fflammini - Publications List

University of Naples Federico II
Department of Computer and Systems Engineering
Via Claudio 21
Napoli 80125
ITALY

frflammi@unina.it

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Francesco Flammini got his laurea (July 2003) and doctorate (December 2006) degrees in Computer Engineering from the University Federico II of Naples.

Since October 2003 to January 2007, he has worked in Ansaldo Signal as a Software/RAMS Engineer in the Verification & Validation division. He has been involved in several ERTMS/ETCS (European Railway Traffic Management System / European Train Control System) related projects, both for the on-board and the trackside systems. In particular, he has specialized in functional testing of critical control systems. Since February 2007, after moving to the Business Innovation division, he has worked on critical infrastructure protection and transportation security. In particular, he has worked on risk assessment and design of security management systems. He has won two company innovation awards in 2005 (Automatic Train Control System based on ERTMS/ETCS L3) and 2007 (Subway Tunnel Protection System).

His main research interests are about dependability and security evaluation / assurance of critical systems and infrastructures, including multi-formalism methods. He is author of more than 20 scientific papers published in international journals, book chapters and conference proceedings. He has been awarded a grant as the "Best Ph.D. student paper" at the Dependability of Computer System Conference in 2006.

He has served as a member of the International Program Committee and a reviewer for several international conferences and IEEE journals. He is a member of the IEEE Computer Society and of several Technical Committees, including Software Engineering and Fault Tolerant Computing. He is also member of the European Workshop on Industrial Computer Systems Reliability, Safety and Security (EWICS TC7) and FME (Formal Methods Europe).

He is Editor in Chief of the "International Journal of Critical Computer-Based Systems" (IJCCBS, Inderscience Publishers).

He is presently an Adjunct Professor of Software Engineering (Second University of Naples) and Computer Science (University "Federico II" of Naples).

In the Seclab research group, he collaborates to the OsMoSys and DETECT projects.


Book chapters

2005	Giuseppe De Nicola, Pasquale di Tommaso, Esposito Rosaria, Flammini Francesco, Marmo Pietro, Orazzo Antonio (2005) A Grey-Box Approach to the Functional Testing of Complex Automatic Train Protection Systems 305-317 Abstract: Systematic functional testing is a fundamental step of embedded control systems development cycle, as it allows to verify and validate their final implementation. Various approaches to black-box testing have been proposed, however they either involve test-case explosion or do not ensure the correctness of system behaviour in scenarios not covered by system specifications. To cope with such issues, a methodology which better suits both complexity and safety-criticality of the target system is needed. This paper describes the ASF functional testing methodology, based on a grey-box approach aimed at generating and reducing an extensive set of influence variables and test-cases. The methodology, embracing different aspects of system test process (code coverage verification, regression testing, etc.), was successfully applied to validate ASF implementation of SCMT (an Italian project for an Automatic Train Protection System). The results obtained in our testing experience proved the time effectiveness and extensive coverage of the proposed approach. Notes: 10.1007/11408901_23
2004	Giuseppe De Nicola, Pasquale di Tommaso, Rosaria Esposito, Francesco Flammini, Antonio Orazzo (2004) A Hybrid Testing Methodology for Railway Control Systems 116-129 Abstract: International standards for V&V processes prescribe systematic testing as a fundamental step of safety-critical systems life-cycle, in order to prove the fulfilment of their requirements. However, proposed approaches are quite general and, for complex systems, imply an excessive number of test-cases to ensure the correctness of system behaviour in any operating scenarios, including unexpected ones. A more detailed methodology is needed to extensively test all the aspects of a complex system, while keeping the number of test-cases below a reasonable threshold. This paper describes the ASF hybrid testing methodology, combining black-box and white-box techniques, based on the identification and reduction of influence variables. Such an approach was successfully applied to validate ASF implementation of the SCMT system (an Italian Automatic Train Control specification), showing its time effectiveness and full achieved coverage. The same methodology, with the related customization, is now being improved in order to test the new ERTMS/ETCS systems. Notes:
Conference papers

2007	F Moscato, F Flammini, G Di Lorenzo, V Vittorini, S Marrone, M Iacono (2007) The software architecture of the OsMoSys multisolution framework In: ValueTools ’07 : Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Performance evaluation methodologies and tools 1-10 ICST, Brussels, Belgium, Belgium: ICST (Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering) Abstract: The use of multi-formalism techniques is very appealing in modeling complex systems since they allow for building of complex models by integrating or composing sub-models specified by different formalisms. Hence, the most suitable formalism may be used according to the evaluation goals, the level of abstraction of the sub-models and the nature of the sub-systems. Each formalism is usually coupled with efficient solution methods, thus multi-solution approaches are needed to solve multi-formalism models whose analysis involves different techniques and tools. In this paper the software architecture of the OsMoSys Multi-solution Framework (OMF) is presented. OMF was born to provide the support needed to allow for loosely coupled cooperation among heterogeneous analysis techniques and tools, and automates the tasks that must be performed to solve complex multiformalism models. OMF does not require that heterogeneous models are translated into a common formalism in order to be solved, nor that the available tools are modified to be integrated in the framework, but it achieves multisolution by orchestration. Notes:
2006	DOI Chiara Abbaneo, Francesco Flammini, Armando Lazzaro, Pietro Marmo, Nicola Mazzocca, Angela Sanseviero (2006) UML Based Reverse Engineering for the Verification of Railway Control Logics 3-10 Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Abstract: The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is widely used as a high level object oriented specification language. In this paper we present a novel approach in which reverse engineering is performed using UML as the modelling language used to achieve a representation of the implemented system. The target is the core logic of a complex critical railway control system, which was written in an application specific legacy language. UML perfectly suited to represent the nature of the core logic, made up by concurrent and interacting processes, using a bottom-up approach and proper modeling rules. Each process, in fact, was strictly related to the management of a physically (resp. logically) well distinguished railway device (resp. functionality). The obtained model deeply facilitated the static analysis of the logic code, allowing for at a glance verification of correctness and compliance with higher-level specifications, and opened the way to refactoring and other formal analyses. Notes:
2005	DOI Pasquale di Tommaso, Francesco Flammini, Armando Lazzaro, Raffaele Pellecchia, Angela Sanseviero (2005) The Simulation of Anomalies in the Functional Testing of the ERTMS/ETCS Trackside System 131-139 Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Abstract: ERTMS/ETCS is going to become the reference standard for modern railway signalling. To develop a safe and reliable Automatic Train Protection System (ATPS) based on ERTMS/ETCS, a detailed functional testing phase is needed, meeting the requirements of international railway safety standards. In this paper we deal with the functional validation of the trackside part of an ERTMS/ETCS compliant system. An extensive set of functional tests have been specified in order to thoroughly verify the system, using an innovative approach based on influence variables and state diagrams. However, such a detailed test specification requires a great amount of time and resources to be entirely executed in the real environment. Moreover, several tests need to generate abnormal safety-critical conditions that are unfeasible on the field. In this paper we describe how we overcame such problems using a specific simulation environment capable to quickly and automatically execute anomaly tests in normal as well as in degraded operating conditions. Notes:
	DOI Francesco Flammini, Nicola Mazzocca, Mauro Iacono, Stefano Marrone (2005) Using Repairable Fault Trees for the Evaluation of Design Choices for Critical Repairable Systems 163-172 Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Abstract: Critical repairable systems are characterized by complex architecture and requirements. The evaluation of benefits produced by repair policies on the overall system availability is not straightforward, as policies can be very articulated and different. In order to support this evaluation process, the Repairable Fault Tree (RFT) formalism revealed to be useful and suitable to represent complex repair policies by extending the existing Fault Tree formalism. In this paper we show how to exploit RFT advantages by evaluating the effects of different repair policies on the availability of the most critical component of ERTMS/ETCS (an European railway standard) systems: the Radio Block Centre (RBC). Notes:

Book chapters

Conference papers