Computers are currently used in a variety of critical applications, including systems for nuclear reactor control, flight control (both aircraft and spacecraft), and air traffic control. Moreover, experience has shown that the dependability of such systems is particularly sensitive to that of its software components, both the system software of the embedded computers and the application software they support.
Software Performability: From Concepts to Applications addresses the construction and solution of analytic performability models for critical-application software. The...

The International Working Conference on Dependable Computing for Critical Applications was the first conference organized by IFIP Working Group 10. 4 Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance, in cooperation with the Technical Committee on Fault-Tolerant Computing of the IEEE Computer Society, and the Technical Committee 7 on Systems Reliability, Safety and Security of EWlCS. The rationale for the Working Conference is best expressed by the aims of WG 10. 4: Increasingly, individuals and organizations are developing or procuring sophisticated computing systems on whose services they need to...