Keynote Speaker
Prof. Shaoying Liu
East China Normal University, China
IEEE Fellow, BCS Fellow, and AAIA Fellow
Speech Title: Advanced Formal Engineering
Methods for Dependable Software Engineering
Abstract: Formal engineering
methods was proposed about 30 years ago as a research area to study how
formal methods can be integrated into conventional software engineering
techniques to enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, and tool
supportability of software engineering. As a result of our extensive
research over the last three decades, we have established rather mature
technologies in the area, such as SOFL specification language and method
to support the integration of structured method, object-oriented method,
and formal methods, formal specification-based program inspection,
formal specification-based program testing, and formal specification
animation for software quality assurance. Despite the progress we have
made, there still exist several challenges in the field. In this talk, I
will first briefly explain the challenges and then present the
potentially advanced formal engineering techniques and research topics
we have been working on, including Agile-SOFL (Replacing formal
specifications with hybrid specifications, pre-post specifications with
specifications in functional scenario form, and refinement with
evolution), Testing-Based Formal Verification (TBFV), and Human-Machine
Pair Programming (AI-based programming). These advanced techniques are
expected not only to deal with mathematical issues derived from software
engineering, but also to tackle engineering-related issues, such as
scalability, evolution, human factors, and automation.
Biography:
Shaoying Liu is a Professor of Software Engineering in the Dishui Lake
International Software Engineering Institute at East China Normal
University, IEEE Fellow, BCS Fellow, and AAIA Fellow. He received the
Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Manchester, U.K in 1992,
and has experienced working and researching at 10 universities in China,
U.K., and Japan. His research interests include Formal Engineering
Methods, Specification-based Program Inspection and Testing,
Testing-Based Formal Verification (TBFV), Human Machine Pair Programming
(HMPP), and Safety-Critical and Complex Systems. Liu is a pioneer and
leading researcher in Formal Engineering Methods for Software
Development. He proposed to use the terminology of "Formal Engineering
Methods" in 1997, designed the SOFL (Structured Object-Oriented Formal
Language) specification language and method, and founded the ICFEM
conference in 1997, SOFL+MVSL workshop in 2012, and SFPVV symposium in
2024, respectively. He has led more than 20 research projects funded by
government agencies, private foundations, and industry since 1995,
published two books titled "Formal Engineering for Industrial Software
Development" and “Agile-SOFL: Agile Formal Engineering Method” with
Springer, respectively, 16 edited books, and over 300 papers in refereed
journals and international conferences. He has received many awards,
including 2020 and 2022 Distinguished Research Awards from IPSJ/SIGSE,
the “20 Year ICFEM Impact Award” from ICFEM 2018, “IEEE Reliability
Society Japan Joint Chapter 2016 Best Paper Award”, and “Outstanding
Paper Award’’ from ICECCS’96. In recent years, he has served as the PC
Chair of QRS 2025 and SFPVV 2024 and as General Chair of ICFEM 2024.
.