Abstract
This paper presents some properties which must be verified by the project of distributed application in order to make good use of fieldbuses. In general, application and network projects are developed by different persons, such that a good interaction must be reached. With the aim of doing that, Concurrent Engineering have been more and more used. A specification methodology (Internal Behavioral and Conceptual Configuration Models) of real-time distributed application is presented, based on both Concurrent Engineering and Network Transparency Concept, which offers all necessary information to the network project.

Abstract
The development of safety-critical embedded applications in domains such as automotive or avionics is an exceedingly challenging intellectual task. This task can, however, be significantly simplified through the use of middleware that offers specialized fault-tolerant services. This middleware must provide a high assurance level that it operates correctly. In this paper, we present a formal verification of a protocol for one such service, a Group Membership Service, using model checking. Through this verification we discovered that although the protocol specification is correct, a previously proposed implementation is not.

Abstract
Profibus DP networks are often used as the communication infrastructure for supporting distributed computer-controlled applications, which, very often, impose strict real-time requirements. The aim of this paper is to present a novel methodology for evaluating the worst-case message response time in Profibus DP networks where high and low priority information flows coexist.

Abstract
IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee is one of the most widespread Wireless Sensor Network technologies. It may work either in beacon-enabled mode or in beaconless mode. When operating in beacon-enabled mode, it divides the superframe in sixteen equally-sized time slots, where the request for slot allocation is achieved through a CSMA/CA approach. This allocation method does not allow the provision of any service differentiation scheme, which is required for the transfer of time constrained messages. This paper proposes a QoS provision approach with minimal changes to existing protocols. Our approach improves the CSMA/CA algorithm by assigning decentralized priorities based on the (m,k)-firm task model. In this paper, a set of experimental results is presented and compared with the traditional approach currently offered by the standard. This set of experiments highlight the promising behavior of the proposed approach, when dealing with high network load scenarios.

Abstract
Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are a promising communication technology that may offer greater flexibility and reliability, when compared to traditional wireless networks. WMNs open up new applications domains, but still need to find efficient mechanisms to deal with scalability and timeliness requirements. This paper proposes a scheme for Path Selection and Message Forwarding in IEEE 802.11s networks, that is suitable to be used in industrial environments. We present the DHT-based Cluster Routing Protocol (DCRP), a routing protocol based on DHTs, clustering of nodes and use of proxies. DCRP allows to improve the overall network performance by reducing the time required for path selection and the number of communication hops in large sized networks.

Abstract
We present a family of reliable broadcast protocols designed to take advantage of the dual scheduling TDMA (DuST) scheme provided by current state-of-the-art automotive control networks such as FlexRay. These protocols are a complement to FlexRay's native communication services, which do not provide sufficient fault tolerance for safety-critical applications. A reliability evaluation of the proposed protocols carried out with the help of the probabilistic model checker PRISM shows that the proposed protocols can achieve reliability levels suitable for safety-critical applications.