Teaching

Courses

Thesis Topics

• Automatic Test Case Generation
  See the topics…
• Automatic Bound Computation
  The undecidability of the Halting problem is a famous result that goes back to the beginnings of computer science. The result says that there is no general method for automatically proving the termination of programs. Note, that this statement does not contradict the fact that in practice it is very well possible to prove termination for important program classes automatically. For example, it was a huge success when the first automatic tool chain was able to automatically prove the termination of Windows Device Drivers. Because drivers run in kernel mode, non-terminating drivers could cause the whole system to hang. Despite this success, termination is not a satisfying answer to most programmers who not only want to know that their programs terminate but also when! In ongoing research we are developing tools and algorithms for automatically deriving complexity bounds. Read More

Master’s Thesis Topics

• Automatic Test Case Generation
  See the topics…
• Model Checking Distributed Algorithms
  Distributed algorithms are designed to be run on several computing nodes, be it on a multiprocessor machine, in a local network, or in a cluster distributed over the globe. Though these algorithms usually have a considerably small description of the code run on an individual node, given the huge number of nodes they can solve complex problems. On the other hand, the distributed nature of the computation poses problems such as different relative processing speeds, delays in message deliveries, faults of nodes and links, etc. To deal with these problems, many sophisticated algorithms have been developed for decades. Each distributed algorithm comes with a mathematical proof of its properties, although the proofs tend to capture the most important behavior, they still could contain non-trivial errors. The formal methods, e.g. theorem proving, model checking, static analysis, are targeted to either find errors or to provide one with a mathematically sound justification that a system under verification behaves with respect to a desired specification. We are developing techniques and tools for checking distributed algorithms in a semi-automatic way, guided by a researcher in that field. See the topics…
• Automatic Bound Computation
  The undecidability of the Halting problem is a famous result that goes back to the beginnings of computer science. The result says that there is no general method for automatically proving the termination of programs. Note, that this statement does not contradict the fact that in practice it is very well possible to prove termination for important program classes automatically. For example, it was a huge success when the first automatic tool chain was able to automatically prove the termination of Windows Device Drivers. Because drivers run in kernel mode, non-terminating drivers could cause the whole system to hang. Despite this success, termination is not a satisfying answer to most programmers who not only want to know that their programs terminate but also when! In ongoing research we are developing tools and algorithms for automatically deriving complexity bounds. Read More

Graduate Studies

FORSYTE is involved in lectures and organization of the following programs:

Master Programs

• Master Program in Computational Intelligence
  (English language Master program)
• Erasmus Mundus European Master Program in Computational Logic
  (English language Master program with EU scholarships in collaboration with Dresden, Bolzano, Lisbon)

PhD Programs

• Vienna PhD School of Informatics
  (yearly applications for 10-20 scholarships)
• Doctoral Programme ”Mathematical Logic in Computer Science”
• Doctoral program in Computer Science
  (funding usually provided by advisor’s grants; please inquire with potential advisors)