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Understanding how to implement software process improvement (SRI) successfully is arguably the most challenging issue facing the SPI field today. The SPI literature contains many case studies of successful companies and descriptions of their SRI programs. However, the research efforts to date are limited and inconclusive and without adequate theoretical and psychometric justification. This paper extends and integrates models from prior research by performing an empirical investigation of the key factors for success in SPI. A quantitative survey of 120 software organizations was designed to test the conceptual model and hypotheses of the study. The results indicate that success depends critically on six organizational factors, which explained more than 50 percent of the variance in the outcome variable. The main contribution of the paper is to increase the understanding of the influence of organizational issues by empirically showing that they are at least as important as technology for succeeding with SPI and, thus, to provide researchers and practitioners with important new insights regarding the critical factors of success in SPI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New compact, low-power implementation technologies for processors and imaging arrays can enable a new generation of portable video products. However, software compatibility with large bodies of existing applications written in C prevents more efficient, higher performance data parallel architectures from being used in these embedded products. If this software could be automatically retargeted explicitly for data parallel execution, product designers could incorporate these architectures into embedded products. The key challenge is exposing the parallelism that is inherent in these applications but that is obscured by artifacts imposed by sequential programming languages. This paper presents a recognition-based approach for automatically extracting a data parallel program model from sequential image processing code and retargeting it to data parallel execution mechanisms. The explicitly parallel model presented, called multidimensional data flow (MDDF), captures a model of how operations on data regions (e.g., rows, columns, and tiled blocks) are composed and interact. To extract an MDDF model, a partial recognition technique is used that focuses on identifying array access patterns in loops, transforming only those program elements that hinder parallelization, while leaving the core algorithmic computations intact. The paper presents results of retargeting a set of production programs to a representative data parallel processor array to demonstrate the capacity to extract parallelism using this technique. The retargeted applications yield a potential execution throughput limited only by the number of processing elements, exceeding thousands of instructions per cycle in massively parallel implementations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we: 1) discuss the need for quantitatively reproducible experiments in the study of top-down design; 2) propose the design and writing of tutorial papers as a suitably general and in- expensive vehicle; 3) suggest the software science parameters as appropriate metrics; 4) report two experiments validating the use of these metrics on outlines and prose; and 5) demonstrate that the experiments tended toward the same optimal modularity. The last point appears to offer a quantitative approach to the estimation of the total length or volume (and the mental effort required to produce it) from an early stage of the top-down design process. If results of these experiments are validated elsewhere, then they will provide basic guidelines for the design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embedded assertions have been recognized as a potentially powerful tool for automatic runtime detection of software faults during debugging, testing, maintenance and even production versions of software systems. Yet despite the richness of the notations and the maturity of the techniques and tools that have been developed for programming with assertions, assertions are a development tool that has seen little widespread use in practice. The main reasons seem to be that (1) previous assertion processing tools did not integrate easily with existing programming environments, and (2) it is not well understood what kinds of assertions are most effective at detecting software faults. This paper describes experience using an assertion processing tool that was built to address the concerns of ease-of-use and effectiveness. The tool is called APP, an Annotation PreProcessor for C programs developed in UNIX-based development environments. APP has been used in the development of a variety of software systems over the past five years. Based on this experience, the paper presents a classification of the assertions that were most effective at detecting faults. While the assertions that are described guard against many common kinds of faults and errors, the very commonness of such faults demonstrates the need for an explicit, high-level, automatically checkable specification of required behavior. It is hoped that the classification presented in this paper will prove to be a useful first step in developing a method of programming with assertions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a paper by Hawthorn and DeWitt, the projected performance of several proposed database machines was examined for three relational database queries. The present paper investigates the performance of a massively parallel machine called NON-VON for the same queries under comparable assumptions. In the case of simple queries, a NON-VON machine of comparable size to those considered by Hawthorn and DeWitt is found to be somewhat faster than the fast- est machines examined in their study; for a more complex database operation, NON-VON is shown to be five to ten times faster than the fastest of these machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calculating with graphs and relations has many applications in the analysis of software systems, for example, the detection of design patterns or patterns of problematic design and the computation of design metrics. These applications require an expressive query language, in particular, for the detection of graph patterns, and an efficient evaluation of the queries even for large graphs. In this paper, we introduce RML, a simple language for querying and manipulating relations based on predicate calculus, and CrocoPat, an interpreter for RML programs. RML is general because it enables the manipulation not only of graphs (i.e., binary relations), but of relations of arbitrary arity. CrocoPat executes RML programs efficiently because it internally represents relations as binary decision diagrams, a data structure that is well-known as a compact representation of large relations in computer-aided verification. We evaluate RML by giving example programs for several software analyses and CrocoPat by comparing its performance with calculators for binary relations, a Prolog system, and a relational database management system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an FP-like approach, named Class Point, which was conceived to estimate the size of object-oriented products. In particular, two measures are proposed, which are theoretically validated showing that they satisfy well-known properties necessary for size measures. An initial empirical validation is also performed, meant to assess the usefulness and effectiveness of the proposed measures to predict the development effort of object-oriented systems. Moreover, a comparative analysis is carried out, taking into account several other size measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationships between coupling and external quality factors of object-oriented software have been studied extensively for the past few years. For example, several, studies have identified clear empirical relationships between class-level coupling and class fault-proneness. A common way to define and measure coupling is through structural properties and static code analysis. However, because of polymorphism, dynamic binding, and the common presence of unused ("dead") code in commercial software, the resulting coupling measures are imprecise as they do not perfectly reflect the actual coupling taking place among classes at runtime. For example, when using static analysis to measure coupling, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to determine what actual methods can be invoked from a client class if those methods are overridden in the subclasses of the server classes. Coupling measurement has traditionally been performed using static code analysis, because most of the existing work was done on nonobject oriented code and because dynamic code analysis is more expensive and complex to perform. For modem software systems, however, this focus on static analysis can be problematic because although dynamic binding existed before the advent of object-orientation, its usage has increased significantly in the last decade. This paper describes how coupling can be defined and precisely measured based on dynamic analysis of systems. We refer to this type of coupling as dynamic coupling. An empirical evaluation of the proposed dynamic coupling measures is reported in which we study the relationship of these measures with the change proneness of classes. Data from maintenance releases of a large Java system are used for this purpose. Preliminary results suggest that some dynamic coupling measures are significant indicators of change proneness and that they complement existing coupling measures based on static analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract requirements specification states system requirements precisely without describing a real or a paradigm implementation. Although such specifications have important advantages, they are difficult to produce for complex systems and hence are seldom seen in the "real" programming world. This paper introduces an approach to producing abstract requirements specifications that applies to a significant class of real-world systems, including any system that must reconstruct data that have undergone a sequence of transformations. It also describes how the approach was used to produce a requirements document for SCP, a small, but nontrivial Navy communications system. The specification techniques used in the SCP requirements document are introduced and illustrated with examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

-c_Halstead proposed a methodology for studying the process of programming known as software science. This methodology merges theories from cognitive psychology with theories from computer science. There is evidence that some of the assumptions of software science incorrectly apply the results of cognitive psychology studies. Halstead proposed theories relative to human memory models that appear to be without support from psychologists. Other software scientists, however, report empirical evidence that may support some of those theories. This anomaly places aspects of software science in a precarious position. The three conflicting issues discussed in this paper are 1) limitations of short-term memory and number of subroutine parameters, 2) searches in human memory and programming effort, and 3) psychological time and programming time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modula is a new programming language for implementing dedicated, parallel systems. Following a systematic design technique, this paper illustrates the use of Modula for the design of a message switching communication system. A message switching system poses a number of interesting problems: a high degree of concurrent activity exists, a variety of I/O devices need to be controlled, messages can have multiple destinations, and messages can be preempted. The strengths and weaknesses of Modula with respect to these specific problems and its utility as a general purpose language are evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of multitolerance abstracts problems in system dependability and provides a basis for improved design of dependable systems. In the abstraction, each source of undependability in the system is represented as a class of faults, and the corresponding ability of the system to deal with that undependability source is represented as a type of tolerance. Multitolerance thus refers to the ability of the system to tolerate multiple fault-classes, each in a possibly different way. In this paper, we present a component based method for designing multitolerance. Two types of components are employed by the method, namely detectors and correctors. A theory of detectors, correctors, and their interference-free composition with intolerant programs is developed, that enables stepwise addition of components to provide tolerance to a new fault-class while preserving the tolerances to the previously added fault-classes. We illustrate the method by designing a fully distributed multitolerant program for a token ring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The well-known periodic task model of Liu and Layland [10] assumes a worst-case execution time bound for every task and may be too pessimistic if the worst-case execution time of a task is much longer than the average. In this paper, we give a multiframe real-time task model which allows the execution time of a task to vary from one instance to another by specifying the execution time of a task in terms of a sequence of numbers. We investigate the schedulability problem for this model for the preemptive fixed priority scheduling policy. We show that a significant improvement in the utilization bound can be established in our model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce a general, extensible diagrammatic syntax for expressing software architectures based on typed nodes and connections and formalized using set theory. The syntax provides a notion of abstraction corresponding to the concept of a subsystem, and exploits this notion in a general mechanism for pattern matching over architectures. We demonstrate these ideas using a small example architecture language with a limited number of types of nodes and connectors, and a small taxonomy of architectures characterized as sets of patterns in the language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Replication techniques for transaction-based distributed systems generally achieve increased availability but with a significant performance penalty. We present a new replication paradigm, the location-based paradigm, which addresses availability and other performance issues. It provides availability similar to quorum-based replication protocols but with transaction-execution delays similar to one-copy systems. The paradigm further exploits replication to improve performance in two instances. First, it takes advantage of local or nearby replicas to further improve the response time of transactions, achieving smaller execution delays than one-copy systems. Second, it takes advantage of replication to facilitate the independent crash recovery of replica sites-a goal which is unattainable in one-copy systems. In addition to the above the location-based paradigm avoids bottlenecks, facilitates load balancing, and minimizes the disruption of service when failures and recoveries occur. In this paper we present the paradigm, a formal proof of correctness, and a detailed simulation study comparing our paradigm to one-copy systems and to other approaches to replication control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explain why pre-run-time scheduling is essential if one wishes to guarantee that timing constraints will be satisfied in a large complex hard-real-time system. We examine some of the major concerns in pre-run-time scheduling and consider what formulations of mathematical scheduling problems can be used to address those concerns. This paper provides a guide to the available algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we demonstrate how model checking can be used to verify safety properties for event-driven systems. SCR tabular requirements describe required system behavior in a format that is intuitive, easy to read, and scalable to large systems (e.g., the software requirements for the A7 aircraft). Model checking of temporal logics has been established as a sound technique for verifying properties of hardware systems. We have developed an automated technique for formalizing the semiformal SCR requirements and for transforming the resultant formal specification onto a finite structure that a model checker can analyze. This technique was effective in uncovering violations of system invariants in both an automobile cruise control system and a water-level monitoring system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with describing and analyzing concurrent systems, such as communication systems, whose behavior is dependent on explicit values of time. An enumerative method is proposed in order to exhaustively validate the behavior of Merlin's time Petri net models. This new method, which allows one to formally verify time dependent systems, is applied to a simple illustrative example, the specification and verification of the alternating bit protocol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important principle of building trustworthy systems is to rigorously analyze the critical requirements early in the development process, even before starting system design. Existing proof methods for systems of communicating processes focus on the bottom-up composition of component-level specifications into system-level specifications. Trustworthy system development requires, instead, the top-down derivation of component requirements from the critical system requirements. This paper describes a formal method for decomposing the requirements of a system into requirements of its component processes and a minimal, possibly empty, set of synchronization requirements. The Trace Model of Hoare's Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) is the basis for the formal method. We apply the method to an abstract voice transmitter and describe the role that the EHDM verification system plays in the transmitter's decomposition. In combination with other verification techniques, we expect that the method defined here will promote the development of more trustworthy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An orphan in a distributed transaction system is an activity executing on behalf of an aborted transaction. Orphans are undesirable because they waste system resources and because they may observe inconsistent data. This paper proposes a new method for managing orphans created by crashes and by aborts. The method ensures that orphans are detected and eliminated in a timely manner, and it prevents them from observing inconsistent states. A major ad- vantage of this method is simplicity: it is easy to understand, to implement, and to prove correct. An "eager" version of this method uses approximately synchronized real-time clocks to ensure that orphans are eliminated within a fixed duration, and a "lazy" version uses logical clocks to ensure that orphans are eventually eliminated as information propagates through the system. The method is fail-safe: unsynchronized clocks and lost messages may affect performance, but they cannot produce inconsistencies or protect orphans from eventual elimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report the results of an experimental study of software matrics for a fairly large software system used in a real-time application. We examine a number of issues, including the mutual relationship between various software metrics and, more importantly, the relationship between metrics and the development effort. We report some interesting connections between metrics and the software development effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new approach to coordination of cooperating concurrent processes, each capable of error detection and recovery, is presented. Error detection, rollback, and retry in a process are specified by a well-structured language construct called recovery block. Recovery points of processes must be properly coordinated to prevent a disastrous avalanche of process rollbacks. In contrast to the previously studied approaches that require the program designer to coordinate the recovery block structures of interacting processes (thereby coordinating the recovery points of processes), the new approach relieves the program designer of that burden It instead relies upon an intelligent processor system (that runs processes) capable of establishing and discarding the recovery points of interacting processes in a well coordinated manner such that 1) a process never makes two consecutive rollbacks without making a retry between the two, and 2) every process rollback becomes a minimum-distance rollback. Following the discussion of the underlying philosophy of the new approach, basic rules of reducing storage and time overhead in such a processor system are discussed. Throughout this paper examples are drawn from the systems in which processes communicate through monitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates an application of the system entity structure, a frame-like knowledge representation scheme, to the design of local area networks. An entity structure for a data link layer protocol that unifies many possibilities from the literature is introduced. The main concepts of our design methodology are illustrated using this example entity structure, and the underlying simulation environment is briefly discussed. The methodology aims to facilitate evaluation of a wide family of design alternatives and component combinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conformance testing of MAP-specified protocol implementations is a complex activity. This paper describes major components of the MAP 2.1 Conformance Test System. A comparison between protocol conformance testing and program testing sets the context. Background on the scope and process of dynamic conformance testing is provided. The architecture of the Test System is presented, first in terms of the developing ISO framework, and then in terms of run-time components. Several specific tools which comprise the Test System are described. These tools include test engines, a high-level control tool, monitoring and analysis tools, and document handling tools. Benefits and limitations of the test tools are examined. Conclusions and suggestions for future efforts are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Operational analysis, an area of study first defined in the computer science held, has been used in the analysis of systems performance. System performance measures for a specific set of output data are obtained using operational analysis formulas derived from assumptions which are verifiable by the observed data. This paper gives relationships which may be used to quantity the errors in these assumptions. Additionally, basic propositions are given which help in understanding operational analysis assumptions. These propositions are used in developing correction terms which can be used to adjust performance measures so that their values are exact for a set of data no matter how much the assumptions used in deriving the performance measure relations are violated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software development environments help programmers perform tasks related to the software development process. Different programming projects require different environments. However, handcrafting a separate environment for each project is not economically feasible. Gandalf solves this problem by permitting environment designers to generate families of software development environments semiautomatically without excessive cost. Environments generated using Gandalf address both programming environments, which help ease the programming process, and system development environments, which reduce the degree to which a soft- ware project is dependent on the good will of its members. Gandalf environments integrate programming and system development, permitting interactions not available in traditional environments. The paper covers several topics including the basic characteristics of Gandalf environments, our method for generating these environments, the structure and function of several existing Gandalf environments, and ongoing and planned research of the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject paper' concludes that number of faults per line of code is independent of whether Assembly language or a high order language (HOL) is used, contrary to previously published results by the author of this correspondence. However, the subject paper contains some technical errors and uses erroneous data. An explanation of the source of the erroneous data is given. Also, previously published information by the author of this correspondence on average number of operators plus operands per line of Assembly language code is corrected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial introduces the January 1993 issue of the periodical "IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering" which focuses on software for critical systems. The issue contains a selection of significant papers from the SIGSOFT '91 conference. Papers by Ricky Butler and George Finelly, John Rushby and Friedrich von Henke, and others address different aspects of the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]