Newsgroups: comp.parallel
From: Magnus.Kempe@di.epfl.ch (Magnus Kempe)
Subject: Seminar: Design of Concurrent Software in Ada
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
Date: 21 Sep 1995 18:03:07 GMT
Message-ID: <43s9cr$qrc@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>

        _____________________________________________________________

	       SWISS FEDERAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, LAUSANNE

	C.S. DEPARTMENT		       SOFTWARE ENGINEERING LAB (LGL)
        _____________________________________________________________


			 Announcing an LGL seminar

	 -----------------------------------------------------------
		     Design of Concurrent Software in Ada
	 -----------------------------------------------------------

			  Monday, October 9th, 1995
			  at 14:30 - room INJ 218
				(60 minutes)


	   Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne - site Ecublens
		   Batiment du Departement d'Informatique


			      by Bo SANDEN
		      George Mason University, USA
			  (bsanden@isse.gmu.edu)

Abstract

Entity-life modeling (ELM) is a direct approach to the design of
concurrent software.  The task structure of the software is based on
concurrency inherent in the problem, which is viewed as a timed trace of
event occurrences.  The analyst breaks this trace into concurrent
threads, where each thread is a sequence of events spaced in time.  The
set of threads is called a "thread model" of a problem.  Each thread is
intuitively the "life" of some entity in the problem domain.

While the approach is essentially language-independent, a thread model
of a problem maps nicely onto a design in Ada and particularly Ada 95.
Each thread becomes a task in the software, which is complemented with
objects, represented by packages or protected units, as necessary.

As an example, we will discuss two different thread models of a flexible
manufacturing system (FMS) and the corresponding designs.  The FMS is
essentially about resource contention.  This can be made explicit by
choosing entities that are resource users contending for simultaneous,
exclusive access to multiple resources.



About the speaker

Dr. Bo SANDEN received his PhD from the Royal Institute of Technology
in Stockholm.  Since 1987 he is an Associate Professor at George Mason
University in Fairfax, VA, where he played a major role in the
development of the graduate Software Engineering program.  He was
earlier part of the pioneering Software Engineering program at the Wang
Institute.  Before joining Academia, Dr. Sanden held positions in the
software industry as a developer of concurrent software and a project
manager.

He began developing the entity-life modeling approach to real-time
software design in 1987.  It is described in various publications and in
the book, "Software Systems Construction with Examples in Ada"
(Prentice-Hall 1994).


This talk is open to all.


						M. Kempe, EPFL-DI-LGL
19.09.95					Magnus.Kempe@di.epfl.ch


If you would like to get directions to reach the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology, Lausanne, or to find the room used for this talk, or if
you would like to be added to our (read-only) electronic announcements
list, please send e-mail to:
        Magnus.Kempe@di.epfl.ch

