Concurrent
Software Engineering Laboratory 
Director: Dr.
Boleslaw Mikolajczak
Co-Director: Dr. Haiping Xu
Computer and Information Science Department
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Research Scope
The Concurrent Software Engineering Laboratory (CSEL) performs research activities
in modeling, design, development, and analysis of concurrent software systems,
including parallel and distributed computing systems. This includes research
in distributed software engineering, formal methods, flexible manufacturing
systems, workflow management systems, web services, and multi-agent systems.
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The research work in distributed software engineering covers many topics
related to requirements specification and analysis, architecture design,
verification and validation. Areas of focus include design and analysis
methods for distributed object systems, parallel algorithms, multi-agent
software, performance metrics for concurrency models, and techniques and
tools for testing of concurrent software systems.
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One
area of emphasis is the theory and applications of Petri
nets, a formal graph model for concurrency and coordination by using
various forms of Petri nets and automata, including systems that require
annotations of time, costs, and resource allocation.
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Study of structural and behavioral properties of Petri net morphisms and
their applications in analysis, decomposition, and synthesis of concurrent
systems is part of a broader interest in formal conceptual modeling of parallel
and distributed systems. Another interest is in efficient parallelization
of sequential algorithms or programs.
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Part of the research in verification seeks new approaches to improve the
effectiveness of automated system verification using temporal logic and
model checking algorithms.
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Research
in Web Services includes model-based web services composition, web services
architecture, agent-based web services, and web services security.
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Research
related to multi-agent systems focuses on model-based agent development
and agent-oriented software engineering. Some specific
research issues in this area include formal specification and prototyping
of multi-agent systems; model-based development of agent-oriented software,
including design and implementation of software agents; and real-world applications
of agent technology.
