In this paper we focus on formal concepts for an integrated modeling of complex systems. We take our examples from the field of sociotechnical systems where we state a great need for model-based reasoning regarding questions of system safety and the definition of long-term management policies. We lay our special focus on systemic capabilities related to context adaptive behavior with special co...

We present an agent-based model of a minimal economy containing households, retail banks, and producers of consumer and capital goods. Household behavior is based on the buffer-stock savings model by Deaton (1961), while the profit-maximizing firms employ reinforcement learning to determine pricing and production. Competitive retail banks facilitate the flow of funds between households and prod...

Objectives: Behavioral-based safety is a term used to describe the prevention of accidents, injuries and loss in the workplace. An effective behavior-based safety program relies on engaging employees to understand how unsafe behaviors lead to injuries and how to eliminate them from the workplace. This paper examines behavior-based safety program in a massive construction site. Methods: For t...

Software errors often occur at the interfaces between separately developed components. Incompatibilities are an especially acute problem when upgrading software components, as new versions may be accidentally incompatible with old ones. As an inexpensive mechanism to detect many such problems, previous work proposed a technique that adapts methods from formal verification to use component abstr...

We present an agent-based model of a minimal economy containing households, retail banks, and producers of consumer and capital goods. Household behavior is based on the buffer-stock savings model by Deaton (1961), while the profit-maximizing firms employ reinforcement learning to determine pricing and production. Competitive retail banks facilitate the flow of funds between households and prod...

Software for use in aviation requires certification. This certification is based on a safety argument. These arguments are formed of claims that are linked to evidence about the system. Adaptive systems are a grey area within the current certification guidelines (DO-178 document). Safety cases (sometimes called safety arguments) link claims and evidence in support of an overall safety argument....

Current methods for the evaluation and selection of a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software component fail to address emergent system safety properties. This can lead to extreme difficulties in the certification of COTS-based safety-critical system development projects. In this paper, we propose a defensible approach to supporting successful use (i.e. evaluation & selection, integration, cer...

This paper presents a process for the refinement of safety-critical source code into a more tractable representation. For large software-intensive information systems, the safety engineering view of the system reveals a “long thin slice” of hazard-related software involving a number of different software components. The hazard-related software is documented in the system “safety verification ca...

Long life and critical software systems require high availability. Therefore, their reconfiguration should be achieved dynamically during their running time. This type of updating is not safe as static update because it lacks test phase in order to validate the modifications. This paper discusses different sources of risk with runtime reconfiguring, it presents Message-based Interaction in Comp...

Context: Demonstrating compliance of critical systems with safety standards involves providing convincing evidence that the requirements of a standard are adequately met. For large systems, practitioners need to be able to effectively collect, structure, and assess substantial quantities of evidence. Objective: This paper aims to provide insights into how practitioners deal with safety evidence...