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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/R02214/01
Title: The Feature Construct In Programming and Specification Languages
Principal Investigator: Ryan, Professor M
Other Investigators:
Kwiatkowska, Professor MZ
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
BT
Department: School of Computer Science
Organisation: University of Birmingham
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 31 July 2001 Ends: 30 July 2004 Value (£): 183,384
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Fundamentals of Computing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Communications Information Technologies
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
The concept of feature has emerged in telephone systems as a way of describing optional services to which telephone users may subscribe. Features are not restricted to telephone systems: any part or aspect of a system which the user perceives as having a self-contained functional role is a feature.The feature interaction problem arises when several features are introduced simultaneously, and interact in ways which are undesirable. The problem is exacerbated by the involvement of several service providers, and has gained considerable attention from telephone companies and now has an international workshop in its fifth occurrence. The problem is not restricted to telephone systems, but may arise whenever complex features are introduced simultaneously.The feature construct is an approach to the problem which has proved its usefulness in our earlier work with British Telecom, but has so far been restricted to toy-sized examples. The project is to scale-up the approach, and to apply it to larger sized examples which will be of relevance to industry. The project includes undertaking some theoretical work (such as finding feature-friendly abstraction and decomposition mechanisms) in order to improve the techniques, as well as practical work in developing case studies.
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Organisation Website: http://www.bham.ac.uk