System-of-Systems Complexity

The global availability of communication services makes it possible to interconnect independently developed systems, called constituent systems, to provide new synergistic services and more efficient economic processes. The characteristics of these new Systems-of-Systems are qualitatively different from the classic monolithic systems. In the first part of this presentation we elaborate on these differences, particularly with respect to the autonomy of the constituent systems, to dependability, continuous evolution, and emergence. In the second part we look at a SoS from the point of view of cognitive complexity. Cognitive complexity is seen as a relation between a model of an SoS and the observer. In order to understand the behavior of a large SoS we have to generate models of adequate simplicity, i.e, of a cognitive complexity that can be handled by the limited capabilities of the human mind. We will discuss the importance of properly specifying and placing the relied-upon message interfaces between the constituent systems that form an open SoS and discuss simplification strategies that help to reduce the cognitive complexity.Comment: In Proceedings AiSoS 2013, arXiv:1311.319

Patterns of information security postures for socio-technical systems and systems-of-systems

This paper describes a proposal to develop patterns of security postures for computer based socio-technical systems and systems-of-systems. Such systems typically span many organisational boundaries, integrating multiple computer systems, infrastructures and organisational processes. The paper describes the motivation for the proposed work, and our approach to the development, specification, integration and validation of security patterns for socio-technical and system-of-system scale systems

Subcentric linking systems

Linking systems are crucial for studying the homotopy theory of fusion systems, but are also of interest from an algebraic point of view. We propose a definition of a linking system associated to a saturated fusion system which is more general than the one currently in the literature and thus allows a more flexible choice of objects of linking systems. More precisely, we define subcentric subgroups of fusion systems in a way that every quasicentric subgroup of a saturated fusion system is subcentric. Whereas the objects of linking systems in the current definition are always quasicentric, the objects of our linking systems only need to be subcentric. We prove that, associated to each saturated fusion system $\mathcal{F}$, there is a unique linking system whose objects are the subcentric subgroups of $\mathcal{F}$. Furthermore, the nerve of such a subcentric linking system is homotopy equivalent to the nerve of the centric linking system associated to $\mathcal{F}$. We believe that the existence of subcentric linking systems opens a new way for a classification of fusion systems of characteristic $p$-type. The various results we prove about subcentric subgroups give furthermore some evidence that the concept is of interest for studying extensions of linking systems and fusion systems.Comment: 42 pages, accepted to Trans. Amer. Math. So

Anytime system level verification via parallel random exhaustive hardware in the loop simulation

System level verification of cyber-physical systems has the goal of verifying that the whole (i.e., software + hardware) system meets the given specifications. Model checkers for hybrid systems cannot handle system level verification of actual systems. Thus, Hardware In the Loop Simulation (HILS) is currently the main workhorse for system level verification. By using model checking driven exhaustive HILS, System Level Formal Verification (SLFV) can be effectively carried out for actual systems. We present a parallel random exhaustive HILS based model checker for hybrid systems that, by simulating all operational scenarios exactly once in a uniform random order, is able to provide, at any time during the verification process, an upper bound to the probability that the System Under Verification exhibits an error in a yet-to-be-simulated scenario (Omission Probability). We show effectiveness of the proposed approach by presenting experimental results on SLFV of the Inverted Pendulum on a Cart and the Fuel Control System examples in the Simulink distribution. To the best of our knowledge, no previously published model checker can exhaustively verify hybrid systems of such a size and provide at any time an upper bound to the Omission Probability

Generation of Evaluation Function for Lige-time Learning of An Intelligent Robot

This paper deals with a mobile robot with structured intelligence. The robot interacts with a dynamic environment. The evaluation criteria or functions are the strategy for the behavior acquisition. Generally, it is difficult for human operators to describe internal models of the robot because the organization of the robot is quite different from that of a human. In the optimization, the evaluation function is generally given by human operators beforehand. It is easy to give the evaluation functions if the environmental condition is easy and fixed. But the robot must interact with dynamic, uncertain and unknown environments or human operators. Therefore, the robot should generate the evaluation criteria by itself based on its embodiment. A human improves its behavior by using and changing its evaluation criteria as adaptive processes. The robot also has to acquire their evaluation criteria through life-time learning. Therefore, we apply genetic programming (GP) for generating evaluation functions. The result of computer simulation shows that GP can generate the evaluation function suitable to the facing environments, the given tasks, and the robot