Lori Clarke
Location: (Amherst, MA)
Personal Research Web Page: http://laser.cs.umass.edu/
Keywords: Analysis of concurrent and distributed systems, finite-state verification, requirements engineering, safety analysis, analysis based process improvement
Posted on: Saturday, May 30th, 2009
Broad Research Area: Information Assurance / Security / Privacy / Cryptography, Scientific/Medical Informatics, Software Engineering
Research Interests:
In the area of software engineering, we have been working on techniques for detecting faults in software systems. We have been developing the FLAVERS finite-state verification system, which uses data-flow analysis techniques, to determine whether a system adheres to user-specified properties. Versions of FLAVERS currently exist for Java and Little-JIL, a process modeling language. To help analysts specify properties, our team is developing PROPEL, a property elicitation systems, that provides templates for commonly occurring property patterns. Analysts can complete the templates using natural-language phrases, decision trees, or finite-state automata representations, or some combination of these three. In the area of software architecture, we are developing an approach for defining component interactions that supports evolution and simplifies reverification, leading to a better platform for plug-and-play component-based development.
Recently we have been applying these technologies to processes such as medical procedures or election processes. In the medical informatics area, we are defining critical medical processes in the Little-JIL process definition language, and then using FLAVERS, PROPEL, and an assortment of safety analysis techniques to detect possible errors or vulnerabilities. In the digital government area, we are evaluating approaches for improving trustworthiness. We have been looking at techniques to help make election processes more secure and working with the National Mediation Board on how to make negotiation processes more transparent and trustworthy.
