The SCSC publishes a range of documents:
The club publishes its newsletter Safety Systems three times a year in February, June and October. The newsletter is distributed to paid-up members and can be made available in electronic form for inclusion on corporate members' intranet sites.
The proceedings of the annual symposium, held each February since 1993, are published in book form. Since 2013 copies can be purchased from Amazon.
The club publishes the Safety-critical Systems eJournal (ISSN 2754-1118) containing high-quality, peer-reviewed articles on the subject of systems safety.
If you are interested in being an author or a reviewer please see the Call for Papers.
All publications are available to download free by current SCSC members (please log in first), recent books are available as 'print on demand' from Amazon at reasonable cost.
Tuesday 10th October 2023 marks “Ada Lovelace Day” – an international day celebrating the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths.
Ada appeared on the front cover of the May 2023 edition of the newsletter as our lead article was from Wendy Owen celebrating the woman of the SCSC and coinciding with International Women in Engineering Day (23rd June 2023).
In this edition Wendy Owen expands on her earlier article by exploring who Ada was, her background and her remarkable achievements as well as talking to a few of our modern-day “Adas”!
In our second article, Lucia Capogna discusses current railways standards and recent developments in their evolution. As well as providing background for those unfamiliar with the standards, she provides insights through interviews with two members of the CENELEC working group on their thoughts about the new software standard and the future of software.
Our third article covers some developments in the area of data safety risk categorisation that I have been working on with Mike Parsons. We first introduced these concepts at SSS’23 and now have a taxonomy of terms but it is clear that, not only are there other types of data risk out there, but others are keen to visualise them as animals. You’ve likely heard of Black Swans no doubt, but what about Grey Swans and Red Swans or even the Boiling Frog! It seems there is a complete zoo out there!
Our “How Do I Get Into Safety?” series returns this month with interesting insights from James Inge and Louise Harney.
Mike Parson’s provides a report on the latest Tech Trip to National Space Centre in Leicester with some amazing pictures of the technologies that have taken us into space and beyond.
At SSS’23, Gill Kernick gave, at times, a moving account of her experiences during the events surrounding the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 and her wider challenges in effecting systemic change. Somnath Pal has very kindly provided a review of her book “Catastrophe and Systemic Change”.
I would like to welcome Davy Pissoort as our latest member of the SCSC Steering Group. Davy is Professor at KU Leuven Bruges Campus and I managed to catch up with him for our 60 second interview.
It also gives me great pleasure to see the return of the Safety Systems Crossword! Why not test your knowledge of all matters to do with system safety! There is a prize for the first correct entry drawn out of a hat at SSS’24!
Paul Hampton SCSC Newsletter Editor
paul.hampton@scsc.uk
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