Exploring validity frames in practice

ABSTRACT: Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) provides workflows, methods, techniques and tools for optimal simulation-based design and realization of complex Software-Intensive, Cyber-Physical Systems. One of the key benefits of this approach is that the behavior of the realized system can be reasoned about and predicted in-silico, before any prototype has been developed. Design models are increasingly used after the system has been realized as well. For example, a (design) digital twin can be used for runtime monitoring to detect and diagnose discrepancies between the simulated and realized system. Inconsistencies may arise, however, because models were used at design time that are not valid within the operating context of the realized system. It is often left to the domain expert to ensure that the models used are valid with respect to their realized counterpart. Due to system complexity and automated Design-Space Exploration (DSE), it is increasingly difficult for a human to reason about model validity. We propose validity frames as an explicit model of the contexts in which a model is a valid representation of a system to rule out invalid designs at design time. We explain the essential and conceptual, yet practical, structure of validity frames and a process for building them using an electrical resistor in the optimal design of a high-pass filter as a running example. We indicate how validity frames can be used in a DSE process, as well as for runtime monitoring

Social design, innovation and ergonomics: Reflections on education, transdisciplinarity and new blurred models for sustainable social change

Social innovation is not a new fact, but it has grown in importance over the last years as a driver for social change [1]. Although there is no universal definition of it, one widely-used is ‘ideas that are social in their ends and in their means’ [2] and concerns the process of developing and deploying new solutions to often systemic and complex social and environmental issues. On the other hand, social art is seen as any artistic expression that aims at inspiring social impact and change effectively society through emotionally captivating experiences [3]. Also, social ergonomics is understood as responses to social aspects of system use, envisioning, among others, socially proactive design and discussing the possibilities for embedding new paradigms for communication and problem-solving in specialized information systems [4]. Based on these ideas, this paper will elaborate on the above concepts, confronting and correlating them as complementary human actions and domains. Some considerations and challenges on the theme, as outputs of a post-doc research, will be also offered. It will be shown transdisciplinary approaches, methods, social actors, and complementary and blurred practices to an effective and meaningful design and implementation of new products, services, and systems. Its social, cultural and, educational relevance or holistic understanding will be underlined as strategies to achieve the sustainability of social systems, to share social value and promote resilience and wellbeing in a highly complex and changing world