A method to detect and remove emergent behavior caused by overgeneralization

Emergent behavior in distributed systems is a central problem that may lead to unexpected behaviors and major faults. Emergent behaviors are usually categorized into three groups: emergent behaviors occur due to scenarios incompleteness; emergent behaviors as a result of violation of a system wide policy; and emergent behaviors as a result of synthesis of behavior models. In this paper, a technique for addressing the latter group is proposed. The technique prevents from overgeneralization in the behavior model synthesis. Overgeneralization happens as the result of behavior model synthesis and depends on the assumptions of the process. In addition, the proposed technique addresses the issue of the existing ad-hoc methodologies by providing an automated algorithm. This algorithm can be used by a syntax checker to automatically detect and correct the emergent behaviors in the scenarios. The proposed algorithm is validated using a case study of a fleet management system.