Universities are increasingly expected to bridge the gap between higher education, skills development, and graduate employability, yet evidence-based approaches to curriculum–labour market alignment remain limited in Communication Studies. This study examines which ESCO-mapped occupational profiles and transversal competencies are represented in official curricula of leading Spanish Communication programmes (RQ1), how demand for communication-related occupations evolved in Spain over 2018–2023 (RQ2), and where the most salient alignment gaps emerge to inform curriculum redesign (RQ3). We used an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design combining documentary analysis of programme verification reports and national disciplinary documentation, an ESCO-based mapping of curricular profiles, and labour-market intelligence from 2,701,503 job postings (2018–2023) mapped to ESCO to analyse demand dynamics, volatility, and skill patterns. Results show strong curricular convergence around a shared core of ESCO profiles (71.8% of identified codes shared across institutions) alongside institution-specific specialisations (28.2%). Labour demand fluctuated markedly across the period and exhibited heterogeneous volatility by occupation, and transversal competency patterns differed significantly across professional groupings, supporting segment-specific interpretations of alignment and mismatch. Overall, ESCO combined with job-posting analytics provides a replicable framework for continuous curriculum calibration and employability-oriented programme redesign, particularly for hybrid profiles that integrate technical, analytical, relational, and ethically grounded capabilities.

Abstract Program verification using abstract interpretation involves the symbolic calculation of fixpoints over lattices. Integral to these fixpoint calculations is widening, an operation that trades precision for guarantees of termination. Abstract interpretation often works with lattices of convex sets of points in n-dimensional space, represented by sets of linear inequalities. When the form of these inequalities is restricted these are known as weakly relational domains. This paper addresses weakly relational domains, the detail of their representation and the way in which widening is applied, including study of how the closure operators used in weakly relational domains interact with widening, and considers how sequences of constraints might be widened. Satisfiability checking for numeric constraints is one tool used in this work.

Verification of multi-scale coupling program for high temperature gas-cooled reactor based on metamorphic testing

Automatic assertion generation with LLM for ICS program verification

Formal specifications such as Java Modeling Language (JML) are essential for program verification, but are complex and error-prone to write manually. Although recent large language model (LLM) based approaches automate specification generation, they often struggle with complex control flow and semantic completeness. We present AutoJML, an LLM agent that generates and refines JML specifications using iterative verification and mutation-based feedback. Evaluated on Java programs with diverse control flow patterns, AutoJML verifies more programs than a state-of-the-art baseline, particularly for multipath and nested loop programs.

Persistent Memory (PM) technologies provide fast, byte-addressable access to durable storage but face crash consistency challenges, motivating extensive work of testing and verification of PM programs. Central to PM testing tools is the specification of program properties for object persistence order and atomicity. Prior work on PM property inference has focused on ordering properties and offers limited support for reasoning about atomicity. This paper explores a class of important atomicity properties between the container-like arrays and their logical size variables, referred to as the counting correlation. These properties are prevalent in PM programs but are not adequately addressed by existing techniques. We introduce C3, a tool designed to infer these counting-related atomicity properties and detect related bugs in PM programs. Our approach begins by proposing invariants to capture the necessary behaviors of counting-correlated variables. We then utilize symbolic range analysis to extract PM program behaviors, and encode them into SMT constraints. These constraints are checked against the invariants to infer likely PM program properties. Our bug detection method is based on the existing output checking approach, but adapted to be aware of input properties to detect and confirm the atomicity bugs efficiently. Our evaluation shows that C3 has found 14 atomicity bugs (including 11 previously unknown ones) from real-world PM programs.

The article highlights the experimental testing of the stress resistance development program of servicemen of mechanized units to actions in defensive combat conditions. The statistical significance of the stress resistance indicators of military servicemen after the implementation of the program has been confirmed using the same methods as during the ascertainment stage of the study, using parametric methods (Student's t-test) and nonparametric methods of statistical analysis for dependent and independent samples (Wilcoxon's t-test, Mann-Whitney's U-test). According to the motivational and value component of stress resistance, the systems of value orientations, life goals, paths and means of achieving them became more pronounced for military servicemen. The development of cognitive and intellectual abilities requires longer and systematic exposure. According to the emotional-volitional component of stress resistance, servicemen became less aggressive, tense, irritable, anxious, more reflective and confident. An important factor in the positive changes was the military servicemen's mastery of breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation techniques. Within the behavioral component, an increase in responsibility and self-confidence has been recorded, manifested through an internal desire and willingness to provide combat missions in conditions of increased danger. In general, based on the results of the experimental verification of the stress resistance development program of servicemen of mechanized units to actions in defensive combat conditions, a conclusion has been drawn about the selectivity of positive changes in its structural components. On the one hand, statistical significance confirms the acquisition by the training participants of the skills of emotional and volitional self-regulation, positive thinking, self-control, and adaptive behavior. On the other hand, the relative constancy of certain individual characteristics of servicemen of mechanized units demonstrates the limited effectiveness of training in terms of their statistically significant transformation.

Abstract. Research Relevance. The modern scientific paradigm of sports kinesiology confirms that childhood and adolescence are periods of extreme neuromuscular plasticity. At the same time, this stage serves as a critical "window of vulnerability," where inadequate training loads can trigger the development of persistent motor dysfunctions and musculoskeletal deformities. In this context, precision biomechanical analysis of the postural stereotype and spatial body organization is regarded not merely as a diagnostic procedure but as a fundamental tool for injury prevention and individualization of the training process. The transition from visual assessment to instrumental analysis of the biogeometric posture profile enables the identification of subclinical changes prior to their morphological fixation. The aim of the study is to scientifically substantiate preventive programs aimed at optimizing the postural stereotype and preventing musculoskeletal dysfunctions in youth basketball players based on the results of biomechanical posture analysis. Methods. Analysis and generalization of specialized scientific literature, pedagogical and biomedical methods, and methods of mathematical statistics. Results. The synthesized research findings form a fundamental methodological basis for the design and experimental verification of authorial programs aimed at the strategic prevention of musculoskeletal disorders in youth athletes. The priority vectors for implementing these programs include: optimizing postural control as the foundation of dynamic stability; neutralizing functional asymmetries that determine uneven load distribution; and increasing the adaptive potential of the body's biomechanical links to the demands of specific sports activities. Conclusions. The formulated theoretical and methodological approaches and their systemic graphical interpretation, given their conceptual integrity, claim the status of a methodological paradigm in the fields of sports training theory and methodology, as well as physical culture and sports rehabilitation. The proposed architecture facilitates a qualitative transition from fragmented corrective interventions to a model of systemic management of the athlete's morpho-functional state. This approach ensures holistic monitoring and correction of the biogeometric posture profile at the critically important stage of initial training, creating the prerequisites for long-term health preservation and the advancement of athletic excellence.

A key computational question underpinning the automated testing and verification of concurrent programs is the consistency question — given a partial execution history, can it be completed in a consistent manner? Due to its importance, consistency testing has been studied extensively for memory models, as well as for database isolation levels. A common theme in all these settings is the use of shared-memory as the primal mode of interthread communication. On the other hand, modern programming languages, such as Go, Rust and Kotlin, advocate a paradigm shift towards channel-based (i.e., message-passing) communication. However, the consistency question for channel-based concurrency is currently poorly understood. In this paper we lift the study of fundamental consistency problems to channels, taking into account various input parameters, such as the number of threads executing, the number of channels, and the channel capacities. We draw a rich complexity landscape, including upper bounds that become polynomial when certain input parameters are fixed, as well as hardness lower bounds. Our upper bounds are based on algorithms that can drive the verification of channel consistency in automated verification tools. Our lower bounds characterize minimal input parameters that are sufficient for hardness to arise, and thus shed light on the intricacies of testing channel-based concurrency. In combination, our upper and lower bounds characterize the boundary of tractability/intractability of verifying channel consistency, and imply that our algorithms are often (nearly) optimal. We have also implemented our main consistency checking algorithm and designed optimizations to enhance its performance. We evaluated the performance of our implementation over a set of 103 instances obtained from open source Go projects, and compared it against a constraint-solving based algorithm. Our experimental results demonstrate the power of our consistency-checking algorithm; it scales to around 1M events, and is significantly faster in running-time performance, compared to a constraint-solving approach.

We present a technique for the verification of liveness properties of randomized distributed algorithms. Our technique gives SMT-based proofs for many common consensus algorithms, both for crash faults and for Byzantine faults. It is based on a sound proof rule for fair almost-sure termination of distributed systems that combines martingale-based techniques for almost-sure termination with reasoning about weak fairness. Our proof rule is able to handle parametrized protocols where the state grows unboundedly and every variant function is unbounded. These protocols were out of scope for previous approaches, which either relied on bounded variant functions or on reductions to (non-probabilistic) fairness. We have implemented our proof rules on top of Caesar, a program verifier for probabilistic programs. We use our proof rule to give SMT-based proofs for termination properties of randomized asynchronous consensus protocols, including Ben-Or's protocol and graded binary consensus, for both crash and Byzantine faults. These protocols have notoriously difficult proofs of termination but fall within the scope of our proof rule.

We propose an approach for modular verification of programs that use relaxed-consistency atomic memory access primitives and fences. The approach is sufficient for verifying the core of Rust's Atomic Reference Counting (ARC) algorithm. We first argue its soundness, when combined with a simple static analysis and admitting an open sub-problem, with respect to the C20 memory consistency model. We then argue its soundness, even in the absence of any static analysis and without any assumptions, with respect to YC20, a minor strengthening of XC20, itself a recently proposed minor strengthening of C20 that rules out out-of-thin-air behaviors but allows load buffering. In contrast to existing work on verifying ARC, we do not assume acyclicity of the union of the program-order and reads-from relations. We define an interleaving operational semantics, prove its soundness with respect to (Y)C20's axiomatic semantics, and then apply any existing program logic for fine-grained interleaving concurrency, such as Iris.

Design of Safe C Language for Program Verification

The classical method of proving imperative programs uses Hoor logic, applies Dijks-tra's weakest precondition predicate, and involves specifying the program with first-order predicates as the so-called precondition and postcondition. The classical method of proving functional programs uses the method of mathematical induction and involves specifying the program with recursive functions. This work explores the automated formal verification of imperative programs using recursive specifications. This study appeals to both academics and industry professionals engaged in algorithmic research and software engineering, illuminating the intricate process of formally substantiating the correctness of complex algorithms. The work specifically focuses on developing formal correctness proofs for the Merge Sort algorithm and the Knapsack Problem implementations. By employing contem-porary tools like the Dafny verification system and leveraging the power of recursive speci-fications, the research demonstrates the development of detailed specifications and precise program proofs, successfully verifying an array-based implementation of Merge Sort and requiring the formulation of custom conditions for index handling. The findings of this research hold practical implications, particularly in optimizing software systems where the assurance of algorithmic correctness is paramount and establishes recursive specifications as an effective approach for verifying imperative programs.

We consider a class of formula equations in first-order logic, Horn formula equations, which are defined by a syntactic restriction on the occurrences of predicate variables. Horn formula equations play an important role in many applications in computer science. We state and prove a fixed-point theorem for Horn formula equations in first-order logic with a least fixed-point operator. Our fixed-point theorem is abstract in the sense that it applies to an abstract semantics which generalises standard semantics. We describe several corollaries of this fixed-point theorem in various areas of computational logic, ranging from the logical foundations of program verification to inductive theorem proving.

Ensuring the reliability of complex, concurrent software systems necessitate rigorous verification and validation (V&V). A primary challenge in this process is the manual creation of programming contracts, which serve as essential test oracles. This manual approach becomes progressively inefficient and prone to error as software scales. To address this, we propose a novel, automated multi-layered framework for the efficient verification of concurrent object-oriented programs. The framework operates through two integrated phases. In the initial Design Phase, it automatically analyzes Java source code to extract critical software dependencies, leveraging source code metrics and derived UML diagrams to understand program structure and concurrency constraints. These dependencies are then transformed into foundational code contracts. The subsequent Optimization Phase addresses the practical constraint of limited regression testing time. It employs hybrid metaheuristic algorithms to intelligently prioritize and optimize the generated contracts, ensuring maximum fault detection within time budgets. In this research introduce and evaluate three novel hybrid algorithms for this optimization: (1) Hybrid Ant Colony Optimization with Tabu Search (ACO-TS), (2) Hybrid Ant Colony Optimization with Particle Swarm Optimization (ACO-PSO), and (3) a data-driven Hyperbolic Tangent-instituted Decision Tree Classifier integrated with Harmony Search (Tanh DTC-HS). Experimental evaluation on established benchmarks, including Java Pet Store and JavaGenes, demonstrates the superiority of the proposed techniques. The results indicate that the Tanh DTC-HS algorithm achieves the fastest convergence and the highest stability, significantly outperforming standard metaheuristic approaches in efficiently generating optimal contract suites for verification.

This article continues the series of works on the development and verification of control programs based on LTL (linear temporal logic) specifications of a special type. Previously, a declarative LTL specification was proposed, which allows describing the behavior of control programs and building program code based on it in the imperative ST language for programmable logic controllers (PLCs). This LTL specification can be directly verified for compliance with specified temporal properties by the model checking method using the nuXmv symbolic verification tool. In general, it is not required to translate the LTL formulas of the specification into another formalism—an SMV specification (code in the input language of the nuXmv tool). The aim of this study is to explore alternative ways of representing the behavioral model of a program that conforms to a declarative LTL specification during its verification using the nuXmv tool. In this article, we transform the declarative LTL specification into various SMV specifications with accompanying changes of formulation of the verification problem, which leads to a significant reduction in time costs when checking temporal properties by using the nuXmv tool. The acceleration of verification is due to the reduction of the state space of the model being verified. The SMV specifications obtained as a result of the proposed transformations specify identical or bisimulational-equivalent transition systems, ensuring the same verification results when replacing one SMV specification with another.

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) engineering practices commonly rely on the adaptation and development of components as key building blocks. However, incorrect component specifications can lead to architectural flaws, which may propagate to implementation stages and result in faulty configurations. To address this, we build on declarative modeling techniques from program verification and refactoring to formally specify DLT components and their architectural composition. We introduce a component-based approach, Alloy4CMD , for the formal modeling and analysis of DLT architectural design. This approach maps individual components into well-formed formal specifications, enabling decidable (bounded) reasoning and property checking. We further employ a lattice-based abstract interpretation to approximate component semantics, with verification carried out in Alloy through assertions expressing conformance to requirements. The analysis involves automated model finding with bounded consistency checks using the Alloy Analyzer. Our approach provides validated, reusable modules, composes them into a validated architectural meta-model that supports early-stage DLT architectural design, and is independent of any particular DLT platform.

The article examines cognitive-reflective self-regulation strategies as a psychological resource for developing the professional autonomy of university teachers. A theoretical and methodological analysis of modern approaches to studying autonomy, self-regulation, and cognitive-reflective processes in the professional activity of educators has been conducted. It is determined that within the motivational, humanistic, cognitive-behavioral, social-cognitive, reflective-practical, and subject-action approaches, autonomy is viewed as an integral characteristic of a mature teacher’s personality, grounded in awareness, responsibility, and intrinsic motivation. The potential of the cognitive-behavioral approach in modeling cognitive-reflective self-regulation strategies is theoretically substantiated. The key mechanisms of the cognitive-behavioral model (cognitive restructuring, self-observation, behavioral experiments, emotional regulation, and the development of psychological flexibility) are presented, and a four-level self-regulation model “4S” is proposed: Sense, Structure, Shift, Sustain. The implementation of these strategies promotes the formation of metacognitive awareness, emotional stability, initiative, and teacher self-efficacy. It is proved that the cognitive-behavioral approach can serve as a theoretical and methodological foundation for developing professional autonomy in higher education, as it integrates reflective understanding of professional experience with practical behavioral self-regulation. Prospects for further research are outlined, including the empirical verification of CBT-based professional development programs and the creation of digital tools to support teachers’ reflective learning.

Unifying Automata Theory and Constrained Horn Clauses for Scalable Program Verification

Correction: Three Early Formal Approaches to the Verification of Concurrent Programs