Abstract: A method for loading applications into an embedded system from a station on which the source code of the application is written, compiled, verified and converted. The conversion includes the performance of the static linking of a plurality of sets of packages, called modules, and an application program interface module or a service module corresponding to an application, and consists of assigning an identifier to each module and a reference number to each class, each method and each attribute. The reference to a method or an attribute in the linked pseudocode of a module is coded in three bytes referencing a class internal or external to the module, the number of the class, and either the number of the method or the number of the attribute, a reference to an external class being interpreted as a reference to an API module.

Abstract: A terminal software architecture accepts a card that implements a card application of a merchant. A terminal application is developed independently of the terminal. The terminal has an environment component including terminal hardware, an operating system, and an environment services layer that supplies one or more environment dependent services that are dependent upon at least one of the operating system and the hardware of the terminal. The terminal application is compatible with the card application and has a platform independent portion that is independent of the environment component and a business logic layer that implements business policies associated with the terminal. The business logic layer makes calls to the terminal application through an access module and an application programming interface. The terminal application makes calls to the environment services layer through an access module and an application programming interface.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for implementing a terminal software architecture for accepting a card that implements a card application of a merchant are disclosed. The terminal comprises an environment component including hardware of the terminal, an operating system of the terminal, and an environment services layer that supplies one or more environment dependent services dependent upon at least one of the operating system and the hardware of the terminal. The terminal further comprises a terminal application compatible with the card application and having a platform independent portion that is independent of the environment component.

Abstract: A method of automated proving for unrestricted first-logic to test the satisfiability of clause sets describing an industrial system which applies the instance generation rule ( IG ) ⁢   ⁢ Ψ Ψ ⁢   ⁢ σ where &PSgr; is a term, &sgr; a substitution and &PSgr;&sgr; an instance of &PSgr; yielded by the substitution &sgr;, and is characterized in that, instance subtraction is defined as the substraction of the instance &PSgr;&sgr; from &PSgr; resulting in a generalized term which is a triplet <&PSgr;, &sgr;, &Lgr;> where &Lgr; is a finite set of standard substitutions {&lgr;1, . . . , &lgr;n} and defined by GE(<&PSgr;, &sgr;, &Lgr;>)=GE(&PSgr;&sgr;)−GE({&PSgr;&lgr;1, . . .