method for high-level system design and analysis and survey some of its application highlights in industrial software-based system engineering. We illustrate the method by defining models for three simple control systems (sluice gate, traffic light, package router) and by characterizing Event-B machines as a specific class of ASMs. We point to directions for future research and applications of the method in other areas than software engineering. 1

We propose a structured mathematical definition of the semantics of C# programs to provide a platform-independent interpreter view of the language for the C# programmer, which can also be used for a precise analysis of the ECMA [22] standard of the language and as a reference model for teaching. The definition takes care to reflect directly and faithfully -- as much as possible without becoming inconsistent or incomplete -- the descriptions in the C# standard to become comparable with the corresponding models for Java in [37] and to provide for implementors the possibility to check their basic design decisions against an accurate highlevel model. The model sheds light on some of the dark corners of C# and on some critical differences between the ECMA standard and the implementations of the language.

Abstract. We provide precise high-level models for eight fundamental service interaction patterns, together with schemes for their composition into complex service-based business process interconnections and interaction flows, supporting software-engineered business process management in multi-party collaborative environments. The mathematical nature of our models provides a basis for a rigorous execution-platform-independent analysis, in particular for benchmarking web services functionality. The models can also serve as accurate standard specifications, subject to further design leading by stepwise refinement to implementations. We begin by defining succinct rigorous models to mathematically capture the behavioral meaning of four basic bilateral business process interaction patterns (Sect. 1), together with their refinements to four basic multilateral interaction patterns (Sect. 2). We then illustrate with characteristic examples how by appropriate combinations and refinements of these eight fundamental patterns one can define arbitrarily complex interaction patterns of distributed service-based business processes that go beyond simple request-response sequences and may involve a dynamically evolving number of participants. This leads to a definition of the concept of process interaction flow or conversation,

In this paper we introduce a new research effort in making abstract state machines executable. The aim is to specify and implement an execution engine for a language that is as close as possible to the mathematical definition of pure ASM. The paper presents the general architecture of the engine, together with a high-level description of the extensibility mechanisms that are used by the engine to accommodate arbitrary backgrounds, scheduling policies, and new rule forms.

By combining the abstract state machine (ASM) formalism with the multi-agent modeling paradigm, we obtain a formal framework for semantic modeling and integration of established theories of crime analysis and prediction. We focus here on spatial and temporal aspects of crime in urban areas. Our work contributes to a novel interdisciplinary research effort broadly classified as Computational Criminology.

In hardware and software design model checkers are nowadays used with success to verify properties of system components [23]. The limits of the approach to cope with the size and the complexity of modern computer-based systems are felt when it comes to provide evidence of the trustworthiness of the entire system that has been built out of verified components. To achieve this task one has to experimentally validate or to mathematically verify the composition of the system. This reveals a gap between the finite state machine (FSM) view of model-checkable components and the architectural system view. In this paper we show how Abstract State Machines (ASM) can be used to fill this gap for both design and analysis, using a flexible concept of ASM component. 1

Abstract. We report work in progress about a critical analysis of the 43 workflow patterns recently presented by the Business Process Modeling Center in [14]. We disambiguate the natural language pattern descriptions given there, complete them by explicitly addressing relevant features that were left open in [14], and replace the Petri net formalizations, provided there to further illustrate the patterns, by truly abstract yet rigorous models, avoiding to introduce details that pertain only to the description framework and not to the problems addressed by the patterns. We identify parameters which turn numerous of the analyzed workflow patterns into instances of one main pattern, thus streamlining the pattern classification proposed in [14]. 1

The versatility and wide applicability of the Abstract State Machines Method for the design and the analysis of computational systems has not yet been fully exploited for teaching. We suggest to use it for introducing basic algorithmic concepts in a succinct and uniform way, which makes the definitions adoptable in traditionally unrelated courses, covering the full range of computing science curricula from computation theory to the engineering of software systems.

Abstract. We propose a small set of parameterized abstract models for workflow patterns, starting from first principles for sequential and distributed control. Appropriate instantiations yield the 43 workflow patterns that have been listed recently by the Business Process Modeling Center. The resulting structural classification of those patterns into eight basic categories, four for sequential and four for parallel workflows, provides a semantical foundation for a rational evaluation of workflow patterns. 1

Abstract: On-line analytical processing (OLAP) systems deal with analytical tasks that support decision making. As these tasks do not depend on the latest updates by transactions, it is assumed that the data required by OLAP systems are kept in a data warehouse, which separates the input from operational databases from the outputs to OLAP. However, user requirements for OLAP systems change over time. Data warehouses and OLAP systems thus are rather dynamic and the design process is continuous. In order to easily incorporate new requirements and at the same time ensure the quality of the system design, we suggest to apply the Abstract State Machine (ASM) based development method. This assumes we capture the basic user requirements in a ground model and then apply stepwise refinements to the ground model for every design decisions or further new requirements. In this article, we show that a systematical approach which is tailored for data warehouse design with a set of formal refinement rules can simplify the work in dynamic data warehouse design and at the same time improves the quality of the system.