Publications and Talks

Invited Talks

G. J. Pai. Relating System Safety and Machine Learnt Model Performance. Invited Talk to the University of York, Centre for Assuring Autonomy, and the Centre for Doctoral Training in Safe Artificial Intelligence Systems (SAINTS CDT). March 2025, York, UK.

Conference

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Reconciling Safety Measurement and Dynamic Assurance. 43rd International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability, and Security (SAFECOMP 2024). Sep. 2024. Florence, Italy. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) vol. 14988. Also available as arXiv 2405.19641 [cs.SE]

Technical Report

A. Agogino, G. Brat, D. Gopinath, Y. He, D. Hulse, L. Irshad, A. Katis, R. Lipkis, A. Mavridou, G. Pai, C. Pǎsǎreanu, I. Perez, T. Pressburger, and J. Schumann. Recommendations on Evidence and Process for Certification of Learning Enabled Components in Aerospace Systems. NASA Technical Memorandum NASA/TM-20240006865. NASA Ames Research Center. May 2024.

A. Agogino, G. Brat, D. Gopinath, Y. He, D. Hulse, L. Irshad, A. Katis, R. Lipkis, A. Mavridou, G. Pai, C. Pǎsǎreanu, T. Pressburger, and I. Šljivo. Challenges and Proposed Solutions to Development and Assurance of Autonomy in Aviation. NASA Technical Memorandum NASA/TM-20240011398. NASA Ames Research Center. Sep. 2024.

Conference

E. Denney and G. J. Pai. Assurance-driven Design of Machine Learning-Based Functionality in an Aviation Systems Context. 42nd AIAA/IEEE Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC 2023). Oct. 2023. Barcelona, Spain.

S. Adibhatla, E. Escorihuela, F. Kaakai, and G. J. Pai. Data-centric Operational Design Domain Characterization for Machine Learning-based Aeronautical Products. 42nd International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP 2023). Sep. 2023. Toulouse, France. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) vol. 14181. Also available as arXiv 2307.07681 [cs.SE]

J. Fenn, M. Nicholson, G. J. Pai, and M. Wilkinson. Architecting Safer Autonomous Aviation Systems. 31st Safety-Critical Systems Symposium (SSS 2023). Feb. 2023. Safety-Critical Systems Club, York, UK. Also available as arXiv 2301.08318 [cs.SE]

Technical Report

E. Denney, R. Lee, G. Pai, and I. Šljivo. QUASAR: Quantifiable Assurance Cases for Trusted Autonomy. Technical Report AFRL-RI-RS-TR-2023-162. Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate. September 2023.

G. Brat, and G. Pai. Runtime Assurance of Aeronautical Products: Preliminary Recommendations. NASA Technical Memorandum NASA/TM-20220015734. NASA Ames Research Center. January 2023.

Conference Presentations

G. J. Pai. Navigating the Assurance Landscape for Certification of Machine Learning in Civil Aviation. 2022 Australian System Safety Conference (ASSC 2022). May 2022. (No accompanying paper).

Keynote Talks

G. J. Pai. Towards Certification of Machine Learning in Aeronautical Applications. Keynote at the 2022 International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence Safety (SafeAI 2022), co-located with the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2022 (AAAI-22), Feb. - Mar. 2022. (No accompanying paper).

Invited Talks

G. Brat and G. J. Pai. Preliminary Recommendations for Runtime Assurance of Aeronautical Products. Invited talk to the NASA Advanced Air Mobility Ecosystem Cross Cutting Working Group, Oct. 2022. (No accompanying paper).

Invited Talks

E. Denney and G. J. Pai. Assurance Cases - Theory, Practice, and Tool Support with AdvoCATE. Invited Talk to the Commercial Crew Program - Suborbital Crew, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA. May 2021 (Remotely delivered)

E. Denney and G. J. Pai. Assurance of Autonomous Safety-critical Systems with AdvoCATE. Motional and Critical Systems Labs, Feb. 2021. (Remotely delivered)

Invited Talks

E. Denney and G. J. Pai. Supporting Objective Hierarchies and Risk Assessment using AdvoCATE. Invited Talk at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, Nov. 2020. (Remotely delivered)

G. J. Pai. Concepts of Dynamic Assurance for Trusted Autonomy. Invited talk at the 2020 International Workshop on Dynamic Risk Management for Autonomous Systems of the 16th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC 2020), Munich, Germany, Sep. 2020. (Remotely delivered)

E. Denney and G. J. Pai. Assurance Cases - Theory, Practice, and Tool Support with AdvoCATE. Invited Talk at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (LM-ATL) Assurance Case Workshop. Aug. 2020. (Remotely delivered).

E. Denney and G. J. Pai. Supporting Objective Hierarchies using AdvoCATE. Invited Talk to the NASA Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA), Reliability and Maintainability (R&M) Program. July 2020. (Remotely delivered)

E. Denney and G. J. Pai. Supporting Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Certification via the Assurance Case Concept. Invited talk to the Urban Air Mobility Project, NASA Ames Research Center. April 2020. (Remotely delivered)

Journal

E. Asaadi, E. W. Denney, J. Menzies, G. Pai, and D. Petroff. Dynamic Assurance Cases: A Pathway to Trusted Autonomy. IEEE Computer, vol. 53, no. 12. Dec. 2020.

Conference

E. Asaadi, S. Beland, A. Chen, E. Denney, D. Margineantu, M. Moser, G. Pai, J. Paunicka, D. Stuart, and H. Yu. Assured Integration of Machine Learning-based Autonomy on Aviation Platforms. 39th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC 2020). Oct. 2020.

E. Asaadi, E. W. Denney, and G. J. Pai. Quantifying Assurance in Learning-enabled Systems. 39th International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability, and Security (SAFECOMP 2020). Sep. 2020. Also available as arXiv 2006.10345 [cs.SE]

Workshop

E. W. Denney, G. J. Pai, and C. A. Smith. Hazard Contribution Modes of Machine Learning Components. AAAI Workshop on Artificial Intelligence Safety (SafeAI 2020). Feb. 2020.

Keynote Talks

G. J. Pai. Dynamic Assurance Cases: A Pathway towards Trusted Autonomy. Keynote at the 2019 Australian System Safety Conference (ASSC 2019). Brisbane, Australia. May 2019

G. J. Pai. Drones, Dependability Assessment, and Safety Assurance. Keynote at the International Workshop on Recent Advances in the Dependability Assessment of Complex Systems, of the 47th IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN 2017), Denver, CO, USA. Jun. 2017.

Journal

E. W. Denney, G. J. Pai, and I. J. Whiteside. The Role of Safety Architectures in Aviation Safety Cases. Reliability Engineering and System Safety. Vol. 191, Nov. 2019.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Tool Support for Assurance Case Development. Automated Software Engineering Journal, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 435-499, Sep. 2018.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Automating the Assembly of Aviation Safety Cases. IEEE Transactions on Reliability. vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 830-849. Dec. 2014.

J. B. Dugan and G. J. Pai. Empirical Analysis of Software Fault Content and Fault Proneness using Bayesian Methods. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. vol. 33, no. 10, Oct. 2007.

Conference

E. Asaadi, E. W. Denney, and G. J. Pai. Towards Quantification of Assurance for Learning-enabled Components. 15th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC 2019). Sep. 2019. Also available as arXiv 2301.08980 [cs.SE]

E. W. Denney, M. Johnson, and G. J. Pai. Towards a Rigorous Basis for Specific Operations Risk Assessment of UAS. 37th AIAA/IEEE Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC 2018). Sep. 2018.

E. W. Denney, G. J. Pai, and I. J. Whiteside. Model-driven Development of Safety Architectures. 20th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MoDELS 2017). Sep. 2017.

E. W. Denney, G. J. Pai, and I. J. Whiteside. Modeling the Safety Architecture of UAS Flight Operations. 36th International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP 2017). LNCS 10488, pp. 162-178, Sep. 2017.

R. A. Clothier, E. W. Denney, and G. J. Pai. Making a Risk-informed Safety Case for Small Unmanned Aircraft System Operations. AIAA-2017-3275. 17th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration and Operations Conference (ATIO 2017). June 2017.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Safety Considerations for UAS Ground-based Detect and Avoid. 35th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC 2016). pp. 1-10. Sep. 2016.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Composition of Safety Argument Patterns. 35th International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP 2016). LNCS 9922, pp. 1-13. Sep. 2016

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Architecting a Safety Case for UAS Flight Operations. 34th International System Safety Conference (ISSC 2016). Aug. 2016.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Towards a Formal Basis for Modular Safety Cases. 34th International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP 2015). LNCS 9337, pp. 328-343. Sep. 2015.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Argument-based Airworthiness Assurance for Small UAS. 34th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC 2015). Sep. 2015.
(Best paper of the Innovative Approaches Session in the UAS Track).

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. A Methodology for the Development of Assurance Arguments for Unmanned Aircraft Systems. 33rd International System Safety Conference (ISSC 2015). Aug. 2015.
(Best paper of the Conference).

E. W. Denney, I. Habli and G. J. Pai. Dynamic Safety Cases for Through-life Safety Assurance. 37th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2015) - New Ideas and Emerging Results (NIER). May 2015.

E. W. Denney, G. J. Pai and I. J. Whiteside. Formal Foundations for Hierarchical Safety Cases. 16th International Symposium on High Assurance Systems Engineering (HASE). Jan. 2015.

R. Berthold, E. Denney, M. Fladeland, G. Pai, B. Storms and M. Sumich. Assuring Ground-based Detect and Avoid for UAS Operations. 33rd IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC 2014). Oct. 2014.
(Best paper of the UAS/ATM session).

E. W. Denney, D. Naylor and G. J. Pai. Querying Safety Cases. 33rd International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP 2014), LNCS 8666, pp. 294-309. Sep. 2014.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. A Formal Basis for Safety Case Patterns. 32nd International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP 2013). LNCS 8153, pp. 21-32. Sep. 2013.

E. W. Denney, G. J. Pai and I. J. Whiteside. Hierarchical Safety Cases. 5th NASA Formal Methods Symposium (NFM). LNCS 7871, pp. 478-483. May 2013.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. A Lightweight Methodology for Safety Case Assembly. 31st International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP 2012). LNCS 7612, pp. 1-12. Sept. 2012.

E. W. Denney, G. J. Pai and J. M. Pohl. Heterogeneous Aviation Safety Cases: Integrating the Formal and the Non-formal. 17th IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (ICECCS). July 2012.

E. W. Denney, I. Habli, and G. J. Pai. Perspectives on Software Safety Case Development for Unmanned Aircraft. 42nd Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN). June 2012.

E. W. Denney, C. Ippolito, R. Lee, and G. J. Pai. An Integrated Safety and Systems Engineering Methodology for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems. AIAA 2012-2572, Infotech @ Aerospace Conference (I@A) Electronic Proceedings. June 2012.

E. W. Denney, I. Habli, and G. J. Pai. Towards Measurement of Confidence in Safety Cases. 5th IEEE/ACM Interational Conference on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM), pp. 380-383. Sept. 2011.

J. B. Dugan, G. J. Pai and H. Xu. Combining Software Quality Analysis with Dynamic Event/Fault Trees for High Assurance Systems Engineering. Proceedings of the 10th IEEE High Assurance Systems Engineering conference (HASE). Nov. 2007.

J. B. Dugan, and G. J. Pai. Automatic Synthesis of Dynamic Fault Trees from UML System Models. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE). Nov. 2002.

J. B. Dugan, S. K. Donohue, and G. J. Pai. Estimating Software Reliability from Process and Product Evidence. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management (PSAM-6). June 2002.

Technical Report

E. Denney and G. Pai. Safety Case Patterns: Theory and Applications. NASA Technical Memorandum NASA/TM-2015-218492. NASA Ames Research Center. Feb. 2015.

D. Bushnell, E. Denney, F. Enomoto, G. Pai and J. Schumann. Preliminary Recommendations for the Collection, Storage, and Analysis of UAS Safety Data. NASA Technical Memorandum NASA/TM-2013-216624. NASA Ames Research Center. Dec. 2013.

E. W. Denney, G. J. Pai and J. M. Pohl. Automating the Generation of Heterogeneous Aviation Safety Cases. NASA Contractor Report NASA/CR-2011-215983. NASA Ames Research Center. Aug. 2011.

J. Doerr, M. Eisenbarth, A. Gross, G. J. Pai, and K. Villela. Requirements Engineering Challenges in Large Research Projects. Fraunhofer IESE Technical Report. 2010.

G. J. Pai and A. Roeser. Assuring Functional Safety in Automotive Software Through Pattern-based Requirements Development. Fraunhofer IESE Technical Report 013.10/E. 2010.

T. Bauer and G. J. Pai. Techniques for Requirements Specification of Embedded Automotive Software: A Survey. Fraunhofer IESE Technical Report 089.08/E. July 2008.

Workshop

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Evidence Arguments for Using Formal Methods in Software Certification. 24th IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE) Workshop on Software Certification. Nov. 2013. pp. 375-380.

E. W. Denney, G. J. Pai and J. M. Pohl. AdvoCATE: An Assurance Case Automation Toolset. 31st International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP 2012) Workshops. LNCS 7613, pp. 8-21. Sept. 2012.

J. B. Dugan, K. Lateef, and G. J. Pai. Tackling The Question, Is My Software Ready To Be Shipped To The Customer? 3rd International Workshop on Frontiers of Information Technology. Dec. 2005. (Invited)

J. B. Dugan, K. Lateef, and G. J. Pai. Analysis of milestone readiness levels during the software requirements development phase. International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), Workshop on Software Assessment. Nov. 2005.

J. B. Dugan, K. Lateef, and G. J. Pai. Bayesian networks applied to software IV&V. Proceedings of the 29th Annual NASA/IEEE Software Engineering Workshop. Apr. 2005.

Short Papers

J. B. Dugan, K. Lateef, and G. J. Pai. Techniques for IV&V of Model Based Software. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (Fast Abstract Track). Nov. 2006

J. B. Dugan and G. J. Pai. Enhancing Software Reliability Estimation using Bayesian Networks and Fault Trees. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (Fast Abstract Track). Nov. 2001

G. J. Pai. Combining Bayesian Belief Networks with Fault Trees to Enhance Software Reliability Analysis. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (Student Paper Track). Nov. 2001.

G. J. Pai, A. Spanberger, K. Skadron, M. Stan, and M. Ziegler. Dynamic Way Allocation for High Performance Low Power Caches. The International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques (Work-in-Progress Session). Sept. 2001.

Invited Talks

E. W. Denney, R. Henderson, J. Menzies, G. J. Pai, D. Petroff, and I. Sljivo. Anatomy of an Assurance Case. Invited talk to Boeing. Nov. 2019.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Assurance of Autonomy in Aviation Systems. Invited talk to the NASA-Boeing Autonomy Verification and Validation Project. Nov. 2019. (Remotely delivered)

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Safety Cases and Safety Assurance with AdvoCATE. Invited talk to BAE Systems. Mar. 2019.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Anatomy of an Assurance Case. Invited talk to GE Global Research and GE Aviation. Mar. 2018.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Risk Assessment and Safety Assurance of Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Invited talk to the Maersk McKinney Moller Institute, University of Southern Denmark. Mar. 2018.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Towards Risk-based Safety Assurance in Autonomous Unmanned Systems. Invited talk to State Farm Research and Development Center. Apr. 2017.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Towards an Ontological Basis for Aviation Safety Cases. Invited talk to the FAA Semantic Web for Air Transportation (SWAT) Special Interest Group. Aug. 2015.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. The Role of Formalization and Argumentation in Assurance Cases. Invited talk at the Verification and Assurance Workshop of the 2015 International Conference on Computer Aided Verification (CAV), San Francisco, CA, USA. Jul. 2015.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Automated Assurance Cases: Why and How? Invited talk at the Software Certification Consortium, co-located with the High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) Conference, Annapolis, MD. May 2015.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Argument-based Assurance for Aviation Systems - Applications and Tool Support Invited talk to the US Air Force Research Laboratory. Oct. 2014.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Argument-based Assurance for Aviation Systems - Applications and Tool Support Invited talk to the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, CA. Sep. 2014.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Argument-based Safety Assurance for Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Invited talk to BAE Systems. Jun. 2014.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Assurance Cases for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Safety. Invited talk at Imperial College and Rolls Royce PLC. May 2014.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. AdvoCATE - Tool Support for UAS Safety Assurance. Invited talk to Sikorsky and United Technologies. Apr. 2014.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Automation in Assurance Cases - Theory, Tool Support, and Application. Invited talk at the 3rd International Workshop on Open Systems Dependability. Nov. 2013.

E. W. Denney and G. J. Pai. Towards Automation in Assurance Cases - Theory, Tool Support, and Application. Invited talk at Office Nationale d'Études et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA), the French National Aerospace Research Laboratory. Sep. 2013.

Thesis

G. J. Pai. Probabilistic Software Quality Analysis. Ph.D. (Computer engineering) dissertation. Department of ECE, University of Virginia. Mar. 2007.

G. J. Pai. A UML Framework for Modeling and Automated Dependability Analysis of Computer-based Systems. Master of Science (Electrical engineering) thesis. Department of ECE, University of Virginia. Jan. 2002.

Pre-prints

G. J. Pai. A Survey of Software Reliability Models. arXiv Preprint arXiv:1304.4539 [cs.SE]. Department of ECE, University of Virginia. Dec. 2002.