V & V Within Reuse-Based Software Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Addy, Edward A.

1996-01-01

Verification and validation (V&V) is used to increase the level of assurance of critical software, particularly that of safety-critical and mission critical software. This paper describes the working group's success in identifying V&V tasks that could be performed in the domain engineering and transition levels of reuse-based software engineering. The primary motivation for V&V at the domain level is to provide assurance that the domain requirements are correct and that the domain artifacts correctly implement the domain requirements. A secondary motivation is the possible elimination of redundant V&V activities at the application level. The group also considered the criteria and motivation for performing V&V in domain engineering.

Advances in knowledge-based software engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Truszkowski, Walt

1991-01-01

The underlying hypothesis of this work is that a rigorous and comprehensive software reuse methodology can bring about a more effective and efficient utilization of constrained resources in the development of large-scale software systems by both government and industry. It is also believed that correct use of this type of software engineering methodology can significantly contribute to the higher levels of reliability that will be required of future operational systems. An overview and discussion of current research in the development and application of two systems that support a rigorous reuse paradigm are presented: the Knowledge-Based Software Engineering Environment (KBSEE) and the Knowledge Acquisition fo the Preservation of Tradeoffs and Underlying Rationales (KAPTUR) systems. Emphasis is on a presentation of operational scenarios which highlight the major functional capabilities of the two systems.

Towards a comprehensive framework for reuse: A reuse-enabling software evolution environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Basili, V. R.; Rombach, H. D.

1988-01-01

Reuse of products, processes and knowledge will be the key to enable the software industry to achieve the dramatic improvement in productivity and quality required to satisfy the anticipated growing demand. Although experience shows that certain kinds of reuse can be successful, general success has been elusive. A software life-cycle technology which allows broad and extensive reuse could provide the means to achieving the desired order-of-magnitude improvements. The scope of a comprehensive framework for understanding, planning, evaluating and motivating reuse practices and the necessary research activities is outlined. As a first step towards such a framework, a reuse-enabling software evolution environment model is introduced which provides a basis for the effective recording of experience, the generalization and tailoring of experience, the formalization of experience, and the (re-)use of experience.

A NASA-wide approach toward cost-effective, high-quality software through reuse

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Scheper, Charlotte O. (Editor); Smith, Kathryn A. (Editor)

1993-01-01

NASA Langley Research Center sponsored the second Workshop on NASA Research in Software Reuse on May 5-6, 1992 at the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The workshop was hosted by the Research Triangle Institute. Participants came from the three NASA centers, four NASA contractor companies, two research institutes and the Air Force's Rome Laboratory. The purpose of the workshop was to exchange information on software reuse tool development, particularly with respect to tool needs, requirements, and effectiveness. The participants presented the software reuse activities and tools being developed and used by their individual centers and programs. These programs address a wide range of reuse issues. The group also developed a mission and goals for software reuse within NASA. This publication summarizes the presentations and the issues discussed during the workshop.

Information models of software productivity - Limits on productivity growth

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tausworthe, Robert C.

1992-01-01

Research into generalized information-metric models of software process productivity establishes quantifiable behavior and theoretical bounds. The models establish a fundamental mathematical relationship between software productivity and the human capacity for information traffic, the software product yield (system size), information efficiency, and tool and process efficiencies. An upper bound is derived that quantifies average software productivity and the maximum rate at which it may grow. This bound reveals that ultimately, when tools, methodologies, and automated assistants have reached their maximum effective state, further improvement in productivity can only be achieved through increasing software reuse. The reuse advantage is shown not to increase faster than logarithmically in the number of reusable features available. The reuse bound is further shown to be somewhat dependent on the reuse policy: a general 'reuse everything' policy can lead to a somewhat slower productivity growth than a specialized reuse policy.

Issues in NASA Program and Project Management: Focus on Project Planning and Scheduling

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hoffman, Edward J. (Editor); Lawbaugh, William M. (Editor)

1997-01-01

Topics addressed include: Planning and scheduling training for working project teams at NASA, overview of project planning and scheduling workshops, project planning at NASA, new approaches to systems engineering, software reliability assessment, and software reuse in wind tunnel control systems.

NASA JPL Distributed Systems Technology (DST) Object-Oriented Component Approach for Software Inter-Operability and Reuse

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hall, Laverne; Hung, Chaw-Kwei; Lin, Imin

2000-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to provide a description of NASA JPL Distributed Systems Technology (DST) Section's object-oriented component approach to open inter-operable systems software development and software reuse. It will address what is meant by the terminology object component software, give an overview of the component-based development approach and how it relates to infrastructure support of software architectures and promotes reuse, enumerate on the benefits of this approach, and give examples of application prototypes demonstrating its usage and advantages. Utilization of the object-oriented component technology approach for system development and software reuse will apply to several areas within JPL, and possibly across other NASA Centers.

Reusablility in ESOC mission control systems developments - the SMART-1 mission case

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pignède, Max; Davies, Kevin

2002-07-01

The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) have a long experience in spacecraft mission control systems developments and use a large number of existing elements for the build up of control systems for new missions. The integration of such elements in a new system covers not only the direct re-use of infrastructure software but also the re-use of concepts and work methodology. Applying reusability is a major asset in ESOC's strategy, especially for low cost space missions. This paper describes re-use of existing elements in the ESOC production of the SMART-1 mission control system (S1MCS) and explores the following areas: The most significant (and major cost-saving contributors) re-used elements are the Spacecraft Control and Operations System (SCOS-2000) and the Network Control and TM/TC Router System (NCTRS) infrastructure systems. These systems are designed precisely for allowing all general mission parameters to be configured easily without any change in the software (in particular the NCTRS configuration for SMART-1 was time and cost effective). Further, large parts of the ESOC ROSETTA and INTEGRAL software systems (also SCOS-2000 based) were directly re-used, such as the on-board command schedule maintenance and modelling subsystem (OBQ), the time correlator (TCO) and the external file transfer subsystem (FTS). The INTEGRAL spacecraft database maintenance system (both the editors and configuration control mechanism) and its export facilities into the S1MCS runtime system are directly reused. A special kind of re-use concerns the ENVISAT approach to both the telemetry (TM) and telecommanding (TC) context saving in the redundant server system in order to enable smooth support of operations in case of prime server failure. In this case no software or tools can be re-used because the S1MCS is based on a much more modern technology than the ENVISAT mission control system as well as on largely differing workstations architectures but the ENVISAT validated capabilities to support hot-standby system reconfiguration and machines and data resynchronisation following failures for all mission phases make them a good candidate for re-use by newer missions. Common methods and tools for requirements production, test plan production and problem tracking which are used by most of the other ESOC missions development teams in their daily work are also re-used without any changes. Finally conclusions are drawn about reusability in perspective with the latest state of the S1MCS and about benefits to other SCOS-2000 based "client" missions. Lessons learned for ESOC space missions (whether for mission control systems currently under development or up-and-coming space missions) and also related considerations for the wider space community are made, reflecting ESOC skills and expertise in mission operations and control.

Challenges of the Open Source Component Marketplace in the Industry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ayala, Claudia; Hauge, Øyvind; Conradi, Reidar; Franch, Xavier; Li, Jingyue; Velle, Ketil Sandanger

The reuse of Open Source Software components available on the Internet is playing a major role in the development of Component Based Software Systems. Nevertheless, the special nature of the OSS marketplace has taken the “classical” concept of software reuse based on centralized repositories to a completely different arena based on massive reuse over Internet. In this paper we provide an overview of the actual state of the OSS marketplace, and report preliminary findings about how companies interact with this marketplace to reuse OSS components. Such data was gathered from interviews in software companies in Spain and Norway. Based on these results we identify some challenges aimed to improve the industrial reuse of OSS components.

Safeguarding End-User Military Software

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-12-04

product lines using composi- tional symbolic execution [17] Software product lines are families of products defined by feature commonality and vari...ability, with a well-managed asset base. Recent work in testing of software product lines has exploited similarities across development phases to reuse...feature dependence graph to extract the set of possible interaction trees in a product family. It composes these to incrementally and symbolically

Packaging Software Assets for Reuse

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mattmann, C. A.; Marshall, J. J.; Downs, R. R.

2010-12-01

The reuse of existing software assets such as code, architecture, libraries, and modules in current software and systems development projects can provide many benefits, including reduced costs, in time and effort, and increased reliability. Many reusable assets are currently available in various online catalogs and repositories, usually broken down by disciplines such as programming language (Ibiblio for Maven/Java developers, PyPI for Python developers, CPAN for Perl developers, etc.). The way these assets are packaged for distribution can play a role in their reuse - an asset that is packaged simply and logically is typically easier to understand, install, and use, thereby increasing its reusability. A well-packaged asset has advantages in being more reusable and thus more likely to provide benefits through its reuse. This presentation will discuss various aspects of software asset packaging and how they can affect the reusability of the assets. The characteristics of well-packaged software will be described. A software packaging domain model will be introduced, and some existing packaging approaches examined. An example case study of a Reuse Enablement System (RES), currently being created by near-term Earth science decadal survey missions, will provide information about the use of the domain model. Awareness of these factors will help software developers package their reusable assets so that they can provide the most benefits for software reuse.

Support for comprehensive reuse

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Basili, V. R.; Rombach, H. D.

1991-01-01

Reuse of products, processes, and other knowledge will be the key to enable the software industry to achieve the dramatic improvement in productivity and quality required to satisfy the anticipated growing demands. Although experience shows that certain kinds of reuse can be successful, general success has been elusive. A software life-cycle technology which allows comprehensive reuse of all kinds of software-related experience could provide the means to achieving the desired order-of-magnitude improvements. A comprehensive framework of models, model-based characterization schemes, and support mechanisms for better understanding, evaluating, planning, and supporting all aspects of reuse are introduced.

The software-cycle model for re-engineering and reuse

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bailey, John W.; Basili, Victor R.

1992-01-01

This paper reports on the progress of a study which will contribute to our ability to perform high-level, component-based programming by describing means to obtain useful components, methods for the configuration and integration of those components, and an underlying economic model of the costs and benefits associated with this approach to reuse. One goal of the study is to develop and demonstrate methods to recover reusable components from domain-specific software through a combination of tools, to perform the identification, extraction, and re-engineering of components, and domain experts, to direct the applications of those tools. A second goal of the study is to enable the reuse of those components by identifying techniques for configuring and recombining the re-engineered software. This component-recovery or software-cycle model addresses not only the selection and re-engineering of components, but also their recombination into new programs. Once a model of reuse activities has been developed, the quantification of the costs and benefits of various reuse options will enable the development of an adaptable economic model of reuse, which is the principal goal of the overall study. This paper reports on the conception of the software-cycle model and on several supporting techniques of software recovery, measurement, and reuse which will lead to the development of the desired economic model.

Software reuse in spacecraft planning and scheduling systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mclean, David; Tuchman, Alan; Broseghini, Todd; Yen, Wen; Page, Brenda; Johnson, Jay; Bogovich, Lynn; Burkhardt, Chris; Mcintyre, James; Klein, Scott

1993-01-01

The use of a software toolkit and development methodology that supports software reuse is described. The toolkit includes source-code-level library modules and stand-alone tools which support such tasks as data reformatting and report generation, simple relational database applications, user interfaces, tactical planning, strategic planning and documentation. The current toolkit is written in C and supports applications that run on IBM-PC's under DOS and UNlX-based workstations under OpenLook and Motif. The toolkit is fully integrated for building scheduling systems that reuse AI knowledge base technology. A typical scheduling scenario and three examples of applications that utilize the reuse toolkit will be briefly described. In addition to the tools themselves, a description of the software evolution and reuse methodology that was used is presented.

Performing Verification and Validation in Reuse-Based Software Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Addy, Edward A.

1999-01-01

The implementation of reuse-based software engineering not only introduces new activities to the software development process, such as domain analysis and domain modeling, it also impacts other aspects of software engineering. Other areas of software engineering that are affected include Configuration Management, Testing, Quality Control, and Verification and Validation (V&V). Activities in each of these areas must be adapted to address the entire domain or product line rather than a specific application system. This paper discusses changes and enhancements to the V&V process, in order to adapt V&V to reuse-based software engineering.

Scala Roles: Reusable Object Collaborations in a Library

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pradel, Michael; Odersky, Martin

Purely class-based implementations of object-oriented software are often inappropriate for reuse. In contrast, the notion of objects playing roles in a collaboration has been proven to be a valuable reuse abstraction. However, existing solutions to enable role-based programming tend to require vast extensions of the underlying programming language, and thus, are difficult to use in every day work. We present a programming technique, based on dynamic proxies, that allows to augment an object’s type at runtime while preserving strong static type safety. It enables role-based implementations that lead to more reuse and better separation of concerns.

Finding the right wheel when you don't want to reinvent it

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hucka, Michael

2017-01-01

The increasing amount of software being developed in all areas of science brings new capabilities as well as new challenges. Two of these challenges are finding potentially-relevant software, and being able to reuse it. The notion that "surely someone must have written a tool to do XYZ" often runs into the reality of thousands of Google hits with little detail about capabilities and status of different options. Software directories such as ASCL can add tremendous value by helping to improve the signal-to-noise ratio when searching for software; in addition, developers themselves can also act to make their work more easily found and understood. In this context, it can be useful to know what people do in practice when they look for software, and some of the factors that help or hinder their ability to reuse the software they do find. The results point to some simple steps that developers can take. Improved findability and reusability of software has broad potential impact, ranging from improved reproducibility of research results to better return on investment by funding agencies.

The SoRReL papers: Recent publications of the Software Reuse Repository Lab

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eichmann, David A. (Editor)

1992-01-01

The entire publication is presented of some of the papers recently published by the SoRReL. Some typical titles are as follows: Design of a Lattice-Based Faceted Classification System; A Hybrid Approach to Software Reuse Repository Retrieval; Selecting Reusable Components Using Algebraic Specifications; Neural Network-Based Retrieval from Reuse Repositories; and A Neural Net-Based Approach to Software Metrics.

The repository-based software engineering program: Redefining AdaNET as a mainstream NASA source

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1993-01-01

The Repository-based Software Engineering Program (RBSE) is described to inform and update senior NASA managers about the program. Background and historical perspective on software reuse and RBSE for NASA managers who may not be familiar with these topics are provided. The paper draws upon and updates information from the RBSE Concept Document, baselined by NASA Headquarters, Johnson Space Center, and the University of Houston - Clear Lake in April 1992. Several of NASA's software problems and what RBSE is now doing to address those problems are described. Also, next steps to be taken to derive greater benefit from this Congressionally-mandated program are provided. The section on next steps describes the need to work closely with other NASA software quality, technology transfer, and reuse activities and focuses on goals and objectives relative to this need. RBSE's role within NASA is addressed; however, there is also the potential for systematic transfer of technology outside of NASA in later stages of the RBSE program. This technology transfer is discussed briefly.

Increasing productivity through Total Reuse Management (TRM)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schuler, M. P.

1991-01-01

Total Reuse Management (TRM) is a new concept currently being promoted by the NASA Langley Software Engineering and Ada Lab (SEAL). It uses concepts similar to those promoted in Total Quality Management (TQM). Both technical and management personnel are continually encouraged to think in terms of reuse. Reuse is not something that is aimed for after a product is completed, but rather it is built into the product from inception through development. Lowering software development costs, reducing risk, and increasing code reliability are the more prominent goals of TRM. Procedures and methods used to adopt and apply TRM are described. Reuse is frequently thought of as only being applicable to code. However, reuse can apply to all products and all phases of the software life cycle. These products include management and quality assurance plans, designs, and testing procedures. Specific examples of successfully reused products are given and future goals are discussed.

Scientific Software - the role of best practices and recommendations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fritzsch, Bernadette; Bernstein, Erik; Castell, Wolfgang zu; Diesmann, Markus; Haas, Holger; Hammitzsch, Martin; Konrad, Uwe; Lähnemann, David; McHardy, Alice; Pampel, Heinz; Scheliga, Kaja; Schreiber, Andreas; Steglich, Dirk

2017-04-01

In Geosciences - like in most other communities - scientific work strongly depends on software. For big data analysis, existing (closed or open source) program packages are often mixed with newly developed codes. Different versions of software components and varying configurations can influence the result of data analysis. This often makes reproducibility of results and reuse of codes very difficult. Policies for publication and documentation of used and newly developed software, along with best practices, can help tackle this problem. Within the Helmholtz Association a Task Group "Access to and Re-use of scientific software" was implemented by the Open Science Working Group in 2016. The aim of the Task Group is to foster the discussion about scientific software in the Open Science context and to formulate recommendations for the production and publication of scientific software, ensuring open access to it. As a first step, a workshop gathered interested scientists from institutions across Germany. The workshop brought together various existing initiatives from different scientific communities to analyse current problems, share established best practices and come up with possible solutions. The subjects in the working groups covered a broad range of themes, including technical infrastructures, standards and quality assurance, citation of software and reproducibility. Initial recommendations are presented and discussed in the talk. They are the foundation for further discussions in the Helmholtz Association and the Priority Initiative "Digital Information" of the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany. The talk aims to inform about the activities and to link with other initiatives on the national or international level.

Proceedings of the 14th Annual Software Engineering Workshop

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1989-01-01

Several software related topics are presented. Topics covered include studies and experiment at the Software Engineering Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center, predicting project success from the Software Project Management Process, software environments, testing in a reuse environment, domain directed reuse, and classification tree analysis using the Amadeus measurement and empirical analysis.

The Elements of an Effective Software Development Plan - Software Development Process Guidebook

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-11-11

standards and practices required for all XMPL software development. This SDP implements the <corporate> Standard Software Process (SSP). as tailored...Developing and integrating reusable software products • Approach to managing COTS/Reuse software implementation • COTS/Reuse software selection...final selection and submit to change board for approval MAINTENANCE Monitor current products for obsolescence or end of support Track new

Advanced Software Development Workstation Project, phase 3

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1991-01-01

ACCESS provides a generic capability to develop software information system applications which are explicitly intended to facilitate software reuse. In addition, it provides the capability to retrofit existing large applications with a user friendly front end for preparation of input streams in a way that will reduce required training time, improve the productivity even of experienced users, and increase accuracy. Current and past work shows that ACCESS will be scalable to much larger object bases.

Variability extraction and modeling for product variants.

PubMed

Linsbauer, Lukas; Lopez-Herrejon, Roberto Erick; Egyed, Alexander

2017-01-01

Fast-changing hardware and software technologies in addition to larger and more specialized customer bases demand software tailored to meet very diverse requirements. Software development approaches that aim at capturing this diversity on a single consolidated platform often require large upfront investments, e.g., time or budget. Alternatively, companies resort to developing one variant of a software product at a time by reusing as much as possible from already-existing product variants. However, identifying and extracting the parts to reuse is an error-prone and inefficient task compounded by the typically large number of product variants. Hence, more disciplined and systematic approaches are needed to cope with the complexity of developing and maintaining sets of product variants. Such approaches require detailed information about the product variants, the features they provide and their relations. In this paper, we present an approach to extract such variability information from product variants. It identifies traces from features and feature interactions to their implementation artifacts, and computes their dependencies. This work can be useful in many scenarios ranging from ad hoc development approaches such as clone-and-own to systematic reuse approaches such as software product lines. We applied our variability extraction approach to six case studies and provide a detailed evaluation. The results show that the extracted variability information is consistent with the variability in our six case study systems given by their variability models and available product variants.

Industry Versus DoD: A Comparative Study of Software Reuse

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-09-01

development costs and production time. By no means have they perfected reuse, but some corporations are starting to reap the benefits of their reuse...and cultural resistance (Garry, 1992). Reusable code is not a cure-all for programmers and does not always provide significant benefits . Quite often...and benefits , quality, achievable reuse goals, domain analysis, staff experience, development, and recognition of the effort involved (IEEE Software

Automated Reuse of Scientific Subroutine Libraries through Deductive Synthesis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lowry, Michael R.; Pressburger, Thomas; VanBaalen, Jeffrey; Roach, Steven

1997-01-01

Systematic software construction offers the potential of elevating software engineering from an art-form to an engineering discipline. The desired result is more predictable software development leading to better quality and more maintainable software. However, the overhead costs associated with the formalisms, mathematics, and methods of systematic software construction have largely precluded their adoption in real-world software development. In fact, many mainstream software development organizations, such as Microsoft, still maintain a predominantly oral culture for software development projects; which is far removed from a formalism-based culture for software development. An exception is the limited domain of safety-critical software, where the high-assuiance inherent in systematic software construction justifies the additional cost. We believe that systematic software construction will only be adopted by mainstream software development organization when the overhead costs have been greatly reduced. Two approaches to cost mitigation are reuse (amortizing costs over many applications) and automation. For the last four years, NASA Ames has funded the Amphion project, whose objective is to automate software reuse through techniques from systematic software construction. In particular, deductive program synthesis (i.e., program extraction from proofs) is used to derive a composition of software components (e.g., subroutines) that correctly implements a specification. The construction of reuse libraries of software components is the standard software engineering solution for improving software development productivity and quality.

CARDS: A blueprint and environment for domain-specific software reuse

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wallnau, Kurt C.; Solderitsch, Anne Costa; Smotherman, Catherine

1992-01-01

CARDS (Central Archive for Reusable Defense Software) exploits advances in domain analysis and domain modeling to identify, specify, develop, archive, retrieve, understand, and reuse domain-specific software components. An important element of CARDS is to provide visibility into the domain model artifacts produced by, and services provided by, commercial computer-aided software engineering (CASE) technology. The use of commercial CASE technology is important to provide rich, robust support for the varied roles involved in a reuse process. We refer to this kind of use of knowledge representation systems as supporting 'knowledge-based integration.'

COTS-based OO-component approach for software inter-operability and reuse (software systems engineering methodology)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yin, J.; Oyaki, A.; Hwang, C.; Hung, C.

2000-01-01

The purpose of this research and study paper is to provide a summary description and results of rapid development accomplishments at NASA/JPL in the area of advanced distributed computing technology using a Commercial-Off--The-Shelf (COTS)-based object oriented component approach to open inter-operable software development and software reuse.

Inheritance for software reuse: The good, the bad, and the ugly

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sitaraman, Murali; Eichmann, David A.

1992-01-01

Inheritance is a powerful mechanism supported by object-oriented programming languages to facilitate modifications and extensions of reusable software components. This paper presents a taxonomy of the various purposes for which an inheritance mechanism can be used. While some uses of inheritance significantly enhance software reuse, some others are not as useful and in fact, may even be detrimental to reuse. The paper discusses several examples, and argues for a programming language design that is selective in its support for inheritance.

Domain analysis for the reuse of software development experiences

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Basili, V. R.; Briand, L. C.; Thomas, W. M.

1994-01-01

We need to be able to learn from past experiences so we can improve our software processes and products. The Experience Factory is an organizational structure designed to support and encourage the effective reuse of software experiences. This structure consists of two organizations which separates project development concerns from organizational concerns of experience packaging and learning. The experience factory provides the processes and support for analyzing, packaging, and improving the organization's stored experience. The project organization is structured to reuse this stored experience in its development efforts. However, a number of questions arise: What past experiences are relevant? Can they all be used (reused) on our current project? How do we take advantage of what has been learned in other parts of the organization? How do we take advantage of experience in the world-at-large? Can someone else's best practices be used in our organization with confidence? This paper describes approaches to help answer these questions. We propose both quantitative and qualitative approaches for effectively reusing software development experiences.

Advanced Software Development Workstation Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Daniel

1989-01-01

The Advanced Software Development Workstation Project, funded by Johnson Space Center, is investigating knowledge-based techniques for software reuse in NASA software development projects. Two prototypes have been demonstrated and a third is now in development. The approach is to build a foundation that provides passive reuse support, add a layer that uses domain-independent programming knowledge, add a layer that supports the acquisition of domain-specific programming knowledge to provide active support, and enhance maintainability and modifiability through an object-oriented approach. The development of new application software would use specification-by-reformulation, based on a cognitive theory of retrieval from very long-term memory in humans, and using an Ada code library and an object base. Current tasks include enhancements to the knowledge representation of Ada packages and abstract data types, extensions to support Ada package instantiation knowledge acquisition, integration with Ada compilers and relational databases, enhancements to the graphical user interface, and demonstration of the system with a NASA contractor-developed trajectory simulation package. Future work will focus on investigating issues involving scale-up and integration.

Space and Missile Systems Center Standard: Software Development

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-01-16

maintenance , or any other activity or combination of activities resulting in products . Within this standard, requirements to “develop,” “define...integration, reuse, reengineering, maintenance , or any other activity that results in products ). The term “developer” encompasses all software team...activities that results in software products . Software development includes new development, modification, reuse, reengineering, maintenance , and any other

Knowledge base methodology: Methodology for first Engineering Script Language (ESL) knowledge base

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Peeris, Kumar; Izygon, Michel E.

1992-01-01

The primary goal of reusing software components is that software can be developed faster, cheaper and with higher quality. Though, reuse is not automatic and can not just happen. It has to be carefully engineered. For example a component needs to be easily understandable in order to be reused, and it has also to be malleable enough to fit into different applications. In fact the software development process is deeply affected when reuse is being applied. During component development, a serious effort has to be directed toward making these components as reusable. This implies defining reuse coding style guidelines and applying then to any new component to create as well as to any old component to modify. These guidelines should point out the favorable reuse features and may apply to naming conventions, module size and cohesion, internal documentation, etc. During application development, effort is shifted from writing new code toward finding and eventually modifying existing pieces of code, then assembling them together. We see here that reuse is not free, and therefore has to be carefully managed.

Hospital information system: reusability, designing, modelling, recommendations for implementing.

PubMed

Huet, B

1998-01-01

The aims of this paper are to precise some essential conditions for building reuse models for hospital information systems (HIS) and to present an application for hospital clinical laboratories. Reusability is a general trend in software, however reuse can involve a more or less part of design, classes, programs; consequently, a project involving reusability must be precisely defined. In the introduction it is seen trends in software, the stakes of reuse models for HIS and the special use case constituted with a HIS. The main three parts of this paper are: 1) Designing a reuse model (which objects are common to several information systems?) 2) A reuse model for hospital clinical laboratories (a genspec object model is presented for all laboratories: biochemistry, bacteriology, parasitology, pharmacology, ...) 3) Recommendations for generating plug-compatible software components (a reuse model can be implemented as a framework, concrete factors that increase reusability are presented). In conclusion reusability is a subtle exercise of which project must be previously and carefully defined.

Reusable experiment controllers, case studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buckley, Brian A.; Gaasbeck, Jim Van

1996-03-01

Congress has given NASA and the science community a reality check. The tight and ever shrinking budgets are trimming the fat from many space science programs. No longer can a Principal Investigator (PI) afford to waste development dollars on re-inventing spacecraft controllers, experiment/payload controllers, ground control systems, or test sets. Inheritance of the Ground Support Equipment (GSE) from one program to another is not a significant re-use of technology to develop a science mission in these times. Reduction of operational staff and highly autonomous experiments are needed to reduce the sustaining cost of a mission. The re-use of an infrastructure from one program to another is needed to truly attain the cost and time savings required. Interface and Control Systems, Inc. (ICS) has a long history of re-usable software. Navy, Air Force, and NASA programs have benefited from the re-use of a common control system from program to program. Several standardization efforts in the AIAA have adopted the Spacecraft Command Language (SCL) architecture as a point solution to satisfy requirements for re-use and autonomy. The Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM) has been a long-standing customer of ICS and are working on their 4th generation system using SCL. Much of the hardware and software infrastructure has been re-used from mission to mission with little cost for re-hosting a new experiment. The same software infrastructure has successfully been used on Clementine, and an end-to-end system is being deployed for the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) for Johns Hopkins University. A case study of the ERIM programs, Clementine and FUSE will be detailed in this paper.

Software Development Standard for Mission Critical Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-03-17

new development, modification, reuse, reengineering, maintenance , or any other activity or combination of activities resulting in products . Within...develops” includes new development, modification, integration, reuse, reengineering, maintenance , or any other activity that results in products ... Maintenance organization. The organization that is responsible for modifying and otherwise sustaining the software and other software products and

Software Hardware Asset Reuse Enterprise (SHARE) Repository Framework: Related Work and Development Plan

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-08-19

designed to collect the data and assist the analyst in drawing relationships between the data. Palantir Technologies has created one such software...application to support the DoD intelligence community by providing robust capabilities for managing data from various sources10. The Palantir tool...www.palantirtech.com/ - 38 - Figure 17. Palantir Graphical Interface (Gordon-Schlosberg, 2008) Similar examples of the use of ontologies to support data

V&V Within Reuse-Based Software Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Addy, Edward A.

1996-01-01

Verification and Validation (V&V) is used to increase the level of assurance of critical software, particularly that of safety-critical and mission-critical software. V&V is a systems engineering discipline that evaluates the software in a systems context, and is currently applied during the development of a specific application system. In order to bring the effectiveness of V&V to bear within reuse-based software engineering, V&V must be incorporated within the domain engineering process.

Open environments to support systems engineering tool integration: A study using the Portable Common Tool Environment (PCTE)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eckhardt, Dave E., Jr.; Jipping, Michael J.; Wild, Chris J.; Zeil, Steven J.; Roberts, Cathy C.

1993-01-01

A study of computer engineering tool integration using the Portable Common Tool Environment (PCTE) Public Interface Standard is presented. Over a 10-week time frame, three existing software products were encapsulated to work in the Emeraude environment, an implementation of the PCTE version 1.5 standard. The software products used were a computer-aided software engineering (CASE) design tool, a software reuse tool, and a computer architecture design and analysis tool. The tool set was then demonstrated to work in a coordinated design process in the Emeraude environment. The project and the features of PCTE used are described, experience with the use of Emeraude environment over the project time frame is summarized, and several related areas for future research are summarized.

Repository-based software engineering program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilson, James

1992-01-01

The activities performed during September 1992 in support of Tasks 01 and 02 of the Repository-Based Software Engineering Program are outlined. The recommendations and implementation strategy defined at the September 9-10 meeting of the Reuse Acquisition Action Team (RAAT) are attached along with the viewgraphs and reference information presented at the Institute for Defense Analyses brief on legal and patent issues related to software reuse.

The Application of V&V within Reuse-Based Software Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Addy, Edward

1996-01-01

Verification and Validation (V&V) is performed during application development for many systems, especially safety-critical and mission-critical systems. The V&V process is intended to discover errors as early as possible during the development process. Early discovery is important in order to minimize the cost and other impacts of correcting these errors. In reuse-based software engineering, decisions on the requirements, design and even implementation of domain assets can can be made prior to beginning development of a specific system. in order to bring the effectiveness of V&V to bear within reuse-based software engineering. V&V must be incorporated within the domain engineering process.

Reuseable Objects Software Environment (ROSE): Introduction to Air Force Software Reuse Workshop

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cottrell, William L.

1994-01-01

The Reusable Objects Software Environment (ROSE) is a common, consistent, consolidated implementation of software functionality using modern object oriented software engineering including designed-in reuse and adaptable requirements. ROSE is designed to minimize abstraction and reduce complexity. A planning model for the reverse engineering of selected objects through object oriented analysis is depicted. Dynamic and functional modeling are used to develop a system design, the object design, the language, and a database management system. The return on investment for a ROSE pilot program and timelines are charted.

Problem-Solving Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1992-01-01

CBR Express software solves problems by adapting sorted solutions to new problems specified by a user. It is applicable to a wide range of situations. The technology was originally developed by Inference Corporation for Johnson Space Center's Advanced Software Development Workstation. The project focused on the reuse of software designs, and Inference used CBR as part of the ACCESS prototype software. The commercial CBR Express is used as a "help desk" for customer support, enabling reuse of existing information when necessary. It has been adopted by several companies, among them American Airlines, which uses it to solve reservation system software problems.

Software reuse example and challenges at NSIDC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Billingsley, B. W.; Brodzik, M.; Collins, J. A.

2009-12-01

NSIDC has created a new data discovery and access system, Searchlight, to provide users with the data they want in the format they want. NSIDC Searchlight supports discovery and access to disparate data types with on-the-fly reprojection, regridding and reformatting. Architected to both reuse open source systems and be reused itself, Searchlight reuses GDAL and Proj4 for manipulating data and format conversions, the netCDF Java library for creating netCDF output, MapServer and OpenLayers for defining spatial criteria and the JTS Topology Suite (JTS) in conjunction with Hibernate Spatial for database interaction and rich OGC-compliant spatial objects. The application reuses popular Java and Java Script libraries including Struts 2, Spring, JPA (Hibernate), Sitemesh, JFreeChart, JQuery, DOJO and a PostGIS PostgreSQL database. Future reuse of Searchlight components is supported at varying architecture levels, ranging from the database and model components to web services. We present the tools, libraries and programs that Searchlight has reused. We describe the architecture of Searchlight and explain the strategies deployed for reusing existing software and how Searchlight is built for reuse. We will discuss NSIDC reuse of the Searchlight components to support rapid development of new data delivery systems.

Development of an Ada package library

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Burton, Bruce; Broido, Michael

1986-01-01

A usable prototype Ada package library was developed and is currently being evaluated for use in large software development efforts. The library system is comprised of an Ada-oriented design language used to facilitate the collection of reuse information, a relational data base to store reuse information, a set of reusable Ada components and tools, and a set of guidelines governing the system's use. The prototyping exercise is discussed and the lessons learned from it have led to the definition of a comprehensive tool set to facilitate software reuse.

Reuse and Interoperability of Avionics for Space Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hodson, Robert F.

2007-01-01

The space environment presents unique challenges for avionics. Launch survivability, thermal management, radiation protection, and other factors are important for successful space designs. Many existing avionics designs use custom hardware and software to meet the requirements of space systems. Although some space vendors have moved more towards a standard product line approach to avionics, the space industry still lacks similar standards and common practices for avionics development. This lack of commonality manifests itself in limited reuse and a lack of interoperability. To address NASA s need for interoperable avionics that facilitate reuse, several hardware and software approaches are discussed. Experiences with existing space boards and the application of terrestrial standards is outlined. Enhancements and extensions to these standards are considered. A modular stack-based approach to space avionics is presented. Software and reconfigurable logic cores are considered for extending interoperability and reuse. Finally, some of the issues associated with the design of reusable interoperable avionics are discussed.

Using a Foundational Ontology for Reengineering a Software Enterprise Ontology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perini Barcellos, Monalessa; de Almeida Falbo, Ricardo

The knowledge about software organizations is considerably relevant to software engineers. The use of a common vocabulary for representing the useful knowledge about software organizations involved in software projects is important for several reasons, such as to support knowledge reuse and to allow communication and interoperability between tools. Domain ontologies can be used to define a common vocabulary for sharing and reuse of knowledge about some domain. Foundational ontologies can be used for evaluating and re-designing domain ontologies, giving to these real-world semantics. This paper presents an evaluating of a Software Enterprise Ontology that was reengineered using the Unified Foundation Ontology (UFO) as basis.

Mercury: Reusable software application for Metadata Management, Data Discovery and Access

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Devarakonda, Ranjeet; Palanisamy, Giri; Green, James; Wilson, Bruce E.

2009-12-01

Mercury is a federated metadata harvesting, data discovery and access tool based on both open source packages and custom developed software. It was originally developed for NASA, and the Mercury development consortium now includes funding from NASA, USGS, and DOE. Mercury is itself a reusable toolset for metadata, with current use in 12 different projects. Mercury also supports the reuse of metadata by enabling searching across a range of metadata specification and standards including XML, Z39.50, FGDC, Dublin-Core, Darwin-Core, EML, and ISO-19115. Mercury provides a single portal to information contained in distributed data management systems. It collects metadata and key data from contributing project servers distributed around the world and builds a centralized index. The Mercury search interfaces then allow the users to perform simple, fielded, spatial and temporal searches across these metadata sources. One of the major goals of the recent redesign of Mercury was to improve the software reusability across the projects which currently fund the continuing development of Mercury. These projects span a range of land, atmosphere, and ocean ecological communities and have a number of common needs for metadata searches, but they also have a number of needs specific to one or a few projects To balance these common and project-specific needs, Mercury’s architecture includes three major reusable components; a harvester engine, an indexing system and a user interface component. The harvester engine is responsible for harvesting metadata records from various distributed servers around the USA and around the world. The harvester software was packaged in such a way that all the Mercury projects will use the same harvester scripts but each project will be driven by a set of configuration files. The harvested files are then passed to the Indexing system, where each of the fields in these structured metadata records are indexed properly, so that the query engine can perform simple, keyword, spatial and temporal searches across these metadata sources. The search user interface software has two API categories; a common core API which is used by all the Mercury user interfaces for querying the index and a customized API for project specific user interfaces. For our work in producing a reusable, portable, robust, feature-rich application, Mercury received a 2008 NASA Earth Science Data Systems Software Reuse Working Group Peer-Recognition Software Reuse Award. The new Mercury system is based on a Service Oriented Architecture and effectively reuses components for various services such as Thesaurus Service, Gazetteer Web Service and UDDI Directory Services. The software also provides various search services including: RSS, Geo-RSS, OpenSearch, Web Services and Portlets, integrated shopping cart to order datasets from various data centers (ORNL DAAC, NSIDC) and integrated visualization tools. Other features include: Filtering and dynamic sorting of search results, book-markable search results, save, retrieve, and modify search criteria.

A communication channel model of the software process

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tausworthe, R. C.

1988-01-01

Reported here is beginning research into a noisy communication channel analogy of software development process productivity, in order to establish quantifiable behavior and theoretical bounds. The analogy leads to a fundamental mathematical relationship between human productivity and the amount of information supplied by the developers, the capacity of the human channel for processing and transmitting information, the software product yield (object size), the work effort, requirements efficiency, tool and process efficiency, and programming environment advantage. Also derived is an upper bound to productivity that shows that software reuse is the only means than can lead to unbounded productivity growth; practical considerations of size and cost of reusable components may reduce this to a finite bound.

A communication channel model of the software process

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tausworthe, Robert C.

1988-01-01

Beginning research into a noisy communication channel analogy of software development process productivity, in order to establish quantifiable behavior and theoretical bounds is discussed. The analogy leads to a fundamental mathematical relationship between human productivity and the amount of information supplied by the developers, the capacity of the human channel for processing and transmitting information, the software product yield (object size) the work effort, requirements efficiency, tool and process efficiency, and programming environment advantage. An upper bound to productivity is derived that shows that software reuse is the only means that can lead to unbounded productivity growth; practical considerations of size and cost of reusable components may reduce this to a finite bound.

pyam: Python Implementation of YaM

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Myint, Steven; Jain, Abhinandan

2012-01-01

pyam is a software development framework with tools for facilitating the rapid development of software in a concurrent software development environment. pyam provides solutions for development challenges associated with software reuse, managing multiple software configurations, developing software product lines, and multiple platform development and build management. pyam uses release-early, release-often development cycles to allow developers to integrate their changes incrementally into the system on a continual basis. It facilitates the creation and merging of branches to support the isolated development of immature software to avoid impacting the stability of the development effort. It uses modules and packages to organize and share software across multiple software products, and uses the concepts of link and work modules to reduce sandbox setup times even when the code-base is large. One sidebenefit is the enforcement of a strong module-level encapsulation of a module s functionality and interface. This increases design transparency, system stability, and software reuse. pyam is written in Python and is organized as a set of utilities on top of the open source SVN software version control package. All development software is organized into a collection of modules. pyam packages are defined as sub-collections of the available modules. Developers can set up private sandboxes for module/package development. All module/package development takes place on private SVN branches. High-level pyam commands support the setup, update, and release of modules and packages. Released and pre-built versions of modules are available to developers. Developers can tailor the source/link module mix for their sandboxes so that new sandboxes (even large ones) can be built up easily and quickly by pointing to pre-existing module releases. All inter-module interfaces are publicly exported via links. A minimal, but uniform, convention is used for building modules.

Flight Software Development for the CHEOPS Instrument with the CORDET Framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cechticky, V.; Ottensamer, R.; Pasetti, A.

2015-09-01

CHEOPS is an ESA S-class mission dedicated to the precise measurement of radii of already known exoplanets using ultra-high precision photometry. The instrument flight software controlling the instrument and handling the science data is developed by the University of Vienna using the CORDET Framework offered by P&P Software GmbH. The CORDET Framework provides a generic software infrastructure for PUS-based applications. This paper describes how the framework is used for the CHEOPS application software to provide a consistent solution for to the communication and control services, event handling and FDIR procedures. This approach is innovative in four respects: (a) it is a true third-party reuse; (b) re-use is done at specification, validation and code level; (c) the re-usable assets and their qualification data package are entirely open-source; (d) re-use is based on call-back with the application developer providing functions which are called by the reusable architecture. File names missing from here on out (I tried to mimic the files names from before.)

Software development: A paradigm for the future

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Basili, Victor R.

1989-01-01

A new paradigm for software development that treats software development as an experimental activity is presented. It provides built-in mechanisms for learning how to develop software better and reusing previous experience in the forms of knowledge, processes, and products. It uses models and measures to aid in the tasks of characterization, evaluation and motivation. An organization scheme is proposed for separating the project-specific focus from the organization's learning and reuse focuses of software development. The implications of this approach for corporations, research and education are discussed and some research activities currently underway at the University of Maryland that support this approach are presented.

Knowledge-based approach for generating target system specifications from a domain model

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gomaa, Hassan; Kerschberg, Larry; Sugumaran, Vijayan

1992-01-01

Several institutions in industry and academia are pursuing research efforts in domain modeling to address unresolved issues in software reuse. To demonstrate the concepts of domain modeling and software reuse, a prototype software engineering environment is being developed at George Mason University to support the creation of domain models and the generation of target system specifications. This prototype environment, which is application domain independent, consists of an integrated set of commercial off-the-shelf software tools and custom-developed software tools. This paper describes the knowledge-based tool that was developed as part of the environment to generate target system specifications from a domain model.

Support for life-cycle product reuse in NASA's SSE

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shotton, Charles

1989-01-01

The Software Support Environment (SSE) is a software factory for the production of Space Station Freedom Program operational software. The SSE is to be centrally developed and maintained and used to configure software production facilities in the field. The PRC product TTCQF provides for an automated qualification process and analysis of existing code that can be used for software reuse. The interrogation subsystem permits user queries of the reusable data and components which have been identified by an analyzer and qualified with associated metrics. The concept includes reuse of non-code life-cycle components such as requirements and designs. Possible types of reusable life-cycle components include templates, generics, and as-is items. Qualification of reusable elements requires analysis (separation of candidate components into primitives), qualification (evaluation of primitives for reusability according to reusability criteria) and loading (placing qualified elements into appropriate libraries). There can be different qualifications for different installations, methodologies, applications and components. Identifying reusable software and related components is labor-intensive and is best carried out as an integrated function of an SSE.

The social disutility of software ownership.

PubMed

Douglas, David M

2011-09-01

Software ownership allows the owner to restrict the distribution of software and to prevent others from reading the software's source code and building upon it. However, free software is released to users under software licenses that give them the right to read the source code, modify it, reuse it, and distribute the software to others. Proponents of free software such as Richard M. Stallman and Eben Moglen argue that the social disutility of software ownership is a sufficient justification for prohibiting it. This social disutility includes the social instability of disregarding laws and agreements covering software use and distribution, inequality of software access, and the inability to help others by sharing software with them. Here I consider these and other social disutility claims against withholding specific software rights from users, in particular, the rights to read the source code, duplicate, distribute, modify, imitate, and reuse portions of the software within new programs. I find that generally while withholding these rights from software users does cause some degree of social disutility, only the rights to duplicate, modify and imitate cannot legitimately be denied to users on this basis. The social disutility of withholding the rights to distribute the software, read its source code and reuse portions of it in new programs is insufficient to prohibit software owners from denying them to users. A compromise between the software owner and user can minimise the social disutility of withholding these particular rights from users. However, the social disutility caused by software patents is sufficient for rejecting such patents as they restrict the methods of reducing social disutility possible with other forms of software ownership.

Advanced software development workstation project: Engineering scripting language. Graphical editor

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1992-01-01

Software development is widely considered to be a bottleneck in the development of complex systems, both in terms of development and in terms of maintenance of deployed systems. Cost of software development and maintenance can also be very high. One approach to reducing costs and relieving this bottleneck is increasing the reuse of software designs and software components. A method for achieving such reuse is a software parts composition system. Such a system consists of a language for modeling software parts and their interfaces, a catalog of existing parts, an editor for combining parts, and a code generator that takes a specification and generates code for that application in the target language. The Advanced Software Development Workstation is intended to be an expert system shell designed to provide the capabilities of a software part composition system.

A survey of program slicing for software engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Beck, Jon

1993-01-01

This research concerns program slicing which is used as a tool for program maintainence of software systems. Program slicing decreases the level of effort required to understand and maintain complex software systems. It was first designed as a debugging aid, but it has since been generalized into various tools and extended to include program comprehension, module cohesion estimation, requirements verification, dead code elimination, and maintainence of several software systems, including reverse engineering, parallelization, portability, and reuse component generation. This paper seeks to address and define terminology, theoretical concepts, program representation, different program graphs, developments in static slicing, dynamic slicing, and semantics and mathematical models. Applications for conventional slicing are presented, along with a prognosis of future work in this field.

Open Architecture SDR for Space

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, Carl; Long, Chris; Liebetreu, John; Reinhart, Richard C.

2005-01-01

This paper describes an open-architecture SDR (software defined radio) infrastructure that is suitable for space-based operations (Space-SDR). SDR technologies will endow space and planetary exploration systems with dramatically increased capability, reduced power consumption, and significantly less mass than conventional systems, at costs reduced by vigorous competition, hardware commonality, dense integration, reduced obsolescence, interoperability, and software re-use. Significant progress has been recorded on developments like the Joint Tactical Radio System (JSTRS) Software Communication Architecture (SCA), which is oriented toward reconfigurable radios for defense forces operating in multiple theaters of engagement. The JTRS-SCA presents a consistent software interface for waveform development, and facilitates interoperability, waveform portability, software re-use, and technology evolution.

Examining Reuse in LaSRS++-Based Projects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Madden, Michael M.

2001-01-01

NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) developed the Langley Standard Real-Time Simulation in C++ (LaSRS++) to consolidate all software development for its simulation facilities under one common framework. A common framework promised a decrease in the total development effort for a new simulation by encouraging software reuse. To judge the success of LaSRS++ in this regard, reuse metrics were extracted from 11 aircraft models. Three methods that employ static analysis of the code were used to identify the reusable components. For the method that provides the best estimate, reuse levels fall between 66% and 95% indicating a high degree of reuse. Additional metrics provide insight into the extent of the foundation that LaSRS++ provides to new simulation projects. When creating variants of an aircraft, LaRC developers use object-oriented design to manage the aircraft as a reusable resource. Variants modify the aircraft for a research project or embody an alternate configuration of the aircraft. The variants inherit from the aircraft model. The variants use polymorphism to extend or redefine aircraft behaviors to meet the research requirements or to match the alternate configuration. Reuse level metrics were extracted from 10 variants. Reuse levels of aircraft by variants were 60% - 99%.

EMMA: a new paradigm in configurable software

DOE PAGES

Nogiec, J. M.; Trombly-Freytag, K.

2017-11-23

EMMA is a framework designed to create a family of configurable software systems, with emphasis on extensibility and flexibility. It is based on a loosely coupled, event driven architecture. The EMMA framework has been built upon the premise of composing software systems from independent components. It opens up opportunities for reuse of components and their functionality and composing them together in many different ways. As a result, it provides the developer of test and measurement applications with a lightweight alternative to microservices, while sharing their various advantages, including composability, loose coupling, encapsulation, and reuse.

EMMA: A New Paradigm in Configurable Software

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nogiec, J. M.; Trombly-Freytag, K.

EMMA is a framework designed to create a family of configurable software systems, with emphasis on extensibility and flexibility. It is based on a loosely coupled, event driven architecture. The EMMA framework has been built upon the premise of composing software systems from independent components. It opens up opportunities for reuse of components and their functionality and composing them together in many different ways. It provides the developer of test and measurement applications with a lightweight alternative to microservices, while sharing their various advantages, including composability, loose coupling, encapsulation, and reuse.

EMMA: a new paradigm in configurable software

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nogiec, J. M.; Trombly-Freytag, K.

EMMA is a framework designed to create a family of configurable software systems, with emphasis on extensibility and flexibility. It is based on a loosely coupled, event driven architecture. The EMMA framework has been built upon the premise of composing software systems from independent components. It opens up opportunities for reuse of components and their functionality and composing them together in many different ways. As a result, it provides the developer of test and measurement applications with a lightweight alternative to microservices, while sharing their various advantages, including composability, loose coupling, encapsulation, and reuse.

EMMA: a new paradigm in configurable software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nogiec, J. M.; Trombly-Freytag, K.

2017-10-01

EMMA is a framework designed to create a family of configurable software systems, with emphasis on extensibility and flexibility. It is based on a loosely coupled, event driven architecture. The EMMA framework has been built upon the premise of composing software systems from independent components. It opens up opportunities for reuse of components and their functionality and composing them together in many different ways. It provides the developer of test and measurement applications with a lightweight alternative to microservices, while sharing their various advantages, including composability, loose coupling, encapsulation, and reuse.

Collected software engineering papers, volume 8

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1990-01-01

A collection of selected technical papers produced by participants in the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) during the period November 1989 through October 1990 is presented. The purpose of the document is to make available, in one reference, some results of SEL research that originally appeared in a number of different forums. Although these papers cover several topics related to software engineering, they do not encompass the entire scope of SEL activities and interests. Additional information about the SEL and its research efforts may be obtained from the sources listed in the bibliography. The seven presented papers are grouped into four major categories: (1) experimental research and evaluation of software measurement; (2) studies on models for software reuse; (3) a software tool evaluation; and (4) Ada technology and studies in the areas of reuse and specification.

The Generalized Support Software (GSS) Domain Engineering Process: An Object-Oriented Implementation and Reuse Success at Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Condon, Steven; Hendrick, Robert; Stark, Michael E.; Steger, Warren

1997-01-01

The Flight Dynamics Division (FDD) of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) recently embarked on a far-reaching revision of its process for developing and maintaining satellite support software. The new process relies on an object-oriented software development method supported by a domain specific library of generalized components. This Generalized Support Software (GSS) Domain Engineering Process is currently in use at the NASA GSFC Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL). The key facets of the GSS process are (1) an architecture for rapid deployment of FDD applications, (2) a reuse asset library for FDD classes, and (3) a paradigm shift from developing software to configuring software for mission support. This paper describes the GSS architecture and process, results of fielding the first applications, lessons learned, and future directions

Software Development Standard Processes (SDSP)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lavin, Milton L.; Wang, James J.; Morillo, Ronald; Mayer, John T.; Jamshidian, Barzia; Shimizu, Kenneth J.; Wilkinson, Belinda M.; Hihn, Jairus M.; Borgen, Rosana B.; Meyer, Kenneth N.;

Testing flight software on the ground: Introducing the hardware-in-the-loop simulation method to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, Wenhao; Cai, Xudong; Meng, Qiao

2016-04-01

Complex automatic protection functions are being added to the onboard software of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. A hardware-in-the-loop simulation method has been introduced to overcome the difficulties of ground testing that are brought by hardware and environmental limitations. We invented a time-saving approach by reusing the flight data as the data source of the simulation system instead of mathematical models. This is easy to implement and it works efficiently. This paper presents the system framework, implementation details and some application examples.

Using a Formal Approach for Reverse Engineering and Design Recovery to Support Software Reuse

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gannod, Gerald C.

2002-01-01

This document describes 3rd year accomplishments and summarizes overall project accomplishments. Included as attachments are all published papers from year three. Note that the budget for this project was discontinued after year two, but that a residual budget from year two allowed minimal continuance into year three. Accomplishments include initial investigations into log-file based reverse engineering, service-based software reuse, and a source to XML generator.

Automated software development workstation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Prouty, Dale A.; Klahr, Philip

1988-01-01

A workstation is being developed that provides a computational environment for all NASA engineers across application boundaries, which automates reuse of existing NASA software and designs, and efficiently and effectively allows new programs and/or designs to be developed, catalogued, and reused. The generic workstation is made domain specific by specialization of the user interface, capturing engineering design expertise for the domain, and by constructing/using a library of pertinent information. The incorporation of software reusability principles and expert system technology into this workstation provide the obvious benefits of increased productivity, improved software use and design reliability, and enhanced engineering quality by bringing engineering to higher levels of abstraction based on a well tested and classified library.

MathWorks Simulink and C++ integration with the new VLT PLC-based standard development platform for instrument control systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kiekebusch, Mario J.; Di Lieto, Nicola; Sandrock, Stefan; Popovic, Dan; Chiozzi, Gianluca

2014-07-01

ESO is in the process of implementing a new development platform, based on PLCs, for upcoming VLT control systems (new instruments and refurbishing of existing systems to manage obsolescence issues). In this context, we have evaluated the integration and reuse of existing C++ libraries and Simulink models into the real-time environment of BECKHOFF Embedded PCs using the capabilities of the latest version of TwinCAT software and MathWorks Embedded Coder. While doing so the aim was to minimize the impact of the new platform by adopting fully tested solutions implemented in C++. This allows us to reuse the in house expertise, as well as extending the normal capabilities of the traditional PLC programming environments. We present the progress of this work and its application in two concrete cases: 1) field rotation compensation for instrument tracking devices like derotators, 2) the ESO standard axis controller (ESTAC), a generic model-based controller implemented in Simulink and used for the control of telescope main axes.

Software design by reusing architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bhansali, Sanjay; Nii, H. Penny

1992-01-01

Abstraction fosters reuse by providing a class of artifacts that can be instantiated or customized to produce a set of artifacts meeting different specific requirements. It is proposed that significant leverage can be obtained by abstracting software system designs and the design process. The result of such an abstraction is a generic architecture and a set of knowledge-based, customization tools that can be used to instantiate the generic architecture. An approach for designing software systems based on the above idea are described. The approach is illustrated through an implemented example, and the advantages and limitations of the approach are discussed.

Component Technology for High-Performance Scientific Simulation Software

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Epperly, T; Kohn, S; Kumfert, G

2000-11-09

We are developing scientific software component technology to manage the complexity of modem, parallel simulation software and increase the interoperability and re-use of scientific software packages. In this paper, we describe a language interoperability tool named Babel that enables the creation and distribution of language-independent software libraries using interface definition language (IDL) techniques. We have created a scientific IDL that focuses on the unique interface description needs of scientific codes, such as complex numbers, dense multidimensional arrays, complicated data types, and parallelism. Preliminary results indicate that in addition to language interoperability, this approach provides useful tools for thinking about themore » design of modem object-oriented scientific software libraries. Finally, we also describe a web-based component repository called Alexandria that facilitates the distribution, documentation, and re-use of scientific components and libraries.« less

How Reuse Influences Productivity in Object-Oriented Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Basili, Victor R.; Briand, Lionel C.; Melo, Walcelio L.

1997-01-01

Although reuse is assumed to be especially valuable in building high quality software as well as in Object Oriented (OO) development, limited empirical evidence connects reuse with productivity and quality gains. The author's eight system study begins to define such benefits in an OO framework, most notably in terms of reduce defect density and rework as well as in increased productivity.

Maintenance = reuse-oriented software development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Basili, Victor R.

1989-01-01

Maintenance is viewed as a reuse process. In this context, a set of models that can be used to support the maintenance process is discussed. A high level reuse framework is presented that characterizes the object of reuse, the process for adapting that object for its target application, and the reused object within its target application. Based upon this framework, a qualitative comparison is offered of the three maintenance process models with regard to their strengths and weaknesses and the circumstances in which they are appropriate. To provide a more systematic, quantitative approach for evaluating the appropriateness of the particular maintenance model, a measurement scheme is provided, based upon the reuse framework, in the form of an organized set of questions that need to be answered. To support the reuse perspective, a set of reuse enablers are discussed.

Architecture-driven reuse of code in KASE

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bhansali, Sanjay

1993-01-01

In order to support the synthesis of large, complex software systems, we need to focus on issues pertaining to the architectural design of a system in addition to algorithm and data structure design. An approach that is based on abstracting the architectural design of a set of problems in the form of a generic architecture, and providing tools that can be used to instantiate the generic architecture for specific problem instances is presented. Such an approach also facilitates reuse of code between different systems belonging to the same problem class. An application of our approach on a realistic problem is described; the results of the exercise are presented; and how our approach compares to other work in this area is discussed.

Design and Implementation of a REST API for the Human Well Being Index (HWBI)

EPA Science Inventory

Interoperable software development uses principles of component reuse, systems integration, flexible data transfer, and standardized ontological documentation to promote access, reuse, and integration of code. While interoperability principles are increasingly considered technolo...

Design and Implementation of a REST API for the ?Human Well Being Index (HWBI)

EPA Science Inventory

Interoperable software development uses principles of component reuse, systems integration, flexible data transfer, and standardized ontological documentation to promote access, reuse, and integration of code. While interoperability principles are increasingly considered technolo...

Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Software Engineering Workshop

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1992-01-01

Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Software Engineering Workshop are presented. The software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) is an organization sponsored by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and created to investigate the effectiveness of software engineering technologies when applied to the development of applications software. Topics covered include: the Software Engineering Laboratory; process measurement; software reuse; software quality; lessons learned; and is Ada dying.

Transportable Payload Operations Control Center reusable software: Building blocks for quality ground data systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mahmot, Ron; Koslosky, John T.; Beach, Edward; Schwarz, Barbara

1994-01-01

The Mission Operations Division (MOD) at Goddard Space Flight Center builds Mission Operations Centers which are used by Flight Operations Teams to monitor and control satellites. Reducing system life cycle costs through software reuse has always been a priority of the MOD. The MOD's Transportable Payload Operations Control Center development team established an extensive library of 14 subsystems with over 100,000 delivered source instructions of reusable, generic software components. Nine TPOCC-based control centers to date support 11 satellites and achieved an average software reuse level of more than 75 percent. This paper shares experiences of how the TPOCC building blocks were developed and how building block developer's, mission development teams, and users are all part of the process.

RICIS Software Engineering 90 Symposium: Aerospace Applications and Research Directions Proceedings

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1990-01-01

Papers presented at RICIS Software Engineering Symposium are compiled. The following subject areas are covered: synthesis - integrating product and process; Serpent - a user interface management system; prototyping distributed simulation networks; and software reuse.

Automated Software Development Workstation (ASDW)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fridge, Ernie

1990-01-01

Software development is a serious bottleneck in the construction of complex automated systems. An increase of the reuse of software designs and components has been viewed as a way to relieve this bottleneck. One approach to achieving software reusability is through the development and use of software parts composition systems. A software parts composition system is a software development environment comprised of a parts description language for modeling parts and their interfaces, a catalog of existing parts, a composition editor that aids a user in the specification of a new application from existing parts, and a code generator that takes a specification and generates an implementation of a new application in a target language. The Automated Software Development Workstation (ASDW) is an expert system shell that provides the capabilities required to develop and manipulate these software parts composition systems. The ASDW is now in Beta testing at the Johnson Space Center. Future work centers on responding to user feedback for capability and usability enhancement, expanding the scope of the software lifecycle that is covered, and in providing solutions to handling very large libraries of reusable components.

RICIS Software Engineering 90 Symposium: Aerospace Applications and Research Directions Proceedings Appendices

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1990-01-01

Papers presented at RICIS Software Engineering Symposium are compiled. The following subject areas are covered: flight critical software; management of real-time Ada; software reuse; megaprogramming software; Ada net; POSIX and Ada integration in the Space Station Freedom Program; and assessment of formal methods for trustworthy computer systems.

Reuse Adoption Guidebook. Version 02.00.05

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-11-01

Oriented Domain Analysis ( FODA ) Feasibiity Study, W Novak, and S. Peterson CMU/SEI-90-TR-21 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Software 1990 Engineering Institute...Mettala and Graham 1992). " SEI has developed domain analysis techniques (Kang et al. 1990) and other reuse technology. Additionally, the SEI is in the...continue to build on your success. Figure 2-1 illustrates the Reuse Adoption process using a Structured Analysis and Design Thchmque (SADT) diagram

Models for Deploying Open Source and Commercial Software to Support Earth Science Data Processing and Distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yetman, G.; Downs, R. R.

2011-12-01

Software deployment is needed to process and distribute scientific data throughout the data lifecycle. Developing software in-house can take software development teams away from other software development projects and can require efforts to maintain the software over time. Adopting and reusing software and system modules that have been previously developed by others can reduce in-house software development and maintenance costs and can contribute to the quality of the system being developed. A variety of models are available for reusing and deploying software and systems that have been developed by others. These deployment models include open source software, vendor-supported open source software, commercial software, and combinations of these approaches. Deployment in Earth science data processing and distribution has demonstrated the advantages and drawbacks of each model. Deploying open source software offers advantages for developing and maintaining scientific data processing systems and applications. By joining an open source community that is developing a particular system module or application, a scientific data processing team can contribute to aspects of the software development without having to commit to developing the software alone. Communities of interested developers can share the work while focusing on activities that utilize in-house expertise and addresses internal requirements. Maintenance is also shared by members of the community. Deploying vendor-supported open source software offers similar advantages to open source software. However, by procuring the services of a vendor, the in-house team can rely on the vendor to provide, install, and maintain the software over time. Vendor-supported open source software may be ideal for teams that recognize the value of an open source software component or application and would like to contribute to the effort, but do not have the time or expertise to contribute extensively. Vendor-supported software may also have the additional benefits of guaranteed up-time, bug fixes, and vendor-added enhancements. Deploying commercial software can be advantageous for obtaining system or software components offered by a vendor that meet in-house requirements. The vendor can be contracted to provide installation, support and maintenance services as needed. Combining these options offers a menu of choices, enabling selection of system components or software modules that meet the evolving requirements encountered throughout the scientific data lifecycle.

Selecting reusable components using algebraic specifications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eichmann, David A.

1992-01-01

A significant hurdle confronts the software reuser attempting to select candidate components from a software repository - discriminating between those components without resorting to inspection of the implementation(s). We outline a mixed classification/axiomatic approach to this problem based upon our lattice-based faceted classification technique and Guttag and Horning's algebraic specification techniques. This approach selects candidates by natural language-derived classification, by their interfaces, using signatures, and by their behavior, using axioms. We briefly outline our problem domain and related work. Lattice-based faceted classifications are described; the reader is referred to surveys of the extensive literature for algebraic specification techniques. Behavioral support for reuse queries is presented, followed by the conclusions.

Clinical code set engineering for reusing EHR data for research: A review.

PubMed

Williams, Richard; Kontopantelis, Evangelos; Buchan, Iain; Peek, Niels

2017-06-01

The construction of reliable, reusable clinical code sets is essential when re-using Electronic Health Record (EHR) data for research. Yet code set definitions are rarely transparent and their sharing is almost non-existent. There is a lack of methodological standards for the management (construction, sharing, revision and reuse) of clinical code sets which needs to be addressed to ensure the reliability and credibility of studies which use code sets. To review methodological literature on the management of sets of clinical codes used in research on clinical databases and to provide a list of best practice recommendations for future studies and software tools. We performed an exhaustive search for methodological papers about clinical code set engineering for re-using EHR data in research. This was supplemented with papers identified by snowball sampling. In addition, a list of e-phenotyping systems was constructed by merging references from several systematic reviews on this topic, and the processes adopted by those systems for code set management was reviewed. Thirty methodological papers were reviewed. Common approaches included: creating an initial list of synonyms for the condition of interest (n=20); making use of the hierarchical nature of coding terminologies during searching (n=23); reviewing sets with clinician input (n=20); and reusing and updating an existing code set (n=20). Several open source software tools (n=3) were discovered. There is a need for software tools that enable users to easily and quickly create, revise, extend, review and share code sets and we provide a list of recommendations for their design and implementation. Research re-using EHR data could be improved through the further development, more widespread use and routine reporting of the methods by which clinical codes were selected. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A research review of quality assessment for software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1991-01-01

Measures were recommended to assess the quality of software submitted to the AdaNet program. The quality factors that are important to software reuse are explored and methods of evaluating those factors are discussed. Quality factors important to software reuse are: correctness, reliability, verifiability, understandability, modifiability, and certifiability. Certifiability is included because the documentation of many factors about a software component such as its efficiency, portability, and development history, constitute a class for factors important to some users, not important at all to other, and impossible for AdaNet to distinguish between a priori. The quality factors may be assessed in different ways. There are a few quantitative measures which have been shown to indicate software quality. However, it is believed that there exists many factors that indicate quality and have not been empirically validated due to their subjective nature. These subjective factors are characterized by the way in which they support the software engineering principles of abstraction, information hiding, modularity, localization, confirmability, uniformity, and completeness.

A Survey of Bioinformatics Database and Software Usage through Mining the Literature.

PubMed

Duck, Geraint; Nenadic, Goran; Filannino, Michele; Brass, Andy; Robertson, David L; Stevens, Robert

2016-01-01

Computer-based resources are central to much, if not most, biological and medical research. However, while there is an ever expanding choice of bioinformatics resources to use, described within the biomedical literature, little work to date has provided an evaluation of the full range of availability or levels of usage of database and software resources. Here we use text mining to process the PubMed Central full-text corpus, identifying mentions of databases or software within the scientific literature. We provide an audit of the resources contained within the biomedical literature, and a comparison of their relative usage, both over time and between the sub-disciplines of bioinformatics, biology and medicine. We find that trends in resource usage differs between these domains. The bioinformatics literature emphasises novel resource development, while database and software usage within biology and medicine is more stable and conservative. Many resources are only mentioned in the bioinformatics literature, with a relatively small number making it out into general biology, and fewer still into the medical literature. In addition, many resources are seeing a steady decline in their usage (e.g., BLAST, SWISS-PROT), though some are instead seeing rapid growth (e.g., the GO, R). We find a striking imbalance in resource usage with the top 5% of resource names (133 names) accounting for 47% of total usage, and over 70% of resources extracted being only mentioned once each. While these results highlight the dynamic and creative nature of bioinformatics research they raise questions about software reuse, choice and the sharing of bioinformatics practice. Is it acceptable that so many resources are apparently never reused? Finally, our work is a step towards automated extraction of scientific method from text. We make the dataset generated by our study available under the CC0 license here: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1281371.

Using component technology to facilitate external software reuse in ground-based planning systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chase, A.

2003-01-01

APGEN (Activity Plan GENerator - 314), a multi-mission planning tool, must interface with external software to vest serve its users. AP-GEN's original method for incorporating external software, the User-Defined library mechanism, has been very successful in allowing APGEN users access to external software functionality.

Asset Reuse of Images from a Repository

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herman, Deirdre

2014-01-01

According to Markus's theory of reuse, when digital repositories are deployed to collect and distribute organizational assets, they supposedly help ensure accountability, extend information exchange, and improve productivity. Such repositories require a large investment due to the continuing costs of hardware, software, user licenses, training,…

EPA Scientific Knowledge Management Assessment and Needs

EPA Science Inventory

A series of activities have been conducted by a core group of EPA scientists from across the Agency. The activities were initiated in 2012 and the focus was to increase the reuse and interoperability of science software at EPA. The need for increased reuse and interoperability ...

ValWorkBench: an open source Java library for cluster validation, with applications to microarray data analysis.

PubMed

Giancarlo, R; Scaturro, D; Utro, F

2015-02-01

The prediction of the number of clusters in a dataset, in particular microarrays, is a fundamental task in biological data analysis, usually performed via validation measures. Unfortunately, it has received very little attention and in fact there is a growing need for software tools/libraries dedicated to it. Here we present ValWorkBench, a software library consisting of eleven well known validation measures, together with novel heuristic approximations for some of them. The main objective of this paper is to provide the interested researcher with the full software documentation of an open source cluster validation platform having the main features of being easily extendible in a homogeneous way and of offering software components that can be readily re-used. Consequently, the focus of the presentation is on the architecture of the library, since it provides an essential map that can be used to access the full software documentation, which is available at the supplementary material website [1]. The mentioned main features of ValWorkBench are also discussed and exemplified, with emphasis on software abstraction design and re-usability. A comparison with existing cluster validation software libraries, mainly in terms of the mentioned features, is also offered. It suggests that ValWorkBench is a much needed contribution to the microarray software development/algorithm engineering community. For completeness, it is important to mention that previous accurate algorithmic experimental analysis of the relative merits of each of the implemented measures [19,23,25], carried out specifically on microarray data, gives useful insights on the effectiveness of ValWorkBench for cluster validation to researchers in the microarray community interested in its use for the mentioned task. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Software reuse issues affecting AdaNET

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mcbride, John G.

1989-01-01

The AdaNet program is reviewing its long-term goals and strategies. A significant concern is whether current AdaNet plans adequately address the major strategic issues of software reuse technology. The major reuse issues of providing AdaNet services that should be addressed as part of future AdaNet development are identified and reviewed. Before significant development proceeds, a plan should be developed to resolve the aforementioned issues. This plan should also specify a detailed approach to develop AdaNet. A three phased strategy is recommended. The first phase would consist of requirements analysis and produce an AdaNet system requirements specification. It would consider the requirements of AdaNet in terms of mission needs, commercial realities, and administrative policies affecting development, and the experience of AdaNet and other projects promoting the transfer software engineering technology. Specifically, requirements analysis would be performed to better understand the requirements for AdaNet functions. The second phase would provide a detailed design of the system. The AdaNet should be designed with emphasis on the use of existing technology readily available to the AdaNet program. A number of reuse products are available upon which AdaNet could be based. This would significantly reduce the risk and cost of providing an AdaNet system. Once a design was developed, implementation would proceed in the third phase.

SAGA: A project to automate the management of software production systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Campbell, Roy H.; Laliberte, D.; Render, H.; Sum, R.; Smith, W.; Terwilliger, R.

1987-01-01

The Software Automation, Generation and Administration (SAGA) project is investigating the design and construction of practical software engineering environments for developing and maintaining aerospace systems and applications software. The research includes the practical organization of the software lifecycle, configuration management, software requirements specifications, executable specifications, design methodologies, programming, verification, validation and testing, version control, maintenance, the reuse of software, software libraries, documentation, and automated management.

Franchise Plan. Central Archive for Reusable Defense Software (CARDS)

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-02-28

learned To achieve maximum benefit from a reuse infrastructure and change the way the organization is doing business, management has to make a long...Purpose For an organization to fully comprehend the benefits of reuse, and to gauge the magnitude of change required to achieve the benefits , information...3.4.3 Identify Technology Infrastructure Rationale In order for an organization to fully comprehend the benefits of reuse and to gauge the magnitude of

A Software for soil quality conservation at organic waste disposal areas: The case of olive mill and pistachio wastes.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Doula, Maria; Sarris, Apostolos; Papadopoulos, Nikos; Hliaoutakis, Aggelos; Kydonakis, Aris; Argyriou, Lemonia; Theocharopoulos, Sid; Kolovos, Chronis

2016-04-01

For the sustainable reuse of organic wastes at agricultural areas, apart from extensive evaluation of waste properties and characteristics, it is of significant importance, in order to protect soil quality, to evaluate land suitability and estimate the correct application doses prior waste landspreading. In the light of this precondition, a software was developed that integrates GIS maps of land suitability for waste reuse (wastewater and solid waste) and an algorithm for waste doses estimation in relation to soil analysis, and in case of reuse for fertilization with soil analysis, irrigation water quality and plant needs. EU and legislation frameworks of European Member States are also considered for the assessment of waste suitability for landspreading and for the estimation of the correct doses that will not cause adverse effects on soil and also to underground water (e.g. Nitrate Directive). Two examples of software functionality are presented in this study using data collected during two LIFE projects, i.e. Prosodol for landspreading of olive mill wastes and AgroStrat for pistachio wastes.

A hybrid approach to software repository retrieval: Blending faceted classification and type signatures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eichmann, David A.

1992-01-01

We present a user interface for software reuse repository that relies both on the informal semantics of faceted classification and the formal semantics of type signatures for abstract data types. The result is an interface providing both structural and qualitative feedback to a software reuser.

LEGOS: Object-based software components for mission-critical systems. Final report, June 1, 1995--December 31, 1997

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

1998-08-01

An estimated 85% of the installed base of software is a custom application with a production quantity of one. In practice, almost 100% of military software systems are custom software. Paradoxically, the marginal costs of producing additional units are near zero. So why hasn`t the software market, a market with high design costs and low productions costs evolved like other similar custom widget industries, such as automobiles and hardware chips? The military software industry seems immune to market pressures that have motivated a multilevel supply chain structure in other widget industries: design cost recovery, improve quality through specialization, and enablemore » rapid assembly from purchased components. The primary goal of the ComponentWare Consortium (CWC) technology plan was to overcome barriers to building and deploying mission-critical information systems by using verified, reusable software components (Component Ware). The adoption of the ComponentWare infrastructure is predicated upon a critical mass of the leading platform vendors` inevitable adoption of adopting emerging, object-based, distributed computing frameworks--initially CORBA and COM/OLE. The long-range goal of this work is to build and deploy military systems from verified reusable architectures. The promise of component-based applications is to enable developers to snap together new applications by mixing and matching prefabricated software components. A key result of this effort is the concept of reusable software architectures. A second important contribution is the notion that a software architecture is something that can be captured in a formal language and reused across multiple applications. The formalization and reuse of software architectures provide major cost and schedule improvements. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is fast becoming the industry standard for object-oriented analysis and design notation for object-based systems. However, the lack of a standard real-time distributed object operating system, lack of a standard Computer-Aided Software Environment (CASE) tool notation and lack of a standard CASE tool repository has limited the realization of component software. The approach to fulfilling this need is the software component factory innovation. The factory approach takes advantage of emerging standards such as UML, CORBA, Java and the Internet. The key technical innovation of the software component factory is the ability to assemble and test new system configurations as well as assemble new tools on demand from existing tools and architecture design repositories.« less

A software bus for thread objects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Callahan, John R.; Li, Dehuai

1995-01-01

The authors have implemented a software bus for lightweight threads in an object-oriented programming environment that allows for rapid reconfiguration and reuse of thread objects in discrete-event simulation experiments. While previous research in object-oriented, parallel programming environments has focused on direct communication between threads, our lightweight software bus, called the MiniBus, provides a means to isolate threads from their contexts of execution by restricting communications between threads to message-passing via their local ports only. The software bus maintains a topology of connections between these ports. It routes, queues, and delivers messages according to this topology. This approach allows for rapid reconfiguration and reuse of thread objects in other systems without making changes to the specifications or source code. A layered approach that provides the needed transparency to developers is presented. Examples of using the MiniBus are given, and the value of bus architectures in building and conducting simulations of discrete-event systems is discussed.

Development of a case tool to support decision based software development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wild, Christian J.

1993-01-01

A summary of the accomplishments of the research over the past year are presented. Achievements include: made demonstrations with DHC, a prototype supporting decision based software development (DBSD) methodology, for Paramax personnel at ODU; met with Paramax personnel to discuss DBSD issues, the process of integrating DBSD and Refinery and the porting process model; completed and submitted a paper describing DBSD paradigm to IFIP '92; completed and presented a paper describing the approach for software reuse at the Software Reuse Workshop in April 1993; continued to extend DHC with a project agenda, facility necessary for a better project management; completed a primary draft of the re-engineering process model for porting; created a logging form to trace all the activities involved in the process of solving the reengineering problem, and developed a primary chart with the problems involved by the reengineering process.

STRS Radio Service Software for NASA's SCaN Testbed

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mortensen, Dale J.; Bishop, Daniel Wayne; Chelmins, David T.

2012-01-01

NASAs Space Communication and Navigation(SCaN) Testbed was launched to the International Space Station in 2012. The objective is to promote new software defined radio technologies and associated software application reuse, enabled by this first flight of NASAs Space Telecommunications Radio System(STRS) architecture standard. Pre-launch testing with the testbeds software defined radios was performed as part of system integration. Radio services for the JPL SDR were developed during system integration to allow the waveform application to operate properly in the space environment, especially considering thermal effects. These services include receiver gain control, frequency offset, IQ modulator balance, and transmit level control. Development, integration, and environmental testing of the radio services will be described. The added software allows the waveform application to operate properly in the space environment, and can be reused by future experimenters testing different waveform applications. Integrating such services with the platform provided STRS operating environment will attract more users, and these services are candidates for interface standardization via STRS.

STRS Radio Service Software for NASA's SCaN Testbed

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mortensen, Dale J.; Bishop, Daniel Wayne; Chelmins, David T.

2013-01-01

NASA's Space Communication and Navigation(SCaN) Testbed was launched to the International Space Station in 2012. The objective is to promote new software defined radio technologies and associated software application reuse, enabled by this first flight of NASA's Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) architecture standard. Pre-launch testing with the testbed's software defined radios was performed as part of system integration. Radio services for the JPL SDR were developed during system integration to allow the waveform application to operate properly in the space environment, especially considering thermal effects. These services include receiver gain control, frequency offset, IQ modulator balance, and transmit level control. Development, integration, and environmental testing of the radio services will be described. The added software allows the waveform application to operate properly in the space environment, and can be reused by future experimenters testing different waveform applications. Integrating such services with the platform provided STRS operating environment will attract more users, and these services are candidates for interface standardization via STRS.

Generic domain models in software engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Maiden, Neil

1992-01-01

This paper outlines three research directions related to domain-specific software development: (1) reuse of generic models for domain-specific software development; (2) empirical evidence to determine these generic models, namely elicitation of mental knowledge schema possessed by expert software developers; and (3) exploitation of generic domain models to assist modelling of specific applications. It focuses on knowledge acquisition for domain-specific software development, with emphasis on tool support for the most important phases of software development.

Software component quality evaluation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clough, A. J.

1991-01-01

The paper describes a software inspection process that can be used to evaluate the quality of software components. Quality criteria, process application, independent testing of the process and proposed associated tool support are covered. Early results indicate that this technique is well suited for assessing software component quality in a standardized fashion. With automated machine assistance to facilitate both the evaluation and selection of software components, such a technique should promote effective reuse of software components.

Elaboration on an Integrated Architecture and Requirement Practice: Prototyping with Quality Attribute Focus

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-05-01

release level prototyping as:  The R&D prototype is typically funded by the organization, rather than the client .  The work is done in an R&D...performance) with hopes that this capability could be offered to multiple clients . The clustering prototype is developed in the organization’s R&D...ICSE Conference 2013) [5] A. Martini, L. Pareto , and J. Bosch, “Enablers and inhibitors for speed with reuse,” Proceedings of the 16th Software

Neural network-based retrieval from software reuse repositories

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eichmann, David A.; Srinivas, Kankanahalli

1992-01-01

A significant hurdle confronts the software reuser attempting to select candidate components from a software repository - discriminating between those components without resorting to inspection of the implementation(s). We outline an approach to this problem based upon neural networks which avoids requiring the repository administrators to define a conceptual closeness graph for the classification vocabulary.

Product Engineering Class in the Software Safety Risk Taxonomy for Building Safety-Critical Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hill, Janice; Victor, Daniel

2008-01-01

When software safety requirements are imposed on legacy safety-critical systems, retrospective safety cases need to be formulated as part of recertifying the systems for further use and risks must be documented and managed to give confidence for reusing the systems. The SEJ Software Development Risk Taxonomy [4] focuses on general software development issues. It does not, however, cover all the safety risks. The Software Safety Risk Taxonomy [8] was developed which provides a construct for eliciting and categorizing software safety risks in a straightforward manner. In this paper, we present extended work on the taxonomy for safety that incorporates the additional issues inherent in the development and maintenance of safety-critical systems with software. An instrument called a Software Safety Risk Taxonomy Based Questionnaire (TBQ) is generated containing questions addressing each safety attribute in the Software Safety Risk Taxonomy. Software safety risks are surfaced using the new TBQ and then analyzed. In this paper we give the definitions for the specialized Product Engineering Class within the Software Safety Risk Taxonomy. At the end of the paper, we present the tool known as the 'Legacy Systems Risk Database Tool' that is used to collect and analyze the data required to show traceability to a particular safety standard

Model Transformation for a System of Systems Dependability Safety Case

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Murphy, Judy; Driskell, Stephen B.

2010-01-01

Software plays an increasingly larger role in all aspects of NASA's science missions. This has been extended to the identification, management and control of faults which affect safety-critical functions and by default, the overall success of the mission. Traditionally, the analysis of fault identification, management and control are hardware based. Due to the increasing complexity of system, there has been a corresponding increase in the complexity in fault management software. The NASA Independent Validation & Verification (IV&V) program is creating processes and procedures to identify, and incorporate safety-critical software requirements along with corresponding software faults so that potential hazards may be mitigated. This Specific to Generic ... A Case for Reuse paper describes the phases of a dependability and safety study which identifies a new, process to create a foundation for reusable assets. These assets support the identification and management of specific software faults and, their transformation from specific to generic software faults. This approach also has applications to other systems outside of the NASA environment. This paper addresses how a mission specific dependability and safety case is being transformed to a generic dependability and safety case which can be reused for any type of space mission with an emphasis on software fault conditions.

Proceedings of the First NASA Ada Users' Symposium

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1988-01-01

Ada has the potential to be a part of the most significant change in software engineering technology within NASA in the last twenty years. Thus, it is particularly important that all NASA centers be aware of Ada experience and plans at other centers. Ada activity across NASA are covered, with presenters representing five of the nine major NASA centers and the Space Station Freedom Program Office. Projects discussed included - Space Station Freedom Program Office: the implications of Ada on training, reuse, management and the software support environment; Johnson Space Center (JSC): early experience with the use of Ada, software engineering and Ada training and the evaluation of Ada compilers; Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC): university research with Ada and the application of Ada to Space Station Freedom, the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle, the Aero-Assist Flight Experiment and the Secure Shuttle Data System; Lewis Research Center (LeRC): the evolution of Ada software to support the Space Station Power Management and Distribution System; Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): the creation of a centralized Ada development laboratory and current applications of Ada including the Real-time Weather Processor for the FAA; and Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC): experiences with Ada in the Flight Dynamics Division and the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) project and the implications of GSFC experience for Ada use in NASA. Despite the diversity of the presentations, several common themes emerged from the program: Methodology - NASA experience in general indicates that the effective use of Ada requires modern software engineering methodologies; Training - It is the software engineering principles and methods that surround Ada, rather than Ada itself, which requires the major training effort; Reuse - Due to training and transition costs, the use of Ada may initially actually decrease productivity, as was clearly found at GSFC; and real-time work at LeRC, JPL and GSFC shows that it is possible to use Ada for real-time applications.

Detailed Design Documentation, without the Pain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramsay, C. D.; Parkes, S.

2004-06-01

Producing detailed forms of design documentation, such as pseudocode and structured flowcharts, to describe the procedures of a software system:(1) allows software developers to model and discuss their understanding of a problem and the design of a solution free from the syntax of a programming language,(2) facilitates deeper involvement of non-technical stakeholders, such as the customer or project managers, whose influence ensures the quality, correctness and timeliness of the resulting system,(3) forms comprehensive documentation of the system for its future maintenance, reuse and/or redeployment.However, such forms of documentation require effort to create and maintain.This paper describes a software tool which is currently being developed within the Space Systems Research Group at the University of Dundee which aims to improve the utility of, and the incentive for, creating detailed design documentation for the procedures of a software system. The rationale for creating such a tool is briefly discussed, followed by a description of the tool itself, a summary of its perceived benefits, and plans for future work.

Distribution of a Generic Mission Planning and Scheduling Toolkit for Astronomical Spacecraft

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kleiner, Steven C.

1996-01-01

Work is progressing as outlined in the proposal for this contract. A working planning and scheduling system has been documented and packaged and made available to the WIRE Small Explorer group at JPL, the FUSE group at JHU, the NASA/GSFC Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics and the Advanced Planning and Scheduling Branch at STScI. The package is running successfully on the WIRE computer system. It is expected that the WIRE will reuse significant portions of the SWAS code in its system. This scheduling system itself was tested successfully against the spacecraft hardware in December 1995. A fully automatic scheduling module has been developed and is being added to the toolkit. In order to maximize reuse, the code is being reorganized during the current build into object-oriented class libraries. A paper describing the toolkit has been written and is included in the software distribution. We have experienced interference between the export and production versions of the toolkit. We will be requesting permission to reprogram funds in order to purchase a standalone PC onto which to offload the export version.

A Formal Approach to Domain-Oriented Software Design Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lowry, Michael; Philpot, Andrew; Pressburger, Thomas; Underwood, Ian; Lum, Henry, Jr. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

This paper describes a formal approach to domain-oriented software design environments, based on declarative domain theories, formal specifications, and deductive program synthesis. A declarative domain theory defines the semantics of a domain-oriented specification language and its relationship to implementation-level subroutines. Formal specification development and reuse is made accessible to end-users through an intuitive graphical interface that guides them in creating diagrams denoting formal specifications. The diagrams also serve to document the specifications. Deductive program synthesis ensures that end-user specifications are correctly implemented. AMPHION has been applied to the domain of solar system kinematics through the development of a declarative domain theory, which includes an axiomatization of JPL's SPICELIB subroutine library. 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. Furthermore, AMPHION synthesizes one to two page programs consisting of calls to SPICELIB subroutines from these specifications in just a few minutes. Test results obtained by metering AMPHION's deductive program synthesis component are examined. AMPHION has been installed at JPL and is currently undergoing further refinement in preparation for distribution to hundreds of SPICELIB users worldwide. Current work to support end-user customization of AMPHION's specification acquisition subsystem is briefly discussed, as well as future work to enable domain-expert creation of new AMPHION applications through development of suitable domain theories.

Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lemen, J. R.; Freeland, S. L.

1997-01-01

Efforts concentrated on development and implementation of the SolarSoft (SSW) data analysis system. From an EIT analysis perspective, this system was designed to facilitate efficient reuse and conversion of software developed for Yohkoh/SXT and to take advantage of a large existing body of software developed by the SDAC, Yohkoh, and SOHO instrument teams. Another strong motivation for this system was to provide an EIT analysis environment which permits coordinated analysis of EIT data in conjunction with data from important supporting instruments, including Yohkoh/SXT and the other SOHO coronal instruments; CDS, SUMER, and LASCO. In addition, the SSW system will support coordinated EIT/TRACE analysis (by design) when TRACE data is available; TRACE launch is currently planned for March 1998. Working with Jeff Newmark, the Chianti software package (K.P. Dere et al) and UV /EUV data base was fully integrated into the SSW system to facilitate EIT temperature and emission analysis.

A Framework for Performing V&V within Reuse-Based Software Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Addy, Edward A.

1996-01-01

Verification and validation (V&V) is performed during application development for many systems, especially safety-critical and mission-critical systems. The V&V process is intended to discover errors, especially errors related to critical processing, as early as possible during the development process. Early discovery is important in order to minimize the cost and other impacts of correcting these errors. In order to provide early detection of errors, V&V is conducted in parallel with system development, often beginning with the concept phase. In reuse-based software engineering, however, decisions on the requirements, design and even implementation of domain assets can be made prior to beginning development of a specific system. In this case, V&V must be performed during domain engineering in order to have an impact on system development. This paper describes a framework for performing V&V within architecture-centric, reuse-based software engineering. This framework includes the activities of traditional application-level V&V, and extends these activities into domain engineering and into the transition between domain engineering and application engineering. The framework includes descriptions of the types of activities to be performed during each of the life-cycle phases, and provides motivation for the activities.

Using Selection Pressure as an Asset to Develop Reusable, Adaptable Software Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Berrick, Stephen; Lynnes, Christopher

2007-01-01

The Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) at NASA has over the years developed and honed several reusable architectural components for supporting large-scale data centers with a large customer base. These include a processing system (S4PM) and an archive system (S4PA) based upon a workflow engine called the Simple Scalable Script based Science Processor (S4P) and an online data visualization and analysis system (Giovanni). These subsystems are currently reused internally in a variety of combinations to implement customized data management on behalf of instrument science teams and other science investigators. Some of these subsystems (S4P and S4PM) have also been reused by other data centers for operational science processing. Our experience has been that development and utilization of robust interoperable and reusable software systems can actually flourish in environments defined by heterogeneous commodity hardware systems the emphasis on value-added customer service and the continual goal for achieving higher cost efficiencies. The repeated internal reuse that is fostered by such an environment encourages and even forces changes to the software that make it more reusable and adaptable. Allowing and even encouraging such selective pressures to software development has been a key factor In the success of S4P and S4PM which are now available to the open source community under the NASA Open source Agreement

Software Process Assessment (SPA)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rosenberg, Linda H.; Sheppard, Sylvia B.; Butler, Scott A.

1994-01-01

NASA's environment mirrors the changes taking place in the nation at large, i.e. workers are being asked to do more work with fewer resources. For software developers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the effects of this change are that we must continue to produce quality code that is maintainable and reusable, but we must learn to produce it more efficiently and less expensively. To accomplish this goal, the Data Systems Technology Division (DSTD) at GSFC is trying a variety of both proven and state-of-the-art techniques for software development (e.g., object-oriented design, prototyping, designing for reuse, etc.). In order to evaluate the effectiveness of these techniques, the Software Process Assessment (SPA) program was initiated. SPA was begun under the assumption that the effects of different software development processes, techniques, and tools, on the resulting product must be evaluated in an objective manner in order to assess any benefits that may have accrued. SPA involves the collection and analysis of software product and process data. These data include metrics such as effort, code changes, size, complexity, and code readability. This paper describes the SPA data collection and analysis methodology and presents examples of benefits realized thus far by DSTD's software developers and managers.

Generic Software Architecture for Prognostics (GSAP) User Guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Teubert, Christopher Allen; Daigle, Matthew John; Watkins, Jason; Sankararaman, Shankar; Goebel, Kai

2016-01-01

The Generic Software Architecture for Prognostics (GSAP) is a framework for applying prognostics. It makes applying prognostics easier by implementing many of the common elements across prognostic applications. The standard interface enables reuse of prognostic algorithms and models across systems using the GSAP framework.

Space Software Defined Radio Characterization to Enable Reuse

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mortensen, Dale J.; Bishop, Daniel W.; Chelmins, David

2012-01-01

NASA's Space Communication and Navigation Testbed is beginning operations on the International Space Station this year. The objective is to promote new software defined radio technologies and associated software application reuse, enabled by this first flight of NASA's Space Telecommunications Radio System architecture standard. The Space Station payload has three software defined radios onboard that allow for a wide variety of communications applications; however, each radio was only launched with one waveform application. By design the testbed allows new waveform applications to be uploaded and tested by experimenters in and outside of NASA. During the system integration phase of the testbed special waveform test modes and stand-alone test waveforms were used to characterize the SDR platforms for the future experiments. Characterization of the Testbed's JPL SDR using test waveforms and specialized ground test modes is discussed in this paper. One of the test waveforms, a record and playback application, can be utilized in a variety of ways, including new satellite on-orbit checkout as well as independent on-board testbed experiments.

Reverse Engineering and Software Products Reuse to Teach Collaborative Web Portals: A Case Study with Final-Year Computer Science Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Medina-Dominguez, Fuensanta; Sanchez-Segura, Maria-Isabel; Mora-Soto, Arturo; Amescua, Antonio

2010-01-01

The development of collaborative Web applications does not follow a software engineering methodology. This is because when university students study Web applications in general, and collaborative Web portals in particular, they are not being trained in the use of software engineering techniques to develop collaborative Web portals. This paper…

Multimission Software Reuse in an Environment of Large Paradigm Shifts

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilson, Robert K.

1996-01-01

The ground data systems provided for NASA space mission support are discussed. As space missions expand, the ground systems requirements become more complex. Current ground data systems provide for telemetry, command, and uplink and downlink processing capabilities. The new millennium project (NMP) technology testbed for 21st century NASA missions is discussed. The program demonstrates spacecraft and ground system technologies. The paradigm shift from detailed ground sequencing to a goal oriented planning approach is considered. The work carried out to meet this paradigm for the Deep Space-1 (DS-1) mission is outlined.

Improving Reuse in Software Development for the Life Sciences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iannotti, Nicholas V.

2013-01-01

The last several years have seen unprecedented advancements in the application of technology to the life sciences, particularly in the area of data generation. Novel scientific insights are now often driven primarily by software development supporting new multidisciplinary and increasingly multifaceted data analysis. However, despite the…

Case Study: Using The OMG SWRADIO Profile and SDR Forum Input for NASA's Space Telecommunications Radio System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Briones, Janette C.; Handler, Louis M.; Hall, Steve C.; Reinhart, Richard C.; Kacpura, Thomas J.

2009-01-01

The Space Telecommunication Radio System (STRS) standard is a Software Defined Radio (SDR) architecture standard developed by NASA. The goal of STRS is to reduce NASA s dependence on custom, proprietary architectures with unique and varying interfaces and hardware and support reuse of waveforms across platforms. The STRS project worked with members of the Object Management Group (OMG), Software Defined Radio Forum, and industry partners to leverage existing standards and knowledge. This collaboration included investigating the use of the OMG s Platform-Independent Model (PIM) SWRadio as the basis for an STRS PIM. This paper details the influence of the OMG technologies on the STRS update effort, findings in the STRS/SWRadio mapping, and provides a summary of the SDR Forum recommendations.

Using Selection Pressure as an Asset to Develop Reusable, Adaptable Software Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berrick, S. W.; Lynnes, C.

2007-12-01

The Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) at NASA has over the years developed and honed a number of reusable architectural components for supporting large-scale data centers with a large customer base. These include a processing system (S4PM) and an archive system (S4PA) based upon a workflow engine called the Simple, Scalable, Script-based Science Processor (S4P); an online data visualization and analysis system (Giovanni); and the radically simple and fast data search tool, Mirador. These subsystems are currently reused internally in a variety of combinations to implement customized data management on behalf of instrument science teams and other science investigators. Some of these subsystems (S4P and S4PM) have also been reused by other data centers for operational science processing. Our experience has been that development and utilization of robust, interoperable, and reusable software systems can actually flourish in environments defined by heterogeneous commodity hardware systems, the emphasis on value-added customer service, and continual cost reduction pressures. The repeated internal reuse that is fostered by such an environment encourages and even forces changes to the software that make it more reusable and adaptable. Allowing and even encouraging such selective pressures to software development has been a key factor in the success of S4P and S4PM, which are now available to the open source community under the NASA Open Source Agreement.

Sensor Open System Architecture (SOSA) evolution for collaborative standards development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Collier, Charles Patrick; Lipkin, Ilya; Davidson, Steven A.; Baldwin, Rusty; Orlovsky, Michael C.; Ibrahim, Tim

2017-04-01

The Sensor Open System Architecture (SOSA) is a C4ISR-focused technical and economic collaborative effort between the Air Force, Navy, Army, the Department of Defense (DoD), Industry, and other Governmental agencies to develop (and incorporate) a technical Open Systems Architecture standard in order to maximize C4ISR sub-system, system, and platform affordability, re-configurability, and hardware/software/firmware re-use. The SOSA effort will effectively create an operational and technical framework for the integration of disparate payloads into C4ISR systems; with a focus on the development of a modular decomposition (defining functions and behaviors) and associated key interfaces (physical and logical) for common multi-purpose architecture for radar, EO/IR, SIGINT, EW, and Communications. SOSA addresses hardware, software, and mechanical/electrical interfaces. The modular decomposition will produce a set of re-useable components, interfaces, and sub-systems that engender reusable capabilities. This, in effect, creates a realistic and affordable ecosystem enabling mission effectiveness through systematic re-use of all available re-composed hardware, software, and electrical/mechanical base components and interfaces. To this end, SOSA will leverage existing standards as much as possible and evolve the SOSA architecture through modification, reuse, and enhancements to achieve C4ISR goals. This paper will present accomplishments over the first year of SOSA initiative.

EPA Scientific Knowledge Management Assessment and ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

A series of activities have been conducted by a core group of EPA scientists from across the Agency. The activities were initiated in 2012 and the focus was to increase the reuse and interoperability of science software at EPA. The need for increased reuse and interoperability is linked to the increased complexity of environmental assessments in the 21st century. This complexity is manifest in the form of problems that require integrated multi-disciplinary solutions. To enable the means to develop these solutions (i.e., science software systems) it is necessary to integrate software developed by disparate groups representing a variety of science domains. Thus, reuse and interoperability becomes imperative. This report briefly describes the chronology of activities conducted by the group of scientists to provide context for the primary purpose of this report, that is, to describe the proceedings and outcomes of the latest activity, a workshop entitled “Workshop on Advancing US EPA integration of environmental and information sciences”. The EPA has been lagging in digital maturity relative to the private sector and even other government agencies. This report helps begin the process of improving the agency’s use of digital technologies, especially in the areas of efficiency and transparency. This report contributes to SHC 1.61.2.

GESTALT: A Framework for Redesign of Educational Software

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Puustinen, M.; Baker, M.; Lund, K.

2006-01-01

Design of educational multimedia rarely starts from scratch, but rather by attempting to reuse existing software. Although redesign has been an issue in research on evaluation and on learning objects, how it should be carried out in a principled way has remained relatively unexplored. Furthermore, understanding how empirical research on…

The theory of interface slicing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Beck, Jon

1993-01-01

Interface slicing is a new tool which was developed to facilitate reuse-based software engineering, by addressing the following problems, needs, and issues: (1) size of systems incorporating reused modules; (2) knowledge requirements for program modification; (3) program understanding for reverse engineering; (4) module granularity and domain management; and (5) time and space complexity of conventional slicing. The definition of a form of static program analysis called interface slicing is addressed.

A Framework for Software Reuse in Safety-Critical System of Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-03-01

environment.8 Pressman , on the other hand, defines a software component as a unit of composition with contractually specified and explicit context...2005, p654. 9 R.S. Pressman ., Software Engineering A Practitioner’s Approach, Sixth Edition, New York, NY.: McGraw-Hill, 2005, p817. 10 W.C. Lim...index.php. 79 Pressman , R.S., Software Engineering A Practitioner’s Approach, Sixth Edition, New York, NY.: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Radio Technical

Software For Clear-Air Doppler-Radar Display

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnston, Bruce W.

1990-01-01

System of software developed to present plan-position-indicator scans of clear-air Doppler radar station on color graphical cathode-ray-tube display. Designed to incorporate latest accepted standards for equipment, computer programs, and meteorological data bases. Includes use of Ada programming language, of "Graphical-Kernel-System-like" graphics interface, and of Common Doppler Radar Exchange Format. Features include portability and maintainability. Use of Ada software packages produced number of software modules reused on other related projects.

Object linking in repositories

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eichmann, David (Editor); Beck, Jon; Atkins, John; Bailey, Bill

1992-01-01

This topic is covered in three sections. The first section explores some of the architectural ramifications of extending the Eichmann/Atkins lattice-based classification scheme to encompass the assets of the full life cycle of software development. A model is considered that provides explicit links between objects in addition to the edges connecting classification vertices in the standard lattice. The second section gives a description of the efforts to implement the repository architecture using a commercially available object-oriented database management system. Some of the features of this implementation are described, and some of the next steps to be taken to produce a working prototype of the repository are pointed out. In the final section, it is argued that design and instantiation of reusable components have competing criteria (design-for-reuse strives for generality, design-with-reuse strives for specificity) and that providing mechanisms for each can be complementary rather than antagonistic. In particular, it is demonstrated how program slicing techniques can be applied to customization of reusable components.

Reuse-Driven Software Processes Guidebook. Version 02.00.03

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-11-01

a required sys - tem without unduly constraining the details of the solution. The Naval Research Laboratory Software Cost Reduction project developed...conventional manner. The emphasis is still on the development of "one-of-a-kind" sys - tems and the phased completion and review of corresponding...Application Engineering to improve the life-cycle productivity of Sy - 21 OVM ftrdauntals of Syatbes the total software development enterprise. The

Visual NNet: An Educational ANN's Simulation Environment Reusing Matlab Neural Networks Toolbox

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garcia-Roselló, Emilio; González-Dacosta, Jacinto; Lado, Maria J.; Méndez, Arturo J.; Garcia Pérez-Schofield, Baltasar; Ferrer, Fátima

2011-01-01

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN's) are nowadays a common subject in different curricula of graduate and postgraduate studies. Due to the complex algorithms involved and the dynamic nature of ANN's, simulation software has been commonly used to teach this subject. This software has usually been developed specifically for learning purposes, because…

10th Annual CMMI Technology Conference and User Group Tutorial Session

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-11-15

Reuse That Pays Off: Software Product Lines BUSINESS GOALS/ APPLICATION DOMAIN ARCHITECTURE COMPONENTS and SERVICES pertain to share an are built... services PRODUCT LINES = STRATEGIC REUSE CMMI V1.3 and Architecture Oct 2010 © 2010 Carnegie Mellon University 46 91 CMMI V1.3 and Architecture © 2010... product component, the performance mustquality attribute can sometimes be partitioned for unique allocation to each product component as a derived

Impact of Domain Analysis on Reuse Methods

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-11-06

return on the investment. The potential negative effects a "bad" domain analysis has on developing systems in the domain also increases the risks of a...importance of domain analysis as part of a software reuse program. A particular goal is to assist in avoiding the potential negative effects of ad hoc or...are specification objects discovered by performing object-oriented analysis. Object-based analysis approaches thus serve to capture a model of reality

Are the expected benefits of requirements reuse hampered by distance? An experiment.

PubMed

Carrillo de Gea, Juan M; Nicolás, Joaquín; Fernández-Alemán, José L; Toval, Ambrosio; Idri, Ali

2016-01-01

Software development processes are often performed by distributed teams which may be separated by great distances. Global software development (GSD) has undergone a significant growth in recent years. The challenges concerning GSD are especially relevant to requirements engineering (RE). Stakeholders need to share a common ground, but there are many difficulties as regards the potentially variable interpretation of the requirements in different contexts. We posit that the application of requirements reuse techniques could alleviate this problem through the diminution of the number of requirements open to misinterpretation. This paper presents a reuse-based approach with which to address RE in GSD, with special emphasis on specification techniques, namely parameterised requirements and traceability relationships. An experiment was carried out with the participation of 29 university students enrolled on a Computer Science and Engineering course. Two main scenarios that represented co-localisation and distribution in software development were portrayed by participants from Spain and Morocco. The global teams achieved a slightly better performance than the co-located teams as regards effectiveness , which could be a result of the worse productivity of the global teams in comparison to the co-located teams. Subjective perceptions were generally more positive in the case of the distributed teams ( difficulty , speed and understanding ), with the exception of quality . A theoretical model has been proposed as an evaluation framework with which to analyse, from the point of view of the factor of distance, the effect of requirements specification techniques on a set of performance and perception-based variables. The experiment utilised a new internationalisation requirements catalogue. None of the differences found between co-located and distributed teams were significant according to the outcome of our statistical tests. The well-known benefits of requirements reuse in traditional co-located projects could, therefore, also be expected in GSD projects.

In-Depth Case Studies of Superfund Reuse

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

SRI’s in-depth case studies explore Superfund reuse stories from start to finish. Their purpose is to see what redevelopment strategies worked, acknowledge reuse barriers and understand how communities overcame the barriers to create new reuse outcomes.

Evolution of a modular software network

PubMed Central

Fortuna, Miguel A.; Bonachela, Juan A.; Levin, Simon A.

2011-01-01

“Evolution behaves like a tinkerer” (François Jacob, Science, 1977). Software systems provide a singular opportunity to understand biological processes using concepts from network theory. The Debian GNU/Linux operating system allows us to explore the evolution of a complex network in a unique way. The modular design detected during its growth is based on the reuse of existing code in order to minimize costs during programming. The increase of modularity experienced by the system over time has not counterbalanced the increase in incompatibilities between software packages within modules. This negative effect is far from being a failure of design. A random process of package installation shows that the higher the modularity, the larger the fraction of packages working properly in a local computer. The decrease in the relative number of conflicts between packages from different modules avoids a failure in the functionality of one package spreading throughout the entire system. Some potential analogies with the evolutionary and ecological processes determining the structure of ecological networks of interacting species are discussed. PMID:22106260

The Human Physiome: how standards, software and innovative service infrastructures are providing the building blocks to make it achievable

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Reconstructing and understanding the Human Physiome virtually is a complex mathematical problem, and a highly demanding computational challenge. Mathematical models spanning from the molecular level through to whole populations of individuals must be integrated, then personalized. This requires interoperability with multiple disparate and geographically separated data sources, and myriad computational software tools. Extracting and producing knowledge from such sources, even when the databases and software are readily available, is a challenging task. Despite the difficulties, researchers must frequently perform these tasks so that available knowledge can be continually integrated into the common framework required to realize the Human Physiome. Software and infrastructures that support the communities that generate these, together with their underlying standards to format, describe and interlink the corresponding data and computer models, are pivotal to the Human Physiome being realized. They provide the foundations for integrating, exchanging and re-using data and models efficiently, and correctly, while also supporting the dissemination of growing knowledge in these forms. In this paper, we explore the standards, software tooling, repositories and infrastructures that support this work, and detail what makes them vital to realizing the Human Physiome. PMID:27051515

The Human Physiome: how standards, software and innovative service infrastructures are providing the building blocks to make it achievable.

PubMed

Nickerson, David; Atalag, Koray; de Bono, Bernard; Geiger, Jörg; Goble, Carole; Hollmann, Susanne; Lonien, Joachim; Müller, Wolfgang; Regierer, Babette; Stanford, Natalie J; Golebiewski, Martin; Hunter, Peter

2016-04-06

Reconstructing and understanding the Human Physiome virtually is a complex mathematical problem, and a highly demanding computational challenge. Mathematical models spanning from the molecular level through to whole populations of individuals must be integrated, then personalized. This requires interoperability with multiple disparate and geographically separated data sources, and myriad computational software tools. Extracting and producing knowledge from such sources, even when the databases and software are readily available, is a challenging task. Despite the difficulties, researchers must frequently perform these tasks so that available knowledge can be continually integrated into the common framework required to realize the Human Physiome. Software and infrastructures that support the communities that generate these, together with their underlying standards to format, describe and interlink the corresponding data and computer models, are pivotal to the Human Physiome being realized. They provide the foundations for integrating, exchanging and re-using data and models efficiently, and correctly, while also supporting the dissemination of growing knowledge in these forms. In this paper, we explore the standards, software tooling, repositories and infrastructures that support this work, and detail what makes them vital to realizing the Human Physiome.

JIP: Java image processing on the Internet

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Dongyan; Lin, Bo; Zhang, Jun

1998-12-01

In this paper, we present JIP - Java Image Processing on the Internet, a new Internet based application for remote education and software presentation. JIP offers an integrate learning environment on the Internet where remote users not only can share static HTML documents and lectures notes, but also can run and reuse dynamic distributed software components, without having the source code or any extra work of software compilation, installation and configuration. By implementing a platform-independent distributed computational model, local computational resources are consumed instead of the resources on a central server. As an extended Java applet, JIP allows users to selected local image files on their computers or specify any image on the Internet using an URL as input. Multimedia lectures such as streaming video/audio and digital images are integrated into JIP and intelligently associated with specific image processing functions. Watching demonstrations an practicing the functions with user-selected input data dramatically encourages leaning interest, while promoting the understanding of image processing theory. The JIP framework can be easily applied to other subjects in education or software presentation, such as digital signal processing, business, mathematics, physics, or other areas such as employee training and charged software consumption.

Reuse Tools to Support ADA Instantiation Construction

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-06-01

assests Figure 3- 1 Research Summary-Gaining a New Perspective Working definitions of several relevant and driving terms are now in order: A software part...Report DTIC E -ECTE 0CT 3 01990 CIN: C02087KV000100 E LI I JUNE 1990 DISTP ’[ -lease; Ar:T7 ,’,7",;, 7 ’ rlue REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE 1 0 Puic .paftV bu...AftqW1o. Vh == to toe Otim ItNamn a. Maneralut w4d BudgP No0ton4 DC 208 1 . AGENCY USE ONLY (L"" BWk) 2. REPORT DATE 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED

Comparing Acquisition Strategies: Open Architecture versus Product Lines

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-04-30

software • New SOW language for accepting software deliveries – Enables third-party reuse • Additional SOW language regarding conducting software code walkthroughs and for using integrated development environments ...change the business environment must be the primary factor that drives the technical approach. Accordingly, there are business case decisions to be...elements of a system design should be made available to the customer to observe throughout the design process. Electronic access to the design environment

Component Verification and Certification in NASA Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Giannakopoulou, Dimitra; Penix, John; Norvig, Peter (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

Software development for NASA missions is a particularly challenging task. Missions are extremely ambitious scientifically, have very strict time frames, and must be accomplished with a maximum degree of reliability. Verification technologies must therefore be pushed far beyond their current capabilities. Moreover, reuse and adaptation of software architectures and components must be incorporated in software development within and across missions. This paper discusses NASA applications that we are currently investigating from these perspectives.

Automating the design of scientific computing software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kant, Elaine

1992-01-01

SINAPSE is a domain-specific software design system that generates code from specifications of equations and algorithm methods. This paper describes the system's design techniques (planning in a space of knowledge-based refinement and optimization rules), user interaction style (user has option to control decision making), and representation of knowledge (rules and objects). It also summarizes how the system knowledge has evolved over time and suggests some issues in building software design systems to facilitate reuse.

Connecting Research and Practice: An Experience Report on Research Infusion with SAVE

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lindvall, Mikael; Stratton, William C.; Sibol, Deane E.; Ackermann, Christopher; Reid, W. Mark; Ganesan, Dharmalingam; McComas, David; Bartholomew, Maureen; Godfrey, Sally

2009-01-01

NASA systems need to be highly dependable to avoid catastrophic mission failures. This calls for rigorous engineering processes including meticulous validation and verification. However, NASA systems are often highly distributed and overwhelmingly complex, making the software portion of these systems challenging to understand, maintain, change, reuse, and test. NASA's systems are long-lived and the software maintenance process typically constitutes 60-80% of the total cost of the entire lifecycle. Thus, in addition to the technical challenges of ensuring high life-time quality of NASA's systems, the post-development phase also presents a significant financial burden. Some of NASA's software-related challenges could potentially be addressed by some of the many powerful technologies that are being developed in software research laboratories. Many of these research technologies seek to facilitate maintenance and evolution by for example architecting, designing and modeling for quality, flexibility, and reuse. Other technologies attempt to detect and remove defects and other quality issues by various forms of automated defect detection, architecture analysis, and various forms of sophisticated simulation and testing. However promising, most such research technologies nevertheless do not make the transition from the research lab to the software lab. One reason the transition from research to practice seldom occurs is that research infusion and technology transfer is difficult. For example, factors related to the technology are sometimes overshadowed by other types of factors such as reluctance to change and therefore prohibits the technology from sticking. Successful infusion might also take very long time. One famous study showed that the discrepancy between the conception of the idea and its practical use was 18 years plus or minus three. Nevertheless, infusing new technology is possible. We have found that it takes special circumstances for such research infusion to succeed: 1) there must be evidence that the technology works in the practitioner's particular domain, 2) there must be a potential for great improvements and enhanced competitive edge for the practitioner, 3) the practitioner has to have strong individual curiosity and continuous interest in trying out new technologies, 4) the practitioner has to have support on multiple levels (i.e. from the researchers, from management, from sponsors etc), and 5) to remain infused, the new technology has to be integrated into the practitioner's processes so that it becomes a natural part of the daily work. NASA IV&V's Research Infusion initiative sponsored by NASA's Office of Safety & Mission Assurance (OSMA) through the Software Assurance Research Program (SARP), strives to overcome some of the problems related to research infusion.

Engineer’s Handbook. Central Archive for Reusable Defense Software (CARDS)

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-02-28

benefit frc- this reuse effort? Reuse should be done for a domain rather than just for a program. " Identify relationships between domains to facilitate... benefits to the government and its contractors. " Help provide guidelines to enable domain managers to do a trade-off study on requirements, e.g., does...libraries, if desired or required. This can only occur where the government domain growth matches, or can benefit from, the inclusion or incorporation of the

Encouraging Editorial Flexibility in Cases of Textual Reuse

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Because many technical descriptions of scientific processes and phenomena are difficult to paraphrase and because an increasing proportion of contributors to the scientific literature are not sufficiently proficient at writing in English, it is proposed that journal editors re-examine their approaches toward instances of textual reuse (similarity). The plagiarism definition by the US Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is more suitable than other definitions for dealing with cases of ostensible plagiarism. Editors are strongly encouraged to examine cases of textual reuse in the context of both, the ORI guidance and the offending authors' proficiency in English. Editors should also reconsider making plagiarism determinations based exclusively on text similarity scores reported by plagiarism detection software. PMID:28244278

Effects of Using Requirements Catalogs on Effectiveness and Productivity of Requirements Specification in a Software Project Management Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fernández-Alemán, José Luis; Carrillo-de-Gea, Juan Manuel; Meca, Joaquín Vidal; Ros, Joaquín Nicolás; Toval, Ambrosio; Idri, Ali

2016-01-01

This paper presents the results of two educational experiments carried out to determine whether the process of specifying requirements (catalog-based reuse as opposed to conventional specification) has an impact on effectiveness and productivity in co-located and distributed software development environments. The participants in the experiments…

Software Technology for Adaptable Reliable Systems (STARS) Workshop Held at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC on April 9-12 1985

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-01-01

paths? .%* vii * * ... * r -. . . .W. -t. ’ PREFACE ......... H*o . .. . ON.........................NT .. . . . . . . . . . . ............ . ........... l...REUSE ................................................ 83 Dr. Bruce A. Burton and Mr. Michael D. Broido REUSABLE COMPONENT DEFINITION (A TUTORIAL...209 Michael R . Miller, Hans L. Hiabereder, and L.O. Keeler REUSABLE SOFTWARE IN SIMULATION APPLICATIONS

Models and Frameworks: A Synergistic Association for Developing Component-Based Applications

PubMed Central

Sánchez-Ledesma, Francisco; Sánchez, Pedro; Pastor, Juan A.; Álvarez, Bárbara

2014-01-01

The use of frameworks and components has been shown to be effective in improving software productivity and quality. However, the results in terms of reuse and standardization show a dearth of portability either of designs or of component-based implementations. This paper, which is based on the model driven software development paradigm, presents an approach that separates the description of component-based applications from their possible implementations for different platforms. This separation is supported by automatic integration of the code obtained from the input models into frameworks implemented using object-oriented technology. Thus, the approach combines the benefits of modeling applications from a higher level of abstraction than objects, with the higher levels of code reuse provided by frameworks. In order to illustrate the benefits of the proposed approach, two representative case studies that use both an existing framework and an ad hoc framework, are described. Finally, our approach is compared with other alternatives in terms of the cost of software development. PMID:25147858

Models and frameworks: a synergistic association for developing component-based applications.

PubMed

Alonso, Diego; Sánchez-Ledesma, Francisco; Sánchez, Pedro; Pastor, Juan A; Álvarez, Bárbara

2014-01-01

The use of frameworks and components has been shown to be effective in improving software productivity and quality. However, the results in terms of reuse and standardization show a dearth of portability either of designs or of component-based implementations. This paper, which is based on the model driven software development paradigm, presents an approach that separates the description of component-based applications from their possible implementations for different platforms. This separation is supported by automatic integration of the code obtained from the input models into frameworks implemented using object-oriented technology. Thus, the approach combines the benefits of modeling applications from a higher level of abstraction than objects, with the higher levels of code reuse provided by frameworks. In order to illustrate the benefits of the proposed approach, two representative case studies that use both an existing framework and an ad hoc framework, are described. Finally, our approach is compared with other alternatives in terms of the cost of software development.

On patterns and re-use in bioinformatics databases.

PubMed

Bell, Michael J; Lord, Phillip

2017-09-01

As the quantity of data being depositing into biological databases continues to increase, it becomes ever more vital to develop methods that enable us to understand this data and ensure that the knowledge is correct. It is widely-held that data percolates between different databases, which causes particular concerns for data correctness; if this percolation occurs, incorrect data in one database may eventually affect many others while, conversely, corrections in one database may fail to percolate to others. In this paper, we test this widely-held belief by directly looking for sentence reuse both within and between databases. Further, we investigate patterns of how sentences are reused over time. Finally, we consider the limitations of this form of analysis and the implications that this may have for bioinformatics database design. We show that reuse of annotation is common within many different databases, and that also there is a detectable level of reuse between databases. In addition, we show that there are patterns of reuse that have previously been shown to be associated with percolation errors. Analytical software is available on request. phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

On patterns and re-use in bioinformatics databases

PubMed Central

Bell, Michael J.; Lord, Phillip

2017-01-01

Abstract Motivation: As the quantity of data being depositing into biological databases continues to increase, it becomes ever more vital to develop methods that enable us to understand this data and ensure that the knowledge is correct. It is widely-held that data percolates between different databases, which causes particular concerns for data correctness; if this percolation occurs, incorrect data in one database may eventually affect many others while, conversely, corrections in one database may fail to percolate to others. In this paper, we test this widely-held belief by directly looking for sentence reuse both within and between databases. Further, we investigate patterns of how sentences are reused over time. Finally, we consider the limitations of this form of analysis and the implications that this may have for bioinformatics database design. Results: We show that reuse of annotation is common within many different databases, and that also there is a detectable level of reuse between databases. In addition, we show that there are patterns of reuse that have previously been shown to be associated with percolation errors. Availability and implementation: Analytical software is available on request. Contact: phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk PMID:28525546

A software development and evolution model based on decision-making

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wild, J. Christian; Dong, Jinghuan; Maly, Kurt

1991-01-01

Design is a complex activity whose purpose is to construct an artifact which satisfies a set of constraints and requirements. However the design process is not well understood. The software design and evolution process is the focus of interest, and a three dimensional software development space organized around a decision-making paradigm is presented. An initial instantiation of this model called 3DPM(sub p) which was partly implemented, is presented. Discussion of the use of this model in software reuse and process management is given.

MFV-class: a multi-faceted visualization tool of object classes.

PubMed

Zhang, Zhi-meng; Pan, Yun-he; Zhuang, Yue-ting

2004-11-01

Classes are key software components in an object-oriented software system. In many industrial OO software systems, there are some classes that have complicated structure and relationships. So in the processes of software maintenance, testing, software reengineering, software reuse and software restructure, it is a challenge for software engineers to understand these classes thoroughly. This paper proposes a class comprehension model based on constructivist learning theory, and implements a software visualization tool (MFV-Class) to help in the comprehension of a class. The tool provides multiple views of class to uncover manifold facets of class contents. It enables visualizing three object-oriented metrics of classes to help users focus on the understanding process. A case study was conducted to evaluate our approach and the toolkit.

CCSDS SOIS Subnetwork Services: A First Reference Implementation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gunes-Lasnet, S.; Notebaert, O.; Farges, P.-Y.; Fowell, S.

2008-08-01

The CCSDS SOIS working groups are developing a range of standards for spacecraft onboard interfaces with the intention of promoting reuse of hardware and software designs across a range of missions while enabling interoperability of onboard systems from diverse sources. The CCSDS SOIS working groups released in June 2007 their red books for both Subnetwork and application support layers. In order to allow the verification of these recommended standards and to pave the way for future implementation onboard spacecrafts, it is essential for these standards to be prototyped on a representative spacecraft platform, to provide valuable feed back to the SOIS working group. A first reference implementation of both Subnetwork and Application Support SOIS services over SpaceWire and Mil-Std-1553 bus is thus being realised by SciSys Ltd and Astrium under an ESA contract.

An empirical study of software design practices

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Card, David N.; Church, Victor E.; Agresti, William W.

1986-01-01

Software engineers have developed a large body of software design theory and folklore, much of which was never validated. The results of an empirical study of software design practices in one specific environment are presented. The practices examined affect module size, module strength, data coupling, descendant span, unreferenced variables, and software reuse. Measures characteristic of these practices were extracted from 887 FORTRAN modules developed for five flight dynamics software projects monitored by the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL). The relationship of these measures to cost and fault rate was analyzed using a contingency table procedure. The results show that some recommended design practices, despite their intuitive appeal, are ineffective in this environment, whereas others are very effective.

NA-42 TI Shared Software Component Library FY2011 Final Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Knudson, Christa K.; Rutz, Frederick C.; Dorow, Kevin E.

The NA-42 TI program initiated an effort in FY2010 to standardize its software development efforts with the long term goal of migrating toward a software management approach that will allow for the sharing and reuse of code developed within the TI program, improve integration, ensure a level of software documentation, and reduce development costs. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been tasked with two activities that support this mission. PNNL has been tasked with the identification, selection, and implementation of a Shared Software Component Library. The intent of the library is to provide a common repository that is accessiblemore » by all authorized NA-42 software development teams. The repository facilitates software reuse through a searchable and easy to use web based interface. As software is submitted to the repository, the component registration process captures meta-data and provides version control for compiled libraries, documentation, and source code. This meta-data is then available for retrieval and review as part of library search results. In FY2010, PNNL and staff from the Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSL) teamed up to develop a software application with the goal of replacing the aging Aerial Measuring System (AMS). The application under development includes an Advanced Visualization and Integration of Data (AVID) framework and associated AMS modules. Throughout development, PNNL and RSL have utilized a common AMS code repository for collaborative code development. The AMS repository is hosted by PNNL, is restricted to the project development team, is accessed via two different geographic locations and continues to be used. The knowledge gained from the collaboration and hosting of this repository in conjunction with PNNL software development and systems engineering capabilities were used in the selection of a package to be used in the implementation of the software component library on behalf of NA-42 TI. The second task managed by PNNL is the development and continued maintenance of the NA-42 TI Software Development Questionnaire. This questionnaire is intended to help software development teams working under NA-42 TI in documenting their development activities. When sufficiently completed, the questionnaire illustrates that the software development activities recorded incorporate significant aspects of the software engineering lifecycle. The questionnaire template is updated as comments are received from NA-42 and/or its development teams and revised versions distributed to those using the questionnaire. PNNL also maintains a list of questionnaire recipients. The blank questionnaire template, the AVID and AMS software being developed, and the completed AVID AMS specific questionnaire are being used as the initial content to be established in the TI Component Library. This report summarizes the approach taken to identify requirements, search for and evaluate technologies, and the approach taken for installation of the software needed to host the component library. Additionally, it defines the process by which users request access for the contribution and retrieval of library content.« less

Public responses to water reuse - Understanding the evidence.

PubMed

Smith, H M; Brouwer, S; Jeffrey, P; Frijns, J

2018-02-01

Over the years, much research has attempted to unpack what drives public responses to water reuse, using a variety of approaches. A large amount of this work was captured by an initial review that covered research undertaken up to the early 2000s (Hartley, 2006). This paper showcases post-millennium evidence and thinking around public responses to water reuse, and highlights the novel insights and shifts in emphasis that have occurred in the field. Our analysis is structured around four broad, and highly interrelated, strands of thinking: 1) work focused on identifying the range of factors that influence public reactions to the concept of water reuse, and broadly looking for associations between different factors; 2) more specific approaches rooted in the socio-psychological modelling techniques; 3) work with a particular focus on understanding the influences of trust, risk perceptions and affective (emotional) reactions; and 4) work utilising social constructivist perspectives and socio-technical systems theory to frame responses to water reuse. Some of the most significant advancements in thinking in this field stem from the increasingly sophisticated understanding of the 'yuck factor' and the role of such pre-cognitive affective reactions. These are deeply entrenched within individuals, but are also linked with wider societal processes and social representations. Work in this area suggests that responses to reuse are situated within an overall process of technological 'legitimation'. These emerging insights should help stimulate some novel thinking around approaches to public engagement for water reuse. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Health care professional workstation: software system construction using DSSA scenario-based engineering process.

PubMed

Hufnagel, S; Harbison, K; Silva, J; Mettala, E

1994-01-01

This paper describes a new method for the evolutionary determination of user requirements and system specifications called scenario-based engineering process (SEP). Health care professional workstations are critical components of large scale health care system architectures. We suggest that domain-specific software architectures (DSSAs) be used to specify standard interfaces and protocols for reusable software components throughout those architectures, including workstations. We encourage the use of engineering principles and abstraction mechanisms. Engineering principles are flexible guidelines, adaptable to particular situations. Abstraction mechanisms are simplifications for management of complexity. We recommend object-oriented design principles, graphical structural specifications, and formal components' behavioral specifications. We give an ambulatory care scenario and associated models to demonstrate SEP. The scenario uses health care terminology and gives patients' and health care providers' system views. Our goal is to have a threefold benefit. (i) Scenario view abstractions provide consistent interdisciplinary communications. (ii) Hierarchical object-oriented structures provide useful abstractions for reuse, understandability, and long term evolution. (iii) SEP and health care DSSA integration into computer aided software engineering (CASE) environments. These environments should support rapid construction and certification of individualized systems, from reuse libraries.

Interoperability of Neuroscience Modeling Software

PubMed Central

Cannon, Robert C.; Gewaltig, Marc-Oliver; Gleeson, Padraig; Bhalla, Upinder S.; Cornelis, Hugo; Hines, Michael L.; Howell, Fredrick W.; Muller, Eilif; Stiles, Joel R.; Wils, Stefan; De Schutter, Erik

2009-01-01

Neuroscience increasingly uses computational models to assist in the exploration and interpretation of complex phenomena. As a result, considerable effort is invested in the development of software tools and technologies for numerical simulations and for the creation and publication of models. The diversity of related tools leads to the duplication of effort and hinders model reuse. Development practices and technologies that support interoperability between software systems therefore play an important role in making the modeling process more efficient and in ensuring that published models can be reliably and easily reused. Various forms of interoperability are possible including the development of portable model description standards, the adoption of common simulation languages or the use of standardized middleware. Each of these approaches finds applications within the broad range of current modeling activity. However more effort is required in many areas to enable new scientific questions to be addressed. Here we present the conclusions of the “Neuro-IT Interoperability of Simulators” workshop, held at the 11th computational neuroscience meeting in Edinburgh (July 19-20 2006; http://www.cnsorg.org). We assess the current state of interoperability of neural simulation software and explore the future directions that will enable the field to advance. PMID:17873374

Encouraging Editorial Flexibility in Cases of Textual Reuse.

PubMed

Roig, Miguel

2017-04-01

Because many technical descriptions of scientific processes and phenomena are difficult to paraphrase and because an increasing proportion of contributors to the scientific literature are not sufficiently proficient at writing in English, it is proposed that journal editors re-examine their approaches toward instances of textual reuse (similarity). The plagiarism definition by the US Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is more suitable than other definitions for dealing with cases of ostensible plagiarism. Editors are strongly encouraged to examine cases of textual reuse in the context of both, the ORI guidance and the offending authors' proficiency in English. Editors should also reconsider making plagiarism determinations based exclusively on text similarity scores reported by plagiarism detection software. © 2017 The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences.

The next generation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yudkin, Howard

1988-01-01

The next generation of computer systems are studied by examining the processes and methodologies. The present generation is ok for small projects, but not so good for large projects. They are not good for addressing the iterative nature of requirements, resolution, and implementation. They do not address complexity issues of requirements stabilization. They do not explicitly address reuse opportunities, and they do not help with people shortages. Therefore, there is a need to define and automate improved software engineering processes. Some help may be gained by reuse and prototyping, which are two sides of the same coin. Reuse library parts are used to generate good approximations to desired solutions, i.e., prototypes. And rapid prototype composition implies use of preexistent parts, i.e., reusable parts.

An Exploration of Software-Based GNSS Signal Processing at Multiple Frequencies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pasqual Paul, Manuel; Elosegui, Pedro; Lind, Frank; Vazquez, Antonio; Pankratius, Victor

2017-01-01

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS; i.e., GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and other constellations) has recently grown into numerous areas that go far beyond the traditional scope in navigation. In the geosciences, for example, high-precision GPS has become a powerful tool for a myriad of geophysical applications such as in geodynamics, seismology, paleoclimate, cryosphere, and remote sensing of the atmosphere. Positioning with millimeter-level accuracy can be achieved through carrier-phase-based, multi-frequency signal processing, which mitigates various biases and error sources such as those arising from ionospheric effects. Today, however, most receivers with multi-frequency capabilities are highly specialized hardware receiving systems with proprietary and closed designs, limited interfaces, and significant acquisition costs. This work explores alternatives that are entirely software-based, using Software-Defined Radio (SDR) receivers as a way to digitize the entire spectrum of interest. It presents an overview of existing open-source frameworks and outlines the next steps towards converting GPS software receivers from single-frequency to dual-frequency, geodetic-quality systems. In the future, this development will lead to a more flexible multi-constellation GNSS processing architecture that can be easily reused in different contexts, as well as to further miniaturization of receivers.

Organizing Community-Based Data Standards: Lessons from Developing a Successful Open Standard in Systems Biology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hucka, M.

2015-09-01

In common with many fields, including astronomy, a vast number of software tools for computational modeling and simulation are available today in systems biology. This wealth of resources is a boon to researchers, but it also presents interoperability problems. Despite working with different software tools, researchers want to disseminate their work widely as well as reuse and extend the models of other researchers. This situation led in the year 2000 to an effort to create a tool-independent, machine-readable file format for representing models: SBML, the Systems Biology Markup Language. SBML has since become the de facto standard for its purpose. Its success and general approach has inspired and influenced other community-oriented standardization efforts in systems biology. Open standards are essential for the progress of science in all fields, but it is often difficult for academic researchers to organize successful community-based standards. I draw on personal experiences from the development of SBML and summarize some of the lessons learned, in the hope that this may be useful to other groups seeking to develop open standards in a community-oriented fashion.

TCAMS lessons learned

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Harris, D.

1997-11-01

This report contains viewgraphs on the CINC mobile alternate headquarters and the tech control automation, maintenance and support facility. A discussion on software cost reduction by reuse is given as well as managing risk by assessment and mitigation.

Achieving design reuse: a case study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Young, Peter J.; Nielsen, Jon J.; Roberts, William H.; Wilson, Greg M.

2008-08-01

The RSAA CICADA data acquisition and control software package uses an object-oriented approach to model astronomical instrumentation and a layered architecture for implementation. Emphasis has been placed on building reusable C++ class libraries and on the use of attribute/value tables for dynamic configuration. This paper details how the approach has been successfully used in the construction of the instrument control software for the Gemini NIFS and GSAOI instruments. The software is again being used for the new RSAA SkyMapper and WiFeS instruments.

An overview of the model integration process: From pre ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Integration of models requires linking models which can be developed using different tools, methodologies, and assumptions. We performed a literature review with the aim of improving our understanding of model integration process, and also presenting better strategies for building integrated modeling systems. We identified five different phases to characterize integration process: pre-integration assessment, preparation of models for integration, orchestration of models during simulation, data interoperability, and testing. Commonly, there is little reuse of existing frameworks beyond the development teams and not much sharing of science components across frameworks. We believe this must change to enable researchers and assessors to form complex workflows that leverage the current environmental science available. In this paper, we characterize the model integration process and compare integration practices of different groups. We highlight key strategies, features, standards, and practices that can be employed by developers to increase reuse and interoperability of science software components and systems. The paper provides a review of the literature regarding techniques and methods employed by various modeling system developers to facilitate science software interoperability. The intent of the paper is to illustrate the wide variation in methods and the limiting effect the variation has on inter-framework reuse and interoperability. A series of recommendation

DPOI: Distributed software system development platform for ocean information service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Zhongwen; Hu, Keyong; Jiang, Yongguo; Sun, Zhaosui

2015-02-01

Ocean information management is of great importance as it has been employed in many areas of ocean science and technology. However, the developments of Ocean Information Systems (OISs) often suffer from low efficiency because of repetitive work and continuous modifications caused by dynamic requirements. In this paper, the basic requirements of OISs are analyzed first, and then a novel platform DPOI is proposed to improve development efficiency and enhance software quality of OISs by providing off-the-shelf resources. In the platform, the OIS is decomposed hierarchically into a set of modules, which can be reused in different system developments. These modules include the acquisition middleware and data loader that collect data from instruments and files respectively, the database that stores data consistently, the components that support fast application generation, the web services that make the data from distributed sources syntactical by use of predefined schemas and the configuration toolkit that enables software customization. With the assistance of the development platform, the software development needs no programming and the development procedure is thus accelerated greatly. We have applied the development platform in practical developments and evaluated its efficiency in several development practices and different development approaches. The results show that DPOI significantly improves development efficiency and software quality.

Collaborative business processes for enhancing partnerships among software services providers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heil Cancian, Maiara; Rabelo, Ricardo; Gresse von Wangenheim, Christiane

2015-08-01

Software services have represented a powerful view to support the realisation of the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm. Using open standards and facilitating systems projects, they have increasingly been used as a corporate architectural approach to create interoperable services-based software solutions that can more easily be reused and shared across disparate applications. In the context of software companies, most of them are small firms having enormous difficulties to keep competitive. One strategy to enhance their sustainability is to enlarge partnerships among them at a more valuable level by jointly offering (web) services-based solutions. However, their culture of collaboration is low, and partnerships are usually done with the same companies and sporadically. This article presents an approach to support a more intense collaboration among software companies to attend business opportunities in a more agile way, joining capacities and capabilities which they would not have if they worked alone. This requires, however, some preparedness. From the perspective of business processes, they should understand how to carry out a collaboration more properly. This is essentially what this article is about. It presents a comprehensive list of collaborative business processes and base practices that can also act as a guide for service providers' managers to implement and manage the collaboration along its lifecycle. Processes have been validated and results are discussed.

The Influence of Different Recycling Scenarios on the Mechanical Design of an LED Weatherproof Light Fitting

PubMed Central

Camañes, Víctor; Elduque, Daniel; Javierre, Carlos; Fernández, Ángel

2014-01-01

This paper analyzes the high relevance of material selection for the sustainable development of an LED weatherproof light fitting. The research reveals how this choice modifies current and future end of life scenarios and can reduce the overall environmental impact. This life cycle assessment has been carried out with Ecotool, a software program especially developed for designers to assess the environmental performance of their designs at the same time that they are working on them. Results show that special attention can be put on the recycling and reusing of the product from the initial stages of development. PMID:28788160

The Influence of Different Recycling Scenarios on the Mechanical Design of an LED Weatherproof Light Fitting.

PubMed

Camañes, Víctor; Elduque, Daniel; Javierre, Carlos; Fernández, Ángel

2014-08-11

This paper analyzes the high relevance of material selection for the sustainable development of an LED weatherproof light fitting. The research reveals how this choice modifies current and future end of life scenarios and can reduce the overall environmental impact. This life cycle assessment has been carried out with Ecotool, a software program especially developed for designers to assess the environmental performance of their designs at the same time that they are working on them. Results show that special attention can be put on the recycling and reusing of the product from the initial stages of development.

Visualization Beyond the Map: The Challenges of Managing Data for Re-Use

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allison, M. D.; Groman, R. C.; Chandler, C. L.; Galvarino, C. R.; Wiebe, P. H.; Glover, D. M.

2012-12-01

The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) makes data publicly accessible via both a text-based and a geospatial interface, the latter using the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant open-source MapServer software originally from the University of Minnesota. Making data available for reuse by the widest variety of users is one of the overriding goals of BCO-DMO and one of our greatest challenges. The biogeochemical, ecological and physical data we manage are extremely heterogeneous. Although it is not possible to be all things to all people, we are actively working on ways to make the data re-usable by the most people. Looking at data in a different way is one of the underpinnings of data re-use and the easier we can make data accessible, the more the community of users will benefit. We can help the user determine usefulness by providing some specific tools. Sufficiently well-informed metadata can often be enough to determine fitness for purpose, but many times our geospatial interface to the data and metadata is more compelling. Displaying the data visually in as many ways as possible enables the scientist, teacher or manager to decide if the data are useful and then being able to download the data right away with no login required is very attractive. We will present ways of visualizing different kinds of data and discuss using metadata to drive the visualization tools. We will also discuss our attempts to work with data providers to organize their data in ways to make them reusable to the largest audience and to solicit input from data users about the effectiveness of our solutions.

Taking advantage of ground data systems attributes to achieve quality results in testing software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sigman, Clayton B.; Koslosky, John T.; Hageman, Barbara H.

1994-01-01

During the software development life cycle process, basic testing starts with the development team. At the end of the development process, an acceptance test is performed for the user to ensure that the deliverable is acceptable. Ideally, the delivery is an operational product with zero defects. However, the goal of zero defects is normally not achieved but is successful to various degrees. With the emphasis on building low cost ground support systems while maintaining a quality product, a key element in the test process is simulator capability. This paper reviews the Transportable Payload Operations Control Center (TPOCC) Advanced Spacecraft Simulator (TASS) test tool that is used in the acceptance test process for unmanned satellite operations control centers. The TASS is designed to support the development, test and operational environments of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) operations control centers. The TASS uses the same basic architecture as the operations control center. This architecture is characterized by its use of distributed processing, industry standards, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software components, and reusable software. The TASS uses much of the same TPOCC architecture and reusable software that the operations control center developer uses. The TASS also makes use of reusable simulator software in the mission specific versions of the TASS. Very little new software needs to be developed, mainly mission specific telemetry communication and command processing software. By taking advantage of the ground data system attributes, successful software reuse for operational systems provides the opportunity to extend the reuse concept into the test area. Consistency in test approach is a major step in achieving quality results.

Healthy Living

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Reusable Autonomy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Truszkowski, Walt; Obenschain, Arthur F. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Currently, spacecraft ground systems have a well defined and somewhat standard architecture and operations concept. Based on domain analysis studies of various control centers conducted over the years it is clear that ground systems have core capabilities and functionality that are common across all ground systems. This observation alone supports the realization of reuse. Additionally, spacecraft ground systems are increasing in their ability to do things autonomously. They are being engineered using advanced expert systems technology to provide automated support for operators. A clearer understanding of the possible roles of agent technology is advancing the prospects of greater autonomy for these systems. Many of their functional and management tasks are or could be supported by applied agent technology, the dynamics of the ground system's infrastructure could be monitored by agents, there are intelligent agent-based approaches to user-interfaces, etc. The premise of this paper is that the concepts associated with software reuse, applicable in consideration of classically-engineered ground systems, can be updated to address their application in highly agent-based realizations of future ground systems. As a somewhat simplified example consider the following situation, involving human agents in a ground system context. Let Group A of controllers be working on Mission X. They are responsible for the command, control and health and safety of the Mission X spacecraft. Let us suppose that mission X successfully completes it mission and is turned off. Group A could be dispersed or perhaps move to another Mission Y. In this case there would be reuse of the human agents from Mission X to Mission Y. The Group A agents perform their well-understood functions in a somewhat but related context. There will be a learning or familiarization process that the group A agents go through to make the new context, determined by the new Mission Y, understood. This simplified scenario highlights some of the major issues that need to be addressed when considering the situation where Group A is composed of software-based agents (not their human counterparts) and they migrate from one mission support system to another. This paper will address: - definition of an agent architecture appropriate to support reuse; - identification of non-mission-specific agent capabilities required; - appropriate knowledge representation schemes for mission-specific knowledge; - agent interface with mission-specific knowledge (a type of Learning); development of a fully-operational group of cooperative software agents for ground system support; architecture and operation of a repository of reusable agents that could be the source of intelligent components for realizing an autonomous (or nearly autonomous) agent-based ground system, and an agent-based approach to repository management and operation (an intelligent interface for human use of the repository in a ground-system development activity).

Partitioning Strategy Using Static Analysis Techniques

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seo, Yongjin; Soo Kim, Hyeon

2016-08-01

Flight software is software used in satellites' on-board computers. It has requirements such as real time and reliability. The IMA architecture is used to satisfy these requirements. The IMA architecture has the concept of partitions and this affected the configuration of flight software. That is, situations occurred in which software that had been loaded on one system was divided into many partitions when being loaded. For new issues, existing studies use experience based partitioning methods. However, these methods have a problem that they cannot be reused. In this respect, this paper proposes a partitioning method that is reusable and consistent.

Design of a lattice-based faceted classification system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eichmann, David A.; Atkins, John

1992-01-01

We describe a software reuse architecture supporting component retrieval by facet classes. The facets are organized into a lattice of facet sets and facet n-tuples. The query mechanism supports precise retrieval and flexible browsing.

A Digital Repository and Execution Platform for Interactive Scholarly Publications in Neuroscience.

PubMed

Hodge, Victoria; Jessop, Mark; Fletcher, Martyn; Weeks, Michael; Turner, Aaron; Jackson, Tom; Ingram, Colin; Smith, Leslie; Austin, Jim

2016-01-01

The CARMEN Virtual Laboratory (VL) is a cloud-based platform which allows neuroscientists to store, share, develop, execute, reproduce and publicise their work. This paper describes new functionality in the CARMEN VL: an interactive publications repository. This new facility allows users to link data and software to publications. This enables other users to examine data and software associated with the publication and execute the associated software within the VL using the same data as the authors used in the publication. The cloud-based architecture and SaaS (Software as a Service) framework allows vast data sets to be uploaded and analysed using software services. Thus, this new interactive publications facility allows others to build on research results through reuse. This aligns with recent developments by funding agencies, institutions, and publishers with a move to open access research. Open access provides reproducibility and verification of research resources and results. Publications and their associated data and software will be assured of long-term preservation and curation in the repository. Further, analysing research data and the evaluations described in publications frequently requires a number of execution stages many of which are iterative. The VL provides a scientific workflow environment to combine software services into a processing tree. These workflows can also be associated with publications and executed by users. The VL also provides a secure environment where users can decide the access rights for each resource to ensure copyright and privacy restrictions are met.

Generating target system specifications from a domain model using CLIPS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sugumaran, Vijayan; Gomaa, Hassan; Kerschberg, Larry

1991-01-01

The quest for reuse in software engineering is still being pursued and researchers are actively investigating the domain modeling approach to software construction. There are several domain modeling efforts reported in the literature and they all agree that the components that are generated from domain modeling are more conducive to reuse. Once a domain model is created, several target systems can be generated by tailoring the domain model or by evolving the domain model and then tailoring it according to the specified requirements. This paper presents the Evolutionary Domain Life Cycle (EDLC) paradigm in which a domain model is created using multiple views, namely, aggregation hierarchy, generalization/specialization hierarchies, object communication diagrams and state transition diagrams. The architecture of the Knowledge Based Requirements Elicitation Tool (KBRET) which is used to generate target system specifications is also presented. The preliminary version of KBRET is implemented in the C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS).

ORAC: 21st Century Observing at UKIRT

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bridger, A.; Wright, G. S.; Tan, M.; Pickup, D. A.; Economou, F.; Currie, M. J.; Adamson, A. J.; Rees, N. P.; Purves, M. H.

The Observatory Reduction and Acquisition Control system replaces all of the existing software which interacts with the observers at UKIRT. The aim is to improve observing efficiency with a set of integrated tools that take the user from pre-observing preparation, through the acquisition of observations to the reduction using a data-driven pipeline. ORAC is designed to be flexible and extensible, and is intended for use with all future UKIRT instruments, as well as existing telescope hardware and ``legacy'' instruments. It is also designed to allow integration with phase-1 and queue-scheduled observing tools in anticipation of possible future requirements. A brief overview of the project and its relationship to other systems is given. ORAC also re-uses much code from other systems and we discuss issues relating to the trade-off between reuse and the generation of new software specific to our requirements.

Bring out your codes! Bring out your codes! (Increasing Software Visibility and Re-use)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allen, A.; Berriman, B.; Brunner, R.; Burger, D.; DuPrie, K.; Hanisch, R. J.; Mann, R.; Mink, J.; Sandin, C.; Shortridge, K.; Teuben, P.

2013-10-01

Progress is being made in code discoverability and preservation, but as discussed at ADASS XXI, many codes still remain hidden from public view. With the Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL) now indexed by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), the introduction of a new journal, Astronomy & Computing, focused on astrophysics software, and the increasing success of education efforts such as Software Carpentry and SciCoder, the community has the opportunity to set a higher standard for its science by encouraging the release of software for examination and possible reuse. We assembled representatives of the community to present issues inhibiting code release and sought suggestions for tackling these factors. The session began with brief statements by panelists; the floor was then opened for discussion and ideas. Comments covered a diverse range of related topics and points of view, with apparent support for the propositions that algorithms should be readily available, code used to produce published scientific results should be made available, and there should be discovery mechanisms to allow these to be found easily. With increased use of resources such as GitHub (for code availability), ASCL (for code discovery), and a stated strong preference from the new journal Astronomy & Computing for code release, we expect to see additional progress over the next few years.

Small Business Innovations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1993-01-01

Under an Army Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, Symbiotics, Inc. developed a software system that permits users to upgrade products from standalone applications so they can communicate in a distributed computing environment. Under a subsequent NASA SBIR grant, Symbiotics added additional tools to the SOCIAL product to enable NASA to coordinate conventional systems for planning Shuttle launch support operations. Using SOCIAL, data may be shared among applications in a computer network even when the applications are written in different programming languages. The product was introduced to the commercial market in 1993 and is used to monitor and control equipment for operation support and to integrate financial networks. The SBIR program was established to increase small business participation in federal R&D activities and to transfer government research to industry. InQuisiX is a reuse library providing high performance classification, cataloging, searching, browsing, retrieval and synthesis capabilities. These form the foundation for software reuse, producing higher quality software at lower cost and in less time. Software Productivity Solutions, Inc. developed the technology under Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects funded by NASA and the Army and is marketing InQuisiX in conjunction with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The SBIR program was established to increase small business participation in federal R&D activities and to transfer government research to industry.

Case-Based Capture and Reuse of Aerospace Design Rationale

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Leake, David B.

1998-01-01

The goal of this project is to apply artificial intelligence techniques to facilitate capture and reuse of aerospace design rationale. The project applies case-based reasoning (CBR) and concept mapping (CMAP) tools to the task of capturing, organizing, and interactively accessing experiences or "cases" encapsulating the methods and rationale underlying expert aerospace design. As stipulated in the award, Indiana University and Ames personnel are collaborating on performance of research and determining the direction of research, to assure that the project focuses on high-value tasks. In the first five months of the project, we have made two visits to Ames Research Center to consult with our NASA collaborators, to learn about the advanced aerospace design tools being developed there, and to identify specific needs for intelligent design support. These meetings identified a number of task areas for applying CBR and concept mapping technology. We jointly selected a first task area to focus on: Acquiring the convergence criteria that experts use to guide the selection of useful data from a set of numerical simulations of high-lift systems. During the first funding period, we developed two software systems. First, we have adapted a CBR system developed at Indiana University into a prototype case-based reasoning shell to capture and retrieve information about design experiences, with the sample task of capturing and reusing experts' intuitive criteria for determining convergence (work conducted at Indiana University). Second, we have also adapted and refined existing concept mapping tools that will be used to clarify and capture the rationale underlying those experiences, to facilitate understanding of the expert's reasoning and guide future reuse of captured information (work conducted at the University of West Florida). The tools we have developed are designed to be the basis for a general framework for facilitating tasks within systems developed by the Advanced Design Technologies Testbed (ADTT) project at ARC. The tenets of our framework are (1) that the systems developed should leverage a designer's knowledge, rather than attempting to replace it; (2) that learning and user feedback must play a central role, so that the system can adapt to how it is used, and (3) that the learning and feedback processes must be as natural and as unobtrusive as possible. In the second funding period we will extend our current work, applying the tools to capturing higher-level design rationale.

NEWFIRM Software--System Integration Using OPC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Daly, P. N.

2004-07-01

The NOAO Extremely Wide-Field Infra-Red Mosaic (NEWFIRM) camera is being built to satisfy the survey science requirements on the KPNO Mayall and CTIO Blanco 4m telescopes in an era of 8m+ aperture telescopes. Rather than re-invent the wheel, the software system to control the instrument has taken existing software packages and re-used what is appropriate. The result is an end-to-end observation control system using technology components from DRAMA, ORAC, observing tools, GWC, existing in-house motor controllers and new developments like the MONSOON pixel server.

Attitudes and norms affecting scientists’ data reuse

PubMed Central

Curty, Renata Gonçalves; Specht, Alison; Grant, Bruce W.; Dalton, Elizabeth D.

2017-01-01

The value of sharing scientific research data is widely appreciated, but factors that hinder or prompt the reuse of data remain poorly understood. Using the Theory of Reasoned Action, we test the relationship between the beliefs and attitudes of scientists towards data reuse, and their self-reported data reuse behaviour. To do so, we used existing responses to selected questions from a worldwide survey of scientists developed and administered by the DataONE Usability and Assessment Working Group (thus practicing data reuse ourselves). Results show that the perceived efficacy and efficiency of data reuse are strong predictors of reuse behaviour, and that the perceived importance of data reuse corresponds to greater reuse. Expressed lack of trust in existing data and perceived norms against data reuse were not found to be major impediments for reuse contrary to our expectations. We found that reported use of models and remotely-sensed data was associated with greater reuse. The results suggest that data reuse would be encouraged and normalized by demonstration of its value. We offer some theoretical and practical suggestions that could help to legitimize investment and policies in favor of data sharing. PMID:29281658

A Software Safety Risk Taxonomy for Use in Retrospective Safety Cases

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hill, Janice L.

2007-01-01

Safety standards contain technical and process-oriented safely requirements. The best time to include these requirements is early in the development lifecycle of the system. When software safety requirements are levied on a legacy system after the fact, a retrospective safety case will need to be constructed for the software in the system. This can be a difficult task because there may be few to no art facts available to show compliance to the software safely requirements. The risks associated with not meeting safely requirements in a legacy safely-critical computer system must be addressed to give confidence for reuse. This paper introduces a proposal for a software safely risk taxonomy for legacy safely-critical computer systems, by specializing the Software Engineering Institute's 'Software Development Risk Taxonomy' with safely elements and attributes.

On the formalization and reuse of scientific research.

PubMed

King, Ross D; Liakata, Maria; Lu, Chuan; Oliver, Stephen G; Soldatova, Larisa N

2011-10-07

The reuse of scientific knowledge obtained from one investigation in another investigation is basic to the advance of science. Scientific investigations should therefore be recorded in ways that promote the reuse of the knowledge they generate. The use of logical formalisms to describe scientific knowledge has potential advantages in facilitating such reuse. Here, we propose a formal framework for using logical formalisms to promote reuse. We demonstrate the utility of this framework by using it in a worked example from biology: demonstrating cycles of investigation formalization [F] and reuse [R] to generate new knowledge. We first used logic to formally describe a Robot scientist investigation into yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) functional genomics [f(1)]. With Robot scientists, unlike human scientists, the production of comprehensive metadata about their investigations is a natural by-product of the way they work. We then demonstrated how this formalism enabled the reuse of the research in investigating yeast phenotypes [r(1) = R(f(1))]. This investigation found that the removal of non-essential enzymes generally resulted in enhanced growth. The phenotype investigation was then formally described using the same logical formalism as the functional genomics investigation [f(2) = F(r(1))]. We then demonstrated how this formalism enabled the reuse of the phenotype investigation to investigate yeast systems-biology modelling [r(2) = R(f(2))]. This investigation found that yeast flux-balance analysis models fail to predict the observed changes in growth. Finally, the systems biology investigation was formalized for reuse in future investigations [f(3) = F(r(2))]. These cycles of reuse are a model for the general reuse of scientific knowledge.

Re-use of Science Operations Systems around Mars: from Mars Express to ExoMars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cardesin-Moinelo, Alejandro; Mars Express Operations Centre; ExoMars Science Operations Centre

2017-10-01

Mars Express and ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter are the only two ESA planetary missions currently in operations, and they happen to be around the same planet! These two missions have great potential for synergies between their science objectives, instruments and observation capabilities and they can all be combined to improve the scientific outcome and improve our knowledge about Mars. In this contribution we will give a short summary of both missions, with an insight in its similarities and differences regarding their scientific and operational challenges, and we will summarize the lessons learned from Mars Express and how the existing science operations systems, processes and tools have been reused, redesigned and adapted in order to satisfy the operational requirements of ExoMars, with limited development resources thanks to the inherited capabilities from previous missions. In particular we will focus on the preparations done by the science operations centers at ESAC and the work within the Science Ground Segments for the re-use of the SPICE and MAPPS software tools, with the necessary modifications and upgrades to perform the geometrical and operational simulations of both spacecrafts, taking into account the specific instrument modelling, observation requirements and all the payload and spacecraft operational rules and constraints for feasibility checks. All of these system upgrades are now being finalized for ExoMars and some of them have already been rehearsed in orbit, getting ready for the nominal science operations phase starting in the first months of 2018 after the aerobraking phase

Traceability of Software Safety Requirements in Legacy Safety Critical Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hill, Janice L.

2007-01-01

How can traceability of software safety requirements be created for legacy safety critical systems? Requirements in safety standards are imposed most times during contract negotiations. On the other hand, there are instances where safety standards are levied on legacy safety critical systems, some of which may be considered for reuse for new applications. Safety standards often specify that software development documentation include process-oriented and technical safety requirements, and also require that system and software safety analyses are performed supporting technical safety requirements implementation. So what can be done if the requisite documents for establishing and maintaining safety requirements traceability are not available?

DbMap: improving database interoperability issues in medical software using a simple, Java-Xml based solution.

PubMed Central

Karadimas, H.; Hemery, F.; Roland, P.; Lepage, E.

2000-01-01

In medical software development, the use of databases plays a central role. However, most of the databases have heterogeneous encoding and data models. To deal with these variations in the application code directly is error-prone and reduces the potential reuse of the produced software. Several approaches to overcome these limitations have been proposed in the medical database literature, which will be presented. We present a simple solution, based on a Java library, and a central Metadata description file in XML. This development approach presents several benefits in software design and development cycles, the main one being the simplicity in maintenance. PMID:11079915

STGT program: Ada coding and architecture lessons learned

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Usavage, Paul; Nagurney, Don

1992-01-01

STGT (Second TDRSS Ground Terminal) is currently halfway through the System Integration Test phase (Level 4 Testing). To date, many software architecture and Ada language issues have been encountered and solved. This paper, which is the transcript of a presentation at the 3 Dec. meeting, attempts to define these lessons plus others learned regarding software project management and risk management issues, training, performance, reuse, and reliability. Observations are included regarding the use of particular Ada coding constructs, software architecture trade-offs during the prototyping, development and testing stages of the project, and dangers inherent in parallel or concurrent systems, software, hardware, and operations engineering.

Managing Scientific Software Complexity with Bocca and CCA

DOE PAGES

Allan, Benjamin A.; Norris, Boyana; Elwasif, Wael R.; ...

2008-01-01

In high-performance scientific software development, the emphasis is often on short time to first solution. Even when the development of new components mostly reuses existing components or libraries and only small amounts of new code must be created, dealing with the component glue code and software build processes to obtain complete applications is still tedious and error-prone. Component-based software meant to reduce complexity at the application level increases complexity to the extent that the user must learn and remember the interfaces and conventions of the component model itself. To address these needs, we introduce Bocca, the first tool to enablemore » application developers to perform rapid component prototyping while maintaining robust software-engineering practices suitable to HPC environments. Bocca provides project management and a comprehensive build environment for creating and managing applications composed of Common Component Architecture components. Of critical importance for high-performance computing (HPC) applications, Bocca is designed to operate in a language-agnostic way, simultaneously handling components written in any of the languages commonly used in scientific applications: C, C++, Fortran, Python and Java. Bocca automates the tasks related to the component glue code, freeing the user to focus on the scientific aspects of the application. Bocca embraces the philosophy pioneered by Ruby on Rails for web applications: start with something that works, and evolve it to the user's purpose.« less

Systems biology driven software design for the research enterprise.

PubMed

Boyle, John; Cavnor, Christopher; Killcoyne, Sarah; Shmulevich, Ilya

2008-06-25

In systems biology, and many other areas of research, there is a need for the interoperability of tools and data sources that were not originally designed to be integrated. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of systems biology, and its association with high throughput experimental platforms, there is an additional need to continually integrate new technologies. As scientists work in isolated groups, integration with other groups is rarely a consideration when building the required software tools. We illustrate an approach, through the discussion of a purpose built software architecture, which allows disparate groups to reuse tools and access data sources in a common manner. The architecture allows for: the rapid development of distributed applications; interoperability, so it can be used by a wide variety of developers and computational biologists; development using standard tools, so that it is easy to maintain and does not require a large development effort; extensibility, so that new technologies and data types can be incorporated; and non intrusive development, insofar as researchers need not to adhere to a pre-existing object model. By using a relatively simple integration strategy, based upon a common identity system and dynamically discovered interoperable services, a light-weight software architecture can become the focal point through which scientists can both get access to and analyse the plethora of experimentally derived data.

A loosely coupled framework for terminology controlled distributed EHR search for patient cohort identification in clinical research.

PubMed

Zhao, Lei; Lim Choi Keung, Sarah N; Taweel, Adel; Tyler, Edward; Ogunsina, Ire; Rossiter, James; Delaney, Brendan C; Peterson, Kevin A; Hobbs, F D Richard; Arvanitis, Theodoros N

2012-01-01

Heterogeneous data models and coding schemes for electronic health records present challenges for automated search across distributed data sources. This paper describes a loosely coupled software framework based on the terminology controlled approach to enable the interoperation between the search interface and heterogeneous data sources. Software components interoperate via common terminology service and abstract criteria model so as to promote component reuse and incremental system evolution.

Ada developers' supplement to the recommended approach

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kester, Rush; Landis, Linda

1993-01-01

This document is a collection of guidelines for programmers and managers who are responsible for the development of flight dynamics applications in Ada. It is intended to be used in conjunction with the Recommended Approach to Software Development (SEL-81-305), which describes the software development life cycle, its products, reviews, methods, tools, and measures. The Ada Developers' Supplement provides additional detail on such topics as reuse, object-oriented analysis, and object-oriented design.

Training Plan. Central Archive for Reusable Defense Software (CARDS)

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-01-29

Modeling Software Reuse Technology: Feature Oriented Domain Analysis ( FODA ). SEI, Carnegie Mellon University, May 1992. 8. Component Provider’s...events to the services of the domain. 4. Feature Oriented Domain Analysis ( FODA ) [COHEN92] The FODA method produces feature models. Feature models provide...Architecture FODA Feature-Oriented Domain Analysis GOTS Government-Off-The-Shelf Pap A-49 STARS-VC-B003/001/00 29 imaty 1994 MS Master of Science NEC

Linked Data: Forming Partnerships at the Data Layer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shepherd, A.; Chandler, C. L.; Arko, R. A.; Jones, M. B.; Hitzler, P.; Janowicz, K.; Krisnadhi, A.; Schildhauer, M.; Fils, D.; Narock, T.; Groman, R. C.; O'Brien, M.; Patton, E. W.; Kinkade, D.; Rauch, S.

2015-12-01

The challenges presented by big data are straining data management software architectures of the past. For smaller existing data facilities, the technical refactoring of software layers become costly to scale across the big data landscape. In response to these challenges, data facilities will need partnerships with external entities for improved solutions to perform tasks such as data cataloging, discovery and reuse, and data integration and processing with provenance. At its surface, the concept of linked open data suggests an uncalculated altruism. Yet, in his concept of five star open data, Tim Berners-Lee explains the strategic costs and benefits of deploying linked open data from the perspective of its consumer and producer - a data partnership. The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) addresses some of the emerging needs of its research community by partnering with groups doing complementary work and linking their respective data layers using linked open data principles. Examples will show how these links, explicit manifestations of partnerships, reduce technical debt and provide a swift flexibility for future considerations.

Feedback-Driven Dynamic Invariant Discovery

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zhang, Lingming; Yang, Guowei; Rungta, Neha S.; Person, Suzette; Khurshid, Sarfraz

2014-01-01

Program invariants can help software developers identify program properties that must be preserved as the software evolves, however, formulating correct invariants can be challenging. In this work, we introduce iDiscovery, a technique which leverages symbolic execution to improve the quality of dynamically discovered invariants computed by Daikon. Candidate invariants generated by Daikon are synthesized into assertions and instrumented onto the program. The instrumented code is executed symbolically to generate new test cases that are fed back to Daikon to help further re ne the set of candidate invariants. This feedback loop is executed until a x-point is reached. To mitigate the cost of symbolic execution, we present optimizations to prune the symbolic state space and to reduce the complexity of the generated path conditions. We also leverage recent advances in constraint solution reuse techniques to avoid computing results for the same constraints across iterations. Experimental results show that iDiscovery converges to a set of higher quality invariants compared to the initial set of candidate invariants in a small number of iterations.

R classes and methods for SNP array data.

PubMed

Scharpf, Robert B; Ruczinski, Ingo

2010-01-01

The Bioconductor project is an "open source and open development software project for the analysis and comprehension of genomic data" (1), primarily based on the R programming language. Infrastructure packages, such as Biobase, are maintained by Bioconductor core developers and serve several key roles to the broader community of Bioconductor software developers and users. In particular, Biobase introduces an S4 class, the eSet, for high-dimensional assay data. Encapsulating the assay data as well as meta-data on the samples, features, and experiment in the eSet class definition ensures propagation of the relevant sample and feature meta-data throughout an analysis. Extending the eSet class promotes code reuse through inheritance as well as interoperability with other R packages and is less error-prone. Recently proposed class definitions for high-throughput SNP arrays extend the eSet class. This chapter highlights the advantages of adopting and extending Biobase class definitions through a working example of one implementation of classes for the analysis of high-throughput SNP arrays.

Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Software Engineering Workshop

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1990-01-01

The Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) is an organization sponsored by GSFC and created for the purpose of investigating the effectiveness of software engineering technologies when applied to the development of applications software. The goals of the SEL are: (1) to understand the software development process in the GSFC environment; (2) to measure the effect of various methodologies, tools, and models on this process; and (3) to identify and then to apply successful development practices. Fifteen papers were presented at the Fifteenth Annual Software Engineering Workshop in five sessions: (1) SEL at age fifteen; (2) process improvement; (3) measurement; (4) reuse; and (5) process assessment. The sessions were followed by two panel discussions: (1) experiences in implementing an effective measurement program; and (2) software engineering in the 1980's. A summary of the presentations and panel discussions is given.

A Scientific Software Product Line for the Bioinformatics domain.

PubMed

Costa, Gabriella Castro B; Braga, Regina; David, José Maria N; Campos, Fernanda

2015-08-01

Most specialized users (scientists) that use bioinformatics applications do not have suitable training on software development. Software Product Line (SPL) employs the concept of reuse considering that it is defined as a set of systems that are developed from a common set of base artifacts. In some contexts, such as in bioinformatics applications, it is advantageous to develop a collection of related software products, using SPL approach. If software products are similar enough, there is the possibility of predicting their commonalities, differences and then reuse these common features to support the development of new applications in the bioinformatics area. This paper presents the PL-Science approach which considers the context of SPL and ontology in order to assist scientists to define a scientific experiment, and to specify a workflow that encompasses bioinformatics applications of a given experiment. This paper also focuses on the use of ontologies to enable the use of Software Product Line in biological domains. In the context of this paper, Scientific Software Product Line (SSPL) differs from the Software Product Line due to the fact that SSPL uses an abstract scientific workflow model. This workflow is defined according to a scientific domain and using this abstract workflow model the products (scientific applications/algorithms) are instantiated. Through the use of ontology as a knowledge representation model, we can provide domain restrictions as well as add semantic aspects in order to facilitate the selection and organization of bioinformatics workflows in a Scientific Software Product Line. The use of ontologies enables not only the expression of formal restrictions but also the inferences on these restrictions, considering that a scientific domain needs a formal specification. This paper presents the development of the PL-Science approach, encompassing a methodology and an infrastructure, and also presents an approach evaluation. This evaluation presents case studies in bioinformatics, which were conducted in two renowned research institutions in Brazil. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A study of ecological sanitation as an integrated urban water supply system: case study of sustainable strategy for Kuching City, Sarawak, Malaysia.

PubMed

Seng, Darrien Mah Yau; Putuhena, Frederik Josep; Said, Salim; Ling, Law Puong

2009-03-01

A city consumes a large amount of water. Urban planning and development are becoming more compelling due to the fact of growing competition for water, which has lead to an increasing and conflicting demand. As such, investments in water supply, sanitation and water resources management is a strong potential for a solid return. A pilot project of greywater ecological treatment has been established in Kuching city since 2003. Such a treatment facility opens up an opportunity of wastewater reclamation for reuse as secondary sources of water for non-consumptive purposes. This paper aims to explore the potential of the intended purposes in the newly developed ecological treatment project. By utilizing the Wallingford Software model, InfoWorks WS (Water Supply) is employed to carry out a hydraulic modeling of a hypothetical greywater recycling system as an integrated part of the Kuching urban water supply, where the greywater is treated, recycled and reused in the domestic environment. The modeling efforts have shown water savings of about 40% from the investigated system reinstating that the system presents an alternative water source worth exploring in an urban environment.

Software engineering with application-specific languages

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Campbell, David J.; Barker, Linda; Mitchell, Deborah; Pollack, Robert H.

1993-01-01

Application-Specific Languages (ASL's) are small, special-purpose languages that are targeted to solve a specific class of problems. Using ASL's on software development projects can provide considerable cost savings, reduce risk, and enhance quality and reliability. ASL's provide a platform for reuse within a project or across many projects and enable less-experienced programmers to tap into the expertise of application-area experts. ASL's have been used on several software development projects for the Space Shuttle Program. On these projects, the use of ASL's resulted in considerable cost savings over conventional development techniques. Two of these projects are described.

Formal specification and verification of Ada software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hird, Geoffrey R.

1991-01-01

The use of formal methods in software development achieves levels of quality assurance unobtainable by other means. The Larch approach to specification is described, and the specification of avionics software designed to implement the logic of a flight control system is given as an example. Penelope is described which is an Ada-verification environment. The Penelope user inputs mathematical definitions, Larch-style specifications and Ada code and performs machine-assisted proofs that the code obeys its specifications. As an example, the verification of a binary search function is considered. Emphasis is given to techniques assisting the reuse of a verification effort on modified code.

Picking Up Artifacts: Storyboarding as a Gateway to Reuse

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wahid, Shahtab; Branham, Stacy M.; Cairco, Lauren; McCrickard, D. Scott; Harrison, Steve

Storyboarding offers designers the opportunity to illustrate a visual narrative of use. Because designers often refer to past ideas, we argue storyboards can be constructed by reusing shared artifacts. We present a study in which we explore how designers reuse artifacts consisting of images and rationale during storyboard construction. We find images can aid in accessing rationale and that connections among features aid in deciding what to reuse, creating new artifacts, and constructing. Based on requirements derived from our findings, we present a storyboarding tool, PIC-UP, to facilitate artifact sharing and reuse and evaluate its use in an exploratory study. We conclude with remarks on facilitating reuse and future work.

EASY-SIM: A Visual Simulation System Software Architecture with an ADA 9X Application Framework

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-12-01

devop -_ ment of software systems within a domain. Because an architecture promotes reuse at the design level, systems developers do not have to devote...physically separated actors into a battlefield situation, The interaction be- tween the various simulators is accomplished by means of network connec...realized that it would be more productive to make reusable components from scratch (Sny93,31-32]. Of notable exception were the network communications

CILogon: An Integrated Identity and Access Management Platform for Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Basney, J.

2016-12-01

When scientists work together, they use web sites and other software to share their ideas and data. To ensure the integrity of their work, these systems require the scientists to log in and verify that they are part of the team working on a particular science problem. Too often, the identity and access verification process is a stumbling block for the scientists. Scientific research projects are forced to invest time and effort into developing and supporting Identity and Access Management (IAM) services, distracting them from the core goals of their research collaboration. CILogon provides an IAM platform that enables scientists to work together to meet their IAM needs more effectively so they can allocate more time and effort to their core mission of scientific research. The CILogon platform enables federated identity management and collaborative organization management. Federated identity management enables researchers to use their home organization identities to access cyberinfrastructure, rather than requiring yet another username and password to log on. Collaborative organization management enables research projects to define user groups for authorization to collaboration platforms (e.g., wikis, mailing lists, and domain applications). CILogon's IAM platform serves the unique needs of research collaborations, namely the need to dynamically form collaboration groups across organizations and countries, sharing access to data, instruments, compute clusters, and other resources to enable scientific discovery. CILogon provides a software-as-a-service platform to ease integration with cyberinfrastructure, while making all software components publicly available under open source licenses to enable re-use. Figure 1 illustrates the components and interfaces of this platform. CILogon has been operational since 2010 and has been used by over 7,000 researchers from more than 170 identity providers to access cyberinfrastructure including Globus, LIGO, Open Science Grid, SeedMe, and XSEDE. The "CILogon 2.0" platform, launched in 2016, adds support for virtual organization (VO) membership management, identity linking, international collaborations, and standard integration protocols, through integration with the Internet2 COmanage collaboration software.

Video streaming with SHVC to HEVC transcoding

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gudumasu, Srinivas; He, Yuwen; Ye, Yan; Xiu, Xiaoyu

2015-09-01

This paper proposes an efficient Scalable High efficiency Video Coding (SHVC) to High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) transcoder, which can reduce the transcoding complexity significantly, and provide a desired trade-off between the transcoding complexity and the transcoded video quality. To reduce the transcoding complexity, some of coding information, such as coding unit (CU) depth, prediction mode, merge mode, motion vector information, intra direction information and transform unit (TU) depth information, in the SHVC bitstream are mapped and transcoded to single layer HEVC bitstream. One major difficulty in transcoding arises when trying to reuse the motion information from SHVC bitstream since motion vectors referring to inter-layer reference (ILR) pictures cannot be reused directly in transcoding. Reusing motion information obtained from ILR pictures for those prediction units (PUs) will reduce the complexity of the SHVC transcoder greatly but a significant reduction in the quality of the picture is observed. Pictures corresponding to the intra refresh pictures in the base layer (BL) will be coded as P pictures in enhancement layer (EL) in the SHVC bitstream; and directly reusing the intra information from the BL for transcoding will not get a good coding efficiency. To solve these problems, various transcoding technologies are proposed. The proposed technologies offer different trade-offs between transcoding speed and transcoding quality. They are implemented on the basis of reference software SHM-6.0 and HM-14.0 for the two layer spatial scalability configuration. Simulations show that the proposed SHVC software transcoder reduces the transcoding complexity by up to 98-99% using low complexity transcoding mode when compared with cascaded re-encoding method. The transcoder performance at various bitrates with different transcoding modes are compared in terms of transcoding speed and transcoded video quality.

cFE/CFS (Core Flight Executive/Core Flight System)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wildermann, Charles P.

2008-01-01

This viewgraph presentation describes in detail the requirements and goals of the Core Flight Executive (cFE) and the Core Flight System (CFS). The Core Flight Software System is a mission independent, platform-independent, Flight Software (FSW) environment integrating a reusable core flight executive (cFE). The CFS goals include: 1) Reduce time to deploy high quality flight software; 2) Reduce project schedule and cost uncertainty; 3) Directly facilitate formalized software reuse; 4) Enable collaboration across organizations; 5) Simplify sustaining engineering (AKA. FSW maintenance); 6) Scale from small instruments to System of Systems; 7) Platform for advanced concepts and prototyping; and 7) Common standards and tools across the branch and NASA wide.

The relationships between software publications and software systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hogg, David W.

2017-01-01

When we build software systems or software tools for astronomy, we sometimes do and sometimes don't also write and publish standard scientific papers about those software systems. I will discuss the pros and cons of writing such publications. There are impacts of writing such papers immediately (they can affect the design and structure of the software project itself), in the short term (they can promote adoption and legitimize the software), in the medium term (they can provide a platform for all the literature's mechanisms for citation, criticism, and reuse), and in the long term (they can preserve ideas that are embodied in the software, possibly on timescales much longer than the lifetime of any software context). I will argue that as important as pure software contributions are to astronomy—and I am both a preacher and a practitioner—software contributions are even more valuable when they are associated with traditional scientific publications. There are exceptions and complexities of course, which I will discuss.

A Calculus for Boxes and Traits in a Java-Like Setting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bettini, Lorenzo; Damiani, Ferruccio; de Luca, Marco; Geilmann, Kathrin; Schäfer, Jan

The box model is a component model for the object-oriented paradigm, that defines components (the boxes) with clear encapsulation boundaries. Having well-defined boundaries is crucial in component-based software development, because it enables to argue about the interference and interaction between a component and its context. In general, boxes contain several objects and inner boxes, of which some are local to the box and cannot be accessed from other boxes and some can be accessible by other boxes. A trait is a set of methods divorced from any class hierarchy. Traits can be composed together to form classes or other traits. We present a calculus for boxes and traits. Traits are units of fine-grained reuse, whereas boxes can be seen as units of coarse-grained reuse. The calculus is equipped with an ownership type system and allows us to combine coarse- and fine-grained reuse of code by maintaining encapsulation of components.

Adaptation of Control Center Software to Commerical Real-Time Display Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Collier, Mark D.

1994-01-01

NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is currently developing an enhanced Huntsville Operation Support Center (HOSC) system designed to support multiple spacecraft missions. The Enhanced HOSC is based upon a distributed computing architecture using graphic workstation hardware and industry standard software including POSIX, X Windows, Motif, TCP/IP, and ANSI C. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is currently developing a prototype of the Display Services application for this system. Display Services provides the capability to generate and operate real-time data-driven graphic displays. This prototype is a highly functional application designed to allow system end users to easily generate complex data-driven displays. The prototype is easy to use, flexible, highly functional, and portable. Although this prototype is being developed for NASA-MSFC, the general-purpose real-time display capability can be reused in similar mission and process control environments. This includes any environment depending heavily upon real-time data acquisition and display. Reuse of the prototype will be a straight-forward transition because the prototype is portable, is designed to add new display types easily, has a user interface which is separated from the application code, and is very independent of the specifics of NASA-MSFC's system. Reuse of this prototype in other environments is a excellent alternative to creation of a new custom application, or for environments with a large number of users, to purchasing a COTS package.

The ASTRI SST-2M telescope prototype for the Cherenkov Telescope Array: camera DAQ software architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Conforti, Vito; Trifoglio, Massimo; Bulgarelli, Andrea; Gianotti, Fulvio; Fioretti, Valentina; Tacchini, Alessandro; Zoli, Andrea; Malaguti, Giuseppe; Capalbi, Milvia; Catalano, Osvaldo

2014-07-01

ASTRI (Astrofisica con Specchi a Tecnologia Replicante Italiana) is a Flagship Project financed by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, and led by INAF, the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics. Within this framework, INAF is currently developing an end-to-end prototype of a Small Size dual-mirror Telescope. In a second phase the ASTRI project foresees the installation of the first elements of the array at CTA southern site, a mini-array of 7 telescopes. The ASTRI Camera DAQ Software is aimed at the Camera data acquisition, storage and display during Camera development as well as during commissioning and operations on the ASTRI SST-2M telescope prototype that will operate at the INAF observing station located at Serra La Nave on the Mount Etna (Sicily). The Camera DAQ configuration and operations will be sequenced either through local operator commands or through remote commands received from the Instrument Controller System that commands and controls the Camera. The Camera DAQ software will acquire data packets through a direct one-way socket connection with the Camera Back End Electronics. In near real time, the data will be stored in both raw and FITS format. The DAQ Quick Look component will allow the operator to display in near real time the Camera data packets. We are developing the DAQ software adopting the iterative and incremental model in order to maximize the software reuse and to implement a system which is easily adaptable to changes. This contribution presents the Camera DAQ Software architecture with particular emphasis on its potential reuse for the ASTRI/CTA mini-array.

Web accessibility and open source software.

PubMed

Obrenović, Zeljko

2009-07-01

A Web browser provides a uniform user interface to different types of information. Making this interface universally accessible and more interactive is a long-term goal still far from being achieved. Universally accessible browsers require novel interaction modalities and additional functionalities, for which existing browsers tend to provide only partial solutions. Although functionality for Web accessibility can be found as open source and free software components, their reuse and integration is complex because they were developed in diverse implementation environments, following standards and conventions incompatible with the Web. To address these problems, we have started several activities that aim at exploiting the potential of open-source software for Web accessibility. The first of these activities is the development of Adaptable Multi-Interface COmmunicator (AMICO):WEB, an infrastructure that facilitates efficient reuse and integration of open source software components into the Web environment. The main contribution of AMICO:WEB is in enabling the syntactic and semantic interoperability between Web extension mechanisms and a variety of integration mechanisms used by open source and free software components. Its design is based on our experiences in solving practical problems where we have used open source components to improve accessibility of rich media Web applications. The second of our activities involves improving education, where we have used our platform to teach students how to build advanced accessibility solutions from diverse open-source software. We are also partially involved in the recently started Eclipse projects called Accessibility Tools Framework (ACTF), the aim of which is development of extensible infrastructure, upon which developers can build a variety of utilities that help to evaluate and enhance the accessibility of applications and content for people with disabilities. In this article we briefly report on these activities.

Software Safety Risk in Legacy Safety-Critical Computer Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hill, Janice; Baggs, Rhoda

2007-01-01

Safety-critical computer systems must be engineered to meet system and software safety requirements. For legacy safety-critical computer systems, software safety requirements may not have been formally specified during development. When process-oriented software safety requirements are levied on a legacy system after the fact, where software development artifacts don't exist or are incomplete, the question becomes 'how can this be done?' The risks associated with only meeting certain software safety requirements in a legacy safety-critical computer system must be addressed should such systems be selected as candidates for reuse. This paper proposes a method for ascertaining formally, a software safety risk assessment, that provides measurements for software safety for legacy systems which may or may not have a suite of software engineering documentation that is now normally required. It relies upon the NASA Software Safety Standard, risk assessment methods based upon the Taxonomy-Based Questionnaire, and the application of reverse engineering CASE tools to produce original design documents for legacy systems.

Integrating Laser Scanner and Bim for Conservation and Reuse: "the Lyric Theatre of Milan"

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Utica, G.; Pinti, L.; Guzzoni, L.; Bonelli, S.; Brizzolari, A.

2017-12-01

The paper underlines the importance to apply a methodology that integrates the Building Information Modeling (BIM), Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and the Laser Scanner tool in conservation and reuse projects. As it is known, the laser scanner technology provides a survey of the building object which is more accurate rather than that carried out using traditional methodologies. Today most existing buildings present their attributes in a dispersed way, stored and collected in paper documents, in sheets of equipment information, in file folders of maintenance records. In some cases, it is difficult to find updated technical documentation and the research of reliable data can be a cost and time-consuming process. Therefore, this new survey technology, embedded with BIM systems represents a valid tool to obtain a coherent picture of the building state. The following case consists in the conservation and reuse project of Milan Lyric Theatre, started in 2013 from the collaboration between the Milan Polytechnic and the Municipality. This project first attempts to integrate these new techniques which are already professional standards in many other countries such as the US, Norway, Finland, England and so on. Concerning the methodology, the choice has been to use BIM software for the structured analysis of the project, with the aim to define a single code of communication to develop a coherent documentation according to rules in a consistent manner and in tight schedules. This process provides the definition of an effective and efficient operating method that can be applied to other projects.

Software interface verifier

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Soderstrom, Tomas J.; Krall, Laura A.; Hope, Sharon A.; Zupke, Brian S.

1994-01-01

A Telos study of 40 recent subsystem deliveries into the DSN at JPL found software interface testing to be the single most expensive and error-prone activity, and the study team suggested creating an automated software interface test tool. The resulting Software Interface Verifier (SIV), which was funded by NASA/JPL and created by Telos, employed 92 percent software reuse to quickly create an initial version which incorporated early user feedback. SIV is now successfully used by developers for interface prototyping and unit testing, by test engineers for formal testing, and by end users for non-intrusive data flow tests in the operational environment. Metrics, including cost, are included. Lessons learned include the need for early user training. SIV is ported to many platforms and can be successfully used or tailored by other NASA groups.

On-Board Software Reference Architecture for Payloads

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bos, Victor; Rugina, Ana; Trcka, Adam

2016-08-01

The goal of the On-board Software Reference Architecture for Payloads (OSRA-P) is to identify an architecture for payload software to harmonize the payload domain, to enable more reuse of common/generic payload software across different payloads and missions and to ease the integration of the payloads with the platform.To investigate the payload domain, recent and current payload instruments of European space missions have been analyzed. This led to a Payload Catalogue describing 12 payload instruments as well as a Capability Matrix listing specific characteristics of each payload. In addition, a functional decomposition of payload software was prepared which contains functionalities typically found in payload systems. The definition of OSRA-P was evaluated by case studies and a dedicated OSRA-P workshop to gather feedback from the payload community.

SMART: Analyzing the Reuse Potential of Legacy Systems in Service- Oriented Architecture (SOA) Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-04-09

technical faculty for the Master in Software Engineering program at CMU. Grace holds a B.Sc. in Systems Engineering and an Executive MBA from Icesi...University in Cali, Colombia ; and a Master in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. 3 Version 1.7.3—SEI Webinar—April 2009 © 2009 Carnegie...Resources and Training SMART Report • http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/08.reports/08tn008.html Public Courses • Migration of Legacy

ON UPGRADING THE NUMERICS IN COMBUSTION CHEMISTRY CODES. (R824970)

EPA Science Inventory

A method of updating and reusing legacy FORTRAN codes for combustion simulations is presented using the DAEPACK software package. The procedure is demonstrated on two codes that come with the CHEMKIN-II package, CONP and SENKIN, for the constant-pressure batch reactor simulati...

Student Perceptions of the Creation and Reuse of Digital Educational Resources in a Community Development-Oriented Organisation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paskevicius, Michael; Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl

2018-01-01

This case study explores students' perceptions of the creation and reuse of digital teaching and learning resources in their work as tutors as part of a volunteer community development organisation at a large South African University. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, student-tutors reflect on their use and reuse of digital…

Systems biology driven software design for the research enterprise

PubMed Central

Boyle, John; Cavnor, Christopher; Killcoyne, Sarah; Shmulevich, Ilya

2008-01-01

Background In systems biology, and many other areas of research, there is a need for the interoperability of tools and data sources that were not originally designed to be integrated. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of systems biology, and its association with high throughput experimental platforms, there is an additional need to continually integrate new technologies. As scientists work in isolated groups, integration with other groups is rarely a consideration when building the required software tools. Results We illustrate an approach, through the discussion of a purpose built software architecture, which allows disparate groups to reuse tools and access data sources in a common manner. The architecture allows for: the rapid development of distributed applications; interoperability, so it can be used by a wide variety of developers and computational biologists; development using standard tools, so that it is easy to maintain and does not require a large development effort; extensibility, so that new technologies and data types can be incorporated; and non intrusive development, insofar as researchers need not to adhere to a pre-existing object model. Conclusion By using a relatively simple integration strategy, based upon a common identity system and dynamically discovered interoperable services, a light-weight software architecture can become the focal point through which scientists can both get access to and analyse the plethora of experimentally derived data. PMID:18578887

Automated software configuration in the MONSOON system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Daly, Philip N.; Buchholz, Nick C.; Moore, Peter C.

2004-09-01

MONSOON is the next generation OUV-IR controller project being developed at NOAO. The design is flexible, emphasizing code re-use, maintainability and scalability as key factors. The software needs to support widely divergent detector systems ranging from multi-chip mosaics (for LSST, QUOTA, ODI and NEWFIRM) down to large single or multi-detector laboratory development systems. In order for this flexibility to be effective and safe, the software must be able to configure itself to the requirements of the attached detector system at startup. The basic building block of all MONSOON systems is the PAN-DHE pair which make up a single data acquisition node. In this paper we discuss the software solutions used in the automatic PAN configuration system.

Software Hardware Asset Reuse Enterprise (SHARE) Repository Framework Final Report: Component Specification and Ontology

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-08-19

SSDS Ship Self Defense System TSTS Total Ship Training System UDDI Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration UML Unified Modeling...34ContractorOrganization" type="ContractorOrganizationType"> <xs:annotation> <xs:documentation>Identifies a contractor organization resposible for the

Facilitating Internet-Scale Code Retrieval

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bajracharya, Sushil Krishna

2010-01-01

Internet-Scale code retrieval deals with the representation, storage, and access of relevant source code from a large amount of source code available on the Internet. Internet-Scale code retrieval systems support common emerging practices among software developers related to finding and reusing source code. In this dissertation we focus on some…

32 CFR 310.33 - New and altered record systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... system will be reinstated or reused, the system may not be operated (i.e., information collected or used... direct access is an alteration. (ii) Software applications, such as operating systems and system... capacity of the current operating system and existing security is preserved. (vi) The connecting of two or...

32 CFR 310.33 - New and altered record systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... system will be reinstated or reused, the system may not be operated (i.e., information collected or used... direct access is an alteration. (ii) Software applications, such as operating systems and system... capacity of the current operating system and existing security is preserved. (vi) The connecting of two or...

32 CFR 310.33 - New and altered record systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... system will be reinstated or reused, the system may not be operated (i.e., information collected or used... direct access is an alteration. (ii) Software applications, such as operating systems and system... capacity of the current operating system and existing security is preserved. (vi) The connecting of two or...

32 CFR 310.33 - New and altered record systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... system will be reinstated or reused, the system may not be operated (i.e., information collected or used... direct access is an alteration. (ii) Software applications, such as operating systems and system... capacity of the current operating system and existing security is preserved. (vi) The connecting of two or...

32 CFR 310.33 - New and altered record systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... system will be reinstated or reused, the system may not be operated (i.e., information collected or used... direct access is an alteration. (ii) Software applications, such as operating systems and system... capacity of the current operating system and existing security is preserved. (vi) The connecting of two or...

Remix and Reuse of Source Code in Software Production

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, M. Cameron

2010-01-01

The means of producing information and the infrastructure for disseminating it are constantly changing. The web mobilizes information in electronic formats, making it easier to copy, modify, remix, and redistribute. This has changed how information is produced, distributed, and used. People are not just consuming information; they are actively…

Developing and Using Ada Parts in Real-Time Embedded Applications

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-04-27

ARCHTECTURAL DESIGN Guideline #3-a: Avoid duplication of data types packages. Guideline #3-b: Minimize variant proliferation. Concentrate on developing a...of SOFTWARE REUSE DEVELOPING and USING ADA PARTS in RTE APPUCATIONS ARCHTECTURAL DESIGN Table 5-10 illustrates the use of this more strongly data typed

An Open Data Platform in the framework of the EGI-LifeWatch Competence Center

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aguilar Gómez, Fernando; de Lucas, Jesús Marco; Yaiza Rodríguez Marrero, Ana

2016-04-01

The working pilot of an Open Data Platform supporting the full data cycle in research is presented. It aims to preserve knowledge explicitly, starting with the description of the Case Studies, and integrating data and software management and preservation on equal basis. The uninterrupted support in the chain starts at the data acquisition level and covers up to the support for reuse and publication in an open framework, providing integrity and provenance controls. The Lifewatch Open Science Framework is a pilot web portal developed in collaboration with different commercial companies that tries to enrich and integrate different data lifecycle-related tools in order to address the management of the different steps: data planning, gathering, storing, curation, preservation, sharing, discovering, etc. To achieve this goal, the platform includes the following features: -Data Management Planning. Tool to set up an structure of the data, including what data will be generated, how it will be exploited, re-used, curated, preserved, etc. It has a semantic approach: includes reference to ontologies in order to express what data will be gathered. -Close to instrumentation. The portal includes a distributed storage system that can be used both for storing data from instruments and output data from analysis. All that data can be shared -Analysis. Resources from EGI Federated Cloud are accessible within the portal, so that users can exploit computing resources to perform analysis and other processes, including workflows. -Preservation. Data can be preserved in different systems and DOIs can be minted not only for datasets but also for software, DMPs, etc. The presentation will show the different components of the framework as well as how it can be extrapolated to other communities.

Moving code - Sharing geoprocessing logic on the Web

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Müller, Matthias; Bernard, Lars; Kadner, Daniel

2013-09-01

Efficient data processing is a long-standing challenge in remote sensing. Effective and efficient algorithms are required for product generation in ground processing systems, event-based or on-demand analysis, environmental monitoring, and data mining. Furthermore, the increasing number of survey missions and the exponentially growing data volume in recent years have created demand for better software reuse as well as an efficient use of scalable processing infrastructures. Solutions that address both demands simultaneously have begun to slowly appear, but they seldom consider the possibility to coordinate development and maintenance efforts across different institutions, community projects, and software vendors. This paper presents a new approach to share, reuse, and possibly standardise geoprocessing logic in the field of remote sensing. Drawing from the principles of service-oriented design and distributed processing, this paper introduces moving-code packages as self-describing software components that contain algorithmic code and machine-readable descriptions of the provided functionality, platform, and infrastructure, as well as basic information about exploitation rights. Furthermore, the paper presents a lean publishing mechanism by which to distribute these packages on the Web and to integrate them in different processing environments ranging from monolithic workstations to elastic computational environments or "clouds". The paper concludes with an outlook toward community repositories for reusable geoprocessing logic and their possible impact on data-driven science in general.

Social settings and addiction relapse.

PubMed

Walton, M A; Reischl, T M; Ramanthan, C S

1995-01-01

Despite addiction theorists' acknowledgment of the impact of environmental factors on relapse, researchers have not adequately investigated these influences. Ninety-six substance users provided data regarding their perceived risk for relapse, exposure to substances, and involvement in reinforcing activities. These three setting attributes were assessed in their home, work, and community settings. Reuse was assessed 3 months later. When controlling for confounding variables, aspects of the home settings significantly distinguished abstainers from reusers; perceived risk for relapse was the strongest predictor of reuse. Exposure to substances and involvement in reinforcing activities were not robust reuse indicators. The work and community settings were not significant determinants of reuse. These findings offer some initial support for the utility of examining social settings to better understand addiction relapse and recovery. Identification of setting-based relapse determinants provides concrete targets for relapse prevention interventions.

Evolution of a Reconfigurable Processing Platform for a Next Generation Space Software Defined Radio

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kacpura, Thomas J.; Downey, Joseph A.; Anderson, Keffery R.; Baldwin, Keith

2014-01-01

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)Harris Ka-Band Software Defined Radio (SDR) is the first, fully reprogrammable space-qualified SDR operating in the Ka-Band frequency range. Providing exceptionally higher data communication rates than previously possible, this SDR offers in-orbit reconfiguration, multi-waveform operation, and fast deployment due to its highly modular hardware and software architecture. Currently in operation on the International Space Station (ISS), this new paradigm of reconfigurable technology is enabling experimenters to investigate navigation and networking in the space environment.The modular SDR and the NASA developed Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) architecture standard are the basis for Harris reusable, digital signal processing space platform trademarked as AppSTAR. As a result, two new space radio products are a synthetic aperture radar payload and an Automatic Detection Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) receiver. In addition, Harris is currently developing many new products similar to the Ka-Band software defined radio for other applications. For NASAs next generation flight Ka-Band radio development, leveraging these advancements could lead to a more robust and more capable software defined radio.The space environment has special considerations different from terrestrial applications that must be considered for any system operated in space. Each space mission has unique requirements that can make these systems unique. These unique requirements can make products that are expensive and limited in reuse. Space systems put a premium on size, weight and power. A key trade is the amount of reconfigurability in a space system. The more reconfigurable the hardware platform, the easier it is to adapt to the platform to the next mission, and this reduces the amount of non-recurring engineering costs. However, the more reconfigurable platforms often use more spacecraft resources. Software has similar considerations to hardware. Having an architecture standard promotes reuse of software and firmware. Space platforms have limited processor capability, which makes the trade on the amount of amount of flexibility paramount.

Conjunctive programming: An interactive approach to software system synthesis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tausworthe, Robert C.

1992-01-01

This report introduces a technique of software documentation called conjunctive programming and discusses its role in the development and maintenance of software systems. The report also describes the conjoin tool, an adjunct to assist practitioners. Aimed at supporting software reuse while conforming with conventional development practices, conjunctive programming is defined as the extraction, integration, and embellishment of pertinent information obtained directly from an existing database of software artifacts, such as specifications, source code, configuration data, link-edit scripts, utility files, and other relevant information, into a product that achieves desired levels of detail, content, and production quality. Conjunctive programs typically include automatically generated tables of contents, indexes, cross references, bibliographic citations, tables, and figures (including graphics and illustrations). This report presents an example of conjunctive programming by documenting the use and implementation of the conjoin program.

Potential reuse of small household waste electrical and electronic equipment: Methodology and case study.

PubMed

Bovea, María D; Ibáñez-Forés, Valeria; Pérez-Belis, Victoria; Quemades-Beltrán, Pilar

2016-07-01

This study proposes a general methodology for assessing and estimating the potential reuse of small waste electrical and electronic equipment (sWEEE), focusing on devices classified as domestic appliances. Specific tests for visual inspection, function and safety have been defined for ten different types of household appliances (vacuum cleaner, iron, microwave, toaster, sandwich maker, hand blender, juicer, boiler, heater and hair dryer). After applying the tests, reuse protocols have been defined in the form of easy-to-apply checklists for each of the ten types of appliance evaluated. This methodology could be useful for reuse enterprises, since there is a lack of specific protocols, adapted to each type of appliance, to test its potential of reuse. After applying the methodology, electrical and electronic appliances (used or waste) can be segregated into three categories: the appliance works properly and can be classified as direct reuse (items can be used by a second consumer without prior repair operations), the appliance requires a later evaluation of its potential refurbishment and repair (restoration of products to working order, although with possible loss of quality) or the appliance needs to be finally discarded from the reuse process and goes directly to a recycling process. Results after applying the methodology to a sample of 87.7kg (96 units) show that 30.2% of the appliances have no potential for reuse and should be diverted for recycling, while 67.7% require a subsequent evaluation of their potential refurbishment and repair, and only 2.1% of them could be directly reused with minor cleaning operations. This study represents a first approach to the "preparation for reuse" strategy that the European Directive related to Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment encourages to be applied. However, more research needs to be done as an extension of this study, mainly related to the identification of the feasibility of repair or refurbishment operations. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Spitzer observatory operations: increasing efficiency in mission operations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scott, Charles P.; Kahr, Bolinda E.; Sarrel, Marc A.

2006-06-01

This paper explores the how's and why's of the Spitzer Mission Operations System's (MOS) success, efficiency, and affordability in comparison to other observatory-class missions. MOS exploits today's flight, ground, and operations capabilities, embraces automation, and balances both risk and cost. With operational efficiency as the primary goal, MOS maintains a strong control process by translating lessons learned into efficiency improvements, thereby enabling the MOS processes, teams, and procedures to rapidly evolve from concept (through thorough validation) into in-flight implementation. Operational teaming, planning, and execution are designed to enable re-use. Mission changes, unforeseen events, and continuous improvement have often times forced us to learn to fly anew. Collaborative spacecraft operations and remote science and instrument teams have become well integrated, and worked together to improve and optimize each human, machine, and software-system element. Adaptation to tighter spacecraft margins has facilitated continuous operational improvements via automated and autonomous software coupled with improved human analysis. Based upon what we now know and what we need to improve, adapt, or fix, the projected mission lifetime continues to grow - as does the opportunity for numerous scientific discoveries.

Tools for open geospatial science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Petras, V.; Petrasova, A.; Mitasova, H.

2017-12-01

Open science uses open source to deal with reproducibility challenges in data and computational sciences. However, just using open source software or making the code public does not make the research reproducible. Moreover, the scientists face the challenge of learning new unfamiliar tools and workflows. In this contribution, we will look at a graduate-level course syllabus covering several software tools which make validation and reuse by a wider professional community possible. For the novices in the open science arena, we will look at how scripting languages such as Python and Bash help us reproduce research (starting with our own work). Jupyter Notebook will be introduced as a code editor, data exploration tool, and a lab notebook. We will see how Git helps us not to get lost in revisions and how Docker is used to wrap all the parts together using a single text file so that figures for a scientific paper or a technical report can be generated with a single command. We will look at examples of software and publications in the geospatial domain which use these tools and principles. Scientific contributions to GRASS GIS, a powerful open source desktop GIS and geoprocessing backend, will serve as an example of why and how to publish new algorithms and tools as part of a bigger open source project.

Structuring Formal Requirements Specifications for Reuse and Product Families

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Heimdahl, Mats P. E.

2001-01-01

In this project we have investigated how formal specifications should be structured to allow for requirements reuse, product family engineering, and ease of requirements change, The contributions of this work include (1) a requirements specification methodology specifically targeted for critical avionics applications, (2) guidelines for how to structure state-based specifications to facilitate ease of change and reuse, and (3) examples from the avionics domain demonstrating the proposed approach.

A Nursing Intelligence System to Support Secondary Use of Nursing Routine Data

PubMed Central

Rauchegger, F.; Ammenwerth, E.

2015-01-01

Summary Background Nursing care is facing exponential growth of information from nursing documentation. This amount of electronically available data collected routinely opens up new opportunities for secondary use. Objectives To present a case study of a nursing intelligence system for reusing routinely collected nursing documentation data for multiple purposes, including quality management of nursing care. Methods The SPIRIT framework for systematically planning the reuse of clinical routine data was leveraged to design a nursing intelligence system which then was implemented using open source tools in a large university hospital group following the spiral model of software engineering. Results The nursing intelligence system is in routine use now and updated regularly, and includes over 40 million data sets. It allows the outcome and quality analysis of data related to the nursing process. Conclusions Following a systematic approach for planning and designing a solution for reusing routine care data appeared to be successful. The resulting nursing intelligence system is useful in practice now, but remains malleable for future changes. PMID:26171085

Software Defined Radio with Parallelized Software Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Heckler, Greg

2013-01-01

This software implements software-defined radio procession over multicore, multi-CPU systems in a way that maximizes the use of CPU resources in the system. The software treats each processing step in either a communications or navigation modulator or demodulator system as an independent, threaded block. Each threaded block is defined with a programmable number of input or output buffers; these buffers are implemented using POSIX pipes. In addition, each threaded block is assigned a unique thread upon block installation. A modulator or demodulator system is built by assembly of the threaded blocks into a flow graph, which assembles the processing blocks to accomplish the desired signal processing. This software architecture allows the software to scale effortlessly between single CPU/single-core computers or multi-CPU/multi-core computers without recompilation. NASA spaceflight and ground communications systems currently rely exclusively on ASICs or FPGAs. This software allows low- and medium-bandwidth (100 bps to approx.50 Mbps) software defined radios to be designed and implemented solely in C/C++ software, while lowering development costs and facilitating reuse and extensibility.

Software Defined Radio with Parallelized Software Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Heckler, Greg

2013-01-01

This software implements software-defined radio procession over multi-core, multi-CPU systems in a way that maximizes the use of CPU resources in the system. The software treats each processing step in either a communications or navigation modulator or demodulator system as an independent, threaded block. Each threaded block is defined with a programmable number of input or output buffers; these buffers are implemented using POSIX pipes. In addition, each threaded block is assigned a unique thread upon block installation. A modulator or demodulator system is built by assembly of the threaded blocks into a flow graph, which assembles the processing blocks to accomplish the desired signal processing. This software architecture allows the software to scale effortlessly between single CPU/single-core computers or multi-CPU/multi-core computers without recompilation. NASA spaceflight and ground communications systems currently rely exclusively on ASICs or FPGAs. This software allows low- and medium-bandwidth (100 bps to .50 Mbps) software defined radios to be designed and implemented solely in C/C++ software, while lowering development costs and facilitating reuse and extensibility.

Practices in source code sharing in astrophysics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shamir, Lior; Wallin, John F.; Allen, Alice; Berriman, Bruce; Teuben, Peter; Nemiroff, Robert J.; Mink, Jessica; Hanisch, Robert J.; DuPrie, Kimberly

2013-02-01

While software and algorithms have become increasingly important in astronomy, the majority of authors who publish computational astronomy research do not share the source code they develop, making it difficult to replicate and reuse the work. In this paper we discuss the importance of sharing scientific source code with the entire astrophysics community, and propose that journals require authors to make their code publicly available when a paper is published. That is, we suggest that a paper that involves a computer program not be accepted for publication unless the source code becomes publicly available. The adoption of such a policy by editors, editorial boards, and reviewers will improve the ability to replicate scientific results, and will also make computational astronomy methods more available to other researchers who wish to apply them to their data.

Software Hardware Asset Reuse Enterprise (SHARE) Repository Framework Final Report: Component Specification and Ontology

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-09-30

89 Integrated Surface Ship ASW Combat System (AN/SQQ-89) SSDS Ship Self Defense System TSTS Total Ship Training System UDDI Universal Description...34ContractorOrganization" type="ContractorOrganizationType"> <xs:annotation> <xs:documentation>Identifies a contractor organization resposible for the

Authoring Multimedia Learning Material Using Open Standards and Free Software

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tellez, Alberto Gonzalez

2007-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the case of synchronized multimedia presentations. Design/methodology/approach: The proposal is based on SMIL as composition language. Particularly, the paper reuses and customizes the SMIL template used by INRIA on their technical presentations. It also proposes a set of free tools to produce…

C3I Systems Acquisition and Maintenance in Relation to the use of COTS Products

DTIC Science & Technology

2000-12-01

the NATO C3 Agency and crypto equipment. * the GFE STARGATE Software subsystem (the prototyped version of which, developed by IAF, Surveillance fctid...been increasing and dual-use systems (ACCAM, ICC, AOIS, STARGATE and re-use potentials have been enhanced. WAN connections) Use of COTS information

Improving component interoperability and reusability with the java connection framework (JCF): overview and application to the ages-w environmental model

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Environmental modeling framework (EMF) design goals are multi-dimensional and often include many aspects of general software framework development. Many functional capabilities offered by current EMFs are closely related to interoperability and reuse aspects. For example, an EMF needs to support dev...

STRS Compliant FPGA Waveform Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nappier, Jennifer; Downey, Joseph; Mortensen, Dale

2008-01-01

The Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture Standard describes a standard for NASA space software defined radios (SDRs). It provides a common framework that can be used to develop and operate a space SDR in a reconfigurable and reprogrammable manner. One goal of the STRS Architecture is to promote waveform reuse among multiple software defined radios. Many space domain waveforms are designed to run in the special signal processing (SSP) hardware. However, the STRS Architecture is currently incomplete in defining a standard for designing waveforms in the SSP hardware. Therefore, the STRS Architecture needs to be extended to encompass waveform development in the SSP hardware. The extension of STRS to the SSP hardware will promote easier waveform reconfiguration and reuse. A transmit waveform for space applications was developed to determine ways to extend the STRS Architecture to a field programmable gate array (FPGA). These extensions include a standard hardware abstraction layer for FPGAs and a standard interface between waveform functions running inside a FPGA. A FPGA-based transmit waveform implementation of the proposed standard interfaces on a laboratory breadboard SDR will be discussed.

Developing an Open Source, Reusable Platform for Distributed Collaborative Information Management in the Early Detection Research Network

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hart, Andrew F.; Verma, Rishi; Mattmann, Chris A.; Crichton, Daniel J.; Kelly, Sean; Kincaid, Heather; Hughes, Steven; Ramirez, Paul; Goodale, Cameron; Anton, Kristen;

Neuroinformatics Software Applications Supporting Electronic Data Capture, Management, and Sharing for the Neuroimaging Community

PubMed Central

Nichols, B. Nolan; Pohl, Kilian M.

2017-01-01

Accelerating insight into the relation between brain and behavior entails conducting small and large-scale research endeavors that lead to reproducible results. Consensus is emerging between funding agencies, publishers, and the research community that data sharing is a fundamental requirement to ensure all such endeavors foster data reuse and fuel reproducible discoveries. Funding agency and publisher mandates to share data are bolstered by a growing number of data sharing efforts that demonstrate how information technologies can enable meaningful data reuse. Neuroinformatics evaluates scientific needs and develops solutions to facilitate the use of data across the cognitive and neurosciences. For example, electronic data capture and management tools designed to facilitate human neurocognitive research can decrease the setup time of studies, improve quality control, and streamline the process of harmonizing, curating, and sharing data across data repositories. In this article we outline the advantages and disadvantages of adopting software applications that support these features by reviewing the tools available and then presenting two contrasting neuroimaging study scenarios in the context of conducting a cross-sectional and a multisite longitudinal study. PMID:26267019

Big Software for SmallSats: Adapting cFS to CubeSat Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cudmore, Alan P.; Crum, Gary Alex; Sheikh, Salman; Marshall, James

2015-01-01

Expanding capabilities and mission objectives for SmallSats and CubeSats is driving the need for reliable, reusable, and robust flight software. While missions are becoming more complicated and the scientific goals more ambitious, the level of acceptable risk has decreased. Design challenges are further compounded by budget and schedule constraints that have not kept pace. NASA's Core Flight Software System (cFS) is an open source solution which enables teams to build flagship satellite level flight software within a CubeSat schedule and budget. NASA originally developed cFS to reduce mission and schedule risk for flagship satellite missions by increasing code reuse and reliability. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched in 2009, was the first of a growing list of Class B rated missions to use cFS.

Modular Rocket Engine Control Software (MRECS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tarrant, Charlie; Crook, Jerry

1997-01-01

The Modular Rocket Engine Control Software (MRECS) Program is a technology demonstration effort designed to advance the state-of-the-art in launch vehicle propulsion systems. Its emphasis is on developing and demonstrating a modular software architecture for a generic, advanced engine control system that will result in lower software maintenance (operations) costs. It effectively accommodates software requirements changes that occur due to hardware. technology upgrades and engine development testing. Ground rules directed by MSFC were to optimize modularity and implement the software in the Ada programming language. MRECS system software and the software development environment utilize Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) products. This paper presents the objectives and benefits of the program. The software architecture, design, and development environment are described. MRECS tasks are defined and timing relationships given. Major accomplishment are listed. MRECS offers benefits to a wide variety of advanced technology programs in the areas of modular software, architecture, reuse software, and reduced software reverification time related to software changes. Currently, the program is focused on supporting MSFC in accomplishing a Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) hot-fire test at Stennis Space Center and the Low Cost Boost Technology (LCBT) Program.

PanMetaDocs - A tool for collecting and managing the long tail of "small science data"

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klump, J.; Ulbricht, D.

2011-12-01

In the early days of thinking about cyberinfrastructure the focus was on "big science data". Today, the challenge is not anymore to store several terabytes of data, but to manage data objects in a way that facilitates their re-use. Key to re-use by a user as a data consumer is proper documentation of the data. Also, data consumers need discovery metadata to find the data they need and they need descriptive metadata to be able to use the data they retrieved. Thus, data documentation faces the challenge to extensively and completely describe these objects, hold the items easily accessible at a sustainable cost level. However, data curation and documentation do not rank high in the everyday work of a scientist as a data producer. Data producers are often frustrated by being asked to provide metadata on their data over and over again, information that seemed very obvious from the context of their work. A challenge to data archives is the wide variety of metadata schemata in use, which creates a number of maintenance and design challenges of its own. PanMetaDocs addresses these issues by allowing an uploaded files to be described by more than one metadata object. PanMetaDocs, which was developed from PanMetaWorks, is a PHP based web application that allow to describe data with any xml-based metadata schema. Its user interface is browser based and was developed to collect metadata and data in collaborative scientific projects situated at one or more institutions. The metadata fields can be filled with static or dynamic content to reduce the number of fields that require manual entries to a minimum and make use of contextual information in a project setting. In the development of PanMetaDocs the business logic of panMetaWorks is reused, except for the authentication and data management functions of PanMetaWorks, which are delegated to the eSciDoc framework. The eSciDoc repository framework is designed as a service oriented architecture that can be controlled through a REST interface to create version controlled items with metadata records in XML format. PanMetaDocs utilizes the eSciDoc items model to add multiple metadata records that describe uploaded files in different metadata schemata. While datasets are collected and described, shared to collaborate with other scientists and finally published, data objects are transferred from a shared data curation domain into a persistent data curation domain. Through an RSS interface for recent datasets PanMetaWorks allows project members to be informed about data uploaded by other project members. The implementation of the OAI-PMH interface can be used to syndicate data catalogs to research data portals, such as the panFMP data portal framework. Once data objects are uploaded to the eSciDoc infrastructure it is possible to drop the software instance that was used for collecting the data, while the compiled data and metadata are accessible for other authorized applications through the institution's eSciDoc middleware. This approach of "expendable data curation tools" allows for a significant reduction in costs for software maintenance as expensive data capture applications do not need to be maintained indefinitely to ensure long term access to the stored data.

OBO to UML: Support for the development of conceptual models in the biomedical domain.

PubMed

Waldemarin, Ricardo C; de Farias, Cléver R G

2018-04-01

A conceptual model abstractly defines a number of concepts and their relationships for the purposes of understanding and communication. Once a conceptual model is available, it can also be used as a starting point for the development of a software system. The development of conceptual models using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) facilitates the representation of modeled concepts and allows software developers to directly reuse these concepts in the design of a software system. The OBO Foundry represents the most relevant collaborative effort towards the development of ontologies in the biomedical domain. The development of UML conceptual models in the biomedical domain may benefit from the use of domain-specific semantics and notation. Further, the development of these models may also benefit from the reuse of knowledge contained in OBO ontologies. This paper investigates the support for the development of conceptual models in the biomedical domain using UML as a conceptual modeling language and using the support provided by the OBO Foundry for the development of biomedical ontologies, namely entity kind and relationship types definitions provided by the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and the OBO Core Relations Ontology (OBO Core), respectively. Further, the paper investigates the support for the reuse of biomedical knowledge currently available in OBOFFF ontologies in the development these conceptual models. The paper describes a UML profile for the OBO Core Relations Ontology, which basically defines a number of stereotypes to represent BFO entity kinds and OBO Core relationship types definitions. The paper also presents a support toolset consisting of a graphical editor named OBO-RO Editor, which directly supports the development of UML models using the extensions defined by our profile, and a command-line tool named OBO2UML, which directly converts an OBOFFF ontology into a UML model. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Integrating automated support for a software management cycle into the TAME system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sunazuka, Toshihiko; Basili, Victor R.

1989-01-01

Software managers are interested in the quantitative management of software quality, cost and progress. An integrated software management methodology, which can be applied throughout the software life cycle for any number purposes, is required. The TAME (Tailoring A Measurement Environment) methodology is based on the improvement paradigm and the goal/question/metric (GQM) paradigm. This methodology helps generate a software engineering process and measurement environment based on the project characteristics. The SQMAR (software quality measurement and assurance technology) is a software quality metric system and methodology applied to the development processes. It is based on the feed forward control principle. Quality target setting is carried out before the plan-do-check-action activities are performed. These methodologies are integrated to realize goal oriented measurement, process control and visual management. A metric setting procedure based on the GQM paradigm, a management system called the software management cycle (SMC), and its application to a case study based on NASA/SEL data are discussed. The expected effects of SMC are quality improvement, managerial cost reduction, accumulation and reuse of experience, and a highly visual management reporting system.

Achieving reutilization of scheduling software through abstraction and generalization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilkinson, George J.; Monteleone, Richard A.; Weinstein, Stuart M.; Mohler, Michael G.; Zoch, David R.; Tong, G. Michael

1995-01-01

Reutilization of software is a difficult goal to achieve particularly in complex environments that require advanced software systems. The Request-Oriented Scheduling Engine (ROSE) was developed to create a reusable scheduling system for the diverse scheduling needs of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). ROSE is a data-driven scheduler that accepts inputs such as user activities, available resources, timing contraints, and user-defined events, and then produces a conflict-free schedule. To support reutilization, ROSE is designed to be flexible, extensible, and portable. With these design features, applying ROSE to a new scheduling application does not require changing the core scheduling engine, even if the new application requires significantly larger or smaller data sets, customized scheduling algorithms, or software portability. This paper includes a ROSE scheduling system description emphasizing its general-purpose features, reutilization techniques, and tasks for which ROSE reuse provided a low-risk solution with significant cost savings and reduced software development time.

Evolution of the Space Shuttle Primary Avionics Software and Avionics for Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ferguson, Roscoe C.

2011-01-01

As a result of recommendation from the Augustine Panel, the direction for Human Space Flight has been altered from the original plan referred to as Constellation. NASA s Human Exploration Framework Team (HEFT) proposes the use of a Shuttle Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (SDLV) and an Orion derived spacecraft (salvaged from Constellation) to support a new flexible direction for space exploration. The SDLV must be developed within an environment of a constrained budget and a preferred fast development schedule. Thus, it has been proposed to utilize existing assets from the Shuttle Program to speed development at a lower cost. These existing assets should not only include structures such as external tanks or solid rockets, but also the Flight Software which has traditionally been a "long pole" in new development efforts. The avionics and software for the Space Shuttle was primarily developed in the 70 s and considered state of the art for that time. As one may argue that the existing avionics and flight software may be too outdated to support the new SDLV effort, this is a fallacy if they can be evolved over time into a "modern avionics" platform. The technology may be outdated, but the avionics concepts and flight software algorithms are not. The reuse of existing avionics and software also allows for the reuse of development, verification, and operations facilities. The keyword is evolve in that these assets can support the fast development of such a vehicle, but then be gradually evolved over time towards more modern platforms as budget and schedule permits. The "gold" of the flight software is the "control loop" algorithms of the vehicle. This is the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) software algorithms. This software is typically the most expensive to develop, test, and verify. Thus, the approach is to preserve the GNC flight software, while first evolving the supporting software (such as Command and Data Handling, Caution and Warning, Telemetry, etc.). This can be accomplished by gradually removing the "support software" from the legacy flight software leaving only the GNC algorithms. The "support software" could be re-developed for modern platforms, while leaving the GNC algorithms to execute on technology compatible with the legacy system. It is also possible to package the GNC algorithms into an emulated version of the original computer (via Field Programmable Gate Arrays or FPGAs), thus becoming a "GNC on a Chip" solution where it could live forever to be embedded in modern avionics platforms.

The Environmental Data Initiative data repository: Trustworthy practices that foster preservation, fitness, and reuse for environmental and ecological data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Servilla, M. S.; Brunt, J.; Costa, D.; Gries, C.; Grossman-Clarke, S.; Hanson, P. C.; O'Brien, M.; Smith, C.; Vanderbilt, K.; Waide, R.

2017-12-01

The Environmental Data Initiative (EDI) is an outgrowth of more than 30 years of information management experience and technology from LTER Network data practitioners. EDI builds upon the PASTA data repository software used by the LTER Network Information System and manages more than 42,000 data packages, containing tabular data, imagery, and other formats. Development of the repository was a community process beginning in 2009 that included numerous working groups for generating use cases, system requirements, and testing of completed software, thereby creating a vested interested in its success and transparency in design. All software is available for review on GitHub, and refinements and new features are ongoing. Documentation is also available on Read-the-docs, including a comprehensive description of all web-service API methods. PASTA is metadata driven and uses the Ecological Metadata Language (EML) standard for describing environmental and ecological data; a simplified Dublin Core document is also available for each data package. Data are aggregated into packages consisting of metadata and other related content described by an OAI-ORE document. Once archived, each data package becomes immutable and permanent; updates are possible through the addition of new revisions. Components of each data package are accessible through a unique identifier, while the entire data package receives a DOI that is registered in DataCite. Preservation occurs through a combination of DataONE synchronization/replication and by a series of local and remote backup strategies, including daily uploads to AWS Glacier storage. Checksums are computed for all data at initial upload, with random verification occurring on a continuous basis, thus ensuring the integrity of data. PASTA incorporates a series of data quality tests to ensure that data are correctly documented with EML before data are archived; data packages that fail any test are forbidden in the repository. These tests are a measure data fitness, which ultimately increases confidence in data reuse and synthesis. The EDI data repository is recognized by multiple organizations, including EarthCube's Council of Data Facilities, the United States Geological Survey, FAIRsharing.org, re3data.org, and is a PLOS and Nature recommended data repository.

Software-engineering challenges of building and deploying reusable problem solvers.

PubMed

O'Connor, Martin J; Nyulas, Csongor; Tu, Samson; Buckeridge, David L; Okhmatovskaia, Anna; Musen, Mark A

2009-11-01

Problem solving methods (PSMs) are software components that represent and encode reusable algorithms. They can be combined with representations of domain knowledge to produce intelligent application systems. A goal of research on PSMs is to provide principled methods and tools for composing and reusing algorithms in knowledge-based systems. The ultimate objective is to produce libraries of methods that can be easily adapted for use in these systems. Despite the intuitive appeal of PSMs as conceptual building blocks, in practice, these goals are largely unmet. There are no widely available tools for building applications using PSMs and no public libraries of PSMs available for reuse. This paper analyzes some of the reasons for the lack of widespread adoptions of PSM techniques and illustrate our analysis by describing our experiences developing a complex, high-throughput software system based on PSM principles. We conclude that many fundamental principles in PSM research are useful for building knowledge-based systems. In particular, the task-method decomposition process, which provides a means for structuring knowledge-based tasks, is a powerful abstraction for building systems of analytic methods. However, despite the power of PSMs in the conceptual modeling of knowledge-based systems, software engineering challenges have been seriously underestimated. The complexity of integrating control knowledge modeled by developers using PSMs with the domain knowledge that they model using ontologies creates a barrier to widespread use of PSM-based systems. Nevertheless, the surge of recent interest in ontologies has led to the production of comprehensive domain ontologies and of robust ontology-authoring tools. These developments present new opportunities to leverage the PSM approach.

Software-engineering challenges of building and deploying reusable problem solvers

PubMed Central

O’CONNOR, MARTIN J.; NYULAS, CSONGOR; TU, SAMSON; BUCKERIDGE, DAVID L.; OKHMATOVSKAIA, ANNA; MUSEN, MARK A.

2012-01-01

Problem solving methods (PSMs) are software components that represent and encode reusable algorithms. They can be combined with representations of domain knowledge to produce intelligent application systems. A goal of research on PSMs is to provide principled methods and tools for composing and reusing algorithms in knowledge-based systems. The ultimate objective is to produce libraries of methods that can be easily adapted for use in these systems. Despite the intuitive appeal of PSMs as conceptual building blocks, in practice, these goals are largely unmet. There are no widely available tools for building applications using PSMs and no public libraries of PSMs available for reuse. This paper analyzes some of the reasons for the lack of widespread adoptions of PSM techniques and illustrate our analysis by describing our experiences developing a complex, high-throughput software system based on PSM principles. We conclude that many fundamental principles in PSM research are useful for building knowledge-based systems. In particular, the task–method decomposition process, which provides a means for structuring knowledge-based tasks, is a powerful abstraction for building systems of analytic methods. However, despite the power of PSMs in the conceptual modeling of knowledge-based systems, software engineering challenges have been seriously underestimated. The complexity of integrating control knowledge modeled by developers using PSMs with the domain knowledge that they model using ontologies creates a barrier to widespread use of PSM-based systems. Nevertheless, the surge of recent interest in ontologies has led to the production of comprehensive domain ontologies and of robust ontology-authoring tools. These developments present new opportunities to leverage the PSM approach. PMID:23565031

Tellurium notebooks-An environment for reproducible dynamical modeling in systems biology.

PubMed

Medley, J Kyle; Choi, Kiri; König, Matthias; Smith, Lucian; Gu, Stanley; Hellerstein, Joseph; Sealfon, Stuart C; Sauro, Herbert M

2018-06-01

The considerable difficulty encountered in reproducing the results of published dynamical models limits validation, exploration and reuse of this increasingly large biomedical research resource. To address this problem, we have developed Tellurium Notebook, a software system for model authoring, simulation, and teaching that facilitates building reproducible dynamical models and reusing models by 1) providing a notebook environment which allows models, Python code, and narrative to be intermixed, 2) supporting the COMBINE archive format during model development for capturing model information in an exchangeable format and 3) enabling users to easily simulate and edit public COMBINE-compliant models from public repositories to facilitate studying model dynamics, variants and test cases. Tellurium Notebook, a Python-based Jupyter-like environment, is designed to seamlessly inter-operate with these community standards by automating conversion between COMBINE standards formulations and corresponding in-line, human-readable representations. Thus, Tellurium brings to systems biology the strategy used by other literate notebook systems such as Mathematica. These capabilities allow users to edit every aspect of the standards-compliant models and simulations, run the simulations in-line, and re-export to standard formats. We provide several use cases illustrating the advantages of our approach and how it allows development and reuse of models without requiring technical knowledge of standards. Adoption of Tellurium should accelerate model development, reproducibility and reuse.

IRAF: Lessons for Project Longevity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fitzpatrick, M.

2012-09-01

Although sometimes derided as a product of the 80's (or more generously, as a legacy system), the fact that IRAF remains a productive work environment for many astronomers today is a testament to one of its core design principles, portability. This idea has meaning beyond a survey of platforms in use at the peak of a project's active development; for true longevity, a project must be able to weather completely unimagined OS, hardware, data, staffing and political environments. A lack of attention to the broader issues of portability, or the true lifespan of a software system (e.g. archival science may extend for years beyond a given mission, upgraded or similar instruments may be developed that require the same reduction/analysis techniques, etc) might require costly new software development instead of simple code re-use. Additionally, one under-appreciated benefit to having a long history in the community is the trust that users have established in the science results produced by a particular system. However a software system evolves architecturally, preserving this trust (and by implication, the applications themselves) is the key to continued success. In this paper, we will discuss how the system architecture has allowed IRAF to navigate the many changes in computing since it was first released. It is hoped that the lessons learned can be adopted by software systems being built today so that they too can survive long enough to one day earn the distinction of being called a legacy system.

An Accessible User Interface for Geoscience and Programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sevre, E. O.; Lee, S.

2012-12-01

The goal of this research is to develop an interface that will simplify user interaction with software for scientists. The motivating factor of the research is to develop tools that assist scientists with limited motor skills with the efficient generation and use of software tools. Reliance on computers and programming is increasing in the world of geology, and it is increasingly important for geologists and geophysicists to have the computational resources to use advanced software and edit programs for their research. I have developed a prototype of a program to help geophysicists write programs using a simple interface that requires only simple single-mouse-clicks to input code. It is my goal to minimize the amount of typing necessary to create simple programs and scripts to increase accessibility for people with disabilities limiting fine motor skills. This interface can be adapted for various programming and scripting languages. Using this interface will simplify development of code for C/C++, Java, and GMT, and can be expanded to support any other text based programming language. The interface is designed around the concept of maximizing the amount of code that can be written using a minimum number of clicks and typing. The screen is split into two sections: a list of click-commands is on the left hand side, and a text area is on the right hand side. When the user clicks on a command on the left hand side the applicable code is automatically inserted at the insertion point in the text area. Currently in the C/C++ interface, there are commands for common code segments that are often used, such as for loops, comments, print statements, and structured code creation. The primary goal is to provide an interface that will work across many devices for developing code. A simple prototype has been developed for the iPad. Due to the limited number of devices that an iOS application can be used with, the code has been re-written in Java to run on a wider range of devices. Currently, the software works in a prototype mode, and it is our goal to further development to create software that can benefit a wide range of people working in geosciences, which will make code development practical and accessible for a wider audience of scientists. By using an interface like this, it reduces potential for errors by reusing known working code.

Market-Smart Deconstruction and Material Recovery at Brownfield Sites: How to Identify and Reuse Existing Materials Found at Brownfield Sites

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-06-01

efforts to assess , remediate, and sustainably reuse brownfields . This project is based on the premise that communities have finite resources and that the...this work is to develop tools and guidance for brownfields partners to assess the potential of extracting construction material assets from...buildings, structures, and infrastructure on brownfield sites, and to reuse or recycle this material. This assessment will address the physical

Analysis of satellite multibeam antennas’ performances

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sterbini, Guido

2006-07-01

In this work, we discuss the application of frequency reuse's concept in satellite communications, stressing the importance for a design-oriented mathematical model as first step for dimensioning antenna systems. We consider multibeam reflector antennas. The first part of the work consists in reorganizing, making uniform and completing the models already developed in the scientific literature. In doing it, we adopt the multidimensional Taylor development formalism. For computing the spillover efficiency of the antenna, we consider different feed's illuminations and we propose a completely original mathematical model, obtained by the interpolation of simulator results. The second part of the work is dedicated to characterize the secondary far field pattern. Combining this model together with the information on the cellular coverage geometry is possible to evaluate the isolation and the minimum directivity on the cell. As third part, in order to test the model and its analysis and synthesis capabilities, we implement a software tool that helps the designer in the rapid tuning of the fundamental quantities for the optimization of the performance: the proposed model shows an optimum agreement with the results of the simulations.

A SCORM Thin Client Architecture for E-Learning Systems Based on Web Services

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Casella, Giovanni; Costagliola, Gennaro; Ferrucci, Filomena; Polese, Giuseppe; Scanniello, Giuseppe

2007-01-01

In this paper we propose an architecture of e-learning systems characterized by the use of Web services and a suitable middleware component. These technical infrastructures allow us to extend the system with new services as well as to integrate and reuse heterogeneous software e-learning components. Moreover, they let us better support the…

An Object-Oriented Software Reuse Tool

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-04-01

Square Cambridge, MA 02139 I. CONTROLLING OFFICE NAME ANO ADDRESS 12. REPORT DATIE Advanced Research Projects Agency April 1989 1400 Wilson Blvd. IS...Office of Naval Research UNCLASSIFIED Information Systems Arlington, VA 22217 1s,. DECLASSIFICATION/DOWNGRAOINGSCHEDUL.E 6. O:STRIILJTION STATEMENT (of...DISTRIBUTION: Defense Technical Information Center Computer Sciences Division ONR, Code 1133 Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial

Software Technology for Adaptable, Reliable Systems (STARS): UUS40 - Risk-Reduction Reasoning-Based Development Paradigm Tailored to Navy C2 Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-07-30

4 Management reviews, engineering and WBS -Spiral 0 -5 *Risk Management Planning -Spiral 0-5 ,41.- Unrelsi ugt .Proper initial planning -Spiral 0.1...Reusability issues for trusted systems are associated closely with maintenance issues. Reuse theory and practice for highly trusted systems will require

MOPEX: a software package for astronomical image processing and visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Makovoz, David; Roby, Trey; Khan, Iffat; Booth, Hartley

2006-06-01

We present MOPEX - a software package for astronomical image processing and display. The package is a combination of command-line driven image processing software written in C/C++ with a Java-based GUI. The main image processing capabilities include creating mosaic images, image registration, background matching, point source extraction, as well as a number of minor image processing tasks. The combination of the image processing and display capabilities allows for much more intuitive and efficient way of performing image processing. The GUI allows for the control over the image processing and display to be closely intertwined. Parameter setting, validation, and specific processing options are entered by the user through a set of intuitive dialog boxes. Visualization feeds back into further processing by providing a prompt feedback of the processing results. The GUI also allows for further analysis by accessing and displaying data from existing image and catalog servers using a virtual observatory approach. Even though originally designed for the Spitzer Space Telescope mission, a lot of functionalities are of general usefulness and can be used for working with existing astronomical data and for new missions. The software used in the package has undergone intensive testing and benefited greatly from effective software reuse. The visualization part has been used for observation planning for both the Spitzer and Herschel Space Telescopes as part the tool Spot. The visualization capabilities of Spot have been enhanced and integrated with the image processing functionality of the command-line driven MOPEX. The image processing software is used in the Spitzer automated pipeline processing, which has been in operation for nearly 3 years. The image processing capabilities have also been tested in off-line processing by numerous astronomers at various institutions around the world. The package is multi-platform and includes automatic update capabilities. The software package has been developed by a small group of software developers and scientists at the Spitzer Science Center. It is available for distribution at the Spitzer Science Center web page.

Optimising value from the soft re-use of brownfield sites.

PubMed

Bardos, R Paul; Jones, Sarah; Stephenson, Ian; Menger, Pierre; Beumer, Victor; Neonato, Francesca; Maring, Linda; Ferber, Uwe; Track, Thomas; Wendler, Katja

2016-09-01

Soft re-use of brownfields describes intended temporary or final re-uses of brownfield sites which are not based on built constructions or infrastructure ('hard' re-use). Examples of soft re-uses include the creation of public green space. These are essentially uses where the soil is not sealed. Often the case for soft re-use of brownfields has not been easy to demonstrate in strictly financial terms. The purpose of this paper is to describe a value based approach to identify and optimise services provided by the restoration of brownfields to soft re-uses, on a permanent or interim basis. A 'Brownfield Opportunity Matrix' is suggested as means of identifying and discussing soft restoration opportunities. The use of 'sustainability linkages' is suggested as a means of understanding the sustainability of the services under consideration and providing a structure for the overall valuation of restoration work, for example as part of design or option appraisal processes, or to support the solicitation of interest in a project. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Component-based integration of chemistry and optimization software.

PubMed

Kenny, Joseph P; Benson, Steven J; Alexeev, Yuri; Sarich, Jason; Janssen, Curtis L; McInnes, Lois Curfman; Krishnan, Manojkumar; Nieplocha, Jarek; Jurrus, Elizabeth; Fahlstrom, Carl; Windus, Theresa L

2004-11-15

Typical scientific software designs make rigid assumptions regarding programming language and data structures, frustrating software interoperability and scientific collaboration. Component-based software engineering is an emerging approach to managing the increasing complexity of scientific software. Component technology facilitates code interoperability and reuse. Through the adoption of methodology and tools developed by the Common Component Architecture Forum, we have developed a component architecture for molecular structure optimization. Using the NWChem and Massively Parallel Quantum Chemistry packages, we have produced chemistry components that provide capacity for energy and energy derivative evaluation. We have constructed geometry optimization applications by integrating the Toolkit for Advanced Optimization, Portable Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation, and Global Arrays packages, which provide optimization and linear algebra capabilities. We present a brief overview of the component development process and a description of abstract interfaces for chemical optimizations. The components conforming to these abstract interfaces allow the construction of applications using different chemistry and mathematics packages interchangeably. Initial numerical results for the component software demonstrate good performance, and highlight potential research enabled by this platform.

FieldTrip: Open source software for advanced analysis of MEG, EEG, and invasive electrophysiological data.

PubMed

Oostenveld, Robert; Fries, Pascal; Maris, Eric; Schoffelen, Jan-Mathijs

2011-01-01

This paper describes FieldTrip, an open source software package that we developed for the analysis of MEG, EEG, and other electrophysiological data. The software is implemented as a MATLAB toolbox and includes a complete set of consistent and user-friendly high-level functions that allow experimental neuroscientists to analyze experimental data. It includes algorithms for simple and advanced analysis, such as time-frequency analysis using multitapers, source reconstruction using dipoles, distributed sources and beamformers, connectivity analysis, and nonparametric statistical permutation tests at the channel and source level. The implementation as toolbox allows the user to perform elaborate and structured analyses of large data sets using the MATLAB command line and batch scripting. Furthermore, users and developers can easily extend the functionality and implement new algorithms. The modular design facilitates the reuse in other software packages.

Evolving software reengineering technology for the emerging innovative-competitive era

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hwang, Phillip Q.; Lock, Evan; Prywes, Noah

1994-01-01

This paper reports on a multi-tool commercial/military environment combining software Domain Analysis techniques with Reusable Software and Reengineering of Legacy Software. It is based on the development of a military version for the Department of Defense (DOD). The integrated tools in the military version are: Software Specification Assistant (SSA) and Software Reengineering Environment (SRE), developed by Computer Command and Control Company (CCCC) for Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) and Joint Logistics Commanders (JLC), and the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) STARS Software Engineering Environment (SEE) developed by Boeing for NAVAIR PMA 205. The paper describes transitioning these integrated tools to commercial use. There is a critical need for the transition for the following reasons: First, to date, 70 percent of programmers' time is applied to software maintenance. The work of these users has not been facilitated by existing tools. The addition of Software Reengineering will also facilitate software maintenance and upgrading. In fact, the integrated tools will support the entire software life cycle. Second, the integrated tools are essential to Business Process Reengineering, which seeks radical process innovations to achieve breakthrough results. Done well, process reengineering delivers extraordinary gains in process speed, productivity and profitability. Most importantly, it discovers new opportunities for products and services in collaboration with other organizations. Legacy computer software must be changed rapidly to support innovative business processes. The integrated tools will provide commercial organizations important competitive advantages. This, in turn, will increase employment by creating new business opportunities. Third, the integrated system will produce much higher quality software than use of the tools separately. The reason for this is that producing or upgrading software requires keen understanding of extremely complex applications which is facilitated by the integrated tools. The radical savings in the time and cost associated with software, due to use of CASE tools that support combined Reuse of Software and Reengineering of Legacy Code, will add an important impetus to improving the automation of enterprises. This will be reflected in continuing operations, as well as in innovating new business processes. The proposed multi-tool software development is based on state of the art technology, which will be further advanced through the use of open systems for adding new tools and experience in their use.

Mercury: An Example of Effective Software Reuse for Metadata Management, Data Discovery and Access

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Devarakonda, Ranjeet; Palanisamy, Giri; Green, James; Wilson, Bruce E.

2008-12-01

Mercury is a federated metadata harvesting, data discovery and access tool based on both open source packages and custom developed software. Though originally developed for NASA, the Mercury development consortium now includes funding from NASA, USGS, and DOE. Mercury supports the reuse of metadata by enabling searching across a range of metadata specification and standards including XML, Z39.50, FGDC, Dublin-Core, Darwin-Core, EML, and ISO-19115. Mercury provides a single portal to information contained in distributed data management systems. It collects metadata and key data from contributing project servers distributed around the world and builds a centralized index. The Mercury search interfaces then allow the users to perform simple, fielded, spatial and temporal searches across these metadata sources. One of the major goals of the recent redesign of Mercury was to improve the software reusability across the 12 projects which currently fund the continuing development of Mercury. These projects span a range of land, atmosphere, and ocean ecological communities and have a number of common needs for metadata searches, but they also have a number of needs specific to one or a few projects. To balance these common and project-specific needs, Mercury's architecture has three major reusable components; a harvester engine, an indexing system and a user interface component. The harvester engine is responsible for harvesting metadata records from various distributed servers around the USA and around the world. The harvester software was packaged in such a way that all the Mercury projects will use the same harvester scripts but each project will be driven by a set of project specific configuration files. The harvested files are structured metadata records that are indexed against the search library API consistently, so that it can render various search capabilities such as simple, fielded, spatial and temporal. This backend component is supported by a very flexible, easy to use Graphical User Interface which is driven by cascading style sheets, which make it even simpler for reusable design implementation. The new Mercury system is based on a Service Oriented Architecture and effectively reuses components for various services such as Thesaurus Service, Gazetteer Web Service and UDDI Directory Services. The software also provides various search services including: RSS, Geo-RSS, OpenSearch, Web Services and Portlets, integrated shopping cart to order datasets from various data centers (ORNL DAAC, NSIDC) and integrated visualization tools. Other features include: Filtering and dynamic sorting of search results, book- markable search results, save, retrieve, and modify search criteria.

Mercury: An Example of Effective Software Reuse for Metadata Management, Data Discovery and Access

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Devarakonda, Ranjeet

2008-01-01

Mercury is a federated metadata harvesting, data discovery and access tool based on both open source packages and custom developed software. Though originally developed for NASA, the Mercury development consortium now includes funding from NASA, USGS, and DOE. Mercury supports the reuse of metadata by enabling searching across a range of metadata specification and standards including XML, Z39.50, FGDC, Dublin-Core, Darwin-Core, EML, and ISO-19115. Mercury provides a single portal to information contained in distributed data management systems. It collects metadata and key data from contributing project servers distributed around the world and builds a centralized index. The Mercury search interfacesmore » then allow the users to perform simple, fielded, spatial and temporal searches across these metadata sources. One of the major goals of the recent redesign of Mercury was to improve the software reusability across the 12 projects which currently fund the continuing development of Mercury. These projects span a range of land, atmosphere, and ocean ecological communities and have a number of common needs for metadata searches, but they also have a number of needs specific to one or a few projects. To balance these common and project-specific needs, Mercury's architecture has three major reusable components; a harvester engine, an indexing system and a user interface component. The harvester engine is responsible for harvesting metadata records from various distributed servers around the USA and around the world. The harvester software was packaged in such a way that all the Mercury projects will use the same harvester scripts but each project will be driven by a set of project specific configuration files. The harvested files are structured metadata records that are indexed against the search library API consistently, so that it can render various search capabilities such as simple, fielded, spatial and temporal. This backend component is supported by a very flexible, easy to use Graphical User Interface which is driven by cascading style sheets, which make it even simpler for reusable design implementation. The new Mercury system is based on a Service Oriented Architecture and effectively reuses components for various services such as Thesaurus Service, Gazetteer Web Service and UDDI Directory Services. The software also provides various search services including: RSS, Geo-RSS, OpenSearch, Web Services and Portlets, integrated shopping cart to order datasets from various data centers (ORNL DAAC, NSIDC) and integrated visualization tools. Other features include: Filtering and dynamic sorting of search results, book- markable search results, save, retrieve, and modify search criteria.« less

Study on the E-commerce platform based on the agent

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fu, Ruixue; Qin, Lishuan; Gao, Yinmin

2011-10-01

To solve problem of dynamic integration in e-commerce, the Multi-Agent architecture of electronic commerce platform system based on Agent and Ontology has been introduced, which includes three major types of agent, Ontology and rule collection. In this architecture, service agent and rule are used to realize the business process reengineering, the reuse of software component, and agility of the electronic commerce platform. To illustrate the architecture, a simulation work has been done and the results imply that the architecture provides a very efficient method to design and implement the flexible, distributed, open and intelligent electronic commerce platform system to solve problem of dynamic integration in ecommerce. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the architecture of electronic commerce platform system, and the approach how Agent and Ontology support the electronic commerce platform system.

Modular Rocket Engine Control Software (MRECS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tarrant, C.; Crook, J.

1998-01-01

The Modular Rocket Engine Control Software (MRECS) Program is a technology demonstration effort designed to advance the state-of-the-art in launch vehicle propulsion systems. Its emphasis is on developing and demonstrating a modular software architecture for advanced engine control systems that will result in lower software maintenance (operations) costs. It effectively accommodates software requirement changes that occur due to hardware technology upgrades and engine development testing. Ground rules directed by MSFC were to optimize modularity and implement the software in the Ada programming language. MRECS system software and the software development environment utilize Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) products. This paper presents the objectives, benefits, and status of the program. The software architecture, design, and development environment are described. MRECS tasks are defined and timing relationships given. Major accomplishments are listed. MRECS offers benefits to a wide variety of advanced technology programs in the areas of modular software architecture, reuse software, and reduced software reverification time related to software changes. MRECS was recently modified to support a Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) hot-fire test. Cold Flow and Flight Readiness Testing were completed before the test was cancelled. Currently, the program is focused on supporting NASA MSFC in accomplishing development testing of the Fastrac Engine, part of NASA's Low Cost Technologies (LCT) Program. MRECS will be used for all engine development testing.

Evolution of the Standard Simulation Architecture

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-06-01

Interoperability Workshop, Paper 02S-SIW-016. 5. Deitel & Deitel , 2001. “C++ How to Program , Third Edition.” Prentice Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle...carefully followed for software to be successfully reused in other programs . The Standard Simulation Architecture (SSA) promotes these principles...capabilities described in this paper have been developed and successfully used on various government programs . This paper attempts to bring these

Applying Service-Oriented Architecture on The Development of Groundwater Modeling Support System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, C. Y.; WANG, Y.; Chang, L. C.; Tsai, J. P.; Hsiao, C. T.

2016-12-01

Groundwater simulation has become an essential step on the groundwater resources management and assessment. There are many stand-alone pre- and post-processing software packages to alleviate the model simulation loading, but the stand-alone software do not consider centralized management of data and simulation results neither do they provide network sharing functions. Hence, it is difficult to share and reuse the data and knowledge (simulation cases) systematically within or across companies. Therefore, this study develops a centralized and network based groundwater modeling support system to assist model construction. The system is based on service-oriented architecture and allows remote user to develop their modeling cases on internet. The data and cases (knowledge) are thus easy to manage centralized. MODFLOW is the modeling engine of the system, which is the most popular groundwater model in the world. The system provides a data warehouse to restore groundwater observations, MODFLOW Support Service, MODFLOW Input File & Shapefile Convert Service, MODFLOW Service, and Expert System Service to assist researchers to build models. Since the system architecture is service-oriented, it is scalable and flexible. The system can be easily extended to include the scenarios analysis and knowledge management to facilitate the reuse of groundwater modeling knowledge.

Automated reuseable components system study results

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gilroy, Kathy

1989-01-01

The Automated Reusable Components System (ARCS) was developed under a Phase 1 Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract for the U.S. Army CECOM. The objectives of the ARCS program were: (1) to investigate issues associated with automated reuse of software components, identify alternative approaches, and select promising technologies, and (2) to develop tools that support component classification and retrieval. The approach followed was to research emerging techniques and experimental applications associated with reusable software libraries, to investigate the more mature information retrieval technologies for applicability, and to investigate the applicability of specialized technologies to improve the effectiveness of a reusable component library. Various classification schemes and retrieval techniques were identified and evaluated for potential application in an automated library system for reusable components. Strategies for library organization and management, component submittal and storage, and component search and retrieval were developed. A prototype ARCS was built to demonstrate the feasibility of automating the reuse process. The prototype was created using a subset of the classification and retrieval techniques that were investigated. The demonstration system was exercised and evaluated using reusable Ada components selected from the public domain. A requirements specification for a production-quality ARCS was also developed.

Precise Documentation: The Key to Better Software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Parnas, David Lorge

The prime cause of the sorry “state of the art” in software development is our failure to produce good design documentation. Poor documentation is the cause of many errors and reduces efficiency in every phase of a software product's development and use. Most software developers believe that “documentation” refers to a collection of wordy, unstructured, introductory descriptions, thousands of pages that nobody wanted to write and nobody trusts. In contrast, Engineers in more traditional disciplines think of precise blueprints, circuit diagrams, and mathematical specifications of component properties. Software developers do not know how to produce precise documents for software. Software developments also think that documentation is something written after the software has been developed. In other fields of Engineering much of the documentation is written before and during the development. It represents forethought not afterthought. Among the benefits of better documentation would be: easier reuse of old designs, better communication about requirements, more useful design reviews, easier integration of separately written modules, more effective code inspection, more effective testing, and more efficient corrections and improvements. This paper explains how to produce and use precise software documentation and illustrate the methods with several examples.

Design of case report forms based on a public metadata registry: re-use of data elements to improve compatibility of data.

PubMed

Dugas, Martin

2016-11-29

Clinical trials use many case report forms (CRFs) per patient. Because of the astronomical number of potential CRFs, data element re-use at the design stage is attractive to foster compatibility of data from different trials. The objective of this work is to assess the technical feasibility of a CRF editor with connection to a public metadata registry (MDR) to support data element re-use. Based on the Medical Data Models portal, an ISO/IEC 11179-compliant MDR was implemented and connected to a web-based CRF editor. Three use cases were implemented: re-use at the form, item group and data element levels. CRF design with data element re-use from a public MDR is feasible. A prototypic system is available. The main limitation of the system is the amount of available MDR content.

Towards easing the configuration and new team member accommodation for open source software based portals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fu, L.; West, P.; Zednik, S.; Fox, P. A.

2013-12-01

For simple portals such as vocabulary based services, which contain small amounts of data and require only hyper-textual representation, it is often an overkill to adopt the whole software stack of database, middleware and front end, or to use a general Web development framework as the starting point of development. Directly combining open source software is a much more favorable approach. However, our experience with the Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning Vocabulary (CMSPV) service portal shows that there are still issues such as system configuration and accommodating a new team member that need to be handled carefully. In this contribution, we share our experience in the context of the CMSPV portal, and focus on the tools and mechanisms we've developed to ease the configuration job and the incorporation process of new project members. We discuss the configuration issues that arise when we don't have complete control over how the software in use is configured and need to follow existing configuration styles that may not be well documented, especially when multiple pieces of such software need to work together as a combined system. As for the CMSPV portal, it is built on two pieces of open source software that are still under rapid development: a Fuseki data server and Epimorphics Linked Data API (ELDA) front end. Both lack mature documentation and tutorials. We developed comparison and labeling tools to ease the problem of system configuration. Another problem that slowed down the project is that project members came and went during the development process, so new members needed to start with a partially configured system and incomplete documentation left by old members. We developed documentation/tutorial maintenance mechanisms based on our comparison and labeling tools to make it easier for the new members to be incorporated into the project. These tools and mechanisms also provided benefit to other projects that reused the software components from the CMSPV system.

Characterizing and Modeling the Cost of Rework in a Library of Reusable Software Components

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Basili, Victor R.; Condon, Steven E.; ElEmam, Khaled; Hendrick, Robert B.; Melo, Walcelio

1997-01-01

In this paper we characterize and model the cost of rework in a Component Factory (CF) organization. A CF is responsible for developing and packaging reusable software components. Data was collected on corrective maintenance activities for the Generalized Support Software reuse asset library located at the Flight Dynamics Division of NASA's GSFC. We then constructed a predictive model of the cost of rework using the C4.5 system for generating a logical classification model. The predictor variables for the model are measures of internal software product attributes. The model demonstrates good prediction accuracy, and can be used by managers to allocate resources for corrective maintenance activities. Furthermore, we used the model to generate proscriptive coding guidelines to improve programming, practices so that the cost of rework can be reduced in the future. The general approach we have used is applicable to other environments.

FieldTrip: Open Source Software for Advanced Analysis of MEG, EEG, and Invasive Electrophysiological Data

PubMed Central

Oostenveld, Robert; Fries, Pascal; Maris, Eric; Schoffelen, Jan-Mathijs

2011-01-01

This paper describes FieldTrip, an open source software package that we developed for the analysis of MEG, EEG, and other electrophysiological data. The software is implemented as a MATLAB toolbox and includes a complete set of consistent and user-friendly high-level functions that allow experimental neuroscientists to analyze experimental data. It includes algorithms for simple and advanced analysis, such as time-frequency analysis using multitapers, source reconstruction using dipoles, distributed sources and beamformers, connectivity analysis, and nonparametric statistical permutation tests at the channel and source level. The implementation as toolbox allows the user to perform elaborate and structured analyses of large data sets using the MATLAB command line and batch scripting. Furthermore, users and developers can easily extend the functionality and implement new algorithms. The modular design facilitates the reuse in other software packages. PMID:21253357

Supporting metabolomics with adaptable software: design architectures for the end-user.

PubMed

Sarpe, Vladimir; Schriemer, David C

2017-02-01

Large and disparate sets of LC-MS data are generated by modern metabolomics profiling initiatives, and while useful software tools are available to annotate and quantify compounds, the field requires continued software development in order to sustain methodological innovation. Advances in software development practices allow for a new paradigm in tool development for metabolomics, where increasingly the end-user can develop or redeploy utilities ranging from simple algorithms to complex workflows. Resources that provide an organized framework for development are described and illustrated with LC-MS processing packages that have leveraged their design tools. Full access to these resources depends in part on coding experience, but the emergence of workflow builders and pluggable frameworks strongly reduces the skill level required. Developers in the metabolomics community are encouraged to use these resources and design content for uptake and reuse. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL) provides a community standard for communicating designs in synthetic biology.

PubMed

Galdzicki, Michal; Clancy, Kevin P; Oberortner, Ernst; Pocock, Matthew; Quinn, Jacqueline Y; Rodriguez, Cesar A; Roehner, Nicholas; Wilson, Mandy L; Adam, Laura; Anderson, J Christopher; Bartley, Bryan A; Beal, Jacob; Chandran, Deepak; Chen, Joanna; Densmore, Douglas; Endy, Drew; Grünberg, Raik; Hallinan, Jennifer; Hillson, Nathan J; Johnson, Jeffrey D; Kuchinsky, Allan; Lux, Matthew; Misirli, Goksel; Peccoud, Jean; Plahar, Hector A; Sirin, Evren; Stan, Guy-Bart; Villalobos, Alan; Wipat, Anil; Gennari, John H; Myers, Chris J; Sauro, Herbert M

2014-06-01

The re-use of previously validated designs is critical to the evolution of synthetic biology from a research discipline to an engineering practice. Here we describe the Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL), a proposed data standard for exchanging designs within the synthetic biology community. SBOL represents synthetic biology designs in a community-driven, formalized format for exchange between software tools, research groups and commercial service providers. The SBOL Developers Group has implemented SBOL as an XML/RDF serialization and provides software libraries and specification documentation to help developers implement SBOL in their own software. We describe early successes, including a demonstration of the utility of SBOL for information exchange between several different software tools and repositories from both academic and industrial partners. As a community-driven standard, SBOL will be updated as synthetic biology evolves to provide specific capabilities for different aspects of the synthetic biology workflow.

A posteriori operation detection in evolving software models

PubMed Central

Langer, Philip; Wimmer, Manuel; Brosch, Petra; Herrmannsdörfer, Markus; Seidl, Martina; Wieland, Konrad; Kappel, Gerti

2013-01-01

As every software artifact, also software models are subject to continuous evolution. The operations applied between two successive versions of a model are crucial for understanding its evolution. Generic approaches for detecting operations a posteriori identify atomic operations, but neglect composite operations, such as refactorings, which leads to cluttered difference reports. To tackle this limitation, we present an orthogonal extension of existing atomic operation detection approaches for detecting also composite operations. Our approach searches for occurrences of composite operations within a set of detected atomic operations in a post-processing manner. One major benefit is the reuse of specifications available for executing composite operations also for detecting applications of them. We evaluate the accuracy of the approach in a real-world case study and investigate the scalability of our implementation in an experiment. PMID:23471366

Rule-based interface generation on mobile devices for structured documentation.

PubMed

Kock, Ann-Kristin; Andersen, Björn; Handels, Heinz; Ingenerf, Josef

2014-01-01

In many software systems to date, interactive graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are represented implicitly in the source code, together with the application logic. Hence, the re-use, development, and modification of these interfaces is often very laborious. Flexible adjustments of GUIs for various platforms and devices as well as individual user preferences are furthermore difficult to realize. These problems motivate a software-based separation of content and GUI models on the one hand, and application logic on the other. In this project, a software solution for structured reporting on mobile devices is developed. Clinical content archetypes developed in a previous project serve as the content model while the Android SDK provides the GUI model. The necessary bindings between the models are specified using the Jess Rule Language.

Application of Lightweight Formal Methods to Software Security

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gilliam, David P.; Powell, John D.; Bishop, Matt

2005-01-01

Formal specification and verification of security has proven a challenging task. There is no single method that has proven feasible. Instead, an integrated approach which combines several formal techniques can increase the confidence in the verification of software security properties. Such an approach which species security properties in a library that can be reused by 2 instruments and their methodologies developed for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are described herein The Flexible Modeling Framework (FMF) is a model based verijkation instrument that uses Promela and the SPIN model checker. The Property Based Tester (PBT) uses TASPEC and a Text Execution Monitor (TEM). They are used to reduce vulnerabilities and unwanted exposures in software during the development and maintenance life cycles.

Calibration of a COTS Integration Cost Model Using Local Project Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Boland, Dillard; Coon, Richard; Byers, Kathryn; Levitt, David

1997-01-01

The software measures and estimation techniques appropriate to a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) integration project differ from those commonly used for custom software development. Labor and schedule estimation tools that model COTS integration are available. Like all estimation tools, they must be calibrated with the organization's local project data. This paper describes the calibration of a commercial model using data collected by the Flight Dynamics Division (FDD) of the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center (GSFC). The model calibrated is SLIM Release 4.0 from Quantitative Software Management (QSM). By adopting the SLIM reuse model and by treating configuration parameters as lines of code, we were able to establish a consistent calibration for COTS integration projects. The paper summarizes the metrics, the calibration process and results, and the validation of the calibration.

Reusing Design Knowledge Based on Design Cases and Knowledge Map

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yang, Cheng; Liu, Zheng; Wang, Haobai; Shen, Jiaoqi

2013-01-01

Design knowledge was reused for innovative design work to support designers with product design knowledge and help designers who lack rich experiences to improve their design capacity and efficiency. First, based on the ontological model of product design knowledge constructed by taxonomy, implicit and explicit knowledge was extracted from some…

Reuse of ground waste glass as aggregate for mortars.

PubMed

Corinaldesi, V; Gnappi, G; Moriconi, G; Montenero, A

2005-01-01

This work was aimed at studying the possibility of reusing waste glass from crushed containers and building demolition as aggregate for preparing mortars and concrete. At present, this kind of reuse is still not common due to the risk of alkali-silica reaction between the alkalis of cement and silica of the waste glass. This expansive reaction can cause great problems of cracking and, consequently, it can be extremely deleterious for the durability of mortar and concrete. However, data reported in the literature show that if the waste glass is finely ground, under 75mum, this effect does not occur and mortar durability is guaranteed. Therefore, in this work the possible reactivity of waste glass with the cement paste in mortars was verified, by varying the particle size of the finely ground waste glass. No reaction has been detected with particle size up to 100mum thus indicating the feasibility of the waste glass reuse as fine aggregate in mortars and concrete. In addition, waste glass seems to positively contribute to the mortar micro-structural properties resulting in an evident improvement of its mechanical performance.

Workflows for ingest of research data into digital archives - tests with Archivematica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kirchner, I.; Bertelmann, R.; Gebauer, P.; Hasler, T.; Hirt, M.; Klump, J. F.; Peters-Kotting, W.; Rusch, B.; Ulbricht, D.

2013-12-01

Publication of research data and future re-use of measured data require the long-term preservation of digital objects. The ISO OAIS reference model defines responsibilities for long-term preservation of digital objects and although there is software available to support preservation of digital data, there are still problems remaining to be solved. A key task in preservation is to make the datasets ready for ingest into the archive, which is called the creation of Submission Information Packages (SIPs) in the OAIS model. This includes the creation of appropriate preservation metadata. Scientists need to be trained to deal with different types of data and to heighten their awareness for quality metadata. Other problems arise during the assembly of SIPs and during ingest into the archive because file format validators may produce conflicting output for identical data files and these conflicts are difficult to resolve automatically. Also, validation and identification tools are notorious for their poor performance. In the project EWIG Zuse-Institute Berlin acts as an infrastructure facility, while the Institute for Meteorology at FU Berlin and the German research Centre for Geosciences GFZ act as two different data producers. The aim of the project is to develop workflows for the transfer of research data into digital archives and the future re-use of data from long-term archives with emphasis on data from the geosciences. The technical work is supplemented by interviews with data practitioners at several institutions to identify problems in digital preservation workflows and by the development of university teaching materials to train students in the curation of research data and metadata. The free and open-source software Archivematica [1] is used as digital preservation system. The creation and ingest of SIPs has to meet several archival standards and be compatible to the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS). The two data producers use different software in their workflows to test the assembly of SIPs and ingest of SIPs into the archive. GFZ Potsdam uses a combination of eSciDoc [2], panMetaDocs [3], and bagit [4] to collect research data and assemble SIPs for ingest into Archivematica, while the Institute for Meteorology at FU Berlin evaluates a variety of software solutions to describe data and publications and to generate SIPs. [1] http://www.archivematica.org [2] http://www.escidoc.org [3] http://panmetadocs.sf.net [4] http://sourceforge.net/projects/loc-xferutils/

Perspectives on distributed computing : thirty people, four user types, and the distributed computing user experience.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Childers, L.; Liming, L.; Foster, I.

2008-10-15

This report summarizes the methodology and results of a user perspectives study conducted by the Community Driven Improvement of Globus Software (CDIGS) project. The purpose of the study was to document the work-related goals and challenges facing today's scientific technology users, to record their perspectives on Globus software and the distributed-computing ecosystem, and to provide recommendations to the Globus community based on the observations. Globus is a set of open source software components intended to provide a framework for collaborative computational science activities. Rather than attempting to characterize all users or potential users of Globus software, our strategy has beenmore » to speak in detail with a small group of individuals in the scientific community whose work appears to be the kind that could benefit from Globus software, learn as much as possible about their work goals and the challenges they face, and describe what we found. The result is a set of statements about specific individuals experiences. We do not claim that these are representative of a potential user community, but we do claim to have found commonalities and differences among the interviewees that may be reflected in the user community as a whole. We present these as a series of hypotheses that can be tested by subsequent studies, and we offer recommendations to Globus developers based on the assumption that these hypotheses are representative. Specifically, we conducted interviews with thirty technology users in the scientific community. We included both people who have used Globus software and those who have not. We made a point of including individuals who represent a variety of roles in scientific projects, for example, scientists, software developers, engineers, and infrastructure providers. The following material is included in this report: (1) A summary of the reported work-related goals, significant issues, and points of satisfaction with the use of Globus software; (2) A method for characterizing users according to their technology interactions, and identification of four user types among the interviewees using the method; (3) Four profiles that highlight points of commonality and diversity in each user type; (4) Recommendations for technology developers and future studies; (5) A description of the interview protocol and overall study methodology; (6) An anonymized list of the interviewees; and (7) Interview writeups and summary data. The interview summaries in Section 3 and transcripts in Appendix D illustrate the value of distributed computing software--and Globus in particular--to scientific enterprises. They also document opportunities to make these tools still more useful both to current users and to new communities. We aim our recommendations at developers who intend their software to be used and reused in many applications. (This kind of software is often referred to as 'middleware.') Our two core recommendations are as follows. First, it is essential for middleware developers to understand and explicitly manage the multiple user products in which their software components are used. We must avoid making assumptions about the commonality of these products and, instead, study and account for their diversity. Second, middleware developers should engage in different ways with different kinds of users. Having identified four general user types in Section 4, we provide specific ideas for how to engage them in Section 5.« less

Automatic Tools for Enhancing the Collaborative Experience in Large Projects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bourilkov, D.; Rodriquez, J. L.

2014-06-01

With the explosion of big data in many fields, the efficient management of knowledge about all aspects of the data analysis gains in importance. A key feature of collaboration in large scale projects is keeping a log of what is being done and how - for private use, reuse, and for sharing selected parts with collaborators and peers, often distributed geographically on an increasingly global scale. Even better if the log is automatically created on the fly while the scientist or software developer is working in a habitual way, without the need for extra efforts. This saves time and enables a team to do more with the same resources. The CODESH - COllaborative DEvelopment SHell - and CAVES - Collaborative Analysis Versioning Environment System projects address this problem in a novel way. They build on the concepts of virtual states and transitions to enhance the collaborative experience by providing automatic persistent virtual logbooks. CAVES is designed for sessions of distributed data analysis using the popular ROOT framework, while CODESH generalizes the approach for any type of work on the command line in typical UNIX shells like bash or tcsh. Repositories of sessions can be configured dynamically to record and make available the knowledge accumulated in the course of a scientific or software endeavor. Access can be controlled to define logbooks of private sessions or sessions shared within or between collaborating groups. A typical use case is building working scalable systems for analysis of Petascale volumes of data as encountered in the LHC experiments. Our approach is general enough to find applications in many fields.

AMPHION: Specification-based programming for scientific subroutine libraries

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lowry, Michael; Philpot, Andrew; Pressburger, Thomas; Underwood, Ian; Waldinger, Richard; Stickel, Mark

1994-01-01

AMPHION is a knowledge-based software engineering (KBSE) system that guides a user in developing a diagram representing a formal problem specification. It then automatically implements a solution to this specification as a program consisting of calls to subroutines from a library. The diagram provides an intuitive domain oriented notation for creating a specification that also facilitates reuse and modification. AMPHION'S architecture is domain independent. AMPHION is specialized to an application domain by developing a declarative domain theory. Creating a domain theory is an iterative process that currently requires the joint expertise of domain experts and experts in automated formal methods for software development.

Applied Research Study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Leach, Ronald J.

1997-01-01

The purpose of this project was to study the feasibility of reusing major components of a software system that had been used to control the operations of a spacecraft launched in the 1980s. The study was done in the context of a ground data processing system that was to be rehosted from a large mainframe to an inexpensive workstation. The study concluded that a systematic approach using inexpensive tools could aid in the reengineering process by identifying a set of certified reusable components. The study also developed procedures for determining duplicate versions of software, which were created because of inadequate naming conventions. Such procedures reduced reengineering costs by approximately 19.4 percent.

Data Management Applications for the Service Preparation Subsystem

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Luong, Ivy P.; Chang, George W.; Bui, Tung; Allen, Christopher; Malhotra, Shantanu; Chen, Fannie C.; Bui, Bach X.; Gutheinz, Sandy C.; Kim, Rachel Y.; Zendejas, Silvino C.;

A Classification Methodology and Retrieval Model to Support Software Reuse

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-01-01

Dewey Decimal Classification ( DDC 18), an enumerative scheme, occupies 40 pages [Buchanan 19791. Langridge [19731 states that the facets listed in the...sense of historical importance or wide spread use. The schemes are: Dewey Decimal Classification ( DDC ), Universal Decimal Classification (UDC...Classification Systems ..... ..... 2.3.3 Library Classification__- .52 23.3.1 Dewey Decimal Classification -53 2.33.2 Universal Decimal Classification 55 2333

The TRIDEC Project: Future-Saving FOSS GIS Applications for Tsunami Early Warning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Loewe, P.; Wächter, J.; Hammitzsch, M.

2011-12-01

The Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 killed over 240,000 people in 14 countries and inundated the affected shorelines with waves reaching heights up to 30m. This natural disaster coincided with an information catastrophy, as potentially life-saving early warning information existed, yet no means were available to deliver it to the communities under imminent threat. Tsunami Early Warning Capabilities have improved in the meantime by continuing development of modular Tsunami Early Warning Systems (TEWS). However, recent tsunami events, like the Chile 2010 and the Tohoku 2011 tsunami demonstrate that the key challenge for ongoing TEWS research on the supranational scale still lies in the timely issuing of reliable early warning messages. Since 2004, the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences has built up expertise in the field of TEWS. Within GFZ, the Centre for GeoInformation Technology (CEGIT) has focused its work on the geoinformatics aspects of TEWS in two projects already: The German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Distant Early Warning System (DEWS), a European project funded under the sixth Framework Programme (FP6). These developments are continued in the TRIDEC project (Collaborative, Complex, and Critical Decision Processes in Evolving Crises) funded under the European Union's seventh Framework Programme (FP7). This ongoing project focuses on real-time intelligent information management in Earth management and its long-term application. All TRIDEC developments are based on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) components and industry standards where-ever possible. Tsunami Early Warning in TRIDEC is also based on mature system architecture models to ensure long-term usability and the flexibility to adapt to future generations of Tsunami sensors. All open source software produced by the project consortium are foreseen to be published on FOSSLAB, a publicly available software repository provided by CEGIT. FOSSLAB serves as a platform for the development of FOSS projects in geospatial context, allowing to save, advance and reuse results achieved in previous and on-going project activities and enabling further development and collaboration with a wide community including scientists, developers, users and stakeholders. FOSSLABs potential to preserve and advance existing best practices for reuse in new scenarios is documented by a first case study: For TEWS education and public outreach a comprehensive approach to generate high resolution globe maps was compiled using GRASS GIS and the POV-Ray rendering software. The task resulted in the merging of isolated technical know-how into publicly available best practices, which had been previously maintained in disparate GIS- and rendering communities. Beyond the scope of TRIDEC, FOSSLAB constitutes an umbrella encompassing several geoinformatics-related activities, such as the documentation of Best Practices for experiences and results while working with Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Geomatics, and future spatial processing on Computation Clusters and in Cloud Computing.

Creative Commons licenses and the non-commercial condition: Implications for the re-use of biodiversity information

PubMed Central

Hagedorn, Gregor; Mietchen, Daniel; Morris, Robert A.; Agosti, Donat; Penev, Lyubomir; Berendsohn, Walter G.; Hobern, Donald

2011-01-01

Abstract The Creative Commons (CC) licenses are a suite of copyright-based licenses defining terms for the distribution and re-use of creative works. CC provides licenses for different use cases and includes open content licenses such as the Attribution license (CC BY, used by many Open Access scientific publishers) and the Attribution Share Alike license (CC BY-SA, used by Wikipedia, for example). However, the license suite also contains non-free and non-open licenses like those containing a “non-commercial” (NC) condition. Although many people identify “non-commercial” with “non-profit”, detailed analysis reveals that significant differences exist and that the license may impose some unexpected re-use limitations on works thus licensed. After providing background information on the concepts of Creative Commons licenses in general, this contribution focuses on the NC condition, its advantages, disadvantages and appropriate scope. Specifically, it contributes material towards a risk analysis for potential re-users of NC-licensed works. PMID:22207810

Creative Commons licenses and the non-commercial condition: Implications for the re-use of biodiversity information.

PubMed

Hagedorn, Gregor; Mietchen, Daniel; Morris, Robert A; Agosti, Donat; Penev, Lyubomir; Berendsohn, Walter G; Hobern, Donald

2011-01-01

The Creative Commons (CC) licenses are a suite of copyright-based licenses defining terms for the distribution and re-use of creative works. CC provides licenses for different use cases and includes open content licenses such as the Attribution license (CC BY, used by many Open Access scientific publishers) and the Attribution Share Alike license (CC BY-SA, used by Wikipedia, for example). However, the license suite also contains non-free and non-open licenses like those containing a "non-commercial" (NC) condition. Although many people identify "non-commercial" with "non-profit", detailed analysis reveals that significant differences exist and that the license may impose some unexpected re-use limitations on works thus licensed. After providing background information on the concepts of Creative Commons licenses in general, this contribution focuses on the NC condition, its advantages, disadvantages and appropriate scope. Specifically, it contributes material towards a risk analysis for potential re-users of NC-licensed works.

Toward modular biological models: defining analog modules based on referent physiological mechanisms

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Currently, most biomedical models exist in isolation. It is often difficult to reuse or integrate models or their components, in part because they are not modular. Modular components allow the modeler to think more deeply about the role of the model and to more completely address a modeling project’s requirements. In particular, modularity facilitates component reuse and model integration for models with different use cases, including the ability to exchange modules during or between simulations. The heterogeneous nature of biology and vast range of wet-lab experimental platforms call for modular models designed to satisfy a variety of use cases. We argue that software analogs of biological mechanisms are reasonable candidates for modularization. Biomimetic software mechanisms comprised of physiomimetic mechanism modules offer benefits that are unique or especially important to multi-scale, biomedical modeling and simulation. Results We present a general, scientific method of modularizing mechanisms into reusable software components that we call physiomimetic mechanism modules (PMMs). PMMs utilize parametric containers that partition and expose state information into physiologically meaningful groupings. To demonstrate, we modularize four pharmacodynamic response mechanisms adapted from an in silico liver (ISL). We verified the modularization process by showing that drug clearance results from in silico experiments are identical before and after modularization. The modularized ISL achieves validation targets drawn from propranolol outflow profile data. In addition, an in silico hepatocyte culture (ISHC) is created. The ISHC uses the same PMMs and required no refactoring. The ISHC achieves validation targets drawn from propranolol intrinsic clearance data exhibiting considerable between-lab variability. The data used as validation targets for PMMs originate from both in vitro to in vivo experiments exhibiting large fold differences in time scale. Conclusions This report demonstrates the feasibility of PMMs and their usefulness across multiple model use cases. The pharmacodynamic response module developed here is robust to changes in model context and flexible in its ability to achieve validation targets in the face of considerable experimental uncertainty. Adopting the modularization methods presented here is expected to facilitate model reuse and integration, thereby accelerating the pace of biomedical research. PMID:25123169

Toward modular biological models: defining analog modules based on referent physiological mechanisms.

PubMed

Petersen, Brenden K; Ropella, Glen E P; Hunt, C Anthony

2014-08-16

Currently, most biomedical models exist in isolation. It is often difficult to reuse or integrate models or their components, in part because they are not modular. Modular components allow the modeler to think more deeply about the role of the model and to more completely address a modeling project's requirements. In particular, modularity facilitates component reuse and model integration for models with different use cases, including the ability to exchange modules during or between simulations. The heterogeneous nature of biology and vast range of wet-lab experimental platforms call for modular models designed to satisfy a variety of use cases. We argue that software analogs of biological mechanisms are reasonable candidates for modularization. Biomimetic software mechanisms comprised of physiomimetic mechanism modules offer benefits that are unique or especially important to multi-scale, biomedical modeling and simulation. We present a general, scientific method of modularizing mechanisms into reusable software components that we call physiomimetic mechanism modules (PMMs). PMMs utilize parametric containers that partition and expose state information into physiologically meaningful groupings. To demonstrate, we modularize four pharmacodynamic response mechanisms adapted from an in silico liver (ISL). We verified the modularization process by showing that drug clearance results from in silico experiments are identical before and after modularization. The modularized ISL achieves validation targets drawn from propranolol outflow profile data. In addition, an in silico hepatocyte culture (ISHC) is created. The ISHC uses the same PMMs and required no refactoring. The ISHC achieves validation targets drawn from propranolol intrinsic clearance data exhibiting considerable between-lab variability. The data used as validation targets for PMMs originate from both in vitro to in vivo experiments exhibiting large fold differences in time scale. This report demonstrates the feasibility of PMMs and their usefulness across multiple model use cases. The pharmacodynamic response module developed here is robust to changes in model context and flexible in its ability to achieve validation targets in the face of considerable experimental uncertainty. Adopting the modularization methods presented here is expected to facilitate model reuse and integration, thereby accelerating the pace of biomedical research.

Test Telemetry And Command System (TTACS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fogel, Alvin J.

1994-01-01

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has developed a multimission Test Telemetry and Command System (TTACS) which provides a multimission telemetry and command data system in a spacecraft test environment. TTACS reuses, in the spacecraft test environment, components of the same data system used for flight operations; no new software is developed for the spacecraft test environment. Additionally, the TTACS is transportable to any spacecraft test site, including the launch site. The TTACS is currently operational in the Galileo spacecraft testbed; it is also being provided to support the Cassini and Mars Surveyor Program projects. Minimal personnel data system training is required in the transition from pre-launch spacecraft test to post-launch flight operations since test personnel are already familiar with the data system's operation. Additionally, data system components, e.g. data display, can be reused to support spacecraft software development; and the same data system components will again be reused during the spacecraft integration and system test phases. TTACS usage also results in early availability of spacecraft data to data system development and, as a result, early data system development feedback to spacecraft system developers. The TTACS consists of a multimission spacecraft support equipment interface and components of the multimission telemetry and command software adapted for a specific project. The TTACS interfaces to the spacecraft, e.g., Command Data System (CDS), support equipment. The TTACS telemetry interface to the CDS support equipment performs serial (RS-422)-to-ethernet conversion at rates between 1 bps and 1 mbps, telemetry data blocking and header generation, guaranteed data transmission to the telemetry data system, and graphical downlink routing summary and control. The TTACS command interface to the CDS support equipment is nominally a command file transferred in non-real-time via ethernet. The CDS support equipment is responsible for metering the commands to the CDS; additionally for Galileo, TTACS includes a real-time-interface to the CDS support equipment. The TTACS provides the basic functionality of the multimission telemetry and command data system used during flight operations. TTACS telemetry capabilities include frame synchronization, Reed-Solomon decoding, packet extraction and channelization, and data storage/query. Multimission data display capabilities are also available. TTACS command capabilities include command generation verification, and storage.

Improved Discovery and Re-Use of Oceanographic Data through a Data Management Center

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rauch, S.; Allison, M. D.; Groman, R. C.; Chandler, C. L.; Galvarino, C.; Gegg, S. R.; Kinkade, D.; Shepherd, A.; Wiebe, P. H.; Glover, D. M.

2013-12-01

Effective use and reuse of ecological data are not only contingent upon those data being well-organized and documented, but also upon data being easily discoverable and accessible by others. As funding agency and publisher policies begin placing more emphasis on, or even requiring, sharing of data, some researchers may feel overwhelmed in determining how best to manage and share their data. Other researchers may be frustrated by the inability to easily find data of interest, or they may be hesitant to use datasets that are poorly organized and lack complete documentation. In all of these scenarios, the data management and sharing process can be facilitated by data management centers, as demonstrated by the Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). BCO-DMO was created in 2006 to work with investigators to manage data from research funded by the Division of Ocean Sciences (OCE) Biological and Chemical Oceanography Sections and the Division of Polar Programs (PLR) Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems Program of the US National Science Foundation (NSF). BCO-DMO plays a role throughout the data lifecycle, from the early stages of offering support to researchers in developing data management plans to the final stages of depositing data in a permanent archive. An overarching BCO-DMO goal is to provide open access to data through a system that enhances data discovery and reuse. Features have been developed that allow users to find data of interest, assess fitness for purpose, and download the data for reuse. Features that enable discovery include both text-based and geospatial-based search interfaces, as well as a semantically-enabled faceted search [1]. BCO-DMO data managers work closely with the contributing investigators to develop robust metadata, an essential component to enable data reuse. The metadata, which describe data acquisition and processing methods, instrumentation, and parameters, are enhanced by the mapping of local vocabulary terms to community accepted controlled vocabularies. This use of controlled vocabularies allows for terms to be defined unambiguously, so users of the data know definitively what parameter was measured and/or analyzed and what instruments were used. Users can further assess fitness for use by visualizing data in the geospatial interface in various ways depending on the data type. Both the text- and geospatial-based interfaces provide easy access to view the datasets and download them in multiple formats. The BCO-DMO system, including the geospatial interface, relies largely on the use of open source software and tools. The data themselves are made available via the JGOFS/GLOBEC system [2], a distributed object-oriented data management system. Researchers contributing data to BCO-DMO benefit from the data management and sharing resources. Researchers looking for data can use BCO-DMO's system to find and use data of interest. This role of the data management center in facilitating discovery and reuse is one that can be extended to other research disciplines for the benefit of the science community. References: [1] Maffei, A. et al. 2011. Open Standards and Technologies in the S2S Framework. Abstract IN31A-1435 presented at AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA, 7 Dec 2011. [2] Flierl, G.R. et al. 2004. JGOFS Data System Overview, http://globec.whoi.edu/globec-dir/doc/datasys/jgsys.html.

Modeling and prototyping of biometric systems using dataflow programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Minakova, N.; Petrov, I.

2018-01-01

The development of biometric systems is one of the labor-intensive processes. Therefore, the creation and analysis of approaches and techniques is an urgent task at present. This article presents a technique of modeling and prototyping biometric systems based on dataflow programming. The technique includes three main stages: the development of functional blocks, the creation of a dataflow graph and the generation of a prototype. A specially developed software modeling environment that implements this technique is described. As an example of the use of this technique, an example of the implementation of the iris localization subsystem is demonstrated. A variant of modification of dataflow programming is suggested to solve the problem related to the undefined order of block activation. The main advantage of the presented technique is the ability to visually display and design the model of the biometric system, the rapid creation of a working prototype and the reuse of the previously developed functional blocks.

Spent refractory reuse

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bennett, J.P.; Kwong, K.S.; Clark, J.A.

1996-12-31

The Albany Research Center is conducting work on spent refractory recycling/alternate use, including a review of refractory usage and current recycling/disposal practices. Research has focused on the hazardous nature of some spent refractory materials, with emphasis on lead pickup. Information on the issues associated with the reuse of spent refractories will be presented, including those associated with hazardous materials.

Library reuse in a rapid development environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Uhde, JO; Weed, Daniel; Gottlieb, Robert; Neal, Douglas

1995-01-01

The Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Division (AFMD) established a Rapid Development Laboratory (RDL) to investigate and improve new 'rapid development' software production processes and refine the use of commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) tools. These tools and processes take an avionics design project from initial inception through high fidelity, real-time, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing. One central theme of a rapid development process is the use and integration of a variety of COTS tools: This paper discusses the RDL MATRIX(sub x)(R) libraries, as well as the techniques for managing and documenting these libraries. This paper also shows the methods used for building simulations with the Advanced Simulation Development System (ASDS) libraries, and provides metrics to illustrate the amount of reuse for five complete simulations. Combining ASDS libraries with MATRIX(sub x)(R) libraries is discussed.

Water reuse in the Apatlaco River Basin (México): a feasibility study.

PubMed

Moeller-Chávez, G; Seguí-Amórtegui, L; Alfranca-Burriel, O; Escalante-Estrada, V; Pozo-Román, F; Rivas-Hernández, A

2004-01-01

The aim of this work is to determine the technical and economic feasibility of implementing different reclamation and reuse projects that improve the quality of the Apatlaco river basin located in the central part of Mexico. A special methodology based on a decision support system was developed. This methodology allows to decide if it is convenient or not to finance a reclamation or reuse project for the most common water uses in the basin. This methodology is based on the net present value criteria (NPV) of the effective cash flow during the useful life of the project. The results obtained reveal a technical and economical feasibility for industrial reuse in Jiutepec and for agricultural reuse in Zacatepec and Emiliano Zapata. On the other hand, sanitation projects are not feasible in all cases analyzed. Therefore, Mexican Regulation (Ley Federal de Derechos en Materia de Agua) as currently implemented, does not promote and support this kind of projects.

Parallelization of Rocket Engine Simulator Software (PRESS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cezzar, Ruknet

1997-01-01

Parallelization of Rocket Engine System Software (PRESS) project is part of a collaborative effort with Southern University at Baton Rouge (SUBR), University of West Florida (UWF), and Jackson State University (JSU). The second-year funding, which supports two graduate students enrolled in our new Master's program in Computer Science at Hampton University and the principal investigator, have been obtained for the period from October 19, 1996 through October 18, 1997. The key part of the interim report was new directions for the second year funding. This came about from discussions during Rocket Engine Numeric Simulator (RENS) project meeting in Pensacola on January 17-18, 1997. At that time, a software agreement between Hampton University and NASA Lewis Research Center had already been concluded. That agreement concerns off-NASA-site experimentation with PUMPDES/TURBDES software. Before this agreement, during the first year of the project, another large-scale FORTRAN-based software, Two-Dimensional Kinetics (TDK), was being used for translation to an object-oriented language and parallelization experiments. However, that package proved to be too complex and lacking sufficient documentation for effective translation effort to the object-oriented C + + source code. The focus, this time with better documented and more manageable PUMPDES/TURBDES package, was still on translation to C + + with design improvements. At the RENS Meeting, however, the new impetus for the RENS projects in general, and PRESS in particular, has shifted in two important ways. One was closer alignment with the work on Numerical Propulsion System Simulator (NPSS) through cooperation and collaboration with LERC ACLU organization. The other was to see whether and how NASA's various rocket design software can be run over local and intra nets without any radical efforts for redesign and translation into object-oriented source code. There were also suggestions that the Fortran based code be encapsulated in C + + code thereby facilitating reuse without undue development effort. The details are covered in the aforementioned section of the interim report filed on April 28, 1997.

Choosing a software design method for real-time Ada applications: JSD process inversion as a means to tailor a design specification to the performance requirements and target machine

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Withey, James V.

1986-01-01

The validity of real-time software is determined by its ability to execute on a computer within the time constraints of the physical system it is modeling. In many applications the time constraints are so critical that the details of process scheduling are elevated to the requirements analysis phase of the software development cycle. It is not uncommon to find specifications for a real-time cyclic executive program included to assumed in such requirements. It was found that prelininary designs structured around this implementation abscure the data flow of the real world system that is modeled and that it is consequently difficult and costly to maintain, update and reuse the resulting software. A cyclic executive is a software component that schedules and implicitly synchronizes the real-time software through periodic and repetitive subroutine calls. Therefore a design method is sought that allows the deferral of process scheduling to the later stages of design. The appropriate scheduling paradigm must be chosen given the performance constraints, the largest environment and the software's lifecycle. The concept of process inversion is explored with respect to the cyclic executive.

Life cycle assessment study on polishing units for use of treated wastewater in agricultural reuse.

PubMed

Büyükkamacı, Nurdan; Karaca, Gökçe

2017-12-01

A life cycle assessment (LCA) approach was used in the assessment of environmental impacts of some polishing units for reuse of wastewater treatment plant effluents in agricultural irrigation. These alternative polishing units were assessed: (1) microfiltration and ultraviolet (UV) disinfection, (2) cartridge filter and ultrafiltration (UF), and (3) just UV disinfection. Two different energy sources, electric grid mix and natural gas, were considered to assess the environmental impacts of them. Afterwards, the effluent of each case was evaluated against the criteria required for irrigation of sensitive crops corresponding to Turkey regulations. Evaluation of environmental impacts was carried out with GaBi 6.1 LCA software. The overall conclusion of this study is that higher electricity consumption causes higher environmental effects. The results of the study revealed that cartridge filter and UF in combination with electric grid mix has the largest impact on the environment for almost all impact categories. In general, the most environmentally friendly solution is UV disinfection. The study revealed environmental impacts for three alternatives drawing attention to the importance of the choice of the most appropriate polishing processes and energy sources for reuse applications.

Biomedical Data Sharing and Reuse: Attitudes and Practices of Clinical and Scientific Research Staff.

PubMed

Federer, Lisa M; Lu, Ya-Ling; Joubert, Douglas J; Welsh, Judith; Brandys, Barbara

2015-01-01

Significant efforts are underway within the biomedical research community to encourage sharing and reuse of research data in order to enhance research reproducibility and enable scientific discovery. While some technological challenges do exist, many of the barriers to sharing and reuse are social in nature, arising from researchers' concerns about and attitudes toward sharing their data. In addition, clinical and basic science researchers face their own unique sets of challenges to sharing data within their communities. This study investigates these differences in experiences with and perceptions about sharing data, as well as barriers to sharing among clinical and basic science researchers. Clinical and basic science researchers in the Intramural Research Program at the National Institutes of Health were surveyed about their attitudes toward and experiences with sharing and reusing research data. Of 190 respondents to the survey, the 135 respondents who identified themselves as clinical or basic science researchers were included in this analysis. Odds ratio and Fisher's exact tests were the primary methods to examine potential relationships between variables. Worst-case scenario sensitivity tests were conducted when necessary. While most respondents considered data sharing and reuse important to their work, they generally rated their expertise as low. Sharing data directly with other researchers was common, but most respondents did not have experience with uploading data to a repository. A number of significant differences exist between the attitudes and practices of clinical and basic science researchers, including their motivations for sharing, their reasons for not sharing, and the amount of work required to prepare their data. Even within the scope of biomedical research, addressing the unique concerns of diverse research communities is important to encouraging researchers to share and reuse data. Efforts at promoting data sharing and reuse should be aimed at solving not only technological problems, but also addressing researchers' concerns about sharing their data. Given the varied practices of individual researchers and research communities, standardizing data practices like data citation and repository upload could make sharing and reuse easier.

The Need for V&V in Reuse-Based Software Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Addy, Edward A.

1997-01-01

V&V is currently performed during application development for many systems, especially safety-critical and mission-critical systems. The V&V process is intended to discover errors, especially errors related to entire' domain or product line rather than a critical processing, as early as possible during the development process. The system application provides the context under which the software artifacts are validated. engineering. This paper describes a framework that extends V&V from an individual application system to a product line of systems that are developed within an architecture-based software engineering environment. This framework includes the activities of traditional application-level V&V, and extends these activities into the transition between domain engineering and application engineering. The framework includes descriptions of the types of activities to be performed during each of the life-cycle phases, and provides motivation for activities.

Software Engineering Institute: Year in Review 2008

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-01-01

security information they need. Now, new podcasts are uploaded every two weeks to the CERT website and iTunes . The series has become increasingly...reused throughout an organization— customer lookup, account lookup, and credit card validation are some examples. 2008 YEAR IN REVIEW...were charged in August 2008 with the theft of more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers from T.J. Maxx, Marshall’s, Barnes & Noble

Automating the Transformational Development of Software. Volume 1.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-03-01

DRACO system [Neighbors 80] uses meta-rules to derive information about which new transformations will be applicable after a particular transformation has...transformation over another. The new model, as Incorporated in a system called Glitter, explicitly represents transformation goals, methods, and selection...done anew for each new problem (compare this with Neighbor’s Draco system [Neighbors 80] which attempts to reuse domain analysis). o Is the user

Assessing repository technology. Where do we go from here?

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eichmann, David

1992-01-01

Three sample information retrieval systems, archie, autoLib, and Wide Area Information Service (WAIS), are compared with regard to their expressiveness and usefulness, first in the general context of information retrieval, and then as prospective software reuse repositories. While the representational capabilities of these systems are limited, they provide a useful foundation for future repository efforts, particularly from the perspective of repository distribution and coherent user interface design.

Assessing repository technology: Where do we go from here?

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eichmann, David A.

1992-01-01

Three sample information retrieval systems, archie, autoLib, and Wide Area Information Service (WAIS), are compared with regard to their expressiveness and usefulness, first in the general context of information retrieval, and then as perspective software reuse repositories. While the representational capabilities of these systems are limited, they provide a useful foundation for future repository efforts, particularly from the perspective of repository distribution and coherent user interface design.

Tool Support for Software Lookup Table Optimization

DOE PAGES

Wilcox, Chris; Strout, Michelle Mills; Bieman, James M.

2011-01-01

A number of scientific applications are performance-limited by expressions that repeatedly call costly elementary functions. Lookup table (LUT) optimization accelerates the evaluation of such functions by reusing previously computed results. LUT methods can speed up applications that tolerate an approximation of function results, thereby achieving a high level of fuzzy reuse. One problem with LUT optimization is the difficulty of controlling the tradeoff between performance and accuracy. The current practice of manual LUT optimization adds programming effort by requiring extensive experimentation to make this tradeoff, and such hand tuning can obfuscate algorithms. In this paper we describe a methodology andmore » tool implementation to improve the application of software LUT optimization. Our Mesa tool implements source-to-source transformations for C or C++ code to automate the tedious and error-prone aspects of LUT generation such as domain profiling, error analysis, and code generation. We evaluate Mesa with five scientific applications. Our results show a performance improvement of 3.0× and 6.9× for two molecular biology algorithms, 1.4× for a molecular dynamics program, 2.1× to 2.8× for a neural network application, and 4.6× for a hydrology calculation. We find that Mesa enables LUT optimization with more control over accuracy and less effort than manual approaches.« less

Evolving the Reuse Process at the Flight Dynamics Division (FDD) Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Condon, S.; Seaman, C.; Basili, Victor; Kraft, S.; Kontio, J.; Kim, Y.

1996-01-01

This paper presents the interim results from the Software Engineering Laboratory's (SEL) Reuse Study. The team conducting this study has, over the past few months, been studying the Generalized Support Software (GSS) domain asset library and architecture, and the various processes associated with it. In particular, we have characterized the process used to configure GSS-based attitude ground support systems (AGSS) to support satellite missions at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. To do this, we built detailed models of the tasks involved, the people who perform these tasks, and the interdependencies and information flows among these people. These models were based on information gleaned from numerous interviews with people involved in this process at various levels. We also analyzed effort data in order to determine the cost savings in moving from actual development of AGSSs to support each mission (which was necessary before GSS was available) to configuring AGSS software from the domain asset library. While characterizing the GSS process, we became aware of several interesting factors which affect the successful continued use of GSS. Many of these issues fall under the subject of evolving technologies, which were not available at the inception of GSS, but are now. Some of these technologies could be incorporated into the GSS process, thus making the whole asset library more usable. Other technologies are being considered as an alternative to the GSS process altogether. In this paper, we outline some of issues we will be considering in our continued study of GSS and the impact of evolving technologies.

A Coupled Simulation Architecture for Agent-Based/Geohydrological Modelling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jaxa-Rozen, M.

2016-12-01

The quantitative modelling of social-ecological systems can provide useful insights into the interplay between social and environmental processes, and their impact on emergent system dynamics. However, such models should acknowledge the complexity and uncertainty of both of the underlying subsystems. For instance, the agent-based models which are increasingly popular for groundwater management studies can be made more useful by directly accounting for the hydrological processes which drive environmental outcomes. Conversely, conventional environmental models can benefit from an agent-based depiction of the feedbacks and heuristics which influence the decisions of groundwater users. From this perspective, this work describes a Python-based software architecture which couples the popular NetLogo agent-based platform with the MODFLOW/SEAWAT geohydrological modelling environment. This approach enables users to implement agent-based models in NetLogo's user-friendly platform, while benefiting from the full capabilities of MODFLOW/SEAWAT packages or reusing existing geohydrological models. The software architecture is based on the pyNetLogo connector, which provides an interface between the NetLogo agent-based modelling software and the Python programming language. This functionality is then extended and combined with Python's object-oriented features, to design a simulation architecture which couples NetLogo with MODFLOW/SEAWAT through the FloPy library (Bakker et al., 2016). The Python programming language also provides access to a range of external packages which can be used for testing and analysing the coupled models, which is illustrated for an application of Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES).

Reduce--recycle--reuse: guidelines for promoting perioperative waste management.

PubMed

Laustsen, Gary

2007-04-01

The perioperative environment generates large amounts of waste, which negatively affects local and global ecosystems. To manage this waste health care facility leaders must focus on identifying correctable issues, work with relevant stakeholders to promote solutions, and adopt systematic procedural changes. Nurses and managers can moderate negative environmental effects by promoting reduction, recycling, and reuse of materials in the perioperative setting.

Multi-facetted Metadata - Describing datasets with different metadata schemas at the same time

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ulbricht, Damian; Klump, Jens; Bertelmann, Roland

2013-04-01

Inspired by the wish to re-use research data a lot of work is done to bring data systems of the earth sciences together. Discovery metadata is disseminated to data portals to allow building of customized indexes of catalogued dataset items. Data that were once acquired in the context of a scientific project are open for reappraisal and can now be used by scientists that were not part of the original research team. To make data re-use easier, measurement methods and measurement parameters must be documented in an application metadata schema and described in a written publication. Linking datasets to publications - as DataCite [1] does - requires again a specific metadata schema and every new use context of the measured data may require yet another metadata schema sharing only a subset of information with the meta information already present. To cope with the problem of metadata schema diversity in our common data repository at GFZ Potsdam we established a solution to store file-based research data and describe these with an arbitrary number of metadata schemas. Core component of the data repository is an eSciDoc infrastructure that provides versioned container objects, called eSciDoc [2] "items". The eSciDoc content model allows assigning files to "items" and adding any number of metadata records to these "items". The eSciDoc items can be submitted, revised, and finally published, which makes the data and metadata available through the internet worldwide. GFZ Potsdam uses eSciDoc to support its scientific publishing workflow, including mechanisms for data review in peer review processes by providing temporary web links for external reviewers that do not have credentials to access the data. Based on the eSciDoc API, panMetaDocs [3] provides a web portal for data management in research projects. PanMetaDocs, which is based on panMetaWorks [4], is a PHP based web application that allows to describe data with any XML-based schema. It uses the eSciDoc infrastructures REST-interface to store versioned dataset files and metadata in a XML-format. The software is able to administrate more than one eSciDoc metadata record per item and thus allows the description of a dataset according to its context. The metadata fields can be filled with static or dynamic content to reduce the number of fields that require manual entries to a minimum and, at the same time, make use of contextual information available in a project setting. Access rights can be adjusted to set visibility of datasets to the required degree of openness. Metadata from separate instances of panMetaDocs can be syndicated to portals through RSS and OAI-PMH interfaces. The application architecture presented here allows storing file-based datasets and describe these datasets with any number of metadata schemas, depending on the intended use case. Data and metadata are stored in the same entity (eSciDoc items) and are managed by a software tool through the eSciDoc REST interface - in this case the application is panMetaDocs. Other software may re-use the produced items and modify the appropriate metadata records by accessing the web API of the eSciDoc data infrastructure. For presentation of the datasets in a web browser we are not bound to panMetaDocs. This is done by stylesheet transformation of the eSciDoc-item. [1] http://www.datacite.org [2] http://www.escidoc.org , eSciDoc, FIZ Karlruhe, Germany [3] http://panmetadocs.sf.net , panMetaDocs, GFZ Potsdam, Germany [4] http://metaworks.pangaea.de , panMetaWorks, Dr. R. Huber, MARUM, Univ. Bremen, Germany

Textile sustainability: reuse of clean waste from the textile and apparel industry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Broega, A. C.; Jordão, C.; Martins, S. B.

2017-10-01

Today societies are already experiencing changes in their production systems and even consumption in order to guarantee the survival and well-being of future generations. This fact emerges from the need to adopt a more sustainable posture in both people’s daily lives and productive systems. Within this context, textile sustainability emerges as the object of study of this work whose aim is to analyse which sustainability dimensions are being prioritized by the clean waste management systems of the textile and garment industries. This article aims to analyse solutions that are being proposed by sustainable creative business models in the reuse of discarded fabrics by the textile industry. Search also through a qualitative research by a case study (the Reuse Fabric Bank) understand the benefits generated by the re-use in environmental, economic, social and ways to add value.

The Five 'R's' for Developing Trusted Software Frameworks to increase confidence in, and maximise reuse of, Open Source Software.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fraser, Ryan; Gross, Lutz; Wyborn, Lesley; Evans, Ben; Klump, Jens

2015-04-01

Recent investments in HPC, cloud and Petascale data stores, have dramatically increased the scale and resolution that earth science challenges can now be tackled. These new infrastructures are highly parallelised and to fully utilise them and access the large volumes of earth science data now available, a new approach to software stack engineering needs to be developed. The size, complexity and cost of the new infrastructures mean any software deployed has to be reliable, trusted and reusable. Increasingly software is available via open source repositories, but these usually only enable code to be discovered and downloaded. As a user it is hard for a scientist to judge the suitability and quality of individual codes: rarely is there information on how and where codes can be run, what the critical dependencies are, and in particular, on the version requirements and licensing of the underlying software stack. A trusted software framework is proposed to enable reliable software to be discovered, accessed and then deployed on multiple hardware environments. More specifically, this framework will enable those who generate the software, and those who fund the development of software, to gain credit for the effort, IP, time and dollars spent, and facilitate quantification of the impact of individual codes. For scientific users, the framework delivers reviewed and benchmarked scientific software with mechanisms to reproduce results. The trusted framework will have five separate, but connected components: Register, Review, Reference, Run, and Repeat. 1) The Register component will facilitate discovery of relevant software from multiple open source code repositories. The registration process of the code should include information about licensing, hardware environments it can be run on, define appropriate validation (testing) procedures and list the critical dependencies. 2) The Review component is targeting on the verification of the software typically against a set of benchmark cases. This will be achieved by linking the code in the software framework to peer review forums such as Mozilla Science or appropriate Journals (e.g. Geoscientific Model Development Journal) to assist users to know which codes to trust. 3) Referencing will be accomplished by linking the Software Framework to groups such as Figshare or ImpactStory that help disseminate and measure the impact of scientific research, including program code. 4) The Run component will draw on information supplied in the registration process, benchmark cases described in the review and relevant information to instantiate the scientific code on the selected environment. 5) The Repeat component will tap into existing Provenance Workflow engines that will automatically capture information that relate to a particular run of that software, including identification of all input and output artefacts, and all elements and transactions within that workflow. The proposed trusted software framework will enable users to rapidly discover and access reliable code, reduce the time to deploy it and greatly facilitate sharing, reuse and reinstallation of code. Properly designed it could enable an ability to scale out to massively parallel systems and be accessed nationally/ internationally for multiple use cases, including Supercomputer centres, cloud facilities, and local computers.

A design for a reusable Ada library

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Litke, John D.

1986-01-01

A goal of the Ada language standardization effort is to promote reuse of software, implying the existence of substantial software libraries and the storage/retrieval mechanisms to support them. A searching/cataloging mechanism is proposed that permits full or partial distribution of the database, adapts to a variety of searching mechanisms, permits a changine taxonomy with minimal disruption, and minimizes the requirement of specialized cataloger/indexer skills. The important observation is that key words serve not only as indexing mechanism, but also as an identification mechanism, especially via concatenation and as support for a searching mechanism. By deliberately separating these multiple uses, the modifiability and ease of growth that current libraries require, is achieved.

The use of Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) software to create a database of librarian-mediated literature searches.

PubMed

Lyon, Jennifer A; Garcia-Milian, Rolando; Norton, Hannah F; Tennant, Michele R

2014-01-01

Expert-mediated literature searching, a keystone service in biomedical librarianship, would benefit significantly from regular methodical review. This article describes the novel use of Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) software to create a database of literature searches conducted at a large academic health sciences library. An archive of paper search requests was entered into REDCap, and librarians now prospectively enter records for current searches. Having search data readily available allows librarians to reuse search strategies and track their workload. In aggregate, this data can help guide practice and determine priorities by identifying users' needs, tracking librarian effort, and focusing librarians' continuing education.

Instrument control software development process for the multi-star AO system ARGOS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kulas, M.; Barl, L.; Borelli, J. L.; Gässler, W.; Rabien, S.

2012-09-01

The ARGOS project (Advanced Rayleigh guided Ground layer adaptive Optics System) will upgrade the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) with an AO System consisting of six Rayleigh laser guide stars. This adaptive optics system integrates several control loops and many different components like lasers, calibration swing arms and slope computers that are dispersed throughout the telescope. The purpose of the instrument control software (ICS) is running this AO system and providing convenient client interfaces to the instruments and the control loops. The challenges for the ARGOS ICS are the development of a distributed and safety-critical software system with no defects in a short time, the creation of huge and complex software programs with a maintainable code base, the delivery of software components with the desired functionality and the support of geographically distributed project partners. To tackle these difficult tasks, the ARGOS software engineers reuse existing software like the novel middleware from LINC-NIRVANA, an instrument for the LBT, provide many tests at different functional levels like unit tests and regression tests, agree about code and architecture style and deliver software incrementally while closely collaborating with the project partners. Many ARGOS ICS components are already successfully in use in the laboratories for testing ARGOS control loops.

Clarifying the disagreements on various reuse options: Repair, recondition, refurbish and remanufacture.

PubMed

Gharfalkar, Mangesh; Ali, Zulfiqur; Hillier, Graham

2016-10-01

Earth's natural resources are finite. To be environmentally sustainable, it may not only be necessary to use them 'efficiently' but also 'effectively'. While we consider 'repair', 'recondition', 'refurbish' and 'remanufacture' to be 'reuse' options, not all researchers agree. Also, there is lack of clarity between the different options that are likely to be challenging for both; the policy makers who formulate policies aimed to encourage 'reuse' of 'waste' products and for decision makers to initiate appropriate action for recovering 'reusable resources' from 'waste streams'. This dichotomy could result into more 'waste' to landfill. A systematic analysis of peer reviewed literature is conducted to understand inconsistencies and/or lack of clarity that exist between the definitions or descriptions of identified `reuse' options. This article proposes a 'hierarchy of reuse options' that plots the relative positions of identified 'reuse' options vis-à-vis five variables, namely work content, energy requirement, cost, performance and warranty. Recommendations are made on how to incentivise original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to 'remanufacture'. Finally, an alternative 'Type II Resource Effective Close-loop Model' is suggested and a conceptual 'Type II/2 Model of Resource Flows' that is restricted to the use of environmentally benign and renewable resources is introduced. These suggestions are likely to help decision makers to prioritise between 'reuse' options, drive resource effectiveness and also environmental sustainability. © The Author(s) 2016.

Estimating the potential water reuse based on fuzzy reasoning.

PubMed

Almeida, Giovana; Vieira, José; Marques, Alfeu Sá; Kiperstok, Asher; Cardoso, Alberto

2013-10-15

Studies worldwide suggest that the risk of water shortage in regions affected by climate change is growing. Decision support tools can help governments to identify future water supply problems in order to plan mitigation measures. Treated wastewater is considered a suitable alternative water resource and it is used for non-potable applications in many dry regions around the world. This work describes a decision support system (DSS) that was developed to identify current water reuse potential and the variables that determine the reclamation level. The DSS uses fuzzy inference system (FIS) as a tool and multi-criteria decision making is the conceptual approach behind the DSS. It was observed that water reuse level seems to be related to environmental factors such as drought, water exploitation index, water use, population density and the wastewater treatment rate, among others. A dataset was built to analyze these features through water reuse potential with a FIS that considered 155 regions and 183 cities. Despite some inexact fit between the classification and simulation data for agricultural and urban water reuse potential it was found that the FIS was suitable to identify the water reuse trend. Information on the water reuse potential is important because it issues a warning about future water supply needs based on climate change scenarios, which helps to support decision making with a view to tackling water shortage. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ENCOMPASS: A SAGA based environment for the compositon of programs and specifications, appendix A

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Terwilliger, Robert B.; Campbell, Roy H.

1985-01-01

ENCOMPASS is an example integrated software engineering environment being constructed by the SAGA project. ENCOMPASS supports the specification, design, construction and maintenance of efficient, validated, and verified programs in a modular programming language. The life cycle paradigm, schema of software configurations, and hierarchical library structure used by ENCOMPASS is presented. In ENCOMPASS, the software life cycle is viewed as a sequence of developments, each of which reuses components from the previous ones. Each development proceeds through the phases planning, requirements definition, validation, design, implementation, and system integration. The components in a software system are modeled as entities which have relationships between them. An entity may have different versions and different views of the same project are allowed. The simple entities supported by ENCOMPASS may be combined into modules which may be collected into projects. ENCOMPASS supports multiple programmers and projects using a hierarchical library system containing a workspace for each programmer; a project library for each project, and a global library common to all projects.

Application of neural networks to software quality modeling of a very large telecommunications system.

PubMed

Khoshgoftaar, T M; Allen, E B; Hudepohl, J P; Aud, S J

1997-01-01

Society relies on telecommunications to such an extent that telecommunications software must have high reliability. Enhanced measurement for early risk assessment of latent defects (EMERALD) is a joint project of Nortel and Bell Canada for improving the reliability of telecommunications software products. This paper reports a case study of neural-network modeling techniques developed for the EMERALD system. The resulting neural network is currently in the prototype testing phase at Nortel. Neural-network models can be used to identify fault-prone modules for extra attention early in development, and thus reduce the risk of operational problems with those modules. We modeled a subset of modules representing over seven million lines of code from a very large telecommunications software system. The set consisted of those modules reused with changes from the previous release. The dependent variable was membership in the class of fault-prone modules. The independent variables were principal components of nine measures of software design attributes. We compared the neural-network model with a nonparametric discriminant model and found the neural-network model had better predictive accuracy.

Update on PISCES

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pearson, Don; Hamm, Dustin; Kubena, Brian; Weaver, Jonathan K.

2010-01-01

An updated version of the Platform Independent Software Components for the Exploration of Space (PISCES) software library is available. A previous version was reported in Library for Developing Spacecraft-Mission-Planning Software (MSC-22983), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 25, No. 7 (July 2001), page 52. To recapitulate: This software provides for Web-based, collaborative development of computer programs for planning trajectories and trajectory- related aspects of spacecraft-mission design. The library was built using state-of-the-art object-oriented concepts and software-development methodologies. The components of PISCES include Java-language application programs arranged in a hierarchy of classes that facilitates the reuse of the components. As its full name suggests, the PISCES library affords platform-independence: The Java language makes it possible to use the classes and application programs with a Java virtual machine, which is available in most Web-browser programs. Another advantage is expandability: Object orientation facilitates expansion of the library through creation of a new class. Improvements in the library since the previous version include development of orbital-maneuver- planning and rendezvous-launch-window application programs, enhancement of capabilities for propagation of orbits, and development of a desktop user interface.

General Aviation Data Framework

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Blount, Elaine M.; Chung, Victoria I.

2006-01-01

The Flight Research Services Directorate at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) provides development and operations services associated with three general aviation (GA) aircraft used for research experiments. The GA aircraft includes a Cessna 206X Stationair, a Lancair Colombia 300X, and a Cirrus SR22X. Since 2004, the GA Data Framework software was designed and implemented to gather data from a varying set of hardware and software sources as well as enable transfer of the data to other computers or devices. The key requirements for the GA Data Framework software include platform independence, the ability to reuse the framework for different projects without changing the framework code, graphics display capabilities, and the ability to vary the interfaces and their performance. Data received from the various devices is stored in shared memory. This paper concentrates on the object oriented software design patterns within the General Aviation Data Framework, and how they enable the construction of project specific software without changing the base classes. The issues of platform independence and multi-threading which enable interfaces to run at different frame rates are also discussed in this paper.

Judicious use of custom development in an open source component architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bristol, S.; Latysh, N.; Long, D.; Tekell, S.; Allen, J.

2014-12-01

Modern software engineering is not as much programming from scratch as innovative assembly of existing components. Seamlessly integrating disparate components into scalable, performant architecture requires sound engineering craftsmanship and can often result in increased cost efficiency and accelerated capabilities if software teams focus their creativity on the edges of the problem space. ScienceBase is part of the U.S. Geological Survey scientific cyberinfrastructure, providing data and information management, distribution services, and analysis capabilities in a way that strives to follow this pattern. ScienceBase leverages open source NoSQL and relational databases, search indexing technology, spatial service engines, numerous libraries, and one proprietary but necessary software component in its architecture. The primary engineering focus is cohesive component interaction, including construction of a seamless Application Programming Interface (API) across all elements. The API allows researchers and software developers alike to leverage the infrastructure in unique, creative ways. Scaling the ScienceBase architecture and core API with increasing data volume (more databases) and complexity (integrated science problems) is a primary challenge addressed by judicious use of custom development in the component architecture. Other data management and informatics activities in the earth sciences have independently resolved to a similar design of reusing and building upon established technology and are working through similar issues for managing and developing information (e.g., U.S. Geoscience Information Network; NASA's Earth Observing System Clearing House; GSToRE at the University of New Mexico). Recent discussions facilitated through the Earth Science Information Partners are exploring potential avenues to exploit the implicit relationships between similar projects for explicit gains in our ability to more rapidly advance global scientific cyberinfrastructure.

Using Generative Representations to Evolve Robots. Chapter 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hornby, Gregory S.

2004-01-01

Recent research has demonstrated the ability of evolutionary algorithms to automatically design both the physical structure and software controller of real physical robots. One of the challenges for these automated design systems is to improve their ability to scale to the high complexities found in real-world problems. Here we claim that for automated design systems to scale in complexity they must use a representation which allows for the hierarchical creation and reuse of modules, which we call a generative representation. Not only is the ability to reuse modules necessary for functional scalability, but it is also valuable for improving efficiency in testing and construction. We then describe an evolutionary design system with a generative representation capable of hierarchical modularity and demonstrate it for the design of locomoting robots in simulation. Finally, results from our experiments show that evolution with our generative representation produces better robots than those evolved with a non-generative representation.

Generative Representations for Computer-Automated Design Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hornby, Gregory S.

2004-01-01

With the increasing computational power of Computers, software design systems are progressing from being tools for architects and designers to express their ideas to tools capable of creating designs under human guidance. One of the main limitations for these computer-automated design programs is the representation with which they encode designs. If the representation cannot encode a certain design, then the design program cannot produce it. Similarly, a poor representation makes some types of designs extremely unlikely to be created. Here we define generative representations as those representations which can create and reuse organizational units within a design and argue that reuse is necessary for design systems to scale to more complex and interesting designs. To support our argument we describe GENRE, an evolutionary design program that uses both a generative and a non-generative representation, and compare the results of evolving designs with both types of representations.

Software Reuse in the Planetary Context: The JPL/MIPL Mars Program Suite

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Deen, Robert

2012-01-01

Reuse greatly reduces development costs. Savings can be invested in new/improved capabilities Or returned to sponsor Worth the extra time to "do it right" Operator training greatly reduced. MIPL MER personnel can step into MSL easily because the programs are familiar. Application programs much easier to write. Can assume core capabilities exist already. Multimission Instrument (Image) Processing Lab at MIPL Responsible for the ground-based instrument data processing for (among other things) all recent in-situ Mars missions: Mars Pathfinder Mars Polar Lander (MPL) Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) Phoenix Mars Science Lab (MSL) Responsibilities for in-situ missions Reconstruction of instrument data from telemetry Systematic creation of Reduced Data Records (RDRs) for images Creation of special products for operations, science, and public outreach In the critical path for operations MIPL products required for planning the next Sol s activities

CPU Performance Counter-Based Problem Diagnosis for Software Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-09-01

application servers and implementation techniques), this thesis only used the Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) SessionBean version of RUBiS. The PHP and Servlet ...collection statistics at the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) level can be reused for any Java application. Other examples of gray-box instrumentation include path...used gray-box approaches. For example, PinPoint [11, 14] and [29] use request tracing to diagnose Java exceptions, endless calls, and null calls in

A Framework for Performing Verification and Validation in Reuse Based Software Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Addy, Edward A.

1997-01-01

Verification and Validation (V&V) is currently performed during application development for many systems, especially safety-critical and mission- critical systems. The V&V process is intended to discover errors, especially errors related to critical processing, as early as possible during the development process. The system application provides the context under which the software artifacts are validated. This paper describes a framework that extends V&V from an individual application system to a product line of systems that are developed within an architecture-based software engineering environment. This framework includes the activities of traditional application-level V&V, and extends these activities into domain engineering and into the transition between domain engineering and application engineering. The framework includes descriptions of the types of activities to be performed during each of the life-cycle phases, and provides motivation for the activities.

Evolutionary Telemetry and Command Processor (TCP) architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schneider, John R.

1992-01-01

A low cost, modular, high performance, and compact Telemetry and Command Processor (TCP) is being built as the foundation of command and data handling subsystems for the next generation of satellites. The TCP product line will support command and telemetry requirements for small to large spacecraft and from low to high rate data transmission. It is compatible with the latest TDRSS, STDN and SGLS transponders and provides CCSDS protocol communications in addition to standard TDM formats. Its high performance computer provides computing resources for hosted flight software. Layered and modular software provides common services using standardized interfaces to applications thereby enhancing software re-use, transportability, and interoperability. The TCP architecture is based on existing standards, distributed networking, distributed and open system computing, and packet technology. The first TCP application is planned for the 94 SDIO SPAS 3 mission. The architecture enhances rapid tailoring of functions thereby reducing costs and schedules developed for individual spacecraft missions.

SMI Compatible Simulation Scheduler Design for Reuse of Model Complying with Smp Standard

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koo, Cheol-Hea; Lee, Hoon-Hee; Cheon, Yee-Jin

2010-12-01

Software reusability is one of key factors which impacts cost and schedule on a software development project. It is very crucial also in satellite simulator development since there are many commercial simulator models related to satellite and dynamics. If these models can be used in another simulator platform, great deal of confidence and cost/schedule reduction would be achieved. Simulation model portability (SMP) is maintained by European Space Agency and many models compatible with SMP/simulation model interface (SMI) are available. Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) is developing hardware abstraction layer (HAL) supported satellite simulator to verify on-board software of satellite. From above reasons, KARI wants to port these SMI compatible models to the HAL supported satellite simulator. To port these SMI compatible models to the HAL supported satellite simulator, simulation scheduler is preliminary designed according to the SMI standard.

Intelligent systems and advanced user interfaces for design, operation, and maintenance of command management systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Potter, William J.; Mitchell, Christine M.

1993-01-01

Historically, command management systems (CMS) have been large and expensive spacecraft-specific software systems that were costly to build, operate, and maintain. Current and emerging hardware, software, and user interface technologies may offer an opportunity to facilitate the initial formulation and design of a spacecraft-specific CMS as well as to develop a more generic CMS system. New technologies, in addition to a core CMS common to a range of spacecraft, may facilitate the training and enhance the efficiency of CMS operations. Current mission operations center (MOC) hardware and software include Unix workstations, the C/C++ programming languages, and an X window interface. This configuration provides the power and flexibility to support sophisticated and intelligent user interfaces that exploit state-of-the-art technologies in human-machine interaction, artificial intelligence, and software engineering. One of the goals of this research is to explore the extent to which technologies developed in the research laboratory can be productively applied in a complex system such as spacecraft command management. Initial examination of some of these issues in CMS design and operation suggests that application of technologies such as intelligent planning, case-based reasoning, human-machine systems design and analysis tools (e.g., operator and designer models), and human-computer interaction tools (e.g., graphics, visualization, and animation) may provide significant savings in the design, operation, and maintenance of the CMS for a specific spacecraft as well as continuity for CMS design and development across spacecraft. The first six months of this research saw a broad investigation by Georgia Tech researchers into the function, design, and operation of current and planned command management systems at Goddard Space Flight Center. As the first step, the researchers attempted to understand the current and anticipated horizons of command management systems at Goddard. Preliminary results are given on CMS commonalities and causes of low re-use, and methods are proposed to facilitate increased re-use.

Spatial and temporal variation in de facto wastewater reuse in drinking water systems across the U.S.A.

PubMed

Rice, Jacelyn; Westerhoff, Paul

2015-01-20

De facto potable reuse occurs when treated wastewater is discharged into surface waters upstream of potable drinking water treatment plant (DWTP) intakes. Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) discharges may pose water quality risks at the downstream DWTP, but additional flow aids in providing a reliable water supply source. In this work de facto reuse is analyzed for 2056 surface water intakes serving 1210 DWTPs across the U.S.A. that serve greater than 10,000 people, covering approximately 82% of the nation’s population. An ArcGIS model is developed to assess spatial relationships between DWTPs and WWTPs, with a python script designed to perform a network analysis by hydrologic region. A high frequency of de facto reuse occurrence was observed; 50% of the DWTP intakes are potentially impacted by upstream WWTP discharges. However, the magnitude of de facto reuse was seen to be relatively low, where 50% of the impacted intakes contained less than 1% treated municipal wastewater under average streamflow conditions. De facto reuse increased greatly under low streamflow conditions (modeled by Q95), with 32 of the 80 sites yielding at least 50% treated wastewater, this portion of the analysis is limited to sites where stream gauge data was readily available.

Resurrecting Legacy Code Using Ontosoft Knowledge-Sharing and Digital Object Management to Revitalize and Reproduce Software for Groundwater Management Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kwon, N.; Gentle, J.; Pierce, S. A.

2015-12-01

Software code developed for research is often used for a relatively short period of time before it is abandoned, lost, or becomes outdated. This unintentional abandonment of code is a valid problem in the 21st century scientific process, hindering widespread reusability and increasing the effort needed to develop research software. Potentially important assets, these legacy codes may be resurrected and documented digitally for long-term reuse, often with modest effort. Furthermore, the revived code may be openly accessible in a public repository for researchers to reuse or improve. For this study, the research team has begun to revive the codebase for Groundwater Decision Support System (GWDSS), originally developed for participatory decision making to aid urban planning and groundwater management, though it may serve multiple use cases beyond those originally envisioned. GWDSS was designed as a java-based wrapper with loosely federated commercial and open source components. If successfully revitalized, GWDSS will be useful for both practical applications as a teaching tool and case study for groundwater management, as well as informing theoretical research. Using the knowledge-sharing approaches documented by the NSF-funded Ontosoft project, digital documentation of GWDSS is underway, from conception to development, deployment, characterization, integration, composition, and dissemination through open source communities and geosciences modeling frameworks. Information assets, documentation, and examples are shared using open platforms for data sharing and assigned digital object identifiers. Two instances of GWDSS version 3.0 are being created: 1) a virtual machine instance for the original case study to serve as a live demonstration of the decision support tool, assuring the original version is usable, and 2) an open version of the codebase, executable installation files, and developer guide available via an open repository, assuring the source for the application is accessible with version control and potential for new branch developments. Finally, metadata about the software has been completed within the OntoSoft portal to provide descriptive curation, make GWDSS searchable, and complete documentation of the scientific software lifecycle.

Enhanced semantic interoperability by profiling health informatics standards.

PubMed

López, Diego M; Blobel, Bernd

2009-01-01

Several standards applied to the healthcare domain support semantic interoperability. These standards are far from being completely adopted in health information system development, however. The objective of this paper is to provide a method and suggest the necessary tooling for reusing standard health information models, by that way supporting the development of semantically interoperable systems and components. The approach is based on the definition of UML Profiles. UML profiling is a formal modeling mechanism to specialize reference meta-models in such a way that it is possible to adapt those meta-models to specific platforms or domains. A health information model can be considered as such a meta-model. The first step of the introduced method identifies the standard health information models and tasks in the software development process in which healthcare information models can be reused. Then, the selected information model is formalized as a UML Profile. That Profile is finally applied to system models, annotating them with the semantics of the information model. The approach is supported on Eclipse-based UML modeling tools. The method is integrated into a comprehensive framework for health information systems development, and the feasibility of the approach is demonstrated in the analysis, design, and implementation of a public health surveillance system, reusing HL7 RIM and DIMs specifications. The paper describes a method and the necessary tooling for reusing standard healthcare information models. UML offers several advantages such as tooling support, graphical notation, exchangeability, extensibility, semi-automatic code generation, etc. The approach presented is also applicable for harmonizing different standard specifications.

Assessment of the suitability of trees for brownfields reuse in the post-mining landscape

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mec, J.; Lokajickova, B.; Sotkova, N.; Svehlakova, H.; Stalmachova, B.

2017-10-01

The post-mining landscape of Upper Silesian is deterioration of the original landscape caused by underground coal mining. There are huge ecosystems changes, which have been reclaimed by nature-friendly procedures. The aim of the work is to evaluate the suitability of selected trees for reuse of brownfields in this landscape and proposals for reclamation in the interest areas of Upper Silesian.

EPOS Data and Service Provision

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bailo, Daniele; Jeffery, Keith G.; Atakan, Kuvvet; Harrison, Matt

2017-04-01

EPOS is now in IP (implementation phase) after a successful PP (preparatory phase). EPOS consists of essentially two components, one ICS (Integrated Core Services) representing the integrating ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and many TCS (Thematic Core Services) representing the scientific domains. The architecture developed, demonstrated and agreed within the project during the PP is now being developed utilising co-design with the TCS teams and agile, spiral methods within the ICS team. The 'heart' of EPOS is the metadata catalog. This provides for the ICS a digital representation of the TCS assets (services, data, software, equipment, expertise…) thus facilitating access, interoperation and (re-)use. A major part of the work has been interactions with the TCS. The original intention to harvest information from the TCS required (and still requires) discussions to understand fully the TCS organisational structures linked with rights, security and privacy; their (meta)data syntax (structure) and semantics (meaning); their workflows and methods of working and the services offered. To complicate matters further the TCS are each at varying stages of development and the ICS design has to accommodate pre-existing, developing and expected future standards for metadata, data, software and processes. Through information documents, questionnaires and interviews/meetings the EPOS ICS team has collected DDSS (Data, Data Products, Software and Services) information from the TCS. The ICS team developed a simplified metadata model for presentation to the TCS and the ICS team will perform the mapping and conversion from this model to the internal detailed technical metadata model using (CERIF: a EU recommendation to Member States maintained, developed and promoted by euroCRIS www.eurocris.org ). At the time of writing the final modifications of the EPOS metadata model are being made, and the mappings to CERIF designed, prior to the main phase of (meta)data collection into the EPOS metadata catalog. In parallel work proceeds on the user interface softsare, the APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to the TCS services, the harvesting method and software, the AAAI (Authentication, Authorisation, Accounting Infrastructure) and the system manager. The next steps will involve interfaces to ICS-D (Distributed ICS i.e. facilities and services for computing, data storage, detectors and instruments for data collection etc.) to which requests, software and data will be deployed and from which data will be generated. Associated with this will be the development of the workflow system which will assist the end-user in building a workflow to achieve the scientific objectives.

Automated Transformation of CDISC ODM to OpenClinica.

PubMed

Gessner, Sophia; Storck, Michael; Hegselmann, Stefan; Dugas, Martin; Soto-Rey, Iñaki

2017-01-01

Due to the increasing use of electronic data capture systems for clinical research, the interest in saving resources by automatically generating and reusing case report forms in clinical studies is growing. OpenClinica, an open-source electronic data capture system enables the reuse of metadata in its own Excel import template, hampering the reuse of metadata defined in other standard formats. One of these standard formats is the Operational Data Model for metadata, administrative and clinical data in clinical studies. This work suggests a mapping from Operational Data Model to OpenClinica and describes the implementation of a converter to automatically generate OpenClinica conform case report forms based upon metadata in the Operational Data Model.

Calculating the quality of public high-throughput sequencing data to obtain a suitable subset for reanalysis from the Sequence Read Archive

PubMed Central

Nakazato, Takeru; Bono, Hidemasa

2017-01-01

Abstract It is important for public data repositories to promote the reuse of archived data. In the growing field of omics science, however, the increasing number of submissions of high-throughput sequencing (HTSeq) data to public repositories prevents users from choosing a suitable data set from among the large number of search results. Repository users need to be able to set a threshold to reduce the number of results to obtain a suitable subset of high-quality data for reanalysis. We calculated the quality of sequencing data archived in a public data repository, the Sequence Read Archive (SRA), by using the quality control software FastQC. We obtained quality values for 1 171 313 experiments, which can be used to evaluate the suitability of data for reuse. We also visualized the data distribution in SRA by integrating the quality information and metadata of experiments and samples. We provide quality information of all of the archived sequencing data, which enable users to obtain sufficient quality sequencing data for reanalyses. The calculated quality data are available to the public in various formats. Our data also provide an example of enhancing the reuse of public data by adding metadata to published research data by a third party. PMID:28449062

COMODI: an ontology to characterise differences in versions of computational models in biology.

PubMed

Scharm, Martin; Waltemath, Dagmar; Mendes, Pedro; Wolkenhauer, Olaf

2016-07-11

Open model repositories provide ready-to-reuse computational models of biological systems. Models within those repositories evolve over time, leading to different model versions. Taken together, the underlying changes reflect a model's provenance and thus can give valuable insights into the studied biology. Currently, however, changes cannot be semantically interpreted. To improve this situation, we developed an ontology of terms describing changes in models. The ontology can be used by scientists and within software to characterise model updates at the level of single changes. When studying or reusing a model, these annotations help with determining the relevance of a change in a given context. We manually studied changes in selected models from BioModels and the Physiome Model Repository. Using the BiVeS tool for difference detection, we then performed an automatic analysis of changes in all models published in these repositories. The resulting set of concepts led us to define candidate terms for the ontology. In a final step, we aggregated and classified these terms and built the first version of the ontology. We present COMODI, an ontology needed because COmputational MOdels DIffer. It empowers users and software to describe changes in a model on the semantic level. COMODI also enables software to implement user-specific filter options for the display of model changes. Finally, COMODI is a step towards predicting how a change in a model influences the simulation results. COMODI, coupled with our algorithm for difference detection, ensures the transparency of a model's evolution, and it enhances the traceability of updates and error corrections. COMODI is encoded in OWL. It is openly available at http://comodi.sems.uni-rostock.de/ .

Photon-HDF5: Open Data Format and Computational Tools for Timestamp-based Single-Molecule Experiments

PubMed Central

Ingargiola, Antonino; Laurence, Ted; Boutelle, Robert; Weiss, Shimon; Michalet, Xavier

2017-01-01

Archival of experimental data in public databases has increasingly become a requirement for most funding agencies and journals. These data-sharing policies have the potential to maximize data reuse, and to enable confirmatory as well as novel studies. However, the lack of standard data formats can severely hinder data reuse. In photon-counting-based single-molecule fluorescence experiments, data is stored in a variety of vendor-specific or even setup-specific (custom) file formats, making data interchange prohibitively laborious, unless the same hardware-software combination is used. Moreover, the number of available techniques and setup configurations make it difficult to find a common standard. To address this problem, we developed Photon-HDF5 (www.photon-hdf5.org), an open data format for timestamp-based single-molecule fluorescence experiments. Building on the solid foundation of HDF5, Photon-HDF5 provides a platform- and language-independent, easy-to-use file format that is self-describing and supports rich metadata. Photon-HDF5 supports different types of measurements by separating raw data (e.g. photon-timestamps, detectors, etc) from measurement metadata. This approach allows representing several measurement types and setup configurations within the same core structure and makes possible extending the format in backward-compatible way. Complementing the format specifications, we provide open source software to create and convert Photon-HDF5 files, together with code examples in multiple languages showing how to read Photon-HDF5 files. Photon-HDF5 allows sharing data in a format suitable for long term archival, avoiding the effort to document custom binary formats and increasing interoperability with different analysis software. We encourage participation of the single-molecule community to extend interoperability and to help defining future versions of Photon-HDF5. PMID:28649160

Photon-HDF5: Open Data Format and Computational Tools for Timestamp-based Single-Molecule Experiments.

PubMed

Ingargiola, Antonino; Laurence, Ted; Boutelle, Robert; Weiss, Shimon; Michalet, Xavier

2016-02-13

Archival of experimental data in public databases has increasingly become a requirement for most funding agencies and journals. These data-sharing policies have the potential to maximize data reuse, and to enable confirmatory as well as novel studies. However, the lack of standard data formats can severely hinder data reuse. In photon-counting-based single-molecule fluorescence experiments, data is stored in a variety of vendor-specific or even setup-specific (custom) file formats, making data interchange prohibitively laborious, unless the same hardware-software combination is used. Moreover, the number of available techniques and setup configurations make it difficult to find a common standard. To address this problem, we developed Photon-HDF5 (www.photon-hdf5.org), an open data format for timestamp-based single-molecule fluorescence experiments. Building on the solid foundation of HDF5, Photon-HDF5 provides a platform- and language-independent, easy-to-use file format that is self-describing and supports rich metadata. Photon-HDF5 supports different types of measurements by separating raw data (e.g. photon-timestamps, detectors, etc) from measurement metadata. This approach allows representing several measurement types and setup configurations within the same core structure and makes possible extending the format in backward-compatible way. Complementing the format specifications, we provide open source software to create and convert Photon-HDF5 files, together with code examples in multiple languages showing how to read Photon-HDF5 files. Photon-HDF5 allows sharing data in a format suitable for long term archival, avoiding the effort to document custom binary formats and increasing interoperability with different analysis software. We encourage participation of the single-molecule community to extend interoperability and to help defining future versions of Photon-HDF5.

Photon-HDF5: open data format and computational tools for timestamp-based single-molecule experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ingargiola, Antonino; Laurence, Ted; Boutelle, Robert; Weiss, Shimon; Michalet, Xavier

2016-02-01

Archival of experimental data in public databases has increasingly become a requirement for most funding agencies and journals. These data-sharing policies have the potential to maximize data reuse, and to enable confirmatory as well as novel studies. However, the lack of standard data formats can severely hinder data reuse. In photon-counting-based single-molecule fluorescence experiments, data is stored in a variety of vendor-specific or even setup-specific (custom) file formats, making data interchange prohibitively laborious, unless the same hardware-software combination is used. Moreover, the number of available techniques and setup configurations make it difficult to find a common standard. To address this problem, we developed Photon-HDF5 (www.photon-hdf5.org), an open data format for timestamp-based single-molecule fluorescence experiments. Building on the solid foundation of HDF5, Photon- HDF5 provides a platform- and language-independent, easy-to-use file format that is self-describing and supports rich metadata. Photon-HDF5 supports different types of measurements by separating raw data (e.g. photon-timestamps, detectors, etc) from measurement metadata. This approach allows representing several measurement types and setup configurations within the same core structure and makes possible extending the format in backward-compatible way. Complementing the format specifications, we provide open source software to create and convert Photon- HDF5 files, together with code examples in multiple languages showing how to read Photon-HDF5 files. Photon- HDF5 allows sharing data in a format suitable for long term archival, avoiding the effort to document custom binary formats and increasing interoperability with different analysis software. We encourage participation of the single-molecule community to extend interoperability and to help defining future versions of Photon-HDF5.

Reusable science tools for analog exploration missions: xGDS Web Tools, VERVE, and Gigapan Voyage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Susan Y.; Lees, David; Cohen, Tamar; Allan, Mark; Deans, Matthew; Morse, Theodore; Park, Eric; Smith, Trey

2013-10-01

The Exploration Ground Data Systems (xGDS) project led by the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) at NASA Ames Research Center creates software tools to support multiple NASA-led planetary analog field experiments. The two primary tools that fall under the xGDS umbrella are the xGDS Web Tools (xGDS-WT) and Visual Environment for Remote Virtual Exploration (VERVE). IRG has also developed a hardware and software system that is closely integrated with our xGDS tools and is used in multiple field experiments called Gigapan Voyage. xGDS-WT, VERVE, and Gigapan Voyage are examples of IRG projects that improve the ratio of science return versus development effort by creating generic and reusable tools that leverage existing technologies in both hardware and software. xGDS Web Tools provides software for gathering and organizing mission data for science and engineering operations, including tools for planning traverses, monitoring autonomous or piloted vehicles, visualization, documentation, analysis, and search. VERVE provides high performance three dimensional (3D) user interfaces used by scientists, robot operators, and mission planners to visualize robot data in real time. Gigapan Voyage is a gigapixel image capturing and processing tool that improves situational awareness and scientific exploration in human and robotic analog missions. All of these technologies emphasize software reuse and leverage open source and/or commercial-off-the-shelf tools to greatly improve the utility and reduce the development and operational cost of future similar technologies. Over the past several years these technologies have been used in many NASA-led robotic field campaigns including the Desert Research and Technology Studies (DRATS), the Pavilion Lake Research Project (PLRP), the K10 Robotic Follow-Up tests, and most recently we have become involved in the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) field experiments. A major objective of these joint robot and crew experiments is to improve NASAs understanding of how to most effectively execute and increase science return from exploration missions. This paper focuses on an integrated suite of xGDS software and compatible hardware tools: xGDS Web Tools, VERVE, and Gigapan Voyage, how they are used, and the design decisions that were made to allow them to be easily developed, integrated, tested, and reused by multiple NASA field experiments and robotic platforms.

Mold heating and cooling microprocessor conversion. Final report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hoffman, D.P.

Conversion of the microprocessors and software for the Mold Heating and Cooling (MHAC) pump package control systems was initiated to allow required system enhancements and provide data communications capabilities with the Plastics Information and Control System (PICS). The existing microprocessor-based control systems for the pump packages use an Intel 8088-based microprocessor board with a maximum of 64 Kbytes of program memory. The requirements for the system conversion were developed, and hardware has been selected to allow maximum reuse of existing hardware and software while providing the required additional capabilities and capacity. The new hardware will incorporate an Intel 80286-based microprocessormore » board with an 80287 math coprocessor, the system includes additional memory, I/O, and RS232 communication ports.« less

Ada (Trademark) Reusability Guidelines.

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-04-01

generators. Neighbors discusses another approach to reusable software using models. He describes a particular modeling technique using the Draco System ...experience with the Draco system . Is Fx~~~~flP7 7. 4 .~-’ b.r SECTION 4 DESIGN GUIDEUiNES As noted earlier, reusability is first and foremost a design issue...to be reused in another system that had a different type of physical data storage device, only this layer needs to be changed to deal with the new

Development of Application Software Hierarchy for Reuse (DASH’R)

DTIC Science & Technology

2000-03-01

yogurt on Wednesday afternoon, the scheduler may report that these cannot all be done, say, if there is only one vessel available for fermentation . The...34reactive" to mean a process that involves chemical reaction, such as composite curing or beer fermentation . This is distinguished from nonreactive...requirements will include a piece of plant equipment that the activity will need to have for its exclusive use. For example, when fermenting beer, one must

Code Sharing and Collaboration: Experiences from the Scientist's Expert Assistant Project and their Relevance to the Virtual Observatory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jones, Jeremy; Grosvenor, Sandy; Wolf, Karl; Li, Connie; Koratkar, Anuradha; Powers, Edward I. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

In the Virtual Observatory (VO), software tools will perform the functions that have traditionally been performed by physical observatories and their instruments. These tools will not be adjuncts to VO functionality but will make up the very core of the VO. Consequently, the tradition of observatory and system independent tools serving a small user base is not valid for the VO. For the VO to succeed, we must improve software collaboration and code sharing between projects and groups. A significant goal of the Scientist's Expert Assistant (SEA) project has been promoting effective collaboration and code sharing between groups. During the past three years, the SEA project has been developing prototypes for new observation planning software tools and strategies. Initially funded by the Next Generation Space Telescope, parts of the SEA code have since been adopted by the Space Telescope Science Institute. SEA has also supplied code for SOFIA, the SIRTF planning tools, and the JSky Open Source Java library. The potential benefits of sharing code are clear. The recipient gains functionality for considerably less cost. The provider gains additional developers working with their code. If enough users groups adopt a set of common code and tools, defacto standards can emerge (as demonstrated by the success of the FITS standard). Code sharing also raises a number of challenges related to the management of the code. In this talk, we will review our experiences with SEA - both successes and failures - and offer some lessons learned that may promote further successes in collaboration and re-use.

Code Sharing and Collaboration: Experiences From the Scientist's Expert Assistant Project and Their Relevance to the Virtual Observatory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Korathkar, Anuradha; Grosvenor, Sandy; Jones, Jeremy; Li, Connie; Mackey, Jennifer; Neher, Ken; Obenschain, Arthur F. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

In the Virtual Observatory (VO), software tools will perform the functions that have traditionally been performed by physical observatories and their instruments. These tools will not be adjuncts to VO functionality but will make up the very core of the VO. Consequently, the tradition of observatory and system independent tools serving a small user base is not valid for the VO. For the VO to succeed, we must improve software collaboration and code sharing between projects and groups. A significant goal of the Scientist's Expert Assistant (SEA) project has been promoting effective collaboration and code sharing among groups. During the past three years, the SEA project has been developing prototypes for new observation planning software tools and strategies. Initially funded by the Next Generation Space Telescope, parts of the SEA code have since been adopted by the Space Telescope Science Institute. SEA has also supplied code for the SIRTF (Space Infrared Telescope Facility) planning tools, and the JSky Open Source Java library. The potential benefits of sharing code are clear. The recipient gains functionality for considerably less cost. The provider gains additional developers working with their code. If enough users groups adopt a set of common code and tools, de facto standards can emerge (as demonstrated by the success of the FITS standard). Code sharing also raises a number of challenges related to the management of the code. In this talk, we will review our experiences with SEA--both successes and failures, and offer some lessons learned that might promote further successes in collaboration and re-use.

A component-based problem list subsystem for the HOLON testbed. Health Object Library Online.

PubMed Central

Law, V.; Goldberg, H. S.; Jones, P.; Safran, C.

1998-01-01

One of the deliverables of the HOLON (Health Object Library Online) project is the specification of a reference architecture for clinical information systems that facilitates the development of a variety of discrete, reusable software components. One of the challenges facing the HOLON consortium is determining what kinds of components can be made available in a library for developers of clinical information systems. To further explore the use of component architectures in the development of reusable clinical subsystems, we have incorporated ongoing work in the development of enterprise terminology services into a Problem List subsystem for the HOLON testbed. We have successfully implemented a set of components using CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and Java distributed object technologies that provide a functional problem list application and UMLS-based "Problem Picker." Through this development, we have overcome a variety of obstacles characteristic of rapidly emerging technologies, and have identified architectural issues necessary to scale these components for use and reuse within an enterprise clinical information system. PMID:9929252

A component-based problem list subsystem for the HOLON testbed. Health Object Library Online.

PubMed

Law, V; Goldberg, H S; Jones, P; Safran, C

1998-01-01

One of the deliverables of the HOLON (Health Object Library Online) project is the specification of a reference architecture for clinical information systems that facilitates the development of a variety of discrete, reusable software components. One of the challenges facing the HOLON consortium is determining what kinds of components can be made available in a library for developers of clinical information systems. To further explore the use of component architectures in the development of reusable clinical subsystems, we have incorporated ongoing work in the development of enterprise terminology services into a Problem List subsystem for the HOLON testbed. We have successfully implemented a set of components using CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and Java distributed object technologies that provide a functional problem list application and UMLS-based "Problem Picker." Through this development, we have overcome a variety of obstacles characteristic of rapidly emerging technologies, and have identified architectural issues necessary to scale these components for use and reuse within an enterprise clinical information system.

A new framework proposal, towards a common EU agricultural policy, with the best sustainable practices for the re-use of olive mill wastewater.

PubMed

Koutsos, T M; Chatzistathis, T; Balampekou, E I

2018-05-01

The disposal of olive mill wastewater (OMW) is a serious environmental issue for the Mediterranean countries. However, there is still no common European legislation on the management and the re-use of OMW in agriculture, in the frame of sustainable crop management and the standards for the safe OMW disposal and re-use are left to be set by each EU country, individually. This review paper presents the most effective and sustainable practices for OMW, (treatment, application and management), which can maximize the benefits of OMW on crops and soils, while minimizing the potential hazards for public health, thus promoting environmental sustainability. The findings of this synthetic work suggest that there is enough information and proven sustainable practices to go ahead with the initial formulation of a new consensual framework, environmentally acceptable, socially bearable and economically viable, that could hopefully help to set the standards for the re-use of olive mil wastewater and can lead to a common EU policy on the management and re-use of OMW. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

[Assessing environmental and economical benefits of integrated sewage treatment systems].

PubMed

Li, Jin-rong; Zhang, Xiao-hong; Zhang, Hang-bin; Pan, Heng-yu; Liu, Qiang

2015-08-01

Sewage treatment, treated water treatment and sludge treatment are three basic units of an integrated sewage treatment system. This work assessed the influence of reusing or discharge of treated water and sludge landfill or compost on the sustainability of an integrated sewage treatment system using emergy analysis and newly proposed emergy indicators. This system's value included its environmental benefits and the products. Environmental benefits were the differences of the environmental service values before and after sewage treatment. Due to unavailability of data of the exchanged substance and energy in the internal system, products' values were attained by newly proposed substitution values. The results showed that the combination of sewage treatment, treated water reuse and sludge landfill had the strongest competitiveness, while the combination of sewage treatment, treated water reuse and earthworm compost was the most sustainable. Moreover, treated water reuse and earthworm compost were helpful for improving the sustainability of the integrated sewage treatment system. The quality of treated water and local conditions should be also considered when implementing the treated water reuse or discharge. The resources efficiency of earthworm compost unit needed to be further improved. Improved emergy indices were more suitable for integrated sewage treatment systems.

Generic Software Architecture for Launchers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carre, Emilien; Gast, Philippe; Hiron, Emmanuel; Leblanc, Alain; Lesens, David; Mescam, Emmanuelle; Moro, Pierre

2015-09-01

The definition and reuse of generic software architecture for launchers is not so usual for several reasons: the number of European launcher families is very small (Ariane 5 and Vega for these last decades); the real time constraints (reactivity and determinism needs) are very hard; low levels of versatility are required (implying often an ad hoc development of the launcher mission). In comparison, satellites are often built on a generic platform made up of reusable hardware building blocks (processors, star-trackers, gyroscopes, etc.) and reusable software building blocks (middleware, TM/TC, On Board Control Procedure, etc.). If some of these reasons are still valid (e.g. the limited number of development), the increase of the available CPU power makes today an approach based on a generic time triggered middleware (ensuring the full determinism of the system) and a centralised mission and vehicle management (offering more flexibility in the design and facilitating the long term maintenance) achievable. This paper presents an example of generic software architecture which could be envisaged for future launchers, based on the previously described principles and supported by model driven engineering and automatic code generation.

Metadata-driven Delphi rating on the Internet.

PubMed

Deshpande, Aniruddha M; Shiffman, Richard N; Nadkarni, Prakash M

2005-01-01

Paper-based data collection and analysis for consensus development is inefficient and error-prone. Computerized techniques that could improve efficiency, however, have been criticized as costly, inconvenient and difficult to use. We designed and implemented a metadata-driven Web-based Delphi rating and analysis tool, employing the flexible entity-attribute-value schema to create generic, reusable software. The software can be applied to various domains by altering the metadata; the programming code remains intact. This approach greatly reduces the marginal cost of re-using the software. We implemented our software to prepare for the Conference on Guidelines Standardization. Twenty-three invited experts completed the first round of the Delphi rating on the Web. For each participant, the software generated individualized reports that described the median rating and the disagreement index (calculated from the Interpercentile Range Adjusted for Symmetry) as defined by the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method. We evaluated the software with a satisfaction survey using a five-level Likert scale. The panelists felt that Web data entry was convenient (median 4, interquartile range [IQR] 4.0-5.0), acceptable (median 4.5, IQR 4.0-5.0) and easily accessible (median 5, IQR 4.0-5.0). We conclude that Web-based Delphi rating for consensus development is a convenient and acceptable alternative to the traditional paper-based method.

Calculating Reuse Distance from Source Code

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Narayanan, Sri Hari Krishna; Hovland, Paul

The efficient use of a system is of paramount importance in high-performance computing. Applications need to be engineered for future systems even before the architecture of such a system is clearly known. Static performance analysis that generates performance bounds is one way to approach the task of understanding application behavior. Performance bounds provide an upper limit on the performance of an application on a given architecture. Predicting cache hierarchy behavior and accesses to main memory is a requirement for accurate performance bounds. This work presents our static reuse distance algorithm to generate reuse distance histograms. We then use these histogramsmore » to predict cache miss rates. Experimental results for kernels studied show that the approach is accurate.« less

Prediction of Software Reliability using Bio Inspired Soft Computing Techniques.

PubMed

Diwaker, Chander; Tomar, Pradeep; Poonia, Ramesh C; Singh, Vijander

2018-04-10

A lot of models have been made for predicting software reliability. The reliability models are restricted to using particular types of methodologies and restricted number of parameters. There are a number of techniques and methodologies that may be used for reliability prediction. There is need to focus on parameters consideration while estimating reliability. The reliability of a system may increase or decreases depending on the selection of different parameters used. Thus there is need to identify factors that heavily affecting the reliability of the system. In present days, reusability is mostly used in the various area of research. Reusability is the basis of Component-Based System (CBS). The cost, time and human skill can be saved using Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE) concepts. CBSE metrics may be used to assess those techniques which are more suitable for estimating system reliability. Soft computing is used for small as well as large-scale problems where it is difficult to find accurate results due to uncertainty or randomness. Several possibilities are available to apply soft computing techniques in medicine related problems. Clinical science of medicine using fuzzy-logic, neural network methodology significantly while basic science of medicine using neural-networks-genetic algorithm most frequently and preferably. There is unavoidable interest shown by medical scientists to use the various soft computing methodologies in genetics, physiology, radiology, cardiology and neurology discipline. CBSE boost users to reuse the past and existing software for making new products to provide quality with a saving of time, memory space, and money. This paper focused on assessment of commonly used soft computing technique like Genetic Algorithm (GA), Neural-Network (NN), Fuzzy Logic, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and Artificial Bee Colony (ABC). This paper presents working of soft computing techniques and assessment of soft computing techniques to predict reliability. The parameter considered while estimating and prediction of reliability are also discussed. This study can be used in estimation and prediction of the reliability of various instruments used in the medical system, software engineering, computer engineering and mechanical engineering also. These concepts can be applied to both software and hardware, to predict the reliability using CBSE.

NASA's Earth Imagery Service as Open Source Software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

De Cesare, C.; Alarcon, C.; Huang, T.; Roberts, J. T.; Rodriguez, J.; Cechini, M. F.; Boller, R. A.; Baynes, K.

2016-12-01

The NASA Global Imagery Browse Service (GIBS) is a software system that provides access to an archive of historical and near-real-time Earth imagery from NASA-supported satellite instruments. The imagery itself is open data, and is accessible via standards such as the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)'s Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) protocol. GIBS includes three core software projects: The Imagery Exchange (TIE), OnEarth, and the Meta Raster Format (MRF) project. These projects are developed using a variety of open source software, including: Apache HTTPD, GDAL, Mapserver, Grails, Zookeeper, Eclipse, Maven, git, and Apache Commons. TIE has recently been released for open source, and is now available on GitHub. OnEarth, MRF, and their sub-projects have been on GitHub since 2014, and the MRF project in particular receives many external contributions from the community. Our software has been successful beyond the scope of GIBS: the PO.DAAC State of the Ocean and COVERAGE visualization projects reuse components from OnEarth. The MRF source code has recently been incorporated into GDAL, which is a core library in many widely-used GIS software such as QGIS and GeoServer. This presentation will describe the challenges faced in incorporating open software and open data into GIBS, and also showcase GIBS as a platform on which scientists and the general public can build their own applications.

Report on the Second Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE2)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Katz, Daniel S.; Choi, Sou-Cheng T.; Wilkins-Diehr, Nancy; Chue Hong, Neil; Venters, Colin C.; Howison, James; Seinstra, Frank; Jones, Matthew; Cranston, Karen; Clune, Thomas L.; de Val-Borro, Miguel; Littauer, Richard

2016-02-01

This technical report records and discusses the Second Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE2). The report includes a description of the alternative, experimental submission and review process, two workshop keynote presentations, a series of lightning talks, a discussion on sustainability, and five discussions from the topic areas of exploring sustainability; software development experiences; credit & incentives; reproducibility & reuse & sharing; and code testing & code review. For each topic, the report includes a list of tangible actions that were proposed and that would lead to potential change. The workshop recognized that reliance on scientific software is pervasive in all areas of world-leading research today. The workshop participants then proceeded to explore different perspectives on the concept of sustainability. Key enablers and barriers of sustainable scientific software were identified from their experiences. In addition, recommendations with new requirements such as software credit files and software prize frameworks were outlined for improving practices in sustainable software engineering. There was also broad consensus that formal training in software development or engineering was rare among the practitioners. Significant strides need to be made in building a sense of community via training in software and technical practices, on increasing their size and scope, and on better integrating them directly into graduate education programs. Finally, journals can define and publish policies to improve reproducibility, whereas reviewers can insist that authors provide sufficient information and access to data and software to allow them reproduce the results in the paper. Hence a list of criteria is compiled for journals to provide to reviewers so as to make it easier to review software submitted for publication as a "Software Paper."

Object-oriented design and programming in medical decision support.

PubMed

Heathfield, H; Armstrong, J; Kirkham, N

1991-12-01

The concept of object-oriented design and programming has recently received a great deal of attention from the software engineering community. This paper highlights the realisable benefits of using the object-oriented approach in the design and development of clinical decision support systems. These systems seek to build a computational model of some problem domain and therefore tend to be exploratory in nature. Conventional procedural design techniques do not support either the process of model building or rapid prototyping. The central concepts of the object-oriented paradigm are introduced, namely encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism, and their use illustrated in a case study, taken from the domain of breast histopathology. In particular, the dual roles of inheritance in object-oriented programming are examined, i.e., inheritance as a conceptual modelling tool and inheritance as a code reuse mechanism. It is argued that the use of the former is not entirely intuitive and may be difficult to incorporate into the design process. However, inheritance as a means of optimising code reuse offers substantial technical benefits.

Scholarly Information Extraction Is Going to Make a Quantum Leap with PubMed Central (PMC).

PubMed

Matthies, Franz; Hahn, Udo

2017-01-01

With the increasing availability of complete full texts (journal articles), rather than their surrogates (titles, abstracts), as resources for text analytics, entirely new opportunities arise for information extraction and text mining from scholarly publications. Yet, we gathered evidence that a range of problems are encountered for full-text processing when biomedical text analytics simply reuse existing NLP pipelines which were developed on the basis of abstracts (rather than full texts). We conducted experiments with four different relation extraction engines all of which were top performers in previous BioNLP Event Extraction Challenges. We found that abstract-trained engines loose up to 6.6% F-score points when run on full-text data. Hence, the reuse of existing abstract-based NLP software in a full-text scenario is considered harmful because of heavy performance losses. Given the current lack of annotated full-text resources to train on, our study quantifies the price paid for this short cut.

ER2OWL: Generating OWL Ontology from ER Diagram

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fahad, Muhammad

Ontology is the fundamental part of Semantic Web. The goal of W3C is to bring the web into (its full potential) a semantic web with reusing previous systems and artifacts. Most legacy systems have been documented in structural analysis and structured design (SASD), especially in simple or Extended ER Diagram (ERD). Such systems need up-gradation to become the part of semantic web. In this paper, we present ERD to OWL-DL ontology transformation rules at concrete level. These rules facilitate an easy and understandable transformation from ERD to OWL. The set of rules for transformation is tested on a structured analysis and design example. The framework provides OWL ontology for semantic web fundamental. This framework helps software engineers in upgrading the structured analysis and design artifact ERD, to components of semantic web. Moreover our transformation tool, ER2OWL, reduces the cost and time for building OWL ontologies with the reuse of existing entity relationship models.

PyNN: A Common Interface for Neuronal Network Simulators.

PubMed

Davison, Andrew P; Brüderle, Daniel; Eppler, Jochen; Kremkow, Jens; Muller, Eilif; Pecevski, Dejan; Perrinet, Laurent; Yger, Pierre

2008-01-01

Computational neuroscience has produced a diversity of software for simulations of networks of spiking neurons, with both negative and positive consequences. On the one hand, each simulator uses its own programming or configuration language, leading to considerable difficulty in porting models from one simulator to another. This impedes communication between investigators and makes it harder to reproduce and build on the work of others. On the other hand, simulation results can be cross-checked between different simulators, giving greater confidence in their correctness, and each simulator has different optimizations, so the most appropriate simulator can be chosen for a given modelling task. A common programming interface to multiple simulators would reduce or eliminate the problems of simulator diversity while retaining the benefits. PyNN is such an interface, making it possible to write a simulation script once, using the Python programming language, and run it without modification on any supported simulator (currently NEURON, NEST, PCSIM, Brian and the Heidelberg VLSI neuromorphic hardware). PyNN increases the productivity of neuronal network modelling by providing high-level abstraction, by promoting code sharing and reuse, and by providing a foundation for simulator-agnostic analysis, visualization and data-management tools. PyNN increases the reliability of modelling studies by making it much easier to check results on multiple simulators. PyNN is open-source software and is available from http://neuralensemble.org/PyNN.

A Knowledge-Based Representation Scheme for Environmental Science Models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Keller, Richard M.; Dungan, Jennifer L.; Lum, Henry, Jr. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

One of the primary methods available for studying environmental phenomena is the construction and analysis of computational models. We have been studying how artificial intelligence techniques can be applied to assist in the development and use of environmental science models within the context of NASA-sponsored activities. We have identified several high-utility areas as potential targets for research and development: model development; data visualization, analysis, and interpretation; model publishing and reuse, training and education; and framing, posing, and answering questions. Central to progress on any of the above areas is a representation for environmental models that contains a great deal more information than is present in a traditional software implementation. In particular, a traditional software implementation is devoid of any semantic information that connects the code with the environmental context that forms the background for the modeling activity. Before we can build AI systems to assist in model development and usage, we must develop a representation for environmental models that adequately describes a model's semantics and explicitly represents the relationship between the code and the modeling task at hand. We have developed one such representation in conjunction with our work on the SIGMA (Scientists' Intelligent Graphical Modeling Assistant) environment. The key feature of the representation is that it provides a semantic grounding for the symbols in a set of modeling equations by linking those symbols to an explicit representation of the underlying environmental scenario.

Development of a Heterogenic Distributed Environment for Spatial Data Processing Using Cloud Technologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garov, A. S.; Karachevtseva, I. P.; Matveev, E. V.; Zubarev, A. E.; Florinsky, I. V.

2016-06-01

We are developing a unified distributed communication environment for processing of spatial data which integrates web-, desktop- and mobile platforms and combines volunteer computing model and public cloud possibilities. The main idea is to create a flexible working environment for research groups, which may be scaled according to required data volume and computing power, while keeping infrastructure costs at minimum. It is based upon the "single window" principle, which combines data access via geoportal functionality, processing possibilities and communication between researchers. Using an innovative software environment the recently developed planetary information system (http://cartsrv.mexlab.ru/geoportal) will be updated. The new system will provide spatial data processing, analysis and 3D-visualization and will be tested based on freely available Earth remote sensing data as well as Solar system planetary images from various missions. Based on this approach it will be possible to organize the research and representation of results on a new technology level, which provides more possibilities for immediate and direct reuse of research materials, including data, algorithms, methodology, and components. The new software environment is targeted at remote scientific teams, and will provide access to existing spatial distributed information for which we suggest implementation of a user interface as an advanced front-end, e.g., for virtual globe system.

Simplifying the Reuse and Interoperability of Geoscience Data Sets and Models with Semantic Metadata that is Human-Readable and Machine-actionable

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peckham, S. D.

2017-12-01

Standardized, deep descriptions of digital resources (e.g. data sets, computational models, software tools and publications) make it possible to develop user-friendly software systems that assist scientists with the discovery and appropriate use of these resources. Semantic metadata makes it possible for machines to take actions on behalf of humans, such as automatically identifying the resources needed to solve a given problem, retrieving them and then automatically connecting them (despite their heterogeneity) into a functioning workflow. Standardized model metadata also helps model users to understand the important details that underpin computational models and to compare the capabilities of different models. These details include simplifying assumptions on the physics, governing equations and the numerical methods used to solve them, discretization of space (the grid) and time (the time-stepping scheme), state variables (input or output), model configuration parameters. This kind of metadata provides a "deep description" of a computational model that goes well beyond other types of metadata (e.g. author, purpose, scientific domain, programming language, digital rights, provenance, execution) and captures the science that underpins a model. A carefully constructed, unambiguous and rules-based schema to address this problem, called the Geoscience Standard Names ontology will be presented that utilizes Semantic Web best practices and technologies. It has also been designed to work across science domains and to be readable by both humans and machines.

PyNN: A Common Interface for Neuronal Network Simulators

PubMed Central

Davison, Andrew P.; Brüderle, Daniel; Eppler, Jochen; Kremkow, Jens; Muller, Eilif; Pecevski, Dejan; Perrinet, Laurent; Yger, Pierre

2008-01-01

Computational neuroscience has produced a diversity of software for simulations of networks of spiking neurons, with both negative and positive consequences. On the one hand, each simulator uses its own programming or configuration language, leading to considerable difficulty in porting models from one simulator to another. This impedes communication between investigators and makes it harder to reproduce and build on the work of others. On the other hand, simulation results can be cross-checked between different simulators, giving greater confidence in their correctness, and each simulator has different optimizations, so the most appropriate simulator can be chosen for a given modelling task. A common programming interface to multiple simulators would reduce or eliminate the problems of simulator diversity while retaining the benefits. PyNN is such an interface, making it possible to write a simulation script once, using the Python programming language, and run it without modification on any supported simulator (currently NEURON, NEST, PCSIM, Brian and the Heidelberg VLSI neuromorphic hardware). PyNN increases the productivity of neuronal network modelling by providing high-level abstraction, by promoting code sharing and reuse, and by providing a foundation for simulator-agnostic analysis, visualization and data-management tools. PyNN increases the reliability of modelling studies by making it much easier to check results on multiple simulators. PyNN is open-source software and is available from http://neuralensemble.org/PyNN. PMID:19194529

SDR/STRS Flight Experiment and the Role of SDR-Based Communication and Navigation Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reinhart, Richard C.

2008-01-01

This presentation describes an open architecture SDR (software defined radio) infrastructure, suitable for space-based radios and operations, entitled Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS). SDR technologies will endow space and planetary exploration systems with dramatically increased capability, reduced power consumption, and less mass than conventional systems, at costs reduced by vigorous competition, hardware commonality, dense integration, minimizing the impact of parts obsolescence, improved interoperability, and software re-use. To advance the SDR architecture technology and demonstrate its applicability in space, NASA is developing a space experiment of multiple SDRs each with various waveforms to communicate with NASA s TDRSS satellite and ground networks, and the GPS constellation. An experiments program will investigate S-band and Ka-band communications, navigation, and networking technologies and operations.

ProtocolNavigator: emulation-based software for the design, documentation and reproduction biological experiments.

PubMed

Khan, Imtiaz A; Fraser, Adam; Bray, Mark-Anthony; Smith, Paul J; White, Nick S; Carpenter, Anne E; Errington, Rachel J

2014-12-01

Experimental reproducibility is fundamental to the progress of science. Irreproducible research decreases the efficiency of basic biological research and drug discovery and impedes experimental data reuse. A major contributing factor to irreproducibility is difficulty in interpreting complex experimental methodologies and designs from written text and in assessing variations among different experiments. Current bioinformatics initiatives either are focused on computational research reproducibility (i.e. data analysis) or laboratory information management systems. Here, we present a software tool, ProtocolNavigator, which addresses the largely overlooked challenges of interpretation and assessment. It provides a biologist-friendly open-source emulation-based tool for designing, documenting and reproducing biological experiments. ProtocolNavigator was implemented in Python 2.7, using the wx module to build the graphical user interface. It is a platform-independent software and freely available from http://protocolnavigator.org/index.html under the GPL v2 license. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Testing Product Generation in Software Product Lines Using Pairwise for Features Coverage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pérez Lamancha, Beatriz; Polo Usaola, Macario

A Software Product Lines (SPL) is "a set of software-intensive systems sharing a common, managed set of features that satisfy the specific needs of a particular market segment or mission and that are developed from a common set of core assets in a prescribed way". Variability is a central concept that permits the generation of different products of the family by reusing core assets. It is captured through features which, for a SPL, define its scope. Features are represented in a feature model, which is later used to generate the products from the line. From the testing point of view, testing all the possible combinations in feature models is not practical because: (1) the number of possible combinations (i.e., combinations of features for composing products) may be untreatable, and (2) some combinations may contain incompatible features. Thus, this paper resolves the problem by the implementation of combinatorial testing techniques adapted to the SPL context.

Quantitative Measures for Software Independent Verification and Validation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Alice

1996-01-01

As software is maintained or reused, it undergoes an evolution which tends to increase the overall complexity of the code. To understand the effects of this, we brought in statistics experts and leading researchers in software complexity, reliability, and their interrelationships. These experts' project has resulted in our ability to statistically correlate specific code complexity attributes, in orthogonal domains, to errors found over time in the HAL/S flight software which flies in the Space Shuttle. Although only a prototype-tools experiment, the result of this research appears to be extendable to all other NASA software, given appropriate data similar to that logged for the Shuttle onboard software. Our research has demonstrated that a more complete domain coverage can be mathematically demonstrated with the approach we have applied, thereby ensuring full insight into the cause-and-effects relationship between the complexity of a software system and the fault density of that system. By applying the operational profile we can characterize the dynamic effects of software path complexity under this same approach We now have the ability to measure specific attributes which have been statistically demonstrated to correlate to increased error probability, and to know which actions to take, for each complexity domain. Shuttle software verifiers can now monitor the changes in the software complexity, assess the added or decreased risk of software faults in modified code, and determine necessary corrections. The reports, tool documentation, user's guides, and new approach that have resulted from this research effort represent advances in the state of the art of software quality and reliability assurance. Details describing how to apply this technique to other NASA code are contained in this document.

Calculating the quality of public high-throughput sequencing data to obtain a suitable subset for reanalysis from the Sequence Read Archive.

PubMed

Ohta, Tazro; Nakazato, Takeru; Bono, Hidemasa

2017-06-01

It is important for public data repositories to promote the reuse of archived data. In the growing field of omics science, however, the increasing number of submissions of high-throughput sequencing (HTSeq) data to public repositories prevents users from choosing a suitable data set from among the large number of search results. Repository users need to be able to set a threshold to reduce the number of results to obtain a suitable subset of high-quality data for reanalysis. We calculated the quality of sequencing data archived in a public data repository, the Sequence Read Archive (SRA), by using the quality control software FastQC. We obtained quality values for 1 171 313 experiments, which can be used to evaluate the suitability of data for reuse. We also visualized the data distribution in SRA by integrating the quality information and metadata of experiments and samples. We provide quality information of all of the archived sequencing data, which enable users to obtain sufficient quality sequencing data for reanalyses. The calculated quality data are available to the public in various formats. Our data also provide an example of enhancing the reuse of public data by adding metadata to published research data by a third party. © The Authors 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Manatee County government's commitment to Florida's water resources

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hunsicker, C.

1998-07-01

With ever increasing development demands in coastal areas and subsequent declines in natural resources, especially water, coastal communities must identify creative options for sustaining remaining water resources and an accepted standard of living. The Manatee County agricultural reuse project, using reclaimed wastewater is part of a water resource program, is designed to meet these challenges. The reuse system works in concert with consumer conservation practices and efficiency of use measures which are being implemented by all public and private sector water users in this southwest Florida community.

DEMONSTRATION OF A CLOSED LOOP REUSE SYSTEM IN A FIBERGLAS TEXTILE PLANT

EPA Science Inventory

The report describes work done toward providing a totally recycled water system for Owens-Corning's textile fiber manufacturing plant at Anderson, SC. (The work was based on pre-1968 pilot plant work by Owens-Corning that resulted in development of totally recycled industrial was...

Wastewater reuse in a cascade based system of a petrochemical industry for the replacement of losses in cooling towers.

PubMed

Hansen, Everton; Rodrigues, Marco Antônio Siqueira; Aquim, Patrice Monteiro de

2016-10-01

This article discusses the mapping of opportunities for the water reuse in a cascade based system in a petrochemical industry in southern Brazil. This industrial sector has a large demand for water for its operation. In the studied industry, for example, approximately 24 million cubic meters of water were collected directly from the source in 2014. The objective of this study was to evaluate the implementation of the reuse of water in cascade in a petrochemical industry, focusing on the reuse of aqueous streams to replenish losses in the cooling towers. This is an industrial scale case study with real data collected during the years 2014 and 2015. Water reuse was performed using heuristic approach based on the exploitation of knowledge acquired during the search process. The methodology of work consisted of the construction of a process map identifying the stages of production and water consumption, as well as the characterization of the aqueous streams involved in the process. For the application of the industrial water reuse as cooling water, mass balances were carried out considering the maximum concentration levels of turbidity, pH, conductivity, alkalinity, calcium hardness, chlorides, sulfates, silica, chemical oxygen demand and suspended solids as parameters turbidity, pH, conductivity, alkalinity, calcium hardness, chlorides, sulfates, silica, chemical oxygen demand and suspended solids as parameters. The adopted guideline was the fulfillment of the water quality criteria for each application in the industrial process. The study showed the feasibility for the reuse of internal streams as makeup water in cooling towers, and the implementation of the reuse presented in this paper totaled savings of 385,440 m(3)/year of water, which means a sufficient volume to supply 6350 inhabitants for a period of one year, considering the average water consumption per capita in Brazil; in addition to 201,480 m(3)/year of wastewater that would no longer be generated. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Review of pathogen treatment reductions for onsite non ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Communities face a challenge when implementing onsite reuse of collected waters for non-potable purposes given the lack of national microbial standards. Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) can be used to predict the pathogen risks associated with the non-potable reuse of onsite-collected waters; the present work reviewed the relevant QMRA literature to prioritize knowledge gaps and identify health-protective pathogen treatment reduction targets. The review indicated that ingestion of untreated, onsite-collected graywater, rainwater, seepage water and stormwater from a variety of exposure routes resulted in gastrointestinal infection risks greater than the traditional acceptable level of risk. We found no QMRAs that estimated the pathogen risks associated with onsite, non-potable reuse of blackwater. Pathogen treatment reduction targets for non-potable, onsite reuse that included a suite of reference pathogens (i.e., including relevant bacterial, protozoan, and viral hazards) were limited to graywater (for a limited set of domestic uses) and stormwater (for domestic and municipal uses). These treatment reductions corresponded with the health benchmark of a probability of infection or illness of 10−3 per person per year or less. The pathogen treatment reduction targets varied depending on the target health benchmark, reference pathogen, source water, and water reuse application. Overall, there remains a need for pathogen reduction targets that are heal

User Interface Technology for Formal Specification Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lowry, Michael; Philpot, Andrew; Pressburger, Thomas; Underwood, Ian; Lum, Henry, Jr. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

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.

Using open source software for the supervision and management of the water resources system of Athens

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kozanis, S.; Christofides, A.; Efstratiadis, A.; Koukouvinos, A.; Karavokiros, G.; Mamassis, N.; Koutsoyiannis, D.; Nikolopoulos, D.

2012-04-01

The water supply of Athens, Greece, is implemented through a complex water resource system, extending over an area of around 4 000 km2 and including surface water and groundwater resources. It incorporates four reservoirs, 350 km of main aqueducts, 15 pumping stations, more than 100 boreholes and 5 small hydropower plants. The system is run by the Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company (EYDAP) Over more than 10 years we have developed, information technology tools such as GIS, database and decision support systems, to assist the management of the system. Among the software components, "Enhydris", a web application for the visualization and management of geographical and hydrometeorological data, and "Hydrognomon", a data analysis and processing tool, are now free software. Enhydris is entirely based on free software technologies such as Python, Django, PostgreSQL, and JQuery. We also created http://openmeteo.org/, a web site hosting our free software products as well as a free database system devoted to the dissemination of free data. In particular, "Enhydris" is used for the management of the hydrometeorological stations and the major hydraulic structures (aqueducts, reservoirs, boreholes, etc.), as well as for the retrieval of time series, online graphs etc. For the specific needs of EYDAP, additional GIS functionality was introduced for the display and monitoring of the water supply network. This functionality is also implemented as free software and can be reused in similar projects. Except for "Hydrognomon" and "Enhydris", we have developed a number of advanced modeling applications, which are also generic-purpose tools that have been used for a long time to provide decision support for the water resource system of Athens. These are "Hydronomeas", which optimizes the operation of complex water resource systems, based on a stochastic simulation framework, "Castalia", which implements the generation of synthetic time series, and "Hydrogeios", which employs conjunctive hydrological and hydrogeological simulation, with emphasis to human-modified river basins. These tools are currently available as executable files that are free for download though the ITIA web site (http://itia.ntua.gr/). Currently, we are working towards releasing their source code as well, through making them free software, after some licensing issues are resolved.

The experience factory: Can it make you a 5? or what is its relationship to other quality and improvement concepts?

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Basili, Victor R.

1992-01-01

The concepts of quality improvements have permeated many businesses. It is clear that the nineties will be the quality era for software and there is a growing need to develop or adapt quality improvement approaches to the software business. Thus we must understand software as an artifact and software as a business. Since the business we are dealing with is software, we must understand the nature of software and software development. The software discipline is evolutionary and experimental; it is a laboratory science. Software is development not production. The technologies of the discipline are human based. There is a lack of models that allow us to reason about the process and the product. All software is not the same; process is a variable, goals are variable, etc. Packaged, reusable, experiences require additional resources in the form of organization, processes, people, etc. There have been a variety of organizational frameworks proposed to improve quality for various businesses. The ones discussed in this presentation include: Plan-Do-Check-Act, a quality improvement process based upon a feedback cycle for optimizing a single process model/production line; the Experience Factory/Quality Improvement Paradigm, continuous improvements through the experimentation, packaging, and reuse of experiences based upon a business's needs; Total Quality Management, a management approach to long term success through customer satisfaction based on the participation of all members of an organization; the SEI capability maturity model, a staged process improvement based upon assessment with regard to a set of key process areas until you reach a level 5 which represents a continuous process improvement; and Lean (software) Development, a principle supporting the concentration of the production on 'value added' activities and the elimination of reduction of 'not value added' activities.

Using Automation to Improve the Flight Software Testing Process

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

ODonnell, James R., Jr.; Andrews, Stephen F.; Morgenstern, Wendy M.; Bartholomew, Maureen O.; McComas, David C.; Bauer, Frank H. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

One of the critical phases in the development of a spacecraft attitude control system (ACS) is the testing of its flight software. The testing (and test verification) of ACS flight software requires a mix of skills involving software, attitude control, data manipulation, and analysis. The process of analyzing and verifying flight software test results often creates a bottleneck which dictates the speed at which flight software verification can be conducted. In the development of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) spacecraft ACS subsystem, an integrated design environment was used that included a MAP high fidelity (HiFi) simulation, a central database of spacecraft parameters, a script language for numeric and string processing, and plotting capability. In this integrated environment, it was possible to automate many of the steps involved in flight software testing, making the entire process more efficient and thorough than on previous missions. In this paper, we will compare the testing process used on MAP to that used on previous missions. The software tools that were developed to automate testing and test verification will be discussed, including the ability to import and process test data, synchronize test data and automatically generate HiFi script files used for test verification, and an automated capability for generating comparison plots. A summary of the perceived benefits of applying these test methods on MAP will be given. Finally, the paper will conclude with a discussion of re-use of the tools and techniques presented, and the ongoing effort to apply them to flight software testing of the Triana spacecraft ACS subsystem.

Using Automation to Improve the Flight Software Testing Process

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

ODonnell, James R., Jr.; Morgenstern, Wendy M.; Bartholomew, Maureen O.

2001-01-01

One of the critical phases in the development of a spacecraft attitude control system (ACS) is the testing of its flight software. The testing (and test verification) of ACS flight software requires a mix of skills involving software, knowledge of attitude control, and attitude control hardware, data manipulation, and analysis. The process of analyzing and verifying flight software test results often creates a bottleneck which dictates the speed at which flight software verification can be conducted. In the development of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) spacecraft ACS subsystem, an integrated design environment was used that included a MAP high fidelity (HiFi) simulation, a central database of spacecraft parameters, a script language for numeric and string processing, and plotting capability. In this integrated environment, it was possible to automate many of the steps involved in flight software testing, making the entire process more efficient and thorough than on previous missions. In this paper, we will compare the testing process used on MAP to that used on other missions. The software tools that were developed to automate testing and test verification will be discussed, including the ability to import and process test data, synchronize test data and automatically generate HiFi script files used for test verification, and an automated capability for generating comparison plots. A summary of the benefits of applying these test methods on MAP will be given. Finally, the paper will conclude with a discussion of re-use of the tools and techniques presented, and the ongoing effort to apply them to flight software testing of the Triana spacecraft ACS subsystem.

A prototype for the real-time analysis of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bulgarelli, Andrea; Fioretti, Valentina; Zoli, Andrea; Aboudan, Alessio; Rodríguez-Vázquez, Juan José; Maier, Gernot; Lyard, Etienne; Bastieri, Denis; Lombardi, Saverio; Tosti, Gino; De Rosa, Adriano; Bergamaschi, Sonia; Interlandi, Matteo; Beneventano, Domenico; Lamanna, Giovanni; Jacquemier, Jean; Kosack, Karl; Antonelli, Lucio Angelo; Boisson, Catherine; Burkowski, Jerzy; Buson, Sara; Carosi, Alessandro; Conforti, Vito; Contreras, Jose Luis; De Cesare, Giovanni; de los Reyes, Raquel; Dumm, Jon; Evans, Phil; Fortson, Lucy; Fuessling, Matthias; Graciani, Ricardo; Gianotti, Fulvio; Grandi, Paola; Hinton, Jim; Humensky, Brian; Knödlseder, Jürgen; Malaguti, Giuseppe; Marisaldi, Martino; Neyroud, Nadine; Nicastro, Luciano; Ohm, Stefan; Osborne, Julian; Rosen, Simon; Tacchini, Alessandro; Torresi, Eleonora; Testa, Vincenzo; Trifoglio, Massimo; Weinstein, Amanda

2014-07-01

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory will be one of the biggest ground-based very-high-energy (VHE) γ- ray observatory. CTA will achieve a factor of 10 improvement in sensitivity from some tens of GeV to beyond 100 TeV with respect to existing telescopes. The CTA observatory will be capable of issuing alerts on variable and transient sources to maximize the scientific return. To capture these phenomena during their evolution and for effective communication to the astrophysical community, speed is crucial. This requires a system with a reliable automated trigger that can issue alerts immediately upon detection of γ-ray flares. This will be accomplished by means of a Real-Time Analysis (RTA) pipeline, a key system of the CTA observatory. The latency and sensitivity requirements of the alarm system impose a challenge because of the anticipated large data rate, between 0.5 and 8 GB/s. As a consequence, substantial efforts toward the optimization of highthroughput computing service are envisioned. For these reasons our working group has started the development of a prototype of the Real-Time Analysis pipeline. The main goals of this prototype are to test: (i) a set of frameworks and design patterns useful for the inter-process communication between software processes running on memory; (ii) the sustainability of the foreseen CTA data rate in terms of data throughput with different hardware (e.g. accelerators) and software configurations, (iii) the reuse of nonreal- time algorithms or how much we need to simplify algorithms to be compliant with CTA requirements, (iv) interface issues between the different CTA systems. In this work we focus on goals (i) and (ii).

Software Engineering Research/Developer Collaborations (C104)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shell, Elaine; Shull, Forrest

2005-01-01

The goal of this collaboration was to produce Flight Software Branch (FSB) process standards for software inspections which could be used across three new missions within the FSB. The standard was developed by Dr. Forrest Shull (Fraunhofer Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland) using the Perspective-Based Inspection approach, (PBI research has been funded by SARP) , then tested on a pilot Branch project. Because the short time scale of the collaboration ruled out a quantitative evaluation, it would be decided whether the standard was suitable for roll-out to other Branch projects based on a qualitative measure: whether the standard received high ratings from Branch personnel as to usability and overall satisfaction. The project used for piloting the Perspective-Based Inspection approach was a multi-mission framework designed for reuse. This was a good choice because key representatives from the three new missions would be involved in the inspections. The perspective-based approach was applied to produce inspection procedures tailored for the specific quality needs of the branch. The technical information to do so was largely drawn through a series of interviews with Branch personnel. The framework team used the procedures to review requirements. The inspections were useful for indicating that a restructuring of the requirements document was needed, which led to changes in the development project plan. The standard was sent out to other Branch personnel for review. Branch personnel were very positive. However, important changes were identified because the perspective of Attitude Control System (ACS) developers had not been adequately represented, a result of the specific personnel interviewed. The net result is that with some further work to incorporate the ACS perspective, and in synchrony with the roll out of independent Branch standards, the PBI approach will be implemented in the FSB. Also, the project intends to continue its collaboration with the technology provider (Dr. Forrest Shull) past the end of the grant, to allow a more rigorous quantitative evaluation.

Software agents for the dissemination of remote terrestrial sensing data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Toomey, Christopher N.; Simoudis, Evangelos; Johnson, Raymond W.; Mark, William S.

1994-01-01

Remote terrestrial sensing (RTS) data is constantly being collected from a variety of space-based and earth-based sensors. The collected data, and especially 'value-added' analyses of the data, are finding growing application for commercial, government, and scientific purposes. The scale of this data collection and analysis is truly enormous; e.g., by 1995, the amount of data available in just one sector, NASA space science, will reach 5 petabytes. Moreover, the amount of data, and the value of analyzing the data, are expected to increase dramatically as new satellites and sensors become available (e.g., NASA's Earth Observing System satellites). Lockheed and other companies are beginning to provide data and analysis commercially. A critical issue for the exploitation of collected data is the dissemination of data and value-added analyses to a diverse and widely distributed customer base. Customers must be able to use their computational environment (eventually the National Information Infrastructure) to obtain timely and complete information, without having to know the details of where the relevant data resides and how it is accessed. Customers must be able to routinely use standard, widely available (and, therefore, low cost) analyses, while also being able to readily create on demand highly customized analyses to make crucial decisions. The diversity of user needs creates a difficult software problem: how can users easily state their needs, while the computational environment assumes the responsibility of finding (or creating) relevant information, and then delivering the results in a form that users understand? A software agent is a self-contained, active software module that contains an explicit representation of its operational knowledge. This explicit representation allows agents to examine their own capabilities in order to modify their goals to meet changing needs and to take advantage of dynamic opportunities. In addition, the explicit representation allows agents to advertize their capabilities and results to other agents, thereby allowing the collection of agents to reuse each others work.

Using Dedal to share and reuse distributed engineering design information

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Baya, Vinod; Baudin, Catherine; Mabogunje, Ade; Das, Aseem; Cannon, David M.; Leifer, Larry J.

1994-01-01

The overall goal of the project is to facilitate the reuse of previous design experience for the maintenance, repair and redesign of artifacts in the electromechanical engineering domain. An engineering team creates information in the form of meeting summaries, project memos, progress reports, engineering notes, spreadsheet calculations and CAD drawings. Design information captured in these media is difficult to reuse because the way design concepts are referred to evolve over the life of a project and because decisions, requirements and structure are interrelated but rarely explicitly linked. Based on protocol analysis of the information seeking behavior of designer's, we defined a language to describe the content and the form of design records and implemented this language in Dedal, a tool for indexing, modeling and retrieving design information. We first describe the approach to indexing and retrieval in Dedal. Next we describe ongoing work in extending Dedal's capabilities to a distributed environment by integrating it with World Wide Web. This will enable members of a design team who are not co-located to share and reuse information.

Chemotion ELN: an Open Source electronic lab notebook for chemists in academia.

PubMed

Tremouilhac, Pierre; Nguyen, An; Huang, Yu-Chieh; Kotov, Serhii; Lütjohann, Dominic Sebastian; Hübsch, Florian; Jung, Nicole; Bräse, Stefan

2017-09-25

The development of an electronic lab notebook (ELN) for researchers working in the field of chemical sciences is presented. The web based application is available as an Open Source software that offers modern solutions for chemical researchers. The Chemotion ELN is equipped with the basic functionalities necessary for the acquisition and processing of chemical data, in particular the work with molecular structures and calculations based on molecular properties. The ELN supports planning, description, storage, and management for the routine work of organic chemists. It also provides tools for communicating and sharing the recorded research data among colleagues. Meeting the requirements of a state of the art research infrastructure, the ELN allows the search for molecules and reactions not only within the user's data but also in conventional external sources as provided by SciFinder and PubChem. The presented development makes allowance for the growing dependency of scientific activity on the availability of digital information by providing Open Source instruments to record and reuse research data. The current version of the ELN has been using for over half of a year in our chemistry research group, serves as a common infrastructure for chemistry research and enables chemistry researchers to build their own databases of digital information as a prerequisite for the detailed, systematic investigation and evaluation of chemical reactions and mechanisms.

Big Software for SmallSats: Adapting CFS to CubeSat Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cudmore, Alan P.; Crum, Gary; Sheikh, Salman; Marshall, James

2015-01-01

Expanding capabilities and mission objectives for SmallSats and CubeSats is driving the need for reliable, reusable, and robust flight software. While missions are becoming more complicated and the scientific goals more ambitious, the level of acceptable risk has decreased. Design challenges are further compounded by budget and schedule constraints that have not kept pace. NASA's Core Flight Software System (cFS) is an open source solution which enables teams to build flagship satellite level flight software within a CubeSat schedule and budget. NASA originally developed cFS to reduce mission and schedule risk for flagship satellite missions by increasing code reuse and reliability. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched in 2009, was the first of a growing list of Class B rated missions to use cFS. Large parts of cFS are now open source, which has spurred adoption outside of NASA. This paper reports on the experiences of two teams using cFS for current CubeSat missions. The performance overheads of cFS are quantified, and the reusability of code between missions is discussed. The analysis shows that cFS is well suited to use on CubeSats and demonstrates the portability and modularity of cFS code.

The maturing of the quality improvement paradigm in the SEL

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Basili, Victor R.

1993-01-01

The Software Engineering Laboratory uses a paradigm for improving the software process and product, called the quality improvement paradigm. This paradigm has evolved over the past 18 years, along with our software development processes and product. Since 1976, when we first began the SEL, we have learned a great deal about improving the software process and product, making a great many mistakes along the way. Quality improvement paradigm, as it is currently defined, can be broken up into six steps: characterize the current project and its environment with respect to the appropriate models and metrics; set the quantifiable goals for successful project performance and improvement; choose the appropriate process model and supporting methods and tools for this project; execute the processes, construct the products, and collect, validate, and analyze the data to provide real-time feedback for corrective action; analyze the data to evaluate the current practices, determine problems, record findings, and make recommendations for future project improvements; and package the experience gained in the form of updated and refined models and other forms of structured knowledge gained from this and prior projects and save it in an experience base to be reused on future projects.

A Collaborative Support Approach on UML Sequence Diagrams for Aspect-Oriented Software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Almeida Naufal, Rafael; Silveira, Fábio F.; Guerra, Eduardo M.

AOP and its broader application on software projects brings the importance to provide the separation between aspects and OO components at design time, to leverage the understanding of AO systems, promote aspects' reuse and obtain the benefits of AO modularization. Since the UML is a standard for modeling OO systems, it can be applied to model the decoupling between aspects and OO components. The application of UML to this area is the subject of constant study and is the focus of this paper. In this paper it is presented an extension based on the default UML meta-model, named MIMECORA-DS, to show object-object, object-aspect and aspect-aspect interactions applying the UML's sequence diagram. This research also presents the application of MIMECORA-DS in a case example, to assess its applicability.

Myths and realities: Defining re-engineering for a large organization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yin, Sandra; Mccreary, Julia

1992-01-01

This paper describes the background and results of three studies concerning software reverse engineering, re-engineering, and reuse (R3) hosted by the Internal Revenue Service in 1991 and 1992. The situation at the Internal Revenue--aging, piecemeal computer systems and outdated technology maintained by a large staff--is familiar to many institutions, especially among management information systems. The IRS is distinctive for the sheer magnitude and diversity of its problems; the country's tax records are processed using assembly language and COBOL and spread across tape and network DBMS files. How do we proceed with replacing legacy systems? The three software re-engineering studies looked at methods, CASE tool support, and performed a prototype project using re-engineering methods and tools. During the course of these projects, we discovered critical issues broader than the mechanical definitions of methods and tool technology.

Towards a flexible middleware for context-aware pervasive and wearable systems.

PubMed

Muro, Marco; Amoretti, Michele; Zanichelli, Francesco; Conte, Gianni

2012-11-01

Ambient intelligence and wearable computing call for innovative hardware and software technologies, including a highly capable, flexible and efficient middleware, allowing for the reuse of existing pervasive applications when developing new ones. In the considered application domain, middleware should also support self-management, interoperability among different platforms, efficient communications, and context awareness. In the on-going "everything is networked" scenario scalability appears as a very important issue, for which the peer-to-peer (P2P) paradigm emerges as an appealing solution for connecting software components in an overlay network, allowing for efficient and balanced data distribution mechanisms. In this paper, we illustrate how all these concepts can be placed into a theoretical tool, called networked autonomic machine (NAM), implemented into a NAM-based middleware, and evaluated against practical problems of pervasive computing.

Designing and encoding models for synthetic biology.

PubMed

Endler, Lukas; Rodriguez, Nicolas; Juty, Nick; Chelliah, Vijayalakshmi; Laibe, Camille; Li, Chen; Le Novère, Nicolas

2009-08-06

A key component of any synthetic biology effort is the use of quantitative models. These models and their corresponding simulations allow optimization of a system design, as well as guiding their subsequent analysis. Once a domain mostly reserved for experts, dynamical modelling of gene regulatory and reaction networks has been an area of growth over the last decade. There has been a concomitant increase in the number of software tools and standards, thereby facilitating model exchange and reuse. We give here an overview of the model creation and analysis processes as well as some software tools in common use. Using markup language to encode the model and associated annotation, we describe the mining of components, their integration in relational models, formularization and parametrization. Evaluation of simulation results and validation of the model close the systems biology 'loop'.

Ultraviolet spectrometer and polarimeter (UVSP) software development and hardware tests for the solar maximum mission

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bruner, M. E.; Haisch, B. M.

1986-01-01

The Ultraviolet Spectrometer/Polarimeter Instrument (UVSP) for the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) was based on the re-use of the engineering model of the high resolution ultraviolet spectrometer developed for the OSO-8 mission. Lockheed assumed four distinct responsibilities in the UVSP program: technical evaluation of the OSO-8 engineering model; technical consulting on the electronic, optical, and mechanical modifications to the OSO-8 engineering model hardware; design and development of the UVSP software system; and scientific participation in the operations and analysis phase of the mission. Lockheed also provided technical consulting and assistance with instrument hardware performance anomalies encountered during the post launch operation of the SMM observatory. An index to the quarterly reports delivered under the contract are contained, and serves as a useful capsule history of the program activity.

Adopting Internet Standards for Orbital Use

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wood, Lloyd; Ivancic, William; da Silva Curiel, Alex; Jackson, Chris; Stewart, Dave; Shell, Dave; Hodgson, Dave

2005-01-01

After a year of testing and demonstrating a Cisco mobile access router intended for terrestrial use onboard the low-Earth-orbiting UK-DMC satellite as part of a larger merged ground/space IP-based internetwork, we reflect on and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of integration and standards reuse for small satellite missions. Benefits include ease of operation and the ability to leverage existing systems and infrastructure designed for general use, as well as reuse of existing, known, and well-understood security and operational models. Drawbacks include cases where integration work was needed to bridge the gaps in assumptions between different systems, and where performance considerations outweighed the benefits of reuse of pre-existing file transfer protocols. We find similarities with the terrestrial IP networks whose technologies we have adopted and also some significant differences in operational models and assumptions that must be considered.

Ideas for Advancing Code Sharing: A Different Kind of Hack Day

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Teuben, P.; Allen, A.; Berriman, B.; DuPrie, K.; Hanisch, R. J.; Mink, J.; Nemiroff, R. J.; Shamir, L.; Shortridge, K.; Taylor, M. B.; Wallin, J. F.

2014-05-01

How do we as a community encourage the reuse of software for telescope operations, data processing, and ? How can we support making codes used in research available for others to examine? Continuing the discussion from last year Bring out your codes! BoF session, participants separated into groups to brainstorm ideas to mitigate factors which inhibit code sharing and nurture those which encourage code sharing. The BoF concluded with the sharing of ideas that arose from the brainstorming sessions and a brief summary by the moderator.

Semantic e-Learning: Next Generation of e-Learning?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Konstantinos, Markellos; Penelope, Markellou; Giannis, Koutsonikos; Aglaia, Liopa-Tsakalidi

Semantic e-learning aspires to be the next generation of e-learning, since the understanding of learning materials and knowledge semantics allows their advanced representation, manipulation, sharing, exchange and reuse and ultimately promote efficient online experiences for users. In this context, the paper firstly explores some fundamental Semantic Web technologies and then discusses current and potential applications of these technologies in e-learning domain, namely, Semantic portals, Semantic search, personalization, recommendation systems, social software and Web 2.0 tools. Finally, it highlights future research directions and open issues of the field.

CrossTalk: The Journal of Defense Software Engineering. Volume 19, Number 4

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-04-01

by each task order organization; however, an ACA is only a piece of paper that asks a contrac- tor to play nice. To help socialize the ACAs, the...facu l t y. e rau .edu/kor n/ papers / ESREL04KorneckiZalewski.pdf>. 7. Lougee, H. “DO-178B Certified Soft- ware: A Formal Reuse Analysis Ap- proach...Québec à Montréal as an industrial researcher, and is a member of the International Electronics and En- gineers. He has published more than 10 papers in

Evidence synthesis software.

PubMed

Park, Sophie Elizabeth; Thomas, James

2018-06-07

It can be challenging to decide which evidence synthesis software to choose when doing a systematic review. This article discusses some of the important questions to consider in relation to the chosen method and synthesis approach. Software can support researchers in a range of ways. Here, a range of review conditions and software solutions. For example, facilitating contemporaneous collaboration across time and geographical space; in-built bias assessment tools; and line-by-line coding for qualitative textual analysis. EPPI-Reviewer is a review software for research synthesis managed by the EPPI-centre, UCL Institute of Education. EPPI-Reviewer has text mining automation technologies. Version 5 supports data sharing and re-use across the systematic review community. Open source software will soon be released. EPPI-Centre will continue to offer the software as a cloud-based service. The software is offered via a subscription with a one-month (extendible) trial available and volume discounts for 'site licences'. It is free to use for Cochrane and Campbell reviews. The next EPPI-Reviewer version is being built in collaboration with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence using 'surveillance' of newly published research to support 'living' iterative reviews. This is achieved using a combination of machine learning and traditional information retrieval technologies to identify the type of research each new publication describes and determine its relevance for a particular review, domain or guideline. While the amount of available knowledge and research is constantly increasing, the ways in which software can support the focus and relevance of data identification are also developing fast. Software advances are maximising the opportunities for the production of relevant and timely reviews. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Performance of UV disinfection and the microbial quality of greywater effluent along a reuse system for toilet flushing.

PubMed

Friedler, Eran; Gilboa, Yael

2010-04-01

This paper examines the microbial quality of treated RBC (Rotating Biological Contactor) and MBR (Membrane Bioreactor) light greywater along a continuous pilot-scale reuse system for toilet flushing, quantifies the efficiency of UV disinfection unit, and evaluates the regrowth potential of selected microorganisms along the system. The UV disinfection unit was found to be very efficient in reducing faecal coliforms and Staphylococcus aureus. On the other hand, its efficiency of inactivation of HPC (Heterotrophic Plate Count) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa was lower. Some regrowth occurred in the reuse system as a result of HPC regrowth which included opportunistic pathogens such as P. aeruginosa. Although the membrane (UF) of the MBR system removed all bacteria from the greywater, bacteria were observed in the reuse system due to "hopping phenomenon." The microbial quality of the disinfected greywater was found to be equal or even better than the microbial quality of "clean" water in toilet bowls flushed with potable water (and used for excretion). Thus, the added health risk associated with reusing the UV-disinfected greywater for toilet flushing (regarding P. aeruginosa and S. aureus), was found to be insignificant. The UV disinfection unit totally removed (100%) the viral indicator (F-RNA phage, host: E. coli F(amp)(+)) injected to the treatment systems simulating transient viral contamination. To conclude, this work contributes to better design of UV disinfection reactors and provides an insight into the long-term behavior of selected microorganisms along on-site greywater reuse systems for toilet flushing. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Experience Factory: Strategy and Practice

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Basili, Victor R.; Caldiera, Gianluigi

1995-01-01

The quality movement, that has had in recent years a dramatic impact on all industrial sectors, has recently reached the system and software industry. Although some concepts of quality management, originally developed for other product types, can be applied to software, its specificity as a product which is developed and not produced requires a special approach. This paper introduces a quality paradigm specifically tailored on the problem of the systems and software industry. Reuse of products, processes and experiences originating from the system life cycle is seen today as a feasible solution to the problem of developing higher quality systems at a lower cost. In fact, quality improvement is very often achieved by defining and developing an appropriate set of strategic capabilities and core competencies to support them. A strategic capability is, in this context, a corporate goal defined by the business position of the organization and implemented by key business processes. Strategic capabilities are supported by core competencies, which are aggregate technologies tailored to the specific needs of the organization in performing the needed business processes. Core competencies are non-transitional, have a consistent evolution, and are typically fueled by multiple technologies. Their selection and development requires commitment, investment and leadership. The paradigm introduced in this paper for developing core competencies is the Quality Improvement Paradigm which consists of six steps: (1) Characterize the environment, (2) Set the goals, (3) Choose the process, (4) Execute the process, (5) Analyze the process data, and (6) Package experience. The process must be supported by a goal oriented approach to measurement and control, and an organizational infrastructure, called Experience Factory. The Experience Factory is a logical and physical organization distinct from the project organizations it supports. Its goal is development and support of core competencies through capitalization and reuse of its cycle experience and products. The paper introduces the major concepts of the proposed approach, discusses their relationship with other approaches used in the industry, and presents a case in which those concepts have been successfully applied.

Meeting the challenges of the digital medical enterprise of the future by reusing enterprise software components

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shani, Uri; Kol, Tomer; Shachor, Gal

2004-04-01

Managing medical digital information objects, and in particular medical images is an enterprise-grade problem. Firstly, there is the sheer amount of digital data that is generated in the proliferation of digital (and film-free) medical imaging. Secondly, the managing software ought to enjoy high availability, recoverability and manageability that are found only in the most business-critical systems. Indeed, such requirements are borrowed from the business enterprise world. Moreover, the solution for the medical information management problem should too employ the same software tools, middlewares and architectures. It is safe to say that all first-line medical PACS products strive to provide a solution for all these challenging requirements. The DICOM standard has been a prime enabler of such solutions. DICOM created the interconnectivity, which made it possible for a PACS service to manage millions of exams consisting of trillions of images. With the more comprehensive IHE architecture, the enterprise is expanded into a multi-facility regional conglomerate, which presents extreme demands from the data management system. HIPPA legislations add considerable challenges per security, privacy and other legal issues, which aggravate the situation. In this paper, we firstly present what in our view should be the general requirements for a first-line medical PACS, taken from an enterprise medical imaging storage and management solution perspective. While these requirements can be met by homegrown implementations, we suggest looking at the existing technologies, which have emerged in the recent years to meet exactly these challenges in the business world. We present an evolutionary process, which led to the design and implementation of a medical object management subsystem. This is indeed an enterprise medical imaging solution that is built upon respective technological components. The system answers all these challenges simply by not reinventing wheels, but rather reusing the best "wheels" for the job. Relying on such middleware components allowed us to concentrate on added value for this specific problem domain.

Policy-Aware Content Reuse on the Web

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seneviratne, Oshani; Kagal, Lalana; Berners-Lee, Tim

The Web allows users to share their work very effectively leading to the rapid re-use and remixing of content on the Web including text, images, and videos. Scientific research data, social networks, blogs, photo sharing sites and other such applications known collectively as the Social Web have lots of increasingly complex information. Such information from several Web pages can be very easily aggregated, mashed up and presented in other Web pages. Content generation of this nature inevitably leads to many copyright and license violations, motivating research into effective methods to detect and prevent such violations.

Lessons Learned in the Livingstone 2 on Earth Observing One Flight Experiment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hayden, Sandra C.; Sweet, Adam J.; Shulman, Seth

2005-01-01

The Livingstone 2 (L2) model-based diagnosis software is a reusable diagnostic tool for monitoring complex systems. In 2004, L2 was integrated with the JPL Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) and deployed on-board Goddard's Earth Observing One (EO-1) remote sensing satellite, to monitor and diagnose the EO-1 space science instruments and imaging sequence. This paper reports on lessons learned from this flight experiment. The goals for this experiment, including validation of minimum success criteria and of a series of diagnostic scenarios, have all been successfully net. Long-term operations in space are on-going, as a test of the maturity of the system, with L2 performance remaining flawless. L2 has demonstrated the ability to track the state of the system during nominal operations, detect simulated abnormalities in operations and isolate failures to their root cause fault. Specific advances demonstrated include diagnosis of ambiguity groups rather than a single fault candidate; hypothesis revision given new sensor evidence about the state of the system; and the capability to check for faults in a dynamic system without having to wait until the system is quiescent. The major benefits of this advanced health management technology are to increase mission duration and reliability through intelligent fault protection, and robust autonomous operations with reduced dependency on supervisory operations from Earth. The work-load for operators will be reduced by telemetry of processed state-of-health information rather than raw data. The long-term vision is that of making diagnosis available to the onboard planner or executive, allowing autonomy software to re-plan in order to work around known component failures. For a system that is expected to evolve substantially over its lifetime, as for the International Space Station, the model-based approach has definite advantages over rule-based expert systems and limit-checking fault protection systems, as these do not scale well. The model-based approach facilitates reuse of the L2 diagnostic software; only the model of the system to be diagnosed and telemetry monitoring software has to be rebuilt for a new system or expanded for a growing system. The hierarchical L2 model supports modularity and expendability, and as such is suitable solution for integrated system health management as envisioned for systems-of-systems.

Archetype modeling methodology.

PubMed

Moner, David; Maldonado, José Alberto; Robles, Montserrat

2018-03-01

Clinical Information Models (CIMs) expressed as archetypes play an essential role in the design and development of current Electronic Health Record (EHR) information structures. Although there exist many experiences about using archetypes in the literature, a comprehensive and formal methodology for archetype modeling does not exist. Having a modeling methodology is essential to develop quality archetypes, in order to guide the development of EHR systems and to allow the semantic interoperability of health data. In this work, an archetype modeling methodology is proposed. This paper describes its phases, the inputs and outputs of each phase, and the involved participants and tools. It also includes the description of the possible strategies to organize the modeling process. The proposed methodology is inspired by existing best practices of CIMs, software and ontology development. The methodology has been applied and evaluated in regional and national EHR projects. The application of the methodology provided useful feedback and improvements, and confirmed its advantages. The conclusion of this work is that having a formal methodology for archetype development facilitates the definition and adoption of interoperable archetypes, improves their quality, and facilitates their reuse among different information systems and EHR projects. Moreover, the proposed methodology can be also a reference for CIMs development using any other formalism. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Proposal for Re-Usable TODO Knowledge Management System RESTER

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saga, Ryosuke; Kageyama, Akinori; Tsuji, Hiroshi

This paper describes how to reuse a series of ad-hoc tasks such as special meeting arrangement and equipment procurement. Our RESTER (Reusable TODO Synthesizer) allows a group to reuse a series of tasks which are recorded in case database. Given a specific event, RESTER repairs the retrieved similar case by the ontology which describes the relationship of concept in the organization. A user has chance to check the modified case and to update it if he finds that there are incorrect repair because of deficient ontology. The user is also requested to judge if the retrieved case works or not. If he judges it is useful, the case becomes to be reused more frequently. Thus, RESTER works under the premise of human-computer collaboration. Based on the presented framework, this paper has identified several desirable attributes: (1) RESTER allows a group to externalize its experience on jobs, (2) Externalized experience are connected in case database, (3) A case is internalized by other group when it is retrieved and repaired for a new event, (4) New job generated from the previous similar job of one group is socialized by the other group.

Big Data breaking barriers - first steps on a long trail

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schade, S.

2015-04-01

Most data sets and streams have a geospatial component. Some people even claim that about 80% of all data is related to location. In the era of Big Data this number might even be underestimated, as data sets interrelate and initially non-spatial data becomes indirectly geo-referenced. The optimal treatment of Big Data thus requires advanced methods and technologies for handling the geospatial aspects in data storage, processing, pattern recognition, prediction, visualisation and exploration. On the one hand, our work exploits earth and environmental sciences for existing interoperability standards, and the foundational data structures, algorithms and software that are required to meet these geospatial information handling tasks. On the other hand, we are concerned with the arising needs to combine human analysis capacities (intelligence augmentation) with machine power (artificial intelligence). This paper provides an overview of the emerging landscape and outlines our (Digital Earth) vision for addressing the upcoming issues. We particularly request the projection and re-use of the existing environmental, earth observation and remote sensing expertise in other sectors, i.e. to break the barriers of all of these silos by investigating integrated applications.

Supporting Development of Satellite's Guidance Navigation and Control Software: A Product Line Approach

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McComas, David; Stark, Michael; Leake, Stephen; White, Michael; Morisio, Maurizio; Travassos, Guilherme H.; Powers, Edward I. (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Flight Software Branch (FSB) is developing a Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Flight Software (FSW) product line. The demand for increasingly more complex flight software in less time while maintaining the same level of quality has motivated us to look for better FSW development strategies. The GNC FSW product line has been planned to address the core GNC FSW functionality very similar on many recent low/near Earth missions in the last ten years. Unfortunately these missions have not accomplished significant drops in development cost since a systematic approach towards reuse has not been adopted. In addition, new demands are continually being placed upon the FSW which means the FSB must become more adept at providing GNC FSW functionality's core so it can accommodate additional requirements. These domain features together with engineering concepts are influencing the specification, description and evaluation of FSW product line. Domain engineering is the foundation for emerging product line software development approaches. A product line is 'A family of products designed to take advantage of their common aspects and predicted variabilities'. In our product line approach, domain engineering includes the engineering activities needed to produce reusable artifacts for a domain. Application engineering refers to developing an application in the domain starting from reusable artifacts. The focus of this paper is regarding the software process, lessons learned and on how the GNC FSW product line manages variability. Existing domain engineering approaches do not enforce any specific notation for domain analysis or commonality and variability analysis. Usually, natural language text is the preferred tool. The advantage is the flexibility and adapt ability of natural language. However, one has to be ready to accept also its well-known drawbacks, such as ambiguity, inconsistency, and contradictions. While most domain analysis approaches are functionally oriented, the idea of applying the object-oriented approach in domain analysis is not new. Some authors propose to use UML as the notation underlying domain analysis. Our work is based on the same idea of merging UML and domain analysis. Further, we propose a few extensions to UML in order to express variability, and we define precisely their semantics so that a tool can support them. The extensions are designed to be implemented on the API of a popular industrial CASE tool, with obvious advantages in cost and availability of tool support. The paper outlines the product line processes and identifies where variability must be addressed. Then it describes the product line products with respect to how they accommodate variability. The Celestial Body subdomain is used as a working example. Our results to date are summarized and plans for the future are described.

The Production Data Approach for Full Lifecycle Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schopf, J.

2012-04-01

The amount of data generated by scientists is growing exponentially, and studies have shown [Koe04] that un-archived data sets have a resource half-life that is only a fraction of those resources that are electronically archived. Most groups still lack standard approaches and procedures for data management. Arguably, however, scientists know something about building software. A recent article in Nature [Mer10] stated that 45% of research scientists spend more time now developing software than they did 5 years ago, and 38% spent at least 1/5th of their time developing software. Fox argues [Fox10] that a simple release of data is not the correct approach to data curation. In addition, just as software is used in a wide variety of ways never initially envisioned by its developers, we're seeing this even to a greater extent with data sets. In order to address the need for better data preservation and access, we propose that data sets should be managed in a similar fashion to building production quality software. These production data sets are not simply published once, but go through a cyclical process, including phases such as design, development, verification, deployment, support, analysis, and then development again, thereby supporting the full lifecycle of a data set. The process involved in academically-produced software changes over time with respect to issues such as how much it is used outside the development group, but factors in aspects such as knowing who is using the code, enabling multiple developers to contribute to code development with common procedures, formal testing and release processes, developing documentation, and licensing. When we work with data, either as a collection source, as someone tagging data, or someone re-using it, many of the lessons learned in building production software are applicable. Table 1 shows a comparison of production software elements to production data elements. Table 1: Comparison of production software and production data. Production Software Production Data End-user considerations End-user considerations Multiple Coders: Repository with check-in procedures Coding standards Multiple producers/collectors Local archive with check-in procedure Metadata Standards Formal testing Formal testing Bug tracking and fixes Bug tracking and fixes, QA/QC Documentation Documentation Formal Release Process Formal release process to external archive License Citation/usage statement The full presentation of this abstract will include a detailed discussion of these issues so that researchers can produce usable and accessible data sets as a first step toward reproducible science. By creating production-quality data sets, we extend the potential of our data, both in terms of usability and usefulness to ourselves and other researchers. The more we treat data with formal processes and release cycles, the more relevant and useful it can be to the scientific community.

Archetype-based data warehouse environment to enable the reuse of electronic health record data.

PubMed

Marco-Ruiz, Luis; Moner, David; Maldonado, José A; Kolstrup, Nils; Bellika, Johan G

2015-09-01

The reuse of data captured during health care delivery is essential to satisfy the demands of clinical research and clinical decision support systems. A main barrier for the reuse is the existence of legacy formats of data and the high granularity of it when stored in an electronic health record (EHR) system. Thus, we need mechanisms to standardize, aggregate, and query data concealed in the EHRs, to allow their reuse whenever they are needed. To create a data warehouse infrastructure using archetype-based technologies, standards and query languages to enable the interoperability needed for data reuse. The work presented makes use of best of breed archetype-based data transformation and storage technologies to create a workflow for the modeling, extraction, transformation and load of EHR proprietary data into standardized data repositories. We converted legacy data and performed patient-centered aggregations via archetype-based transformations. Later, specific purpose aggregations were performed at a query level for particular use cases. Laboratory test results of a population of 230,000 patients belonging to Troms and Finnmark counties in Norway requested between January 2013 and November 2014 have been standardized. Test records normalization has been performed by defining transformation and aggregation functions between the laboratory records and an archetype. These mappings were used to automatically generate open EHR compliant data. These data were loaded into an archetype-based data warehouse. Once loaded, we defined indicators linked to the data in the warehouse to monitor test activity of Salmonella and Pertussis using the archetype query language. Archetype-based standards and technologies can be used to create a data warehouse environment that enables data from EHR systems to be reused in clinical research and decision support systems. With this approach, existing EHR data becomes available in a standardized and interoperable format, thus opening a world of possibilities toward semantic or concept-based reuse, query and communication of clinical data. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development of an Integrated Wastewater Treatment System/water reuse/agriculture model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fox, C. H.; Schuler, A.

2017-12-01

Factors like increasing population, urbanization, and climate change have made the management of water resources a challenge for municipalities. By understanding wastewater recycling for agriculture in arid regions, we can expand the supply of water to agriculture and reduce energy use at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). This can improve management decisions between WWTPs and water managers. The objective of this research is to develop a prototype integrated model of the wastewater treatment system and nearby agricultural areas linked by water and nutrients, using the Albuquerque Southeast Eastern Reclamation Facility (SWRF) and downstream agricultural system as a case study. Little work has been done to understand how such treatment technology decisions affect the potential for water ruse, nutrient recovery in agriculture, overall energy consumption and agriculture production and water quality. A holistic approach to understanding synergies and tradeoffs between treatment, reuse, and agriculture is needed. For example, critical wastewater treatment process decisions include options to nitrify (oxidize ammonia), which requires large amounts of energy, to operate at low dissolved oxygen concentrations, which requires much less energy, whether to recover nitrogen and phosphorus, chemically in biosolids, or in reuse water for agriculture, whether to generate energy from anaerobic digestion, and whether to develop infrastructure for agricultural reuse. The research first includes quantifying existing and feasible agricultural sites suitable for irrigation by reuse wastewater as well as existing infrastructure such as irrigation canals and piping by using GIS databases. Second, a nutrient and water requirement for common New Mexico crop is being determined. Third, a wastewater treatment model will be utilized to quantify energy usage and nutrient removal under various scenarios. Different agricultural reuse sensors and treatment technologies will be explored. The research will provide scientific knowledge to support the transformation of traditionally `linear' into `recycling' societies capable of making productive gains in water use and reuse while minimizing environmental pollution.

ICESat Science Investigator led Processing System (I-SIPS)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhardwaj, S.; Bay, J.; Brenner, A.; Dimarzio, J.; Hancock, D.; Sherman, M.

2003-12-01

The ICESat Science Investigator-led Processing System (I-SIPS) generates the GLAS standard data products. It consists of two main parts the Scheduling and Data Management System (SDMS) and the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) Science Algorithm Software. The system has been operational since the successful launch of ICESat. It ingests data from the GLAS instrument, generates GLAS data products, and distributes them to the GLAS Science Computing Facility (SCF), the Instrument Support Facility (ISF) and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) ECS DAAC. The SDMS is the Planning, Scheduling and Data Management System that runs the GLAS Science Algorithm Software (GSAS). GSAS is based on the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents provided by the Science Team and is developed independently of SDMS. The SDMS provides the processing environment to plan jobs based on existing data, control job flow, data distribution, and archiving. The SDMS design is based on a mission-independent architecture that imposes few constraints on the science code thereby facilitating I-SIPS integration. I-SIPS currently works in an autonomous manner to ingest GLAS instrument data, distribute this data to the ISF, run the science processing algorithms to produce the GLAS standard products, reprocess data when new versions of science algorithms are released, and distributes the products to the SCF, ISF, and NSIDC. I-SIPS has a proven performance record, delivering the data to the SCF within hours after the initial instrument activation. The I-SIPS design philosophy gives this system a high potential for reuse in other science missions.

Final Scientific Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hayes, Adam; Mayton, Mark; Rolland, Jannick

2016-03-29

Project 1: We have created a 3D optical research and design software platform for simulation and optimization, geared toward asymmetric, folded optical systems and new, enabling freeform surfaces. The software, Eikonal+, targets both institutional researchers and leading optical surface fabricators. With a modular design and the source code available to the development team at the University of Rochester, custom modules can be created for specific research interests and is accelerating the work on freeform optics currently being carried out at the Institute of Optics. With a research-based optical design environment, the fabrication, assembly, and testing industries can anticipate, innovate, andmore » retool for the future of optical systems. Targeted proposals for science and innovation in freeform optics spanning design to fabrication, assembly, and testing can proceed with a level of technical transparency that has been unachievable in this field since the 1960’s, when optics design code was commercialized and became unavailable to the research community for competitive reasons. Project 2: The University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) with personnel from Flint Creek Resources (FCR) collaborated to develop technologies for the reclamation and reuse of cerium oxide based slurries intended for the polishing of optical components. The pilot process was evaluated and modifications were made to improve the collection of spent glass polish, to improve the efficiency and capacity of the recycling equipment, and to expand the customer base. A portable, self-contained system was developed and fabricated to recycle glass polishing compounds where the spent materials are produced.« less

SPANG: a SPARQL client supporting generation and reuse of queries for distributed RDF databases.

PubMed

Chiba, Hirokazu; Uchiyama, Ikuo

2017-02-08

Toward improved interoperability of distributed biological databases, an increasing number of datasets have been published in the standardized Resource Description Framework (RDF). Although the powerful SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) provides a basis for exploiting RDF databases, writing SPARQL code is burdensome for users including bioinformaticians. Thus, an easy-to-use interface is necessary. We developed SPANG, a SPARQL client that has unique features for querying RDF datasets. SPANG dynamically generates typical SPARQL queries according to specified arguments. It can also call SPARQL template libraries constructed in a local system or published on the Web. Further, it enables combinatorial execution of multiple queries, each with a distinct target database. These features facilitate easy and effective access to RDF datasets and integrative analysis of distributed data. SPANG helps users to exploit RDF datasets by generation and reuse of SPARQL queries through a simple interface. This client will enhance integrative exploitation of biological RDF datasets distributed across the Web. This software package is freely available at http://purl.org/net/spang .

FDIR: To Increase the Reuse of the Design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alison, Bernard; Parent, Loic; Provost-Grellier, Antoine; De-Ferluc, Regis

2012-08-01

The Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery (FDIR) is a key function for the safety and the availability of a spacecraft in orbit. This function involves the totality of the avionics and the recovery efficiency directly depends on the software embedded on the On Board Computer and the Reconfiguration Module (hardware only) which is the ultimate barrier to avoid the loss of the spacecraft in case of serious failure.The design of the FDIR becomes more and more complex to fit the always more stringent requirements: to preserve the mission as long as possible to maximise the availability or to perform critical phases.In parallel with the increase of the complexity of the avionics, the failure cases and the feared events become more and more numerous. This trend leads to increase the cost and the delay of the FDIR validation.Thales Alenia Space, as satellite Prime, is aware of the problematic of the FDIR and has searched for several years solutions to formalize the design of the FDIR which is a way to enhance the reuse of the design from one mission to an other and to facilitate the validation phase.

Distributed memory compiler methods for irregular problems: Data copy reuse and runtime partitioning

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Das, Raja; Ponnusamy, Ravi; Saltz, Joel; Mavriplis, Dimitri

1991-01-01

Outlined here are two methods which we believe will play an important role in any distributed memory compiler able to handle sparse and unstructured problems. We describe how to link runtime partitioners to distributed memory compilers. In our scheme, programmers can implicitly specify how data and loop iterations are to be distributed between processors. This insulates users from having to deal explicitly with potentially complex algorithms that carry out work and data partitioning. We also describe a viable mechanism for tracking and reusing copies of off-processor data. In many programs, several loops access the same off-processor memory locations. As long as it can be verified that the values assigned to off-processor memory locations remain unmodified, we show that we can effectively reuse stored off-processor data. We present experimental data from a 3-D unstructured Euler solver run on iPSC/860 to demonstrate the usefulness of our methods.

Effect of IN718 Recycled Powder Reuse on Properties of Parts Manufactured by Means of Selective Laser Melting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ardila, L. C.; Garciandia, F.; González-Díaz, J. B.; Álvarez, P.; Echeverria, A.; Petite, M. M.; Deffley, R.; Ochoa, J.

Powder quality control is essential to obtain parts with suitable mechanical properties in Selective Laser Melting manufacturing technique. One of the most important advantages of suchtechnique is that it allows an efficient use of the material, due to the possibility to recycle and reuse un-melted powder. Nevertheless, powder material properties may change due to repeated recycling, affecting this way the mechanicalbehavior of parts. In this paper the effect of powder reuse on its quality and on the mechanical properties of the resulting melted parts is studied via self-developed recycling methodology. The material considered for investigation was IN718, a nickel superalloy widely used in industry. After recycling powder up to 14 times, no significant changes were observed in powder and test parts properties. The results obtained in this work will help to validate powder recycling methodology for its use in current industrial Selective Laser Melting manufacturing.

Ground Data System Risk Mitigation Techniques for Faster, Better, Cheaper Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Catena, John J.; Saylor, Rick; Casasanta, Ralph; Weikel, Craig; Powers, Edward I. (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

With the advent of faster, cheaper, and better missions, NASA Projects acknowledged that a higher level of risk was inherent and accepted with this approach. It was incumbent however upon each component of the Project whether spacecraft, payload, launch vehicle, or ground data system to ensure that the mission would nevertheless be an unqualified success. The Small Explorer (SMEX) program's ground data system (GDS) team developed risk mitigation techniques to achieve these goals starting in 1989. These techniques have evolved through the SMEX series of missions and are practiced today under the Triana program. These techniques are: (1) Mission Team Organization--empowerment of a closeknit ground data system team comprising system engineering, software engineering, testing, and flight operations personnel; (2) Common Spacecraft Test and Operational Control System--utilization of the pre-launch spacecraft integration system as the post-launch ground data system on-orbit command and control system; (3) Utilization of operations personnel in pre-launch testing--making the flight operations team an integrated member of the spacecraft testing activities at the beginning of the spacecraft fabrication phase; (4) Consolidated Test Team--combined system, mission readiness and operations testing to optimize test opportunities with the ground system and spacecraft; and (5). Reuse of Spacecraft, Systems and People--reuse of people, software and on-orbit spacecraft throughout the SMEX mission series. The SMEX ground system development approach for faster, cheaper, better missions has been very successful. This paper will discuss these risk management techniques in the areas of ground data system design, implementation, test, and operational readiness.

121. FRONT ELEVATION OF TELLURIDE IRON WORKS 2.5 BY 4FOOT ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

121. FRONT ELEVATION OF TELLURIDE IRON WORKS 2.5 BY 4-FOOT RETORT, USED TO FLASH MERCURY FROM GOLD. MERCURY VAPOR THEN CONDENSED ON INSIDE OF HOOD AND WAS COLLECTED FOR REUSE. - Shenandoah-Dives Mill, 135 County Road 2, Silverton, San Juan County, CO

Image manipulation: Fraudulence in digital dental records: Study and review

PubMed Central

Chowdhry, Aman; Sircar, Keya; Popli, Deepika Bablani; Tandon, Ankita

2014-01-01

Introduction: In present-day times, freely available software allows dentists to tweak their digital records as never before. But, there is a fine line between acceptable enhancements and scientific delinquency. Aims and Objective: To manipulate digital images (used in forensic dentistry) of casts, lip prints, and bite marks in order to highlight tampering techniques and methods of detecting and preventing manipulation of digital images. Materials and Methods: Digital image records of forensic data (casts, lip prints, and bite marks photographed using Samsung Techwin L77 digital camera) were manipulated using freely available software. Results: Fake digital images can be created either by merging two or more digital images, or by altering an existing image. Discussion and Conclusion: Retouched digital images can be used for fraudulent purposes in forensic investigations. However, tools are available to detect such digital frauds, which are extremely difficult to assess visually. Thus, all digital content should mandatorily have attached metadata and preferably watermarking in order to avert their malicious re-use. Also, computer alertness, especially about imaging software's, should be promoted among forensic odontologists/dental professionals. PMID:24696587

The Role of Free/Libre and Open Source Software in Learning Health Systems.

PubMed

Paton, C; Karopka, T

2017-08-01

Objective: To give an overview of the role of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in the context of secondary use of patient data to enable Learning Health Systems (LHSs). Methods: We conducted an environmental scan of the academic and grey literature utilising the MedFLOSS database of open source systems in healthcare to inform a discussion of the role of open source in developing LHSs that reuse patient data for research and quality improvement. Results: A wide range of FLOSS is identified that contributes to the information technology (IT) infrastructure of LHSs including operating systems, databases, frameworks, interoperability software, and mobile and web apps. The recent literature around the development and use of key clinical data management tools is also reviewed. Conclusions: FLOSS already plays a critical role in modern health IT infrastructure for the collection, storage, and analysis of patient data. The nature of FLOSS systems to be collaborative, modular, and modifiable may make open source approaches appropriate for building the digital infrastructure for a LHS. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart.

Solvent extraction of organic acids from stillage for its re-use in ethanol production process.

PubMed

Castro, G A; Caicedo, L A; Alméciga-Díaz, C J; Sanchez, O F

2010-06-01

Stillage re-use in the fermentation stage in ethanol production is a technique used for the reduction of water and fermentation nutrients consumption. However, the inhibitory effect on yeast growth of the by-products and feed components that remains in stillage increases with re-use and reduces the number of possible recycles. Several methods such as ultrafiltration, electrodialysis and advanced oxidation processes have been used in stillage treatment prior its re-use in the fermentation stage. Nevertheless, few studies evaluating the effect of solvent extraction as a stillage treatment option have been performed. In this work, the inhibitory effect of serial stillage recycling over ethanol and biomass production was determined, using acetic acid as a monitoring compound during the fermentation and solvent extraction process. Raw palm oil methyl ester showed the highest acetic acid extraction from the aqueous phase, presenting a distribution coefficient of 3.10 for a 1:1 aqueous phase mixture:solvent ratio. Re-using stillage without treatment allowed up to three recycles with an ethanol production of 53.7 +/- 2.0 g L(-1), which was reduced 25% in the fifth recycle. Alternatively, treated stillage allowed up to five recycles with an ethanol final concentration of 54.7 +/- 1.3 g L(- 1). These results show that reduction of acetic acid concentration by an extraction process with raw palm oil methyl ester before re-using stillage improves the number of recycles without a major effect on ethanol production. The proposed process generates a palm oil methyl ester that contains organic acids, among other by-products, that could be used for product recovery and as an alternative fuel.

Risk assessment and loading capacity of reclaimed wastewater to be reused for agricultural irrigation.

PubMed

Chiou, Ren-Jie

2008-07-01

The reuse of treated municipal wastewater should be one of the new water resource target areas. The suitability of the reuse of wastewater for agricultural irrigation has to consider health risk, soil contamination and the influence of the reclaimed water on crop growth. In this work the aim is to use quantitative risk analysis to assess the health effects related to reclaimed water quality and to calculate the loading capacity of reclaimed wastewater in terms of the heavy metal accumulation. The results of chemical risk assessment show there would be slightly significant health risk and what risk there is can be limited within an acceptable level. The following exposure pathway: reclaimed water-->surface water-->fish (shellfish)-->human, and arsenic risks are of more concern. In terms of reuse impact in soil contamination, the most possible heavy metal caused accumulation is arsenic. The irrigative quantity has to reach 13,300 m(3)/ha to cause arsenic accumulation. However, only 12,000 m(3)/ha is essential for rice paddy cropland. The high total nitrogen of reclaimed water from secondary treatment makes it unfavorable for crop growth. The recommended dilution ratio is 50% during the growth period and 25% during the maturity period.

Reuse of waste iron as a partial replacement of sand in concrete.

PubMed

Ismail, Zainab Z; Al-Hashmi, Enas A

2008-11-01

One of the major environmental issues in Iraq is the large quantity of waste iron resulting from the industrial sector which is deposited in domestic waste and in landfills. A series of 109 experiments and 586 tests were carried out in this study to examine the feasibility of reusing this waste iron in concrete. Overall, 130 kg of waste iron were reused to partially replace sand at 10%, 15%, and 20% in a total of 1703 kg concrete mixtures. The tests performed to evaluate waste-iron concrete quality included slump, fresh density, dry density, compressive strength, and flexural strength tests: 115 cubes of concrete were molded for the compressive strength and dry density tests, and 87 prisms were cast for the flexural strength tests. This work applied 3, 7, 14, and 28 days curing ages for the concrete mixes. The results confirm that reuse of solid waste material offers an approach to solving the pollution problems that arise from an accumulation of waste in a production site; in the meantime modified properties are added to the concrete. The results show that the concrete mixes made with waste iron had higher compressive strengths and flexural strengths than the plain concrete mixes.

A 540-[Formula: see text] Duty Controlled RSSI With Current Reusing Technique for Human Body Communication.

PubMed

Jang, Jaeeun; Lee, Yongsu; Cho, Hyunwoo; Yoo, Hoi-Jun

2016-08-01

An ultra-low-power duty controlled received signal strength indicator (RSSI) is implemented for human body communication (HBC) in 180 nm CMOS technology under 1.5 V supply. The proposed RSSI adopted 3 following key features for low-power consumption; 1) current reusing technique (CR-RSSI) with replica bias circuit and calibration unit, 2) duty controller, and 3) reconfigurable gm-boosting LNA. The CR-RSSI utilizes stacked amplifier-rectifier-cell (AR-cell) to reuse the supply current of each blocks. As a result, the power consumption becomes 540 [Formula: see text] with +/-2 dB accuracy and 75 dB dynamic range. The replica bias circuit and calibration unit are adopted to increase the reliability of CR-RSSI. In addition, the duty controller turns off the RSSI when it is not required, and this function leads 70% power reduction. At last, the gm-boosting reconfigurable LNA can adaptively vary its noise and linearity performance with respect to input signal strength. Fro current reusing technique m this feature, we achieve 62% power reduction in the LNA. Thanks to these schemes, compared to the previous works, we can save 70% of power in RSSI and LNA.

Detection and avoidance of errors in computer software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kinsler, Les

1989-01-01

The acceptance test errors of a computer software project to determine if the errors could be detected or avoided in earlier phases of development. GROAGSS (Gamma Ray Observatory Attitude Ground Support System) was selected as the software project to be examined. The development of the software followed the standard Flight Dynamics Software Development methods. GROAGSS was developed between August 1985 and April 1989. The project is approximately 250,000 lines of code of which approximately 43,000 lines are reused from previous projects. GROAGSS had a total of 1715 Change Report Forms (CRFs) submitted during the entire development and testing. These changes contained 936 errors. Of these 936 errors, 374 were found during the acceptance testing. These acceptance test errors were first categorized into methods of avoidance including: more clearly written requirements; detail review; code reading; structural unit testing; and functional system integration testing. The errors were later broken down in terms of effort to detect and correct, class of error, and probability that the prescribed detection method would be successful. These determinations were based on Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) documents and interviews with the project programmers. A summary of the results of the categorizations is presented. The number of programming errors at the beginning of acceptance testing can be significantly reduced. The results of the existing development methodology are examined for ways of improvements. A basis is provided for the definition is a new development/testing paradigm. Monitoring of the new scheme will objectively determine its effectiveness on avoiding and detecting errors.

SureTrak Probability of Impact Display

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Elliott, John

2012-01-01

The SureTrak Probability of Impact Display software was developed for use during rocket launch operations. The software displays probability of impact information for each ship near the hazardous area during the time immediately preceding the launch of an unguided vehicle. Wallops range safety officers need to be sure that the risk to humans is below a certain threshold during each use of the Wallops Flight Facility Launch Range. Under the variable conditions that can exist at launch time, the decision to launch must be made in a timely manner to ensure a successful mission while not exceeding those risk criteria. Range safety officers need a tool that can give them the needed probability of impact information quickly, and in a format that is clearly understandable. This application is meant to fill that need. The software is a reuse of part of software developed for an earlier project: Ship Surveillance Software System (S4). The S4 project was written in C++ using Microsoft Visual Studio 6. The data structures and dialog templates from it were copied into a new application that calls the implementation of the algorithms from S4 and displays the results as needed. In the S4 software, the list of ships in the area was received from one local radar interface and from operators who entered the ship information manually. The SureTrak Probability of Impact Display application receives ship data from two local radars as well as the SureTrak system, eliminating the need for manual data entry.

Implementation of a Space Communications Cognitive Engine

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hackett, Timothy M.; Bilen, Sven G.; Ferreira, Paulo Victor R.; Wyglinski, Alexander M.; Reinhart, Richard C.

2017-01-01

Although communications-based cognitive engines have been proposed, very few have been implemented in a full system, especially in a space communications system. In this paper, we detail the implementation of a multi-objective reinforcement-learning algorithm and deep artificial neural networks for the use as a radio-resource-allocation controller. The modular software architecture presented encourages re-use and easy modification for trying different algorithms. Various trade studies involved with the system implementation and integration are discussed. These include the choice of software libraries that provide platform flexibility and promote reusability, choices regarding the deployment of this cognitive engine within a system architecture using the DVB-S2 standard and commercial hardware, and constraints placed on the cognitive engine caused by real-world radio constraints. The implemented radio-resource allocation-management controller was then integrated with the larger spaceground system developed by NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC).

An Exact Formula for Calculating Inverse Radial Lens Distortions

PubMed Central

Drap, Pierre; Lefèvre, Julien

2016-01-01

This article presents a new approach to calculating the inverse of radial distortions. The method presented here provides a model of reverse radial distortion, currently modeled by a polynomial expression, that proposes another polynomial expression where the new coefficients are a function of the original ones. After describing the state of the art, the proposed method is developed. It is based on a formal calculus involving a power series used to deduce a recursive formula for the new coefficients. We present several implementations of this method and describe the experiments conducted to assess the validity of the new approach. Such an approach, non-iterative, using another polynomial expression, able to be deduced from the first one, can actually be interesting in terms of performance, reuse of existing software, or bridging between different existing software tools that do not consider distortion from the same point of view. PMID:27258288

caBIG compatibility review system: software to support the evaluation of applications using defined interoperability criteria.

PubMed

Freimuth, Robert R; Schauer, Michael W; Lodha, Preeti; Govindrao, Poornima; Nagarajan, Rakesh; Chute, Christopher G

2008-11-06

The caBIG Compatibility Review System (CRS) is a web-based application to support compatibility reviews, which certify that software applications that pass the review meet a specific set of criteria that allow them to interoperate. The CRS contains workflows that support both semantic and syntactic reviews, which are performed by the caBIG Vocabularies and Common Data Elements (VCDE) and Architecture workspaces, respectively. The CRS increases the efficiency of compatibility reviews by reducing administrative overhead and it improves uniformity by ensuring that each review is conducted according to a standard process. The CRS provides metrics that allow the review team to evaluate the level of data element reuse in an application, a first step towards quantifying the extent of harmonization between applications. Finally, functionality is being added that will provide automated validation of checklist criteria, which will further simplify the review process.

Diamond Eye: a distributed architecture for image data mining

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burl, Michael C.; Fowlkes, Charless; Roden, Joe; Stechert, Andre; Mukhtar, Saleem

1999-02-01

Diamond Eye is a distributed software architecture, which enables users (scientists) to analyze large image collections by interacting with one or more custom data mining servers via a Java applet interface. Each server is coupled with an object-oriented database and a computational engine, such as a network of high-performance workstations. The database provides persistent storage and supports querying of the 'mined' information. The computational engine provides parallel execution of expensive image processing, object recognition, and query-by-content operations. Key benefits of the Diamond Eye architecture are: (1) the design promotes trial evaluation of advanced data mining and machine learning techniques by potential new users (all that is required is to point a web browser to the appropriate URL), (2) software infrastructure that is common across a range of science mining applications is factored out and reused, and (3) the system facilitates closer collaborations between algorithm developers and domain experts.

Pharmaceutical grey water footprint: Accounting, influence of wastewater treatment plants and implications of the reuse.

PubMed

Martínez-Alcalá, Isabel; Pellicer-Martínez, Francisco; Fernández-López, Carmen

2018-05-15

Emerging pollutants, including pharmaceutical compounds, are producing water pollution problems around the world. Some pharmaceutical pollutants, which mainly reach ecosystems within wastewater discharges, are persistent in the water cycle and can also reach the food chain. This work addresses this issue, accounting the grey component of the water footprint (GWF P ) for four of the most common pharmaceutical compounds (carbamazepine (CBZ), diclofenac (DCF), ketoprofen (KTP) and naproxen (NPX)). In addition, the GWF C for the main conventional pollutants is also accounted (nitrate, phosphates and organic matter). The case study is the Murcia Region of southeastern Spain, where wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) purify 99.1% of the wastewater discharges and there is an important direct reuse of the treated wastewater in irrigation. Thus, the influence of WWTPs and reuse on the GWF is analysed. The results reveal that GWF P , only taking into account pharmaceutical pollutants, has a value of 301 m 3 inhabitant -1 year -1 ; considering only conventional pollutants (GWF C ), this value increases to 4718 m 3 inhabitant -1 year -1 . So, the difference between these values is such that in other areas with consumption habits similar to those of the Murcia Region, and without wastewater purification, conventional pollutants may well establish the value of the GWF. On average, the WWTPs reduce the GWF C by 90% and the GWF P by 26%. These different reductions of the pollutant concentrations in the treated effluents show that the GWF is not only due to conventional pollutants, and other contaminants can became critical, such as the pharmaceutical pollutants. The reuse further reduces the value of the GWF for the Murcia Region, by around 43.6%. However, the reuse of treated wastewater is controversial, considering the pharmaceutical contaminants and their possible consequences in the food chain. In these cases, the GWF of pharmaceutical pollutants can be used to provide a first approximation of the dilution that should be applied to the treated wastewater discharges when they are reused for another economic activity that imposes quality restrictions. For the case of agriculture in the Murcia Region, the dilution required is 2 (fresh water) to 1 (treated wastewater), taking into account the pollution thresholds established in this work. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Open access and preservation of data on the coupled geosphere-biosphere system: the case of the H2020 Project ECOPOTENTIAL

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Provenzale, Antonello; Nativi, Stefano

2016-04-01

The H2020 ECOPOTENTIAL Project addresses the entire chain of ecosystem-related services, by focusing on the interaction between the biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems (geosphere-biosphere interactions), developing ecosystem data services with special emphasis on Copernicus services, implementing model output services to distribute the results of the modelling activities, and estimating current and future ecosystem services and benefits combining ecosystem functions (supply) with beneficiaries needs (demand). In ECOPOTENTIAL all data, model results and acquired knowledge will be made available on common and open platforms, coherent with the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) data sharing principles and fully interoperable with the GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI). ECOPOTENTIAL will be conducted in the context of the implementation of the Copernicus EO Component and in synergy with the ESA Climate Change Initiative. The project activities will contribute to Copernicus and non-Copernicus contexts for ecosystems, and will create an Ecosystem Data Service for Copernicus (ECOPERNICUS), a new open-access, smart and user-friendly geospatial data/products retrieval portal and web coverage service using a dedicated online server. ECOPOTENTIAL will make data, scientific results, models and information accessible and available through a cloud-based open platform implementing virtual laboratories. The platform will be a major contribution to the GEOSS Common Infrastructure, reinforcing the GEOSS Data-CORE. By the end of the project, new prototype products and ecosystem services, based on improved access (notably via GEOSS) and long-term storage of ecosystem EO data and information in existing PAs, will be realized. In this contribution, we discuss the approach followed in the project for Open Data access and use. ECOPOTENTIAL introduced a set of architecture and interoperability principles to facilitate data (and the associated software) discovery, access, (re-)use, and preservation. According to these principles, ECOPOTENTIAL worked out a Data Management Plan that describes how the different data types (generated and/or collected by the project) are going to be managed in the project; in particular: (1) What standards will be used for these data discoverability, accessibility and (re-)use; (2) How these data will be exploited and/or shared/made accessible for verification and reuse; if data cannot be made available, the reasons will be fully explained; and (3) How these data will be curated and preserved, even after the project duration.

Management of Knowledge Representation Standards Activities

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Patil, Ramesh S. (Principal Investigator)

1993-01-01

This report describes the efforts undertaken over the last two years to identify the issues underlying the current difficulties in sharing and reuse, and a community wide initiative to overcome them. First, we discuss four bottlenecks to sharing and reuse, present a vision of a future in which these bottlenecks have been ameliorated, and describe the efforts of the initiative's four working groups to address these bottlenecks. We then address the supporting technology and infrastructure that is critical to enabling the vision of the future. Finally, we consider topics of longer-range interest by reviewing some of the research issues raised by our vision.

A web ontology for brain trauma patient computer-assisted rehabilitation.

PubMed

Zikos, Dimitrios; Galatas, George; Metsis, Vangelis; Makedon, Fillia

2013-01-01

In this paper we describe CABROnto, which is a web ontology for the semantic representation of the computer assisted brain trauma rehabilitation. This is a novel and emerging domain, since it employs the use of robotic devices, adaptation software and machine learning to facilitate interactive and adaptive rehabilitation care. We used Protégé 4.2 and Protégé-Owl schema editor. The primary goal of this ontology is to enable the reuse of the domain knowledge. CABROnto has nine main classes, more than 50 subclasses, existential and cardinality restrictions. The ontology can be found online at Bioportal.

GreenIT Service Level Agreements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

von Laszewski, Gregor; Wang, Lizhe

In this paper we are introducing a framework towards the inclusion of Green IT metrics as part of service level agreements for future Grids and Clouds. As part of this effort we need to revisit Green IT metrics and proxies that we consider optimizing against in order to develop GreenIT as a Services (GaaS) that can be reused as part of a Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure Infrastructureas a service (IaaS) framework. We report on some of our ongoing efforts and demonstrate how we already achieve impact on the environment with our services.

An object-oriented framework for medical image registration, fusion, and visualization.

PubMed

Zhu, Yang-Ming; Cochoff, Steven M

2006-06-01

An object-oriented framework for image registration, fusion, and visualization was developed based on the classic model-view-controller paradigm. The framework employs many design patterns to facilitate legacy code reuse, manage software complexity, and enhance the maintainability and portability of the framework. Three sample applications built a-top of this framework are illustrated to show the effectiveness of this framework: the first one is for volume image grouping and re-sampling, the second one is for 2D registration and fusion, and the last one is for visualization of single images as well as registered volume images.

[A computer method for the evaluation of Paramecium motor activity using video records of their movement].

PubMed

Bingi, V N; Zarutskiĭ, A A; Kapranov, S V; Kovalev, Iu M; Miliaev, V A; Tereshchenko, N A

2004-01-01

A method for the evaluation of Paramecium caudatum motility was proposed as a tool for the investigation of magnetobiological as well as other physical and chemical effects. The microscopically observed movement of paramecia is recorded and processed using a special software program. The protozoan motility is determined as a function of their mean velocity in a definite time. The main advantages of the method are that it is easily modified for determining various characteristics of the motor activity of paramecia and that the video data obtained can be reused.

Food Labels Tell the Story!

MedlinePlus

... Environment & Health Healthy Living Pollution Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Science – How It Works The Natural World Games Brainteasers Puzzles Riddles Songs Activities Be a Scientist Coloring Science Experiments Stories Lessons Topics Expand Environment & Health Healthy ...

Leveraging Existing Mission Tools in a Re-Usable, Component-Based Software Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Greene, Kevin; Grenander, Sven; Kurien, James; z,s (fshir. z[orttr); z,scer; O'Reilly, Taifun

2006-01-01

Emerging methods in component-based software development offer significant advantages but may seem incompatible with existing mission operations applications. In this paper we relate our positive experiences integrating existing mission applications into component-based tools we are delivering to three missions. In most operations environments, a number of software applications have been integrated together to form the mission operations software. In contrast, with component-based software development chunks of related functionality and data structures, referred to as components, can be individually delivered, integrated and re-used. With the advent of powerful tools for managing component-based development, complex software systems can potentially see significant benefits in ease of integration, testability and reusability from these techniques. These benefits motivate us to ask how component-based development techniques can be relevant in a mission operations environment, where there is significant investment in software tools that are not component-based and may not be written in languages for which component-based tools even exist. Trusted and complex software tools for sequencing, validation, navigation, and other vital functions cannot simply be re-written or abandoned in order to gain the advantages offered by emerging component-based software techniques. Thus some middle ground must be found. We have faced exactly this issue, and have found several solutions. Ensemble is an open platform for development, integration, and deployment of mission operations software that we are developing. Ensemble itself is an extension of an open source, component-based software development platform called Eclipse. Due to the advantages of component-based development, we have been able to vary rapidly develop mission operations tools for three surface missions by mixing and matching from a common set of mission operation components. We have also had to determine how to integrate existing mission applications for sequence development, sequence validation, and high level activity planning, and other functions into a component-based environment. For each of these, we used a somewhat different technique based upon the structure and usage of the existing application.

An empirical analysis of ontology reuse in BioPortal.

PubMed

Ochs, Christopher; Perl, Yehoshua; Geller, James; Arabandi, Sivaram; Tudorache, Tania; Musen, Mark A

2017-07-01

Biomedical ontologies often reuse content (i.e., classes and properties) from other ontologies. Content reuse enables a consistent representation of a domain and reusing content can save an ontology author significant time and effort. Prior studies have investigated the existence of reused terms among the ontologies in the NCBO BioPortal, but as of yet there has not been a study investigating how the ontologies in BioPortal utilize reused content in the modeling of their own content. In this study we investigate how 355 ontologies hosted in the NCBO BioPortal reuse content from other ontologies for the purposes of creating new ontology content. We identified 197 ontologies that reuse content. Among these ontologies, 108 utilize reused classes in the modeling of their own classes and 116 utilize reused properties in class restrictions. Current utilization of reuse and quality issues related to reuse are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

COLLOIDAL FOULING OF MEMBRANES: IMPLICATIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF TEXTILE DYE WASTES AND WATER REUSE

EPA Science Inventory

Three manuscripts are in preparation for submission to refereed journals based on the MS Thesis of the student supported by this work. This student will continue work towards the Ph.D. on a related topic with other sources of funding upon completion of this project...

Water Conservation and Reuse. Instructor Guide. Working for Clean Water: An Information Program for Advisory Committees.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pennsylvania State Univ., Middletown. Inst. of State and Regional Affairs.

Described is a learning session on water conservation intended for citizen advisory groups interested in water quality planning. Topics addressed in this instructor's manual include water conservation needs, benefits, programs, technology, and problems. These materials are components of the Working for Clean Water Project. (Author/WB)

Joseph Tofte Bruns: Wrestling with Big Ideas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cosier, Kimberly

2010-01-01

Joe Bruns is currently a student in the Post-Baccalaureate Teacher Certification Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The series of work featured in this interview centers on the idea of relationships. Joe explores collective and implicated relationship to the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres through the reuse of paper taken from…

Deep Eutectic Solvents as Efficient Media for the Extraction and Recovery of Cynaropicrin from Cynara cardunculus L. Leaves.

PubMed

de Faria, Emanuelle L P; do Carmo, Rafael S; Cláudio, Ana Filipa M; Freire, Carmen S R; Freire, Mara G; Silvestre, Armando J D

2017-10-30

In recent years a high demand for natural ingredients with nutraceutical properties has been witnessed, for which the development of more environmentally-friendly and cost-efficient extraction solvents and methods play a primary role. In this perspective, in this work, the application of deep eutectic solvents (DES), composed of quaternary ammonium salts and organic acids, as alternative solvents for the extraction of cynaropicrin from Cynara cardunculus L. leaves was studied. After selecting the most promising DES, their aqueous solutions were investigated, allowing to obtain a maximum cynaropicrin extraction yield of 6.20 wt %, using 70 wt % of water. The sustainability of the extraction process was further optimized by carrying out several extraction cycles, reusing either the biomass or the aqueous solutions of DES. A maximum cynaropicrin extraction yield of 7.76 wt % by reusing the solvent, and of 8.96 wt % by reusing the biomass, have been obtained. Taking advantage of the cynaropicrin solubility limit in aqueous solutions, water was added as an anti-solvent, allowing to recover 73.6 wt % of the extracted cynaropicrin. This work demonstrates the potential of aqueous solutions of DES for the extraction of value-added compounds from biomass and the possible recovery of both the target compounds and solvents.

Paper un-printing: using lasers to remove toner-print in order to reuse office paper

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leal-Ayala, D. R.; Allwood, J. M.; Counsell, T. A. M.

2011-12-01

In this article, lasers in the ultraviolet, visible and infrared light spectra working with pulse widths in the nanosecond range are applied to a range of toner-paper combinations to determine their ability to remove toner. If the laser energy fluence can be chosen to stay below the ablation threshold of paper at the same time that it surpasses that of toner, paper could be cleaned and re-used instead of being recycled or disposed into a landfill. This could significantly reduce the environmental impact of paper production and use. Although there are a variety of paper conservation studies which have investigated the effects of laser radiation on blank and soiled paper, none has previously explored toner-print removal from paper by laser ablation. Colour analysis under the L ∗ a ∗ b ∗ colour space and SEM examination of the outcome indicate that it is possible to remove toner from paper without damaging and discolouring the substrate. Best results are obtained when employing visible radiation at a wavelength of 532 nm working with a pulse width of 4 ns and energy fluences under 1.6 J/cm2. This means that it is technically feasible to remove toner-print for paper re-use.

Determinate Composition of FMUs for Co-Simulation

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-08-18

reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or... advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component...the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL #N0013-12-1-G015), and the following compa- nies: Bosch, National Instruments, and Toyota ). This work was also

Renewable Energy Reuse and Protectiveness

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

EPA works collaboratively with states, tribes, local government, and other stakeholders to achieve its mission of assessing, cleaning up and restoring contaminated sites to set the stage for redevelopment or facilitate the continued use of the facility.

Reconstruction of Ancestral Genomes in Presence of Gene Gain and Loss.

PubMed

Avdeyev, Pavel; Jiang, Shuai; Aganezov, Sergey; Hu, Fei; Alekseyev, Max A

2016-03-01

Since most dramatic genomic changes are caused by genome rearrangements as well as gene duplications and gain/loss events, it becomes crucial to understand their mechanisms and reconstruct ancestral genomes of the given genomes. This problem was shown to be NP-complete even in the "simplest" case of three genomes, thus calling for heuristic rather than exact algorithmic solutions. At the same time, a larger number of input genomes may actually simplify the problem in practice as it was earlier illustrated with MGRA, a state-of-the-art software tool for reconstruction of ancestral genomes of multiple genomes. One of the key obstacles for MGRA and other similar tools is presence of breakpoint reuses when the same breakpoint region is broken by several different genome rearrangements in the course of evolution. Furthermore, such tools are often limited to genomes composed of the same genes with each gene present in a single copy in every genome. This limitation makes these tools inapplicable for many biological datasets and degrades the resolution of ancestral reconstructions in diverse datasets. We address these deficiencies by extending the MGRA algorithm to genomes with unequal gene contents. The developed next-generation tool MGRA2 can handle gene gain/loss events and shares the ability of MGRA to reconstruct ancestral genomes uniquely in the case of limited breakpoint reuse. Furthermore, MGRA2 employs a number of novel heuristics to cope with higher breakpoint reuse and process datasets inaccessible for MGRA. In practical experiments, MGRA2 shows superior performance for simulated and real genomes as compared to other ancestral genome reconstruction tools.

Reuse rate of treated wastewater in water reuse system.

PubMed

Fan, Yao-bo; Yang, Wen-bo; Li, Gang; Wu, Lin-lin; Wei, Yuan-song

2005-01-01

A water quality model for water reuse was made by mathematics induction. The relationship among the reuse rate of treated wastewater (R), pollutant concentration of reused water (Cs), pollutant concentration of influent (C0), removal efficiency of pollutant in wastewater (E), and the standard of reuse water were discussed in this study. According to the experiment result of a toilet wastewater treatment and reuse with membrane bioreactors, R would be set at less than 40%, on which all the concemed parameters could meet with the reuse water standards. To raise R of reuse water in the toilet, an important way was to improve color removal of the wastewater.

Building a Snow Data Management System using Open Source Software (and IDL)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodale, C. E.; Mattmann, C. A.; Ramirez, P.; Hart, A. F.; Painter, T.; Zimdars, P. A.; Bryant, A.; Brodzik, M.; Skiles, M.; Seidel, F. C.; Rittger, K. E.

2012-12-01

At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory free and open source software is used everyday to support a wide range of projects, from planetary to climate to research and development. In this abstract I will discuss the key role that open source software has played in building a robust science data processing pipeline for snow hydrology research, and how the system is also able to leverage programs written in IDL, making JPL's Snow Data System a hybrid of open source and proprietary software. Main Points: - The Design of the Snow Data System (illustrate how the collection of sub-systems are combined to create a complete data processing pipeline) - Discuss the Challenges of moving from a single algorithm on a laptop, to running 100's of parallel algorithms on a cluster of servers (lesson's learned) - Code changes - Software license related challenges - Storage Requirements - System Evolution (from data archiving, to data processing, to data on a map, to near-real-time products and maps) - Road map for the next 6 months (including how easily we re-used the snowDS code base to support the Airborne Snow Observatory Mission) Software in Use and their Software Licenses: IDL - Used for pre and post processing of data. Licensed under a proprietary software license held by Excelis. Apache OODT - Used for data management and workflow processing. Licensed under the Apache License Version 2. GDAL - Geospatial Data processing library used for data re-projection currently. Licensed under the X/MIT license. GeoServer - WMS Server. Licensed under the General Public License Version 2.0 Leaflet.js - Javascript web mapping library. Licensed under the Berkeley Software Distribution License. Python - Glue code and miscellaneous data processing support. Licensed under the Python Software Foundation License. Perl - Script wrapper for running the SCAG algorithm. Licensed under the General Public License Version 3. PHP - Front-end web application programming. Licensed under the PHP License Version 3.01

Mission Benefits Analysis of Logistics Reduction Technologies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ewert, Michael K.; Broyan, James Lee, Jr.

2013-01-01

Future space exploration missions will need to use less logistical supplies if humans are to live for longer periods away from our home planet. Anything that can be done to reduce initial mass and volume of supplies or reuse or recycle items that have been launched will be very valuable. Reuse and recycling also reduce the trash burden and associated nuisances, such as smell, but require good systems engineering and operations integration to reap the greatest benefits. A systems analysis was conducted to quantify the mass and volume savings of four different technologies currently under development by NASA s Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Logistics Reduction and Repurposing project. Advanced clothing systems lead to savings by direct mass reduction and increased wear duration. Reuse of logistical items, such as packaging, for a second purpose allows fewer items to be launched. A device known as a heat melt compactor drastically reduces the volume of trash, recovers water and produces a stable tile that can be used instead of launching additional radiation protection. The fourth technology, called trash-to-gas, can benefit a mission by supplying fuel such as methane to the propulsion system. This systems engineering work will help improve logistics planning and overall mission architectures by determining the most effective use, and reuse, of all resources.

Technological, Economic, and Environmental Optimization of Aluminum Recycling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ioana, Adrian; Semenescu, Augustin

2013-08-01

The four strategic directions (referring to the entire life cycle of aluminum) are as follows: production, primary use, recycling, and reuse. Thus, in this work, the following are analyzed and optimized: reducing greenhouse gas emissions from aluminum production, increasing energy efficiency in aluminum production, maximizing used-product collection, recycling, and reusing. According to the energetic balance at the gaseous environment level, the conductive transfer model is also analyzed through the finished elements method. Several principles of modeling and optimization are presented and analyzed: the principle of analogy, the principle of concepts, and the principle of hierarchization. Based on these principles, an original diagram model is designed together with the corresponding logic diagram. This article also presents and analyzes the main benefits of aluminum recycling and reuse. Recycling and reuse of aluminum have the main advantage that it requires only about 5% of energy consumed to produce it from bauxite. The aluminum recycling and production process causes the emission of pollutants such as dioxides and furans, hydrogen chloride, and particulate matter. To control these emissions, aluminum recyclers are required to comply with the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Secondary Aluminum Production. The results of technological, economic, and ecological optimization of aluminum recycling are based on the criteria function's evaluation in the modeling system.

Fluctuation of Ultrafiltration Coefficient of Hemodialysis Membrane During Reuse

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arif, Idam; Christin

2010-12-01

Hemodialysis treatment for patient with kidney failure is to regulate body fluid and to excrete waste products of metabolism. The patient blood and the dialyzing solution (dialysate) are flowed counter currently in a dialyzer to allow volume flux of fluid and diffusion of solutes from the blood to the dialysate through a semipermiable membrane. The volume flux of fluid depends on the hydrostatic and the osmotic pressure difference between the blood and the dialysate. It also depends on the membrane parameter that represents how the membrane allows the fluid and the solutes to move across as a result of the pressure difference, known as the ultrafiltration coefficient Kuf. The coefficient depends on the number and the radius of membrane pores for the movement of the fluids and the solutes across the membrane. The measured membrane ultrafiltration coefficient of reused dialyzer shows fluctuation between one uses to another without any significant trend of change. This indicates that the cleaning process carried out before reuse does not cause perfect removal of clots that happen in the previous use. Therefore the unblocked pores are forced to work hardly to obtain targeted volume flux in a certain time of treatment. This may increase the unblocked pore radius. Reuse is stopped when there is indication of blood leakage during the hemodialysis treatment.

Mission Benefits Analysis of Logistics Reduction Technologies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ewert, Michael K.; Broyan, James L.

2012-01-01

Future space exploration missions will need to use less logistical supplies if humans are to live for longer periods away from our home planet. Anything that can be done to reduce initial mass and volume of supplies or reuse or recycle items that have been launched will be very valuable. Reuse and recycling also reduce the trash burden and associated nuisances, such as smell, but require good systems engineering and operations integration to reap the greatest benefits. A systems analysis was conducted to quantify the mass and volume savings of four different technologies currently under development by NASA fs Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Logistics Reduction and Repurposing project. Advanced clothing systems lead to savings by direct mass reduction and increased wear duration. Reuse of logistical items, such as packaging, for a second purpose allows fewer items to be launched. A device known as a heat melt compactor drastically reduces the volume of trash, recovers water and produces a stable tile that can be used instead of launching additional radiation protection. The fourth technology, called trash ]to ]supply ]gas, can benefit a mission by supplying fuel such as methane to the propulsion system. This systems engineering work will help improve logistics planning and overall mission architectures by determining the most effective use, and reuse, of all resources.

How can the English-language scientific literature be made more accessible to non-native speakers? Journals should allow greater use of referenced direct quotations in 'component-oriented' scientific writing.

PubMed

Charlton, Bruce G

2007-01-01

In scientific writing, although clarity and precision of language are vital to effective communication, it seems undeniable that content is more important than form. Potentially valuable knowledge should not be excluded from the scientific literature merely because the researchers lack advanced language skills. Given that global scientific literature is overwhelmingly in the English-language, this presents a problem for non-native speakers. My proposal is that scientists should be permitted to construct papers using a substantial number of direct quotations from the already-published scientific literature. Quotations would need to be explicitly referenced so that the original author and publication should be given full credit for creating such a useful and valid description. At the extreme, this might result in a paper consisting mainly of a 'mosaic' of quotations from the already existing scientific literature, which are linked and extended by relatively few sentences comprising new data or ideas. This model bears some conceptual relationship to the recent trend in computing science for component-based or component-oriented software engineering - in which new programs are constructed by reusing programme components, which may be available in libraries. A new functionality is constructed by linking-together many pre-existing chunks of software. I suggest that journal editors should, in their instructions to authors, explicitly allow this 'component-oriented' method of constructing scientific articles; and carefully describe how it can be accomplished in such a way that proper referencing is enforced, and full credit is allocated to the authors of the reused linguistic components.

zipHMMlib: a highly optimised HMM library exploiting repetitions in the input to speed up the forward algorithm.

PubMed

Sand, Andreas; Kristiansen, Martin; Pedersen, Christian N S; Mailund, Thomas

2013-11-22

Hidden Markov models are widely used for genome analysis as they combine ease of modelling with efficient analysis algorithms. Calculating the likelihood of a model using the forward algorithm has worst case time complexity linear in the length of the sequence and quadratic in the number of states in the model. For genome analysis, however, the length runs to millions or billions of observations, and when maximising the likelihood hundreds of evaluations are often needed. A time efficient forward algorithm is therefore a key ingredient in an efficient hidden Markov model library. We have built a software library for efficiently computing the likelihood of a hidden Markov model. The library exploits commonly occurring substrings in the input to reuse computations in the forward algorithm. In a pre-processing step our library identifies common substrings and builds a structure over the computations in the forward algorithm which can be reused. This analysis can be saved between uses of the library and is independent of concrete hidden Markov models so one preprocessing can be used to run a number of different models.Using this library, we achieve up to 78 times shorter wall-clock time for realistic whole-genome analyses with a real and reasonably complex hidden Markov model. In one particular case the analysis was performed in less than 8 minutes compared to 9.6 hours for the previously fastest library. We have implemented the preprocessing procedure and forward algorithm as a C++ library, zipHMM, with Python bindings for use in scripts. The library is available at http://birc.au.dk/software/ziphmm/.

Review of cost versus scale: water and wastewater treatment and reuse processes.

PubMed

Guo, Tianjiao; Englehardt, James; Wu, Tingting

2014-01-01

The US National Research Council recently recommended direct potable water reuse (DPR), or potable water reuse without environmental buffer, for consideration to address US water demand. However, conveyance of wastewater and water to and from centralized treatment plants consumes on average four times the energy of treatment in the USA, and centralized DPR would further require upgradient distribution of treated water. Therefore, information on the cost of unit treatment processes potentially useful for DPR versus system capacity was reviewed, converted to constant 2012 US dollars, and synthesized in this work. A logarithmic variant of the Williams Law cost function was found applicable over orders of magnitude of system capacity, for the subject processes: activated sludge, membrane bioreactor, coagulation/flocculation, reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration, peroxone and granular activated carbon. Results are demonstrated versus 10 DPR case studies. Because economies of scale found for capital equipment are counterbalanced by distribution/collection network costs, further study of the optimal scale of distributed DPR systems is suggested.

Reusing the VLT control system on the VISTA Telescope

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Terrett, D. L.; Stewart, Malcolm

2010-07-01

Once it was decided that the VISTA infra-red survey telescope would be built on Paranal and operated by ESO it was clear that there would be many long term advantages in basing the control system on that of the VLTs. Benefits over developing a new system such as lower development costs or disadvantages such as constraints on the design were not the most important factors in deciding how to implement the TCS, but now that the telescope is complete the pros and cons of re-using an existing system can be evaluated. This paper reviews the lessons learned during construction and commissioning and attempts to show where reusing an existing system was a help and where it was a hindrance. It highlights those things that could have been done differently to better exploit the fact the we were using a system that was already proven to work and where, with hindsight, we would have been better to re-implement components from scratch rather than modifying an existing one.

Multiple reuses of Rhodococcus ruber TH3 free cells to produce acrylamide in a membrane dispersion microreactor.

PubMed

Li, Jiahui; Liu, Junqi; Chen, Jie; Wang, Yujun; Luo, Guangsheng; Yu, Huimin

2015-01-01

In this work, multiple reuses of Rhodococcus ruber TH3 free cells for the hydration of acrylonitrile to produce acrylamide in a membrane dispersion microreactor were carried out. Through using a centrifuge, the reactions reached 39.9, 39.5, 38.6 and 38.0wt% of the final acrylamide product concentration respectively within 35min in a four cycle reuse of free cells. In contrast, using a stirring tank, free cells could only be used once with the same addition speed of acrylonitrile with a microreactor. Through observing the dissolution behavior of acrylonitrile microdroplets in a free cell solution using a coaxial microfluidic device and microscope, it was found that the acrylonitrile microdroplets with a diameter of 75μm were rarely observed within a length of 2cm channel within 10s, which illustrated that the microreactor can intensify the reaction rate to reduce the inhibition of acrylonitrile and acrylamide. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Case Study on Sustainable Reuse of Abandoned Infrastructure at Seoul Station Overpass as Urban Park for the Design Strategies in Korea

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boo, Yeeun; Kwon, Young-Sang

2018-04-01

As the 21st century, known for knowledge information era, many industrial infrastructures built as part of the 20th century urban development have been devastated functionally and new alternatives for them have been demanded nowadays. This study aims to discuss the strategies used in the design proposals of the International Competition for ‘Seoullo 7017 Project’, which was recently completed in May 2017, based on the sustainability of the deteriorate infrastructure as urban park. Through the competition brief, each proposal is analysed against the competition brief and the more generic approaches on the adaptive reuse of infrastructure are proposed. By examining the case in Korea, it is expected to explore the possibilities for the sustainability of abandoned infrastructure through adapting reuse as urban park in Korea, to propose design strategies that can be applied to the future adaptive use of deteriorated infrastructure in Korea, and to provide broader academic base to related works.

Operating a terrestrial Internet router onboard and alongside a small satellite

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wood, L.; da Silva Curiel, A.; Ivancic, W.; Hodgson, D.; Shell, D.; Jackson, C.; Stewart, D.

2006-07-01

After twenty months of flying, testing and demonstrating a Cisco mobile access router, originally designed for terrestrial use, onboard the low-Earth-orbiting UK-DMC satellite as part of a larger merged ground/space IP-based internetwork, we use our experience to examine the benefits and drawbacks of integration and standards reuse for small satellite missions. Benefits include ease of operation and the ability to leverage existing systems and infrastructure designed for general use with a large set of latent capabilities to draw on when needed, as well as the familiarity that comes from reuse of existing, known, and well-understood security and operational models. Drawbacks include cases where integration work was needed to bridge the gaps in assumptions between different systems, and where performance considerations outweighed the benefits of reuse of pre-existing file transfer protocols. We find similarities with the terrestrial IP networks whose technologies have been taken to small satellites—and also some significant differences between the two in operational models and assumptions that must be borne in mind.

Wastewater reclamation and recharge: A water management strategy for Albuquerque

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gorder, P.J.; Brunswick, R.J.; Bockemeier, S.W.

1995-12-31

Approximately 61,000 acre-feet of the pumped water is annually discharged to the Rio Grande as treated wastewater. Albuquerque`s Southside Water Reclamation Plant (SWRP) is the primary wastewater treatment facility for most of the Albuquerque area. Its current design capacity is 76 million gallons per day (mgd), which is expected to be adequate until about 2004. A master plan currently is being prepared (discussed here in Wastewater Master Planning and the Zero Discharge Concept section) to provide guidelines for future expansions of the plant and wastewater infrastructure. Construction documents presently are being prepared to add ammonia and nitrogen removal capability tomore » the plant, as required by its new discharge permit. The paper discusses water management strategies, indirect potable reuse for Albuquerque, water quality considerations for indirect potable reuse, treatment for potable reuse, geohydrological aspects of a recharge program, layout and estimated costs for a conceptual reclamation and recharge system, and work to be accomplished under phase 2 of the reclamation and recharge program.« less