Software

This is an explanation of a possible new insight into the halting problem provided in the language of software engineering. Technical computer science terms are explained using software engineering terms. No knowledge of the halting problem is required. -/- It is based on fully operational software executed in the x86utm operating system. The x86utm operating system (based on an excellent open source x86 emulator) was created to study the details of the halting problem proof counter-examples at the much higher level (...) of abstraction of C/x86. (shrink)

Routledge (New Media and Cyberculture Series), July 2007.

This paper describes a novel pedagogical software program that can be seen as an online companion to one of the standard textbooks of formal natural language semantics, Heim and Kratzer (1998). The Penn Lambda Calculator is a multifunctional application designed for use in standard graduate and undergraduate introductions to formal semantics: Teachers can use the application to demonstrate complex semantic derivations in the classroom and modify them interactively, and students can use it to work on problem sets provided by the (...) teacher. The program supports demonstrations and exercises in two main areas: (1) performing beta reduction in the simply typed lambda calculus; (2) application of the bottom-up algorithm for computing the compositional semantics of natural language syntax trees. The program is able to represent the full range of phenomena covered in the Heim and Kratzer textbook by function application, predicate modification, and lambda abstraction. This includes phenomena such as intersective adjectives, relative clauses and quantifier raising. In the student use case, emphasis has been placed on providing “live” feedback for incorrect answers. Heuristics are used to detect the most frequent student errors and to return specific, interactive suggestions. (shrink)

Trust and trustworthiness are central concepts in contemporary discussions about the ethics of and qualities associated with artificial intelligence (AI) and the relationships between people, organisations and AI. In this article we develop an interdisciplinary approach, using socio-technical software engineering and design anthropological approaches, to investigate how trust and trustworthiness concepts are articulated and performed by AI software practitioners. We examine how trust and trustworthiness are defined in relation to AI across these disciplines, and investigate how AI, trust and trustworthiness (...) are conceptualised and experienced through an ethnographic study of the work practices of nine practitioners in the software industry. We present key implications of our findings for the generation of trust and trustworthiness and for the training and education of future software practitioners. (shrink)

The popularity of empirical methods in software engineering research is on the rise. Surveys, experiments, metrics, case studies, and field studies are examples of empirical methods used to investigate both software engineering processes and products. The increased application of empirical methods has also brought about an increase in discussions about adapting these methods to the peculiarities of software engineering. In contrast, the ethical issues raised by empirical methods have received little, if any, attention in the software engineering literature. This article (...) is intended to introduce the ethical issues raised by empirical research to the software engineering research community, and to stimulate discussion of how best to deal with these ethical issues. Through a review of the ethical codes of several fields that commonly employ humans and artifacts as research subjects, we have identified major ethical issues relevant to empirical studies of software engineering. These issues are illustrated with real empirical studies of software engineering. (shrink)

Software design patterns have become integral to modern software engineering, offering reusable solutions to common design challenges. These patterns simplify development, promote scalability, and improve system maintainability by providing established frameworks for solving recurring problems. This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent advancements in software design patterns, covering research published between 2018 and 2024. It examines the classification of design patterns into creational, structural, and behavioral categories, highlighting their applications in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems, microservice (...) architectures, and container orchestration frameworks. The review explores practical implementations, evaluates the effectiveness of patterns in improving performance and reliability, and identifies challenges such as pattern misuse, detection difficulties, and anti-pattern occurrences. The study also investigates ethical considerations in design pattern adoption and discusses recent trends like AI-assisted pattern detection tools and security-driven patterns. Findings emphasize the transformative role of design patterns in addressing modern software development needs while underscoring gaps in automation and ethical design practices. This paper concludes with suggestions for future research directions, including improved frameworks for reusability, automated pattern recognition systems, and ethical design frameworks to address contemporary challenges in software engineering. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the nature of software maintenance in light of software’s ontological status. A realist view of software need not commit us to the otiose position that software maintenance is impossible. Many philosophers and computer scientists have been concerned with drawing attention to software’s dual nature, its being both symbolic and physical, abstract and concrete. There are strong connections to be found between this topic and recent investigations in the philosophy of linguistics, particularly the metaphysics of words. It is (...) shown, contra Irmak, that software can be best understood through a realist type-token distinction employing an ontology of composite objects that was put forward by Katz. This approach employs both non-spatiotemporal abstract types and tokens of those types. Further developing Katz’s realist approach can help to make better sense of the dual nature of computational artefacts and their maintenance than the alternatives outlined. Young claims that a prevalent imbalanced view of maintenance as solely conservative is due to a misunderstanding of the nature of artefacts as being realisations of their producers’ intentions. This is a problem for theories of artefacts that employ intentions, such as the one involved with the realist view of software and software maintenance. Software maintenance on this view is not solely conservative but also adaptive and enhancive, constituting a source of counterexamples to Young’s claim. An alternative explanation of the imbalanced view is provided, based on observations by software engineers, especially Sommerville. (shrink)

Accurate data annotation is essential to successfully implementing machine learning (ML) for regulatory compliance. Annotations allow organizations to train supervised ML algorithms and to adapt and audit the software they buy. The lack of annotation tools focused on regulatory data is slowing the adoption of established ML methodologies and process models, such as CRISP-DM, in various legal domains, including in regulatory compliance. This article introduces Ant, an open-source annotation software for regulatory compliance. Ant is designed to adapt to complex organizational (...) processes and enable compliance experts to be in control of ML projects. By drawing on Business Process Modeling (BPM), we show that Ant can contribute to lift major technical bottlenecks to effectively implement regulatory compliance through software, such as the access to multiple sources of heterogeneous data and the integration of process complexities in the ML pipeline. We provide empirical data to validate the performance of Ant, illustrate its potential to speed up the adoption of ML in regulatory compliance, and highlight its limitations. (shrink)

Evoke is a Python library for evolutionary simulations of signalling games. It offers a simple and intuitive API that can be used to analyze arbitrary game-theoretic models, and to easily reproduce and customize well-known results and figures from the literature.

Open-Source Hardware (OSH) and software ecosystems enable a collaborative development and manufacturing of physical artifacts. As we move towards new paradigms of production and consumption – libre software toolchains for hardware development warrant special attention. This chapter explores libre software, OSH, and software ecosystems to exemplify, illustrate, and provide food for thought to the curious reader to understand current trends in the Open-Source Hardware movement.

In this study, we explore the future of work by examining differences in productivity when teams are composed of only humans or both humans and machine agents. Our objective was to characterize the similarities and differences between human and human–machine teams as they work to coordinate across their specialized roles. This form of research is increasingly important given that machine agents are becoming commonplace in sociotechnical systems and playing a more active role in collaborative work. One particular class of machine (...) agents, bots, is being introduced to these systems to facilitate both taskwork and teamwork. We investigated the association between bots and productivity outcomes in open source software development through an analysis of hundreds of project teams. The presence of bots in teams was associated with higher levels of productivity and higher work centralization in addition to greater amounts of observed communication. The adoption of bots in software teams may have tradeoffs, in that doing so may increase productivity, but could also increase workload. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for advancing human–machine teaming research. (shrink)

This textbook presents an overview of the critically important ethical and legal issues that arise in the computing field and provides a professional perspective from software engineering. The author gained exposure to these aspects of computing while working as a software engineer at Motorola in Ireland, where he coordinated the patent programme and worked with several software suppliers. Topics and features: Presents a broad overview of ethics and the law Includes key learning topics, summaries, and review questions in each chapter, (...) together with a useful glossary Discusses the professional responsibility of computer professionals Explores ethics in various civilisations and religious traditions Discusses ethical software engineering and ethical outsourcing Considers what is fair and ethical in data science Describes ethical challenges that arise in social media and the AI field Reviews intellectual property including patents, copyright and trademarks This practical and easy-to-follow textbook/reference is ideal for computer science students seeking to understand legal and ethical aspects of computing. The text also serves as a concise self-study primer for software engineers and software managers. (shrink)

This study explores the capability of academic staff assisted by the Turnitin Artificial Intelligence (AI) detection tool to identify the use of AI-generated content in university assessments. 22 different experimental submissions were produced using Open AI’s ChatGPT tool, with prompting techniques used to reduce the likelihood of AI detectors identifying AI-generated content. These submissions were marked by 15 academic staff members alongside genuine student submissions. Although the AI detection tool identified 91% of the experimental submissions as containing AI-generated content, only (...) 54.8% of the content was identified as AI-generated, underscoring the challenges of detecting AI content when advanced prompting techniques are used. When academic staff members marked the experimental submissions, only 54.5% were reported to the academic misconduct process, emphasising the need for greater awareness of how the results of AI detectors may be interpreted. Similar performance in grades was obtained between student submissions and AI-generated content (AI mean grade: 52.3, Student mean grade: 54.4), showing the capabilities of AI tools in producing human-like responses in real-life assessment situations. Recommendations include adjusting the overall strategies for assessing university students in light of the availability of new Generative AI tools. This may include reducing the overall reliance on assessments where AI tools may be used to mimic human writing, or by using AI-inclusive assessments. Comprehensive training must be provided for both academic staff and students so that academic integrity may be preserved. (shrink)

Software plays an important role in contemporary research. Aside from its use for administering traditional instruments like surveys and in data analysis, the widespread use of mobile and web apps for social, medical and lifestyle engagement has led to software becoming a research intervention in its own right. For example, it is not unusual to find apps being studied for their utility as interventions in health and social life. Since the software may persist in use beyond the life of an (...) investigation, this raises questions as to the extent of ethical duties for researchers involved in its production and/or study towards the participants involved. Key factors identified include the extent of affect created by the software, the effect it has on a participant’s life, the length of investigation, cost of maintenance and participant agency. In this article we discuss the issues raised in such situations, considering them in the context of post-research duties of care and suggesting strategies to balance the burden on researchers with the need for ongoing participant support. (shrink)

The significance of the study is contingent upon two criteria. All objects in the actual world that can capture a researcher’s attention are inherently complicated. Furthermore, every commodity that an individual manufactures and every work of art that an individual develops are intricate in nature. The entirety of the processes that an individual perceives and instigates are intricate. Although many professions have established techniques for constructing intricate entities, there currently exists no universally applicable concepts or methodologies for comprehensively studying, designing, (...) producing, or generating complicated items.The objective of this work is two-fold: firstly, to develop a comprehensive methodology for analysing complex synthetic processes, and secondly, to propose universal models or synthesis mechanisms that can be used to systematically derive specific process synthesis algorithms for various practical applications. The ability to utilize generalized models and synthesis techniques is highly advantageous when designing realistic computer programming.The authors introduced a comprehensive process model and enumerated its characteristics. Using this concept, techniques for creating and suggesting processes have been formulated and put forward. The concept of a decomposition diagram enables the systematic design of intricate multi-level hierarchical processes. The multitude of processes and the intricacy of their combination give rise to the notion of formulating a synthesis theory. The acquired results can be regarded as the initial stage in the construction of such a theory. The authors’ proposed methods of process synthesis enable the deductive derivation of useful algorithms for application software. Although the concept of the breakdown scheme and synthesis procedures is relatively straightforward, this advancement has been suggested for the first time.In order to further this project, it is necessary to augment the generalized process model with supplementary traits and properties, as well as to further refine the synthesis procedures. A proposal is being made to initiate the development of a theory for synthesizing a comprehensive plan using the decomposition scheme and methods of synthesis and decomposition. (shrink)

The size and distance of an object are crucial pieces of information that every human being processes from an early age (see, e.g., Day & McKenzie, 1981; Granrud, 2006). For infants, the distance o...

O presente artigo discute alguns conceitos de linguagem de programação, buscando abrir uma discussão ontológica sobre os seres técnicos. Partindo de uma breve análise histórica e de conceitos da filosofia do séc. XX, problematiza-se as noções de abstrato e concreto dessas entidades, fazendo uma análise do dualismo hardware-software a partir da concepção hegemônica do hilemorfismo aristotélico e usando de exemplos de linguagem computacional para discutir uma certa ontologia desses seres. Fundamenta-se em Gilbert Simondon uma hipótese segundo a qual o computador (...) pessoal de uso geral seria a máquina concreta por excelência com potencial de ampliação das capacidades humanas através de um crescente desenvolvimento tecnológico e da lei de mudança de uso, em direção a uma espécie de transhumanismo. Por fim, discute-se também as possibilidades do computador como instrumento supra-paradigmático pós-kuhniano. (shrink)

Push: Software Design and the Cultural Politics of Music Production shows how changes in the design of music software in the first decades of the twenty-first century shaped the production techniques and performance practices of artists working across media, from hip-hop and electronic dance music to video games and mobile apps. Emerging alongside developments in digital music distribution such as peer-to-peer file sharing and the MP3 format, digital audio workstations like FL Studio and Ableton Live introduced design affordances that encouraged (...) rapid music creation workflows through flashy, "user-friendly" interfaces. Meanwhile, software such as Avid's Pro Tools attempted to protect its status as the "industry standard," "professional" DAW of choice by incorporating design elements from pre-digital music technologies. Other software, like Cycling 74's Max, asserted its alterity to "commercial" DAWs by presenting users with nothing but a blank screen. These are more than just aesthetic design choices. Push examines the social, cultural, and political values designed into music software, and how those values become embodied by musical communities through production and performance. It reveals ties between the maximalist design of FL Studio, skeuomorphic design in Pro Tools, and gender inequity in the music products industry. It connects the computational thinking required by Max, as well as iZotope's innovations in artificial intelligence, with the cultural politics of Silicon Valley's "design thinking." Finally, it thinks through what happens when software becomes hardware, and users externalize their screens through the use of MIDI controllers, mobile media, and video game controllers. Amidst the perpetual upgrade culture of music technology, Push provides a model for understanding software as a microcosm for the increasing convergence of globalization, neoliberal capitalism, and techno-utopianism that has come to define our digital lives. (shrink)

According to the Argument for Autonomous Mental Disorder, mental disorder can occur in the absence of brain disorder, just as software problems can occur in the absence of hardware problems in a computer. This article argues that the AAMD is unsound. I begin by introducing the “natural dysfunction analysis” of disorder, before outlining the AAMD. I then analyze the necessary conditions for realizer autonomous dysfunction. Building on this, I show that software functions disassociate from hardware functions in a way that (...) mental functions do not disassociate from brain functions. It follows that mental disorders are brain disorders necessarily. (shrink)

Today's modern car is an assemblage of mechanical and digital components, of metal panels that comprise its structure and silicon chips that run its functions. Communication and information studies scholars have interrogated the problematic aspects of the programs that run those functions, revealing serious issues surrounding privacy and security, worker surveillance, and racial, gendered, and class-based bias. This article contributes to that work by taking a step back and asking about the issues inherent not in the software running on these (...) chips, but on the microchips themselves. Using the lens of “chipification”—the process by which a device is rendered capable of reading and processing data through the embedding of microchips—this article explores how the integration of microchips also involves processes that are often borne from, replicate, or create troubling power dynamics of their own. It takes light-duty passenger vehicles as a case study into how chipification is radically reshaping such processes as resource allocation, labor flows, and cultural practices around car manufacture, use, repair, and modification. By naming the process of chipification, this article allows researchers to identify and analyze the ways that integrating data processing capabilities into everyday devices is not a frictionless practice, but rather one that implicates a variety of power dynamics within these massive industries. (shrink)

Bernard Stiegler highlights many of the problems faced by education with respect to the ‘bringing forth’ of knowledge on an individual, collective, and technical level in the Anthropocene. These problems include the short-circuiting of dreams, automatization of thought, and toxic digital networks. Stiegler’s φάρμακον seeks to treat the toxicity of the Anthropocene with a care-ful hermeneutic approach that is directed towards the disautomatized, inventive, co-individuating knowledge act. This paper first explores Stiegler’s Anthropocene and his development of Heideggerian ποίησις in terms (...) of the challenge of the ‘bringing forth’ of knowledge acts, which are illustrated by free software. It then explores, through the additional example of free radio, of Félix Guattari’s work in free radio, the problem and possibility of creative co-individuating ex-pression in the Anthropocene by expanding on Stiegler’s emphasis on the importance of hermeneutics. This raises the question of how to read Stiegler’s own ex-pression of the future of knowledge. Next, the paper reviews Stiegler’s educational project involving a dis-automatizable hermeneutic web. Finally, the paper gives an autoethnographic account of an attempt to ‘bring forth’ learning through the implementation of free software in local, online classrooms. The free software example does not solve the problem of the Anthropocene but does raise the question of our responsibility to choose our digital tools care-fully and the importance of maintaining the possibility of co-individuating ex-pression like the kind that is remembered in song and which online education should remind us of. (shrink)

To study the static software defect detection system, based on the traditional static software defect detection system design, a new static software defect detection system design based on big data technology is proposed. The proposed method can optimize the distribution of test resources and improve the quality of software products by predicting the potential defect program modules and design the software and hardware of the static software defect detection system of big data technology. It is found that the traditional static (...) software defect detection system design based on code source data takes a long time, averaging 65 h /day. However, the traditional static software defect detection system based on deep learning has a short detection time, averaging 35 h/day. In this article, the detection time of the static software defect detection system based on big data is shorter than that of the other two traditional system designs, with an average of 15 h/day. Because the system design adjusts the operating state of the system, it improves the accuracy of data operation. On the premise of data collection, the system inspection research is completed, which ensures the operational safety of software data, alleviates the contradiction between system and data to a high degree, improves the efficiency of system operation, reduces unnecessary operations, further shortens the time required for inspection, improves the system performance, and has higher research and operation value. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 5, May 2022.

Create a novel network model for mobile ad hoc network (MANET) nodes and actors in wireless sensor networks to collaborate on event processing. There are two stages in the development of distributed algorithms: setup and negotiation. The first uses weighted proportional max-min fairness to initially allocate MANET nodes across event zones, whereas the latter uses a market-based method to re-distribute the number of MANET nodes based on existing and new events. A detection technique for malicious packet dropping attacks in MANETs. (...) The mechanism of the suggested approach is Collaborative Convolutional Neural Network (CCNN), which is based on the reputation value computed for that node by its neighbours. A node's reputation value is determined by its network packet forwarding behaviour. The reputation information is collected, saved, and transferred between nodes before being calculated under various scenarios. A network simulator was used to test the proposed protocol. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of its performance. Even in the presence of cryptographic procedures, our method incurs negligible network bandwidth and latency costs. Moreover, we demonstrate that the protection is still effective in the presence of misbehaving nodes and routing changes caused by mobility. While further research is needed to thoroughly evaluate our method, we feel that the concept of collaborative security in MANETs is a potential future area. (shrink)

This article created to address the current state of affairs, which has resulted in an insufficient progress and innovation system. The purpose of this overview article is to increase educate society's knowledge of how to use modern and innovative technologies based on need, cultural aspects, social context, and state context. As a result, I used secondary sources to assist readers understand how state actors and policies might best respond to society's aspirations to use and communicate through technology and information, as (...) well as innovation, in a fair and equitable approach. It might be either positive or negative. Modernization and innovation can primarily noticed constructively. It means that before bringing forward and totally researching [technology], we must analyse what we need, how we treat it, and why we use it. (shrink)

Persons with aphasia suffer from a loss of communication ability as a consequence of a brain injury. A small strand of research indicates effec- tiveness of dialogic interventions for communication development for persons with aphasia, but a vast amount of research studies shows its effectiveness for other target groups. In this paper, we describe the main parts of the hitherto technological development of an application named Dialogica that is (i) aimed at facilitating increased communicative participation in dialogic settings for persons (...) with aphasia and other communication disorders, (ii) based on comput- er game technology as well as on theory in dialogic education and argumenta- tion theory, and (iii) designed for mobile devices with larger screens. (shrink)

This paper is dedicated to numerical computation of higher order derivatives in Simulink. In this paper, a new module has been implemented to achieve this purpose within the Simulink-based Infinity Computer solution, recently introduced by the authors. This module offers several blocks to calculate higher order derivatives of a function given by the arithmetic operations and elementary functions. Traditionally, this can be done in Simulink using finite differences only, for which it is well-known that they can be characterized by instability (...) and low accuracy. Moreover, the proposed module allows to calculate higher order Lie derivatives embedded in the numerical solution to Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs). Traditionally, Simulink does not offer any practical solution for this case without using difficult external libraries and methodologies, which are domain-specific, not general-purpose and have their own limitations. The proposed differentiation module bridges this gap, is simple and does not require any additional knowledge or skills except basic knowledge of the Simulink programming language. Finally, the block for constructing the Taylor expansion of the differentiated function is also proposed, adding so another efficient numerical method for solving ODEs and for polynomial approximation of the functions. Numerical experiments on several classes of test problems confirm advantages of the proposed solution. (shrink)

Computational reproducibility possesses its own dynamics and narratives of crisis. Alongside the difficulties of computing as an ubiquitous yet complex scientific activity, computational reproducibility suffers from a naive expectancy of total reproducibility and a moral imperative to embrace the principles of free software as a non-negotiable epistemic virtue. We argue that the epistemic issues at stake in actual practices of computational reproducibility are best unveiled by focusing on software as a pivotal concept, one that is surprisingly often overlooked in accounts (...) of reproducibility issues. Software is not only about designing and coding but also about maintaining, supporting, distributing, licensing, and governance; it is not only about developers but also about users. We focus on openness debates among computational chemists involved in molecular modeling software packages as empirical grounding for our argument. We then identify and analyse four epistemic characteristics as key to the role of software in computational reproducibility. (shrink)

El presente artículo explora el carácter farmacológico de la tecnología a partir del caso del software libre de navegación anónima por internet y su potencial político. Se defiende la tesis de que el software, que es la base del sistema de vigilancia y control psicopolítico neoliberal descrito por Byung-Chul Han, puede ser al mismo tiempo, cuando se implementa en programas de código abierto que camuflan nuestra huella digital, una herramienta para la resistencia y emancipación. Esto se debe a que dicha (...) implementación ataca los principios fundamentales de la lógica de dominación dataísta: la transparencia y la predictibilidad. (shrink)

Deepfakes, an algorithm that transposes the face of one person onto the face of another person in images and film, is a digital technology that may fundamentally alter our belief in visual modality and thus presents alarming consequences for an image-centric culture. Not only are these face-translations now so advanced that it is virtually impossible for people to tell that they are fake – this technology is also becoming accessible to laypersons who, with little or no computer skills, can use (...) them for all kinds of purposes, including criminal intentions like revenge porn and identity theft. It is therefore timely and crucial to explore the semiotic potential of deepfakes. This paper presents a semiotic technology perspective, i.e., the study of technology for meaning- making that is an emergent field in social semiotics, to report on findings from an ongoing study of how deepfake software is designed and used as a semiotic resource in erotic and political contexts. The paper advances the argument that the software is able to appropriate all signifiers of the face and their cultural history. Consequently, the semiotic operations of this technology prepare the ground for the problematic perspectives of synthetic facial imagery. On this basis, the paper calls for a critical awareness of taking visual representations of current events at face value and considers how deepfake technology is embedded in unsound sharing practices of visual artefacts that tamper with the rich meaning potential of the face. (shrink)

Numerical computing is a key part of the traditional computer architecture. Almost all traditional computers implement the IEEE 754-1985 binary floating point standard to represent and work with numbers. The architectural limitations of traditional computers make impossible to work with infinite and infinitesimal quantities numerically. This paper is dedicated to the Infinity Computer, a new kind of a supercomputer that allows one to perform numerical computations with finite, infinite, and infinitesimal numbers. The already available software simulator of the Infinity Computer (...) is used in different research domains for solving important real-world problems, where precision represents a key aspect. However, the software simulator is not suitable for solving problems in control theory and dynamics, where visual programming tools like Simulink are used frequently. In this context, the paper presents an innovative solution that allows one to use the Infinity Computer arithmetic within the Simulink environment. It is shown that the proposed solution is user-friendly, general purpose, and domain independent. (shrink)

This article proposes a guideline to develop an ontology of software. The first section gives a brief introduction to the importance of such ontology as a possible conceptual grounding for the philosophy of software, philosophy of computing and philosophy of information. The second section presents the background of the scope of this article in terms of both a symbolic and materialistic approach to software. The third section deploys the basic guidelines with the expositions of the two dimensions of software: the (...) serial dimension and the structural dimension. The first dimension consists of three series, while the second in the exposition of the structure of any program. The fourth and last section will deal with a better understanding of what we can call the digital universe. (shrink)

. Computational chemistry grew in a new era of “desktop modeling,” which coincided with a growing demand for modeling software, especially from the pharmaceutical industry. Parameterization of models in computational chemistry is an arduous enterprise, and we argue that this activity leads, in this specific context, to tensions among scientists regarding the epistemic opacity transparency of parameterized methods and the software implementing them. We relate one flame war from the Computational Chemistry mailing List in order to assess in detail the (...) relationships between modeling methods, parameterization, software and the various forms of their enclosure or disclosure. Our claim is that parameterization issues are an important and often neglected source of epistemic opacity and that this opacity is entangled in methods and software alike. Models and software must be addressed together to understand the epistemological tensions at stake. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, a considerable amount of interest has been observed for improving the overall road transportation across the globe, primarily to enhance the safety of vehicular passengers and vulnerable road pedestrians. Vehicular Ad hoc NetworksVehicular Ad hoc Networks are anticipated to play a critical role in smart cities and Internet of Things domain. Instead, it is expected that a new paradigm of Internet of VehiclesInternet of Vehicles will soon become an important component of the IoT. Also, since (...) the connected vehicles primarily disseminate safety-critical information, it is imperative to have an extremely secure and trusted network so that critical data information could be traversed with extreme reliability and authenticity. Unlike conventional wired networks, vehicular networks are highly dynamic, distributed and of open nature, and are, therefore, susceptible to various attacks such as replayReplay, spoofingSpoofing, eavesdroppingEavesdropping, man-in-the-middleMan-in-the-middle, distributed denial-of-serviceDenial-of-service, blackhole, grayhole, SybilSybil and other malware attacksMalware attacks. To address the same, numerous mechanisms have been proposed in the literature, mainly relying on traditional cryptographyCryptography techniques. Nevertheless, cryptography-based solutions are not effective in VANETs since nodes in this network are highly dynamic and distributed across the network. Moreover, the network infrastructure cannot be guaranteed permanently, and cryptographic solutions may also get compromised due to insider attacks in a network. This chapter aims to provide an in-depth investigation of a diverse range of security attacks challenging the actual realisation of vehicular networks. In contrast to conventional security solutions, it brings forth the need for trust management for securing vehicular networks for ensuring reliability, authenticity and relevance by revoking both malicious and selfish nodes. It also briefly highlights the need for trust models and illustrates the characteristics of data-oriented trust models, entity-oriented trust models and hybrid trust models. Furthermore, since the conventional networks are being transformed via the promising yet emerging notion of software-defined networking, a brief discussion is presented so as to illustrate how a reconfigurable, reprogrammable and agile infrastructure can help in guaranteeing more secure vehicular networking platforms which are indispensable for futuristic Intelligent Transportation SystemIntelligent Transportation System applications and services. (shrink)

The process of completing, correcting and prioritising specifications is an essential but very complex task for the maintenance and improvement of software systems. The preservation of functionalities and the ability to accommodate changes are main objectives of the software development cycle to guarantee system reliability. Logical theories able to fully model such processes are still insufficient. In this paper we propose a full formalisation of such operations on software systems inspired by the Alchourrón–Gärdenfors–Makinson paradigm for belief revision of human epistemic (...) states. We represent specifications as finite sets of formulas equipped with a priority relation that models functional entrenchment of properties. We propose to handle specification incompleteness through ordered expansion, inconsistency through ordered safe contraction and prioritisation through revision with reordering, and model all three in an algorithmic fashion. We show how the system satisfies basic properties of the AGM paradigm, including Levi’s and Harper’s identities. We offer a concrete example and complexity results for the inference and model checking problems on revision. We conclude by describing resilience and evolvability of software systems based on such revision operators. (shrink)