Programmable logic devices (PLDs) are increasing in complexity and speed, and are being used as important components in safety-critical systems. Methods for developing high-integrity software for these systems are well-known, but this is not true for programmable logic. We propose a process for developing a system incorporating software and PLDs, suitable for safety critical systems of the high...

The prevention, detection and amelioration of adverse events feature prominently in oncology protocols, the detailed plans for conducting clinical trials of therapies for the treatment of cancer. This paper summarises a safety review of such protocols prior to implementing OaSiS, a decision support system (DSS) in oncology [11]. OaSiS, shortly to undergo preliminary field evaluation in an oncol...

Safety-critical software systems call for effective analysis that ensures the correctness of the systems. HUME is a functional programming language, targeted at safety-critical systems, which supports such analysis for time and space, but does not support verification. This topic is explored by using an off-the-shelf design verification system called SPIN. The result is then empirically analysed.

In this paper the improvement of method of automated building of state space models of complex technical systems for critical application was proposed. On the basis of the developed model with the split state of critical failure the reliability and safety indexes of studied system can be obtained. Developed approach allows to estimate of reliability and safety indexes, that makes the impact of ...

The development of safety critical systems is guided by standards. Many standards require the development of a safety case to demonstrate the acceptability of Safety Critical Systems. The safety case must provide confidence that the system is acceptably safe to operate. For system components where it is not possible to quantify the associated risks (e.g. software), current standards in the aero...

The failure of a safety-critical system, though undesirable, is often a source of valuable lessons that can help prevent future failures. Current analysis practices do not always yield as much knowledge as they might about possible flaws in the system safety argument. In this paper, we introduce the lifecycle for safety cases. We use it to develop a framework to guide the analysis process and t...

Computing systems in which the consequences of failure are very serious are termed safety-critical. Many such systems exist in application areas such as aerospace, defense, transportation, power-generation, and medicine. The software in these systems is typically large and complex, critical to system safety, and difficult to implement and verify. Even when great effort is expended to develop th...

Critical infrastructure is undergoing a fundamental change worldwide in areas such as power, water, transport, defence, etc. Control systems that were previously physicallyisolated and constructed from purpose-built components are increasingly being standardised and interconnected, exposing them to corporate networks and even the Internet. Consequently, well-established ways of engineering syst...

Safety-critical software systems are those whose failure or malfunction could result in casualty and/or serious financial loss. In such systems, safety assurance cases (SACs) are an emerging approach that adopts a proactive strategy to produce structuralized safety justifications and arguments. While SACs are recommended in many software-intensive safety-critical domains, the lack of knowledge ...

We adopt a ‘system-of-systems’ framework of analysis, previously presented by the authors, to include the interdependent infrastructures which support a critical plant in the study of its safety with respect to the occurrence of an earthquake. We extend the framework to consider the recovery of the system of systems in which the plant is embedded. As a test system, we consider the impacts produ...