The safe operation of computer systems, in both their software and hardware continues to be a key issue in many real time applications, when people, environment, investment or goodwill can be at risk. Such applications include the monitoring and control of high energy processes, of nuclear and chemical plants, of factory automation, of transportation systems, or funds transfer and of communication and information systems. This book represents the proceedings of the 1987 Safety and Reliability Society Symposium held in Altrincham, UK, 11-12 November 1987. It is thus part of the series of proceedings for Society Events, which in previous years have not addressed the topic of the Safety and Reliability of Computer Systems. The book is also part of another series of reports, and is closely related to the Elsevier Book "Safety and Reliability of Programmable Electronic Systems" which I edited in 1986, and the series of workshops known as SAFECOMP held in 1979, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986 which are referenced in some of the papers. The structure of the book represents the structure of the Symposium itself. The session titles, and the papers as selected represent the current practice in many industries. The trend is towards more industrial usage of Formal Methods, and tools to support these methods, whilst continuing to make best use of Software Engineering, Safety and Reliability Assessment, and accumulated experience.
Computer systems have become an important element of the world economy, with billions of dollars spent each year on development, manufacture, operation, and maintenance. Combining coverage of computer system reliability, safety, usability, and other related topics into a single volume, Computer System Reliability: Safety and Usability eliminates th
Safety of Computer Control Systems 1983: Achieving Safe Real Time Computer Systems contains the proceedings of the Third IFAC/IFIP Workshop held at Cambridge, UK on September 20-22, 1983.
Computers at Risk presents a comprehensive agenda for developing nationwide policies and practices for computer security. Specific recommendations are provided for industry and for government agencies engaged in computer security activities. The volume also outlines problems and opportunities in computer security research, recommends ways to improve the research infrastructure, and suggests topics for investigators. The book explores the diversity of the field, the need to engineer countermeasures based on speculation of what experts think computer attackers may do next, why the technology community has failed to respond to the need for enhanced security systems, how innovators could be encouraged to bring more options to the marketplace, and balancing the importance of security against the right of privacy.
Safety of Computer Control Systems 1983: Achieving Safe Real Time Computer Systems contains the proceedings of the Third IFAC/IFIP Workshop held at Cambridge, UK on September 20-22, 1983. Composed of 36 chapters, separated into the eight sessions of the workshop, this book begins with a discussion of the safety and reliability of computer control systems. Subsequent chapters explore the systems design for safety and reliability; fault tolerance, recovery, and use of redundancy; and aspects of fault tolerance for system reliability. Other chapters detail specification techniques; system development and quality assurance; verifications and validations; case studies; as well as scheduling, networks, and communications.
Safety of Computer Control Systems 1985 (Safecomp '85): Achieving Safe Real Time Computer Systems presents the proceedings of the Fourth IFAC Workshop, held in Como, Italy, on October 1–3, 1985. This book discusses a wide range of topics ranging from direct process control through robotics to operator assistance. Organized into 28 chapters, this compilation of papers begins with an overview of the implementation of atomic actions by means of concurrent programming constructs. This text then examines the safety-related applications that usually demand the provision of redundant resources within the system. Other chapters consider the safe performance of an industrial robot system that relies on several factors. This book discusses as well the increasing demand for Computer Assisted Decision Making (CADM) both in engineering and service industries. The final chapter deals with the ways of reducing the effects of an error introduced during the design of a program. This book is a valuable resource for software engineers.
Over the last three decades the process industries have grown very rapidly, with corresponding increases in the quantities of hazardous materials in process, storage or transport. Plants have become larger and are often situated in or close to densely populated areas. Increased hazard of loss of life or property is continually highlighted with incidents such as Flixborough, Bhopal, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the Phillips 66 incident, and Piper Alpha to name but a few. The field of Loss Prevention is, and continues to, be of supreme importance to countless companies, municipalities and governments around the world, because of the trend for processing plants to become larger and often be situated in or close to densely populated areas, thus increasing the hazard of loss of life or property. This book is a detailed guidebook to defending against these, and many other, hazards. It could without exaggeration be referred to as the "bible" for the process industries. This is THE standard reference work for chemical and process engineering safety professionals. For years, it has been the most complete collection of information on the theory, practice, design elements, equipment, regulations and laws covering the field of process safety. An entire library of alternative books (and cross-referencing systems) would be needed to replace or improve upon it, but everything of importance to safety professionals, engineers and managers can be found in this all-encompassing reference instead. Frank Lees' world renowned work has been fully revised and expanded by a team of leading chemical and process engineers working under the guidance of one of the world’s chief experts in this field. Sam Mannan is professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University, and heads the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M. He received his MS and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Oklahoma, and joined the chemical engineering department at Texas A&M University as a professor in 1997. He has over 20 years of experience as an engineer, working both in industry and academia. New detail is added to chapters on fire safety, engineering, explosion hazards, analysis and suppression, and new appendices feature more recent disasters. The many thousands of references have been updated along with standards and codes of practice issued by authorities in the US, UK/Europe and internationally. In addition to all this, more regulatory relevance and case studies have been included in this edition. Written in a clear and concise style, Loss Prevention in the Process Industries covers traditional areas of personal safety as well as the more technological aspects and thus provides balanced and in-depth coverage of the whole field of safety and loss prevention. * A must-have standard reference for chemical and process engineering safety professionals * The most complete collection of information on the theory, practice, design elements, equipment and laws that pertain to process safety * Only single work to provide everything; principles, practice, codes, standards, data and references needed by those practicing in the field
This volume is concerned with the application of formal mathematical methods in software engineering. As the design, writing and testing of software becomes a major sector of economic activity, the need for rigorous techniques has also grown. The papers in this book are devoted to various mathematical structures which find use in aspects of software design, and they cover topics such as the formal specification of systems, the design of communications software, and concurrent processing. All the contributors are experts in their respective fields. As a result, this collection provides a timely survey of this rapidly growing area. Software engineers and computer scientists will find this work to be an invaluable reference source. Mathematicians will appreciate the discussions of the contribution that their discipline can make and the interesting challenges for the future.
M. CARPENTIER Director General DG XIII, Telecommunications, Information Industries and Innovation of the Commission of the European Communities It is with great pleasure that I introduce and recommend this collection of guidelines produced by EWICS TC7. This Technical Committee has consistently attracted technical experts of high quality from all over Europe and the standard of the Committee's work has reflected this. The Committee has been sponsored by the Commission of the European Communities since 1978. During this period, there has been the opportunity to observe the enthusiasm and dedication in the activities of the group, the expertise and effort invested in its work, the discipline in meeting objectives and the quality of the resulting guidelines. It is no surprise that these guidelines have influenced the work of international standardisation bodies. Now the first six of EWICS TCTs guidelines are being made available as a book. I am convinced that all computer system developers who use them will greatly enhance their chances of achieving quality systems. v Acknowledgements In the preparation of this book, the editoLisgrateful to P. Bishop, G. Covington II, C. Goring, and W. Quirk for their help in editing the guidelines. In addition, he would like to thank S. Bologna, W. Ehrenberger, M. Ould, J. Rata, L. Sintonen and J. Zalewski for reviewing the chapters and providing additional material.
