Specification and Evaluation of Safety Properties in a Component-Based Software Engineering Process

Over the past years, component-based software engineering has become an established paradigm in the area of complex software intensive systems. However, many techniques for analyzing these systems for critical properties currently do not make use of the component orientation. In particular, safety analysis of component-based systems is an open field of research. In this chapter we investigate the problems arising and define a set of requirements that apply when adapting the analysis of safety properties to a component-based software engineering process. Based on these requirements some important component-oriented safety evaluation approaches are examined and compared.

BASS 4: a software system for ergonomic design and evaluation of working hours

OBJECTIVE: To extend an existing computer programme for the evaluation and design of shift schedules (BASS 3) by integrating workload as well as economic aspects. METHODS: The redesigned prototype BASS 4 includes a new module with a suitable and easily applicable screening method (EBA) for the assessment of the intensity of physical, emotional and cognitive workload components and their temporal patterns. Specified criterion functions based on these ratings allow for an adjustment of shift and rest duration according to the intensity of physical and mental workload. Furthermore, with regard to interactive effects both workload and temporal conditions, e.g. time of day, are taken into account. In a second new module, important economic aspects and criteria have been implemented. Different ergonomic solutions for scheduling problems can now also be evaluated with regard to their economic costs. RESULTS: The new version of the computer programme (BASS 4) can now simultaneously take into account numerous ergonomic, legal, agreed and economic criteria for the design and evaluation of working hours. CONCLUSIONS: BASS 4 can now be used as an instrument for the design and the evaluation of working hours with regard to legal, ergonomic and economic aspects at the shop floor as well as in administrative (e.g. health and safety inspection) and research problems.

Power Electronics course: Analysis and evaluation of the educational software and the environment learning

This paper presents the analysis and evaluation of the Power Electronics course at So Paulo State University-UNESP-Campus of Ilha Solteira(SP)-Brazil, which includes the usage of interactive Java simulations tools and an educational software to aid the teaching of power electronic converters. This platform serves as an oriented course for the lectures and supplementary support for laboratory experiments in the power electronics courses. The simulation tools provide an interactive and dynamic way to visualize the power electronics converters behavior together with the educational software, which contemplates the theory and a list of subjects for circuit simulations. In order to verify the performance and the effectiveness of the proposed interactive educational platform, it is presented a statistical analysis considering the last three years. © 2011 IEEE.

The effects of normalisation on the ability of business end-users to detect data anomalies: An experimental evaluation

With the proliferation of relational database programs for PC's and other platforms, many business end-users are creating, maintaining, and querying their own databases. More importantly, business end-users use the output of these queries as the basis for operational, tactical, and strategic decisions. Inaccurate data reduce the expected quality of these decisions. Implementing various input validation controls, including higher levels of normalisation, can reduce the number of data anomalies entering the databases. Even in well-maintained databases, however, data anomalies will still accumulate. To improve the quality of data, databases can be queried periodically to locate and correct anomalies. This paper reports the results of two experiments that investigated the effects of different data structures on business end-users' abilities to detect data anomalies in a relational database. The results demonstrate that both unnormalised and higher levels of normalisation lower the effectiveness and efficiency of queries relative to the first normal form. First normal form databases appear to provide the most effective and efficient data structure for business end-users formulating queries to detect data anomalies.

Comparative evaluation of underlying causes of death processed by the Automated Classification of Medical Entities and the Underlying Cause of Death Selection Systems

INTRODUCTION: The correct identification of the underlying cause of death and its precise assignment to a code from the International Classification of Diseases are important issues to achieve accurate and universally comparable mortality statistics These factors, among other ones, led to the development of computer software programs in order to automatically identify the underlying cause of death. OBJECTIVE: This work was conceived to compare the underlying causes of death processed respectively by the Automated Classification of Medical Entities (ACME) and the "Sistema de Seleção de Causa Básica de Morte" (SCB) programs. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The comparative evaluation of the underlying causes of death processed respectively by ACME and SCB systems was performed using the input data file for the ACME system that included deaths which occurred in the State of S. Paulo from June to December 1993, totalling 129,104 records of the corresponding death certificates. The differences between underlying causes selected by ACME and SCB systems verified in the month of June, when considered as SCB errors, were used to correct and improve SCB processing logic and its decision tables. RESULTS: The processing of the underlying causes of death by the ACME and SCB systems resulted in 3,278 differences, that were analysed and ascribed to lack of answer to dialogue boxes during processing, to deaths due to human immunodeficiency virus [HIV] disease for which there was no specific provision in any of the systems, to coding and/or keying errors and to actual problems. The detailed analysis of these latter disclosed that the majority of the underlying causes of death processed by the SCB system were correct and that different interpretations were given to the mortality coding rules by each system, that some particular problems could not be explained with the available documentation and that a smaller proportion of problems were identified as SCB errors. CONCLUSION: These results, disclosing a very low and insignificant number of actual problems, guarantees the use of the version of the SCB system for the Ninth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases and assures the continuity of the work which is being undertaken for the Tenth Revision version.

Propuesta para incorporar evaluación y pruebas de usabilidad dentro de un proceso de desarrollo de software

Usability is critical to consider an interactive software system successful. Usability testing and evaluation during product development have gained wide acceptance as a strategy to improve product quality. Early introduction of usability perspectives in a product is very important in order to provide a clear visibility of the quality aspects not only for the developers, but also for the testing users as well. However, usability evaluation and testing are not commonly taken into consideration as an essential element of the software development process. Then, this paper exposes a proposal to introduce usability evaluation and testing within a software development through reuse of software artifacts. Additionally, it suggests the introduction of an auditor within the classification of actors for usability tests. It also proposes an improvement of checklists used for heuristics evaluation, adding quantitative and qualitative aspects to them

Measuring software security from the design of software

The vast majority of our contemporary society owns a mobile phone, which has resulted in a dramatic rise in the amount of networked computers in recent years. Security issues in the computers have followed the same trend and nearly everyone is now affected by such issues. How could the situation be improved? For software engineers, an obvious answer is to build computer software with security in mind. A problem with building software with security is how to define secure software or how to measure security. This thesis divides the problem into three research questions. First, how can we measure the security of software? Second, what types of tools are available for measuring security? And finally, what do these tools reveal about the security of software? Measuring tools of these kind are commonly called metrics. This thesis is focused on the perspective of software engineers in the software design phase. Focus on the design phase means that code level semantics or programming language specifics are not discussed in this work. Organizational policy, management issues or software development process are also out of the scope. The first two research problems were studied using a literature review while the third was studied using a case study research. The target of the case study was a Java based email server called Apache James, which had details from its changelog and security issues available and the source code was accessible. The research revealed that there is a consensus in the terminology on software security. Security verification activities are commonly divided into evaluation and assurance. The focus of this work was in assurance, which means to verify one’s own work. There are 34 metrics available for security measurements, of which five are evaluation metrics and 29 are assurance metrics. We found, however, that the general quality of these metrics was not good. Only three metrics in the design category passed the inspection criteria and could be used in the case study. The metrics claim to give quantitative information on the security of the software, but in practice they were limited to evaluating different versions of the same software. Apart from being relative, the metrics were unable to detect security issues or point out problems in the design. Furthermore, interpreting the metrics’ results was difficult. In conclusion, the general state of the software security metrics leaves a lot to be desired. The metrics studied had both theoretical and practical issues, and are not suitable for daily engineering workflows. The metrics studied provided a basis for further research, since they pointed out areas where the security metrics were necessary to improve whether verification of security from the design was desired.

Evaluation of Impression Accuracy for Implant at Various Angulations

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Evaluation of the dentin-pulp complex after cavity preparation with ultrasonic diamond tip

The aim of this paper was to compare the dentin-pulp complex response to cavity preparation in human teeth using ultrasonic chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond tip and high-speed diamond bur. Class V buccal cavities were randomly prepared in 40 premolars from 14 patients aged 11 to 15 years. The cutting time was recorded and the cavities had the axial walls protected with gutta-percha and were filled with glass ionomer cement. The teeth were extracted at intervals of 0, 5, 10 and 20 days, and were decalcified, sectioned and stained by Hematoxylin & Eosin, Masson's Trichrome and Brown & Brenn techniques. The inflammatory response and cell disorganization were blindly evaluated by two examiners. The remaining dentin thickness (RDT) was measured by a linear scale using computer software. Statistical analysis by one-way ANOVA showed no statistically significant difference (P≤0.05) among the cavities prepared with either type of instrument, with mean RDT of 1132.50 mm. Cutting time and the pulp-dentin complex responses were analyzed statistically by Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn tests (P≤0.05). The ultrasonic CVD diamond tip took 5 times longer to prepare the cavities and there were no typical inflammatory pulp responses in cavities prepared with either type of cutting instrument, only mild to moderate cell disorganization was present. Even taking longer to cut the dental substrate, the ultrasonic CVD diamond tip produced similar pulp response compared to the conventional high-speed diamond bur.

Scheduler simulation using iSPD, an iconic-based computer grid simulator

Increased accessibility to high-performance computing resources has created a demand for user support through performance evaluation tools like the iSPD (iconic Simulator for Parallel and Distributed systems), a simulator based on iconic modelling for distributed environments such as computer grids. It was developed to make it easier for general users to create their grid models, including allocation and scheduling algorithms. This paper describes how schedulers are managed by iSPD and how users can easily adopt the scheduling policy that improves the system being simulated. A thorough description of iSPD is given, detailing its scheduler manager. Some comparisons between iSPD and Simgrid simulations, including runs of the simulated environment in a real cluster, are also presented. © 2012 IEEE.

Computational support for the process of software requirement specification

The software industry has become more and more concerned with the appropriate application of activities that composes requirement engineering as a way to improve the quality of its products. In order to support these activities, several computational tools have been available in the market, although it is still possible to find a lack of resources related to some activities. In this context, this paper proposes the inclusion of a module to aid in the requirements specification to a tool called Requirements Elicitation Support Tool. This module allows to specify requirements in accordance with IEEE 830 standard, thus contributing to the documentation of the requirements established for a software system, besides supporting the learning of concepts related to the requirements specification, which improves the skills of users of the tool. © 2012 IEEE.

Assessing Needs for Computer Pest Management Software in Nebraska Agriculture

A mail survey was conducted to assess current computer hardware use and perceived needs of potential users for software related to crop pest management in Nebraska. Surveys were sent to University of Nebraska-Lincoln agricultural extension agents, agribusiness personnel (including independent crop consultants), and crop producers identified by extension agents as computer users. There were no differences between the groups in several aspects of computer hardware use (percentage computer use, percentage IBM-compatible computer, amount of RAM memory, percentage with hard drive, hard drive size, or monitor graphics capability). Responses were similar among the three groups in several areas that are important to crop pest management (pest identification, pest biology, treatment decision making, control options, and pesticide selection), and a majority of each group expressed the need for additional sources of such information about insects, diseases, and weeds. However, agents mentioned vertebrate pest management information as a need more often than the other two groups. Also, majorities of each group expressed an interest in using computer software, if available, to obtain information in these areas. Appropriate software to address these needs should find an audience among all three groups.