Integrating safety and security in automotive cyber-physical systems (CPS) domains (e.g. autonomous vehicles), is challenging for two main reasons. First, it is still difficult to represent the potential consequences of system failures or malicious attacks. Secondly, these systems must ensure safety and security despite unknowns and uncertainties. A Digital Dependability Identity (DDI) can facilitate this by encapsulating all dependability characteristics (e.g., design, requirements, safety, and security analysis models) of CPS’s components. The Open Dependability Exchange (ODE) metamodel is an implementation of the DDI concept, but has limitations in the interplay between safety and security. ODE is aligned with with ISO 26262 but lacks certain security concepts to be aligned with ISO 21434. Also, ODE supports modeling fault trees, but modeling attack trees and attack-fault trees still not. This paper proposes an extension to the ODE metamodel, aiming to increase coverage of ISO 21434 concepts and allowing the modeling of attack-fault trees. We built these metamodel extensions based on an analysis of the ODE metamodel, industry standards, Microsoft STRIDE model, and HEAVENS security analysis methodologies. We evaluated the proposed extensions in an illustrative example of an autonomous vehicle.

Failures in systems that can lead to loss of life, property, and environmental damage, make them safety–critical systems requiring the analysis and demonstration of dependability properties. When those systems can connect/disconnect to each other, it raises security issues, making them also security-critical. Safety and security are crucial in safety- and security-critical design. The complexity of a connected world impacts safety and security, requiring dependability assurance processes in compliance with standards like ISO 26262, ISO 21434, IEC 61511, and IEC 61508. Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) plays a significant role by using models to represent and analyze safety and security properties, facilitating their integration. This study aims to explore the role of MDE in supporting safety and security co-engineering through a Systematic Literature Review. We identified 119 studies that were analyzed and categorized based on the life-cycle phase, risk assessment activity, application domain, methodology type (integrated or unified), methodology goal (co-engineering or cross-fertilization), measurement (qualitative, quantitative, or both), modeling approach, representation, evaluation method, and supporting tools. Though model-driven contributions are less prevalent than model-based ones, tools widely support them. Studies primarily focus on transportation (especially automotive) and industrial domains, but there is potential for broader participation with increasing IoT adoption. Editor’s note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board .

Developing countries such as Brazil are especially affected by diseases transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, including Dengue, Zika and Chikungunya. These serious diseases can lead to death and, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), precautions must be taken to control them. Systems using Internet of Things (IoT) technologies can be used to combat this mosquito since, among diverse other features, they can detect climatic or environment conditions and generate alerts so that public health entities can take the appropriate actions. As a new research and development area, IoT has presented few efforts and results on its use in combating Aedes aegypti. In this sense, we performed a requirements engineering process towards a complete framework to support construction of Aedes aegypti combat systems and built a prototype of a service-based framework that implements key functionalities of models previously generated in the process. We also performed a validation of the requirements specification to verify if they fit the expectations. Finally, we verified how IoT resources are inserted in the coverage of requirements. As result of our research we present a complete requirements engineering including domain analysis, models and requirements specification. We also present a proof of concept that consists of a framework prototype implemented over requirements engineering process performed and how IoT resources can be related to Aedes aegypti combat systems. The efforts presented in this work can be reused by the community and serve as basis for construction of systems and frameworks in this domain. Most of specified requirements, after validation, were considered as high priority to develop such systems. Furthermore, the framework functionalities were well inserted in the real scenario of combating Aedes aegypti and IoT resources proved to be useful in that domain.

Currently, research centers, government, and industry have been developing technologies to enable novel capabilities for future classrooms. The Internet of Things (IoT), the Internet of Everything (IoE), and the Internet of Anything (IoA) are examples of technological paradigms that could transform current classrooms into collaborative classrooms. In this article, we investigate the design and simulation of a systems architecture that employs concepts related to System of Systems (SoS) and IoA to extend the capabilities of future classrooms. We design such architecture to be service oriented and to provide interactions between each established constituent system (CS), which is composed by the following elements: 1) local IoE modules; 2) CS negotiator agent; and 3) IoE/IoA agent. We consider a case study about interschool collaborations to improve learning in biology classes. Our results indicate that the usage of the IoA network improves on 52.02% the performance of the IoE network, it improves the recommendation of services by establishing a high competition between CSs, and quadruplicates the number of connections in this SoS network. These results suggest that such approach is effective to increase the collaboration between devices, people, or schools with different objectives and policies.

Dengue, zika and chikungunya are examples of serious diseases affecting mainly developing countries, such as Brazil. Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) about these diseases transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquito are worrisome, especially in relation to their possible effects. Considering this scenario severity, Internet of Things based applications (IoT applications) are being used to support it. So, this paper aims to select and organize, through information collection, difficulties that can be found in the medical use of IoT applications to combat this mosquito. The objective was to find possible gaps for future research. A Systematic Literature Mapping was performed to find possible deficiencies in the methodologies addressed by the authors of the returned studies. This systematic mapping intends to list these difficulties, as well methods proposed to improve the use of IoT in Health (especially combat to Aedes aegypti). In total, 570 studies were found. When applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 22 studies were selected for a full reading, which led to rejection of 15, therefore 07 studies were finally accepted. By analyzing these selected studies, it was possible to observe monitoring of information is essential in dengue combat systems. It was also possible to notice the lack of software reuse initiatives that could make it easier to develop new applications in this domain.

This Research-to-Practice Full Paper is concerned with the development of u-learning environments, which is a very complicated task due to, among other factors, the complexity in managing large amounts of context information and adapting content to different users and contexts. Possible solutions to overcome the challenges and provide support for the development of context-aware systems is the use of reference architectures (RA) and service-oriented architectures (SOA). RA is a software architecture that can be applied to build architectures of specific domain systems, supporting the development of system families. SOA is an architectural style that provides functionalities encapsulated in Web services, which make it easier the integration of dynamic adaptive behavior into the applications. Therefore, this paper presents oriented RA to assist the development of context-aware ubiquitous learning environments, characterized by their ability to obtain and use information from the users' context. This enables the software to adapt the behavior, services or didactic resources, in accordance with the context where learning is taking place (e.g., location, time, student preference, etc.). The presented RA, named MOA, can be instantiated to develop specific context-aware learning environments. MOA was built based on ProSA-RA, which is a RA development process, and evaluated using the checklist technique. Also, a prototype was built to illustrate MOA instantiation. The evaluation served to demonstrate the validity of MOA, both at a practical level (applicability) and in meeting the quality requirements stipulated for RA.

The applicability of models has evolved throughout the history of software engineering, from documentation, development and beyond. In this context, we study how to employ models for a common language shared by humans and computers. After studying a model-oriented development method for models at run-time systems, we have identified that this method would heavily rely on metamodels. Therefore, it is important to evaluate if developers are able to use metamodels in software development. In this paper we present a controlled experiment to evaluate the ability and efforts of professional and novice developers to effectively use metamodels. Participants of the experiment had access to newly created metamodeling definition tools, as well as standard Java code and UML diagrams in order to complete their tasks. Results indicate that the definition language was easy to be learned by experienced Java developers, who were able to comprehend metamodeling development artifacts without struggling with modeling concepts. We conclude developers would be able to adapt to new modeling concepts and tools as required by different systems that handle models at run-time.

Abstract Safety‐critical systems are of paramount importance for many application domains, where safety properties are a key driver to engineer critical aspects and avoid system failures. For the benefits of large‐scale reuse, software product lines (SPL) have been adopted in critical systems industry. However, the integration of safety analysis in the SPL development process is nontrivial. Also, the different usage contexts of safety‐critical systems complicates component fault modeling tasks and the identification of potential hazards. In this light, better methods become necessary to estimate the impact of dependability properties during Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment. Existing methods incorporating the analysis of safety properties in SPL are limited as they do not include hazard analysis and component fault modeling. In this paper, we present the novel DEPendable Software Product Line Engineering (DEPendable‐SPLE) approach, which extends traditional SPL processes to support the reuse of safety assets. We also present a detailed analysis of the impact of product and context features on the SPL design, safety analysis, and safety requirements. We applied DEPendable‐SPLE to a realistic case study from the aerospace domain to illustrate how to model and reuse safety properties. DEPendable‐SPLE reduced the effort of safety analysis for certifying system variants.

Model-Driven Software Engineering (MDSE) is a development method in which models are used to generate software. Despite documented advantages, projects employing MDSE may fail due to development challenges. In this paper, we study and document these challenges by conducting an up-to-date systematic mapping that goes beyond reviewing MDSE studies: we also include two derived paradigms (Model-Oriented Programming and Models at Run-time). Therefore, we present a systematic mapping with two objectives: The first objective was to identify specific domains in which MDSE is successful, while the second objective was to identify what are the challenges to apply this methodology to general purpose development processes. Following the review of 4859 studies (3727 are unique), we have identified the application and technological domains in which MDSE projects are more likely to succeed. We also discuss challenges presented by 17 primary studies. The analysis of the results indicate that MDSE application is consolidated in specific domains. A common feature identified among studies related to general purpose MDSE processes is that, initially, authors reported lack of proper methods and training. After new techniques have risen, it has been pointed that MDSE projects still face maintenance problems that can discourage their usage in other domains.

Content-based image retrieval systems are employed in several areas. One of the most prominent area is the medical field, due to the huge volume of digital images daily generated in healthcare institutions employed for decision making. There are several works applying CBIR techniques over medical images. However, the great majority of them do not verify whether the systems are actually considered by the specialists as a pontential aid in a real environment. In order to fill this research void in the literature, this work explores user experiments in a CBIR system involving resident physicians and radiologists. To do so, we developed a CBIR system according to requirements provided by the specialists and employed a methodology to analyze the effectiveness of the system for supporting them in clinical routine. The methodology aims at evaluating the system's impact in the user's decision, inquiring the specialists about the image classification and their degree of certainty in different situations using the system. By analyzing the obtained results we can argue that the proposed methodology joined with our medical CBIR system presented a high acceptance and viability rate regarding the radiologists interests in the clinical practice domain, providing a novel approach to analyze CBIR systems under realistic conditions.

Safety critical systems (e.g., an avionics control system for safe flight) are often required to achieve certification under pre-established standards (e.g., DO-178B for software considerations in airborne systems and equipment certification). We have been working with our industrial partner for the last three years to develop product line assets for their avionics software product line (SPL) and, recently, we encountered two major challenges regarding certification. Firstly, an individual product must be certified, but each may require a different certification level: there might be variations in the certification requirements according to specific system usage contexts. Secondly, certification involves not only product but also process, as standards such as DO-178B also assess the quality of the development process. In this paper, we propose to include a certification view during feature modelling to provide a better understanding of the relationships between features and a certification level required for each product. The experience of introducing certification into the design model of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) SPL is presented to illustrate some key ideas. We also describe the lessons we have learned from this experience.

The operation planning in hydrothermal systems with great hydraulic participation, as it is the case of Brazilian system, seeks to determine an operation policy to specify how hydroelectric plants should be operated, in order to use the hydroelectric resources economically and reliably. This paper presents an application of Takagi-Sugeno Fuzzy Inference Systems to obtain an operation policy (PBFIS Policy Based on Fuzzy Inference Systems) that follows the principles of the optimized operation of reservoirs for electric power generation. PBFIS is obtained through the application of an optimization algorithm for the operation of hydroelectric plants. From this optimization the relationships between the stored energy of the system and the volume of the reservoir of each plant are extracted. These relationships are represented in the consequent parameters of the fuzzy linguistic rules. Thus, PBFIS is used to estimate the operative volume of each hydroelectric plant, based on the value of the energy stored in the system. In order to verify the effectiveness of PBFIS, a computer simulation model of the operation of hydroelectric plants was used so as to compare it with the operation policy in parallel; with the operation policy based on functional approximations; and also with the result obtained through the application of the optimization of individualized plants' operation. With the proposed methodology, we try to demonstrate the viability of PBFIS' obtainment and application, and with the obtained results, we intend to illustrate the effectiveness and the gains which came from it.

The development of Web applications using software patterns, test requirements, and established processes helps to increase teams productivity and the final product quality. However, there is a lack of tools for supporting developers on the use of software patterns in the several stages of a development process, beyond assisting the validation of the reused solutions. Thus, this article presents a Web environment, named Peony, that aims at facilitating the reuse of software patterns and test requirements during software development. Peony allows the software engineer to include the development processes followed by the organization, and to associate patterns to their phases and/or activities, so that during the development of a particular project the developer can more easily reuse these patterns. Also, for each pattern, Peony suggests test requirements for assisting the validation of applications under development.

A process for building an object-oriented framework based on a pattern language, both for the same domain, is proposed. This process includes several activities, as the identification of the framework hot-spots, the framework design, implementation, and validation. All these activities are supported by the pattern language. Besides that, by using the process here proposed, the resulting framework is implicitly documented by the pattern language. This makes it easier for the developer to instantiate applications, as the knowledge about the pattern language is used during the instantiation process.