A component-based framework for certification of components in a cloud of HPC services

HPC Shelfis a proposal of a cloud computing platform to provide component-oriented services for High Performance Computing (HPC) applications. This paper presents a Verification-as-a-Service (VaaS) framework for component certification onHPC Shelf. Certification is aimed at providing higher confidence that components of parallel computing systems ofHPC Shelfbehave as expected according to one or more requirements expressed in their contracts. To this end, new abstractions are introduced, starting with certifier components. They are designed to inspect other components and verify them for different types of functional, non-functional and behavioral requirements. The certification framework is naturally based on parallel computing techniques to speed up verification tasks.NORTE-01-0145- FEDER-000037

How does IATF 16949 add value to ISO 9001? An empirical study

This article analyses the added value of IATF 16949–a standard for qualitymanagement in the automotive sector–with respect to ISO 9001, the most popularstandard for quality management worldwide. An exploratory qualitative study wascarried out based on a multiple case study. Eight companies operating at differentlevels of the Spanish automotive sector supply chain were analysed and 27 interviewswere conducted–17 with managers of these companies and 10 with auditors andconsultants. Multiple internal and external sources of documentation were alsoanalysed. Thefindings show that IATF 16949 adds value to a moreflexible ISO9001 infive main areas: market, customer service in the supply chain, operationalperformance, staff, and technology. Overall, IATF 16949 is seen as a‘license tooperate’for automotive sector suppliers, for whom ISO 9001 seems to have lost itssignalling value. This study sheds light on the raison d’être of sectoral standards forQMSs such as IATF 16949 and contributes to the literature on the neo-institutionalapproach to QMSs and explains some of the main weaknesses of ISO 9001.This article is a result of the Research Group funded by the Basque Autonomous Government (Gruposde Investigación del Sistema Universitario Vasco; GIC 15/176

Open-DO: Open Framework for Critical Systems

Critical systems development pushes software quality to the extreme. When human life depends on the correct operation of the software, strict processes are put in place to ensure, as much as possible, the absence of errors in the airborne system. These processes are very tool-demanding, and these tools also need to follow stringent and rigorous guidelines to provide the proper guarantees of quality. The Open-DO initiative aims at providing a framework federating open-source tools for safety-critical systems. A key point is that these tools will come with the material to ensure that industrial users can trust their output and use them to develop software compliant to the highest integrity levels

Multi-core Interference-Sensitive WCET Analysis Leveraging Runtime Resource Capacity Enforcement

The performance and power efficiency of multi-core processors are attractive features for safety-critical applications, as in avionics. But increased integration and average-case performance optimizations pose challenges when deploying them for such domains. In this paper we propose a novel approach to compute a interference-sensitive Worst-Case Execution Time (isWCET) considering variable accesses delays due to the concurrent use of shared resources in multi-core processors. Thereby we tackle the problem of temporal partitioning as it is required by safety-critical applications. In particular, we introduce additional phases to state-of-the-art timing analysis techniques to analyse an applications resource usage and compute an interference delay. We further complement the offline analysis with a runtime monitoring concept to enforce resource usage guarantees. The concepts are evaluated on Freescale's P4080 multi-core processor in combination with SYSGO's commercial real-time operating system PikeOS and AbsInt's timing analysis framework aiT. We abstract real applications' behavior using a representative task set of the EEMBC Autobench benchmark suite. Our results show a reduction of up to 75% of the multi-core Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET), while implementing full transparency to the temporal and functional behavior of applications, enabling the seamless integration of legacy applications

Complex Care Management Program Overview

This report includes brief updates on various forms of complex care management including: Aetna - Medicare Advantage Embedded Case Management ProgramBrigham and Women's Hospital - Care Management ProgramIndependent Health - Care PartnersIntermountain Healthcare and Oregon Health and Science University - Care Management PlusJohns Hopkins University - Hospital at HomeMount Sinai Medical Center -- New York - Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program/ Chelsea-Village House Calls ProgramsPartners in Care Foundation - HomeMeds ProgramPrinceton HealthCare System - Partnerships for PIECEQuality Improvement for Complex Chronic Conditions - CarePartner ProgramSenior Services - Project Enhance/EnhanceWellnessSenior Whole Health - Complex Care Management ProgramSumma Health/Ohio Department of Aging - PASSPORT Medicaid Waiver ProgramSutter Health - Sutter Care Coordination ProgramUniversity of Washington School of Medicine - TEAMcar

Towards Digital Twin-enabled DevOps for CPS providing Architecture-Based Service Adaptation & Verification at Runtime

Industrial Product-Service Systems (IPSS) denote a service-oriented (SO) way of providing access to CPS capabilities. The design of such systems bears high risk due to uncertainty in requirements related to service function and behavior, operation environments, and evolving customer needs. Such risks and uncertainties are well known in the IT sector, where DevOps principles ensure continuous system improvement through reliable and frequent delivery processes. A modular and SO system architecture complements these processes to facilitate IT system adaptation and evolution. This work proposes a method to use and extend the Digital Twins (DTs) of IPSS assets for enabling the continuous optimization of CPS service delivery and the latter's adaptation to changing needs and environments. This reduces uncertainty during design and operations by assuring IPSS integrity and availability, especially for design and service adaptations at CPS runtime. The method builds on transferring IT DevOps principles to DT-enabled CPS IPSS. The chosen design approach integrates, reuses, and aligns the DT processing and communication resources with DevOps requirements derived from literature. We use these requirements to propose a DT-enabled self-adaptive CPS model, which guides the realization of DT-enabled DevOps in CPS IPSS. We further propose detailed design models for operation-critical DTs that integrate CPS closed-loop control and architecture-based CPS adaptation. This integrated approach enables the implementation of A/B testing as a use case and central concept to enable CPS IPSS service adaptation and reconfiguration. The self-adaptive CPS model and DT design concept have been validated in an evaluation environment for operation-critical CPS IPSS. The demonstrator achieved sub-millisecond cycle times during service A/B testing at runtime without causing CPS operation interferences and downtime.Comment: Final published version appearing in 17th Symposium on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems (SEAMS 2022

A Survey of Research into Mixed Criticality Systems

This survey covers research into mixed criticality systems that has been published since Vestal’s seminal paper in 2007, up until the end of 2016. The survey is organised along the lines of the major research areas within this topic. These include single processor analysis (including fixed priority and EDF scheduling, shared resources and static and synchronous scheduling), multiprocessor analysis, realistic models, and systems issues. The survey also explores the relationship between research into mixed criticality systems and other topics such as hard and soft time constraints, fault tolerant scheduling, hierarchical scheduling, cyber physical systems, probabilistic real-time systems, and industrial safety standards

Raziel: Private and Verifiable Smart Contracts on Blockchains

Raziel combines secure multi-party computation and proof-carrying code to provide privacy, correctness and verifiability guarantees for smart contracts on blockchains. Effectively solving DAO and Gyges attacks, this paper describes an implementation and presents examples to demonstrate its practical viability (e.g., private and verifiable crowdfundings and investment funds). Additionally, we show how to use Zero-Knowledge Proofs of Proofs (i.e., Proof-Carrying Code certificates) to prove the validity of smart contracts to third parties before their execution without revealing anything else. Finally, we show how miners could get rewarded for generating pre-processing data for secure multi-party computation.Comment: Support: cothority/ByzCoin/OmniLedge

Use of Model-Based Software Product Line Engineering for Certifiable Avionics Software Development

RÉSUMÉ Tous les systèmes logiciels avioniques sont soumis aux contraintes de certification imposées par les normes DO-178. Les fabricants d’équipements avioniques civils sont très conservateurs dans leur processus de développement de logiciels et la plupart utilisent encore des outils et des méthodes d’ingénierie logicielle éprouvés en raison des contraintes de certification strictes. Les contraintes de certification, avec la taille et la complexité du logiciel des systèmes avioniques modernes qui augmentent continuellement, ont un impact considérable sur le coût du développement de logiciel avionique certifiable. Pour réduire le coût de développement, les fabricants d’équipements avioniques doivent utiliser des méthodes de développement logiciel modernes, ce qui est possible avec la publication de la norme DO-178C. Dans le cadre de ma thèse, nous explorons l’utilisation de l’ingénierie de ligne de produit basée sur des modèles pour le développement de logiciels avioniques certifiables et proposons des solutions au niveau industriel pour utiliser un processus de ligne de produit utilisant des outils commerciaux. Dans le cadre de ma thèse, nous explorons également l’applicabilité de notre processus de development logiciel basé sur le concept de ligne de produit au développement de logiciels avioniques certifiables contrôlés. Nous identifions les contraintes qui limitent la réutilisation des composants logiciels dans les logiciels avioniques sous contrôle d’exportation et proposons des solutions techniques qui facilitent l’application de ligne de produit logiciel basée sur des modèles au développement de logiciels avioniques certifiés et sous contrôle d’exportation. Nous validons nos solutions proposées par des études de cas industriels.----------ABSTRACT All avionics software systems are subjected to certification constraints imposed by DO-178 standards. Civil avionics equipment manufacturers are quite conservative in their software development processes: most still use time-tested software engineering tools and methods, due to strict certification constraints. These certification constraints, along with the increasing size and complexity of modern avionics software-intensive systems, are having a huge impact on the cost of certifiable avionics software development. To cope with this increasing complexity, avionics equipment manufacturers need to use modern software development methodologies. This is possible with the release of DO-178C standard. In my thesis, I have explored the use of model-based software product line engineering for certifiable avionics software development, and have proposed industrial-level solutions for using a model-based software product line process based on commercially available tools. In this thesis, I have also explored the applicability of our model-based software product line process to export-controlled, certifiable avionics software development, identifying constraints that limit the reuse of software components among export-controlled avionics software and proposing technical solutions that facilitate the application of a model-based software product line to export-controlled, certifiable avionics software development. The proposed solutions are validated using industrial case studies

AN EXPLORATORY SURVEY ON THE TOPIC INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

The aim of this article is to analyse publications about Integrated Management Systems (IMS) and identify research opportunities. We conducted a literature review using the software EndNote to index the articles, and identified features related to IMS based on a systemic analysis. The interest of firms in implementing standards for Quality, Environmental, and Occupational Health and Safety, respectively, ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 is increasing, however, managing these three separate systems is a challenge. Some of the reasons that we presented in these articles for implementing IMS include satisfying customers’ requirements and responding to government appeals. Finally, we identified from the portfolio of articles the most cited authors, articles, barriers and difficulties for implementing IMS