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PRISM News - April 2014

PRISM and Google Summer of Code 2014

We are delighted to announce that PRISM has been selected to take part in the 2014 Google Summer of Code scheme, after our successful participation last year.

Google Summer of Code is a global scheme that pays students (at undergrad, MSc or PhD level) to contribute to selected open source software projects. Students are paired with a mentor at the project, contribute code over a three-month period in the summer, and get paid 5500 USD by Google. This is a great way for students to get experience of real-world software development and find out more about possibilities for further study and employment in areas related to their academic studies. See the Google Summer of Code FAQ for more details.

PRISM (see www.prismmodelchecker.org) is a software tool for modelling and studying the behaviour of real-life systems whose behaviour exhibits unpredictability or randomness. It can be used to analyse everything from the reliability of distributed filing systems, to the performance of a Bluetooth-enabled wireless device, to the safety of a car's airbag control system. PRISM has been used by researchers worldwide in fields as diverse as quantum cryptography, systems biology, computer security and robotics. Development of PRISM is currently split between the University of Birmingham and the University of Oxford.

This year, we have 8 students joining our PRISM development team for the summer:

  • Marcin Copik: Enhanced discrete-event simulation
  • Jens Katelaan: Counterexamples for Discrete Time Markov Models
  • Alberto Puggelli: Verification of PCTL Properties of MDPs with convex uncertainties in PRISM
  • Lovejeet Singh: Model visualization and exploration
  • Archit Taneja: Enhanced graph plotting
  • Andrej Tokarčík: Parameter space exploration for computational systems biology
  • Qixia Yuan: A parameter synthesis framework
  • Xueyi Zou: A Prototypical PRISM Extension for POMDPs

We are looking forward to a productive summer.

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