INESC TEC researchers integrate restricted group of Portuguese authors in renowned journal

José Nuno Oliveira, a researcher at INESC TEC’s High-Assurance Software Laboratory (HASLab), published a paper in the prestigious journal IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering last March. The paper was co-written with Miguel Ferreira, a former Master’s Degree student at the University of Minho. This is the second group composed of exclusively Portuguese researchers to publish in this journal, even though this is an area –Software Engineering – in which practically all universities have active groups.

Entitled "Alloy Meets the Algebra of Programming: A Case Study", the paper written by the Portuguese researchers is a response to the challenge "Verified File System", one of the Grand Challenges in Computing launched by Joshi and Holzmann (at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA). This work addresses the verification of one of the mechanisms essential to the operation of FLASH memories used in vehicles sent to space.

The method proposed in this paper is innovative because it combines model and algebra checking. This method is currently taught at the course of Software Engineering, as part of the Master’s Degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Minho.

The IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering is almost four decades old and is one of the most important and selective journals in the area of Software Engineering.

Photo credits: Informatics Department U.Minho