Extending the scope of modular analysis for the validation of large systems. The increasing complexity of computer systems has severe implications for verification and validation, especially for critical systems (e.g. medical supervision, avionics mission systems). The standard approach is to build a formal model of the system and automatically analyse its behaviour. Such models can be captured in a modular, high-level description, but the number of states is usually so large as to preclude an ....Extending the scope of modular analysis for the validation of large systems. The increasing complexity of computer systems has severe implications for verification and validation, especially for critical systems (e.g. medical supervision, avionics mission systems). The standard approach is to build a formal model of the system and automatically analyse its behaviour. Such models can be captured in a modular, high-level description, but the number of states is usually so large as to preclude analysis. The modular analysis proposed in this project matches the analysis technique to the structure of the model. Preliminary results are promising and motivate the extension of the technique to a larger class of modular descriptions.Read moreRead less
A unified theory of performance in absolute identification tasks. The ability to identify stimuli is fundamentally important in human cognition and is studied in absolute identification tasks, where people must identify one out of a number of stimuli, varying on a single dimension, with an appropriate label. A remarkable finding is that people cannot reliably identify more than about seven different stimuli. This limit imposes severe practical restrictions on our ability to categorise stimuli an ....A unified theory of performance in absolute identification tasks. The ability to identify stimuli is fundamentally important in human cognition and is studied in absolute identification tasks, where people must identify one out of a number of stimuli, varying on a single dimension, with an appropriate label. A remarkable finding is that people cannot reliably identify more than about seven different stimuli. This limit imposes severe practical restrictions on our ability to categorise stimuli and constitutes a perplexing problem for cognitive theory. This project involves an international collaborative effort by five leading researchers in mathematical psychology to develop a comprehensive, integrative model of human performance in absolute identification tasks.
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