Cookies Policy
The website need some cookies and similar means to function. If you permit us, we will use those means to collect data on your visits for aggregated statistics to improve our service. Find out More
Accept Reject
  • Menu
Publications

Publications by Alejandro Sánchez

2015

A perspective on architectural re-engineering

Authors
Sanchez, A; Oliveira, N; Barbosa, LS; Henriques, P;

Publication
SCIENCE OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING

Abstract
Continuous evolution towards very large, heterogeneous, highly dynamic computing systems entails the need for sound and flexible approaches to deal with system modification and re-engineering. The approach proposed in this paper combines an analysis stage, to identify concrete patterns of interaction in legacy code, with an iterative re-engineering process at a higher level of abstraction. Both stages are supported by the tools CoordPat and Archery, respectively. Bi-directional model transformations connecting code level and design level architectural models are defined. The approach is demonstrated in a (fragment of a) case study.

2015

Modelling and Verifying Smell-Free Architectures with the ARCHERY Language

Authors
Sanchez, A; Barbosa, LS; Madeira, A;

Publication
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND FORMAL METHODS, SEFM 2014

Abstract
Architectural (bad) smells are design decisions found in software architectures that degrade the ability of systems to evolve. This paper presents an approach to verify that a software architecture is smell-free using the Archery architectural description language. The language provides a core for modelling software architectures and an extension for specifying constraints. The approach consists in precisely specifying architectural smells as constraints, and then verifying that software architectures do not satisfy any of them. The constraint language is based on a propositional modal logic with recursion that includes: a converse operator for relations among architectural concepts, graded modalities for describing the cardinality in such relations, and nominals referencing architectural elements. Four architectural smells illustrate the approach.

2015

On the verification of architectural reconfigurations

Authors
Sanchez, A; Madeira, A; Barbosa, LS;

Publication
COMPUTER LANGUAGES SYSTEMS & STRUCTURES

Abstract
In a reconfigurable system, the response to contextual or internal change may trigger reconfiguration events which, on their turn, activate scripts that change the system's architecture at runtime. To be safe, however, such reconfigurations are expected to obey the fundamental principles originally specified by its architect. This paper introduces an approach to ensure that such principles are observed along reconfigurations by verifying them against concrete specifications in a suitable logic. Architectures, reconfiguration scripts, and principles are specified in ARCHERY, an architectural description language with formal semantics. Principles are encoded as constraints, which become formulas of a two-layer graded hybrid logic, where the upper layer restricts reconfigurations, and the lower layer constrains the resulting configurations. Constraints are verified by translating them into logic formulas, which are interpreted over models derived from ARCHERY specifications of architectures and reconfigurations. Suitable notions of bisimulation and refinement, to which the architect may resort to compare configurations, are given, and their relationship with modal validity is discussed.

2015

Specifying Structural Constraints of Architectural Patterns in the ARCHERY Language

Authors
Sanchez, A; Barbosa, LS; Riesco, D;

Publication
PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF NUMERICAL ANALYSIS AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS 2014 (ICNAAM-2014)

Abstract
ARCHERY is an architectural description language for modelling and reasoning about distributed, heterogeneous and dynamically reconfigurable systems in terms of architectural patterns. The language supports the specification of architectures and their reconfiguration. This paper introduces a language extension for precisely describing the structural design decisions that pattern instances must respect in their (re)configurations. The extension is a propositional modal logic with recursion and nominals referencing components, i.e., a hybrid mu-calculus. Its expressiveness allows specifying safety and liveness constraints, as well as paths and cycles over structures. Refinements of classic architectural patterns are specified.

2013

Verifying bigraphical models of architectural reconfigurations

Authors
Sanchez, A; Soares Barbosa, LS; Riesco, D;

Publication
2013 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (TASE)

Abstract
ARCHERY is an architectural description language for modelling and reasoning about distributed, heterogeneous and dynamically reconfigurable systems. This paper proposes a structural semantics for ARCHERY, and a method for deriving labelled transition systems (LTS) in which states and transitions represent configurations and reconfiguration operations, respectively. Architectures are modelled by bigraphs and their dynamics by parametric reaction rules. The resulting LTSs can be regarded as Kripke frames, appropriate for verifying reconfiguration constraints over architectural patterns expressed in a modal logic. The derivation method proposed here applies the approach in [1] twice, and combines the results of each application to obtain a label representing a reconfiguration operation and its actual parameters. Labels obtained in this way are minimal and yield LTSs in which bisimulation is a congruence.

2013

Multiobjective transmission planning with security constraints

Authors
Correa, CA; Bolanos, R; Sanchez, A; Garcés, A; Molina, A;

Publication
Proceedings of Eurocon 2013, International Conference on Computer as a Tool, Zagreb, Croatia, July 1-4, 2013

Abstract

  • 1
  • 2