COMPUTER 0018-9162/15/$31.00 © 2015 IEEE JULY 2015 37 COVER FEATURE SELF-AWARE AND SELF-EXPRESSIVE SYSTEMS The Benefits of Self-Awareness and Attention in Fog and Mist Computing Jürgo S. Preden and Kalle Tammemäe, Tallinn University of Technology Axel Jantsch, TU Wien Mairo Leier and Andri Riid, Tallinn University of Technology Emine Calis, TU Wien Self-awareness facilitates a proper assessment of cost- constrained cyber-physical systems, allocating limited resources where they are most needed. Together, situation awareness and attention are key enablers for self-awareness in efcient distributed sensing and computing networks. T heoretical neurobiologist Bernard Baars observed that “like any other biological adaptation, consciousness is functional.” 1 The same can be said about self-awareness in computing—a system that is aware of its own state can become robust and dependable, even with radical environmental changes and drastically diminished capabilities. This idea has resulted in a proliferation of research on self-awareness and other self-* proper- ties such as organization, confguration, optimization, protection, and healing (see the “Self-Aware and Auto- nomic Systems” sidebar). Self-awareness improves system behavior, reducing processing, communication, and energy requirements. However, it is not feasible to design and implement self-awareness in an ad hoc manner for every new sys- tem. Introducing self-awareness as a separate concept in the cyber-physical system (CPS) infrastructure—rather than as part of the application functionality—promises to simplify CPS development and operation. As CPSs are typically systems of systems, self-awareness must be coherent and consistent across the component systems. We believe that self-awareness, situation awareness, and attention are key enablers of efcient fog and mist