Refinement serves as a crucial link in software engineering, transforming abstract descriptions of systems into practical implementations. This process bridges the gap between high-level requirements and their execution, ensuring that theoretical concepts are effectively translated into functional software or hardware solutions. The book delves into the methodologies and principles of refinement, highlighting its importance in achieving precise and reliable system design.
The fourth international conference on Integrated Formal Methods took place in Canterbury, UK, from April 4–7, 2004, organized by the Computing Laboratory at the University of Kent. Located just outside the historic town of Canterbury, the university overlooks its famous cathedral and has been a prominent institution since receiving its Royal Charter in 1965. With nearly 10,000 students from over 110 nationalities, the university serves as a vibrant academic community. The IFM meetings have gained significant traction since their inception, with the first conference held in York in 1999, followed by events in Germany and Finland. These conferences, occurring approximately every 18 months, attract diverse participants from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australia, establishing themselves as a key fixture in the formal methods calendar. This year's conference showcased an increased focus on verification, reflecting the ongoing challenges in the field. The work presented at IFM is part of a broader effort to manage complexity by integrating various specification and design paradigms, ensuring the most suitable design tools are utilized at different stages of the development life-cycle.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Mathematics of Program Construction, MPC 2002, held in Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, in July 2002.The 11 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book; also presented are one invited paper and the abstracts of two invited talks. Among the topics covered are programming methodology, program specification, program transformation, programming paradigms, programming calculi, and programming language semantics.