About Ken SlonnegerKen Slonnegeris an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa where he currently serves as the Associate Chair of the Department of Computer Science. After receiving his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois, Professor Slonneger taught for a number of years at the SUNY College at Fredonia, NY before coming to Iowa. His current research focuses on formal methods of speciying the semantics of programming languages and on making these methods more practical and easier to use.Barry Kurtz is Professor and Head of Computer Science at Louisiana Tech University. He received his B.S. degree from the University of California, Riverside, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. As Principal Investigator on three National Science Foundation grants, Dr. Kurtz is an active researcher in the development of innovative curricula in Computer Science. He is also co-author of textbooks for introductory programmming and data structures courses.

With this book, readers with a basic grounding in discreet mathematics will be able to understand the practical applications of these difficult concepts. The book presents the typically difficult subject of "formal methods" in an informal, easy-to-follow manner. A "laboratory component" is integrated throughout the text.