Identifying Error-Prone Software—An Empirical Study

A major portion of the effort expended in developing commercial software today is associated with program testing. Schedule and/ or resource constraints frequently require that testing be conducted so as to uncover the greatest number of errors possible in the time allowed. In this paper we describe a study undertaken to assess the potential usefulness of various product-and process-related measures in identifying error-prone software. Our goal was to establish an empirical basis for the efficient utilization of limited testing resources using objective, measurable criteria. Through a detailed analysis of three software products and their error discovery histories, we have found simple metrics related to the amount of data and the structural complexity of programs to be of value for this purpose.     

ESPRESO—A System for Process Control Software Specification

This paper outlines a specification system for process control software, named ESPRESO, which was developed at the Nuclear Research Center, Karlsruhe, West Germany. ESPRESO is based on some new ideas, which are combined with elements taken from other systems. ESPRESO consists of a set of concepts, a specification language, a tool for the management, evaluation and validation of specifications, and the method how to use the system. Language, tool, and method are carefully adapted to the concepts. The primary aim was to demonstrate some features of a specification system which are currently not available, rather than to provide a new tool for the software market.     

SEES—A Software testing Environment Support System

SEES is a database system to support program testing. The program database is automatically created during the compilation of the program by a compiler built using the YACC compiler-compiler.     

Software Reliability—Status and Perspectives

It is essential to assess the reliability of digital computer systems used for critical real-time control applications (e.g., nuclear power plant safety control systems). This involves the assessment of the design correctness of the combined hardware/software system as well as the reliability of the hardware. In this paper we survey methods of determining the design correctness of systems as applied to computer programs.     

Software for Hybrid Computation—Past,Present,and Future

To understand and appreciate the various software requirements for a hybrid computer system one must first understand the environment in which the system is used. It may perhaps also be useful to trace the evolution of the analog computer to the hybrid computer–specifically as hardware developments directed software developments.     

A Software Maintainability Evaluation Methodology

This paper describes a conceptual framework of software maintainability and an implemented procedure for evaluating a program's documentation and source code for maintainability characteristics. The evaluation procedure includes use of closed-form questionnaires completed by a group of evaluators. Statistical analysis techniques for validating the evaluation procedure are described. Some preliminary results from the use of this methodology by the Air Force Test and Evaluation Center are presented. Areas of future research are discussed.     

A Methodology for Collecting Valid Software Engineering Data

An effective data collection method for evaluating software development methodologies and for studying the software development process is described. The method uses goal-directed data collection to evaluate methodologies with respect to the claims made for them. Such claims are used as a basis for defining the goals of the data collection, establishing a list of questions of interest to be answered by data analysis, defining a set of data categorization schemes, and designing a data collection form. The data to be collected are based on the changes made to the software during development, and are obtained when the changes are made. To ensure accuracy of the data, validation is performed concurrently with software development and data collection. Validation is based on interviews with those people supplying the data. Results from using the methodology show that data validation is a necessary part of change data collection. Without it, as much as 50 percent of the data may be erroneous. Feasibility of the data collection methodology was demonstrated by applying it to five different projects in two different environments. The application showed that the methodology was both feasible and useful.     

Controlling the Software Life Cycle—The Project Management Task

This paper describes project management methods used for controlling the life cycle of large-scale software systems deployed in multiple instaltations over a wide geographic area. A set of management milestones is offered along with requirements and techniques for establishing and maintaining control of the project. In particular, a quantitative measure of software quality is proposed based upon functional value, availability, and maintenance costs. Conclusions drawn are based on the study of several cases and are generally applicable to both commercial and military systems.     

*MOD—A Language for Distributed Programming

Distributed programming is characterized by high communications costs and the inability to use shared variables and procedures for interprocessor synchronization and communication. *MOD is a high-level language system which attempts to address these problems by creating an environment conducive to efficient and reliable network software construction. Several of the *MOD distributed programming constructs are discussed as well as an interprocessor communication methodology. Examples illustrating these concepts are drawn from the areas of network communication and distributed process synchronization.     

The Software Life Cycle—A Management and Technological Challenge in the Department of Defense

The importance of software in defense systems continues to intensify as new systems emerge in response to increasing threats and declining force levels. The need to manage this software as a critical component of defense systems over their life cycle is becoming widely recognized. A general awareness of this need as an institutional problem requiring special attention within the Office of the Secretary of Defense has been growing as software problems have reached top level defense management visibility with increasing regularity. Software costs are continuing to multiply in step with advancing weapons systems sophistication, and opportunities for cost avoidance now are leveraged against large dollar investments. These conditions characterize the computer industry at large, but very little overall focus has been visible to improve the software development process. Consequently, the Department of Defense (DoD) has undertaken a two part effort to accelerate both near-term and long-term improvements in software development for weapons system applications. These efforts, the establishment of software life cycle management policy and practices, and the vigorous development and application of new software technology are discussed in considerable depth.     

Pulmonary Diffusion—A Model Study

Compared to even the most complex engineering systems, physiological systems are enormously difficult ones in which to conduct direct parametric studies. In this paper, we look at the application of computer simulation techniques to the study of pulmonary diffusion—a physiological process that is especially difficult to study in vivo ( i.e., experiments conducted on a living subject).     

Software Architecture Design Reasoning: A Case for Improved Methodology Support

Software architecture design is a critical aspect of developing large-scale software systems. However, the practice of architecture design reasoning is immature, partly because of a lack of practical methodology support. The authors discuss why capturing design rationale—the elements of design reasoning—is useful and how developers use it in architecture design. They demonstrate architecture design reasoning's application with a UML-based modeling method called Architecture Rationale and Elements Linkage.     

Muse—A Computer Assisted Verification System

Muse is a verification system which extends the collection of tools developed by SRI International for their Hierarchical Development Methodology (HDM). It enhances the SRI system by providing a capability for proving invariants and constraints for the state machine described by a specification written in SPECIAL (the specification language of HDM). In particular, it enables one to use the HDM system to meet the requirements for formal verification in a National Computer Security Center A1 evaluation of a secure operating system. In addition to the tools provided by SRI, Muse has a parser, a facility to handle multiple modules, a formula generator, and a theorem prover. The theorem prover has a number of interesting features designed to facilitate human direction of the proving process. In concept, it is open-ended. We introduce the notion of a theorem prover kernel as a device for ensuring the logical soundness of the prover in the face of continual improvements to its functionality.     

面向视点的可视化实时嵌入软件开发方法

面向视点的可视化实时嵌入软件开发方法（简称VOV方法）是专门针对实时嵌入式软件开发的一个解决方案,包括了问题描述,需求分析和软件设计3部分的“3 4 5立体建模”参考框架;主要特征是多视点观察,可视化描述,概念为中心,过程为导向,模型做驱动。     

A Hybrid Higher Order Neural Classifier for handling classification problems

In this paper, we propose a novel Hybrid Higher Order Neural Classifier (HHONC) which contains different high-order units. In contrast with conventional fully-connected higher order neural networks (HONN), our proposed method uses fewer learning parameters and allocates the best fitted model in dealing with different datasets by modifying the orders of different high-order units and updating the learning parameters. Structure, model selection and updating the learning parameters of HHONC is introduced and is applied in classification of the Iris data set, the breast cancer data set, the Wine recognition data set, the Glass identification data set, the Balance scale data set, and the Pima diabetes data set. Acquired results are compared with the methods presented in Chen and Shie (2009). It is observed that the fewer features the dataset contains, the more accurate the HHONC performs, however the accuracy of datasets with more features are acceptable. Experimental results show about 3.5% and 0.6% improvements compared to the best accuracy obtained in previously methods for classifying the Pima diabetes and Iris datasets, respectively. In addition, by using a same method for reducing the feature number, it’s shown the proposed method perform more accurate than methods presented in Shie and Chen (2008). In this case, improvements compared to the best acquired accuracy of mentioned methods are about 1.7%, 1.3% and 0.2% in classification of Pima, Iris and Breast cancer datasets, respectively.     

Process-Driven Software Development Methodology for Enterprise Information System

In today＇s process-centered business organization, it is imperative that enterprise information system must be converted from task-centered to process-centered system. However, traditional software development methodology is function-oriented, in which each function manages its own data and it results in redundancy because data that belongs to one object are stored by several functions. Proposed in this paper is a process-driven software development methodology, in which business process is a major concern and workflow functionalities are identified and specified throughout the entire development life cycle. In the proposed methodology, the development process, modeling tools and deliverables are clarified explicitly. Proposed methodology can be a guideline to practitioners involved in enterprise software development, of which workflow is an essential part.