Paul Jackson's Home Page

I am a lecturer both in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and at the Institute for System Level Integration (ISLI) in Livingston, Scotland.

email:

pbj (@) inf.ed.ac.uk

address:

Room 4.05
Informatics Forum
10 Crichton Street
Edinburgh EH8 9AB
United Kingdom

phone:

[+44] (0)131 650 5131

Research

Interests

Specific current interests include:

• Using SMT solvers and other automated reasoning techniques to prove software verification conditions. One focus is on augmenting the capabilities of the tools available for formally analysing programs written in the SPARK subset of Ada.
• Space efficient and high performance encodings of linear temporal logic bounded model checking problems into SAT (propositional satisfiability) problems.
• Combining model checking and mechanical theorem proving techniques in order to verify hardware. Generalising abstraction methods.
• Importing formal developments of mathematics in the Mizar mathematical language into other theorem provers such as Isabelle.

Postgraduate Students

• Grant Olney Passmore. His current interests include proof procedures for non-linear arithmetic over the rationals and reals - see his home page for details. He started autumn 2007.

• Daniel Sheridan. He looked at novel encodings of bounded model checking problems into propositional satisfiability problems which can be checked by SAT solvers. He graduated November 2006.
• Tom Ridge. He verified a tree multicast protocol in the Isabelle and HOL-light theorem provers, improved theorem prover automation, and improved support for notions of proof context. He graduated November 2006.

Affiliations

Teaching

Courses

• The CS/SE Individual Practical, a 3rd year undergraduate course in the School of Informatics. This course involves students developing a searchable peer-to-peer database in Java.
• IP Block Integration, an MSc module at the ISLI. This module explains how to assemble a system-level IC design from predefined and precharacterised hardware IP (Intellectual Property) blocks. It also covers current techniques for hardware design verification and design-for-test approaches.

• Computer Science 1, a 1st year undergraduate course in the School of Informatics. This course was taken by all students on Informatics related degrees. It covered topics such as programming in Java, software engineering, and algorithms and data-structures.

Projects

• Verifying Spark-Ada programs using a SAT modulo theories solver.
• Formalising zero-knowledge proofs in Isabelle.
• Evaluation of ESC/Java static assertion checker for Java.
• Hardware verification using the Cadence SMV model checker.
• A parser for the Mizar Mathematical Library.

• Verification of a memory controller using Verisity's Specman tool and `e' language.
• Evaluation of Specman and the `e' language using a JTAG controller case study.
• Overcoming the Challenges of Timing Convergence for Next Generation SoC ASIC Devices
• Formal Verification of a RTL IP Block using Cadence FormalCheck.
• Analysis of Serial RapidIO performance and implementation of part of the physical layer specification.

• Building a MathWeb server for the Mizar Mathematical Library.
• A predicate subtyping extension for Isabelle/HOL.
• Bus protocol specification and verification using PSL

Biography

Jan-Mar 03:

Visiting Fellow with the Computer Science Laboratory SRI International, Menlo Pk, California.

Apr 99-present:

Lecturer in Informatics at University of Edinburgh and in System Level Integration at Institute for System level Integration in Livingston, Scotland.

98-Mar 99

Lecturer in Informatics at University of Edinburgh.

95-98

Research Fellow in Computer Science at University of Edinburgh.

88-95:

MS, PhD degrees and post-doc in Computer Science at Cornell University, Ithaca NY, USA. Most of this time I was involved with the Nuprl project.

86-88:

MS in Physics at Cornell University. Studied electron spin resonance in sapphire substrates using superconducting microstrip resonators.

84-86:

Designed application-specific ICs for US General Electric in North Carolina, USA.

81-84:

Undergraduate in Engineering at Cambridge, England. Electrical Sciences Tripos in 3rd year.