Abstract
Argument structure patterns can be used to represent classes of safety arguments. Such patterns can become quite complex, making use of loops and choices, posing a potential challenge for comprehension and evaluation, offsetting the likely gains that might follow from creating arguments using them. We show how complex patterns can be constructed by composition of simpler patterns. We provide a formal basis for pattern composition and show that this notion satisfies certain desirable properties. Furthermore, we show that it is always possible to construct complex patterns by omposition in this way. We motivate this work with example patterns extracted from real aviation safety cases, and illustrate the application of the theory on the same.
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- 1.
As part of NASA’s UAS traffic management (UTM) effort: http://utm.arc.nasa.gov/.
- 2.
To our knowledge, at least in the US, and within a non-military context.
- 3.
Due to space constraints, and for figure legibility, we omit the contextual nodes (i.e., assumptions, justifications, and context) that provide additional clarification of the associated reasoning, from the patterns in Fig. 1. Also note that, in some cases, the strategies in these patterns include the safety measures used to achieve a goal in addition to the standard GSN strategies that provide inference explanations.
- 4.
A graph where edges connect multiple vertices.
- 5.
There is no single range that corresponds to the union of possibilities represented by two distinct ranges. This could be addressed, however, by generalizing annotations from ranges to logical constraints that can express dependencies between nodes.
- 6.
Proofs of the theorems in the rest of this paper have been omitted due to space constraints.
- 7.
For basic concepts of category theory, we refer the reader to an introductory textbook, such as [7].
- 8.
Due to space constraints, neither this compound pattern nor its instance are given here.
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Acknowledgement
This work was funded by the SASO project under the Airspace Operations and Safety Program of NASA ARMD.
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Denney, E., Pai, G. (2016). Composition of Safety Argument Patterns. In: Skavhaug, A., Guiochet, J., Bitsch, F. (eds) Computer Safety, Reliability, and Security. SAFECOMP 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9922. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45477-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45477-1_5
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