Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

National Initiatives

• Project acronym: SYMBIONT.

• Project title: Symbolic Methods for Biological Networks.

• Duration: July 2018 – June 2021.

• Coordinators: Thomas Sturm and Andreas Weber (Univ. of Bonn, Germany).

• Other partners: Univ. of Lille 1, Univ. of Montpellier, Inria Saclay Île de France (Lifeware), RWTH Aachen (Department of Mathematics and Joint Research Center for Computational Biomedecine), Univ. of Kassel.

• Participants: Thomas Sturm.

• Abstract: SYMBIONT is an international interdisciplinary project, funded by ANR in France and by DFG in Germany under the PRCI program. It includes researchers from mathematics, computer science, systems biology, and systems medicine. Computational models in systems biology are built from molecular interaction networks and rate laws, involving parameters, resulting in large systems of differential equations. The statistical estimation of model parameters is computationally expensive and many parameters are not identifiable from experimental data. The project aims at developing novel symbolic methods, aiming at the formal deduction of principal qualitative properties of models, for complementing the currently prevailing numerical approaches. Concrete techniques include tropical geometry, real algebraic geometry, theories of singular perturbations, invariant manifolds, and symmetries of differential systems. The methods are implemented in software and validated against models from computational biology databases.

• More information: https://www.symbiont-project.org/.

• Project acronym: IMPEX.

• Project title: Implicit and explicit semantics integration in proof based developments of discrete systems.

• Duration: December 2013 – December 2018.

• Coordinator: Dominique Méry.

• Other partners: ENSEEIHT/IRIT Toulouse, Supélec, Telecom Sud Paris, Systerel. Pierre Castéran from LaBRI Bordeaux also contributed to the project.

• Participants: Souad Kherroubi, Dominique Méry.

• Abstract: Modeling languages provide techniques and tool support for the design, synthesis, and analysis of formal models that arise during system development. The semantics of these languages is well understood by their users and is therefore implicit in the models. The languages do not provide concepts for explicitly representing characteristics (domain knowledge) resulting from an analysis of the underlying application domain [69]. We suggest that ontologies are good candidates for defining domain theories and for uniquely identifying concepts encapsulating domain knowledge. The objective [50] is to offer rigorous mechanisms for handling domain knowledge in design models. The main results of the project are summarized in [18] and show the importance of three operations over models namely annotation, dependency and refactoring [38].

• Project acronym: Formedicis.

• Project title: Formal methods for the development and the engineering of critical interactive systems.

• Duration: January 2017 – December 2020.

• Coordinator: Bruno d'Augsbourg (Onera).

• Other partners: ENSEEIHT/IRIT Toulouse, ENAC, Université de Lorraine (Veridis).

• Participants: Dominique Méry.

• Abstract: For the last 30 years, the aerospace domain has successfully devised rigorous methods and tools for the development of safe functionally-correct software. During this process, interactive software has received a relatively lower amount of attention. However, Human-System Interactions (HSI) are important for critical systems and especially in aeronautics: for example, the investigation into the crash of the Rio-Paris flight AF 447 in 2009 pointed out a design issue in the Flight Director interface as one of the original causes of the crash. Formedicis aims at designing a formal hub language, in which designers can express their requirements concerning the interactive behavior that must be embedded inside applications, and at developing a framework for validating, verifying, and implementing critical interactive applications expressed in that language.

• More information: http://www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr/Project-ANR-16-CE25-0007.

• Project acronym: DISCONT.

• Project title: Correct integration of discrete and continuous models.

• Duration: March 2018 – February 2022.

• Coordinator: Paul Gibson (Telecom Sud Paris).

• Other partners: ENSEEIHT/IRIT Toulouse, LACL, ClearSy, Université de Lorraine (Veridis).

• Participants: Dominique Méry.

• Abstract: Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) connect the real world to software systems through a network of sensors and actuators that interact in complex ways, depending on context and involving different spatial and temporal scales. Typically, a discrete software controller interacts with its physical environment in a closed-loop schema where input from sensors is processed and output is generated and communicated to actuators. We are concerned with the verification of the correctness of such discrete controllers, which requires correct integration of discrete and continuous models. Correctness should arise from a design process based on sound abstractions (including discretizations) and models of the relevant physical laws. DISCONT aims at bridging the gap between the discrete and continuous worlds of formal methods and control theory. We will lift the level of abstraction above that found in current bridging techniques and provide associated methodologies and tools. Our concrete objectives are to develop a formal hybrid model, elaborate refinement steps for control requirements, propose a rational design method and support tools, and validate them based on use cases from a range of application domains.

• More information: https://fusionforge.int-evry.fr/www/discont/.

• Project acronym: PARDI.

• Project title: Verification of parameterized distributed systems.

• Duration: January 2017 – December 2020.

• Coordinator: Philippe Quéinnec (ENSEEIHT/IRIT Toulouse).

• Other partners: Université Paris Sud/LRI, Université Nanterre/LIP6, Inria Nancy Grand Est (Veridis).

• Participants: Marie Duflot-Kremer, Igor Konnov, Stephan Merz.

• Abstract: Distributed systems and algorithms are parameterized by the number of participating processes, the communication model, the fault model, and more generally the properties of interaction among the processes. The project aims at providing methodological and tool support for verifying parameterized systems, using combinations of model checking and theorem proving. VeriDis contributes its expertise on TLA⁺ and its verification tools, and the integration with the Cubicle model checker is a specific goal of the project.

• More information: http://pardi.enseeiht.fr/.

• Project acronym: HAC SPECIS.

• Project title: High-performance application and computers: studying performance and correctness in simulation.

• Duration: June 2016 – June 2020.

• Coordinator: Arnaud Legrand (CNRS & Inria Grenoble Rhône Alpes, Polaris).

• Other partners: Inria Grenoble Rhône Alpes (Avalon), Inria Rennes Bretagne Atlantique (Myriads), Inria Bordeaux Sud Ouest (Hiepacs, Storm), Inria Saclay Île de France (Mexico), Inria Nancy Grand Est (Veridis).

• Participants: Marie Duflot-Kremer, Stephan Merz.

• Abstract: The goal of HAC SPECIS is to answer methodological needs of HPC application and runtime developers and to allow the study of real HPC systems with respect to both correctness and performance. To this end, this Inria Project Lab assembles experts from the HPC, formal verification, and performance evaluation communities. VeriDis contributes its expertise in formal verification techniques. In particular, our goal is to extend the functionalities of exhaustive and statistical model checking within the SimGrid platform. Yann Duplouy joined the project in December 2018 as a post-doctoral researcher with the objective of designing and implementing a statistical model checker for SimGrid.

• More information: http://hacspecis.gforge.inria.fr.