++++++++++++++++++ FME2001: - Review reports for paper 38 +++++++++++++++++++++ - Dear author(s) : this file was extracted automatically from a very large - mailbox. In case you find any problem concerning mail encodings (or any - other kind of anomaly disturbing your understanding of the reviews) please - email any of the PC cochairs (pamela@research.att.com,jno@di.uminho.pt). ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 38 CATEGORY: 1 TITLE: A synchronous model of the IEC 61131 PLC languages FBD and ST in Signal AUTHOR(S): Fernando Jiménez-Fraustro Éric Rutten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): The papers gives an outlined and informal description of a translator from some languages of IEC 61131 PLC to signal. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 2 Please comment your rating: I believe that a translator is possible because SIGNAL is a powerful language for real-time, reactive systems. However, a general discussion and an outlined, informal description of the translation without justification for soundness do not give audience any new idea of how it is done, what techniques are useful for the problem, etc. To me, the audience of FME do not gain very much about this kind of presentation. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 3 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating of your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 3 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: I do not see clearly any new and significant thing in the work, since I do not understand what is the problem of the translation, and how it is solved. 6. How WORTHWHILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: Having a tool for translation of a ST program into a SIGNAL program is interesting. So the goal of the authors is worth studying. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Not very well. Comment: It is hard to follow the general description of the translation. Examples are needed to show how to model ST commands by SIGNAL programs, and to justify the soundness. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: I think that it is sound, but there is no proof or justification for the soundness. 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: The results presented in the paper are experimental, but I do not think that their relevance is well justified. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: Motivation is too long, while the main part (the part for translation) is short. It is recommended that the presentation of the main part should be illustrated by examples and should include the justification of the soundness. 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: Are the figures and length acceptable?: Are the references correct?: 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 38 CATEGORY: 1 TITLE: A synchronous model of the IEC 61131 PLC languages FBD and ST in Signal AUTHOR(S): Fernando Jiménez-Fraustro Éric Rutten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): The paper provides a translation of PLC programming languages to the synchronous language SIGNAL, providing them with a formal semantics and access to formal development and analysis. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 2 Please comment your rating: Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC's) have been around for many decades, but will themselves be of minority interest to FME. The interest lies in the provision of a formal model for PLC's, and this seems routine (though techncailly challenging in the details). There is nothing in the paper on the practical aspect of the work, such as feedback to the PLC community that this process might have generated, or the benefits to the PLC community of applying this approach. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 3 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 3 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: The provision of a SIGNAL model for these PLC languages is new. It is not clear to me how significant it is. This remains to be seen. 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: The ultimate goal (of providing formal support for PLC languages) is worthwhile, but the authors are not there yet. The current work has the feeling of a technical report, simply giving a translation, Perhaps the authors make it look easy, but it is not clear what the major technical challenges are in this translation. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: The goal is pretty well explained and justified. The justification - providing a formal model for an informally defined standard - is entirely appropriate for this conference. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: To the best of my ability to tell, yes. 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: At this stage the work is primarily theoretical/conceptual, and there is not much on the implications with respect to applicability. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: This is good, with occasional minor grammatical lapses. It is comprehensible throughout. 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: no Are the figures and length acceptable?: yes, although the table of contents at the end does not need to appear. Are the references correct?: yes 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: It would be interesting to investigate the impact of the work. Has it allowed the PLC community to do new things? Has it uncovered previously unknown flaws? Has it rasied issues about the PLC languages themselves? +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 38 CATEGORY: 1 TITLE: A synchronous model of the IEC 61131 PLC languages FBD and ST in Signal AUTHOR(S): Fernando Jiménez-Fraustro Éric Rutten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): The paper presents an encoding of PLC programming languages in IEEE 1131-3 standard into synchronous programming language Signal. The PLC notations handled consist of Function blocks, Function Block diagrams and Structured Text. The aim of such an encoding is to make available the facilities for analysis, verification and implementation developed for Signal to PLC programming notations. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 3 Please comment your rating: The paper sets up an interesting connection between widely used PLC programming standard and a formally well developed model and environment Signal. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 3 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 3 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: It is not straightforward to encode an asynchrnonous model with sequential programming constructs into a synchronous data-flow programming notation. This mismatch between two paradigms shows itself in the complexity of the encoding which is highly unnatural. To their credit authors have managed to work out this encoding. No experimental results are presented on its use. 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: As presented, the encoding of PLC into signal is a difficult technical exercise. The resulting signal programs are also highly complex. Authors have not presented any results on the use of this translation for verification/implementation. Without such results, it is difficult to be convinced of the effectiveness this approach. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: Paper is badly written. While it is verbose, crucial details on the encoding of FB and ST into signal are not clear. At best the reader gets a vague idea of the nature of encoding. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: The full technical details of encoding of FB and ST into Signal are not clearly presented. From the presented detail, this referee could not convince himself of the correctness of translation. For a formal methods conference this is a grave shortcoming. 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: The approach is interesting but no experimental evidence is given to support the claims. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: Verbose but missing in clarity and details. 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: Are the figures and length acceptable?: Are the references correct?: 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++