The Metaverse is all about expanding connectivity amongst users and objects and seamlessly delivering information and services to the right user at the right time. Its potential advantages are virtually limitless, and its applications are progressively changing the way we live, and are opening new opportunities for innovation and growth. It is crystal clear that the Metaverse can enable fully immersive experience, elements of fantasy, and new degrees of freedom. However, it is still considered controversial since it will also open up opportunities for misconduct and crime. Furthermore, the industry lacks the capacity to carry out a comprehensive study of the potential risks that will come along. This paper highlights the current and envisioned Metaverse applications along with the main concerns and challenges faced by the Metaverse stakeholders. Furthermore, it examines the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of the Metaverse technology. Finally, the paper presents the future directions and highlights the most important recommendations for developing the Metaverse systems.

Internet of Things (IoT) systems are becoming increasingly safety-critical as the "Things" become an integral part of everyday life and are given control over life-sustaining processes. As such, these products will need safety-aware analysis during the software development life cycle to ensure they operate successfully without harming users. Objective: The overall objective of this study is to construct an approach for conducting safety analysis on the IoT systems in the design phase of the Software Development Life Cycle. Problem: The increasing complexity of the IoT raises concerns with respect to properly assuring IoT safety, since more interaction among components and tighter coupling may result in increased logical errors, posing new safety risks. To show the effect of these problems, we have analyzed several medical systems using our proposed methodology. Method: In this study, we present a methodology to implement IoT systems which takes into account errors and potential hazards at design time. To increase the adoptability of our approach, we use standardized languages/model to represent errors. Several medical use cases are analyzed to prove the viability of the suggested approach. Results: The results of our study show that tracing errors via our method leads to the discovery of hazards in IoT architectures without requiring specialized domain knowledge. The results also are validated based on the traceability criteria. Conclusion: By providing a new hazard analysis method based on early design knowledge and validating early in the Software Development Life Cycle, we discover more hazards and safety constraints to ensure the success of safety critical IoT systems.

Hypothesis testing is a valuable method used to investigate ideas and test predictions arising from theories based on available data. In the context of critical system architecture, there is a need to effectively utilize hypothesis testing to identify faulty paths and improve system safety. This research aims to propose guidelines and best practices for presenting hypothesis testing in critical system architecture. The problem addressed in this study is the underutilization of hypothesis testing in life-critical system methods, resulting in a lack of identification of faulty paths. To address this challenge, we propose an enhanced pathway analysis technique that integrates error-derived information from a system’s architectural description, thereby augmenting traditional hypothesis testing methods. By investigating various paths, we aim to identify false positive and false negative errors in life-critical system architecture. Furthermore, the proposed method is validated based on specific validation criteria for each step such as system boundary, assumption, content/architecture, and traceability validations. Also, the method is evaluated based on our claims. The results of our research highlight the significance of tracing errors in early system knowledge. By leveraging the augmented hypothesis testing method, we are able to identify hazards, safety constraints, and specific causes of unsafe actions more effectively. The findings emphasize the importance of integrating early design knowledge into hypothesis testing for enhanced hazard identification and improved system safety.

In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information. This research is intended to introduce a new approach for encryption is the design and implement Kurdish and English languages cipher system. It uses Kurdish letters and their diacritics for encrypting English messages and vice versa. A pseudo random generator is used to generate integer numbers to represent each character in Kurdish language. The same numbers are used again after sorting them to represent the English characters. The conclusions that are extracted indicate the efficiency of KAELCS system according to security and time performance.