A LANGUAGE AND ENVIRONMENT FOR ANALYSIS OF DYNAMICS BY SIMULATION

TLDR

The LEADSTO language is a declarative order‑sorted temporal language extended with quantitative notions such as integers and reals. The article introduces LEADSTO, a language and software environment for modeling and simulating dynamic processes using qualitative and quantitative concepts. LEADSTO models dynamic processes by specifying direct temporal dependencies between state properties, and its software environment simulates specifications, produces trace data files, and visualizes traces. The approach proved useful across multiple research projects in diverse domains.

Abstract

This article presents the language and software environment LEADSTO that has been developed to model and simulate dynamic processes in terms of both qualitative and quantitative concepts. The LEADSTO language is a declarative order-sorted temporal language, extended with quantitative notions like integer and real. Dynamic processes can be modelled in LEADSTO by specifying the direct temporal dependencies between state properties in successive states. Based on the LEADSTO language, a software environment was developed that performs simulations of LEADSTO specifications, generates data-files containing traces of simulation for further analysis, and constructs visual representations of traces. The approach proved its worth in a number of research projects in different domains.