Seminar in Theoretical CS, Winter 2022/23
News
- 02.06.2022: we are online
Dates & Deadlines
| 18.10.2022, 15:00 | Kick-off meeting (room 4201b, 2nd floor, building E1) |
| TBA | Topic preferences due |
| TBA | Detailed outline due |
| TBA | Seminar report due |
| TBA | Presentation slides due |
| TBA | Seminar |
| TBA | Final revision of report |
Note that the full versions of your report and your slides should be your final submission and the camera-ready versions should differ only with regard to minor remarks, comments, and corrections by your supervisor. Please feel free, however, to talk to your supervisor about submitting preliminary versions before the due dates.
Introduction
- Slides of introduction (TBA)
Overview
The term Computer-Aided Verification refers to theory and practice of computer-supported formal analysis methods for both hardware and software systems. Likewise, it is the name of an annual academic conference on that topic. The modeling and verification of such systems is an important issue. In particular, safety-critical systems are ones in which errors can be disastrous: loss of life, major financial losses, etc. Techniques to safeguard against such scenarios are essential for such systems. Testing can identify problems, especially if done in a rigorous fashion, but is generally not sufficient to guarantee a satisfactory level of quality. Formal methods, on the other hand, offer techniques ranging from the description of requirements in a formal notation to allow for rigorous reasoning about them, to techniques for automatic verification of software. Due to the complexity of these approaches and the systems they are applied to, automated computer support is indispensable.
The goal of this seminar is to give an overview of the related research activities of the MOVES group. It covers several areas of computer science to which computed-aided verification techniques are central, and which represent the research fields of the respective supervisors. Each area features a number of topics which are described in a scientific journal or conference article. These research articles are the basis on which students have to prepare their report and presentation. The following list gives an overview of the areas that will be covered.
Topics
A. Verification of Neural Networks
TBA
B. Static Program Analysis for Software Verification
- Predicate Abstraction (SLAM Tool)
- Thomas Ball, Sriram K. Rajamani: The SLAM project: debugging system software via static analysis, POPL 2002
- Thomas Ball, Vladimir Levin, Sriram K. Rajamani: A decade of software model checking with SLAM, Comm. ACM 2011
- Student: TBA
- Supervisor: Thomas Noll
- Sacrificing Soundness (FindBugs Tool)
- David Hovemeyer, Jaime Spacco, William Pugh: Evaluating and tuning a static analysis to find null pointer bugs, PASTE 2005
- Nathaniel Ayewah, William Pugh, David Hovemeyer, J. David Morgenthaler, John Penix: Using Static Analysis to Find Bugs, IEEE Softw. 2008
- Student: TBA
- Supervisor: Thomas Noll
- Coverity Tool
- Seth Hallem, Benjamin Chelf, Yichen Xie, Dawson Engler: A system and language for building system-specific, static analyses, PLDI 2002
- Al Bessey, Ken Block, Ben Chelf, Andy Chou, Bryan Fulton, Seth Hallem, Charles Henri-Gros, Asya Kamsky, Scott McPeak, Dawson Engler: A few billion lines of code later: using static analysis to find bugs in the real world, Comm. ACM 2010
- Student: TBA
- Supervisor: Thomas Noll
- Separation Logic (Infer Tool)
- Cristiano Calcagno, Dino Distefano, Jeremy Dubreil, Dominik Gabi, Pieter Hooimeijer, Martino Luca, Peter O’Hearn, Irene Papakonstantinou, Jim Purbrick, Dulma Rodriguez: Moving Fast with Software Verification, NFM 2015
- Dino Distefano, Manuel Fähndrich, Francesco Logozzo, Peter W. O’Hearn: Scaling static analyses at Facebook, Comm. ACM 2019
- Student: TBA
- Supervisor: Thomas Noll
- Incorrectness Logic (Pulse-X Tool)
- Peter W. O’Hearn: Incorrectness logic, POPL 2020
- Quang Loc Le, Azalea Raad, Jules Villard, Josh Berdine, Derek Dreyer, Peter W. O’Hearn: Finding real bugs in big programs with incorrectness logic, OOPSLA 2022
- Student: TBA
- Supervisor: Thomas Noll
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge in the following areas is expected:
- Formal languages and automata theory
- Mathematical logic
- Probability Theory
Previous knowledge in semantics of programming languages and concurrency theory is helpful but not mandatory
Registration
Registration to the seminar is handled via the SuPra system.
Grading Scheme
You can access the grading scheme here: https://moves.rwth-aachen.de/wp-content/uploads/seminar_grading_scheme.pdf
Additional Material
- Report template (TBA)
- Presentation template (TBA)
- How to Write a Seminar Paper
- Ethische Richtlinien für das Verfassen wissenschaftlicher Arbeiten
- How to Give Presentations
- Introduction to LaTeX