Overview

The aim of the DFG-funded research group OC-Trust is to improve the trustworthiness of Organic Computing Systems in order to enable their use in open, heterogeneous, safety-critical and user-centered scenarios. Furthermore, it was?investigated to what extent trust, as a constitutive element of technical systems, can contribute to improving their robustness and efficiency. Methods, models, algorithms and user interfaces were developed. These techniques allow to consider trust in the design of systems and to investigate their trustworthiness. They also allow to measure trust at runtime and to adapt the systems in relation to different aspects of trust.

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Description

Five teams from Augsburg and Hanover were involved in the research group. The research group's spokesperson is Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Reif from the 伟德国际_伟德国际1946$娱乐app游戏 of Augsburg. The following teams worked together in the research group:

• Formal Analysis and Software Architectures for Trustworthy Organic Computing
  Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Reif,?Chair of Software Engineering, 伟德国际_伟德国际1946$娱乐app游戏 of Augsburg, Speaker
• HCI Design for Trustworthy Organic Computing
  Prof. Dr. Elisabeth André,?Chair for Multimedia Concepts and Applications, 伟德国际_伟德国际1946$娱乐app游戏 of Augsburg
• Erzeugung selbst-organisierender Vertrauensgemeinschaften - Top-down
  Prof. Dr. Christian Müller-Schloer,?Department of System and Computer Architecture, 伟德国际_伟德国际1946$娱乐app游戏 of Hannover
• Erzeugung selbst-organisierender Vertrauensgemeinschaften - Bottom-up
  Prof. Dr. J?rg H?hner,?Chair of?Organic Computing, 伟德国际_伟德国际1946$娱乐app游戏 of Augsburg
• Vertrauensverh?ltnisse unter den autonomen Einheiten von OC-Systemen
  Prof. Dr. Theo Ungerer,?Chair of Computer Science and Communication Systems, 伟德国际_伟德国际1946$娱乐app游戏 of Augsburg

Organic Computing systems are highly dynamic, consist of a multitude of changeable components and are located in a constantly changing environment. This results in a variety of desirable properties, including the ability to self-heal, self-adapt or self-configure. However, classical techniques for analysis and design of software systems are not suitable for these system structures. Completely new aspects, such as emergent behavior and the extreme changeability of OC systems, require a rethink and the development of new mechanisms. In addition to formal methods for functional correctness, safety and security, these include methods for the trusting interaction between parts of the system, the monitoring of predefined guidelines at runtime, and the development of algorithms that take trust aspects into account in self-organizing systems. In particular, the interface to the user can no longer be realized with classical methods. Here, questions have to be examined that deal with the representation of self-organizing system structures, the adaptive representation of information via different types of displays and, last but not least, the privacy of data.

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Trustworthy Organic Computing Systems differ from conventional Organic Computing Systems, such as those considered in the DFG Priority Programme 1183, above all in their openness, the heterogeneity of the agents involved and the consideration of human users. A further feature is the higher autonomy of the agents through an increasing shift of decisions from design time to runtime, which in extreme cases leads to a purely selfish agent behavior. Thus the assumption of good will, i.e. the assumption of the agents' willingness to cooperate in principle, can no longer be maintained. All these factors increase the uncertainty about the system, its environment and future developments, and emergent behavior becomes more difficult to control.

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In the first phase of the project, which started on 01.10.2009, basic technologies were developed to deal with these problems. These include formal methods for controlling emergent behavior, communities of trusted agents, models for measuring user trust and availability, algorithms that include trust values in their calculations, as well as construction methods and adaptive user interfaces. These technologies have been evaluated using open, heterogeneous organic computing systems.

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During the second and third phases, these technologies were expanded and the complexity of the problems considered increased. The focus was on dealing with insecure data, conflicts, interactions and an increasing hierarchization of systems. These aspects were covered by work carried out in close cooperation between the project groups. In addition, application aspects increasingly came to the fore. For this purpose, the techniques from the groups were combined and implemented in demonstrators.

Funded by

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Key facts

Start date:

01.10.2009

End?date:

31.07.2017

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