Pieter Aerts and Emiel Masyn11:50
Remigio Moncayo and Leonardo Araujo12:00
Tim Diels and Maarten Van den Heuvel12:10
Tom De Schepper and Stephen Pauwels12:20

Oral Evaluation Assignment 2-3: Causal Block Diagrams

Date: 12 November 2013

Place: G.317 (Bart Meyers' office, 3rd floor)

Arianit Pajaziti and Leonard Elezi10:40
Daan Janssens and Stefaan Kenis10:50
Hans Vercauteren and Fabio Jeurissen11:00
Hanton11:10
Ken Vanherpen11:20
Dylan Kiss and Bavo Vander Henst11:40
Pieter Aerts and Emiel Masyn11:50
Remigio Moncayo and Leonardo Araujo12:00
Tim Diels and Maarten Van den Heuvel12:10
Tom De Schepper and Stephen Pauwels12:20
Srinivasan Balakrishnan12:30

Oral Evaluation Assignment 4-5: Petri nets/Statecharts

Date: 13 December 2013

Place: G.317 (Bart Meyers' office, 3rd floor)

Arianit Pajaziti and Leonard Elezi10:40
Daan Janssens and Stefaan Kenis10:50
Hans Vercauteren and Fabio Jeurissen11:00
Hanton11:10
Ken Vanherpen11:20
Dylan Kiss and Bavo Vander Henst11:40
Pieter Aerts and Emiel Masyn11:50
Remigio Moncayo and Leonardo Araujo12:00
Tim Diels and Maarten Van den Heuvel12:10
Tom De Schepper and Stephen Pauwels12:20

Oral Evaluation Assignment 6:DEVS

Date: 19 December 2013

Place: G.317 (Bart Meyers' office, 3rd floor)

Arianit Pajaziti and Leonard Elezi10:40
Daan Janssens and Stefaan Kenis10:50
Hans Vercauteren and Fabio Jeurissen11:00
Hanton11:10
Ken Vanherpen11:20
Dylan Kiss and Bavo Vander Henst11:40
Pieter Aerts and Emiel Masyn11:50
Tim Diels and Maarten Van den Heuvel12:10
Tom De Schepper and Stephen Pauwels12:20
Maintained by Hans Vangheluwe. Last Modified: 2014/09/18 16:16:20.