Safer Systems : Proceedings of the Fifth Safety-critical Systems Symposium, Brighton 1997

The contributions to this book are the invited papers presented at the fifth annual Safety-critical Systems Symposium. They cover a broad spectrum of issues affecting safety, from a philosophical appraisal to technology transfer, from requirements analysis to assessment, from formal methods to artificial intelligence and psychological aspects. They touch on a number of industry sectors, but are restricted to none, for the essence of the event is the transfer of lessons and technologies between sectors. All address practical issues and of­ fer useful information and advice. Contributions from industrial authors provide evidence of both safety con­ sciousness and safety professionalism in industry. Smith's on safety analysis in air traffic control and Rivett's on assessment in the automotive industry are informative on current practice; Frith's thoughtful paper on artificial intelli­ gence in safety-critical systems reflects an understanding of questions which need to be resolved; Tomlinson's, Alvery's and Canning's papers report on collaborative projects, the first on results which emphasise the importance of human factors in system development, the second on the development and trial of a comprehensive tool set, and the third on experience in achieving tech­ nology transfer - something which is crucial to increasing safety. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Safety-Critical Systems: Prescient, Presignifying, Public-Good Systems?....Pages 1-37 Designing for Safety: Current Activities at the University of Bristol and Future Directions....Pages 38-55 Using a Layered Functional Model to Determine Safety Requirements....Pages 56-66 Formal Methods: No Cure for Faulty Reasoning....Pages 67-78 Artificial Intelligence — Genuine Hazards?....Pages 79-95 How to Improve Safety Critical Systems Standards....Pages 96-110 Engineering Cognitive Diversity....Pages 111-120 The PRICES Approach to Human Error....Pages 121-135 The StAR Risk Adviser: Psychological Arguments for Qualitative Risk Assessment....Pages 136-159 Is there a Role for Third Party Software Assessment in the Automotive Industry?....Pages 160-184 Initial Safety Considerations for an Advanced Transport System....Pages 185-202 Safe Systems Architectures for Autonomous Robots....Pages 203-215 Increasing Software Integrity Using Functionally Dissimilar Monitoring....Pages 216-230 Timing Aspects of Fault Tree Analysis of Safety Critical Systems....Pages 231-244 SACRES — Formalism for Real Projects....Pages 245-255 Product Monitoring for Integrity and Safety Enhancement....Pages 256-274 Multi-disciplinary Projects and Technology Exchange — the SEMSPLC Experience....Pages 275-283 Back Matter....Pages 285-285 The field of safety-critical systems covers computer systems in hazardous applications. As traditional means of control such as relays are replaced by software, the field is rapidly expanding and increasing in importance. It is formed by the convergence of software engineering and safety engineering, and its criticality emphasises the importance of a number of other disciplines, such as human factors, management, psychology, sociology and quality. This volume contains the invited papers presented at the fifth annual Safety-critical Systems Symposium . They cover a broad spectrum of issues affecting safety, from a philosophical appraisal to technology transfer, intelligence and psychological aspects. They touch on a number of industry sectors, but are restricted to none, for the essence of the event is the transfer of lessons and technologies between sectors. All address practical issues and offer useful information and advice. These conference proceedings cover a broad spectrum of issues affecting safety, from a philosophical appraisal to technology transfer, intelligence and psychological aspects, and touching on a number of industry sectors.