Methodologies synthesis

This deliverable deals with the modelling and analysis of interdependencies between critical infrastructures, focussing attention on two interdependent infrastructures studied in the context of CRUTIAL: the electric power infrastructure and the information infrastructures supporting management, control and maintenance functionality. The main objectives are: 1) investigate the main challenges to be addressed for the analysis and modelling of interdependencies, 2) review the modelling methodologies and tools that can be used to address these challenges and support the evaluation of the impact of interdependencies on the dependability and resilience of the service delivered to the users, and 3) present the preliminary directions investigated so far by the CRUTIAL consortium for describing and modelling interdependencies

Safety-oriented Testing for High-speed Rail Onboard Equipment Using Petri Nets

With its ability to operate at high speeds and capacity, high-speed rail offers a fast, dependable, and ecofriendly urban transportation option. Safety-critical systems such as high-speed rail signaling systems must be tested regularly to assess compliance with specifications and ensure reliable performance. Given that the onboard equipment is the core component of the signaling system, conducting safety testing on this equipment is of utmost importance. Current methods of analyzing test requirements mainly rely on human interpretation of specifications. However, the official technical specifications usually only outline standard operational scenarios, which could result in an inefficient and unclear safety analysis. This paper focuses on safety-oriented testing for onboard equipment. In particular, we propose a Petri net based approach to generate test cases for diverse operational scenarios. This approach improves both the efficiency and reliability of the testing process while ensuring compliance with safety requirements

Analysis of Software Binaries for Reengineering-Driven Product Line Architecture\^aAn Industrial Case Study

This paper describes a method for the recovering of software architectures from a set of similar (but unrelated) software products in binary form. One intention is to drive refactoring into software product lines and combine architecture recovery with run time binary analysis and existing clustering methods. Using our runtime binary analysis, we create graphs that capture the dependencies between different software parts. These are clustered into smaller component graphs, that group software parts with high interactions into larger entities. The component graphs serve as a basis for further software product line work. In this paper, we concentrate on the analysis part of the method and the graph clustering. We apply the graph clustering method to a real application in the context of automation / robot configuration software tools.Comment: In Proceedings FMSPLE 2015, arXiv:1504.0301

Guest Editorial Special Section on Advances in Automation and Optimization for Sustainable Transportation and Energy Systems

This special section of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE) focuses on new models, methods, and technologies for energy efficiency and sustainability in transportation and energy systems. In this section, the focus is thus on articles considering sustainable transportation, such as electric vehicles (EVs), integrated with the smart grid requirements. As guest editors, we are very pleased to present the selected 12 papers, whose topics are specifically related to optimal planning of charging stations (CSs), sustainable transportation and mobility, EVs integration in smart grids, reliability, reduction of consumption, demand response and smart grid modeling, optimal scheduling, routing and charging of fleets of EVs, as well as smart parkin

SAFE-FLOW : a systematic approach for safety analysis of clinical workflows

The increasing use of technology in delivering clinical services brings substantial benefits to the healthcare industry. At the same time, it introduces potential new complications to clinical workflows that generate new risks and hazards with the potential to affect patients’ safety. These workflows are safety critical and can have a damaging impact on all the involved parties if they fail.Due to the large number of processes included in the delivery of a clinical service, it can be difficult to determine the individuals or the processes that are responsible for adverse events. Using methodological approaches and automated tools to carry out an analysis of the workflow can help in determining the origins of potential adverse events and consequently help in avoiding preventable errors. There is a scarcity of studies addressing this problem; this was a partial motivation for this thesis.The main aim of the research is to demonstrate the potential value of computer science based dependability approaches to healthcare and in particular, the appropriateness and benefits of these dependability approaches to overall clinical workflows. A particular focus is to show that model-based safety analysis techniques can be usefully applied to such areas and then to evaluate this application.This thesis develops the SAFE-FLOW approach for safety analysis of clinical workflows in order to establish the relevance of such application. SAFE-FLOW detailed steps and guidelines for its application are explained. Then, SAFE-FLOW is applied to a case study and is systematically evaluated. The proposed evaluation design provides a generic evaluation strategy that can be used to evaluate the adoption of safety analysis methods in healthcare.It is concluded that safety of clinical workflows can be significantly improved by performing safety analysis on workflow models. The evaluation results show that SAFE-FLOW is feasible and it has the potential to provide various benefits; it provides a mechanism for a systematic identification of both adverse events and safeguards, which is helpful in terms of identifying the causes of possible adverse events before they happen and can assist in the design of workflows to avoid such occurrences. The clear definition of the workflow including its processes and tasks provides a valuable opportunity for formulation of safety improvement strategies