The major technical results of the project are as follows:
- Theoretical Framework for Contract-Based Computing: a well-founded model for eBusiness applications based on the notion of binding contractual relationships between the actors in the world. The framework includes distinct levels of abstraction, formally define individual components (such as actors, contract stores and so forth) and their relations (including the notion of contracts themselves) and provide a sound semantic basis for components and interactions in the environment.
- Contracting Language Syntax and Semantics: an XML based language specification which can be re-used in different contracting contexts. The aim is to match basic contracting notions with formal structure and semantics over which verification techniques can then be applied. The language forms the glue between project components and tools.
- Contract-based e-Business Web Services Application Frameworks: a reusable application development environment which builds contracting functions and features directly into existing Web Services application environments, thereby allowing application developers to model and use inter-component concepts directly as part of their build and execution process. This functions as an additional specification and control level, above the usual method-call based specification. The results are available both in open source and industrial platform based forms.
- Verification, monitoring and analysis algorithms and tools: the combination of the theoretical model, contracting language, verification techniques and approaches based on model checking and norm driven multi-agent systems to provide methods and tools to analyse distributed applications formally at both design-time and run-time. This makes it possible to check certain system properties such as whether or not particular states can be reached legally or which contracts would need to be violated for a state to be reached, as well as what potential states may be reached should certain contracts be violated by certain parties. Additional, more complex specifications involving expressive multi-agent systems logics are also supported by these tools.
Other major project outputs that support and augment these results include a set of realistic scenario models and prototypes which demonstrate and model problems in contract-based systems.
The majority of project results have been released publicly and as open source in order to facilitate re-use and take up.
|
Copyright 2006 - 2009, IST Contract Project. All rights reserved.
Powered by Mambo - Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License. |
European Commission Framework 6 IST Project
Results 
