Keynote

Prof. Radu Calinescu

Radu Calinescu

Radu Calinescu is an Associate Professor at the University of York, UK. He holds a DPhil in Computation from the University of Oxford, and was awarded a British Computer Society Distinguished Dissertation Award for his doctoral research. His research team is undertaking projects on the use of mathematical modelling and analysis to improve the safety and performance of adaptive and autonomous systems and processes, and to ensure the safety of machine learning techniques. He has been a Principal Investigator on research projects funded by Lloyd’s Register Foundation, UK Research Council, MoD and Wellcome Trust grants, and led industrial R&D projects as the Senior Development Manager and Technical Architect of an Oxford University spin-off software company. He has published over 120 research papers in the areas of software engineering, and adaptive and autonomous systems.

Engineering Robust Software through Stochastic Model Synthesis

Abstract: Robustness is a key characteristic of natural and human-made systems. Systems that cannot tolerate change are prone to frequent failures and require regular adaptation and maintenance. As such, engineering disciplines like civil, mechanical and electrical engineering use long-established methods to develop systems that can withstand variations in their parameters and operational profiles. By comparison, software engineering is lagging far behind. The talk will describe ongoing research to close this gap through the automated synthesis of stochastic models that correspond to robust software designs which satisfy strict nonfunctional requirements and are Pareto-optimal with respect to a set of quality optimisation criteria.