Design Support for State-Based Distributed Object Software

 

Speaker      :      Dr. Sol M. Shatz, Associate Professor Computer Science Division

                               University of Illinois at Chicago.

Time             :      Friday, March 30th, 3:00 pm - 4 pm.

Location      :     Stuart Building Room # 111 (SB 111) 


Computer system applications are rapidly becoming
more and more decentralized and concurrent, especially for
important environments like military command and control,
commercial telecommunications, and evolving Internet
applications. Complexity in specification, design, and analysis
dramatically increases in software architectures defined
by distributed components interacting via nondeterministic
communication patterns. One of the most significant research
problems is achieving a balance between general theoretical
concepts, as achieved with formal methods, and specific practical
techniques. This talk will discuss on-going research to define a
formal-based design notation for distributed-object software systems.
The approach is based on applying and adapting Petri nets, an 
existing graph model for concurrent systems. The specific objectives 
are to solidify the theoretical foundations for a state-based object 
design notation and investigate capabilities for object modeling within 
the design framework. This research can lead to methods and notations 
that support engineering-oriented design of complex distributed
software systems. This has the potential to improve the overall
quality and cost-effectiveness of development and maintenance
for a wide range of critical software applications.

 

Short bio of the speaker:

Sol M. Shatz received the B.S. degree in computer science from
Washington University, St. Louis, MO, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees
also in computer science, from Northwestern University, Evanston,
IL, in 1981 and 1983, respectively. He is an Associate Professor
in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where his is Co-director of the
Concurrent Software Systems Laboratory.

His research interests are in software engineering and distributed computing.
He has given invited talks on these topics in the U.S., Japan, and China;
and presented tutorials (both live and video) for the IEEE Computer Society.
Professor Shatz is an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Software
Engineering, the Journal of Computer Systems Science and Engineering,
the International Journal of Parallel and Distributed Systems and
Networks, and the Software Engineering Encyclopedia (Wiley Publishing, 2001).
He has served on numerous program committees, and was co-organizer
of the 1st International Workshop on Software Engineering and Petri Nets
(SEPN-00), held in Denmark in June 2000. Many of his research contributions
concern the application of Petri net techniques to the specification and
analysis of concurrent and distributed software.

He has served as the PI on research grants from ARO, NSF, and ONR,
and published work in numerous conferences and journals, including
Transactions published by the IEEE and ACM. He has also received
teaching awards at the department, college, and university level.