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DIRC Research Conference
NESC - Edinburgh
15th - 17th March 2005
Call for Papers
'Interdisciplinary Research Themes'
The focus for the DIRC Research Conference this year is the
'Interdisciplinary Research Themes': Risk, Diversity, Timeliness,
Responsibility and Structure. Papers on these themes as well as
others on interdisciplinary research on dependability are welcome.
These 'Research Themes' act as a way of gathering, analysing
and recording the lasting knowledge that comes out of DIRC research.
One motivation for selecting the themes was that it should be
possible (and interesting) to look at these themes from both a
technical (system) and human (user) viewpoint. We therefore especially
welcome interdisciplinary papers that deploy ideas from social
science research to the technical issues of dependable computing
(and vice versa).
We would like the DIRC community to use the conference to provide
a new focus, a 'refocus', for their research activity. Whilst
still welcoming new research, we would particularly like DIRC
researchers to consider their existing and ongoing body of research
and consider how it might advance current thinking on any of the
research themes, and 'refocus' and rewrite it accordingly.
All DIRC 'Targeted Activities' are expected to contribute to
the conference Ð either in the form of a full paper or a brief
1000 word position statement outlining how the research in the
TA contributes to the DIRC themes. Other IRCs will also be invited
to contribute.
Risk
Most technical work on risk has concentrated on identifying undesirable
events and assessing the severity of their consequences and their
probability of occurrence. This technical view of risk is challenged
by new computer-based systems that are deeply embedded and widely
distributed in our culture and by the difficulties encountered by
decision takers in utilising technical risk information.
The challenge/What we have promised: "We are convinced
that it is necessary to take a broader view of risk in which technical
developments and issues of the decision taking process are developed
hand in hand. This broader view has to embrace Òsecondary dimensionsÓ
of risk such as whether the risk is undertaken voluntarily, whether
the risk has catastrophic consequences, to what extent the consequences
of the risk are reversible, etc. We believe that these are important
bridges between formal, probabilistic, assessments and the decision-taking
context".
Diversity
Significant effort is being put into understanding design diversity
Ð how it can be measured, assessed and maximised. But it is clear
that diversity can be applied in much more general forms such as
the elicitation of requirements using the ÒdiverseÓ viewpoints of
many domain experts, and the use of ÒindependentÓ argument legs
in safety cases.
The challenge/What we have promised: "By studying wider
applications of diversity Ðbetween humans and computers, different
procedures and intellectual approaches, between more than one
human, and so onÐ we will develop a better understanding of the
contribution of diversity to dependability".
Timeliness
Timeliness poses special concerns for the safe use of systems, there
are interesting contrasts between the ways in which a system can
be developed to meet guaranteed timing constraints and the expectations
that one can put on the human users of a system.
The challenge/What we have promised: "DIRC research spans
technical aspects of notations or logics for time through to the
human perceptions of time. One interesting issue is the need for
notations that make it easier to talk about cyclic behaviour".
Responsibility
It is important to show clearly the ways in which the acceptance,
recording and discharge of responsibilities are reflected in the
technical systems that mediate social relationships, particularly
in the presence of social and human failure.
The challenge/What we have promised: : "IRC research
in this area will both look at ways to express responsibility
structures and their use in the design of dependable systems".
Structure
A well-chosen structure helps system designers and evaluators to
understand a system by allowing them to Òdivide and conquerÓ the
systemÕs complexity, and ensures that any constraints imposed by
the structure do not impose unacceptable overheads on the operation
of the system.
The challenge/What we have promised: "It is understood
how to deploy redundancy to protect against failures of physical
components; but it is difficult to apply the same techniques in
a systematic way to human behaviour, and hence the issue of structuring
a complex computer based system as a whole is still a great challenge.
Indeed, the IRC will probably have to tackle the issue of languages
to describe human behaviour in order to reason about overall system
architectures that will guard against human errors."
Submissions:
We welcome papers that reflect on the issues of these five research
themes and suggest ways in which we are meeting these research
challenges and fulfilling our promises.
Papers should be between 4 and 10 pages of single spaced text,
including tables, figures and references.
Accepted papers will appear on the conference website; published
in the conference proceedings and on a CD-Rom.
PhD Submissions:
We welcome and expect submissions from all DIRC funded and all
DIRC related PhD students. The submissions should be in the form
of a short paper (no more than two pages when formatted) that
illustrates how your PhD relates to one of the themes. All short
papers will be included in the conference proceedings.
Deadline:
Authors are asked to submit electronic versions of their papers
by February 14 2005 to Jo Mackie (j.mackie *insert the at sign
here with no spaces* comp.lancs.ac.uk) and Mark Rouncefield (m.rouncefield
*insert the at sign here with no spaces* lancaster.ac.uk).
The conference website (http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/research/cseg/projects/dirc/workshop2005.html)
has a template with detailed guidelines for paper preparation.
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