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NASA NTRS1998

Composing, Analyzing and Validating Software Models

This research has been conducted at the Computational Sciences Division of the Information Sciences Directorate at Ames Research Center (Automated Software Engineering Grp). The principle work this summer has been to review and refine the agenda that were carried forward from last summer. Formal specifications provide good support for designing a functionally correct system, however they are weak at incorporating non-functional performance requirements (like reliability). Techniques which utilize stochastic Petri nets (SPNs) are good for evaluating the performance and reliability for a system, but they may be too abstract and cumbersome from the stand point of specifying and evaluating functional behavior. Therefore, one major objective of this research is to provide an integrated approach to assist the user in specifying both functionality (qualitative: mutual exclusion and synchronization) and performance requirements (quantitative: reliability and execution deadlines). In this way, the merits of a powerful modeling technique for performability analysis (using SPNs) can be combined with a well-defined formal specification language. In doing so, we can come closer to providing a formal approach to designing a functionally correct system that meets reliability and performance goals.

Sheldon, Frederick T.↗

NASA NTRS1995

The Empirical Investigation of Perspective-Based Reading

We consider reading techniques a fundamental means of achieving high quality software. Due to lack of research in this area, we are experimenting with the application and comparison of various reading techniques. This paper deals with our experiences with Perspective Based Reading (PBR) a particular reading technique for requirement documents. The goal of PBR is to provide operation scenarios where members of a review team read a document from a particular perspective (eg., tester, developer, user). Our assumption is that the combination of different perspective provides better coverage of the document than the same number of readers using their usual technique. To test the efficacy of PBR, we conducted two runs of a controlled experiment in the environment of NASA GSFC Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL), using developers from the environment. The subjects read two types of documents, one generic in nature and the other from the NASA Domain, using two reading techniques, PBR and their usual technique. The results from these experiment as well as the experimental design, are presented and analyzed. When there is a statistically significant distinction, PBR performs better than the subjects' usual technique. However, PBR appears to be more effective on the generic documents than on the NASA documents.

Basili, Victor R.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Continuous Risk Management Course

This document includes a course plan for Continuous Risk Management taught by the Software Assurance Technology Center along with the Continuous Risk Management Guidebook of the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and a description of Continuous Risk Management at NASA.

Hammer, Theodore F.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Metrics of a Paradigm for Intelligent Control

We present metrics for quantifying organizational structures of complex control systems intended for controlling long-lived robotic or other autonomous applications commonly found in space applications. Such advanced control systems are often called integration platforms or agent architectures. Reported metrics span concerns about time, resources, software engineering, and complexities in the world.

Hexmoor, Henry↗

NASA NTRS1999

Continuous Risk Management at NASA

NPG 7120.5A, "NASA Program and Project Management Processes and Requirements" enacted in April, 1998, requires that "The program or project manager shall apply risk management principles..." The Software Assurance Technology Center (SATC) at NASA GSFC has been tasked with the responsibility for developing and teaching a systems level course for risk management that provides information on how to comply with this edict. The course was developed in conjunction with the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, then tailored to the NASA systems community. This presentation will briefly discuss the six functions for risk management: (1) Identify the risks in a specific format; (2) Analyze the risk probability, impact/severity, and timeframe; (3) Plan the approach; (4) Track the risk through data compilation and analysis; (5) Control and monitor the risk; (6) Communicate and document the process and decisions. This risk management structure of functions has been taught to projects at all NASA Centers and is being successfully implemented on many projects. This presentation will give project managers the information they need to understand if risk management is to be effectively implemented on their projects at a cost they can afford.

Hammer, Theodore F.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Continuous Risk Management: A NASA Program Initiative

Hammer, Theodore F.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Continuous Risk Management: An Overview

Software risk management is important because it helps avoid disasters, rework, and overkill, but more importantly because it stimulates win-win situations. The objectives of software risk management are to identify, address, and eliminate software risk items before they become threats to success or major sources of rework. In general, good project managers are also good managers of risk. It makes good business sense for all software development projects to incorporate risk management as part of project management. The Software Assurance Technology Center (SATC) at NASA GSFC has been tasked with the responsibility for developing and teaching a systems level course for risk management that provides information on how to implement risk management. The course was developed in conjunction with the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, then tailored to the NASA systems community. This is an introductory tutorial to continuous risk management based on this course. The rational for continuous risk management and how it is incorporated into project management are discussed. The risk management structure of six functions is discussed in sufficient depth for managers to understand what is involved in risk management and how it is implemented. These functions include: (1) Identify the risks in a specific format; (2) Analyze the risk probability, impact/severity, and timeframe; (3) Plan the approach; (4) Track the risk through data compilation and analysis; (5) Control and monitor the risk; (6) Communicate and document the process and decisions.

Rosenberg, Linda↗

NASA NTRS1998

Cooperation Among Theorem Provers

This is a final report, which supports NASA's PECSEE (Persistent Cognizant Software Engineering Environment) effort and complements the Kestrel Institute project "Inference System Integration via Logic Morphism". The ultimate purpose of the project is to develop a superior logical inference mechanism by combining the diverse abilities of multiple cooperating theorem provers. In many years of research, a number of powerful theorem-proving systems have arisen with differing capabilities and strengths. Resolution theorem provers (such as Kestrel's KITP or SRI's, SNARK) deal with first-order logic with equality but not the principle of mathematical induction. The Boyer-Moore theorem prover excels at proof by induction but cannot deal with full first-order logic. Both are highly automated but cannot accept user guidance easily. The PVS system (from SRI) in only automatic within decidable theories, but it has well-designed interactive capabilities: furthermore, it includes higher-order logic, not just first-order logic. The NuPRL system from Cornell University and the STeP system from Stanford University have facilities for constructive logic and temporal logic, respectively - both are interactive. It is often suggested - for example, in the anonymous "QED Manifesto"-that we should pool the resources of all these theorem provers into a single system, so that the strengths of one can compensate for the weaknesses of others, and so that effort will not be duplicated. However, there is no straightforward way of doing this, because each system relies on its own language and logic for its success. Thus. SNARK uses ordinary first-order logic with equality, PVS uses higher-order logic. and NuPRL uses constructive logic. The purpose of this project, and the companion project at Kestrel, has been to use the category-theoretic notion of logic morphism to combine systems with different logics and languages. Kestrel's SPECWARE system has been the vehicle for the implementation.

Waldinger, Richard J.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Combining Automated Theorem Provers with Symbolic Algebraic Systems: Position Paper

In contrast to pure mathematical applications where automated theorem provers (ATPs) are quite capable, proof tasks arising form real-world applications from the area of Software Engineering show quite different characteristics: they usually do not only contain much arithmetic (albeit often quite simple one), but they also often contain reasoning about specific structures (e.g. graphics, sets). Thus, an ATP must be capable of performing reasoning together with a fair amount of simplification, calculation and solving. Therefore, powerful simplifiers and other (symbolic and semi-symbolic) algorithms seem to be ideally suited to augment ATPs. In the following we shortly describe two major points of interest in combining SASs (symbolic algebraic systems) with top-down automated theorem provers (here: SETHEO [Let92, GLMS94]).

Schumann, Johann↗

NASA NTRS1994

User Interface Technology for Formal Specification Development

Formal specification development and modification are an essential component of the knowledge-based software life cycle. User interface technology is needed to empower end-users to create their own formal specifications. This paper describes the advanced user interface for AMPHION1 a knowledge-based software engineering system that targets scientific subroutine libraries. AMPHION is a generic, domain-independent architecture that is specialized to an application domain through a declarative domain theory. Formal specification development and reuse is made accessible to end-users through an intuitive graphical interface that provides semantic guidance in creating diagrams denoting formal specifications in an application domain. The diagrams also serve to document the specifications. Automatic deductive program synthesis ensures that end-user specifications are correctly implemented. The tables that drive AMPHION's user interface are automatically compiled from a domain theory; portions of the interface can be customized by the end-user. The user interface facilitates formal specification development by hiding syntactic details, such as logical notation. It also turns some of the barriers for end-user specification development associated with strongly typed formal languages into active sources of guidance, without restricting advanced users. The interface is especially suited for specification modification. AMPHION has been applied to the domain of solar system kinematics through the development of a declarative domain theory. Testing over six months with planetary scientists indicates that AMPHION's interactive specification acquisition paradigm enables users to develop, modify, and reuse specifications at least an order of magnitude more rapidly than manual program development.

Lowry, Michael↗

NASA NTRS2001

Research Prototype: Automated Analysis of Scientific and Engineering Semantics

Physical and mathematical formulae and concepts are fundamental elements of scientific and engineering software. These classical equations and methods are time tested, universally accepted, and relatively unambiguous. The existence of this classical ontology suggests an ideal problem for automated comprehension. This problem is further motivated by the pervasive use of scientific code and high code development costs. To investigate code comprehension in this classical knowledge domain, a research prototype has been developed. The prototype incorporates scientific domain knowledge to recognize code properties (including units, physical, and mathematical quantity). Also, the procedure implements programming language semantics to propagate these properties through the code. This prototype's ability to elucidate code and detect errors will be demonstrated with state of the art scientific codes.

Stewart, Mark E. M.↗

NASA NTRS1998

Taking the Heat Off Thermal Loads

Under an SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) contract with Goddard Space Flight Center, (NAS5-32730), Frederick A. Costello, Inc., has developed a low cost computer program for integrating thermal modeling with other engineering disciplines. TCON(tm) Concurrent Engineering Software enables graphical user-interface programs to create three dimensional models. This technology reduces time, and facilitates accuracy while performing these applications. TCON(tm) has been sold to NASA and major US industries.

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NASA NTRS2002

Verification and Validation of Neural Networks for Aerospace Systems

The Dryden Flight Research Center V&V working group and NASA Ames Research Center Automated Software Engineering (ASE) group collaborated to prepare this report. The purpose is to describe V&V processes and methods for certification of neural networks for aerospace applications, particularly adaptive flight control systems like Intelligent Flight Control Systems (IFCS) that use neural networks. This report is divided into the following two sections: Overview of Adaptive Systems and V&V Processes/Methods.

Mackall, Dale↗

NASA NTRS2002

Verification and Validation of Neural Networks for Aerospace Systems

The Dryden Flight Research Center V&V working group and NASA Ames Research Center Automated Software Engineering (ASE) group collaborated to prepare this report. The purpose is to describe V&V processes and methods for certification of neural networks for aerospace applications, particularly adaptive flight control systems like Intelligent Flight Control Systems (IFCS) that use neural networks. This report is divided into the following two sections: 1) Overview of Adaptive Systems; and 2) V&V Processes/Methods.

Mackall, Dale↗

NASA NTRS1992

Small Business Innovations

The purpose of QASE RT is to enable system analysts and software engineers to evaluate performance and reliability implications of design alternatives. The program resulted from two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects. After receiving a description of the system architecture and workload from the user, QASE RT translates the system description into simulation models and executes them. Simulation provides detailed performance evaluation. The results of the evaluations are service and response times, offered load and device utilizations and functional availability.

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NASA NTRS2003

Propel: Tools and Methods for Practical Source Code Model Checking

The work reported here is an overview and snapshot of a project to develop practical model checking tools for in-the-loop verification of NASA s mission-critical, multithreaded programs in Java and C++. Our strategy is to develop and evaluate both a design concept that enables the application of model checking technology to C++ and Java, and a model checking toolset for C++ and Java. The design concept and the associated model checking toolset is called Propel. It builds upon the Java PathFinder (JPF) tool, an explicit state model checker for Java applications developed by the Automated Software Engineering group at NASA Ames Research Center. The design concept that we are developing is Design for Verification (D4V). This is an adaption of existing best design practices that has the desired side-effect of enhancing verifiability by improving modularity and decreasing accidental complexity. D4V, we believe, enhances the applicability of a variety of V&V approaches; we are developing the concept in the context of model checking. The model checking toolset, Propel, is based on extending JPF to handle C++. Our principal tasks in developing the toolset are to build a translator from C++ to Java, productize JPF, and evaluate the toolset in the context of D4V. Through all these tasks we are testing Propel capabilities on customer applications.

Mansouri-Samani, Massoud↗

NASA NTRS2003

Aspects, Wrappers and Events

This viewgraph presentation provides information on Object Infrastructure Framework (OIF), an Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) system. The presentation begins with an introduction to the difficulties and requirements of distributed computing, including functional and non-functional requirements (ilities). The architecture of Distributed Object Technology includes stubs, proxies for implementation objects, and skeletons, proxies for client applications. The key OIF ideas (injecting behavior, annotated communications, thread contexts, and pragma) are discussed. OIF is an AOP mechanism; AOP is centered on: 1) Separate expression of crosscutting concerns; 2) Mechanisms to weave the separate expressions into a unified system. AOP is software engineering technology for separately expressing systematic properties while nevertheless producing running systems that embody these properties.

Filman, Robert E.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Case for Deploying Complex Systems Utilizing Commodity Components

This viewgraph representation presents a study of the transition of computer networks and software engineering at the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) from a client/server UNIX based system to a client/server system based on commodity priced and open system components. Topics covered include: an overview of HOSC ground support systems, an analysis for changes to the existing ground support system, an analysis of options considered for the transition to a new system, and a consideration of goals for a new system.

Bryant, Barry S.↗