The NASA automated requirements measurement tool: a reconstruction

In the late 1990s the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Software Assurance Technology Center (SATC) developed a tool to automatically analyze a requirements document and produce a detailed quality report. The report was based on statistical analysis of word frequencies at various structural levels of the document. The Automated Requirements Measurement (ARM) tool was further enhanced to include additional functionality such as custom definitions of quality indicators inputs for document analysis. By 2011 work on the ARM tool was discontinued. This paper describes the reverse-engineering and reproduction of the functionality of ARM. Recreating the functionality of this tool yielded valuable insight into certain quality metrics and provides a benchmark tool for future research. In addition to recreating and working with the ARM tool, this paper explores both existing and potential definitions of quality metrics in requirements specifications. Automated requirements analysis is a convergence of various fields of research, including text mining, quality analysis, and natural language processing. Informed by tangential areas of research in document understanding and data mining, recommendations are made for future areas of research and development in automated requirements analysis.     

Chemical Stability of the Fiber Coating Matrix Interface in Silicon-Based Ceramic Matrix Composites

Carbon and boron nitride are used as fiber coatings in silicon-based composites. In order to assess the long-term stability of these materials, reactions of carbon/Si₃N₄ and BN/SiC were studied at high temperatures with Knudsen effusion, coupon tests, and by microstructural examination. In the carbon/Si₃N₄ system, carbon reacted with Si₃N₄ to form gaseous N₂ and SiC. The formation of SiC limited further reaction by physically separating the carbon and Si₃N₄. Consequently, the development of high p (N₂) at the interface, predicted from thermochemical calculations, did not occur, thus limiting the potential deleterious effects of the reaction on the composite. Strong indications of a reaction between BN and SiC were shown by TEM and SIMS analysis of the BN/SiC interface. In long-term exposures, this reaction can lead to a depletion of a BN coating and/or an unfavorable change of the interfacial properties, limiting the beneficial effects of the coating.     

Neutral sterols of sawflies (symphyta): Their relationship to other hymenoptera

To investigate sterol utilization in sawflies, the neutral sterols of four species of sawflies were determined by gas-liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, and compared to the respective dietary plant material. Cholesterol was the predominant (55–76%) sterol in all species and stages of sawflies examined. Host plants, however, contained primarily sitosterol (50–88%), along with other 24-alkylsterols and only 0.5–5.9% cholesterol, indicating that the sawflies examined are capable of dealkylating the C₂₈ and C₂₉ phytosterols in their diet to cholesterol. Comparative sterol metabolism in Hymenoptera is discussed.     

An embedding approach for the design of state‐feedback tracking controllers for references with jumps

We study the problem of designing state‐feedback controllers to track time‐varying state trajectories that may exhibit jumps. Both plants and controllers considered are modeled as hybrid dynamical systems, which are systems with both continuous and discrete dynamics, given in terms of a flow set, a flow map, a jump set, and a jump map. Using recently developed tools for the study of stability in hybrid systems, we recast the tracking problem as the task of asymptotically stabilizing a set, the tracking set, and derive conditions for the design of state‐feedback tracking controllers with the property that the jump times of the plant coincide with those of the given reference trajectories. The resulting tracking controllers guarantee that solutions of the plant starting close to the reference trajectory stay close to it and that the difference between each solution of the controlled plant and the reference trajectory converges to zero asymptotically. Constructive conditions for tracking control design in terms of LMIs are proposed for a class of hybrid systems with linear maps and input‐triggered jumps. The results are illustrated by various examples. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Approximate similarity search for online multimedia services on distributed CPU–GPU platforms

Similarity search in high-dimensional spaces is a pivotal operation for several database applications, including online content-based multimedia services. With the increasing popularity of multimedia applications, these services are facing new challenges regarding (1) the very large and growing volumes of data to be indexed/searched and (2) the necessity of reducing the response times as observed by end-users. In addition, the nature of the interactions between users and online services creates fluctuating query request rates throughout execution, which requires a similarity search engine to adapt to better use the computation platform and minimize response times. In this work, we address these challenges with Hypercurves, a flexible framework for answering approximate k-nearest neighbor (kNN) queries for very large multimedia databases. Hypercurves executes in hybrid CPU–GPU environments and is able to attain massive query-processing rates through the cooperative use of these devices. Hypercurves also changes its CPU–GPU task partitioning dynamically according to the observed load, aiming for optimal response times. In our empirical evaluation, dynamic task partitioning reduced query response times by approximately 50 % compared to the best static task partition. Due to a probabilistic proof of equivalence to the sequential kNN algorithm, the CPU–GPU execution of Hypercurves in distributed (multi-node) environments can be aggressively optimized, attaining superlinear scalability while still guaranteeing, with high probability, results at least as good as those from the sequential algorithm.     

Ractions of SiC with H2/H2O/Ar Mixtures at 1300°C

The reactions of a sintered α-SiC with 5% H₂/H₂O/Ar at 1300°C were studied. Thermomchemical modeling indicates that three reaction regions are expected, depending on the initial water vapor or equivalently oxygen content of the gas stream. A high oxygen content ( P (O₂) > 10⁻²² atm) leads to a SiO₂ formation. This generally forms as a protective film and limits consumption of the SiC (passive oxidation). An intermediate oxygen content (10⁻²² atm > P (O₂) > 10⁻²⁶ atm) leads to SiO and CO formation. These gaseous products can lead to rapid consumption of the SiC (active oxidation). Thermogravimetric studies in this intermediate region gave reaction rates which appear to be controlled by H₂O gas-phase transport to the sample and reacted microstructures showed extensive grain-boundary attack in this region. Finally, a very low oxygen content ( P (O₂) < 10⁻²⁶ atm) is thermochemically predicted to lead to selective removal of carbon and formation of free silicon. Experimentally low weight losses and iron silicides are observed in this region. The iron silicides are attributed to reaction of free silicon and iron impurities in the system.     

Subcritical crack growth and threshold in borosilicate glass

The crack-growth behaviour of borosilicate glass was investigated by use of lifetime measurements on Knoop-damaged specimens. The threshold behaviour in particular was observed, and the influence of residual wedging stresses and preloading below the threshold value were studied in detail. A threshold ofK _lth = 0.38 MPam^1/2 was found. The residual stress intensity factor caused by the Knoop indentations was found to beK _lres,0 0.1 MPam^1/2. In a static test performed below the threshold, the threshold value was increased by K _lth 0.15MPam^1/2.     

Anticipating Degradation in State Estimation Accuracy via Online Nonlinear Observability Analysis

A methodology is proposed to enable real-time evaluation of the observability of local motions, and generate a local observability cost map to enable informed local motion planning in order to avoid potential degradation or degeneracy in state estimator performance. The proposed approach leverages efficient numerical techniques in nonlinear observability analysis and motion primitive-based planning technique to realize the local observability prediction with real-time performance. The degradation of the state estimation performance can be readily predicted with the local observability evaluation result. The proposed approach is specialized to a representative optimization-based monocular visual-inertial state estimation formulation and evaluated through simulation and experiments. The experimental results demonstrated the ability of the proposed methodology to correctly anticipate the potential state estimation degradation.     

Characterization of PA-12 specimens fabricated by projection sintering at various sintering parameters

Large area projection sintering (LAPS) promises to be a new method in the field of additive manufacturing. Developed in the Mechanical Engineering Department, University of South Florida, LAPS uses long exposure times over a broad area of powder to fuse into dense, reproducible materials. In contrast, LS, a common powder-based additive manufacturing, uses a focused beam of light scanned quickly over the material. Local regions of concentrated high-energy bursts of light lead to higher peak temperatures and differing cooling dynamics and overall crystallinity. The mechanical properties of laser sintered specimens suffer because of uneven particle fusion. LAPS offers the capacity to fine-tune fusion properties through enhanced thermodynamic control of the heating and cooling profiles for sintering. Further research is required to identify the relationship between LAPS build settings and part properties to enable the fabrication of custom parts with desired properties. This study examines the influence of LAPS sintering parameters on chemical structures, crystallinity, mechanical, and thermal properties of polyamide-12 specimens using powder X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, small-angle X-ray scattering, scanning electron microscopy, and microhardness testing. It was observed that higher crystallinity was imparted to specimens that were sintered for a shorter time and vice versa.     

XPS investigations of electrochemically formed passive layers on Fe/Cr-alloys in 0.5 M H2SO4

Passive layers on Fe20Cr and Fe15Cr were prepared by anodic oxidation in 0.5 M H₂SO₄ and were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The preparation of the sputter-cleaned samples and their transfer to the ultrahigh vacuum was performed under protection of purified argon without any contact to the laboratory atmosphere. The prepassive layer consists of a homogeneous film with Cr(III)hydroxide and Cr(III)-sulphate with a low content of Fe(II). In the passive potential range a bilayer structure with enrichment of Cr(III)-oxides with an outer hydroxide and an inner oxide part is formed. Iron exists only in a bivalent oxidation state. In the transpassive potential range a pronounced change of the layer composition was observed: The outer part of the transpassive layer is formed predominantly by Fe(III) species whereas the inner part still contains a strong enrichment of Cr₂O₃.