Information Systems Engineering: A Formal Approach

Engineers and scientists need powerful formalisms to make conceptual models of systems in order to analyze and design them. These models can be used to verify the behavior of the systems, or as an executable specification of them. In this book, Professor van Hee concentrates on discrete dynamic systems, e.g. computer hardware, and information and logistical systems. He develops an integrated formalism that can be used as a prototyping language. It has three components: Petri nets, extended with time, token values and hierarchy; a specification language that is a subset of Z; and a binary data model, extended with complex objects. Much attention is paid to methods for constructing models of systems and analyzing their behavior, i.e., putting the theory into practice. The book is aimed at graduate students and researchers in computer science, electrical engineering, and applied mathematics.