Proof Theoretical Methods for Reasoning about Process Equivalence. The emergence of internet commerce has made the issue of secure computing more urgent than ever. A substantial part of the security issues with today's computer applications are due to design problems.
The principles of secure computation have not been fully understood and adequate tools for the construction of secure applications are still lacking. The understanding of the foundations of secure computation is essential in bu ....Proof Theoretical Methods for Reasoning about Process Equivalence. The emergence of internet commerce has made the issue of secure computing more urgent than ever. A substantial part of the security issues with today's computer applications are due to design problems.
The principles of secure computation have not been fully understood and adequate tools for the construction of secure applications are still lacking. The understanding of the foundations of secure computation is essential in building trusted computer applications. Process calculi and logic represent two promising disciplines in which the principles of analysis and design of secure systems can be studied systematically, out of which formal verification tools can be constructed.Read moreRead less
Expressive power and complexity of temporal logics for model-checking. Hardware verification based upon mathematical logic is now routinely
used in industry to verify the correctness of large digital circuits
using a technique called model-checking. Such discrete systems move
from one state to another according to the regular ticks of a clock.
The challenge now is to find tractable methods for reasoning about
real-time systems and hybrid systems that move in a continuous manner
with respec ....Expressive power and complexity of temporal logics for model-checking. Hardware verification based upon mathematical logic is now routinely
used in industry to verify the correctness of large digital circuits
using a technique called model-checking. Such discrete systems move
from one state to another according to the regular ticks of a clock.
The challenge now is to find tractable methods for reasoning about
real-time systems and hybrid systems that move in a continuous manner
with respect to time: examples include aeroplanes flying according to
the laws of physics and a moving robot arm. We shall invent new logics
which are specifically tailored for tractable reasoning about
real-time and hybrid systems.Read moreRead less
Geodetic groups: foundational problems in algebra and computer science. The project aims to resolve important and longstanding open problems in Geometric Group Theory and Theoretical Computer Science. Since the 1980s researchers have conjectured that the geometric property of being geodetic is equivalent to several purely algebraic, algorithmic, and language-theoretic characterisations.
The project team's expertise in geodesic properties of groups, the interaction between formal languages and g ....Geodetic groups: foundational problems in algebra and computer science. The project aims to resolve important and longstanding open problems in Geometric Group Theory and Theoretical Computer Science. Since the 1980s researchers have conjectured that the geometric property of being geodetic is equivalent to several purely algebraic, algorithmic, and language-theoretic characterisations.
The project team's expertise in geodesic properties of groups, the interaction between formal languages and groups, and the theory of rewriting systems, together with recent breakthroughs by the team ensures that significant results can be expected.
Benefits include training research students and postdoctoral researchers in cutting-edge techniques, and advancing fundamental knowledge in mathematics and computer science.Read moreRead less
Design and verification of correct, efficient and secure concurrent systems. This project aims to provide methods for the design and verification of correct, secure and efficient concurrent software that are scalable and mechanised. Computers with multiple processors are now the norm and are used in a wide range of safety, security and mission critical software applications such as transport, health and infrastructure. These multi-core architectures have the potential to lead to important effici ....Design and verification of correct, efficient and secure concurrent systems. This project aims to provide methods for the design and verification of correct, secure and efficient concurrent software that are scalable and mechanised. Computers with multiple processors are now the norm and are used in a wide range of safety, security and mission critical software applications such as transport, health and infrastructure. These multi-core architectures have the potential to lead to important efficiency gains, but can introduce complex and error-prone behaviours that cannot be managed using traditional software development approaches. This project will produce better, scalable and mechanised methods for the design and verification of such software which is expected to reduce the prevalence of failures in efficient, modern software.Read moreRead less
Evidence-based frameworks for security protocol verification. Security protocols are an essential part of secure communication networks. This project aims to develop verification techniques for security protocols that produce independently verifiable formal certificates of correctness. The project's outcome will contribute to the certification processes for secure network systems at the highest level of assurance.
Provable elimination of information leakage through timing channels. This project aims to develop techniques to solve the issue in information security of unauthorised information flow resulting from competition for shared hardware resources. The project will combine operating systems design, formal hardware models, information-flow reasoning and theorem proving to achieve a goal that is widely considered infeasible. The project is expected to result in a system that prevents leakage of critical ....Provable elimination of information leakage through timing channels. This project aims to develop techniques to solve the issue in information security of unauthorised information flow resulting from competition for shared hardware resources. The project will combine operating systems design, formal hardware models, information-flow reasoning and theorem proving to achieve a goal that is widely considered infeasible. The project is expected to result in a system that prevents leakage of critical information, such as encryption keys, through timing channels. This should prevent sophisticated attacks on public clouds, mobile devices and military-grade cross-domain devices.Read moreRead less
Practical Automated Deduction. This project will develop, implement and validate improved methods for automated deduction in decidable fragments of first order logic, also incorporating reasoning in special theories such as arithmetic. It will significantly extend previous work on the model evolution calculus and dynamic semantic resolution, and introduce new techniques that combine these reasoning methods. This work has direct application to reasoning about business rules and about industrial o ....Practical Automated Deduction. This project will develop, implement and validate improved methods for automated deduction in decidable fragments of first order logic, also incorporating reasoning in special theories such as arithmetic. It will significantly extend previous work on the model evolution calculus and dynamic semantic resolution, and introduce new techniques that combine these reasoning methods. This work has direct application to reasoning about business rules and about industrial optimisation problems, and it will motivate and test our systems by means of case studies from both of these areas.Read moreRead less
Mathematical, logical and computational foundations of hybrid control systems, and their application to design and synthesis problems in control engineering. Hybrid control systems are mathematical models of heterogeneous systems consisting of digital computer components interacting in real-time with continuous physical processes. Their many engineering applications include air traffic control, medical technology and automated transport. Motivated by such safety-critical and high-confidence appl ....Mathematical, logical and computational foundations of hybrid control systems, and their application to design and synthesis problems in control engineering. Hybrid control systems are mathematical models of heterogeneous systems consisting of digital computer components interacting in real-time with continuous physical processes. Their many engineering applications include air traffic control, medical technology and automated transport. Motivated by such safety-critical and high-confidence applications, the project aims to develop a unified framework of mathematical logics adequate to formally represent and reason about the structure, behaviour, and properties of hybrid control systems, and use this to develop methodologies for automatically synthesising hybrid control programs that are provably correct with respect to their specifications. Other outcomes include prototype software implementations of hybrid controller design tools.Read moreRead less
Mechanised foundations of proof calculi. Commercial program verification tools based upon special-purpose logic-based proof calculi can now guarantee that large programs are free of specific bugs. But who verifies the proof-calculi? Our research will lead to tools to automatically verify proof-calculi and will eventually help to avoid costly post-construction debugging.
Machine-checked Foundations for Verified Vote Counting. The project will deliver a general methodology for developing formal logical specifications of the Acts of Parliament for many common systems for counting votes in preferential elections. The project will deliver corresponding computer programs to count votes according to these systems and will deliver formal independently checkable proofs that the programs meet their specification. Such formally verified computer programs provide a legally ....Machine-checked Foundations for Verified Vote Counting. The project will deliver a general methodology for developing formal logical specifications of the Acts of Parliament for many common systems for counting votes in preferential elections. The project will deliver corresponding computer programs to count votes according to these systems and will deliver formal independently checkable proofs that the programs meet their specification. Such formally verified computer programs provide a legally sound basis for counting votes by computer. The methodology will also allow electoral commissioners to improve the natural language descriptions of the relevant Acts of Parliament which are often woefully out of date with current practice.Read moreRead less