AltaRica Data-Flow: a high level description language

The AltaRica Data-Flow Toolbox is based on the high level formal description language AltaRica Data-Flow:

• The AltaRica Data-Flow language can be seen as a generalization of Block diagrams and Petri nets.
  • The AltaRica Data-Flow language is based on the notion of mode automata that are finite states automata with inputs and outputs flows.
  • The AltaRica Data-Flow language is hierarchical. Components exchange information by means of two mechanisms: flows that propagate values through the model and synchronization of events that forces two or more events to be simultaneous.
• The AltaRica Data-Flow language is graphical and textual.
  • Syntactic constructs have their graphical counterparts.
• The AltaRica Data-Flow language has been designed to be compiled into lower level formalisms (fault trees, Petri nets, ...):
  • To increase inter-operability of tools.
  • To achieve efficient assessments.

The AltaRica Data-Flow ToolBox

The AltaRica Data-Flow ToolBox (version 1.14) contains the following tools.

• alta-chk: a type-checker.
• alta-ata: a compiler that transforms a hierarchical description into a single node.
• alta-a2b: a compiler of AltaRica Data-Flow descriptions into Fault Trees (at either the Aralia or the AltaRica format).
• alta-sim: an interactive graphical simulator
• alta-a2g: a tool to compute the reachability graph of AltaRica Data-Flow descriptions. Available output format are: AltaRica, Mec, MARK-EXD and Mark-XPR.
• alta-mrk: a tool to perform Markov analyses.
• alta-sto: a stochastic simulator.
• alta-msg: a generator of sequences for Markov graph.
• alta-sop: a generator of minimal cutsets (sum-of-products).
• alta-seq: a generator of sequences described by means of an automaton.
• alta-std: a tool to make descriptions anonymous.