ABSTRACT
The chapter establishes the key assumptions that justify the need for a new treatment of the dependability problem of complex homo-centric Cyber-Physical-Social Systems. It includes: the high degree of system’s complexity and the emergent nature of its properties; multifaceted issues, namely, the spatial extension of the infrastructure and its surroundings, temporary continuity and variability of processes in terms of the lifecycle and sustainability, and a holistic methodology from a technical, economic, and socio-ethical perspective; imperfection of knowledge available to the decision-maker; as well as risks associated with the operation of these systems and resulting from their complexity and the unpredictability of changes in the environment are systemic in nature. The overall structure of the work is then presented, which answers four basic questions, namely: ‘What concept to use to define the research objects of this work?’, ‘What attributes of these objects are critical to achieving their goals, and what tools are best suited to do so?’, ‘What methods should be used to study these objects and their behaviour in various situations, especially unusual and risky ones?’, and ‘How to solve the problems of ensuring the trustworthy operation of these facilities?’.
