Tools for Embedded Computing Systems Software

Science.gov (United States)

1978-01-01

A workshop was held to assess the state of tools for embedded systems software and to determine directions for tool development. A synopsis of the talk and the key figures of each workshop presentation, together with chairmen summaries, are presented. The presentations covered four major areas: (1) tools and the software environment (development and testing); (2) tools and software requirements, design, and specification; (3) tools and language processors; and (4) tools and verification and validation (analysis and testing). The utility and contribution of existing tools and research results for the development and testing of embedded computing systems software are described and assessed.

A coherent environment of software improvement tools for CMS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eulisse, G.; Muzaffar, S.; Osborne, I.; Taylor, L.; Tuura, L.A.

2004-01-01

CMS has developed approximately one million lines of C++ code and uses many more from HEP, Grid and public domain projects. We describe a suite of tools which help to manage this complexity by measuring software dependencies, quality metrics, and CPU and memory performance. This coherent environment integrates and extends existing open-source tools where possible and provides new in-house components where a suitable solution does not already exist. This is a freely available environment with graphical user interface which can be run on any software without the need to recompile or instrument it. We have developed ignominy which performs software dependency analysis of source code, binary products and external software. CPU profiling is provided based on oprofile, with added features such as profile snapshots, distributed profiling and aggregate profiles for farm systems including server-side tools for collecting profile data. Finally, we have developed a low-overhead performance and memory profiling tool, MemProf, which can perform (gprof-style) hierarchical performance profiling, in a way that works with multiple threads and dynamically loaded libraries (unlike gprof). It also gathers exact memory allocation profiles including which code allocates most, in what sizes of chunks, for how long, where the memory is getting freed and where it is getting leaked. We describe this tool suite and how it has been used to enhance the quality of CMS software

Framework programmable platform for the advanced software development workstation. Integration mechanism design document

Science.gov (United States)

Mayer, Richard J.; Blinn, Thomas M.; Mayer, Paula S. D.; Reddy, Uday; Ackley, Keith; Futrell, Mike

1991-01-01

The Framework Programmable Software Development Platform (FPP) is a project aimed at combining effective tool and data integration mechanisms with a model of the software development process in an intelligent integrated software development environment. Guided by this model, this system development framework will take advantage of an integrated operating environment to automate effectively the management of the software development process so that costly mistakes during the development phase can be eliminated.

Interface-based software integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aziz Ahmad Rais

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Enterprise architecture frameworks define the goals of enterprise architecture in order to make business processes and IT operations more effective, and to reduce the risk of future investments. These enterprise architecture frameworks offer different architecture development methods that help in building enterprise architecture. In practice, the larger organizations become, the larger their enterprise architecture and IT become. This leads to an increasingly complex system of enterprise architecture development and maintenance. Application software architecture is one type of architecture that, along with business architecture, data architecture and technology architecture, composes enterprise architecture. From the perspective of integration, enterprise architecture can be considered a system of interaction between multiple examples of application software. Therefore, effective software integration is a very important basis for the future success of the enterprise architecture in question. This article will provide interface-based integration practice in order to help simplify the process of building such a software integration system. The main goal of interface-based software integration is to solve problems that may arise with software integration requirements and developing software integration architecture.

Software architecture analysis tool : software architecture metrics collection

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Muskens, J.; Chaudron, M.R.V.; Westgeest, R.

2002-01-01

The Software Engineering discipline lacks the ability to evaluate software architectures. Here we describe a tool for software architecture analysis that is based on metrics. Metrics can be used to detect possible problems and bottlenecks in software architectures. Even though metrics do not give a

Westinghouse waste simulation and optimization software tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mennicken, Kim; Aign, Jorg

2013-01-01

Applications for dynamic simulation can be found in virtually all areas of process engineering. The tangible benefits of using dynamic simulation can be seen in tighter design, smoother start-ups and optimized operation. Thus, proper implementation of dynamic simulation can deliver substantial benefits. These benefits are typically derived from improved process understanding. Simulation gives confidence in evidence based decisions and enables users to try out lots of 'what if' scenarios until one is sure that a decision is the right one. In radioactive waste treatment tasks different kinds of waste with different volumes and properties have to be treated, e.g. from NPP operation or D and D activities. Finding a commercially and technically optimized waste treatment concept is a time consuming and difficult task. The Westinghouse Waste Simulation and Optimization Software Tool will enable the user to quickly generate reliable simulation models of various process applications based on equipment modules. These modules can be built with ease and be integrated into the simulation model. This capability ensures that this tool is applicable to typical waste treatment tasks. The identified waste streams and the selected treatment methods are the basis of the simulation and optimization software. After implementing suitable equipment data into the model, process requirements and waste treatment data are fed into the simulation to finally generate primary simulation results. A sensitivity analysis of automated optimization features of the software generates the lowest possible lifecycle cost for the simulated waste stream. In combination with proven waste management equipments and integrated waste management solutions, this tool provides reliable qualitative results that lead to an effective planning and minimizes the total project planning risk of any waste management activity. It is thus the ideal tool for designing a waste treatment facility in an optimum manner

Westinghouse waste simulation and optimization software tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mennicken, Kim; Aign, Jorg [Westinghouse Electric Germany GmbH, Hamburg (Germany)

2013-07-01

Applications for dynamic simulation can be found in virtually all areas of process engineering. The tangible benefits of using dynamic simulation can be seen in tighter design, smoother start-ups and optimized operation. Thus, proper implementation of dynamic simulation can deliver substantial benefits. These benefits are typically derived from improved process understanding. Simulation gives confidence in evidence based decisions and enables users to try out lots of 'what if' scenarios until one is sure that a decision is the right one. In radioactive waste treatment tasks different kinds of waste with different volumes and properties have to be treated, e.g. from NPP operation or D and D activities. Finding a commercially and technically optimized waste treatment concept is a time consuming and difficult task. The Westinghouse Waste Simulation and Optimization Software Tool will enable the user to quickly generate reliable simulation models of various process applications based on equipment modules. These modules can be built with ease and be integrated into the simulation model. This capability ensures that this tool is applicable to typical waste treatment tasks. The identified waste streams and the selected treatment methods are the basis of the simulation and optimization software. After implementing suitable equipment data into the model, process requirements and waste treatment data are fed into the simulation to finally generate primary simulation results. A sensitivity analysis of automated optimization features of the software generates the lowest possible lifecycle cost for the simulated waste stream. In combination with proven waste management equipments and integrated waste management solutions, this tool provides reliable qualitative results that lead to an effective planning and minimizes the total project planning risk of any waste management activity. It is thus the ideal tool for designing a waste treatment facility in an optimum manner

Structure and software tools of AIDA.

Science.gov (United States)

Duisterhout, J S; Franken, B; Witte, F

1987-01-01

AIDA consists of a set of software tools to allow for fast development and easy-to-maintain Medical Information Systems. AIDA supports all aspects of such a system both during development and operation. It contains tools to build and maintain forms for interactive data entry and on-line input validation, a database management system including a data dictionary and a set of run-time routines for database access, and routines for querying the database and output formatting. Unlike an application generator, the user of AIDA may select parts of the tools to fulfill his needs and program other subsystems not developed with AIDA. The AIDA software uses as host language the ANSI-standard programming language MUMPS, an interpreted language embedded in an integrated database and programming environment. This greatly facilitates the portability of AIDA applications. The database facilities supported by AIDA are based on a relational data model. This data model is built on top of the MUMPS database, the so-called global structure. This relational model overcomes the restrictions of the global structure regarding string length. The global structure is especially powerful for sorting purposes. Using MUMPS as a host language allows the user an easy interface between user-defined data validation checks or other user-defined code and the AIDA tools. AIDA has been designed primarily for prototyping and for the construction of Medical Information Systems in a research environment which requires a flexible approach. The prototyping facility of AIDA operates terminal independent and is even to a great extent multi-lingual. Most of these features are table-driven; this allows on-line changes in the use of terminal type and language, but also causes overhead. AIDA has a set of optimizing tools by which it is possible to build a faster, but (of course) less flexible code from these table definitions. By separating the AIDA software in a source and a run-time version, one is able to write

Experience with case tools in the design of process-oriented software

Science.gov (United States)

Novakov, Ognian; Sicard, Claude-Henri

1994-12-01

In Accelerator systems such as the CERN PS complex, process equipment has a life time which may exceed the typical life cycle of its related software. Taking into account the variety of such equipment, it is important to keep the analysis and design of the software in a system-independent form. This paper discusses the experience gathered in using commercial CASE tools for analysis, design and reverse engineering of different process-oriented software modules, with a principal emphasis on maintaining the initial analysis in a standardized form. Such tools have been in existence for several years, but this paper shows that they are not fully adapted to our needs. In particular, the paper stresses the problems of integrating such a tool into an existing data-base-dependent development chain, the lack of real-time simulation tools and of Object-Oriented concepts in existing commercial packages. Finally, the paper gives a broader view of software engineering needs in our particular context.

Improvement of Computer Software Quality through Software Automated Tools.

Science.gov (United States)

1986-08-30

information that are returned from the tools to the human user, and the forms in which these outputs are presented. Page 2 of 4 STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT: What... AUTOMIATED SOFTWARE TOOL MONITORING SYSTEM APPENDIX 2 2-1 INTRODUCTION This document and Automated Software Tool Monitoring Program (Appendix 1) are...t Output Output features provide links from the tool to both the human user and the target machine (where applicable). They describe the types

Integration issues of information engineering based I-CASE tools

OpenAIRE

Kurbel, Karl; Schnieder, Thomas

1994-01-01

Problems and requirements regarding integration of methods and tools across phases of the software-development life cycle are discussed. Information engineering (IE) methodology and I-CASE (integrated CASE) tools supporting IE claim to have an integrated view across major stages of enterprise-wide information-system development: information strategy planning, business area analysis, system design, and construction. In the main part of this paper, two comprehensive I-CASE tools, ADW (Applicati...

Software engineering techniques and CASE tools in RD13

Science.gov (United States)

Buono, S.; Gaponenko, I.; Jones, R.; Khodabandeh, A.; Mapelli, L.; Mornacchi, G.; Prigent, D.; Sanchez-Corral, E.; Skiadelli, M.; Toppers, A.; Duval, P. Y.; Ferrato, D.; Le Van Suu, A.; Qian, Z.; Rondot, C.; Ambrosini, G.; Fumagalli, G.; Polesello, G.; Aguer, M.; Huet, M.

1994-12-01

The RD13 project was approved in April 1991 for the development of a scalable data-taking system suitable for hosting various LHC studies. One of its goals is the exploitation of software engineering techniques, in order to indicate their overall suitability for data acquisition (DAQ), software design and implementation. This paper describes how such techniques have been applied to the development of components of the RD13 DAQ used in test-beam runs at CERN. We describe our experience with the Artifex CASE tool and its associated methodology. The issues raised when code generated by a CASE tool has to be integrated into an existing environment are also discussed.

A computer-aided software-tool for sustainable process synthesis-intensification

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kumar Tula, Anjan; Babi, Deenesh K.; Bottlaender, Jack

2017-01-01

and determine within the design space, the more sustainable processes. In this paper, an integrated computer-aided software-tool that searches the design space for hybrid/intensified more sustainable process options is presented. Embedded within the software architecture are process synthesis...... operations as well as reported hybrid/intensified unit operations is large and can be difficult to manually navigate in order to determine the best process flowsheet for the production of a desired chemical product. Therefore, it is beneficial to utilize computer-aided methods and tools to enumerate, analyze...... constraints while also matching the design targets, they are therefore more sustainable than the base case. The application of the software-tool to the production of biodiesel is presented, highlighting the main features of the computer-aided, multi-stage, multi-scale methods that are able to determine more...

Integrating interface slicing into software engineering processes

Science.gov (United States)

Beck, Jon

1993-01-01

Interface slicing is a tool which was developed to facilitate software engineering. As previously presented, it was described in terms of its techniques and mechanisms. The integration of interface slicing into specific software engineering activities is considered by discussing a number of potential applications of interface slicing. The applications discussed specifically address the problems, issues, or concerns raised in a previous project. Because a complete interface slicer is still under development, these applications must be phrased in future tenses. Nonetheless, the interface slicing techniques which were presented can be implemented using current compiler and static analysis technology. Whether implemented as a standalone tool or as a module in an integrated development or reverse engineering environment, they require analysis no more complex than that required for current system development environments. By contrast, conventional slicing is a methodology which, while showing much promise and intuitive appeal, has yet to be fully implemented in a production language environment despite 12 years of development.

COMSY - A software tool for PLIM + PLEX with integrated risk-informed approaches

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zander, A.; Nopper, H.; Roessner, R.

2004-01-01

The majority of mechanical components and structures in a thermal power plant are designed to experience a service life which is far above the intended design life. In most cases, only a small percentage of mechanical components are subject to significant degradation which may affect the integrity or the function of the component. If plant life extension (PLEX) is considered as an option, a plant specific PLIM strategy needs to be developed. One of the most important tasks of such a PLIM strategy is to identify those components which (i) are relevant for the safety and/or availability of the plant and (ii) experience elevated degradation due to their operating and design conditions. For these components special life management strategies need to be established to reliably monitor their condition. FRAMATOME ANP GmbH has developed the software tool COMSY, which is designed to efficiently support a plant-wide lifetime management strategy for static mechanical components, providing the basis for plant life extension (PLEX) activities. The objective is the economical and safe operation of power plants over their design lifetime - and beyond. The tool provides the capability to establish a program guided technical documentation of the plant by utilizing a virtual plant data model. The software integrates engineering analysis functions and comprehensive material libraries to perform a lifetime analysis for various degradation mechanisms typically experienced in power plants (e.g. flow-accelerated corrosion, intergranular stress corrosion cracking, strain-induced cracking, material fatigue, cavitation erosion, droplet impingement erosion, pitting, etc.). A risk-based prioritization serves to focus inspection activities on safety or availability relevant locations, where a degradation potential exists. Trending functions support the comparison of the as-measured condition with the predicted progress of degradation while making allowance for measurement tolerances. The

Tuning COCOMO-II for Software Process Improvement: A Tool Based Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

SYEDA UMEMA HANI

2016-10-01

Full Text Available In order to compete in the international software development market the software organizations have to adopt internationally accepted software practices i.e. standard like ISO (International Standard Organization or CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration in spite of having scarce resources and tools. The aim of this study is to develop a tool which could be used to present an actual picture of Software Process Improvement benefits in front of the software development companies. However, there are few tools available to assist in making predictions, they are too expensive and could not cover dataset that reflect the cultural behavior of organizations for software development in developing countries. In extension to our previously done research reported elsewhere for Pakistani software development organizations which has quantified benefits of SDPI (Software Development Process Improvement, this research has used sixty-two datasets from three different software development organizations against the set of metrics used in COCOMO-II (Constructive Cost Model 2000. It derived a verifiable equation for calculating ISF (Ideal Scale Factor and tuned the COCOMO-II model to bring prediction capability for SDPI (benefit measurement classes such as ESCP (Effort, Schedule, Cost, and Productivity. This research has contributed towards software industry by giving a reliable and low-cost mechanism for generating prediction models with high prediction accuracy. Hopefully, this study will help software organizations to use this tool not only to predict ESCP but also to predict an exact impact of SDPI.

Software engineering methodologies and tools

Science.gov (United States)

Wilcox, Lawrence M.

1993-01-01

Over the years many engineering disciplines have developed, including chemical, electronic, etc. Common to all engineering disciplines is the use of rigor, models, metrics, and predefined methodologies. Recently, a new engineering discipline has appeared on the scene, called software engineering. For over thirty years computer software has been developed and the track record has not been good. Software development projects often miss schedules, are over budget, do not give the user what is wanted, and produce defects. One estimate is there are one to three defects per 1000 lines of deployed code. More and more systems are requiring larger and more complex software for support. As this requirement grows, the software development problems grow exponentially. It is believed that software quality can be improved by applying engineering principles. Another compelling reason to bring the engineering disciplines to software development is productivity. It has been estimated that productivity of producing software has only increased one to two percent a year in the last thirty years. Ironically, the computer and its software have contributed significantly to the industry-wide productivity, but computer professionals have done a poor job of using the computer to do their job. Engineering disciplines and methodologies are now emerging supported by software tools that address the problems of software development. This paper addresses some of the current software engineering methodologies as a backdrop for the general evaluation of computer assisted software engineering (CASE) tools from actual installation of and experimentation with some specific tools.

The Systems Biology Research Tool: evolvable open-source software

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wright Jeremiah

2008-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Research in the field of systems biology requires software for a variety of purposes. Software must be used to store, retrieve, analyze, and sometimes even to collect the data obtained from system-level (often high-throughput experiments. Software must also be used to implement mathematical models and algorithms required for simulation and theoretical predictions on the system-level. Results We introduce a free, easy-to-use, open-source, integrated software platform called the Systems Biology Research Tool (SBRT to facilitate the computational aspects of systems biology. The SBRT currently performs 35 methods for analyzing stoichiometric networks and 16 methods from fields such as graph theory, geometry, algebra, and combinatorics. New computational techniques can be added to the SBRT via process plug-ins, providing a high degree of evolvability and a unifying framework for software development in systems biology. Conclusion The Systems Biology Research Tool represents a technological advance for systems biology. This software can be used to make sophisticated computational techniques accessible to everyone (including those with no programming ability, to facilitate cooperation among researchers, and to expedite progress in the field of systems biology.

SALOME. A software integration platform for multi-physics, pre-processing and visualisation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bergeaud, Vincent; Lefebvre, Vincent

2010-01-01

In order to ease the development of applications integrating simulation codes, CAD modelers and post-processing tools. CEA and EDF R and D have invested in the SALOME platform, a tool dedicated to the environment of the scientific codes. The platform comes in the shape of a toolbox which offers functionalities for CAD, meshing, code coupling, visualization, GUI development. These tools can be combined to create integrated applications that make the scientific codes easier to use and well-interfaced with their environment be it other codes, CAD and meshing tools or visualization software. Many projects in CEA and EDF R and D now use SALOME, bringing technical coherence to the software suites of our institutions. (author)

Clinical results of HIS, RIS, PACS integration using data integration CASE tools

Science.gov (United States)

Taira, Ricky K.; Chan, Hing-Ming; Breant, Claudine M.; Huang, Lu J.; Valentino, Daniel J.

1995-05-01

Current infrastructure research in PACS is dominated by the development of communication networks (local area networks, teleradiology, ATM networks, etc.), multimedia display workstations, and hierarchical image storage architectures. However, limited work has been performed on developing flexible, expansible, and intelligent information processing architectures for the vast decentralized image and text data repositories prevalent in healthcare environments. Patient information is often distributed among multiple data management systems. Current large-scale efforts to integrate medical information and knowledge sources have been costly with limited retrieval functionality. Software integration strategies to unify distributed data and knowledge sources is still lacking commercially. Systems heterogeneity (i.e., differences in hardware platforms, communication protocols, database management software, nomenclature, etc.) is at the heart of the problem and is unlikely to be standardized in the near future. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of newly available CASE (computer- aided software engineering) tools to rapidly integrate HIS, RIS, and PACS information systems. The advantages of these tools include fast development time (low-level code is generated from graphical specifications), and easy system maintenance (excellent documentation, easy to perform changes, and centralized code repository in an object-oriented database). The CASE tools are used to develop and manage the `middle-ware' in our client- mediator-serve architecture for systems integration. Our architecture is scalable and can accommodate heterogeneous database and communication protocols.

A software tool for design of process monitoring and analysis systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Singh, Ravendra; Gernaey, Krist; Gani, Rafiqul

2009-01-01

A well designed process monitoring and analysis system is necessary to consistently achieve any predefined end product quality. Systematic computer aided methods and tools provide the means to design the necessary process monitoring and analysis systems and/or to validate any existing monitoring...... and analysis system. A software to achieve this has been developed. Two developed supporting tools for the design, a knowledge base (consisting of the process knowledge as well as the knowledge on measurement methods & tools) and a model library (consisting of the process operational models) have been extended...... rigorously and integrated with the user interface, which made the software more generic and applicable to a wide range of problems. The software for the design of a process monitoring and analysis system is presented and illustrated with a tablet manufacturing process example....

Atrioventricular junction (AVJ) motion tracking: a software tool with ITK/VTK/Qt.

Science.gov (United States)

Pengdong Xiao; Shuang Leng; Xiaodan Zhao; Hua Zou; Ru San Tan; Wong, Philip; Liang Zhong

2016-08-01

The quantitative measurement of the Atrioventricular Junction (AVJ) motion is an important index for ventricular functions of one cardiac cycle including systole and diastole. In this paper, a software tool that can conduct AVJ motion tracking from cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) images is presented by using Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK), The Visualization Toolkit (VTK) and Qt. The software tool is written in C++ by using Visual Studio Community 2013 integrated development environment (IDE) containing both an editor and a Microsoft complier. The software package has been successfully implemented. From the software engineering practice, it is concluded that ITK, VTK, and Qt are very handy software systems to implement automatic image analysis functions for CMR images such as quantitative measure of motion by visual tracking.

A Roadmap to Continuous Integration for ATLAS Software Development

Science.gov (United States)

Elmsheuser, J.; Krasznahorkay, A.; Obreshkov, E.; Undrus, A.; ATLAS Collaboration

2017-10-01

The ATLAS software infrastructure facilitates efforts of more than 1000 developers working on the code base of 2200 packages with 4 million lines of C++ and 1.4 million lines of python code. The ATLAS offline code management system is the powerful, flexible framework for processing new package versions requests, probing code changes in the Nightly Build System, migration to new platforms and compilers, deployment of production releases for worldwide access and supporting physicists with tools and interfaces for efficient software use. It maintains multi-stream, parallel development environment with about 70 multi-platform branches of nightly releases and provides vast opportunities for testing new packages, for verifying patches to existing software and for migrating to new platforms and compilers. The system evolution is currently aimed on the adoption of modern continuous integration (CI) practices focused on building nightly releases early and often, with rigorous unit and integration testing. This paper describes the CI incorporation program for the ATLAS software infrastructure. It brings modern open source tools such as Jenkins and GitLab into the ATLAS Nightly System, rationalizes hardware resource allocation and administrative operations, provides improved feedback and means to fix broken builds promptly for developers. Once adopted, ATLAS CI practices will improve and accelerate innovation cycles and result in increased confidence in new software deployments. The paper reports the status of Jenkins integration with the ATLAS Nightly System as well as short and long term plans for the incorporation of CI practices.

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

Science.gov (United States)

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.

Software Tools for Battery Design | Transportation Research | NREL

Science.gov (United States)

Software Tools for Battery Design Software Tools for Battery Design Under the Computer-Aided Engineering for Electric Drive Vehicle Batteries (CAEBAT) project, NREL has developed software tools to help using CAEBAT software tools. Knowledge of the interplay of multi-physics at varied scales is imperative

Design of parametric software tools

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sabra, Jakob Borrits; Mullins, Michael

2011-01-01

The studies investigate the field of evidence-based design used in architectural design practice and propose a method using 2D/3D CAD applications to: 1) enhance integration of evidence-based design knowledge in architectural design phases with a focus on lighting and interior design and 2) assess...... fulfilment of evidence-based design criterion regarding light distribution and location in relation to patient safety in architectural health care design proposals. The study uses 2D/3D CAD modelling software Rhinoceros 3D with plug-in Grasshopper to create parametric tool prototypes to exemplify...... the operations and functions of the design method. To evaluate the prototype potentials, surveys with architectural and healthcare design companies are conducted. Evaluation is done by the administration of questionnaires being part of the development of the tools. The results show that architects, designers...

Metabolic interrelationships software application: Interactive learning tool for intermediary metabolism

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A.J.M. Verhoeven (Adrie); M. Doets (Mathijs); J.M.J. Lamers (Jos); J.F. Koster (Johan)

2005-01-01

textabstractWe developed and implemented the software application titled Metabolic Interrelationships as a self-learning and -teaching tool for intermediary metabolism. It is used by undergraduate medical students in an integrated organ systems-based and disease-oriented core curriculum, which

A Posteriori Integration of University CAPE Software Developments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tolksdorf, Gregor; Fillinger, Sandra; Wozny, Guenter

2015-01-01

This contribution deals with the mutual integration of existing CAPE software products developed at different universities in Germany, Denmark, and Italy. After the motivation MOSAIC is presented as the bridge building the connection between the modelling tool ICAS-MoT and the numerical processin...

Software tool for portal dosimetry research.

Science.gov (United States)

Vial, P; Hunt, P; Greer, P B; Oliver, L; Baldock, C

2008-09-01

This paper describes a software tool developed for research into the use of an electronic portal imaging device (EPID) to verify dose for intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) beams. A portal dose image prediction (PDIP) model that predicts the EPID response to IMRT beams has been implemented into a commercially available treatment planning system (TPS). The software tool described in this work was developed to modify the TPS PDIP model by incorporating correction factors into the predicted EPID image to account for the difference in EPID response to open beam radiation and multileaf collimator (MLC) transmitted radiation. The processes performed by the software tool include; i) read the MLC file and the PDIP from the TPS, ii) calculate the fraction of beam-on time that each point in the IMRT beam is shielded by MLC leaves, iii) interpolate correction factors from look-up tables, iv) create a corrected PDIP image from the product of the original PDIP and the correction factors and write the corrected image to file, v) display, analyse, and export various image datasets. The software tool was developed using the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET framework with the C# compiler. The operation of the software tool was validated. This software provided useful tools for EPID dosimetry research, and it is being utilised and further developed in ongoing EPID dosimetry and IMRT dosimetry projects.

Towards E-CASE Tools for Software Engineering

OpenAIRE

Nabil Arman

2013-01-01

CASE tools are having an important role in all phases of software systems development and engineering. This is evident in the huge benefits obtained from using these tools including their cost-effectiveness, rapid software application development, and improving the possibility of software reuse to name just a few. In this paper, the idea of moving towards E-CASE tools, rather than traditional CASE tools, is advocated since these E-CASE tools have all the benefits and advantages of traditional...

An Integrated Development Tool for a safety application using FBD language

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Young Jun; Lee, Jang Soo; Lee, Dong Young [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2012-05-15

Regarding digitalizing the Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Systems, the application program responsible for the safety functions of Nuclear I and C Systems shall ensure the robustness of the safety function through development, testing, and validation roles for a life cycle process during software development. The importance of software in nuclear systems increases continuously. The integrated engineering tools to develop, test, and validate safety application programs require increasingly more complex parts among a number of components within nuclear digital I and C systems. This paper introduces the integrated engineering tool (SafeCASE-PLC) developed by our project. The SafeCASE-PLC is a kind of software engineering tool to develop, test, and validate the nuclear application program performed in an automatic controller

Software project management tools in global software development: a systematic mapping study.

Science.gov (United States)

Chadli, Saad Yasser; Idri, Ali; Ros, Joaquín Nicolás; Fernández-Alemán, José Luis; de Gea, Juan M Carrillo; Toval, Ambrosio

2016-01-01

Global software development (GSD) which is a growing trend in the software industry is characterized by a highly distributed environment. Performing software project management (SPM) in such conditions implies the need to overcome new limitations resulting from cultural, temporal and geographic separation. The aim of this research is to discover and classify the various tools mentioned in literature that provide GSD project managers with support and to identify in what way they support group interaction. A systematic mapping study has been performed by means of automatic searches in five sources. We have then synthesized the data extracted and presented the results of this study. A total of 102 tools were identified as being used in SPM activities in GSD. We have classified these tools, according to the software life cycle process on which they focus and how they support the 3C collaboration model (communication, coordination and cooperation). The majority of the tools found are standalone tools (77%). A small number of platforms (8%) also offer a set of interacting tools that cover the software development lifecycle. Results also indicate that SPM areas in GSD are not adequately supported by corresponding tools and deserve more attention from tool builders.

Model-integrating software components engineering flexible software systems

CERN Document Server

Derakhshanmanesh, Mahdi

2015-01-01

In his study, Mahdi Derakhshanmanesh builds on the state of the art in modeling by proposing to integrate models into running software on the component-level without translating them to code. Such so-called model-integrating software exploits all advantages of models: models implicitly support a good separation of concerns, they are self-documenting and thus improve understandability and maintainability and in contrast to model-driven approaches there is no synchronization problem anymore between the models and the code generated from them. Using model-integrating components, software will be

Integrating existing software toolkits into VO system

Science.gov (United States)

Cui, Chenzhou; Zhao, Yong-Heng; Wang, Xiaoqian; Sang, Jian; Luo, Ze

2004-09-01

Virtual Observatory (VO) is a collection of interoperating data archives and software tools. Taking advantages of the latest information technologies, it aims to provide a data-intensively online research environment for astronomers all around the world. A large number of high-qualified astronomical software packages and libraries are powerful and easy of use, and have been widely used by astronomers for many years. Integrating those toolkits into the VO system is a necessary and important task for the VO developers. VO architecture greatly depends on Grid and Web services, consequently the general VO integration route is "Java Ready - Grid Ready - VO Ready". In the paper, we discuss the importance of VO integration for existing toolkits and discuss the possible solutions. We introduce two efforts in the field from China-VO project, "gImageMagick" and "Galactic abundance gradients statistical research under grid environment". We also discuss what additional work should be done to convert Grid service to VO service.

A free software tool for the development of decision support systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

COLONESE, G

2008-06-01

Full Text Available This article describes PostGeoOlap, a free software open source tool for decision support that integrates OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing and GIS (Geographical Information Systems. Besides describing the tool, we show how it can be used to achieve effective and low cost decision support that is adequate for small and medium companies and for small public offices.

Software Tools for Software Maintenance

Science.gov (United States)

1988-10-01

COMMUNICATIONS, AND COMPUTER SCIENCES I ,(AIRMICS) FO~SOFTWARE TOOLS (.o FOR SOF1 ’ARE MAINTENANCE (ASQBG-1-89-001) October, 1988 DTIC ELECTE -ifB...SUNWW~. B..c Program An~Iysw HA.c C-Tractr C Cobol Stncturing Facility VS Cobol 11 F-Scan Foctma Futbol Cobol Fortran Sltiuc Code Anaiyaer Fortran IS

An Open-Source Tool Set Enabling Analog-Digital-Software Co-Design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michelle Collins

2016-02-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an analog-digital hardware-software co-design environment for simulating and programming reconfigurable systems. The tool simulates, designs, as well as enables experimental measurements after compiling to configurable systems in the same integrated design tool framework. High level software in Scilab/Xcos (open-source programs similar to MATLAB/Simulink that converts the high-level block description by the user to blif format (sci2blif, which acts as an input to the modified VPR tool, including the code v p r 2 s w c s , encoding the specific platform through specific architecture files, resulting in a targetable switch list on the resulting configurable analog–digital system. The resulting tool uses an analog and mixed-signal library of components, enabling users and future researchers access to the basic analog operations/computations that are possible.

Integrated FASTBUS, VME and CAMAC diagnostic software at Fermilab

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anderson, J.; Forster, R.; Franzen, J.; Wilcer, N.

1992-10-01

A fully integrated system for the diagnosis and repair of data acquisition hardware in FASTBUS, VME and CAMAC is described. A short cost/benefit analysis of using a distributed network of personal computers for diagnosis is presented. The SPUDS (Single Platform Uniting Diagnostic Software) software package developed at Fermilab by the authors is introduced. Examples of how SPUDS is currently used in the Fermilab equipment repair facility, as an evaluation tool and for field diagnostics are given

Techniques and tools for software qualification in KNICS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cha, Kyung H.; Lee, Yeong J.; Cheon, Se W.; Kim, Jang Y.; Lee, Jang S.; Kwon, Kee C.

2004-01-01

This paper describes techniques and tools for qualifying safety software in Korea Nuclear Instrumentation and Control System (KNICS). Safety software are developed and applied for a Reactor Protection System (RPS), an Engineered Safety Features and Component Control System (ESF-CCS), and a safety Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) in the KNICS. Requirements and design specifications of safety software are written by both natural language and formal specification languages. Statechart is used for formal specification of software of the ESF-CCS and the safety PLC while NuSCR is used for formal specification of them of the RPS. pSET (POSCON Software Engineering Tool) as a software development tool has been developed and utilized for the IEC61131-3 based PLC programming. The qualification of the safety software consists of software verification and validation (V and V) through software life cycle, software safety analysis, and software configuration management, software quality assurance, and COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) dedication. The criteria and requirements for qualifying the safety software have been established with them in Software Review Plan (SRP)/Branch Technical Positions (BTP)-14, IEEE Std. 7-4.3.2-1998, NUREG/CR-6463, IEEE Std. 1012-1998, and so on. Figure 1 summarizes qualification techniques and tools for the safety software

Proceedings of the Workshop on software tools for distributed intelligent control systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Herget, C.J. (ed.)

1990-09-01

The Workshop on Software Tools for Distributed Intelligent Control Systems was organized by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the United States Army Headquarters Training and Doctrine Command and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The goals of the workshop were to the identify the current state of the art in tools which support control systems engineering design and implementation, identify research issues associated with writing software tools which would provide a design environment to assist engineers in multidisciplinary control design and implementation, formulate a potential investment strategy to resolve the research issues and develop public domain code which can form the core of more powerful engineering design tools, and recommend test cases to focus the software development process and test associated performance metrics. Recognizing that the development of software tools for distributed intelligent control systems will require a multidisciplinary effort, experts in systems engineering, control systems engineering, and compute science were invited to participate in the workshop. In particular, experts who could address the following topics were selected: operating systems, engineering data representation and manipulation, emerging standards for manufacturing data, mathematical foundations, coupling of symbolic and numerical computation, user interface, system identification, system representation at different levels of abstraction, system specification, system design, verification and validation, automatic code generation, and integration of modular, reusable code.

A Software Tool for Legal Drafting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Gorín

2011-09-01

Full Text Available Although many attempts at automated aids for legal drafting have been made, they were based on the construction of a new tool, completely from scratch. This is at least curious, considering that a strong parallelism can be established between a normative document and a software specification: both describe what an entity should or should not do, can or cannot do. In this article we compare normative documents and software specifications to find out their similarities and differences. The comparison shows that there are distinctive particularities, but they are restricted to a very specific subclass of normative propositions. The rest, we postulate, can be dealt with software tools. For such an enterprise the FormaLex tool set was devised: an LTL-based language and companion tools that utilize model checking to find out normative incoherences in regulations, contracts and other legal documents. A feature-rich case study is analyzed with the presented tools.

Workshop on Software Development Tools for Petascale Computing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vetter, Jeffrey [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)

2007-08-01

Petascale computing systems will soon be available to the DOE science community. Recent studies in the productivity of HPC platforms point to better software environments as a key enabler to science on these systems. To prepare for the deployment and productive use of these petascale platforms, the DOE science and general HPC community must have the software development tools, such as performance analyzers and debuggers that meet application requirements for scalability, functionality, reliability, and ease of use. In this report, we identify and prioritize the research opportunities in the area of software development tools for high performance computing. To facilitate this effort, DOE hosted a group of 55 leading international experts in this area at the Software Development Tools for PetaScale Computing (SDTPC) Workshop, which was held in Washington, D.C. on August 1 and 2, 2007. Software development tools serve as an important interface between the application teams and the target HPC architectures. Broadly speaking, these roles can be decomposed into three categories: performance tools, correctness tools, and development environments. Accordingly, this SDTPC report has four technical thrusts: performance tools, correctness tools, development environment infrastructures, and scalable tool infrastructures. The last thrust primarily targets tool developers per se, rather than end users. Finally, this report identifies non-technical strategic challenges that impact most tool development. The organizing committee emphasizes that many critical areas are outside the scope of this charter; these important areas include system software, compilers, and I/O.

Life Cycle Assessment Studies of Chemical and Biochemical Processes through the new LCSoft Software-tool

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Supawanich, Perapong; Malakul, Pomthong; Gani, Rafiqul

2015-01-01

requirements have to be evaluated together with environmental and economic aspects. The LCSoft software-tool has been developed to perform LCA as a stand-alone tool as well as integrated with other process design tools such as process simulation, economic analysis (ECON), and sustainable process design...

Integrated software system for low level waste management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Worku, G.

1995-01-01

In the continually changing and uncertain world of low level waste management, many generators in the US are faced with the prospect of having to store their waste on site for the indefinite future. This consequently increases the set of tasks performed by the generators in the areas of packaging, characterizing, classifying, screening (if a set of acceptance criteria applies), and managing the inventory for the duration of onsite storage. When disposal sites become available, it is expected that the work will require re-evaluating the waste packages, including possible re-processing, re-packaging, or re-classifying in preparation for shipment for disposal under the regulatory requirements of the time. In this day and age, when there is wide use of computers and computer literacy is at high levels, an important waste management tool would be an integrated software system that aids waste management personnel in conducting these tasks quickly and accurately. It has become evident that such an integrated radwaste management software system offers great benefits to radwaste generators both in the US and other countries. This paper discusses one such approach to integrated radwaste management utilizing some globally accepted radiological assessment software applications

Software tool for physics chart checks.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, H Harold; Wu, Yu; Yang, Deshan; Mutic, Sasa

2014-01-01

Physics chart check has long been a central quality assurance (QC) measure in radiation oncology. The purpose of this work is to describe a software tool that aims to accomplish simplification, standardization, automation, and forced functions in the process. Nationally recognized guidelines, including American College of Radiology and American Society for Radiation Oncology guidelines and technical standards, and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group reports were identified, studied, and summarized. Meanwhile, the reported events related to physics chart check service were analyzed using an event reporting and learning system. A number of shortfalls in the chart check process were identified. To address these problems, a software tool was designed and developed under Microsoft. Net in C# to hardwire as many components as possible at each stage of the process. The software consists of the following 4 independent modules: (1) chart check management; (2) pretreatment and during treatment chart check assistant; (3) posttreatment chart check assistant; and (4) quarterly peer-review management. The users were a large group of physicists in the author's radiation oncology clinic. During over 1 year of use the tool has proven very helpful in chart checking management, communication, documentation, and maintaining consistency. The software tool presented in this work aims to assist physicists at each stage of the physics chart check process. The software tool is potentially useful for any radiation oncology clinics that are either in the process of pursuing or maintaining the American College of Radiology accreditation.

Pegasys: software for executing and integrating analyses of biological sequences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lett Drew

2004-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background We present Pegasys – a flexible, modular and customizable software system that facilitates the execution and data integration from heterogeneous biological sequence analysis tools. Results The Pegasys system includes numerous tools for pair-wise and multiple sequence alignment, ab initio gene prediction, RNA gene detection, masking repetitive sequences in genomic DNA as well as filters for database formatting and processing raw output from various analysis tools. We introduce a novel data structure for creating workflows of sequence analyses and a unified data model to store its results. The software allows users to dynamically create analysis workflows at run-time by manipulating a graphical user interface. All non-serial dependent analyses are executed in parallel on a compute cluster for efficiency of data generation. The uniform data model and backend relational database management system of Pegasys allow for results of heterogeneous programs included in the workflow to be integrated and exported into General Feature Format for further analyses in GFF-dependent tools, or GAME XML for import into the Apollo genome editor. The modularity of the design allows for new tools to be added to the system with little programmer overhead. The database application programming interface allows programmatic access to the data stored in the backend through SQL queries. Conclusions The Pegasys system enables biologists and bioinformaticians to create and manage sequence analysis workflows. The software is released under the Open Source GNU General Public License. All source code and documentation is available for download at http://bioinformatics.ubc.ca/pegasys/.

An integrated environment of software development and V and V for PLC based safety-critical systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koo, Seo Ryong

2005-02-01

To develop and implement a safety-critical system, the requirements of the system must be analyzed thoroughly during the phases of a software development's life cycle because a single error in the requirements can generate serious software faults. We therefore propose an Integrated Environment (IE) approach for requirements which is an integrated approach that enables easy inspection by combining requirement traceability and effective use of a formal method. For the V and V tasks of requirements phase, our approach uses software inspection, requirement traceability, and formal specification with structural decomposition. Software inspection and the analysis of requirements traceability are the most effective methods of software V and V. Although formal methods are also considered an effective V and V activity, they are difficult to use properly in nuclear fields, as well as in other fields, because of their mathematical nature. We also propose another Integrated Environment (IE) for the design and implementation of safety-critical systems. In this study, a nuclear FED-style design specification and analysis (NuFDS) approach was proposed for PLC based safety-critical systems. The NuFDS approach is suggested in a straightforward manner for the effective and formal specification and analysis of software designs. Accordingly, the proposed NuFDS approach comprises one technique for specifying the software design and another for analyzing the software design. In addition, with the NuFDS approach, we can analyze the safety of software on the basis of fault tree synthesis. To analyze the design phase more effectively, we propose a technique of fault tree synthesis, along with a universal fault tree template for the architecture modules of nuclear software. Various tools have been needed to make software V and V more convenient. We therefore developed four kinds of computer-aided software engineering tools that could be used in accordance with the software's life cycle to

Asset management -- Integrated software optimizes production performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Polczer, S.

1998-01-01

Developments in data collection and retrieval systems to allow timely cost analysis, financial reporting and production management are discussed. One of the most important new OLAP (on-line analytical processing) products is Energy Warehouse which gathers field information from various sources, allows advanced searches, and generates reports previously unavailable in other conventional financial accounting systems. Another OLAP-based system, the Canadian Upstream Energy System (CUES), was developed by the Oracle Corporation and the Calgary-based Applied Terravision Systems (ATS) Inc. CUES combines Oracle's universal data server software development tools with ATS's upstream financial, land, geotechnical and production applications. ATS also developed a product called IDPMARS (Integrated Daily Production Management Accounting Reporting System). It interfaces with CUES to link working interests, government royalties, administration, facility charges, lifting costs, transportation tooling, and customers by integrating field data collection systems with financial accounting

Asset management -- Integrated software optimizes production performance

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Polczer, S.

1998-10-01

Developments in data collection and retrieval systems to allow timely cost analysis, financial reporting and production management are discussed. One of the most important new OLAP (on-line analytical processing) products is Energy Warehouse which gathers field information from various sources, allows advanced searches, and generates reports previously unavailable in other conventional financial accounting systems. Another OLAP-based system, the Canadian Upstream Energy System (CUES), was developed by the Oracle Corporation and the Calgary-based Applied Terravision Systems (ATS) Inc. CUES combines Oracle`s universal data server software development tools with ATS`s upstream financial, land, geotechnical and production applications. ATS also developed a product called IDPMARS (Integrated Daily Production Management Accounting Reporting System). It interfaces with CUES to link working interests, government royalties, administration, facility charges, lifting costs, transportation tooling, and customers by integrating field data collection systems with financial accounting.

A software tool for ecosystem services assessments

Science.gov (United States)

Riegels, Niels; Klinting, Anders; Butts, Michael; Middelboe, Anne Lise; Mark, Ole

2017-04-01

The EU FP7 DESSIN project is developing methods and tools for assessment of ecosystem services (ESS) and associated economic values, with a focus on freshwater ESS in urban settings. Although the ESS approach has gained considerable visibility over the past ten years, operationalizing the approach remains a challenge. Therefore, DESSSIN is also supporting development of a free software tool to support users implementing the DESSIN ESS evaluation framework. The DESSIN ESS evaluation framework is a structured approach to measuring changes in ecosystem services. The main purpose of the framework is to facilitate the application of the ESS approach in the appraisal of projects that have impacts on freshwater ecosystems and their services. The DESSIN framework helps users evaluate changes in ESS by linking biophysical, economic, and sustainability assessments sequentially. It was developed using the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) and the DPSIR (Drivers, Pressures, States, Impacts, Responses) adaptive management cycle. The former is a standardized system for the classification of ESS developed by the European Union to enhance the consistency and comparability of ESS assessments. The latter is a well-known concept to disentangle the biophysical and social aspects of a system under study. As part of its analytical component, the DESSIN framework also integrates elements of the Final Ecosystem Goods and Services-Classification System (FEGS-CS) of the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). As implemented in the software tool, the DESSIN framework consists of five parts: • In part I of the evaluation, the ecosystem is defined and described and the local stakeholders are identified. In addition, administrative details and objectives of the assessment are defined. • In part II, drivers and pressures are identified. Once these first two elements of the DPSIR scheme have been characterized, the claimed/expected capabilities of a

A roadmap to continuous integration for ATLAS software development

CERN Document Server

AUTHOR|(INSPIRE)INSPIRE-00132984; The ATLAS collaboration; Elmsheuser, Johannes; Obreshkov, Emil; Krasznahorkay, Attila

2017-01-01

The ATLAS software infrastructure facilitates efforts of more than 1000 developers working on the code base of 2200 packages with 4 million C++ and 1.4 million python lines. The ATLAS offline code management system is the powerful, flexible framework for processing new package versions requests, probing code changes in the Nightly Build System, migration to new platforms and compilers, deployment of production releases for worldwide access and supporting physicists with tools and interfaces for efficient software use. It maintains multi-stream, parallel development environment with about 70 multi-platform branches of nightly releases and provides vast opportunities for testing new packages, for verifying patches to existing software and for migrating to new platforms and compilers. The system evolution is currently aimed on the adoption of modern continuous integration (CI) practices focused on building nightly releases early and often, with rigorous unit and integration testing. This paper describes the CI ...

A Roadmap to Continuous Integration for ATLAS Software Development

CERN Document Server

Elmsheuser, Johannes; The ATLAS collaboration; Obreshkov, Emil; Undrus, Alexander

2016-01-01

The ATLAS software infrastructure facilitates efforts of more than 1000 developers working on the code base of 2200 packages with 4 million C++ and 1.4 million python lines. The ATLAS offline code management system is the powerful, flexible framework for processing new package versions requests, probing code changes in the Nightly Build System, migration to new platforms and compilers, deployment of production releases for worldwide access and supporting physicists with tools and interfaces for efficient software use. It maintains multi-stream, parallel development environment with about 70 multi-platform branches of nightly releases and provides vast opportunities for testing new packages, for verifying patches to existing software and for migrating to new platforms and compilers. The system evolution is currently aimed on the adoption of modern continuous integration (CI) practices focused on building nightly releases early and often, with rigorous unit and integration testing. This presentation describes t...

PAnalyzer: A software tool for protein inference in shotgun proteomics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Prieto Gorka

2012-11-01

integration. PAnalyzer is an easy to use multiplatform and free software tool.

Tools & training for more secure software

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2017-01-01

Just by fate of nature, software today is shipped out as “beta”, coming with vulnerabilities and weaknesses, which should already have been fixed at the programming stage. This presentation will show the consequences of suboptimal software, why good programming, thorough software design, and a proper software development process is imperative for the overall security of the Organization, and how a few simple tools and training are supposed to make CERN software more secure.

Criteria and tools for scientific software quality measurements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tseng, M Y [Previse Inc., Willowdale ON (Canada)

1995-12-01

Not all software used in the nuclear industry needs the rigorous formal verification, reliability testing and quality assessment that are being applied to safety critical software. Recently, however, there is increasing recognition that systematic and objective quality assessment of the scientific software used in design and safety analyses of nuclear facilities is necessary to support safety and licensing decisions. Because of the complexity and large size of these programs and the resource constraints faced by the AECB reviewer, it is desirable that appropriate automated tools are used wherever practical. To objectively assess the quality of software, a set of attributes of a software product by which its quality is described and evaluated must be established. These attributes must be relevant to the application domain of software under evaluation. To effectively assess the quality of software, metrics defining quantitative scale and method appropriate to determine the value of attributes need to be applied. To cost-effectively perform the evaluation, use of suitable automated tools is desirable. In this project, criteria for evaluating the quality of scientific software are presented; metrics for which those criteria can be evaluated are identified; a survey of automated tools to measure those metrics was conducted and the most appropriate tool (QA Fortran) was acquired; and the tool usage was demonstrated on three sample programs. (author) 5 refs.

Criteria and tools for scientific software quality measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tseng, M.Y.

1995-12-01

Not all software used in the nuclear industry needs the rigorous formal verification, reliability testing and quality assessment that are being applied to safety critical software. Recently, however, there is increasing recognition that systematic and objective quality assessment of the scientific software used in design and safety analyses of nuclear facilities is necessary to support safety and licensing decisions. Because of the complexity and large size of these programs and the resource constraints faced by the AECB reviewer, it is desirable that appropriate automated tools are used wherever practical. To objectively assess the quality of software, a set of attributes of a software product by which its quality is described and evaluated must be established. These attributes must be relevant to the application domain of software under evaluation. To effectively assess the quality of software, metrics defining quantitative scale and method appropriate to determine the value of attributes need to be applied. To cost-effectively perform the evaluation, use of suitable automated tools is desirable. In this project, criteria for evaluating the quality of scientific software are presented; metrics for which those criteria can be evaluated are identified; a survey of automated tools to measure those metrics was conducted and the most appropriate tool (QA Fortran) was acquired; and the tool usage was demonstrated on three sample programs. (author) 5 refs

PT-SAFE: a software tool for development and annunciation of medical audible alarms.

Science.gov (United States)

Bennett, Christopher L; McNeer, Richard R

2012-03-01

Recent reports by The Joint Commission as well as the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation have indicated that medical audible alarm effectiveness needs to be improved. Several recent studies have explored various approaches to improving the audible alarms, motivating the authors to develop real-time software capable of comparing such alarms. We sought to devise software that would allow for the development of a variety of audible alarm designs that could also integrate into existing operating room equipment configurations. The software is meant to be used as a tool for alarm researchers to quickly evaluate novel alarm designs. A software tool was developed for the purpose of creating and annunciating audible alarms. The alarms consisted of annunciators that were mapped to vital sign data received from a patient monitor. An object-oriented approach to software design was used to create a tool that is flexible and modular at run-time, can annunciate wave-files from disk, and can be programmed with MATLAB by the user to create custom alarm algorithms. The software was tested in a simulated operating room to measure technical performance and to validate the time-to-annunciation against existing equipment alarms. The software tool showed efficacy in a simulated operating room environment by providing alarm annunciation in response to physiologic and ventilator signals generated by a human patient simulator, on average 6.2 seconds faster than existing equipment alarms. Performance analysis showed that the software was capable of supporting up to 15 audible alarms on a mid-grade laptop computer before audio dropouts occurred. These results suggest that this software tool provides a foundation for rapidly staging multiple audible alarm sets from the laboratory to a simulation environment for the purpose of evaluating novel alarm designs, thus producing valuable findings for medical audible alarm standardization.

Applying CASE Tools for On-Board Software Development

Science.gov (United States)

Brammer, U.; Hönle, A.

For many space projects the software development is facing great pressure with respect to quality, costs and schedule. One way to cope with these challenges is the application of CASE tools for automatic generation of code and documentation. This paper describes two CASE tools: Rhapsody (I-Logix) featuring UML and ISG (BSSE) that provides modeling of finite state machines. Both tools have been used at Kayser-Threde in different space projects for the development of on-board software. The tools are discussed with regard to the full software development cycle.

NuSEE: an integrated environment of software specification and V and V for PLC based safety-critical systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koo, Seo Ryong; Seong, Poong Hyun; Yoo, Jun Beom; Cha, Sung Deok; Youn, Cheong; Han, Hyun Chul

2006-01-01

As the use of digital systems becomes more prevalent, adequate techniques for software specification and analysis have become increasingly important in Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) safety-critical systems. Additionally, the importance of software Verification and Validation (V and V) based on adequate specification has received greater emphasis in view of improving software quality. For thorough V and V of safety-critical systems, V and V should be performed throughout the software lifecycle. However, systematic V and V is difficult as it involves many manual-oriented tasks. Tool support is needed in order to more conveniently perform software V and V. In response, we developed four kinds of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools to support system specification for a formal-based analysis according to the software lifecycle. In this work, we achieved optimized integration of each tool. The toolset, NuSEE, is an integrated environment for software specification and V and V for PLC based safety-critical systems. In accordance with the software lifecycle, NuSEE consists of NuSISRT for the concept phase, NuSRS for the requirements phase, NuSDS for the design phase and NuSCM for configuration management. It is believed that after further development our integrated environment will be a unique and promising software specification and analysis toolset that will support the entire software lifecycle for the development of PLC based NPP safety-critical systems

EINSTEIN - Expert system for an Intelligent Supply of Thermal Energy in Industry. Audit methodology and software tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schweiger, Hans; Danov, Stoyan (energyXperts.NET (Spain)); Vannoni, Claudia; Facci, Enrico (Sapienza Univ. of Rome, Dept. of Mechanics and Aeronautics, Rome (Italy)); Brunner, Christoph; Slawitsch, Bettina (Joanneum Research, Inst. of Sustainable Techniques and Systems - JOINTS, Graz (Austria))

2009-07-01

For optimising thermal energy supply in industry, a holistic integral approach is required that includes possibilities of demand reduction by heat recovery and process integration, and by an intelligent combination of efficient heat and cold supply technologies. EINSTEIN is a tool-kit for fast and high quality thermal energy audits in industry, composed by an audit guide describing the methodology and by a software tool that guides the auditor through all the audit steps. The main features of EINSTEIN are: (1) a basic questionnaire helps for systematic collection of the necessary information with the possibility to acquire data by distance; (2) special tools allow for fast consistency checking and estimation of missing data, so that already with very few data some first predictions can be made; (3) the data processing is based on standardised models for industrial processes and industrial heat supply systems; (4) semi-automatization: the software tool gives support to decision making for the generation of alternative heat and cold supply proposals, carries out automatically all the necessary calculations, including dynamic simulation of the heat supply system, and creates a standard audit report. The software tool includes modules for benchmarking, automatic design of heat exchanger networks, and design assistants for the heat and cold supply system. The core of the expert system software tool is available for free, as an open source software project. This type of software development has shown to be very efficient for dissemination of knowledge and for the continuous maintenance and improvement thanks to user contributions.

Tool Use Within NASA Software Quality Assurance

Science.gov (United States)

Shigeta, Denise; Port, Dan; Nikora, Allen P.; Wilf, Joel

2013-01-01

As space mission software systems become larger and more complex, it is increasingly important for the software assurance effort to have the ability to effectively assess both the artifacts produced during software system development and the development process itself. Conceptually, assurance is a straightforward idea - it is the result of activities carried out by an organization independent of the software developers to better inform project management of potential technical and programmatic risks, and thus increase management's confidence in the decisions they ultimately make. In practice, effective assurance for large, complex systems often entails assessing large, complex software artifacts (e.g., requirements specifications, architectural descriptions) as well as substantial amounts of unstructured information (e.g., anomaly reports resulting from testing activities during development). In such an environment, assurance engineers can benefit greatly from appropriate tool support. In order to do so, an assurance organization will need accurate and timely information on the tool support available for various types of assurance activities. In this paper, we investigate the current use of tool support for assurance organizations within NASA, and describe on-going work at JPL for providing assurance organizations with the information about tools they need to use them effectively.

Managing Risks in Distributed Software Projects: An Integrative Framework

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Persson, John Stouby; Mathiassen, Lars; Boeg, Jesper

2009-01-01

techniques into an integrative framework for managing risks in distributed contexts. Subsequent implementation of a Web-based tool helped us refine the framework based on empirical evaluation of its practical usefulness.We conclude by discussing implications for both research and practice.......Software projects are increasingly geographically distributed with limited face-to-face interaction between participants. These projects face particular challenges that need carefulmanagerial attention. While risk management has been adopted with success to address other challenges within software...... development, there are currently no frameworks available for managing risks related to geographical distribution. On this background, we systematically review the literature on geographically distributed software projects. Based on the review, we synthesize what we know about risks and risk resolution...

Software Users Manual (SUM): Extended Testability Analysis (ETA) Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Maul, William A.; Fulton, Christopher E.

2011-01-01

This software user manual describes the implementation and use the Extended Testability Analysis (ETA) Tool. The ETA Tool is a software program that augments the analysis and reporting capabilities of a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) testability analysis software package called the Testability Engineering And Maintenance System (TEAMS) Designer. An initial diagnostic assessment is performed by the TEAMS Designer software using a qualitative, directed-graph model of the system being analyzed. The ETA Tool utilizes system design information captured within the diagnostic model and testability analysis output from the TEAMS Designer software to create a series of six reports for various system engineering needs. The ETA Tool allows the user to perform additional studies on the testability analysis results by determining the detection sensitivity to the loss of certain sensors or tests. The ETA Tool was developed to support design and development of the NASA Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle. The diagnostic analysis provided by the ETA Tool was proven to be valuable system engineering output that provided consistency in the verification of system engineering requirements. This software user manual provides a description of each output report generated by the ETA Tool. The manual also describes the example diagnostic model and supporting documentation - also provided with the ETA Tool software release package - that were used to generate the reports presented in the manual

Asset management: integrated software optimizes production performance

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Polczer, S.

1998-06-01

Two new multi-dimensional databases, which expand the `row and column` concept of spreadsheets into multiple categories of data called dimensions, are described. These integrated software packages provide the foundation for industry players such as Poco Petroleum Ltd and Numac Energy Inc to gain a competitive advantage, by overhauling their respective data collection and retrieval systems to allow for timely cost analysis and financial reporting. Energy Warehouse, an on-line analytical processing product marketed by SysGold Ltd, is one of the software products described. It gathers various sources of information, allows advanced searches and generates reports previously unavailable in other conventional financial accounting systems. The second product discussed - the Canadian Upstream Energy System (CUES) - is an on-line analytical processing system developed by Oracle Corporation and Calgary-based Applied Terravision Systems (ATS) Inc. CUES combines Oracle`s universal data server and software development tools with ATS`s upstream financial, land, geotechnical and production applications. The software also allows for optimization of facilities, analysis of production efficiencies and comparison of performance against industry standards.

Processing: A Python Framework for the Seamless Integration of Geoprocessing Tools in QGIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anita Graser

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Processing is an object-oriented Python framework for the popular open source Geographic Information System QGIS, which provides a seamless integration of geoprocessing tools from a variety of different software libraries. In this paper, we present the development history, software architecture and features of the Processing framework, which make it a versatile tool for the development of geoprocessing algorithms and workflows, as well as an efficient integration platform for algorithms from different sources. Using real-world application examples, we furthermore illustrate how the Processing architecture enables typical geoprocessing use cases in research and development, such as automating and documenting workflows, combining algorithms from different software libraries, as well as developing and integrating custom algorithms. Finally, we discuss how Processing can facilitate reproducible research and provide an outlook towards future development goals.

Software Tools for Development on the Peregrine System | High-Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Computing | NREL Software Tools for Development on the Peregrine System Software Tools for and manage software at the source code level. Cross-Platform Make and SCons The "Cross-Platform Make" (CMake) package is from Kitware, and SCons is a modern software build tool based on Python

An Integrated Platform for Dynamic Software Updating and its Application in Self-* systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gregersen, Allan Raundahl; Jørgensen, Bo Nørregaard; Hadaytullah

2012-01-01

Practical dynamic updating of modern Java applications requires tool support to become an integral part of the software development and maintenance lifecycle. In this paper we present Javeleon, an easy-to-use tool for dynamic updates of Java applications. To support integration with specific...... frameworks, component systems and application servers, Javeleon currently provides tight integration with the NetBeans Platform, facilitating dynamic updating for applications built on top of the NetBeans Platform in an unconstrained manner. Javeleon supports state-preserving unanticipated runtime evolution...

COMSY - A Software Tool for Aging and Plant Life Management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zander, Andre; Nopper, Helmut

2012-01-01

A Plant-wide and systematic Aging and Plant Life Management is essential for the safe operation and/or availability of nuclear power plants. The Aging Management (AM) has the objective to monitor and control degradation effects for safety relevant Systems, Structures and Components (SSCs) which may compromise safety functions of the plant. The Plant Life Management (PLM) methodology also includes aging surveillance for availability relevant SSCs. AM and PLM cover mechanical components, electrical and I and C systems and civil structures All Aging and Plant Life Management rules call for a comprehensive approach, requiring the systematic collection of various aging and safety relevant data on a plant-wide basis. This data needs to be serviced and periodically evaluated. Due to the complexity of the process, this activity needs to be supported by a qualified software tool for the management of aging relevant data and associated documents (approx. 30 000 SSCs). In order to support the power plant operators AREVA NP has developed the software tool COMSY. The COMSY software with its integrated AM modules enables the design and setup of a knowledge-based power plant model compatible to the requirements of international and national rules (e.g. IAEA Safety Guide NS-G-2.12, KTA 1403). In this process, a key task is to identify and monitor degradation mechanisms. For this purpose the COMSY tool provides prognosis and trending functions, which are based on more than 30 years of experience in the evaluation of degradation effects and numerous experimental studies. Since 1998 COMSY has been applied successfully in more than fifty reactor units in this field. The current version 3.0 was revised completely and offers additional AM functions. All aging-relevant component data are compiled and allocated via an integrated power plant model. Owing to existing interfaces to other software solutions and flexible import functions, COMSY is highly compatible with already existing data

PISCES: A Tool for Predicting Software Testability

Science.gov (United States)

Voas, Jeffrey M.; Miller, Keith W.; Payne, Jeffery E.

1991-01-01

Before a program can fail, a software fault must be executed, that execution must alter the data state, and the incorrect data state must propagate to a state that results directly in an incorrect output. This paper describes a tool called PISCES (developed by Reliable Software Technologies Corporation) for predicting the probability that faults in a particular program location will accomplish all three of these steps causing program failure. PISCES is a tool that is used during software verification and validation to predict a program's testability.

Performance analysis and optimization of an advanced pharmaceutical wastewater treatment plant through a visual basic software tool (PWWT.VB).

Science.gov (United States)

Pal, Parimal; Thakura, Ritwik; Chakrabortty, Sankha

2016-05-01

A user-friendly, menu-driven simulation software tool has been developed for the first time to optimize and analyze the system performance of an advanced continuous membrane-integrated pharmaceutical wastewater treatment plant. The software allows pre-analysis and manipulation of input data which helps in optimization and shows the software performance visually on a graphical platform. Moreover, the software helps the user to "visualize" the effects of the operating parameters through its model-predicted output profiles. The software is based on a dynamic mathematical model, developed for a systematically integrated forward osmosis-nanofiltration process for removal of toxic organic compounds from pharmaceutical wastewater. The model-predicted values have been observed to corroborate well with the extensive experimental investigations which were found to be consistent under varying operating conditions like operating pressure, operating flow rate, and draw solute concentration. Low values of the relative error (RE = 0.09) and high values of Willmott-d-index (d will = 0.981) reflected a high degree of accuracy and reliability of the software. This software is likely to be a very efficient tool for system design or simulation of an advanced membrane-integrated treatment plant for hazardous wastewater.

EISA 432 Energy Audits Best Practices: Software Tools

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Maryl Fisher

2014-11-01

Five whole building analysis software tools that can aid an energy manager with fulfilling energy audit and commissioning/retro-commissioning requirements were selected for review in this best practices study. A description of each software tool is provided as well as a discussion of the user interface and level of expertise required for each tool, a review of how to use the tool for analyzing energy conservation opportunities, the format and content of reports generated by the tool, and a discussion on the applicability of the tool for commissioning.

An integrated infrastructure in support of software development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Antonelli, S; Bencivenni, M; De Girolamo, D; Giacomini, F; Longo, S; Manzali, M; Veraldi, R; Zani, S

2014-01-01

This paper describes the design and the current state of implementation of an infrastructure made available to software developers within the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) to support and facilitate their daily activity. The infrastructure integrates several tools, each providing a well-identified function: project management, version control system, continuous integration, dynamic provisioning of virtual machines, efficiency improvement, knowledge base. When applicable, access to the services is based on the INFN-wide Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure. The system is being installed and progressively made available to INFN users belonging to tens of sites and laboratories and will represent a solid foundation for the software development efforts of the many experiments and projects that see the involvement of the Institute. The infrastructure will be beneficial especially for small- and medium-size collaborations, which often cannot afford the resources, in particular in terms of know-how, needed to set up such services.

Freiburg RNA Tools: a web server integrating INTARNA, EXPARNA and LOCARNA.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Cameron; Heyne, Steffen; Richter, Andreas S; Will, Sebastian; Backofen, Rolf

2010-07-01

The Freiburg RNA tools web server integrates three tools for the advanced analysis of RNA in a common web-based user interface. The tools IntaRNA, ExpaRNA and LocARNA support the prediction of RNA-RNA interaction, exact RNA matching and alignment of RNA, respectively. The Freiburg RNA tools web server and the software packages of the stand-alone tools are freely accessible at http://rna.informatik.uni-freiburg.de.

Teaching structure: student use of software tools for understanding macromolecular structure in an undergraduate biochemistry course.

Science.gov (United States)

Jaswal, Sheila S; O'Hara, Patricia B; Williamson, Patrick L; Springer, Amy L

2013-01-01

Because understanding the structure of biological macromolecules is critical to understanding their function, students of biochemistry should become familiar not only with viewing, but also with generating and manipulating structural representations. We report a strategy from a one-semester undergraduate biochemistry course to integrate use of structural representation tools into both laboratory and homework activities. First, early in the course we introduce the use of readily available open-source software for visualizing protein structure, coincident with modules on amino acid and peptide bond properties. Second, we use these same software tools in lectures and incorporate images and other structure representations in homework tasks. Third, we require a capstone project in which teams of students examine a protein-nucleic acid complex and then use the software tools to illustrate for their classmates the salient features of the structure, relating how the structure helps explain biological function. To ensure engagement with a range of software and database features, we generated a detailed template file that can be used to explore any structure, and that guides students through specific applications of many of the software tools. In presentations, students demonstrate that they are successfully interpreting structural information, and using representations to illustrate particular points relevant to function. Thus, over the semester students integrate information about structural features of biological macromolecules into the larger discussion of the chemical basis of function. Together these assignments provide an accessible introduction to structural representation tools, allowing students to add these methods to their biochemical toolboxes early in their scientific development. © 2013 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Development of Safety-Critical Software for Nuclear Power Plant using a CASE Tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Chang Ho; Oh, Do Young; Kim, Koh Eun; Choi, Woong Seock; Sohn, Se Do; Kim, Jae Hack; Kim, Hang Bae [KEPCO E and C, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2011-08-15

The Integrated SOftware Development Environment (ISODE) is developed to provide the major S/W life cycle processes that are composed of development process, V/V process, requirements traceability process, and automated document generation process and target importing process to Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) platform. This provides critical safety software developers with a certified, domain optimized, model-based development environment, and the associated services to reduce time and efforts to develop software such as debugging, simulation, code generation and document generation. This also provides critical safety software verifiers with integrated V/V features of each phase of the software life cycle using appropriate tools such as model test coverage, formal verification, and automated report generation. In addition to development and verification, the ISODE gives a complete traceability solution from the SW design phase to the testing phase. Using this information, the coverage and impact analysis can be done easily whenever software modification is necessary. The final source codes of ISODE are imported into the newly developed PLC environment, as a module based after automatically converted into the format required by PLC. Additional tests for module and unit level are performed on the target platform.

Development of Safety-Critical Software for Nuclear Power Plant using a CASE Tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Chang Ho; Oh, Do Young; Kim, Koh Eun; Choi, Woong Seock; Sohn, Se Do; Kim, Jae Hack; Kim, Hang Bae

2011-01-01

The Integrated SOftware Development Environment (ISODE) is developed to provide the major S/W life cycle processes that are composed of development process, V/V process, requirements traceability process, and automated document generation process and target importing process to Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) platform. This provides critical safety software developers with a certified, domain optimized, model-based development environment, and the associated services to reduce time and efforts to develop software such as debugging, simulation, code generation and document generation. This also provides critical safety software verifiers with integrated V/V features of each phase of the software life cycle using appropriate tools such as model test coverage, formal verification, and automated report generation. In addition to development and verification, the ISODE gives a complete traceability solution from the SW design phase to the testing phase. Using this information, the coverage and impact analysis can be done easily whenever software modification is necessary. The final source codes of ISODE are imported into the newly developed PLC environment, as a module based after automatically converted into the format required by PLC. Additional tests for module and unit level are performed on the target platform

Towards a Reference Architecture to Provision Tools as a Service for Global Software Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chauhan, Aufeef; Babar, Muhammad Ali

2014-01-01

Organizations involve in Global Software Development (GSD) face challenges in terms of having access to appropriate set of tools for performing distributed engineering and development activities, integration between heterogeneous desktop and web-based tools, management of artifacts developed...... distributed environment. In this paper, we argue the need to have a cloud-enabled platform for supporting GSD and propose reference architecture of a cloud based Platform for providing support to provision ecosystem of the Tools as a Service (PTaaS)....

INTEGRATING CORPUS-BASED RESOURCES AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING TOOLS INTO CALL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pascual Cantos Gomez

2002-06-01

Full Text Available This paper ainis at presenting a survey of computational linguistic tools presently available but whose potential has been neither fully considered not exploited to its full in modern CALL. It starts with a discussion on the rationale of DDL to language learning, presenting typical DDL-activities. DDL-software and potential extensions of non-typical DDL-software (electronic dictionaries and electronic dictionary facilities to DDL . An extended section is devoted to describe NLP-technology and how it can be integrated into CALL, within already existing software or as stand alone resources. A range of NLP-tools is presentcd (MT programs, taggers, lemn~atizersp, arsers and speech technologies with special emphasis on tagged concordancing. The paper finishes with a number of reflections and ideas on how language technologies can be used efficiently within the language learning context and how extensive exploration and integration of these technologies might change and extend both modern CAI,I, and the present language learning paradigiii..

Bioinformatics resource manager v2.3: an integrated software environment for systems biology with microRNA and cross-species analysis tools

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tilton Susan C

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs are noncoding RNAs that direct post-transcriptional regulation of protein coding genes. Recent studies have shown miRNAs are important for controlling many biological processes, including nervous system development, and are highly conserved across species. Given their importance, computational tools are necessary for analysis, interpretation and integration of high-throughput (HTP miRNA data in an increasing number of model species. The Bioinformatics Resource Manager (BRM v2.3 is a software environment for data management, mining, integration and functional annotation of HTP biological data. In this study, we report recent updates to BRM for miRNA data analysis and cross-species comparisons across datasets. Results BRM v2.3 has the capability to query predicted miRNA targets from multiple databases, retrieve potential regulatory miRNAs for known genes, integrate experimentally derived miRNA and mRNA datasets, perform ortholog mapping across species, and retrieve annotation and cross-reference identifiers for an expanded number of species. Here we use BRM to show that developmental exposure of zebrafish to 30 uM nicotine from 6–48 hours post fertilization (hpf results in behavioral hyperactivity in larval zebrafish and alteration of putative miRNA gene targets in whole embryos at developmental stages that encompass early neurogenesis. We show typical workflows for using BRM to integrate experimental zebrafish miRNA and mRNA microarray datasets with example retrievals for zebrafish, including pathway annotation and mapping to human ortholog. Functional analysis of differentially regulated (p Conclusions BRM provides the ability to mine complex data for identification of candidate miRNAs or pathways that drive phenotypic outcome and, therefore, is a useful hypothesis generation tool for systems biology. The miRNA workflow in BRM allows for efficient processing of multiple miRNA and mRNA datasets in a single

Bioinformatics resource manager v2.3: an integrated software environment for systems biology with microRNA and cross-species analysis tools

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-01

Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are noncoding RNAs that direct post-transcriptional regulation of protein coding genes. Recent studies have shown miRNAs are important for controlling many biological processes, including nervous system development, and are highly conserved across species. Given their importance, computational tools are necessary for analysis, interpretation and integration of high-throughput (HTP) miRNA data in an increasing number of model species. The Bioinformatics Resource Manager (BRM) v2.3 is a software environment for data management, mining, integration and functional annotation of HTP biological data. In this study, we report recent updates to BRM for miRNA data analysis and cross-species comparisons across datasets. Results BRM v2.3 has the capability to query predicted miRNA targets from multiple databases, retrieve potential regulatory miRNAs for known genes, integrate experimentally derived miRNA and mRNA datasets, perform ortholog mapping across species, and retrieve annotation and cross-reference identifiers for an expanded number of species. Here we use BRM to show that developmental exposure of zebrafish to 30 uM nicotine from 6–48 hours post fertilization (hpf) results in behavioral hyperactivity in larval zebrafish and alteration of putative miRNA gene targets in whole embryos at developmental stages that encompass early neurogenesis. We show typical workflows for using BRM to integrate experimental zebrafish miRNA and mRNA microarray datasets with example retrievals for zebrafish, including pathway annotation and mapping to human ortholog. Functional analysis of differentially regulated (p<0.05) gene targets in BRM indicates that nicotine exposure disrupts genes involved in neurogenesis, possibly through misregulation of nicotine-sensitive miRNAs. Conclusions BRM provides the ability to mine complex data for identification of candidate miRNAs or pathways that drive phenotypic outcome and, therefore, is a useful hypothesis

Analyst Tools and Quality Control Software for the ARM Data System

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Moore, S.T.

2004-12-14

ATK Mission Research develops analyst tools and automated quality control software in order to assist the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Data Quality Office with their data inspection tasks. We have developed a web-based data analysis and visualization tool, called NCVweb, that allows for easy viewing of ARM NetCDF files. NCVweb, along with our library of sharable Interactive Data Language procedures and functions, allows even novice ARM researchers to be productive with ARM data with only minimal effort. We also contribute to the ARM Data Quality Office by analyzing ARM data streams, developing new quality control metrics, new diagnostic plots, and integrating this information into DQ HandS - the Data Quality Health and Status web-based explorer. We have developed several ways to detect outliers in ARM data streams and have written software to run in an automated fashion to flag these outliers.

Review of software tools for design and analysis of large scale MRM proteomic datasets.

Science.gov (United States)

Colangelo, Christopher M; Chung, Lisa; Bruce, Can; Cheung, Kei-Hoi

2013-06-15

Selective or Multiple Reaction monitoring (SRM/MRM) is a liquid-chromatography (LC)/tandem-mass spectrometry (MS/MS) method that enables the quantitation of specific proteins in a sample by analyzing precursor ions and the fragment ions of their selected tryptic peptides. Instrumentation software has advanced to the point that thousands of transitions (pairs of primary and secondary m/z values) can be measured in a triple quadrupole instrument coupled to an LC, by a well-designed scheduling and selection of m/z windows. The design of a good MRM assay relies on the availability of peptide spectra from previous discovery-phase LC-MS/MS studies. The tedious aspect of manually developing and processing MRM assays involving thousands of transitions has spurred to development of software tools to automate this process. Software packages have been developed for project management, assay development, assay validation, data export, peak integration, quality assessment, and biostatistical analysis. No single tool provides a complete end-to-end solution, thus this article reviews the current state and discusses future directions of these software tools in order to enable researchers to combine these tools for a comprehensive targeted proteomics workflow. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

CONNJUR Workflow Builder: a software integration environment for spectral reconstruction.

Science.gov (United States)

Fenwick, Matthew; Weatherby, Gerard; Vyas, Jay; Sesanker, Colbert; Martyn, Timothy O; Ellis, Heidi J C; Gryk, Michael R

2015-07-01

CONNJUR Workflow Builder (WB) is an open-source software integration environment that leverages existing spectral reconstruction tools to create a synergistic, coherent platform for converting biomolecular NMR data from the time domain to the frequency domain. WB provides data integration of primary data and metadata using a relational database, and includes a library of pre-built workflows for processing time domain data. WB simplifies maximum entropy reconstruction, facilitating the processing of non-uniformly sampled time domain data. As will be shown in the paper, the unique features of WB provide it with novel abilities to enhance the quality, accuracy, and fidelity of the spectral reconstruction process. WB also provides features which promote collaboration, education, parameterization, and non-uniform data sets along with processing integrated with the Rowland NMR Toolkit (RNMRTK) and NMRPipe software packages. WB is available free of charge in perpetuity, dual-licensed under the MIT and GPL open source licenses.

CONNJUR Workflow Builder: a software integration environment for spectral reconstruction

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fenwick, Matthew; Weatherby, Gerard; Vyas, Jay; Sesanker, Colbert [UConn Health, Department of Molecular Biology and Biophysics (United States); Martyn, Timothy O. [Rensselaer at Hartford, Department of Engineering and Science (United States); Ellis, Heidi J. C. [Western New England College, Department of Computer Science and Information Technology (United States); Gryk, Michael R., E-mail: gryk@uchc.edu [UConn Health, Department of Molecular Biology and Biophysics (United States)

2015-07-15

CONNJUR Workflow Builder (WB) is an open-source software integration environment that leverages existing spectral reconstruction tools to create a synergistic, coherent platform for converting biomolecular NMR data from the time domain to the frequency domain. WB provides data integration of primary data and metadata using a relational database, and includes a library of pre-built workflows for processing time domain data. WB simplifies maximum entropy reconstruction, facilitating the processing of non-uniformly sampled time domain data. As will be shown in the paper, the unique features of WB provide it with novel abilities to enhance the quality, accuracy, and fidelity of the spectral reconstruction process. WB also provides features which promote collaboration, education, parameterization, and non-uniform data sets along with processing integrated with the Rowland NMR Toolkit (RNMRTK) and NMRPipe software packages. WB is available free of charge in perpetuity, dual-licensed under the MIT and GPL open source licenses.

CONNJUR Workflow Builder: a software integration environment for spectral reconstruction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fenwick, Matthew; Weatherby, Gerard; Vyas, Jay; Sesanker, Colbert; Martyn, Timothy O.; Ellis, Heidi J. C.; Gryk, Michael R.

2015-01-01

CONNJUR Workflow Builder (WB) is an open-source software integration environment that leverages existing spectral reconstruction tools to create a synergistic, coherent platform for converting biomolecular NMR data from the time domain to the frequency domain. WB provides data integration of primary data and metadata using a relational database, and includes a library of pre-built workflows for processing time domain data. WB simplifies maximum entropy reconstruction, facilitating the processing of non-uniformly sampled time domain data. As will be shown in the paper, the unique features of WB provide it with novel abilities to enhance the quality, accuracy, and fidelity of the spectral reconstruction process. WB also provides features which promote collaboration, education, parameterization, and non-uniform data sets along with processing integrated with the Rowland NMR Toolkit (RNMRTK) and NMRPipe software packages. WB is available free of charge in perpetuity, dual-licensed under the MIT and GPL open source licenses

Testing tool for software concerning nuclear power plant safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boulc'h, J.; Le Meur, M.; Collart, J.M.; Segalard, J.; Uberschlag, J.

1984-11-01

In the present case, softwares to be analyzed are all written in assembler language. This paper presents the study and the realization of a tool to analyze softwares which have an important role for nuclear reactor protection and sauvegarde: principles of the tool design, working principle, realization and evolution of dynamic analyze tool [fr

Caesy: A software tool for computer-aided engineering

Science.gov (United States)

Wette, Matt

1993-01-01

A new software tool, Caesy, is described. This tool provides a strongly typed programming environment for research in the development of algorithms and software for computer-aided control system design. A description of the user language and its implementation as they currently stand are presented along with a description of work in progress and areas of future work.

Software Development Methods and Tools: a New Zealand study

OpenAIRE

Chris Phillips; Elizabeth Kemp; Duncan Hedderley

2005-01-01

This study is a more detailed follow-up to a preliminary investigation of the practices of software engineers in New Zealand. The focus of this study is on the methods and tools used by software developers in their current organisation. The project involved detailed questionnaires being piloted and sent out to several hundred software developers. A central part of the research involved the identification of factors affecting the use and take-up of existing software development tools in the wo...

CyberGIS software: a synthetic review and integration roadmap

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Shaowen [University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Anselin, Luc [Arizona State University; Bhaduri, Budhendra L [ORNL; Cosby, Christopher [University Navstar Consortium, Boulder, CO; Goodchild, Michael [University of California, Santa Barbara; Liu, Yan [University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Nygers, Timothy L. [University of Washington, Seattle

2013-01-01

CyberGIS defined as cyberinfrastructure-based geographic information systems (GIS) has emerged as a new generation of GIS representing an important research direction for both cyberinfrastructure and geographic information science. This study introduces a 5-year effort funded by the US National Science Foundation to advance the science and applications of CyberGIS, particularly for enabling the analysis of big spatial data, computationally intensive spatial analysis and modeling (SAM), and collaborative geospatial problem-solving and decision-making, simultaneously conducted by a large number of users. Several fundamental research questions are raised and addressed while a set of CyberGIS challenges and opportunities are identified from scientific perspectives. The study reviews several key CyberGIS software tools that are used to elucidate a vision and roadmap for CyberGIS software research. The roadmap focuses on software integration and synthesis of cyberinfrastructure, GIS, and SAM by defining several key integration dimensions and strategies. CyberGIS, based on this holistic integration roadmap, exhibits the following key characteristics: high-performance and scalable, open and distributed, collaborative, service-oriented, user-centric, and community-driven. As a major result of the roadmap, two key CyberGIS modalities gateway and toolkit combined with a community-driven and participatory approach have laid a solid foundation to achieve scientific breakthroughs across many geospatial communities that would be otherwise impossible.

Probability and statistics with integrated software routines

CERN Document Server

Deep, Ronald

2005-01-01

Probability & Statistics with Integrated Software Routines is a calculus-based treatment of probability concurrent with and integrated with statistics through interactive, tailored software applications designed to enhance the phenomena of probability and statistics. The software programs make the book unique.The book comes with a CD containing the interactive software leading to the Statistical Genie. The student can issue commands repeatedly while making parameter changes to observe the effects. Computer programming is an excellent skill for problem solvers, involving design, prototyping, data gathering, testing, redesign, validating, etc, all wrapped up in the scientific method.See also: CD to accompany Probability and Stats with Integrated Software Routines (0123694698)* Incorporates more than 1,000 engaging problems with answers* Includes more than 300 solved examples* Uses varied problem solving methods

Integrated State Estimation and Contingency Analysis Software Implementation using High Performance Computing Techniques

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chen, Yousu; Glaesemann, Kurt R.; Rice, Mark J.; Huang, Zhenyu

2015-12-31

Power system simulation tools are traditionally developed in sequential mode and codes are optimized for single core computing only. However, the increasing complexity in the power grid models requires more intensive computation. The traditional simulation tools will soon not be able to meet the grid operation requirements. Therefore, power system simulation tools need to evolve accordingly to provide faster and better results for grid operations. This paper presents an integrated state estimation and contingency analysis software implementation using high performance computing techniques. The software is able to solve large size state estimation problems within one second and achieve a near-linear speedup of 9,800 with 10,000 cores for contingency analysis application. The performance evaluation is presented to show its effectiveness.

Toxicity Estimation Software Tool (TEST)

Science.gov (United States)

The Toxicity Estimation Software Tool (TEST) was developed to allow users to easily estimate the toxicity of chemicals using Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSARs) methodologies. QSARs are mathematical models used to predict measures of toxicity from the physical c...

A Comparison of Various Software Development Methodologies: Feasibility and Methods of Integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samir Abou El-Seoud

2016-12-01

Full Text Available System development methodologies which have being used in the academic and commercial environments during last two decades have advantages and disadvantages. Researchers had tried to identify objectives, scope …etc. of the methodologies by following different approaches. Each approach has its Limitation, specific interest, coverage …etc. In this paper, we tried to perform a comparative study of those methodologies which are popular and commonly used in banking and commercial environment. We tried in our study to determine objectives, scope, tools and other features of the methodologies. We also, tried to determine how and to what extent the methodologies incorporate the facilities such as project management, cost benefit analysis, documentation …etc. One of the most important aspects of our study was how to integrate the methodologies and develop a global methodology which covers the complete span of the software development life cycle? A prototype system which integrates the selected methodologies has been developed. The developed system helps analysts and designers how to choose suitable tools or to obtain guidelines on what to do in a particular situation. The prototype system has been tested during the development of a software for an ATM “Auto Teller Machine” by selecting and applying SASD methodology during software development. This resulted in the development of high quality and well documented software system.

Integrated Power, Avionics, and Software (IPAS) Flexible Systems Integration

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Integrated Power, Avionics, and Software (IPAS) facility is a flexible, multi-mission hardware and software design environment. This project will develop a...

Knowledge Management tools integration within DLR's concurrent engineering facility

Science.gov (United States)

Lopez, R. P.; Soragavi, G.; Deshmukh, M.; Ludtke, D.

The complexity of space endeavors has increased the need for Knowledge Management (KM) tools. The concept of KM involves not only the electronic storage of knowledge, but also the process of making this knowledge available, reusable and traceable. Establishing a KM concept within the Concurrent Engineering Facility (CEF) has been a research topic of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). This paper presents the current KM tools of the CEF: the Software Platform for Organizing and Capturing Knowledge (S.P.O.C.K.), the data model Virtual Satellite (VirSat), and the Simulation Model Library (SimMoLib), and how their usage improved the Concurrent Engineering (CE) process. This paper also exposes the lessons learned from the introduction of KM practices into the CEF and elaborates a roadmap for the further development of KM in CE activities at DLR. The results of the application of the Knowledge Management tools have shown the potential of merging the three software platforms with their functionalities, as the next step towards the fully integration of KM practices into the CE process. VirSat will stay as the main software platform used within a CE study, and S.P.O.C.K. and SimMoLib will be integrated into VirSat. These tools will support the data model as a reference and documentation source, and as an access to simulation and calculation models. The use of KM tools in the CEF aims to become a basic practice during the CE process. The settlement of this practice will result in a much more extended knowledge and experience exchange within the Concurrent Engineering environment and, consequently, the outcome of the studies will comprise higher quality in the design of space systems.

STARS software tool for analysis of reliability and safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Poucet, A.; Guagnini, E.

1989-01-01

This paper reports on the STARS (Software Tool for the Analysis of Reliability and Safety) project aims at developing an integrated set of Computer Aided Reliability Analysis tools for the various tasks involved in systems safety and reliability analysis including hazard identification, qualitative analysis, logic model construction and evaluation. The expert system technology offers the most promising perspective for developing a Computer Aided Reliability Analysis tool. Combined with graphics and analysis capabilities, it can provide a natural engineering oriented environment for computer assisted reliability and safety modelling and analysis. For hazard identification and fault tree construction, a frame/rule based expert system is used, in which the deductive (goal driven) reasoning and the heuristic, applied during manual fault tree construction, is modelled. Expert system can explain their reasoning so that the analyst can become aware of the why and the how results are being obtained. Hence, the learning aspect involved in manual reliability and safety analysis can be maintained and improved

Software reengineering

Science.gov (United States)

Fridge, Ernest M., III

1991-01-01

Today's software systems generally use obsolete technology, are not integrated properly with other software systems, and are difficult and costly to maintain. The discipline of reverse engineering is becoming prominent as organizations try to move their systems up to more modern and maintainable technology in a cost effective manner. JSC created a significant set of tools to develop and maintain FORTRAN and C code during development of the Space Shuttle. This tool set forms the basis for an integrated environment to re-engineer existing code into modern software engineering structures which are then easier and less costly to maintain and which allow a fairly straightforward translation into other target languages. The environment will support these structures and practices even in areas where the language definition and compilers do not enforce good software engineering. The knowledge and data captured using the reverse engineering tools is passed to standard forward engineering tools to redesign or perform major upgrades to software systems in a much more cost effective manner than using older technologies. A beta vision of the environment was released in Mar. 1991. The commercial potential for such re-engineering tools is very great. CASE TRENDS magazine reported it to be the primary concern of over four hundred of the top MIS executives.

Software development tools using GPGPU potentialities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dudnik, V.A.; Kudryavtsev, V.I.; Sereda, T.M.; Us, S.A.; Shestakov, M.V.

2011-01-01

The paper deals with potentialities of various up-to-date software development tools for making use of graphic processor (GPU) parallel computing resources. Examples are given to illustrate the use of present-day software tools for the development of applications and realization of algorithms for scientific-technical calculations performed by GPGPU. The paper presents some classes of hard mathematical problems of scientific-technical calculations, for which the GPGPU can be efficiently used. is possible. To reduce the time of calculation program development with the use of GPGPU capabilities, various dedicated programming systems and problem-oriented subroutine libraries are recommended. Performance parameters when solving the problems with and without the use of GPGPU potentialities are compared.

Evolving software reengineering technology for the emerging innovative-competitive era

Science.gov (United States)

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

Runtime Performance Monitoring Tool for RTEMS System Software

Science.gov (United States)

Cho, B.; Kim, S.; Park, H.; Kim, H.; Choi, J.; Chae, D.; Lee, J.

2007-08-01

RTEMS is a commercial-grade real-time operating system that supports multi-processor computers. However, there are not many development tools for RTEMS. In this paper, we report new RTEMS-based runtime performance monitoring tool. We have implemented a light weight runtime monitoring task with an extension to the RTEMS APIs. Using our tool, software developers can verify various performance- related parameters during runtime. Our tool can be used during software development phase and in-orbit operation as well. Our implemented target agent is light weight and has small overhead using SpaceWire interface. Efforts to reduce overhead and to add other monitoring parameters are currently under research.

Molecular radiotherapy: the NUKFIT software for calculating the time-integrated activity coefficient.

Science.gov (United States)

Kletting, P; Schimmel, S; Kestler, H A; Hänscheid, H; Luster, M; Fernández, M; Bröer, J H; Nosske, D; Lassmann, M; Glatting, G

2013-10-01

Calculation of the time-integrated activity coefficient (residence time) is a crucial step in dosimetry for molecular radiotherapy. However, available software is deficient in that it is either not tailored for the use in molecular radiotherapy and/or does not include all required estimation methods. The aim of this work was therefore the development and programming of an algorithm which allows for an objective and reproducible determination of the time-integrated activity coefficient and its standard error. The algorithm includes the selection of a set of fitting functions from predefined sums of exponentials and the choice of an error model for the used data. To estimate the values of the adjustable parameters an objective function, depending on the data, the parameters of the error model, the fitting function and (if required and available) Bayesian information, is minimized. To increase reproducibility and user-friendliness the starting values are automatically determined using a combination of curve stripping and random search. Visual inspection, the coefficient of determination, the standard error of the fitted parameters, and the correlation matrix are provided to evaluate the quality of the fit. The functions which are most supported by the data are determined using the corrected Akaike information criterion. The time-integrated activity coefficient is estimated by analytically integrating the fitted functions. Its standard error is determined assuming Gaussian error propagation. The software was implemented using MATLAB. To validate the proper implementation of the objective function and the fit functions, the results of NUKFIT and SAAM numerical, a commercially available software tool, were compared. The automatic search for starting values was successfully tested for reproducibility. The quality criteria applied in conjunction with the Akaike information criterion allowed the selection of suitable functions. Function fit parameters and their standard

A Methodology for Integrating Maintainability Using Software Metrics

OpenAIRE

Lewis, John A.; Henry, Sallie M.

1989-01-01

Maintainability must be integrated into software early in the development process. But for practical use, the techniques used must be as unobtrusive to the existing software development process as possible. This paper defines a methodology for integrating maintainability into large-scale software and describes an experiment which implemented the methodology into a major commercial software development environment.

Integrating Usability Evaluations into the Software Development Process

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lizano, Fulvio

as relevant and strategic human–computer interaction (HCI) activities in the software development process, there are obstacles that limit the complete, effective and efficient integration of this kind of testing into the software development process. Two main obstacles are the cost of usability evaluations...... and the software developers' resistance to accepting users’ opinions regarding the lack of usability in their software systems. The ‘cost obstacle’ refers to the constraint of conducting usability evaluations in the software process due to the significant amount of resources required by this type of testing. Some......This thesis addresses the integration of usability evaluations into the software development process. The integration here is contextualized in terms of how to include usability evaluation as an activity in the software development lifecycle. Even though usability evaluations are considered...

Installing and Setting Up Git Software Tool on Windows | High-Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Computing | NREL Git Software Tool on Windows Installing and Setting Up Git Software Tool on Windows Learn how to set up the Git software tool on Windows for use with the Peregrine system. Git is this doc, we'll show you how to get git installed on Windows 7, and how to get things set up on NREL's

An integrated computational tool for precipitation simulation

Science.gov (United States)

Cao, W.; Zhang, F.; Chen, S.-L.; Zhang, C.; Chang, Y. A.

2011-07-01

Computer aided materials design is of increasing interest because the conventional approach solely relying on experimentation is no longer viable within the constraint of available resources. Modeling of microstructure and mechanical properties during precipitation plays a critical role in understanding the behavior of materials and thus accelerating the development of materials. Nevertheless, an integrated computational tool coupling reliable thermodynamic calculation, kinetic simulation, and property prediction of multi-component systems for industrial applications is rarely available. In this regard, we are developing a software package, PanPrecipitation, under the framework of integrated computational materials engineering to simulate precipitation kinetics. It is seamlessly integrated with the thermodynamic calculation engine, PanEngine, to obtain accurate thermodynamic properties and atomic mobility data necessary for precipitation simulation.

Software tools for microprocessor based systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Halatsis, C.

1981-01-01

After a short review of the hardware and/or software tools for the development of single-chip, fixed instruction set microprocessor-based sytems we focus on the software tools for designing systems based on microprogrammed bit-sliced microprocessors. Emphasis is placed on meta-microassemblers and simulation facilties at the register-transfer-level and architecture level. We review available meta-microassemblers giving their most important features, advantages and disadvantages. We also make extentions to higher-level microprogramming languages and associated systems specifically developed for bit-slices. In the area of simulation facilities we first discuss the simulation objectives and the criteria for chosing the right simulation language. We consertrate to simulation facilities already used in bit-slices projects and discuss the gained experience. We conclude by describing the way the Signetics meta-microassembler and the ISPS simulation tool have been employed in the design of a fast microprogrammed machine, called MICE, made out of ECL bit-slices. (orig.)

Estimation of toxicity using a Java based software tool

Science.gov (United States)

A software tool has been developed that will allow a user to estimate the toxicity for a variety of endpoints (such as acute aquatic toxicity). The software tool is coded in Java and can be accessed using a web browser (or alternatively downloaded and ran as a stand alone applic...

The classification and evaluation of Computer-Aided Software Engineering tools

OpenAIRE

Manley, Gary W.

1990-01-01

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited. The use of Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools has been viewed as a remedy for the software development crisis by achieving improved productivity and system quality via the automation of all or part of the software engineering process. The proliferation and tremendous variety of tools available have stretched the understanding of experienced practitioners and has had a profound impact on the software engineering process itse...

Technology Transfer Challenges for High-Assurance Software Engineering Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Koga, Dennis (Technical Monitor); Penix, John; Markosian, Lawrence Z.

2003-01-01

In this paper, we describe our experience with the challenges thar we are currently facing in our effort to develop advanced software verification and validation tools. We categorize these challenges into several areas: cost benefits modeling, tool usability, customer application domain, and organizational issues. We provide examples of challenges in each area and identrfj, open research issues in areas which limit our ability to transfer high-assurance software engineering tools into practice.

Computer-aided design in power engineering. Application of software tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stojkovic, Zlatan

2012-01-01

Demonstrates the use software tools in the practice of design in the field of power systems. Presents many applications in the design in the field of power systems. Useful for educative purposes and practical work. This textbooks demonstrates the application of software tools in solving a series of problems from the field of designing power system structures and systems. It contains four chapters: The first chapter leads the reader through all the phases necessary in the procedures of computer aided modeling and simulation. It guides through the complex problems presenting on the basis of eleven original examples. The second chapter presents application of software tools in power system calculations of power systems equipment design. Several design example calculations are carried out using engineering standards like MATLAB, EMTP/ATP, Excel and Access, AutoCAD and Simulink. The third chapters focuses on the graphical documentation using a collection of software tools (AutoCAD, EPLAN, SIMARIS SIVACON, SIMARIS DESIGN) which enable the complete automation of the development of graphical documentation of a power systems. In the fourth chapter, the application of software tools in the project management in power systems is discussed. Here, the emphasis is put on the standard software MS Excel and MS Project.

Computer-aided design in power engineering. Application of software tools

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Stojkovic, Zlatan

2012-07-01

Demonstrates the use software tools in the practice of design in the field of power systems. Presents many applications in the design in the field of power systems. Useful for educative purposes and practical work. This textbooks demonstrates the application of software tools in solving a series of problems from the field of designing power system structures and systems. It contains four chapters: The first chapter leads the reader through all the phases necessary in the procedures of computer aided modeling and simulation. It guides through the complex problems presenting on the basis of eleven original examples. The second chapter presents application of software tools in power system calculations of power systems equipment design. Several design example calculations are carried out using engineering standards like MATLAB, EMTP/ATP, Excel and Access, AutoCAD and Simulink. The third chapters focuses on the graphical documentation using a collection of software tools (AutoCAD, EPLAN, SIMARIS SIVACON, SIMARIS DESIGN) which enable the complete automation of the development of graphical documentation of a power systems. In the fourth chapter, the application of software tools in the project management in power systems is discussed. Here, the emphasis is put on the standard software MS Excel and MS Project.

User Studies: Developing Learning Strategy Tool Software for Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Fitzgerald, Gail E.; Koury, Kevin A.; Peng, Hsinyi

This paper is a report of user studies for developing learning strategy tool software for children. The prototype software demonstrated is designed for children with learning and behavioral disabilities. The tools consist of easy-to-use templates for creating organizational, memory, and learning approach guides for use in classrooms and at home.…

A communication protocol for interactively controlling software tools

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wulp, van der J.

2008-01-01

We present a protocol for interactively using software tools in a loosely coupled tool environment. Such an environment can assist the user in doing tasks that require the use of multiple tools. For example, it can invoke tools on certain input, set processing parameters, await task completion and

Molecular radiotherapy: The NUKFIT software for calculating the time-integrated activity coefficient

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kletting, P.; Schimmel, S.; Luster, M. [Klinik für Nuklearmedizin, Universität Ulm, Ulm 89081 (Germany); Kestler, H. A. [Research Group Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Institut für Neuroinformatik, Universität Ulm, Ulm 89081 (Germany); Hänscheid, H.; Fernández, M.; Lassmann, M. [Klinik für Nuklearmedizin, Universität Würzburg, Würzburg 97080 (Germany); Bröer, J. H.; Nosske, D. [Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz, Fachbereich Strahlenschutz und Gesundheit, Oberschleißheim 85764 (Germany); Glatting, G. [Medical Radiation Physics/Radiation Protection, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim 68167 (Germany)

2013-10-15

Purpose: Calculation of the time-integrated activity coefficient (residence time) is a crucial step in dosimetry for molecular radiotherapy. However, available software is deficient in that it is either not tailored for the use in molecular radiotherapy and/or does not include all required estimation methods. The aim of this work was therefore the development and programming of an algorithm which allows for an objective and reproducible determination of the time-integrated activity coefficient and its standard error.Methods: The algorithm includes the selection of a set of fitting functions from predefined sums of exponentials and the choice of an error model for the used data. To estimate the values of the adjustable parameters an objective function, depending on the data, the parameters of the error model, the fitting function and (if required and available) Bayesian information, is minimized. To increase reproducibility and user-friendliness the starting values are automatically determined using a combination of curve stripping and random search. Visual inspection, the coefficient of determination, the standard error of the fitted parameters, and the correlation matrix are provided to evaluate the quality of the fit. The functions which are most supported by the data are determined using the corrected Akaike information criterion. The time-integrated activity coefficient is estimated by analytically integrating the fitted functions. Its standard error is determined assuming Gaussian error propagation. The software was implemented using MATLAB.Results: To validate the proper implementation of the objective function and the fit functions, the results of NUKFIT and SAAM numerical, a commercially available software tool, were compared. The automatic search for starting values was successfully tested for reproducibility. The quality criteria applied in conjunction with the Akaike information criterion allowed the selection of suitable functions. Function fit

Recent development in software and automation tools for high-throughput discovery bioanalysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Shou, Wilson Z; Zhang, Jun

2012-05-01

Bioanalysis with LC-MS/MS has been established as the method of choice for quantitative determination of drug candidates in biological matrices in drug discovery and development. The LC-MS/MS bioanalytical support for drug discovery, especially for early discovery, often requires high-throughput (HT) analysis of large numbers of samples (hundreds to thousands per day) generated from many structurally diverse compounds (tens to hundreds per day) with a very quick turnaround time, in order to provide important activity and liability data to move discovery projects forward. Another important consideration for discovery bioanalysis is its fit-for-purpose quality requirement depending on the particular experiments being conducted at this stage, and it is usually not as stringent as those required in bioanalysis supporting drug development. These aforementioned attributes of HT discovery bioanalysis made it an ideal candidate for using software and automation tools to eliminate manual steps, remove bottlenecks, improve efficiency and reduce turnaround time while maintaining adequate quality. In this article we will review various recent developments that facilitate automation of individual bioanalytical procedures, such as sample preparation, MS/MS method development, sample analysis and data review, as well as fully integrated software tools that manage the entire bioanalytical workflow in HT discovery bioanalysis. In addition, software tools supporting the emerging high-resolution accurate MS bioanalytical approach are also discussed.

Design and implementation of a software tool intended for simulation and test of real time codes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Le Louarn, C.

1986-09-01

The objective of real time software testing is to show off processing errors and unobserved functional requirements or timing constraints in a code. In the perspective of safety analysis of nuclear equipments of power plants testing should be carried independently from the physical process (which is not generally available), and because casual hardware failures must be considered. We propose here a simulation and test tool, integrally software, with large interactive possibilities for testing assembly code running on microprocessor. The OST (outil d'aide a la simulation et au Test de logiciels temps reel) simulates code execution and hardware or software environment behaviour. Test execution is closely monitored and many useful informations are automatically saved. The present thesis work details, after exposing methods and tools dedicated to real time software, the OST system. We show the internal mechanisms and objects of the system: particularly ''events'' (which describe evolutions of the system under test) and mnemonics (which describe the variables). Then, we detail the interactive means available to the user for constructing the test data and the environment of the tested software. Finally, a prototype implementation is presented along with the results of the tests carried out. This demonstrates the many advantages of the use of an automatic tool over a manual investigation. As a conclusion, further developments, nececessary to complete the final tool are rewieved [fr

Kedalion: NASA's Adaptable and Agile Hardware/Software Integration and Test Lab

Science.gov (United States)

Mangieri, Mark L.; Vice, Jason

2011-01-01

NASA fs Kedalion engineering analysis lab at Johnson Space Center is on the forefront of validating and using many contemporary avionics hardware/software development and integration techniques, which represent new paradigms to heritage NASA culture. Kedalion has validated many of the Orion hardware/software engineering techniques borrowed from the adjacent commercial aircraft avionics solution space, with the intention to build upon such techniques to better align with today fs aerospace market. Using agile techniques, commercial products, early rapid prototyping, in-house expertise and tools, and customer collaboration, Kedalion has demonstrated that cost effective contemporary paradigms hold the promise to serve future NASA endeavors within a diverse range of system domains. Kedalion provides a readily adaptable solution for medium/large scale integration projects. The Kedalion lab is currently serving as an in-line resource for the project and the Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) program.

Software features and applications in process design, integration and operation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dhole, V. [Aspen Tech Limited, Warrington (United Kingdom)

1999-02-01

Process engineering technologies and tools have evolved rapidly over the last twenty years. Process simulation/modeling, advanced process control, on-line optimisation, production planning and supply chain management are some of the examples of technologies that have rapidly matured from early commercial prototypes and concepts to established tools with significant impact on profitability of process industry today. Process Synthesis or Process Integration (PI) in comparison is yet to create its impact and still remains largely in the domain of few expert users. One of the key reasons as to why PI has not taken off is because the PI tools have not become integral components of the standard process engineering environments. On the last 15 years AspenTech has grown from a small process simulation tool provider to a large multinational company providing a complete suite of process engineering technologies and services covering process design, operation, planning and supply chain management. Throughout this period, AspenTech has acquired experience in rapidly evolving technologies from their early prototype stage to mature products and services. The paper outlines AspenTech`s strategy of integrating PI with other more established process design and operational improvement technologies. The paper illustrates the key elements of AspenTech`s strategy via examples of software development initiatives and services projects. The paper also outlines AspenTech`s future vision of the role of PI in process engineering. (au)

The evolution of CACSD tools-a software engineering perspective

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ravn, Ole; Szymkat, Maciej

1992-01-01

The earlier evolution of computer-aided control system design (CACSD) tools is discussed from a software engineering perspective. A model of the design process is presented as the basis for principles and requirements of future CACSD tools. Combinability, interfacing in memory, and an open...... workspace are seen as important concepts in CACSD. Some points are made about the problem of buy or make when new software is required, and the idea of buy and make is put forward. Emphasis is put on the time perspective and the life cycle of the software...

DASAO: software tool for the management of safeguards, waste and decommissioning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Noynaert, Luc; Verwaest, Isi; Libon, Henri; Cuchet, Jean-Marie

2013-01-01

Decommissioning of nuclear facilities is a complex process involving operations such as detailed surveys, decontamination and dismantling of equipment's, demolition of buildings and management of resulting waste and nuclear materials if any. This process takes place in a well-developed legal framework and is controlled and followed-up by stakeholders like the Safety Authority, the Radwaste management Agency and the Safeguards Organism. In the framework of its nuclear waste and decommissioning program and more specifically the decommissioning of the BR3 reactor, SCK-CEN has developed different software tools to secure the waste and material traceability, to support the sound management of the decommissioning project and to facilitate the control and the follow-up by the stakeholders. In the case of Belgium, it concerns the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control, the National Agency for radioactive waste management and fissile material and EURATOM and IAEA. In 2005, Belgonucleaire decided to shutdown her Dessel MOX fuel fabrication plant and the production stopped in 2006. According to the final decommissioning plan ('PDF') approved by NIRAS, the decommissioning works should start in 2008 at the earliest. In 2006, the management of Belgonucleaire identified the need for an integrated database and decided to entrust SCK-CEN with its development, because SCK-CEN relies on previous experience in comparable applications namely already approved by authorities such as NIRAS, FANC and EURATOM. The main objectives of this integrated software tool are: - simplified and updated safeguards; - waste and material traceability; - computerized documentation; - support to project management; - periodic and final reporting to waste and safety authorities. The software called DASAO (Database for Safeguards, Waste and Decommissioning) was successfully commissioned in 2008 and extensively used from 2009 to the satisfaction of Belgonucleaire and the stakeholders. SCK-CEN is

Integrated software tool automates MOV diagnosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Joshi, B.D.; Upadhyaya, B.R.

1996-01-01

This article reports that researchers at the University of Tennessee have developed digital signal processing software that takes the guesswork out of motor current signature analysis (MCSA). The federal testing regulations for motor-operated valves (MOV) used in nuclear power plants have recently come under critical scrutiny by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). New ASME testing specifications mandate that all valves performing a safety function are to be tested -- not just ASME Code 1, 2 and 3 valves. The NRC will likely endorse the ASME regulations in the near future. Because of these changes, several utility companies have voluntarily expanded the scope of their in-service testing programs for MOVs, in spite of the additional expense

Using registries to integrate bioinformatics tools and services into workbench environments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ménager, Hervé; Kalaš, Matúš; Rapacki, Kristoffer

2016-01-01

The diversity and complexity of bioinformatics resources presents significant challenges to their localisation, deployment and use, creating a need for reliable systems that address these issues. Meanwhile, users demand increasingly usable and integrated ways to access and analyse data, especially......, a software component that will ease the integration of bioinformatics resources in a workbench environment, using their description provided by the existing ELIXIR Tools and Data Services Registry....

IDMT, Integrated Decommissioning Management Tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alemberti, A.; Castagna, P.; Marsiletti, M.; Orlandi, S.; Perasso, L.; Susco, M.

2005-01-01

Nuclear Power Plant decommissioning requires a number of demolition activities related to civil works and systems as well as the construction of temporary facilities used for treatment and conditioning of the dismantled parts. The presence of a radiological, potentially hazardous, environment due to the specific configuration and history of the plant require a professional, expert and qualified approach approved by the national safety authority. Dismantling activities must be designed, planned and analysed in detail during an evaluation phase taking into account different scenarios generated by possible dismantling sequences and specific waste treatments to be implemented. The optimisation process of the activities becomes very challenging taking into account the requirement of the minimisation of the radiological impact on exposed workers and people during normal and accident conditions. While remote operated equipment, waste treatment and conditioning facilities may be designed taking into account this primary goal also a centralised management system and corresponding software tools have to be designed and operated in order to guarantee the fulfilment of the imposed limits as well as the traceability of wastes. Ansaldo Nuclear Division has been strongly involved in the development of a qualified and certified software environment to manage the most critical activities of a decommissioning project. The IDMT system (Integrated Decommissioning Management Tools) provide a set of stand alone user friendly applications able to work in an integrated configuration to guarantee waste identification, traceability during treatment and conditioning process as well as location and identification at the Final Repository site. Additionally, the system can be used to identify, analyse and compare different specific operating scenarios to be optimised in term of both economical and radiological considerations. The paper provides an overview of the different phases of

A software communication tool for the tele-ICU.

Science.gov (United States)

Pimintel, Denise M; Wei, Shang Heng; Odor, Alberto

2013-01-01

The Tele Intensive Care Unit (tele-ICU) supports a high volume, high acuity population of patients. There is a high-volume of incoming and outgoing calls, especially during the evening and night hours, through the tele-ICU hubs. The tele-ICU clinicians must be able to communicate effectively to team members in order to support the care of complex and critically ill patients while supporting and maintaining a standard to improve time to intervention. This study describes a software communication tool that will improve the time to intervention, over the paper-driven communication format presently used in the tele-ICU. The software provides a multi-relational database of message instances to mine information for evaluation and quality improvement for all entities that touch the tele-ICU. The software design incorporates years of critical care and software design experience combined with new skills acquired in an applied Health Informatics program. This software tool will function in the tele-ICU environment and perform as a front-end application that gathers, routes, and displays internal communication messages for intervention by priority and provider.

Robotic Software Integration Using MARIE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carle Côté

2006-03-01

Full Text Available This paper presents MARIE, a middleware framework oriented towards developing and integrating new and existing software for robotic systems. By using a generic communication framework, MARIE aims to create a flexible distributed component system that allows robotics developers to share software programs and algorithms, and design prototypes rapidly based on their own integration needs. The use of MARIE is illustrated with the design of a socially interactive autonomous mobile robot platform capable of map building, localization, navigation, tasks scheduling, sound source localization, tracking and separation, speech recognition and generation, visual tracking, message reading and graphical interaction using a touch screen interface.

Computer- Aided Design in Power Engineering Application of Software Tools

CERN Document Server

Stojkovic, Zlatan

2012-01-01

This textbooks demonstrates the application of software tools in solving a series of problems from the field of designing power system structures and systems. It contains four chapters: The first chapter leads the reader through all the phases necessary in the procedures of computer aided modeling and simulation. It guides through the complex problems presenting on the basis of eleven original examples. The second chapter presents  application of software tools in power system calculations of power systems equipment design. Several design example calculations are carried out using engineering standards like MATLAB, EMTP/ATP, Excel & Access, AutoCAD and Simulink. The third chapters focuses on the graphical documentation using a collection of software tools (AutoCAD, EPLAN, SIMARIS SIVACON, SIMARIS DESIGN) which enable the complete automation of the development of graphical documentation of a power systems. In the fourth chapter, the application of software tools in the project management in power systems ...

Sandia software guidelines: Volume 5, Tools, techniques, and methodologies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1989-07-01

This volume is one in a series of Sandia Software Guidelines intended for use in producing quality software within Sandia National Laboratories. This volume describes software tools and methodologies available to Sandia personnel for the development of software, and outlines techniques that have proven useful within the Laboratories and elsewhere. References and evaluations by Sandia personnel are included. 6 figs.

Simulation Tools and Techniques for Analyzing the Impacts of Photovoltaic System Integration

Science.gov (United States)

Hariri, Ali

Solar photovoltaic (PV) energy integration in distribution networks is one of the fastest growing sectors of distributed energy integration. The growth in solar PV integration is incentivized by various clean power policies, global interest in solar energy, and reduction in manufacturing and installation costs of solar energy systems. The increase in solar PV integration has raised a number of concerns regarding the potential impacts that might arise as a result of high PV penetration. Some impacts have already been recorded in networks with high PV penetration such as in China, Germany, and USA (Hawaii and California). Therefore, network planning is becoming more intricate as new technologies are integrated into the existing electric grid. The integrated new technologies pose certain compatibility concerns regarding the existing electric grid infrastructure. Therefore, PV integration impact studies are becoming more essential in order to have a better understanding of how to advance the solar PV integration efforts without introducing adverse impacts into the network. PV impact studies are important for understanding the nature of the new introduced phenomena. Understanding the nature of the potential impacts is a key factor for mitigating and accommodating for said impacts. Traditionally, electric power utilities relied on phasor-based power flow simulations for planning their electric networks. However, the conventional, commercially available, phasor-based simulation tools do not provide proper visibility across a wide spectrum of electric phenomena. Moreover, different types of simulation approaches are suitable for specific types of studies. For instance, power flow software cannot be used for studying time varying phenomena. At the same time, it is not practical to use electromagnetic transient (EMT) tools to perform power flow solutions. Therefore, some electric phenomena caused by the variability of PV generation are not visible using the conventional

Developing Learning Tool of Control System Engineering Using Matrix Laboratory Software Oriented on Industrial Needs

Science.gov (United States)

Isnur Haryudo, Subuh; Imam Agung, Achmad; Firmansyah, Rifqi

2018-04-01

The purpose of this research is to develop learning media of control technique using Matrix Laboratory software with industry requirement approach. Learning media serves as a tool for creating a better and effective teaching and learning situation because it can accelerate the learning process in order to enhance the quality of learning. Control Techniques using Matrix Laboratory software can enlarge the interest and attention of students, with real experience and can grow independent attitude. This research design refers to the use of research and development (R & D) methods that have been modified by multi-disciplinary team-based researchers. This research used Computer based learning method consisting of computer and Matrix Laboratory software which was integrated with props. Matrix Laboratory has the ability to visualize the theory and analysis of the Control System which is an integration of computing, visualization and programming which is easy to use. The result of this instructional media development is to use mathematical equations using Matrix Laboratory software on control system application with DC motor plant and PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative). Considering that manufacturing in the field of Distributed Control systems (DCSs), Programmable Controllers (PLCs), and Microcontrollers (MCUs) use PID systems in production processes are widely used in industry.

MoFi: A Software Tool for Annotating Glycoprotein Mass Spectra by Integrating Hybrid Data from the Intact Protein and Glycopeptide Level.

Science.gov (United States)

Skala, Wolfgang; Wohlschlager, Therese; Senn, Stefan; Huber, Gabriel E; Huber, Christian G

2018-04-18

Hybrid mass spectrometry (MS) is an emerging technique for characterizing glycoproteins, which typically display pronounced microheterogeneity. Since hybrid MS combines information from different experimental levels, it crucially depends on computational methods. Here, we describe a novel software tool, MoFi, which integrates hybrid MS data to assign glycans and other post-translational modifications (PTMs) in deconvoluted mass spectra of intact proteins. Its two-stage search algorithm first assigns monosaccharide/PTM compositions to each peak and then compiles a hierarchical list of glycan combinations compatible with these compositions. Importantly, the program only includes those combinations which are supported by a glycan library as derived from glycopeptide or released glycan analysis. By applying MoFi to mass spectra of rituximab, ado-trastuzumab emtansine, and recombinant human erythropoietin, we demonstrate how integration of bottom-up data may be used to refine information collected at the intact protein level. Accordingly, our software reveals that a single mass frequently can be explained by a considerable number of glycoforms. Yet, it simultaneously ranks proteoforms according to their probability, based on a score which is calculated from relative glycan abundances. Notably, glycoforms that comprise identical glycans may nevertheless differ in score if those glycans occupy different sites. Hence, MoFi exposes different layers of complexity that are present in the annotation of a glycoprotein mass spectrum.

OST: analysis tool for real time software by simulation of material and software environments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boulc'h; Le Meur; Lapassat; Salichon; Segalard

1988-07-01

The utilization of microprocessors systems in a nuclear installation control oblige a great operation safety in the installation operation and in the environment protection. For the safety analysis of these installations the Institute of Protection and Nuclear Safety (IPSN) will dispose tools which permit to make controls during all the life of the software. The simulation and test tool (OST) which have been created is completely made by softwares. It is used on VAX calculators and can be easily transportable on other calculators [fr

An integrated computer design environment for the development of micro-computer critical software

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

De Agostino, E.; Massari, V.

1986-01-01

The paper deals with the development of micro-computer software for Nuclear Safety System. More specifically, it describes an experimental work in the field of software development methodologies to be used for the implementation of micro-computer based safety systems. An investigation of technological improvements that are provided by state-of-the-art integrated packages for micro-based systems development has been carried out. The work has aimed to assess a suitable automated tools environment for the whole software life-cycle. The main safety functions, as DNBR, KW/FT, of a nuclear power reactor have been implemented in a host-target approach. A prototype test-bed microsystem has been implemented to run the safety functions in order to derive a concrete evaluation on the feasibility of critical software according to new technological trends of ''Software Factories''. (author)

COMSY- A Software Tool For Aging And Plant Life Management With An Integrated Documentation Tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baier, Roman; Zander, Andre

2008-01-01

For the aging and plant life management the integrity of the mechanical components and structures is one of the key objectives. In order to ensure this integrity it is essential to implement a comprehensive aging management. This should be applied to all safety relevant mechanical systems or components, civil structures, electrical systems as well as instrumentation and control (I and C). The following aspects should be covered: - Identification and assessment of relevant degradation mechanisms; - Verification and evaluation of the quality status of all safety relevant systems, structures and components (SSC's); - Verification and modernization of I and C and electrical systems; - Reliable and up-to-date documentation. For the support of this issue AREVA NP GmbH has developed the computer program COMSY, which utilizes more than 30 years of experience resulting from research activities and operational experience. The program provides the option to perform a plant-wide screening for identifying system areas, which are sensitive to specific degradation mechanisms. Another object is the administration and evaluation of NDE measurements from different techniques. An integrated documentation tool makes the document management and maintenance fast, reliable and independent from staff service. (authors)

The impact of continuous integration on other software development practices: a large-scale empirical study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zhao, Y.; Serebrenik, A.; Zhou, Y.; Filkov, V.; Vasilescu, B.N.

2017-01-01

Continuous Integration (CI) has become a disruptive innovation in software development: with proper tool support and adoption, positive effects have been demonstrated for pull request throughput and scaling up of project sizes. As any other innovation, adopting CI implies adapting existing practices

Improving design processes through structured reflection : a prototype software tool

OpenAIRE

Reymen, I.M.M.J.; Melby, E.

2001-01-01

A prototype software tool facilitating the use of a design method supporting structured reflection on design processes is presented. The prototype, called Echo, has been developed to explore the benefits of using a software system to facilitate the use of the design method. Both the prototype software tool and the design method are developed as part of the Ph.D. project of Isabelle Reymen. The goal of the design method is supporting designers with reflection on design processes in a systemati...

Tool Integration: Experiences and Issues in Using XMI and Component Technology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Damm, Christian Heide; Hansen, Klaus Marius; Thomsen, Michael

2000-01-01

of conflicting data models, and provide architecture for doing so, based on component technology and XML Metadata Interchange. As an example, we discuss the implementation of an electronic whiteboard tool, Knight, which adds support for creative and collaborative object-oriented modeling to existing Computer-Aided...... Software Engineering through integration using our proposed architecture....

Software Tools to Support the Assessment of System Health

Science.gov (United States)

Melcher, Kevin J.

2013-01-01

This presentation provides an overview of three software tools that were developed by the NASA Glenn Research Center to support the assessment of system health: the Propulsion Diagnostic Method Evaluation Strategy (ProDIMES), the Systematic Sensor Selection Strategy (S4), and the Extended Testability Analysis (ETA) tool. Originally developed to support specific NASA projects in aeronautics and space, these software tools are currently available to U.S. citizens through the NASA Glenn Software Catalog. The ProDiMES software tool was developed to support a uniform comparison of propulsion gas path diagnostic methods. Methods published in the open literature are typically applied to dissimilar platforms with different levels of complexity. They often address different diagnostic problems and use inconsistent metrics for evaluating performance. As a result, it is difficult to perform a one ]to ]one comparison of the various diagnostic methods. ProDIMES solves this problem by serving as a theme problem to aid in propulsion gas path diagnostic technology development and evaluation. The overall goal is to provide a tool that will serve as an industry standard, and will truly facilitate the development and evaluation of significant Engine Health Management (EHM) capabilities. ProDiMES has been developed under a collaborative project of The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP) based on feedback provided by individuals within the aircraft engine health management community. The S4 software tool provides a framework that supports the optimal selection of sensors for health management assessments. S4 is structured to accommodate user ]defined applications, diagnostic systems, search techniques, and system requirements/constraints. One or more sensor suites that maximize this performance while meeting other user ]defined system requirements that are presumed to exist. S4 provides a systematic approach for evaluating combinations of sensors to determine the set or sets of

A software tool integrated risk assessment of spent fuel transpotation and storage

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yun, Mi Rae; Almomani, Belal; Ham, Jae Hyun; Kang, Hyun Gook [Dept. of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Christian, Robby [Dept. of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Bo Gyung [Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Lee, Sang Hoon [Dept. of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, Keimyung University, Daegu (Korea, Republic of)

2017-06-15

When temporary spent fuel storage pools at nuclear power plants reach their capacity limit, the spent fuel must be moved to an alternative storage facility. However, radioactive materials must be handled and stored carefully to avoid severe consequences to the environment. In this study, the risks of three potential accident scenarios (i.e., maritime transportation, an aircraft crashing into an interim storage facility, and on-site transportation) associated with the spent fuel transportation process were analyzed using a probabilistic approach. For each scenario, the probabilities and the consequences were calculated separately to assess the risks: the probabilities were calculated using existing data and statistical models, and the consequences were calculated using computation models. Risk assessment software was developed to conveniently integrate the three scenarios. The risks were analyzed using the developed software according to the shipment route, building characteristics, and spent fuel handling environment. As a result of the risk analysis with varying accident conditions, transportation and storage strategies with relatively low risk were developed for regulators and licensees. The focus of this study was the risk assessment methodology; however, the applied model and input data have some uncertainties. Further research to reduce these uncertainties will improve the accuracy of this mode.

A software tool integrated risk assessment of spent fuel transpotation and storage

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yun, Mi Rae; Almomani, Belal; Ham, Jae Hyun; Kang, Hyun Gook; Christian, Robby; Kim, Bo Gyung; Lee, Sang Hoon

2017-01-01

When temporary spent fuel storage pools at nuclear power plants reach their capacity limit, the spent fuel must be moved to an alternative storage facility. However, radioactive materials must be handled and stored carefully to avoid severe consequences to the environment. In this study, the risks of three potential accident scenarios (i.e., maritime transportation, an aircraft crashing into an interim storage facility, and on-site transportation) associated with the spent fuel transportation process were analyzed using a probabilistic approach. For each scenario, the probabilities and the consequences were calculated separately to assess the risks: the probabilities were calculated using existing data and statistical models, and the consequences were calculated using computation models. Risk assessment software was developed to conveniently integrate the three scenarios. The risks were analyzed using the developed software according to the shipment route, building characteristics, and spent fuel handling environment. As a result of the risk analysis with varying accident conditions, transportation and storage strategies with relatively low risk were developed for regulators and licensees. The focus of this study was the risk assessment methodology; however, the applied model and input data have some uncertainties. Further research to reduce these uncertainties will improve the accuracy of this mode

REVEAL - A tool for rule driven analysis of safety critical software

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miedl, H.; Kersken, M.

1998-01-01

As the determination of ultrahigh reliability figures for safety critical software is hardly possible, national and international guidelines and standards give mainly requirements for the qualitative evaluation of software. An analysis whether all these requirements are fulfilled is time and effort consuming and prone to errors, if performed manually by analysts, and should instead be dedicated to tools as far as possible. There are many ''general-purpose'' software analysis tools, both static and dynamic, which help analyzing the source code. However, they are not designed to assess the adherence to specific requirements of guidelines and standards in the nuclear field. Against the background of the development of I and C systems in the nuclear field which are based on digital techniques and implemented in high level language, it is essential that the assessor or licenser has a tool with which he can automatically and uniformly qualify as many aspects as possible of the high level language software. For this purpose the software analysis tool REVEAL has been developed at ISTec and the Halden Reactor Project. (author)

Integrated software package for nuclear material safeguards in a MOX fuel fabrication facility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schreiber, H.J.; Piana, M.; Moussalli, G.; Saukkonen, H.

2000-01-01

Since computerized data processing was introduced to Safeguards at large bulk handling facilities, a large number of individual software applications have been developed for nuclear material Safeguards implementation. Facility inventory and flow data are provided in computerized format for performing stratification, sample size calculation and selection of samples for destructive and non-destructive assay. Data is collected from nuclear measurement systems running in attended, unattended mode and more recently from remote monitoring systems controlled. Data sets from various sources have to be evaluated for Safeguards purposes, such as raw data, processed data and conclusions drawn from data evaluation results. They are reported in computerized format at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters and feedback from the Agency's mainframe computer system is used to prepare and support Safeguards inspection activities. The integration of all such data originating from various sources cannot be ensured without the existence of a common data format and a database system. This paper describes the fundamental relations between data streams, individual data processing tools, data evaluation results and requirements for an integrated software solution to facilitate nuclear material Safeguards at a bulk handling facility. The paper also explains the basis for designing a software package to manage data streams from various data sources and for incorporating diverse data processing tools that until now have been used independently from each other and under different computer operating systems. (author)

Lessons learned applying CASE methods/tools to Ada software development projects

Science.gov (United States)

Blumberg, Maurice H.; Randall, Richard L.

1993-01-01

This paper describes the lessons learned from introducing CASE methods/tools into organizations and applying them to actual Ada software development projects. This paper will be useful to any organization planning to introduce a software engineering environment (SEE) or evolving an existing one. It contains management level lessons learned, as well as lessons learned in using specific SEE tools/methods. The experiences presented are from Alpha Test projects established under the STARS (Software Technology for Adaptable and Reliable Systems) project. They reflect the front end efforts by those projects to understand the tools/methods, initial experiences in their introduction and use, and later experiences in the use of specific tools/methods and the introduction of new ones.

Holistic Framework For Establishing Interoperability of Heterogeneous Software Development Tools

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Puett, Joseph

2003-01-01

This dissertation presents a Holistic Framework for Software Engineering (HFSE) that establishes collaborative mechanisms by which existing heterogeneous software development tools and models will interoperate...

Software Engineering Tools for Scientific Models

Science.gov (United States)

Abrams, Marc; Saboo, Pallabi; Sonsini, Mike

2013-01-01

Software tools were constructed to address issues the NASA Fortran development community faces, and they were tested on real models currently in use at NASA. These proof-of-concept tools address the High-End Computing Program and the Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction Program. Two examples are the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5) atmospheric model in Cell Fortran on the Cell Broadband Engine, and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) coupled atmosphere- ocean model called ModelE, written in fixed format Fortran.

Harnessing scientific literature reports for pharmacovigilance. Prototype software analytical tool development and usability testing.

Science.gov (United States)

Sorbello, Alfred; Ripple, Anna; Tonning, Joseph; Munoz, Monica; Hasan, Rashedul; Ly, Thomas; Francis, Henry; Bodenreider, Olivier

2017-03-22

We seek to develop a prototype software analytical tool to augment FDA regulatory reviewers' capacity to harness scientific literature reports in PubMed/MEDLINE for pharmacovigilance and adverse drug event (ADE) safety signal detection. We also aim to gather feedback through usability testing to assess design, performance, and user satisfaction with the tool. A prototype, open source, web-based, software analytical tool generated statistical disproportionality data mining signal scores and dynamic visual analytics for ADE safety signal detection and management. We leveraged Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) indexing terms assigned to published citations in PubMed/MEDLINE to generate candidate drug-adverse event pairs for quantitative data mining. Six FDA regulatory reviewers participated in usability testing by employing the tool as part of their ongoing real-life pharmacovigilance activities to provide subjective feedback on its practical impact, added value, and fitness for use. All usability test participants cited the tool's ease of learning, ease of use, and generation of quantitative ADE safety signals, some of which corresponded to known established adverse drug reactions. Potential concerns included the comparability of the tool's automated literature search relative to a manual 'all fields' PubMed search, missing drugs and adverse event terms, interpretation of signal scores, and integration with existing computer-based analytical tools. Usability testing demonstrated that this novel tool can automate the detection of ADE safety signals from published literature reports. Various mitigation strategies are described to foster improvements in design, productivity, and end user satisfaction.

Characteristics and possibilities of software tool for metal-oxide surge arresters selection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Đorđević Dragan

2012-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a procedure for the selection of metal-oxide surge arresters based on the instructions given in the Siemens and ABB catalogues, respecting their differences and the characteristics and possibilities of the software tool. The software tool was developed during the preparation of a Master's thesis titled, 'Automation of Metal-Oxide Surge Arresters Selection'. An example is presented of the selection of metal-oxide surge arresters using the developed software tool.

Integrating Multimedia ICT Software in Language Curriculum: Students’ Perception, Use, and Effectivenes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nikolai Penner

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Information and Communication Technologies (ICT constitute an integral part of the teaching and learning environment in present-day educational institutions and play an increasingly important role in the modern second language classroom. In this study, an online language learning tool Tell Me More (TMM has been introduced as  a supplementary tool in French and German first and second-year language university classes. At the end of the academic year, the students completed a questionnaire exploring their TMM usage behaviour and perception of the software. The survey also addressed aspects of the respondents' readiness for self-directed language learning. The data were then imported into SPSS and underwent statistical analysis. The results of the study show that 1 relatively few of today's university students are open to the idea of voluntarily using ICT for independent language practice; 2 grade, price, and availability of alternative means of language practice are the most important factors affecting the students' decision to purchase and use ICT software; 3 there is a relationship between the students' decision to buy and use ICT software and their readiness for self-directed learning.

Software Tools Used for Continuous Assessment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Corina SBUGHEA

2016-04-01

Full Text Available he present paper addresses the subject of continuous evaluation and of the IT tools that support it. The approach starts from the main concepts and methods used in the teaching process, according to the assessment methodology and, then, it focuses on their implementation in the Wondershare QuizCreator software.

A multicenter study benchmarks software tools for label-free proteome quantification.

Science.gov (United States)

Navarro, Pedro; Kuharev, Jörg; Gillet, Ludovic C; Bernhardt, Oliver M; MacLean, Brendan; Röst, Hannes L; Tate, Stephen A; Tsou, Chih-Chiang; Reiter, Lukas; Distler, Ute; Rosenberger, George; Perez-Riverol, Yasset; Nesvizhskii, Alexey I; Aebersold, Ruedi; Tenzer, Stefan

2016-11-01

Consistent and accurate quantification of proteins by mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics depends on the performance of instruments, acquisition methods and data analysis software. In collaboration with the software developers, we evaluated OpenSWATH, SWATH 2.0, Skyline, Spectronaut and DIA-Umpire, five of the most widely used software methods for processing data from sequential window acquisition of all theoretical fragment-ion spectra (SWATH)-MS, which uses data-independent acquisition (DIA) for label-free protein quantification. We analyzed high-complexity test data sets from hybrid proteome samples of defined quantitative composition acquired on two different MS instruments using different SWATH isolation-window setups. For consistent evaluation, we developed LFQbench, an R package, to calculate metrics of precision and accuracy in label-free quantitative MS and report the identification performance, robustness and specificity of each software tool. Our reference data sets enabled developers to improve their software tools. After optimization, all tools provided highly convergent identification and reliable quantification performance, underscoring their robustness for label-free quantitative proteomics.

A multi-professional software tool for radiation therapy treatment verification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fox, Tim; Brooks, Ken; Davis, Larry

1996-01-01

Purpose: Verification of patient setup is important in conformal therapy because it provides a means of quality assurance for treatment delivery. Electronic portal imaging systems have led to software tools for performing digital comparison and verification of patient setup. However, these software tools are typically designed from a radiation oncologist's perspective even though treatment verification is a team effort involving oncologists, physicists, and therapists. A new software tool, Treatment Verification Tool (TVT), has been developed as an interactive, multi-professional application for reviewing and verifying treatment plan setup using conventional personal computers. This study will describe our approach to electronic treatment verification and demonstrate the features of TVT. Methods and Materials: TVT is an object-oriented software tool written in C++ using the PC-based Windows NT environment. The software utilizes the selection of a patient's images from a database. The software is also developed as a single window interface to reduce the amount of windows presented to the user. However, the user can select from four different possible views of the patient data. One of the views is side-by-side comparison of portal images (on-line portal images or digitized port film) with a prescription image (digitized simulator film or digitally reconstructed radiograph), and another view is a textual summary of the grades of each portal image. The grades of a portal image are assigned by a radiation oncologist using an evaluation method, and the physicists and therapists may only review these results. All users of TVT can perform image enhancement processes, measure distances, and perform semi-automated registration methods. An electronic dialogue can be established through a set of annotations and notes among the radiation oncologists and the technical staff. Results: Features of TVT include: 1) side-by-side comparison of portal images and a prescription image; 2

Possibilities for using software tools in the process of secuirty design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ladislav Mariš

2013-07-01

Full Text Available The authors deal with the use of software support the process of security design. The article proposes the theoretical basis of the implementation of software tools to design activities. Based on the selected design standards of electrical safety systems application design solutions, especially in drawing documentation. The article should serve the needs of the project team members in order to use selected software tools and a subsequent increase in the degree of automation of design activities.

Comparison of quality control software tools for diffusion tensor imaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Bilan; Zhu, Tong; Zhong, Jianhui

2015-04-01

Image quality of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is critical for image interpretation, diagnostic accuracy and efficiency. However, DTI is susceptible to numerous detrimental artifacts that may impair the reliability and validity of the obtained data. Although many quality control (QC) software tools are being developed and are widely used and each has its different tradeoffs, there is still no general agreement on an image quality control routine for DTIs, and the practical impact of these tradeoffs is not well studied. An objective comparison that identifies the pros and cons of each of the QC tools will be helpful for the users to make the best choice among tools for specific DTI applications. This study aims to quantitatively compare the effectiveness of three popular QC tools including DTI studio (Johns Hopkins University), DTIprep (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Iowa and University of Utah) and TORTOISE (National Institute of Health). Both synthetic and in vivo human brain data were used to quantify adverse effects of major DTI artifacts to tensor calculation as well as the effectiveness of different QC tools in identifying and correcting these artifacts. The technical basis of each tool was discussed, and the ways in which particular techniques affect the output of each of the tools were analyzed. The different functions and I/O formats that three QC tools provide for building a general DTI processing pipeline and integration with other popular image processing tools were also discussed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

New tools for digital medical image processing implemented in DIP software

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Araujo, Erica A.C.; Santana, Ivan E.; Lima, Fernando R.A.; Viera, Jose W.

2011-01-01

The anthropomorphic models used in computational dosimetry, also called phantoms, are mostly built from stacks of images CT (Computed Tomography) or MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) obtained from scans of patients or volunteers. The construction of voxel phantoms requires computational processing for transforming image formats, dimensional image compression (2D) to form three-dimensional arrays (3D), quantization, resampling, enhancement, restoration and image segmentation, among others. Hardly the computational dosimetry researcher finds all these skills into a single software and often it results in a decreased development of their research or inadequate use of alternative tools. The need to integrate the various tasks of the original digital image processing to obtain an image that can be used in a computational model of exposure led to the development of software DIP (Digital Image Processing). This software reads, writes and edits binary files containing the 3D matrix corresponding to a stack of cross-sectional images of a given geometry that can be a human body or other volume of interest. It can also read any type of computer image and do conversions. When the task involves only one output image, it is saved in the JPEG standard Windows. When it involves a stack of images, the binary output file is called SGI (Interactive Graphic Simulations, a symbol already used in other publications of the Research Group in Numerical Dosimetry). The following paper presents the third version of the DIP software and emphasizes the new tools it implemented. Currently it has the menus Basics, Views, Spatial Domain, Frequency Domain, Segmentations and Study. Each menu contains items and subitems with features that generally require an image as input and produce an image or an attribute in the output. (author)

The Systems Biology Research Tool: evolvable open-source software

OpenAIRE

Wright, J; Wagner, A

2008-01-01

Abstract Background Research in the field of systems biology requires software for a variety of purposes. Software must be used to store, retrieve, analyze, and sometimes even to collect the data obtained from system-level (often high-throughput) experiments. Software must also be used to implement mathematical models and algorithms required for simulation and theoretical predictions on the system-level. Results We introduce a free, easy-to-use, open-source, integrated software platform calle...

Creating a strategic plan for configuration management using computer aided software engineering (CASE) tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smith, P.R.; Sarfaty, R.

1993-01-01

This paper provides guidance in the definition, documentation, measurement, enhancement of processes, and validation of a strategic plan for configuration management (CM). The approach and methodology used in establishing a strategic plan is the same for any enterprise, including the Department of Energy (DOE), commercial nuclear plants, the Department of Defense (DOD), or large industrial complexes. The principles and techniques presented are used world wide by some of the largest corporations. The authors used industry knowledge and the areas of their current employment to illustrate and provide examples. Developing a strategic configuration and information management plan for DOE Idaho Field Office (DOE-ID) facilities is discussed in this paper. A good knowledge of CM principles is the key to successful strategic planning. This paper will describe and define CM elements, and discuss how CM integrates the facility's physical configuration, design basis, and documentation. The strategic plan does not need the support of a computer aided software engineering (CASE) tool. However, the use of the CASE tool provides a methodology for consistency in approach, graphics, and database capability combined to form an encyclopedia and a method of presentation that is easily understood and aids the process of reengineering. CASE tools have much more capability than those stated above. Some examples are supporting a joint application development group (JAD) to prepare a software functional specification document and, if necessary, provide the capability to automatically generate software application code. This paper briefly discusses characteristics and capabilities of two CASE tools that use different methodologies to generate similar deliverables

INSIGHT: an integrated scoping analysis tool for in-core fuel management of PWR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yamamoto, Akio; Noda, Hidefumi; Ito, Nobuaki; Maruyama, Taiji.

1997-01-01

An integrated software tool for scoping analysis of in-core fuel management, INSIGHT, has been developed to automate the scoping analysis and to improve the fuel cycle cost using advanced optimization techniques. INSIGHT is an interactive software tool executed on UNIX based workstations that is equipped with an X-window system. INSIGHT incorporates the GALLOP loading pattern (LP) optimization module that utilizes hybrid genetic algorithms, the PATMAKER interactive LP design module, the MCA multicycle analysis module, an integrated database, and other utilities. Two benchmark problems were analyzed to confirm the key capabilities of INSIGHT: LP optimization and multicycle analysis. The first was the single cycle LP optimization problem that included various constraints. The second one was the multicycle LP optimization problem that includes the assembly burnup limitation at rod cluster control (RCC) positions. The results for these problems showed the feasibility of INSIGHT for the practical scoping analysis, whose work almost consists of LP generation and multicycle analysis. (author)

Three novel software tools for ASDEX Upgrade

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martinov, S.; Löbhard, T.; Lunt, T.; Behler, K.; Drube, R.; Eixenberger, H.; Herrmann, A.; Lohs, A.; Lüddecke, K.; Merkel, R.; Neu, G.; ASDEX Upgrade Team; MPCDF Garching

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Key features of innovative software tools for data visualization and inspection are presented to the nuclear fusion research community. • 3D animation of experiment geometry together with diagnostic data and images allow better understanding of measurements and influence of machine construction details behind them. • Multi-video viewer with fusion relevant image manipulation abilities and event database features allows faster and better decision making from video streams coming from various plasma and machine diagnostics. • Platform independant Web technologies enable the inspection of diagnostic raw signals with virtually any kind of display device. - Abstract: Visualization of measurements together with experimental settings is a general subject in experiments analysis. The complex engineering design, 3D geometry, and manifold of diagnostics in larger fusion research experiments justify the development of special analysis and visualization programs. Novel ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) software tools bring together virtual navigation through 3D device models and advanced play-back and interpretation of video streams from plasma discharges. A third little tool allows the web-based platform independent observation of real-time diagnostic signals. While all three tools stem from spontaneous development ideas and are not considered mission critical for the operation of a fusion device, they with time and growing completeness shaped up as valuable helpers to visualize acquired data in fusion research. A short overview on the goals, the features, and the design as well as the operation of these tools is given in this paper.

Three novel software tools for ASDEX Upgrade

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Martinov, S. [Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Boltzmannstr. 2, D-85748 Garching bei München (Germany); Löbhard, T. [Conovum GmbH & Co. KG, Nymphenburger Straße 13, D-80335 München (Germany); Lunt, T. [Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Boltzmannstr. 2, D-85748 Garching bei München (Germany); Behler, K., E-mail: karl.behler@ipp.mpg.de [Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Boltzmannstr. 2, D-85748 Garching bei München (Germany); Drube, R.; Eixenberger, H.; Herrmann, A.; Lohs, A. [Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Boltzmannstr. 2, D-85748 Garching bei München (Germany); Lüddecke, K. [Unlimited Computer Systems GmbH, Seeshaupterstr. 15, D-82393 Iffeldorf (Germany); Merkel, R.; Neu, G.; ASDEX Upgrade Team [Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Boltzmannstr. 2, D-85748 Garching bei München (Germany); MPCDF Garching [Max Planck Compu ting and Data Facility, Boltzmannstr. 2, D-85748 Garching (Germany)

2016-11-15

Highlights: • Key features of innovative software tools for data visualization and inspection are presented to the nuclear fusion research community. • 3D animation of experiment geometry together with diagnostic data and images allow better understanding of measurements and influence of machine construction details behind them. • Multi-video viewer with fusion relevant image manipulation abilities and event database features allows faster and better decision making from video streams coming from various plasma and machine diagnostics. • Platform independant Web technologies enable the inspection of diagnostic raw signals with virtually any kind of display device. - Abstract: Visualization of measurements together with experimental settings is a general subject in experiments analysis. The complex engineering design, 3D geometry, and manifold of diagnostics in larger fusion research experiments justify the development of special analysis and visualization programs. Novel ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) software tools bring together virtual navigation through 3D device models and advanced play-back and interpretation of video streams from plasma discharges. A third little tool allows the web-based platform independent observation of real-time diagnostic signals. While all three tools stem from spontaneous development ideas and are not considered mission critical for the operation of a fusion device, they with time and growing completeness shaped up as valuable helpers to visualize acquired data in fusion research. A short overview on the goals, the features, and the design as well as the operation of these tools is given in this paper.

Use of Software Tools in Teaching Relational Database Design.

Science.gov (United States)

McIntyre, D. R.; And Others

1995-01-01

Discusses the use of state-of-the-art software tools in teaching a graduate, advanced, relational database design course. Results indicated a positive student response to the prototype of expert systems software and a willingness to utilize this new technology both in their studies and in future work applications. (JKP)

BEopt-CA (Ex): A Tool for Optimal Integration of EE, DR and PV in Existing California Homes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Christensen, Craig [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Horowitz, Scott [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Maguire, Jeff [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Velasco, Paulo Tabrares [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Springer, David [Davis Energy Group, Davis, CA (United States); Coates, Peter [Davis Energy Group, Davis, CA (United States); Bell, Christy [Davis Energy Group, Davis, CA (United States); Price, Snuller [Energy & Environmental Economics, San Francisco, CA (United States); Sreedharan, Priya [Energy & Environmental Economics, San Francisco, CA (United States); Pickrell, Katie [Energy & Environmental Economics, San Francisco, CA (United States)

2014-04-01

This project targeted the development of a software tool, BEopt-CA (Ex) (Building Energy Optimization Tool for California Existing Homes), that aims to facilitate balanced integration of energy efficiency (EE), demand response (DR), and photovoltaics (PV) in the residential retrofit1 market. The intent is to provide utility program managers and contractors in the EE/DR/PV marketplace with a means of balancing the integration of EE, DR, and PV

Upgrade and integration of the configuration and monitoring tools for the ATLAS Online farm

CERN Document Server

Ballestrero, S; The ATLAS collaboration; Darlea, G L; Dumitru, I; Scannicchio, DA; Twomey, M S; Valsan, M L; Zaytsev, A

2012-01-01

The ATLAS Online farm is a non-homogeneous cluster of nearly 3000 PCs which run the data acquisition, trigger and control of the ATLAS detector. The systems are configured and monitored by a combination of open-source tools, such as Quattor and Nagios, and tools developed in-house, such as ConfDB. We report on the ongoing introduction of new provisioning and configuration tools, Puppet and ConfDB v2 which are more flexible and allow automation for previously uncovered needs, and on the upgrade and integration of the monitoring and alerting tools, including the interfacing of these with the TDAQ Shifter Assistant software and their integration with configuration tools. We discuss the selection of the tools and the assessment of their functionality and performance, and how they enabled the introduction of virtualization for selected services.

Upgrade and integration of the configuration and monitoring tools for the ATLAS Online farm

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ballestrero, S; Darlea, G–L; Twomey, M S; Brasolin, F; Dumitru, I; Valsan, M L; Scannicchio, D A; Zaytsev, A

2012-01-01

The ATLAS Online farm is a non-homogeneous cluster of nearly 3000 systems which run the data acquisition, trigger and control of the ATLAS detector. The systems are configured and monitored by a combination of open-source tools, such as Quattor and Nagios, and tools developed in-house, such as ConfDB. We report on the ongoing introduction of new provisioning and configuration tools, Puppet and ConfDB v2, which are more flexible and allow automation for previously uncovered needs, and on the upgrade and integration of the monitoring and alerting tools, including the interfacing of these with the TDAQ Shifter Assistant software and their integration with configuration tools. We discuss the selection of the tools and the assessment of their functionality and performance, and how they enabled the introduction of virtualization for selected services.

PTaaS: Platform for Providing Software Developing Applications and Tools as a Service

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chauhan, Muhammad Aufeef; Babar, Muhammad Ali

2014-01-01

technological support for it that is not limited to one specific tools and a particular phase of software development life cycle. In this thesis, we have explored the possibility of offering software development applications and tools as services that can be acquired on demand according to the software...... with process. Information gained from the review of literature on GSD tools and processes is used to extract functional requirements for the middleware platform for provisioning of software development applications and tools as services. Finding from the review of literature on architecture solutions for cloud......Cloud computing has become an established paradigm for enabling organizations to build scalable software systems and to meet challenges of rapid demand of computing and storage resources. There has been a significant success in building cloud-enabled applications for many disciplines ranging from...

Security Risks: Management and Mitigation in the Software Life Cycle

Science.gov (United States)

Gilliam, David P.

2004-01-01

A formal approach to managing and mitigating security risks in the software life cycle is requisite to developing software that has a higher degree of assurance that it is free of security defects which pose risk to the computing environment and the organization. Due to its criticality, security should be integrated as a formal approach in the software life cycle. Both a software security checklist and assessment tools should be incorporated into this life cycle process and integrated with a security risk assessment and mitigation tool. The current research at JPL addresses these areas through the development of a Sotfware Security Assessment Instrument (SSAI) and integrating it with a Defect Detection and Prevention (DDP) risk management tool.

Knickpoint finder: A software tool that improves neotectonic analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Queiroz, G. L.; Salamuni, E.; Nascimento, E. R.

2015-03-01

This work presents a new software tool for morphometric analysis of drainage networks based on the methods of Hack (1973) and Etchebehere et al. (2004). This tool is applicable to studies of morphotectonics and neotectonics. The software used a digital elevation model (DEM) to identify the relief breakpoints along drainage profiles (knickpoints). The program was coded in Python for use on the ArcGIS platform and is called Knickpoint Finder. A study area was selected to test and evaluate the software's ability to analyze and identify neotectonic morphostructures based on the morphology of the terrain. For an assessment of its validity, we chose an area of the James River basin, which covers most of the Piedmont area of Virginia (USA), which is an area of constant intraplate seismicity and non-orogenic active tectonics and exhibits a relatively homogeneous geodesic surface currently being altered by the seismogenic features of the region. After using the tool in the chosen area, we found that the knickpoint locations are associated with the geologic structures, epicenters of recent earthquakes, and drainages with rectilinear anomalies. The regional analysis demanded the use of a spatial representation of the data after processing using Knickpoint Finder. The results were satisfactory in terms of the correlation of dense areas of knickpoints with active lineaments and the rapidity of the identification of deformed areas. Therefore, this software tool may be considered useful in neotectonic analyses of large areas and may be applied to any area where there is DEM coverage.

Development of a software tool for the management of quality control in a helical tomotherapy unit; Desarrollo de una herramienta de software para la gestion integral del control de calidad en una unidad de tomoterapia helicoidal

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Garcia Repiso, S.; Hernandez Rodriguez, J.; Martin Rincon, C.; Ramos Pacho, J. A.; Verde Velasco, J. M.; Delgado Aparacio, J. M.; Perez Alvarez, M. e.; Gomez Gonzalez, N.; Cons Perez, V.; Saez Beltran, M.

2013-07-01

The large amount of data and information that is managed in units of external radiotherapy quality control tests makes necessary the use of tools that facilitate, on the one hand, the management of measures and results in real time, and on other tasks of management, file, query and reporting of stored data. This paper presents an application of software of own development which is used for the integral management of the helical TomoTherapy unit in the aspects related to the roles and responsibilities of the hospital Radiophysics. (Author)

The Value of Open Source Software Tools in Qualitative Research

Science.gov (United States)

Greenberg, Gary

2011-01-01

In an era of global networks, researchers using qualitative methods must consider the impact of any software they use on the sharing of data and findings. In this essay, I identify researchers' main areas of concern regarding the use of qualitative software packages for research. I then examine how open source software tools, wherein the publisher…

Practical requirements for software tools to assist in the validation and verification of hybrid expert systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Singh, G.P.; Cadena, D.; Burgess, J.

1992-01-01

Any practical software development effort must remain focused on verification and validation of user requirements. Knowledge-based system development is no different in this regard. In industry today, most expert systems being produced are, in reality, hybrid software systems which, in addition to those components that provide the knowledge base and expert reasoning over the problem domain using various rule-based and object-oriented paradigms, incorporate significant bodies of code based on more traditional software techniques such as database management, graphical user interfaces, hypermedia, spreadsheets, as well as specially developed sequential code. Validation and verification of such hybrid systems must perforce integrate suitable methodologies from all such fields. This paper attempts to provide a broad overview of the practical requirements for methodologies and the concomitant groupware tools which would assist in such an enterprise. These methodologies and groupware tools would facilitate the teamwork efforts necessary to validate and verify all components of such hybrid systems by emphasizing cooperative recording of requirements and negotiated resolutions of any conflicts grounded in a solid understanding of the semantics of such a system

Software simulation: a tool for enhancing control system design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sze, B.; Ridgway, G.H.

2008-01-01

The creation, implementation and management of engineering design tools are important to the quality and efficiency of any large engineering project. Some of the most complicated tools to develop are system simulators. The development and implementation of system simulators to support replacement fuel handling control systems is of particular interest to the Canadian nuclear industry given the current age of installations and the risk of obsolescence to many utilities. The use of such simulator tools has been known to significantly improve successful deployment of new software packages and maintenance-related software changes while reducing the time required for their overall development. Moreover, these simulation systems can also serve as operator training stations and provide a virtual environment for site engineers to test operational changes before they are uploaded to the actual system. (author)

Software for pipeline integrity administration

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Soula, Gerardo; Perona, Lucas Fernandez [Gie SA., Buenos Aires (Argentina); Martinich, Carlos [Refinaria do Norte S. A. (REFINOR), Tartagal, Provincia de Salta (Argentina)

2009-07-01

A Software for 'pipeline integrity management' was developed. It allows to deal with Geographical Information and a PODS database (Pipeline Open database Standard) simultaneously, in a simple and reliable way. The premises for the design were the following: didactic, geo referenced, multiple reference systems. Program skills: 1.PODS+GIS: the PODS database in which the software is based on is completely integrated with the GIS module. 2 Management of different kinds of information: it allows to manage information on facilities, repairs, interventions, physical inspections, geographical characteristics, compliance with regulations, training, offline events, operation measures, O and M information treatment and importing specific data and studies in a massive way. It also assures the integrity of the loaded information. 3 Right of way survey: it allows to verify the class location, ROW occupation, sensitive areas identification and to manage landowners. 4 Risk analysis: it is done in a qualitative way, depending on the entered data, allowing the user to identify the riskiest stretches of the system. Either results from risk analysis, data and consultations made about the database, can be exported to standard formats. (author)

Biology Needs Evolutionary Software Tools: Let’s Build Them Right

Science.gov (United States)

Team, Galaxy; Goecks, Jeremy; Taylor, James

2018-01-01

Abstract Research in population genetics and evolutionary biology has always provided a computational backbone for life sciences as a whole. Today evolutionary and population biology reasoning are essential for interpretation of large complex datasets that are characteristic of all domains of today’s life sciences ranging from cancer biology to microbial ecology. This situation makes algorithms and software tools developed by our community more important than ever before. This means that we, developers of software tool for molecular evolutionary analyses, now have a shared responsibility to make these tools accessible using modern technological developments as well as provide adequate documentation and training. PMID:29688462

A practical comparison of de novo genome assembly software tools for next-generation sequencing technologies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wenyu Zhang

Full Text Available The advent of next-generation sequencing technologies is accompanied with the development of many whole-genome sequence assembly methods and software, especially for de novo fragment assembly. Due to the poor knowledge about the applicability and performance of these software tools, choosing a befitting assembler becomes a tough task. Here, we provide the information of adaptivity for each program, then above all, compare the performance of eight distinct tools against eight groups of simulated datasets from Solexa sequencing platform. Considering the computational time, maximum random access memory (RAM occupancy, assembly accuracy and integrity, our study indicate that string-based assemblers, overlap-layout-consensus (OLC assemblers are well-suited for very short reads and longer reads of small genomes respectively. For large datasets of more than hundred millions of short reads, De Bruijn graph-based assemblers would be more appropriate. In terms of software implementation, string-based assemblers are superior to graph-based ones, of which SOAPdenovo is complex for the creation of configuration file. Our comparison study will assist researchers in selecting a well-suited assembler and offer essential information for the improvement of existing assemblers or the developing of novel assemblers.

Application of the NCSA Habanero tool for collaboration on structural integrity assessments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bass, B.R.; Kruse, K.; Dodds, R.H. Jr.; Malik, S.N.M.

1998-11-01

The Habanero software was developed by the National Center for Superconducting Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, as a framework for the collaborative sharing of Java applications. The Habanero tool performs distributed communication of single-user, computer software interactions to a multiuser collaborative environment. An investigation was conducted to evaluate the capabilities of the Habanero tool in providing an Internet-based collaborative framework for researchers located at different sites and operating on different workstations. These collaborative sessions focused on the sharing of test data and analysis results from materials engineering areas (i.e., fracture mechanics and structural integrity evaluations) related to reactor pressure vessel safety research sponsored by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This report defines collaborative-system requirements for engineering applications and provides an overview of collaborative systems within the project. The installation, application, and detailed evaluation of the performance of the Habanero collaborative tool are compared to those of another commercially available collaborative product. Recommendations are given for future work in collaborative communications

Simulation software support (S3) system a software testing and debugging tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Burgess, D.C.; Mahjouri, F.S.

1990-01-01

The largest percentage of technical effort in the software development process is accounted for debugging and testing. It is not unusual for a software development organization to spend over 50% of the total project effort on testing. In the extreme, testing of human-rated software (e.g., nuclear reactor monitoring, training simulator) can cost three to five times as much as all other software engineering steps combined. The Simulation Software Support (S 3 ) System, developed by the Link-Miles Simulation Corporation is ideally suited for real-time simulation applications which involve a large database with models programmed in FORTRAN. This paper will focus on testing elements of the S 3 system. In this paper system support software utilities are provided which enable the loading and execution of modules in the development environment. These elements include the Linking/Loader (LLD) for dynamically linking program modules and loading them into memory and the interactive executive (IEXEC) for controlling the execution of the modules. Features of the Interactive Symbolic Debugger (SD) and the Real Time Executive (RTEXEC) to support the unit and integrated testing will be explored

BYMUR software: a free and open source tool for quantifying and visualizing multi-risk analyses

Science.gov (United States)

Tonini, Roberto; Selva, Jacopo

2013-04-01

The BYMUR software aims to provide an easy-to-use open source tool for both computing multi-risk and managing/visualizing/comparing all the inputs (e.g. hazard, fragilities and exposure) as well as the corresponding results (e.g. risk curves, risk indexes). For all inputs, a complete management of inter-model epistemic uncertainty is considered. The BYMUR software will be one of the final products provided by the homonymous ByMuR project (http://bymur.bo.ingv.it/) funded by Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR), focused to (i) provide a quantitative and objective general method for a comprehensive long-term multi-risk analysis in a given area, accounting for inter-model epistemic uncertainty through Bayesian methodologies, and (ii) apply the methodology to seismic, volcanic and tsunami risks in Naples (Italy). More specifically, the BYMUR software will be able to separately account for the probabilistic hazard assessment of different kind of hazardous phenomena, the relative (time-dependent/independent) vulnerabilities and exposure data, and their possible (predefined) interactions: the software will analyze these inputs and will use them to estimate both single- and multi- risk associated to a specific target area. In addition, it will be possible to connect the software to further tools (e.g., a full hazard analysis), allowing a dynamic I/O of results. The use of Python programming language guarantees that the final software will be open source and platform independent. Moreover, thanks to the integration of some most popular and rich-featured Python scientific modules (Numpy, Matplotlib, Scipy) with the wxPython graphical user toolkit, the final tool will be equipped with a comprehensive Graphical User Interface (GUI) able to control and visualize (in the form of tables, maps and/or plots) any stage of the multi-risk analysis. The additional features of importing/exporting data in MySQL databases and/or standard XML formats (for

DIDACTIC PRINCIPLES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS IN DEFINITION OF QUALITY OF SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE IN THE GENERAL EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT OF UKRAINE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maryna V. Pirko

2011-02-01

Full Text Available The fundamental feature of economy of postindustrial society is the knowledge that represents the basic source of competitive advantage. In the article the circle of didactic, psychological indicators in researches of problems of achievement of a high degree of quality of education and educational services is considered and described. The attention is paid to pedagogical requirements of the given period which are a standard substantiation in orientations for quality estimation of software tools for educational purpose of the general educational environment in Ukraine. The scheme of internal model of maintenance of quality of software tools for educational purpose is considered, the aspects integrated by internal model of quality of software for educational purpose are listed. The article describes the directions of researches in the conditions of formation of the global international educational environment and uniform information space of  education system taking into account the growth of availability of educational services. It is specified the main principles in the organization of pedagogical software tools.

West-Life, Tools for Integrative Structural Biology

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2018-01-01

Structural biology is part of molecular biology focusing on determining structure of macromolecules inside living cells and cell membranes. As macromolecules determines most of the functions of cells the structural knowledge is very useful for further research in metabolism, physiology to application in pharmacology etc. As macromolecules are too small to be observed directly by light microscope, there are other methods used to determine the structure including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), X-Ray crystalography, cryo electron microscopy and others. Each method has it's advantages and disadvantages in the terms of availability, sample preparation, resolution. West-Life project has ambition to facilitate integrative approach using multiple techniques mentioned above. As there are already lot of software tools to process data produced by the techniques above, the challenge is to integrate them together in a way they can be used by experts in one technique but not experts in other techniques. One product ...

Innovative Software Algorithms and Tools parallel sessions summary

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gaines, Irwin

2001-01-01

A variety of results were presented in the poster and 5 parallel sessions of the Innovative Software, Algorithms and Tools (ISAT) sessions. I will briefly summarize these presentations and attempt to identify some unifying trends

SimPhospho: a software tool enabling confident phosphosite assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Suni, Veronika; Suomi, Tomi; Tsubosaka, Tomoya; Imanishi, Susumu Y; Elo, Laura L; Corthals, Garry L

2018-03-27

Mass spectrometry combined with enrichment strategies for phosphorylated peptides has been successfully employed for two decades to identify sites of phosphorylation. However, unambiguous phosphosite assignment is considered challenging. Given that site-specific phosphorylation events function as different molecular switches, validation of phosphorylation sites is of utmost importance. In our earlier study we developed a method based on simulated phosphopeptide spectral libraries, which enables highly sensitive and accurate phosphosite assignments. To promote more widespread use of this method, we here introduce a software implementation with improved usability and performance. We present SimPhospho, a fast and user-friendly tool for accurate simulation of phosphopeptide tandem mass spectra. Simulated phosphopeptide spectral libraries are used to validate and supplement database search results, with a goal to improve reliable phosphoproteome identification and reporting. The presented program can be easily used together with the Trans-Proteomic Pipeline and integrated in a phosphoproteomics data analysis workflow. SimPhospho is available for Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems at https://sourceforge.net/projects/simphospho/. It is open source and implemented in C ++. A user's manual with detailed description of data analysis using SimPhospho as well as test data can be found as supplementary material of this article. Supplementary data are available at https://www.btk.fi/research/ computational-biomedicine/software/.

Improving design processes through structured reflection : a prototype software tool

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Reymen, I.M.M.J.; Melby, E.

2001-01-01

A prototype software tool facilitating the use of a design method supporting structured reflection on design processes is presented. The prototype, called Echo, has been developed to explore the benefits of using a software system to facilitate the use of the design method. Both the prototype

ImatraNMR: Novel software for batch integration and analysis of quantitative NMR spectra

Science.gov (United States)

Mäkelä, A. V.; Heikkilä, O.; Kilpeläinen, I.; Heikkinen, S.

2011-08-01

Quantitative NMR spectroscopy is a useful and important tool for analysis of various mixtures. Recently, in addition of traditional quantitative 1D 1H and 13C NMR methods, a variety of pulse sequences aimed for quantitative or semiquantitative analysis have been developed. To obtain actual usable results from quantitative spectra, they must be processed and analyzed with suitable software. Currently, there are many processing packages available from spectrometer manufacturers and third party developers, and most of them are capable of analyzing and integration of quantitative spectra. However, they are mainly aimed for processing single or few spectra, and are slow and difficult to use when large numbers of spectra and signals are being analyzed, even when using pre-saved integration areas or custom scripting features. In this article, we present a novel software, ImatraNMR, designed for batch analysis of quantitative spectra. In addition to capability of analyzing large number of spectra, it provides results in text and CSV formats, allowing further data-analysis using spreadsheet programs or general analysis programs, such as Matlab. The software is written with Java, and thus it should run in any platform capable of providing Java Runtime Environment version 1.6 or newer, however, currently it has only been tested with Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 10.04). The software is free for non-commercial use, and is provided with source code upon request.

GAPIT: genome association and prediction integrated tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Lipka, Alexander E; Tian, Feng; Wang, Qishan; Peiffer, Jason; Li, Meng; Bradbury, Peter J; Gore, Michael A; Buckler, Edward S; Zhang, Zhiwu

2012-09-15

Software programs that conduct genome-wide association studies and genomic prediction and selection need to use methodologies that maximize statistical power, provide high prediction accuracy and run in a computationally efficient manner. We developed an R package called Genome Association and Prediction Integrated Tool (GAPIT) that implements advanced statistical methods including the compressed mixed linear model (CMLM) and CMLM-based genomic prediction and selection. The GAPIT package can handle large datasets in excess of 10 000 individuals and 1 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms with minimal computational time, while providing user-friendly access and concise tables and graphs to interpret results. http://www.maizegenetics.net/GAPIT. zhiwu.zhang@cornell.edu Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

TESPI (Tool for Environmental Sound Product Innovation): a simplified software tool to support environmentally conscious design in SMEs

Science.gov (United States)

Misceo, Monica; Buonamici, Roberto; Buttol, Patrizia; Naldesi, Luciano; Grimaldi, Filomena; Rinaldi, Caterina

2004-12-01

TESPI (Tool for Environmental Sound Product Innovation) is the prototype of a software tool developed within the framework of the "eLCA" project. The project, (www.elca.enea.it)financed by the European Commission, is realising "On line green tools and services for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs)". The implementation by SMEs of environmental product innovation (as fostered by the European Integrated Product Policy, IPP) needs specific adaptation to their economic model, their knowledge of production and management processes and their relationships with innovation and the environment. In particular, quality and costs are the main driving forces of innovation in European SMEs, and well known barriers exist to the adoption of an environmental approach in the product design. Starting from these considerations, the TESPI tool has been developed to support the first steps of product design taking into account both the quality and the environment. Two main issues have been considered: (i) classic Quality Function Deployment (QFD) can hardly be proposed to SMEs; (ii) the environmental aspects of the product life cycle need to be integrated with the quality approach. TESPI is a user friendly web-based tool, has a training approach and applies to modular products. Users are guided through the investigation of the quality aspects of their product (customer"s needs and requirements fulfilment) and the identification of the key environmental aspects in the product"s life cycle. A simplified check list allows analyzing the environmental performance of the product. Help is available for a better understanding of the analysis criteria. As a result, the significant aspects for the redesign of the product are identified.

A Web-based modeling tool for the SEMAT Essence theory of software engineering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Graziotin

2013-09-01

Full Text Available As opposed to more mature subjects, software engineering lacks general theories that establish its foundations as a discipline. The Essence Theory of software engineering (Essence has been proposed by the Software Engineering Methods and Theory (SEMAT initiative. The goal of Essence is to develop a theoretically sound basis for software engineering practice and its wide adoption. However, Essence is far from reaching academic- and industry-wide adoption. The reasons for this include a struggle to foresee its utilization potential and a lack of tools for implementation. SEMAT Accelerator (SematAcc is a Web-positioning tool for a software engineering endeavor, which implements the SEMAT’s Essence kernel. SematAcc permits the use of Essence, thus helping to understand it. The tool enables the teaching, adoption, and research of Essence in controlled experiments and case studies.

Evaluation of automated decisionmaking methodologies and development of an integrated robotic system simulation, volume 2, part 1. Appendix A: Software documentation

Science.gov (United States)

Lowrie, J. W.; Fermelia, A. J.; Haley, D. C.; Gremban, K. D.; Vanbaalen, J.; Walsh, R. W.

1982-01-01

Documentation of the preliminary software developed as a framework for a generalized integrated robotic system simulation is presented. The program structure is composed of three major functions controlled by a program executive. The three major functions are: system definition, analysis tools, and post processing. The system definition function handles user input of system parameters and definition of the manipulator configuration. The analysis tools function handles the computational requirements of the program. The post processing function allows for more detailed study of the results of analysis tool function executions. Also documented is the manipulator joint model software to be used as the basis of the manipulator simulation which will be part of the analysis tools capability.

On the Prospects and Concerns of Integrating Open Source Software Environment in Software Engineering Education

Science.gov (United States)

Kamthan, Pankaj

2007-01-01

Open Source Software (OSS) has introduced a new dimension in software community. As the development and use of OSS becomes prominent, the question of its integration in education arises. In this paper, the following practices fundamental to projects and processes in software engineering are examined from an OSS perspective: project management;…

New software tools for enhanced precision in robot-assisted laser phonomicrosurgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Dagnino, Giulio; Mattos, Leonardo S; Caldwell, Darwin G

2012-01-01

This paper describes a new software package created to enhance precision during robot-assisted laser phonomicrosurgery procedures. The new software is composed of three tools for camera calibration, automatic tumor segmentation, and laser tracking. These were designed and developed to improve the outcome of this demanding microsurgical technique, and were tested herein to produce quantitative performance data. The experimental setup was based on the motorized laser micromanipulator created by Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia and the experimental protocols followed are fully described in this paper. The results show the new tools are robust and effective: The camera calibration tool reduced residual errors (RMSE) to 0.009 ± 0.002 mm under 40× microscope magnification; the automatic tumor segmentation tool resulted in deep lesion segmentations comparable to manual segmentations (RMSE= 0.160 ± 0.028 mm under 40× magnification); and the laser tracker tool proved to be reliable even during cutting procedures (RMSE= 0.073 ± 0.023 mm under 40× magnification). These results demonstrate the new software package can provide excellent improvements to the previous microsurgical system, leading to important enhancements in surgical outcome.

Review of free software tools for image analysis of fluorescence cell micrographs.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiesmann, V; Franz, D; Held, C; Münzenmayer, C; Palmisano, R; Wittenberg, T

2015-01-01

An increasing number of free software tools have been made available for the evaluation of fluorescence cell micrographs. The main users are biologists and related life scientists with no or little knowledge of image processing. In this review, we give an overview of available tools and guidelines about which tools the users should use to segment fluorescence micrographs. We selected 15 free tools and divided them into stand-alone, Matlab-based, ImageJ-based, free demo versions of commercial tools and data sharing tools. The review consists of two parts: First, we developed a criteria catalogue and rated the tools regarding structural requirements, functionality (flexibility, segmentation and image processing filters) and usability (documentation, data management, usability and visualization). Second, we performed an image processing case study with four representative fluorescence micrograph segmentation tasks with figure-ground and cell separation. The tools display a wide range of functionality and usability. In the image processing case study, we were able to perform figure-ground separation in all micrographs using mainly thresholding. Cell separation was not possible with most of the tools, because cell separation methods are provided only by a subset of the tools and are difficult to parametrize and to use. Most important is that the usability matches the functionality of a tool. To be usable, specialized tools with less functionality need to fulfill less usability criteria, whereas multipurpose tools need a well-structured menu and intuitive graphical user interface. © 2014 Fraunhofer-Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS Journal of Microscopy © 2014 Royal Microscopical Society.

Activity-Centred Tool Integration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Klaus Marius

2003-01-01

This paper is concerned with integration of heterogeneous tools for system development. We argue that such tools should support concrete activities (e.g., programming, unit testing, conducting workshops) in contrast to abstract concerns (e.g., analysis, design, implementation). A consequence of t...... of this is that tools — or components —that support activities well should be integrated in ad-hoc, dynamic, and heterogeneous ways. We present a peer-to-peer architecture for this based on type-based publish subscribe and give an example of its use....

A multi-center study benchmarks software tools for label-free proteome quantification

Science.gov (United States)

Gillet, Ludovic C; Bernhardt, Oliver M.; MacLean, Brendan; Röst, Hannes L.; Tate, Stephen A.; Tsou, Chih-Chiang; Reiter, Lukas; Distler, Ute; Rosenberger, George; Perez-Riverol, Yasset; Nesvizhskii, Alexey I.; Aebersold, Ruedi; Tenzer, Stefan

2016-01-01

The consistent and accurate quantification of proteins by mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics depends on the performance of instruments, acquisition methods and data analysis software. In collaboration with the software developers, we evaluated OpenSWATH, SWATH2.0, Skyline, Spectronaut and DIA-Umpire, five of the most widely used software methods for processing data from SWATH-MS (sequential window acquisition of all theoretical fragment ion spectra), a method that uses data-independent acquisition (DIA) for label-free protein quantification. We analyzed high-complexity test datasets from hybrid proteome samples of defined quantitative composition acquired on two different MS instruments using different SWATH isolation windows setups. For consistent evaluation we developed LFQbench, an R-package to calculate metrics of precision and accuracy in label-free quantitative MS, and report the identification performance, robustness and specificity of each software tool. Our reference datasets enabled developers to improve their software tools. After optimization, all tools provided highly convergent identification and reliable quantification performance, underscoring their robustness for label-free quantitative proteomics. PMID:27701404

Increasing quality and managing complexity in neuroinformatics software development with continuous integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yury V. Zaytsev

2013-01-01

Full Text Available High quality neuroscience research requires accurate, reliable and well maintained neuroinformatics applications. As software projects become larger, offering more functionality and developing a denser web of interdependence between their component parts, we need more sophisticated methods to manage their complexity. If complexity is allowed to get out of hand, either the quality of the software or the speed of development suffer, and in many cases both. To address this issue, here we develop a scalable, low-cost and open source solution for continuous integration (CI, a technique which ensures the quality of changes to the code base during the development procedure, rather than relying on a pre-release integration phase. We demonstrate that a CI based workflow, due to rapid feedback about code integration problems and tracking of code health measures, enabled substantial increases in productivity for a major neuroinformatics project and additional benefits for three further projects. Beyond the scope of the current study, we identify multiple areas in which CI can be employed to further increase the quality of neuroinformatics projects by improving development practices and incorporating appropriate development tools. Finally, we discuss what measures can be taken to lower the barrier for developers of neuroinformatics applications to adopt this useful technique.

Increasing quality and managing complexity in neuroinformatics software development with continuous integration.

Science.gov (United States)

Zaytsev, Yury V; Morrison, Abigail

2012-01-01

High quality neuroscience research requires accurate, reliable and well maintained neuroinformatics applications. As software projects become larger, offering more functionality and developing a denser web of interdependence between their component parts, we need more sophisticated methods to manage their complexity. If complexity is allowed to get out of hand, either the quality of the software or the speed of development suffer, and in many cases both. To address this issue, here we develop a scalable, low-cost and open source solution for continuous integration (CI), a technique which ensures the quality of changes to the code base during the development procedure, rather than relying on a pre-release integration phase. We demonstrate that a CI-based workflow, due to rapid feedback about code integration problems and tracking of code health measures, enabled substantial increases in productivity for a major neuroinformatics project and additional benefits for three further projects. Beyond the scope of the current study, we identify multiple areas in which CI can be employed to further increase the quality of neuroinformatics projects by improving development practices and incorporating appropriate development tools. Finally, we discuss what measures can be taken to lower the barrier for developers of neuroinformatics applications to adopt this useful technique.

Software Tools for Measuring and Calculating Electromagnetic Shielding Effectiveness

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Tesny, Neal

2005-01-01

The evaluation and the analysis of high-altitude electromagnetic pulse response of shielded enclosures require the availability of software tools able to acquire data and calculate shielding effectiveness...

ProteoWizard: open source software for rapid proteomics tools development.

Science.gov (United States)

Kessner, Darren; Chambers, Matt; Burke, Robert; Agus, David; Mallick, Parag

2008-11-01

The ProteoWizard software project provides a modular and extensible set of open-source, cross-platform tools and libraries. The tools perform proteomics data analyses; the libraries enable rapid tool creation by providing a robust, pluggable development framework that simplifies and unifies data file access, and performs standard proteomics and LCMS dataset computations. The library contains readers and writers of the mzML data format, which has been written using modern C++ techniques and design principles and supports a variety of platforms with native compilers. The software has been specifically released under the Apache v2 license to ensure it can be used in both academic and commercial projects. In addition to the library, we also introduce a rapidly growing set of companion tools whose implementation helps to illustrate the simplicity of developing applications on top of the ProteoWizard library. Cross-platform software that compiles using native compilers (i.e. GCC on Linux, MSVC on Windows and XCode on OSX) is available for download free of charge, at http://proteowizard.sourceforge.net. This website also provides code examples, and documentation. It is our hope the ProteoWizard project will become a standard platform for proteomics development; consequently, code use, contribution and further development are strongly encouraged.

Integrating Behaviour in Software Models: An Event Coordination Notation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kindler, Ekkart

2011-01-01

One of the main problems in model-based software engineering is modelling behaviour in such a way that the behaviour models can be easily integrated with each other, with the structural software models and with pre-existing software. In this paper, we propose an event coordination notation (ECNO)...

COSTMODL - AN AUTOMATED SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COST ESTIMATION TOOL

Science.gov (United States)

Roush, G. B.

1994-01-01

The cost of developing computer software consumes an increasing portion of many organizations' budgets. As this trend continues, the capability to estimate the effort and schedule required to develop a candidate software product becomes increasingly important. COSTMODL is an automated software development estimation tool which fulfills this need. Assimilating COSTMODL to any organization's particular environment can yield significant reduction in the risk of cost overruns and failed projects. This user-customization capability is unmatched by any other available estimation tool. COSTMODL accepts a description of a software product to be developed and computes estimates of the effort required to produce it, the calendar schedule required, and the distribution of effort and staffing as a function of the defined set of development life-cycle phases. This is accomplished by the five cost estimation algorithms incorporated into COSTMODL: the NASA-developed KISS model; the Basic, Intermediate, and Ada COCOMO models; and the Incremental Development model. This choice affords the user the ability to handle project complexities ranging from small, relatively simple projects to very large projects. Unique to COSTMODL is the ability to redefine the life-cycle phases of development and the capability to display a graphic representation of the optimum organizational structure required to develop the subject project, along with required staffing levels and skills. The program is menu-driven and mouse sensitive with an extensive context-sensitive help system that makes it possible for a new user to easily install and operate the program and to learn the fundamentals of cost estimation without having prior training or separate documentation. The implementation of these functions, along with the customization feature, into one program makes COSTMODL unique within the industry. COSTMODL was written for IBM PC compatibles, and it requires Turbo Pascal 5.0 or later and Turbo

Software tools for the particle accelerator designs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sugimoto, Masayoshi

1988-01-01

The software tools used for the designs of the particle accelerators are going to be implemented on the small computer systems, such as the personal computers or the work stations. These are called from the interactive environment like a window application program. The environment contains the small expert system to make easy to select the design parameters. (author)

Benchmarking State-of-the-Art Deep Learning Software Tools

OpenAIRE

Shi, Shaohuai; Wang, Qiang; Xu, Pengfei; Chu, Xiaowen

2016-01-01

Deep learning has been shown as a successful machine learning method for a variety of tasks, and its popularity results in numerous open-source deep learning software tools. Training a deep network is usually a very time-consuming process. To address the computational challenge in deep learning, many tools exploit hardware features such as multi-core CPUs and many-core GPUs to shorten the training time. However, different tools exhibit different features and running performance when training ...

Exoskeletons, Robots and System Software: Tools for the Warfighter

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-24

Exoskeletons , Robots and System Software: Tools for the Warfighter? Paul Flanagan, Tuesday, April 24, 2012 11:15 am– 12:00 pm 1 “The views...Emerging technologies such as exoskeletons , robots , drones, and the underlying software are and will change the face of the battlefield. Warfighters will...global hub for educating, informing, and connecting Information Age leaders.” What is an exoskeleton ? An exoskeleton is a wearable robot suit that

A software tool for analyzing multichannel cochlear implant signals.

Science.gov (United States)

Lai, Wai Kong; Bögli, Hans; Dillier, Norbert

2003-10-01

A useful and convenient means to analyze the radio frequency (RF) signals being sent by a speech processor to a cochlear implant would be to actually capture and display them with appropriate software. This is particularly useful for development or diagnostic purposes. sCILab (Swiss Cochlear Implant Laboratory) is such a PC-based software tool intended for the Nucleus family of Multichannel Cochlear Implants. Its graphical user interface provides a convenient and intuitive means for visualizing and analyzing the signals encoding speech information. Both numerical and graphic displays are available for detailed examination of the captured CI signals, as well as an acoustic simulation of these CI signals. sCILab has been used in the design and verification of new speech coding strategies, and has also been applied as an analytical tool in studies of how different parameter settings of existing speech coding strategies affect speech perception. As a diagnostic tool, it is also useful for troubleshooting problems with the external equipment of the cochlear implant systems.

Software tools for quantification of X-ray microtomography at the UGCT

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vlassenbroeck, J. [Department of Subatomic and Radiation Physics, Ghent University, Proeftuinstraat 86, B-9000 Gent (Belgium)], E-mail: jelle.vlassenbroeck@ugent.be; Dierick, M.; Masschaele, B. [Department of Subatomic and Radiation Physics, Ghent University, Proeftuinstraat 86, B-9000 Gent (Belgium); Cnudde, V. [Department of Geology and Soil Science, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281/S8, B-9000 Gent (Belgium); Van Hoorebeke, L. [Department of Subatomic and Radiation Physics, Ghent University, Proeftuinstraat 86, B-9000 Gent (Belgium); Jacobs, P. [Department of Geology and Soil Science, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281/S8, B-9000 Gent (Belgium)

2007-09-21

The technique of X-ray microtomography using X-ray tube radiation offers an interesting tool for the non-destructive investigation of a wide range of materials. A major challenge lies in the analysis and quantification of the resulting data, allowing for a full characterization of the sample under investigation. In this paper, we discuss the software tools for reconstruction and analysis of tomographic data that are being developed at the UGCT. The tomographic reconstruction is performed using Octopus, a high-performance and user-friendly software package. The reconstruction process transforms the raw acquisition data into a stack of 2D cross-sections through the sample, resulting in a 3D data set. A number of artifact and noise reduction algorithms are integrated to reduce ring artifacts, beam hardening artifacts, COR misalignment, detector or stage tilt, pixel non-linearities, etc. These corrections are very important to facilitate the analysis of the 3D data. The analysis of the 3D data focuses primarily on the characterization of pore structures, but will be extended to other applications. A first package for the analysis of pore structures in three dimensions was developed under Matlab. A new package, called Morpho+, is being developed in a C++ environment, with optimizations and extensions of the previously used algorithms. The current status of this project will be discussed. Examples of pore analysis can be found in pharmaceuticals, material science, geology and numerous other fields.

SDMdata: A Web-Based Software Tool for Collecting Species Occurrence Records.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaoquan Kong

Full Text Available It is important to easily and efficiently obtain high quality species distribution data for predicting the potential distribution of species using species distribution models (SDMs. There is a need for a powerful software tool to automatically or semi-automatically assist in identifying and correcting errors. Here, we use Python to develop a web-based software tool (SDMdata to easily collect occurrence data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF and check species names and the accuracy of coordinates (latitude and longitude. It is an open source software (GNU Affero General Public License/AGPL licensed allowing anyone to access and manipulate the source code. SDMdata is available online free of charge from .

An open source software tool to assign the material properties of bone for ABAQUS finite element simulations.

Science.gov (United States)

Pegg, Elise C; Gill, Harinderjit S

2016-09-06

A new software tool to assign the material properties of bone to an ABAQUS finite element mesh was created and compared with Bonemat, a similar tool originally designed to work with Ansys finite element models. Our software tool (py_bonemat_abaqus) was written in Python, which is the chosen scripting language for ABAQUS. The purpose of this study was to compare the software packages in terms of the material assignment calculation and processing speed. Three element types were compared (linear hexahedral (C3D8), linear tetrahedral (C3D4) and quadratic tetrahedral elements (C3D10)), both individually and as part of a mesh. Comparisons were made using a CT scan of a hemi-pelvis as a test case. A small difference, of -0.05kPa on average, was found between Bonemat version 3.1 (the current version) and our Python package. Errors were found in the previous release of Bonemat (version 3.0 downloaded from www.biomedtown.org) during calculation of the quadratic tetrahedron Jacobian, and conversion of the apparent density to modulus when integrating over the Young׳s modulus field. These issues caused up to 2GPa error in the modulus assignment. For these reasons, we recommend users upgrade to the most recent release of Bonemat. Processing speeds were assessed for the three different element types. Our Python package took significantly longer (110s on average) to perform the calculations compared with the Bonemat software (10s). Nevertheless, the workflow advantages of the package and added functionality makes 'py_bonemat_abaqus' a useful tool for ABAQUS users. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Using McIDAS-V data analysis and visualization software as an educational tool for understanding the atmosphere

Science.gov (United States)

Achtor, T. H.; Rink, T.

2010-12-01

The University of Wisconsin’s Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) has been at the forefront in developing data analysis and visualization tools for environmental satellites and other geophysical data. The fifth generation of the Man-computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS-V) is Java-based, open-source, freely available software that operates on Linux, Macintosh and Windows systems. The software tools provide powerful new data manipulation and visualization capabilities that work with geophysical data in research, operational and educational environments. McIDAS-V provides unique capabilities to support innovative techniques for evaluating research results, teaching and training. McIDAS-V is based on three powerful software elements. VisAD is a Java library for building interactive, collaborative, 4 dimensional visualization and analysis tools. The Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) is a reference application based on the VisAD system and developed by the Unidata program that demonstrates the flexibility that is needed in this evolving environment, using a modern, object-oriented software design approach. The third tool, HYDRA, allows users to build, display and interrogate multi and hyperspectral environmental satellite data in powerful ways. The McIDAS-V software is being used for training and education in several settings. The McIDAS User Group provides training workshops at its annual meeting. Numerous online tutorials with training data sets have been developed to aid users in learning simple and more complex operations in McIDAS-V, all are available online. In a University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate course in Radar and Satellite Meteorology, McIDAS-V is used to create and deliver laboratory exercises using case study and real time data. At the high school level, McIDAS-V is used in several exercises in our annual Summer Workshop in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences to provide young scientists the opportunity to examine data with friendly and

Classifying Desirable Features of Software Visualization Tools for Corrective Maintenance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sensalire, Mariam; Ogao, Patrick; Telea, Alexandru

2008-01-01

We provide an evaluation of 15 software visualization tools applicable to corrective maintenance. The tasks supported as well as the techniques used are presented and graded based on the support level. By analyzing user acceptation of current tools, we aim to help developers to select what to

Software Engineering Environment for Component-based Design of Embedded Software

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Guo, Yu

2010-01-01

as well as application models in a computer-aided software engineering environment. Furthermore, component models have been realized following carefully developed design patterns, which provide for an efficient and reusable implementation. The components have been ultimately implemented as prefabricated...... executable objects that can be linked together into an executable application. The development of embedded software using the COMDES framework is supported by the associated integrated engineering environment consisting of a number of tools, which support basic functionalities, such as system modelling......, validation, and executable code generation for specific hardware platforms. Developing such an environment and the associated tools is a highly complex engineering task. Therefore, this thesis has investigated key design issues and analysed existing platforms supporting model-driven software development...

An online database for plant image analysis software tools

OpenAIRE

Lobet, Guillaume; Draye, Xavier; Périlleux, Claire

2013-01-01

Background: Recent years have seen an increase in methods for plant phenotyping using image analyses. These methods require new software solutions for data extraction and treatment. These solutions are instrumental in supporting various research pipelines, ranging from the localisation of cellular compounds to the quantification of tree canopies. However, due to the variety of existing tools and the lack of central repository, it is challenging for researchers to identify the software that is...

Fish habitat simulation models and integrated assessment tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Harby, A.; Alfredsen, K.

1999-01-01

Because of human development water use increases in importance, and this worldwide trend is leading to an increasing number of user conflicts with a strong need for assessment tools to measure the impacts both on the ecosystem and the different users and user groups. The quantitative tools must allow a comparison of alternatives, different user groups, etc., and the tools must be integrated while impact assessments includes different disciplines. Fish species, especially young ones, are indicators of the environmental state of a riverine system and monitoring them is a way to follow environmental changes. The direct and indirect impacts on the ecosystem itself are measured, and impacts on user groups is not included. Fish habitat simulation models are concentrated on, and methods and examples are considered from Norway. Some ideas on integrated modelling tools for impact assessment studies are included. One dimensional hydraulic models are rapidly calibrated and do not require any expert knowledge in hydraulics. Two and three dimensional models require a bit more skilled users, especially if the topography is very heterogeneous. The advantages of using two and three dimensional models include: they do not need any calibration, just validation; they are predictive; and they can be more cost effective than traditional habitat hydraulic models when combined with modern data acquisition systems and tailored in a multi-disciplinary study. Suitable modelling model choice should be based on available data and possible data acquisition, available manpower, computer, and software resources, and needed output and accuracy in the output. 58 refs

ISWHM: Tools and Techniques for Software and System Health Management

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, Johann; Mengshoel, Ole J.; Darwiche, Adnan

2010-01-01

This presentation presents status and results of research on Software Health Management done within the NRA "ISWHM: Tools and Techniques for Software and System Health Management." Topics include: Ingredients of a Guidance, Navigation, and Control System (GN and C); Selected GN and C Testbed example; Health Management of major ingredients; ISWHM testbed architecture; and Conclusions and next Steps.

Accuracy Test of Software Architecture Compliance Checking Tools – Test Instruction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pruijt, Leo; van der Werf, J.M.E.M.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/36950674X; Brinkkemper., Sjaak|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/07500707X

2015-01-01

Software Architecture Compliance Checking (SACC) is an approach to verify conformance of implemented program code to high-level models of architectural design. Static SACC focuses on the modular software architecture and on the existence of rule violating dependencies between modules. Accurate tool

Choosing your weapons : on sentiment analysis tools for software engineering research

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jongeling, R.M.; Datta, S.; Serebrenik, A.; Koschke, R.; Krinke, J.; Robillard, M.

2015-01-01

Recent years have seen an increasing attention to social aspects of software engineering, including studies of emotions and sentiments experienced and expressed by the software developers. Most of these studies reuse existing sentiment analysis tools such as SentiStrength and NLTK. However, these

An integrated environment for developing object-oriented CAE tools

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hofmann, P.; Ryba, M.; Baitinger, U.G. [Integrated System Engeneering, Stuttgart (Germany)

1996-12-31

This paper presents how object oriented techniques can applied to improve the development of CAE tools. For the design of modular and reusable software systems we use predefined and well tested building blocks. These building blocks are reusable software components based on object-oriented technology which allows the assembling of software systems. Today CAE tools are typically very complex and computation extensive. Therefore we need a concept, that join the advantages of the object-oriented paradigm with the advantages of parallel and distributed programming. So we present a design environment for the development of concurrent-object oriented CAE tools called CoDO.

Automated support for experience-based software management

Science.gov (United States)

Valett, Jon D.

1992-01-01

To effectively manage a software development project, the software manager must have access to key information concerning a project's status. This information includes not only data relating to the project of interest, but also, the experience of past development efforts within the environment. This paper describes the concepts and functionality of a software management tool designed to provide this information. This tool, called the Software Management Environment (SME), enables the software manager to compare an ongoing development effort with previous efforts and with models of the 'typical' project within the environment, to predict future project status, to analyze a project's strengths and weaknesses, and to assess the project's quality. In order to provide these functions the tool utilizes a vast corporate memory that includes a data base of software metrics, a set of models and relationships that describe the software development environment, and a set of rules that capture other knowledge and experience of software managers within the environment. Integrating these major concepts into one software management tool, the SME is a model of the type of management tool needed for all software development organizations.

Integration of life cycle assessment software with tools for economic and sustainability analyses and process simulation for sustainable process design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kalakul, Sawitree; Malakul, Pomthong; Siemanond, Kitipat

2014-01-01

The sustainable future of the world challenges engineers to develop chemical process designs that are not only technically and economically feasible but also environmental friendly. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool for identifying and quantifying environmental impacts of the chemical product...... with other process design tools such as sustainable design (SustainPro), economic analysis (ECON) and process simulation. The software framework contains four main tools: Tool-I is for life cycle inventory (LCI) knowledge management that enables easy maintenance and future expansion of the LCI database; Tool...... and/or the process that makes it. It can be used in conjunction with process simulation and economic analysis tools to evaluate the design of any existing and/or new chemical-biochemical process and to propose improvement options in order to arrive at the best design among various alternatives...

Development to requirements for a procedures software tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yasutake, J.Y.; Hachiro Isoda

1993-01-01

In 1989, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) in Japan initiated a joint research program to investigate various interventions to reduce personnel errors and inefficiencies in the maintenance of nuclear power plants. This program, consisting of several interrelated projects, was initiated because of the mutual recognition of the importance of the human element in the efficient and safe operation of utilities and the continuing need to enhance personnel performance to sustain plant safety and availability. This paper summarizes one of the projects, jointly funded by EPRI and CRIEPI, to analyze the requirements for, and prepare a functional description of, a procedures software tool (PST). The primary objective of this project was to develop a description of the features and functions of a software tool that would help procedure writers to improve the quality of maintenance and testing procedures, thereby enhancing the performance of both procedure writers and maintenance personnel

An evaluation of software tools for the design and development of cockpit displays

Science.gov (United States)

Ellis, Thomas D., Jr.

1993-01-01

The use of all-glass cockpits at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) simulation facility has changed the means of design, development, and maintenance of instrument displays. The human-machine interface has evolved from a physical hardware device to a software-generated electronic display system. This has subsequently caused an increased workload at the facility. As computer processing power increases and the glass cockpit becomes predominant in facilities, software tools used in the design and development of cockpit displays are becoming both feasible and necessary for a more productive simulation environment. This paper defines LaRC requirements of a display software development tool and compares two available applications against these requirements. As a part of the software engineering process, these tools reduce development time, provide a common platform for display development, and produce exceptional real-time results.

Software for safety critical applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kropik, M.; Matejka, K.; Jurickova, M.; Chudy, R.

2001-01-01

The contribution gives an overview of the project of the software development for safety critical applications. This project has been carried out since 1997. The principal goal of the project was to establish a research laboratory for the development of the software with the highest requirements for quality and reliability. This laboratory was established at the department, equipped with proper hardware and software to support software development. A research team of predominantly young researchers for software development was created. The activities of the research team started with studying and proposing the software development methodology. In addition, this methodology was applied to the real software development. The verification and validation process followed the software development. The validation system for the integrated hardware and software tests was brought into being and its control software was developed. The quality of the software tools was also observed, and the SOSAT tool was used during these activities. National and international contacts were established and maintained during the project solution.(author)

Producing software by integration: challenges and research directions (keynote)

OpenAIRE

Inverardi , Paola; Autili , Marco; Di Ruscio , Davide; Pelliccione , Patrizio; Tivoli , Massimo

2013-01-01

International audience; Software is increasingly produced according to a certain goal and by integrating existing software produced by third-parties, typically black-box, and often provided without a machine readable documentation. This implies that development processes of the next future have to explicitly deal with an inherent incompleteness of information about existing software, notably on its behaviour. Therefore, on one side a software producer will less and less know the precise behav...

TEST (Toxicity Estimation Software Tool) Ver 4.1

Science.gov (United States)

The Toxicity Estimation Software Tool (T.E.S.T.) has been developed to allow users to easily estimate toxicity and physical properties using a variety of QSAR methodologies. T.E.S.T allows a user to estimate toxicity without requiring any external programs. Users can input a chem...

A framework to integrate software behavior into dynamic probabilistic risk assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhu Dongfeng; Mosleh, Ali; Smidts, Carol

2007-01-01

Software plays an increasingly important role in modern safety-critical systems. Although, research has been done to integrate software into the classical probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) framework, current PRA practice overwhelmingly neglects the contribution of software to system risk. Dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (DPRA) is considered to be the next generation of PRA techniques. DPRA is a set of methods and techniques in which simulation models that represent the behavior of the elements of a system are exercised in order to identify risks and vulnerabilities of the system. The fact remains, however, that modeling software for use in the DPRA framework is also quite complex and very little has been done to address the question directly and comprehensively. This paper develops a methodology to integrate software contributions in the DPRA environment. The framework includes a software representation, and an approach to incorporate the software representation into the DPRA environment SimPRA. The software representation is based on multi-level objects and the paper also proposes a framework to simulate the multi-level objects in the simulation-based DPRA environment. This is a new methodology to address the state explosion problem in the DPRA environment. This study is the first systematic effort to integrate software risk contributions into DPRA environments

Development of tools for safety analysis of control software in advanced reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guarro, S.; Yau, M.; Motamed, M.

1996-04-01

Software based control systems have gained a pervasive presence in a wide variety of applications, including nuclear power plant control and protection systems which are within the oversight and licensing responsibility of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. While the cost effectiveness and flexibility of software based plant process control is widely recognized, it is very difficult to achieve and prove high levels of demonstrated dependability and safety assurance for the functions performed by process control software, due to the very flexibility and potential complexity of the software itself. The development of tools to model, analyze and test software design and implementations in the context of the system that the software is designed to control can greatly assist the task of providing higher levels of assurance than those obtainable by software testing alone. This report presents and discusses the development of the Dynamic Flowgraph Methodology (DFM) and its application in the dependability and assurance analysis of software-based control systems. The features of the methodology and full-scale examples of application to both generic process and nuclear power plant control systems are presented and discussed in detail. The features of a workstation software tool developed to assist users in the application of DFM are also described

Development of tools for safety analysis of control software in advanced reactors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Guarro, S.; Yau, M.; Motamed, M. [Advanced Systems Concepts Associates, El Segundo, CA (United States)

1996-04-01

Software based control systems have gained a pervasive presence in a wide variety of applications, including nuclear power plant control and protection systems which are within the oversight and licensing responsibility of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. While the cost effectiveness and flexibility of software based plant process control is widely recognized, it is very difficult to achieve and prove high levels of demonstrated dependability and safety assurance for the functions performed by process control software, due to the very flexibility and potential complexity of the software itself. The development of tools to model, analyze and test software design and implementations in the context of the system that the software is designed to control can greatly assist the task of providing higher levels of assurance than those obtainable by software testing alone. This report presents and discusses the development of the Dynamic Flowgraph Methodology (DFM) and its application in the dependability and assurance analysis of software-based control systems. The features of the methodology and full-scale examples of application to both generic process and nuclear power plant control systems are presented and discussed in detail. The features of a workstation software tool developed to assist users in the application of DFM are also described.

Integrating open-source software applications to build molecular dynamics systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Allen, Bruce M; Predecki, Paul K; Kumosa, Maciej

2014-04-05

Three open-source applications, NanoEngineer-1, packmol, and mis2lmp are integrated using an open-source file format to quickly create molecular dynamics (MD) cells for simulation. The three software applications collectively make up the open-source software (OSS) suite known as MD Studio (MDS). The software is validated through software engineering practices and is verified through simulation of the diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-a and isophorone diamine (DGEBA/IPD) system. Multiple simulations are run using the MDS software to create MD cells, and the data generated are used to calculate density, bulk modulus, and glass transition temperature of the DGEBA/IPD system. Simulation results compare well with published experimental and numerical results. The MDS software prototype confirms that OSS applications can be analyzed against real-world research requirements and integrated to create a new capability. Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

DR-Integrator: a new analytic tool for integrating DNA copy number and gene expression data.

Science.gov (United States)

Salari, Keyan; Tibshirani, Robert; Pollack, Jonathan R

2010-02-01

DNA copy number alterations (CNA) frequently underlie gene expression changes by increasing or decreasing gene dosage. However, only a subset of genes with altered dosage exhibit concordant changes in gene expression. This subset is likely to be enriched for oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, and can be identified by integrating these two layers of genome-scale data. We introduce DNA/RNA-Integrator (DR-Integrator), a statistical software tool to perform integrative analyses on paired DNA copy number and gene expression data. DR-Integrator identifies genes with significant correlations between DNA copy number and gene expression, and implements a supervised analysis that captures genes with significant alterations in both DNA copy number and gene expression between two sample classes. DR-Integrator is freely available for non-commercial use from the Pollack Lab at http://pollacklab.stanford.edu/ and can be downloaded as a plug-in application to Microsoft Excel and as a package for the R statistical computing environment. The R package is available under the name 'DRI' at http://cran.r-project.org/. An example analysis using DR-Integrator is included as supplemental material. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Software development for a switch-based data acquisition system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Booth, A. (Superconducting Super Collider Lab., Dallas, TX (United States)); Black, D.; Walsh, D. (Fermi National Accelerator Lab., Batavia, IL (United States))

1991-12-01

We report on the software aspects of the development of a switch-based data acquisition system at Fermilab. This paper describes how, with the goal of providing an integrated systems engineering'' environment, several powerful software tools were put in place to facilitate extensive exploration of all aspects of the design. These tools include a simulation package, graphics package and an Expert System shell which have been integrated to provide an environment which encourages the close interaction of hardware and software engineers. This paper includes a description of the simulation, user interface, embedded software, remote procedure calls, and diagnostic software which together have enabled us to provide real-time control and monitoring of a working prototype switch-based data acquisition (DAQ) system.

A Reference Architecture for Providing Tools as a Service to Support Global Software Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chauhan, Aufeef

2014-01-01

-computing paradigm for addressing above-mentioned issues by providing a framework to select appropriate tools as well as associated services and reference architecture of the cloud-enabled middleware platform that allows on demand provisioning of software engineering Tools as a Service (TaaS) with focus......Global Software Development (GSD) teams encounter challenges that are associated with distribution of software development activities across multiple geographic regions. The limited support for performing collaborative development and engineering activities and lack of sufficient support......-based solutions. The restricted ability of the organizations to have desired alignment of tools with software engineering and development processes results in administrative and managerial overhead that incur increased development cost and poor product quality. Moreover, stakeholders involved in the projects have...

Classroom Live: a software-assisted gamification tool

Science.gov (United States)

de Freitas, Adrian A.; de Freitas, Michelle M.

2013-06-01

Teachers have come to rely on a variety of approaches in order to elicit and sustain student interest in the classroom. One particular approach, known as gamification, seeks to improve student engagement by transforming the traditional classroom experience into a competitive multiplayer game. Initial attempts at classroom gamification relied on the teacher manually tracking student progress. At the US Air Force Academy, we wanted to experiment with a software gamification tool. Our client/server suite, dubbed Classroom Live, streamlines the gamification process for the teacher by simplifying common tasks. Simultaneously, the tool provides students with an esthetically pleasing user interface that offers in game rewards in exchange for their participation. Classroom Live is still in development, but our initial experience using the tool has been extremely positive and confirms our belief that students respond positively to gamification, even at the undergraduate level.

DAE Tools: equation-based object-oriented modelling, simulation and optimisation software

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dragan D. Nikolić

2016-04-01

Full Text Available In this work, DAE Tools modelling, simulation and optimisation software, its programming paradigms and main features are presented. The current approaches to mathematical modelling such as the use of modelling languages and general-purpose programming languages are analysed. The common set of capabilities required by the typical simulation software are discussed, and the shortcomings of the current approaches recognised. A new hybrid approach is introduced, and the modelling languages and the hybrid approach are compared in terms of the grammar, compiler, parser and interpreter requirements, maintainability and portability. The most important characteristics of the new approach are discussed, such as: (1 support for the runtime model generation; (2 support for the runtime simulation set-up; (3 support for complex runtime operating procedures; (4 interoperability with the third party software packages (i.e. NumPy/SciPy; (5 suitability for embedding and use as a web application or software as a service; and (6 code-generation, model exchange and co-simulation capabilities. The benefits of an equation-based approach to modelling, implemented in a fourth generation object-oriented general purpose programming language such as Python are discussed. The architecture and the software implementation details as well as the type of problems that can be solved using DAE Tools software are described. Finally, some applications of the software at different levels of abstraction are presented, and its embedding capabilities and suitability for use as a software as a service is demonstrated.

Development of software tools for supporting building clearance and site release at UKAEA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jessop, G.; Pearl, M.

2002-01-01

UKAEA sites generally have complex histories and have been subject to a diverse range of nuclear operations. Most of the nuclear reactors, laboratories, workshops and other support facilities are now redundant and a programme of decommissioning works in accordance with IAEA guidance is in progress. Decommissioning is being carried out in phases with post- operative activities, care and maintenance and care and surveillance periods between stages to allow relatively short-lived radioactivity to decay. This reduces dose levels to personnel and minimises radioactive waste production. Following on from these stages is an end point phase which corresponds to the point at which the risks to human health and the environment are sufficiently low so that the buildings / land can be released for future use. Unconditional release corresponds to meeting the requirement for 'de-licensing'. Although reaching a de-licensable end point is the desired aim for UKAEA sites, it is recognised that this may take hundreds of years for parts of some UKAEA sites, or may never be attainable at a reasonable cost to the UK taxpayer. Thus on these sites, long term risk management systems are in place to minimise the impact on health, safety and the environment. In order to manage these short, medium and long term liabilities, UKAEA has developed a number of software tools based on good practice guidance. One of these tools in particular is being developed to address building clearance and site release. This tool, IMAGES (Information Management and Geographical Information System) integrates systematic data capture, with database management and spatial assessment (through a Geographical Information System). Details of IMAGES and its applications are discussed in the paper. This paper outlines the approach being adopted by UKAEA for building and site release and the integrated software system, IMAGES, being used to capture, collate, interpret and report results. The key to UKAEA's strategy for

Can agile software tools bring the benefits of a task board to globally distributed teams?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Katsma, Christiaan; Amrit, Chintan Amrit; van Hillegersberg, Jos; Sikkel, Nicolaas; Oshri, Ilan; Kotlarsky, Julia; Willcocks, Leslie P.

Software-based tooling has become an essential part of globally disitrbuted software development. In this study we focus on the usage of such tools and task boards in particular. We investigate the deployment of these tools through a field research in 4 different companies that feature agile and

Software reference for SaTool - a Tool for Structural Analysis of Automated Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lorentzen, Torsten; Blanke, Mogens

2004-01-01

This software reference details the functions of SaTool – a tool for structural analysis of technical systems. SaTool is intended used as part of an industrial systems design cycle. Structural analysis is a graph-based technique where principal relations between variables express the system’s...... of the graph. SaTool makes analysis of the structure graph to provide knowledge about fundamental properties of the system in normal and faulty conditions. Salient features of SaTool include rapid analysis of possibility to diagnose faults and ability to make autonomous recovery should faults occur........ The list of such variables and functional relations constitute the system’s structure graph. Normal operation means all functional relations are intact. Should faults occur, one or more functional relations cease to be valid. In a structure graph, this is seen as the disappearance of one or more nodes...

CLAIRE, an event-driven simulation tool for testing software

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Raguideau, J.; Schoen, D.; Henry, J.Y.; Boulc'h, J.

1994-06-01

CLAIRE is a software tool created to perform validations on executable codes or on specifications of distributed real-time applications for nuclear safety. CLAIRE can be used both to verify the safety properties by modelling the specifications, and also to validate the final code by simulating the behaviour of its equipment and software interfaces. It can be used to observe and provide dynamic control of the simulation process, and also to record changes to the simulated data for off-line analysis. (R.P.)

Integrated Radiation Analysis and Design Tools

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Integrated Radiation Analysis and Design Tools (IRADT) Project develops and maintains an integrated tool set that collects the current best practices, databases,...

Modern software approaches applied to a Hydrological model: the GEOtop Open-Source Software Project

Science.gov (United States)

Cozzini, Stefano; Endrizzi, Stefano; Cordano, Emanuele; Bertoldi, Giacomo; Dall'Amico, Matteo

2017-04-01

The GEOtop hydrological scientific package is an integrated hydrological model that simulates the heat and water budgets at and below the soil surface. It describes the three-dimensional water flow in the soil and the energy exchange with the atmosphere, considering the radiative and turbulent fluxes. Furthermore, it reproduces the highly non-linear interactions between the water and energy balance during soil freezing and thawing, and simulates the temporal evolution of snow cover, soil temperature and moisture. The core components of the package were presented in the 2.0 version (Endrizzi et al, 2014), which was released as Free Software Open-source project. However, despite the high scientific quality of the project, a modern software engineering approach was still missing. Such weakness hindered its scientific potential and its use both as a standalone package and, more importantly, in an integrate way with other hydrological software tools. In this contribution we present our recent software re-engineering efforts to create a robust and stable scientific software package open to the hydrological community, easily usable by researchers and experts, and interoperable with other packages. The activity takes as a starting point the 2.0 version, scientifically tested and published. This version, together with several test cases based on recent published or available GEOtop applications (Cordano and Rigon, 2013, WRR, Kollet et al, 2016, WRR) provides the baseline code and a certain number of referenced results as benchmark. Comparison and scientific validation can then be performed for each software re-engineering activity performed on the package. To keep track of any single change the package is published on its own github repository geotopmodel.github.io/geotop/ under GPL v3.0 license. A Continuous Integration mechanism by means of Travis-CI has been enabled on the github repository on master and main development branches. The usage of CMake configuration tool

The software improvement process - tools and rules to encourage quality

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sigerud, K.; Baggiolini, V.

2012-01-01

The Applications section of the CERN accelerator controls group has decided to apply a systematic approach to quality assurance (QA), the 'Software Improvement Process' - SIP. This process focuses on three areas: the development process itself, suitable QA tools, and how to practically encourage developers to do QA. For each stage of the development process we have agreed on the recommended activities and deliverables, and identified tools to automate and support the task. For example we do more code reviews. As peer reviews are resource intensive, we only do them for complex parts of a product. As a complement, we are using static code checking tools, like FindBugs and Checkstyle. We also encourage unit testing and have agreed on a minimum level of test coverage recommended for all products, measured using Clover. Each of these tools is well integrated with our IDE (Eclipse) and give instant feedback to the developer about the quality of their code. The major challenges of SIP have been to 1) agree on common standards and configurations, for example common code formatting and Javadoc documentation guidelines, and 2) how to encourage the developers to do QA. To address the second point, we have successfully implemented 'SIP days', i.e. one day dedicated to QA work to which the whole group of developers participates, and 'Top/Flop' lists, clearly indicating the best and worst products with regards to SIP guidelines and standards, for example test coverage. This paper presents the SIP initiative in more detail, summarizing our experience since two years and our future plans. (authors)

Integrated tools for control-system analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Ostroff, Aaron J.; Proffitt, Melissa S.; Clark, David R.

1989-01-01

The basic functions embedded within a user friendly software package (MATRIXx) are used to provide a high level systems approach to the analysis of linear control systems. Various control system analysis configurations are assembled automatically to minimize the amount of work by the user. Interactive decision making is incorporated via menu options and at selected points, such as in the plotting section, by inputting data. There are five evaluations such as the singular value robustness test, singular value loop transfer frequency response, Bode frequency response, steady-state covariance analysis, and closed-loop eigenvalues. Another section describes time response simulations. A time response for random white noise disturbance is available. The configurations and key equations used for each type of analysis, the restrictions that apply, the type of data required, and an example problem are described. One approach for integrating the design and analysis tools is also presented.

Error-Free Software

Science.gov (United States)

1989-01-01

001 is an integrated tool suited for automatically developing ultra reliable models, simulations and software systems. Developed and marketed by Hamilton Technologies, Inc. (HTI), it has been applied in engineering, manufacturing, banking and software tools development. The software provides the ability to simplify the complex. A system developed with 001 can be a prototype or fully developed with production quality code. It is free of interface errors, consistent, logically complete and has no data or control flow errors. Systems can be designed, developed and maintained with maximum productivity. Margaret Hamilton, President of Hamilton Technologies, also directed the research and development of USE.IT, an earlier product which was the first computer aided software engineering product in the industry to concentrate on automatically supporting the development of an ultrareliable system throughout its life cycle. Both products originated in NASA technology developed under a Johnson Space Center contract.

The CMS Data Quality Monitoring software experience and future improvements

CERN Document Server

De Guio, Federico

2013-01-01

The Data Quality Monitoring (DQM) Software proved to be a central tool in the CMS experiment. Its flexibility allowed its integration in several environments Online, for real-time detector monitoring; Offline, for the final, fine-grained Data Certification; Release Validation, to constantly validate the functionality and the performance of the reconstruction software; in Monte Carlo productions. The central tool to deliver Data Quality information is a web site for browsing data quality histograms (DQM GUI). In this contribution the usage of the DQM Software in the different environments and its integration in the CMS Reconstruction Software Framework and in all production workflows are presented.

Integrating decision management with UML modeling concepts and tools

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Könemann, Patrick

2009-01-01

, but also for guiding the user by proposing subsequent decisions. In model-based software development, many decisions directly affect the structural and behavioral models used to describe and develop a software system and its architecture. However, the decisions are typically not connected to these models...... of formerly disconnected tools could improve tool usability as well as decision maker productivity....

Technical Note: Development and performance of a software tool for quality assurance of online replanning with a conventional Linac or MR-Linac

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chen, Guang-Pei, E-mail: gpchen@mcw.edu; Ahunbay, Ergun; Li, X. Allen [Department of Radiation Oncology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53226 (United States)

2016-04-15

Purpose: To develop an integrated quality assurance (QA) software tool for online replanning capable of efficiently and automatically checking radiation treatment (RT) planning parameters and gross plan quality, verifying treatment plan data transfer from treatment planning system (TPS) to record and verify (R&V) system, performing a secondary monitor unit (MU) calculation with or without a presence of a magnetic field from MR-Linac, and validating the delivery record consistency with the plan. Methods: The software tool, named ArtQA, was developed to obtain and compare plan and treatment parameters from both the TPS and the R&V system database. The TPS data are accessed via direct file reading and the R&V data are retrieved via open database connectivity and structured query language. Plan quality is evaluated with both the logical consistency of planning parameters and the achieved dose–volume histograms. Beams in between the TPS and R&V system are matched based on geometry configurations. To consider the effect of a 1.5 T transverse magnetic field from MR-Linac in the secondary MU calculation, a method based on modified Clarkson integration algorithm was developed and tested for a series of clinical situations. Results: ArtQA has been used in their clinic and can quickly detect inconsistencies and deviations in the entire RT planning process. With the use of the ArtQA tool, the efficiency for plan check including plan quality, data transfer, and delivery check can be improved by at least 60%. The newly developed independent MU calculation tool for MR-Linac reduces the difference between the plan and calculated MUs by 10%. Conclusions: The software tool ArtQA can be used to perform a comprehensive QA check from planning to delivery with conventional Linac or MR-Linac and is an essential tool for online replanning where the QA check needs to be performed rapidly.

Technical Note: Development and performance of a software tool for quality assurance of online replanning with a conventional Linac or MR-Linac.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Guang-Pei; Ahunbay, Ergun; Li, X Allen

2016-04-01

To develop an integrated quality assurance (QA) software tool for online replanning capable of efficiently and automatically checking radiation treatment (RT) planning parameters and gross plan quality, verifying treatment plan data transfer from treatment planning system (TPS) to record and verify (R&V) system, performing a secondary monitor unit (MU) calculation with or without a presence of a magnetic field from MR-Linac, and validating the delivery record consistency with the plan. The software tool, named ArtQA, was developed to obtain and compare plan and treatment parameters from both the TPS and the R&V system database. The TPS data are accessed via direct file reading and the R&V data are retrieved via open database connectivity and structured query language. Plan quality is evaluated with both the logical consistency of planning parameters and the achieved dose-volume histograms. Beams in between the TPS and R&V system are matched based on geometry configurations. To consider the effect of a 1.5 T transverse magnetic field from MR-Linac in the secondary MU calculation, a method based on modified Clarkson integration algorithm was developed and tested for a series of clinical situations. ArtQA has been used in their clinic and can quickly detect inconsistencies and deviations in the entire RT planning process. With the use of the ArtQA tool, the efficiency for plan check including plan quality, data transfer, and delivery check can be improved by at least 60%. The newly developed independent MU calculation tool for MR-Linac reduces the difference between the plan and calculated MUs by 10%. The software tool ArtQA can be used to perform a comprehensive QA check from planning to delivery with conventional Linac or MR-Linac and is an essential tool for online replanning where the QA check needs to be performed rapidly.

CASE technology and the Systems Development Life Cycle: a proposed integration of CASE tools with DoD STD-2167A

OpenAIRE

Batt, Gary Thomas

1989-01-01

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited The use of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) t ools has been marketed as a remedy for the software development crisis by automating analysis, design, and coding. The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) has been employed in an attempt to ease the development backlog by applying structured methods to the development of software systems. This study reviews CASE tool components and the future of CASE integrated toolkits, compares a...

Towards early software reliability prediction for computer forensic tools (case study).

Science.gov (United States)

Abu Talib, Manar

2016-01-01

Versatility, flexibility and robustness are essential requirements for software forensic tools. Researchers and practitioners need to put more effort into assessing this type of tool. A Markov model is a robust means for analyzing and anticipating the functioning of an advanced component based system. It is used, for instance, to analyze the reliability of the state machines of real time reactive systems. This research extends the architecture-based software reliability prediction model for computer forensic tools, which is based on Markov chains and COSMIC-FFP. Basically, every part of the computer forensic tool is linked to a discrete time Markov chain. If this can be done, then a probabilistic analysis by Markov chains can be performed to analyze the reliability of the components and of the whole tool. The purposes of the proposed reliability assessment method are to evaluate the tool's reliability in the early phases of its development, to improve the reliability assessment process for large computer forensic tools over time, and to compare alternative tool designs. The reliability analysis can assist designers in choosing the most reliable topology for the components, which can maximize the reliability of the tool and meet the expected reliability level specified by the end-user. The approach of assessing component-based tool reliability in the COSMIC-FFP context is illustrated with the Forensic Toolkit Imager case study.

Aircraft Design Software

Science.gov (United States)

1997-01-01

Successful commercialization of the AirCraft SYNThesis (ACSYNT) tool has resulted in the creation of Phoenix Integration, Inc. ACSYNT has been exclusively licensed to the company, an outcome of a seven year, $3 million effort to provide unique software technology to a focused design engineering market. Ames Research Center formulated ACSYNT and in working with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute CAD Laboratory, began to design and code a computer-aided design for ACSYNT. Using a Joint Sponsored Research Agreement, Ames formed an industry-government-university alliance to improve and foster research and development for the software. As a result of the ACSYNT Institute, the software is becoming a predominant tool for aircraft conceptual design. ACSYNT has been successfully applied to high- speed civil transport configuration, subsonic transports, and supersonic fighters.

Tav4SB: integrating tools for analysis of kinetic models of biological systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Rybiński, Mikołaj; Lula, Michał; Banasik, Paweł; Lasota, Sławomir; Gambin, Anna

2012-04-05

Progress in the modeling of biological systems strongly relies on the availability of specialized computer-aided tools. To that end, the Taverna Workbench eases integration of software tools for life science research and provides a common workflow-based framework for computational experiments in Biology. The Taverna services for Systems Biology (Tav4SB) project provides a set of new Web service operations, which extend the functionality of the Taverna Workbench in a domain of systems biology. Tav4SB operations allow you to perform numerical simulations or model checking of, respectively, deterministic or stochastic semantics of biological models. On top of this functionality, Tav4SB enables the construction of high-level experiments. As an illustration of possibilities offered by our project we apply the multi-parameter sensitivity analysis. To visualize the results of model analysis a flexible plotting operation is provided as well. Tav4SB operations are executed in a simple grid environment, integrating heterogeneous software such as Mathematica, PRISM and SBML ODE Solver. The user guide, contact information, full documentation of available Web service operations, workflows and other additional resources can be found at the Tav4SB project's Web page: http://bioputer.mimuw.edu.pl/tav4sb/. The Tav4SB Web service provides a set of integrated tools in the domain for which Web-based applications are still not as widely available as for other areas of computational biology. Moreover, we extend the dedicated hardware base for computationally expensive task of simulating cellular models. Finally, we promote the standardization of models and experiments as well as accessibility and usability of remote services.

An integrated audio-visual impact tool for wind turbine installations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lymberopoulos, N.; Belessis, M.; Wood, M.; Voutsinas, S.

1996-01-01

An integrated software tool was developed for the design of wind parks that takes into account their visual and audio impact. The application is built on a powerful hardware platform and is fully operated through a graphic user interface. The topography, the wind turbines and the daylight conditions are realised digitally. The wind park can be animated in real time and the user can take virtual walks in it while the set-up of the park can be altered interactively. In parallel, the wind speed levels on the terrain, the emitted noise intensity, the annual energy output and the cash flow can be estimated at any stage of the session and prompt the user for rearrangements. The tool has been used to visually simulate existing wind parks in St. Breok, UK and Andros Island, Greece. The results lead to the conclusion that such a tool can assist to the public acceptance and licensing procedures of wind parks. (author)

User Driven Development of Software Tools for Open Data Discovery and Exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Schlobinski, Sascha; Keppel, Frank; Dihe, Pascal; Boot, Gerben; Falkenroth, Esa

2016-04-01

The use of open data in research faces challenges not restricted to inherent properties such as data quality, resolution of open data sets. Often Open data is catalogued insufficiently or fragmented. Software tools that support the effective discovery including the assessment of the data's appropriateness for research have shortcomings such as the lack of essential functionalities like support for data provenance. We believe that one of the reasons is the neglect of real end users requirements in the development process of aforementioned software tools. In the context of the FP7 Switch-On project we have pro-actively engaged the relevant user user community to collaboratively develop a means to publish, find and bind open data relevant for hydrologic research. Implementing key concepts of data discovery and exploration we have used state of the art web technologies to provide an interactive software tool that is easy to use yet powerful enough to satisfy the data discovery and access requirements of the hydrological research community.

Performance Evaluation of a Software Engineering Tool for Automated Design of Cooling Systems in Injection Moulding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jauregui-Becker, Juan M.; Tosello, Guido; van Houten, Fred J.A.M.

2013-01-01

This paper presents a software tool for automating the design of cooling systems for injection moulding and a validation of its performance. Cooling system designs were automatically generated by the proposed software tool and by applying a best practice tool engineering design approach. The two...

Outcomes from the First Wingman Software in the Loop Integration Event: January 2017

Science.gov (United States)

2017-06-28

ARL-TN-0830 ● June 2017 US Army Research Laboratory Outcomes from the First Wingman Software- in-the-Loop Integration Event...ARL-TN-0830 ● JUNE 2017 US Army Research Laboratory Outcomes from the First Wingman Software- in-the-Loop Integration Event: January 2017...Note 3. DATES COVERED (From - To) January 2017–September 2017 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Outcomes from the First Wingman Software-in-the-Loop Integration

Army-NASA aircrew/aircraft integration program (A3I) software detailed design document, phase 3

Science.gov (United States)

Banda, Carolyn; Chiu, Alex; Helms, Gretchen; Hsieh, Tehming; Lui, Andrew; Murray, Jerry; Shankar, Renuka

1990-01-01

The capabilities and design approach of the MIDAS (Man-machine Integration Design and Analysis System) computer-aided engineering (CAE) workstation under development by the Army-NASA Aircrew/Aircraft Integration Program is detailed. This workstation uses graphic, symbolic, and numeric prototyping tools and human performance models as part of an integrated design/analysis environment for crewstation human engineering. Developed incrementally, the requirements and design for Phase 3 (Dec. 1987 to Jun. 1989) are described. Software tools/models developed or significantly modified during this phase included: an interactive 3-D graphic cockpit design editor; multiple-perspective graphic views to observe simulation scenarios; symbolic methods to model the mission decomposition, equipment functions, pilot tasking and loading, as well as control the simulation; a 3-D dynamic anthropometric model; an intermachine communications package; and a training assessment component. These components were successfully used during Phase 3 to demonstrate the complex interactions and human engineering findings involved with a proposed cockpit communications design change in a simulated AH-64A Apache helicopter/mission that maps to empirical data from a similar study and AH-1 Cobra flight test.

Integrating commercial software in accelerator control- case study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pace, Alberto

1994-01-01

Using existing commercial software is the dream of any control system engineer for the development cost reduction that can reach one order of magnitude. This dream often vanishes when appears the requirement to have a uniform and consistent architecture through a wide number of components and applications. This makes it difficult to integrate several commercial packages that often impose different user interface and communication standards. This paper will describe the approach and standards that have been chosen for the CERN ISOLDE control system that have allowed several commercial packages to be integrated in the system as-they-are permitting the software development cost to be reduced to a minimum. (author). 10 refs., 2 tabs., 9 figs

Exploring the organizational impact of software-as-a-Service on software vendors the role of organizational integration in software-as-a-Service development and operation

CERN Document Server

Stuckenberg, Sebastian

2014-01-01

Software-as-a-Service has gained momentum as a software delivery and pricing model within the software industry. Existing practices of software vendors are challenged by a potential paradigm shift. This book analyzes the implications of Software-as-a-Service on software vendors using a business model and value chain perspective. The analysis of qualitative data from software vendors highlights the role of organizational integration within software vendors. By providing insights regarding the impact of Software-as-a-Service on organizational structures and processes of software vendors, this st

Large scale continuous integration and delivery : Making great software better and faster

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Stahl, Daniel

2017-01-01

Since the inception of continuous integration, and later continuous delivery, the methods of producing software in the industry have changed dramatically over the last two decades. Automated, rapid and frequent compilation, integration, testing, analysis, packaging and delivery of new software

Benchmarking therapeutic drug monitoring software: a review of available computer tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Fuchs, Aline; Csajka, Chantal; Thoma, Yann; Buclin, Thierry; Widmer, Nicolas

2013-01-01

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) aims to optimize treatments by individualizing dosage regimens based on the measurement of blood concentrations. Dosage individualization to maintain concentrations within a target range requires pharmacokinetic and clinical capabilities. Bayesian calculations currently represent the gold standard TDM approach but require computation assistance. In recent decades computer programs have been developed to assist clinicians in this assignment. The aim of this survey was to assess and compare computer tools designed to support TDM clinical activities. The literature and the Internet were searched to identify software. All programs were tested on personal computers. Each program was scored against a standardized grid covering pharmacokinetic relevance, user friendliness, computing aspects, interfacing and storage. A weighting factor was applied to each criterion of the grid to account for its relative importance. To assess the robustness of the software, six representative clinical vignettes were processed through each of them. Altogether, 12 software tools were identified, tested and ranked, representing a comprehensive review of the available software. Numbers of drugs handled by the software vary widely (from two to 180), and eight programs offer users the possibility of adding new drug models based on population pharmacokinetic analyses. Bayesian computation to predict dosage adaptation from blood concentration (a posteriori adjustment) is performed by ten tools, while nine are also able to propose a priori dosage regimens, based only on individual patient covariates such as age, sex and bodyweight. Among those applying Bayesian calculation, MM-USC*PACK© uses the non-parametric approach. The top two programs emerging from this benchmark were MwPharm© and TCIWorks. Most other programs evaluated had good potential while being less sophisticated or less user friendly. Programs vary in complexity and might not fit all healthcare

MONGKIE: an integrated tool for network analysis and visualization for multi-omics data.

Science.gov (United States)

Jang, Yeongjun; Yu, Namhee; Seo, Jihae; Kim, Sun; Lee, Sanghyuk

2016-03-18

Network-based integrative analysis is a powerful technique for extracting biological insights from multilayered omics data such as somatic mutations, copy number variations, and gene expression data. However, integrated analysis of multi-omics data is quite complicated and can hardly be done in an automated way. Thus, a powerful interactive visual mining tool supporting diverse analysis algorithms for identification of driver genes and regulatory modules is much needed. Here, we present a software platform that integrates network visualization with omics data analysis tools seamlessly. The visualization unit supports various options for displaying multi-omics data as well as unique network models for describing sophisticated biological networks such as complex biomolecular reactions. In addition, we implemented diverse in-house algorithms for network analysis including network clustering and over-representation analysis. Novel functions include facile definition and optimized visualization of subgroups, comparison of a series of data sets in an identical network by data-to-visual mapping and subsequent overlaying function, and management of custom interaction networks. Utility of MONGKIE for network-based visual data mining of multi-omics data was demonstrated by analysis of the TCGA glioblastoma data. MONGKIE was developed in Java based on the NetBeans plugin architecture, thus being OS-independent with intrinsic support of module extension by third-party developers. We believe that MONGKIE would be a valuable addition to network analysis software by supporting many unique features and visualization options, especially for analysing multi-omics data sets in cancer and other diseases. .

Learn by Yourself: The Self-Learning Tools for Qualitative Analysis Software Packages

Science.gov (United States)

Freitas, Fábio; Ribeiro, Jaime; Brandão, Catarina; Reis, Luís Paulo; de Souza, Francislê Neri; Costa, António Pedro

2017-01-01

Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) are tools that help researchers to develop qualitative research projects. These software packages help the users with tasks such as transcription analysis, coding and text interpretation, writing and annotation, content search and analysis, recursive abstraction, grounded theory…

RAVEN AS A TOOL FOR DYNAMIC PROBABILISTIC RISK ASSESSMENT: SOFTWARE OVERVIEW

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Alfonsi Andrea; Mandelli Diego; Rabiti Cristian; Joshua Cogliati; Robert Kinoshita

2013-05-01

RAVEN is a software tool under development at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) that acts as the control logic driver and post-processing tool for the newly developed Thermo-Hydraylic code RELAP- 7. The scope of this paper is to show the software structure of RAVEN and its utilization in connection with RELAP-7. A short overview of the mathematical framework behind the code is presented along with its main capabilities such as on-line controlling/monitoring and Monte-Carlo sampling. A demo of a Station Black Out PRA analysis of a simplified Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) model is shown in order to demonstrate the Monte-Carlo and clustering capabilities.

WannierTools: An open-source software package for novel topological materials

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, QuanSheng; Zhang, ShengNan; Song, Hai-Feng; Troyer, Matthias; Soluyanov, Alexey A.

2018-03-01

We present an open-source software package WannierTools, a tool for investigation of novel topological materials. This code works in the tight-binding framework, which can be generated by another software package Wannier90 (Mostofi et al., 2008). It can help to classify the topological phase of a given material by calculating the Wilson loop, and can get the surface state spectrum, which is detected by angle resolved photoemission (ARPES) and in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments. It also identifies positions of Weyl/Dirac points and nodal line structures, calculates the Berry phase around a closed momentum loop and Berry curvature in a part of the Brillouin zone (BZ).

Evaluation of static analysis tools used to assess software important to nuclear power plant safety

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ourghanlian, Alain [EDF Lab CHATOU, Simulation and Information Technologies for Power Generation Systems Department, EDF R and D, Cedex (France)

2015-03-15

We describe a comparative analysis of different tools used to assess safety-critical software used in nuclear power plants. To enhance the credibility of safety assessments and to optimize safety justification costs, Electricit e de France (EDF) investigates the use of methods and tools for source code semantic analysis, to obtain indisputable evidence and help assessors focus on the most critical issues. EDF has been using the PolySpace tool for more than 10 years. Currently, new industrial tools based on the same formal approach, Abstract Interpretation, are available. Practical experimentation with these new tools shows that the precision obtained on one of our shutdown systems software packages is substantially improved. In the first part of this article, we present the analysis principles of the tools used in our experimentation. In the second part, we present the main characteristics of protection-system software, and why these characteristics are well adapted for the new analysis tools.

Software engineering and data management for automated payload experiment tool

Science.gov (United States)

Maddux, Gary A.; Provancha, Anna; Chattam, David

1994-01-01

The Microgravity Projects Office identified a need to develop a software package that will lead experiment developers through the development planning process, obtain necessary information, establish an electronic data exchange avenue, and allow easier manipulation/reformatting of the collected information. An MS-DOS compatible software package called the Automated Payload Experiment Tool (APET) has been developed and delivered. The objective of this task is to expand on the results of the APET work previously performed by University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and provide versions of the software in a Macintosh and Windows compatible format. Appendix 1 science requirements document (SRD) Users Manual is attached.

Basis of Estimate Software Tool (BEST) - a practical solution to part of the cost and schedule integration puzzle

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Murphy, L.; Bain, P.

1997-01-01

The Basis of Estimate Software Tool (BEST) was developed at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (Rocky Flats) to bridge the gap that exists in conventional project control systems between scheduled activities, their allocated or assigned resources, and the set of assumptions (basis of estimate) that correlate resources and activities. Having a documented and auditable basis of estimate (BOE) is necessary for budget validation, work scope analysis, change control, and a number of related management control functions. The uniqueness of BEST is demonstrated by the manner in which it responds to the diverse needs of the heavily regulated environmental workplace - containing many features not found in conventional off-the-shelf software products. However, even companies dealing in relatively unregulated work places will find many attractive features in BEST. This product will be of particular interest to current Government contractors and contractors preparing proposals that may require subsequent validation. 2 figs

A portable software tool for computing digitally reconstructed radiographs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chaney, Edward L.; Thorn, Jesse S.; Tracton, Gregg; Cullip, Timothy; Rosenman, Julian G.; Tepper, Joel E.

1995-01-01

Purpose: To develop a portable software tool for fast computation of digitally reconstructed radiographs (DRR) with a friendly user interface and versatile image format and display options. To provide a means for interfacing with commercial and custom three-dimensional (3D) treatment planning systems. To make the tool freely available to the Radiation Oncology community. Methods and Materials: A computer program for computing DRRs was enhanced with new features and rewritten to increase computational efficiency. A graphical user interface was added to improve ease of data input and DRR display. Installer, programmer, and user manuals were written, and installation test data sets were developed. The code conforms to the specifications of the Cooperative Working Group (CWG) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Contract on Radiotherapy Treatment Planning Tools. Results: The interface allows the user to select DRR input data and image formats primarily by point-and-click mouse operations. Digitally reconstructed radiograph formats are predefined by configuration files that specify 19 calculation parameters. Enhancements include improved contrast resolution for visualizing surgical clips, an extended source model to simulate the penumbra region in a computed port film, and the ability to easily modify the CT numbers of objects contoured on the planning computed tomography (CT) scans. Conclusions: The DRR tool can be used with 3D planning systems that lack this functionality, or perhaps improve the quality and functionality of existing DRR software. The tool can be interfaced to 3D planning systems that run on most modern graphics workstations, and can also function as a stand-alone program

APMS: An Integrated Set of Tools for Measuring Safety

Science.gov (United States)

Statler, Irving C.; Reynard, William D. (Technical Monitor)

1996-01-01

This is a report of work in progress. In it, I summarize the status of the research and development of the Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS) for managing, processing, and analyzing digital flight-recorded data. The objectives of the NASA-FAA APMS research project are to establish a sound scientific and technological basis for flight-data analysis, to define an open and flexible architecture for flight-data-analysis systems, and to articulate guidelines for a standardized database structure on which to continue to build future flight-data-analysis extensions. APMS will offer to the air transport community an open, voluntary standard for flight-data-analysis software, a standard that will help to ensure suitable functionality, and data interchangeability, among competing software programs. APMS will develop and document the methodologies, algorithms, and procedures for data management and analyses to enable users to easily interpret the implications regarding safety and efficiency of operations. APMS does not entail the implementation of a nationwide flight-data-collection system. It is intended to provide technical tools to ease the large-scale implementation of flight-data analyses at both the air-carrier and the national-airspace levels in support of their Flight Operations and Quality Assurance (FOQA) Programs and Advanced Qualifications Programs (AQP). APMS cannot meet its objectives unless it develops tools that go substantially beyond the capabilities of the current commercially available software and supporting analytic methods that are mainly designed to count special events. These existing capabilities, while of proven value, were created primarily with the needs of air crews in mind. APMS tools must serve the needs of the government and air carriers, as well as air crews, to fully support the FOQA and AQP programs. They must be able to derive knowledge not only through the analysis of single flights (special-event detection), but through

Automated software development tools in the MIS (Management Information Systems) environment

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Arrowood, L.F.; Emrich, M.L.

1987-09-11

Quantitative and qualitative benefits can be obtained through the use of automated software development tools. Such tools are best utilized when they complement existing procedures and standards. They can assist systems analysts and programmers with project specification, design, implementation, testing, and documentation. Commercial products have been evaluated to determine their efficacy. User comments have been included to illustrate actual benefits derived from introducing these tools into MIS organizations.

Biological data integration: wrapping data and tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Lacroix, Zoé

2002-06-01

Nowadays scientific data is inevitably digital and stored in a wide variety of formats in heterogeneous systems. Scientists need to access an integrated view of remote or local heterogeneous data sources with advanced data accessing, analyzing, and visualization tools. Building a digital library for scientific data requires accessing and manipulating data extracted from flat files or databases, documents retrieved from the Web as well as data generated by software. We present an approach to wrapping web data sources, databases, flat files, or data generated by tools through a database view mechanism. Generally, a wrapper has two tasks: it first sends a query to the source to retrieve data and, second builds the expected output with respect to the virtual structure. Our wrappers are composed of a retrieval component based on an intermediate object view mechanism called search views mapping the source capabilities to attributes, and an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) engine, respectively, to perform these two tasks. The originality of the approach consists of: 1) a generic view mechanism to access seamlessly data sources with limited capabilities and 2) the ability to wrap data sources as well as the useful specific tools they may provide. Our approach has been developed and demonstrated as part of the multidatabase system supporting queries via uniform object protocol model (OPM) interfaces.

Integrated Wind Power Planning Tool

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rosgaard, M. H.; Hahmann, Andrea N.; Nielsen, T. S.

This poster describes the status as of April 2012 of the Public Service Obligation (PSO) funded project PSO 10464 \\Integrated Wind Power Planning Tool". The project goal is to integrate a meso scale numerical weather prediction (NWP) model with a statistical tool in order to better predict short...... term power variation from off shore wind farms, as well as to conduct forecast error assessment studies in preparation for later implementation of such a feature in an existing simulation model. The addition of a forecast error estimation feature will further increase the value of this tool, as it...

The GlycanBuilder: a fast, intuitive and flexible software tool for building and displaying glycan structures.

Science.gov (United States)

Ceroni, Alessio; Dell, Anne; Haslam, Stuart M

2007-08-07

Carbohydrates play a critical role in human diseases and their potential utility as biomarkers for pathological conditions is a major driver for characterization of the glycome. However, the additional complexity of glycans compared to proteins and nucleic acids has slowed the advancement of glycomics in comparison to genomics and proteomics. The branched nature of carbohydrates, the great diversity of their constituents and the numerous alternative symbolic notations, make the input and display of glycans not as straightforward as for example the amino-acid sequence of a protein. Every glycoinformatic tool providing a user interface would benefit from a fast, intuitive, appealing mechanism for input and output of glycan structures in a computer readable format. A software tool for building and displaying glycan structures using a chosen symbolic notation is described here. The "GlycanBuilder" uses an automatic rendering algorithm to draw the saccharide symbols and to place them on the drawing board. The information about the symbolic notation is derived from a configurable graphical model as a set of rules governing the aspect and placement of residues and linkages. The algorithm is able to represent a structure using only few traversals of the tree and is inherently fast. The tool uses an XML format for import and export of encoded structures. The rendering algorithm described here is able to produce high-quality representations of glycan structures in a chosen symbolic notation. The automated rendering process enables the "GlycanBuilder" to be used both as a user-independent component for displaying glycans and as an easy-to-use drawing tool. The "GlycanBuilder" can be integrated in web pages as a Java applet for the visual editing of glycans. The same component is available as a web service to render an encoded structure into a graphical format. Finally, the "GlycanBuilder" can be integrated into other applications to create intuitive and appealing user

The GlycanBuilder: a fast, intuitive and flexible software tool for building and displaying glycan structures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dell Anne

2007-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Carbohydrates play a critical role in human diseases and their potential utility as biomarkers for pathological conditions is a major driver for characterization of the glycome. However, the additional complexity of glycans compared to proteins and nucleic acids has slowed the advancement of glycomics in comparison to genomics and proteomics. The branched nature of carbohydrates, the great diversity of their constituents and the numerous alternative symbolic notations, make the input and display of glycans not as straightforward as for example the amino-acid sequence of a protein. Every glycoinformatic tool providing a user interface would benefit from a fast, intuitive, appealing mechanism for input and output of glycan structures in a computer readable format. Results A software tool for building and displaying glycan structures using a chosen symbolic notation is described here. The "GlycanBuilder" uses an automatic rendering algorithm to draw the saccharide symbols and to place them on the drawing board. The information about the symbolic notation is derived from a configurable graphical model as a set of rules governing the aspect and placement of residues and linkages. The algorithm is able to represent a structure using only few traversals of the tree and is inherently fast. The tool uses an XML format for import and export of encoded structures. Conclusion The rendering algorithm described here is able to produce high-quality representations of glycan structures in a chosen symbolic notation. The automated rendering process enables the "GlycanBuilder" to be used both as a user-independent component for displaying glycans and as an easy-to-use drawing tool. The "GlycanBuilder" can be integrated in web pages as a Java applet for the visual editing of glycans. The same component is available as a web service to render an encoded structure into a graphical format. Finally, the "GlycanBuilder" can be integrated into other

An expert system based software sizing tool, phase 2

Science.gov (United States)

Friedlander, David

1990-01-01

A software tool was developed for predicting the size of a future computer program at an early stage in its development. The system is intended to enable a user who is not expert in Software Engineering to estimate software size in lines of source code with an accuracy similar to that of an expert, based on the program's functional specifications. The project was planned as a knowledge based system with a field prototype as the goal of Phase 2 and a commercial system planned for Phase 3. The researchers used techniques from Artificial Intelligence and knowledge from human experts and existing software from NASA's COSMIC database. They devised a classification scheme for the software specifications, and a small set of generic software components that represent complexity and apply to large classes of programs. The specifications are converted to generic components by a set of rules and the generic components are input to a nonlinear sizing function which makes the final prediction. The system developed for this project predicted code sizes from the database with a bias factor of 1.06 and a fluctuation factor of 1.77, an accuracy similar to that of human experts but without their significant optimistic bias.

Development of a software tool for the management of quality control in a helical tomotherapy unit

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Garcia Repiso, S.; Hernandez Rodriguez, J.; Martin Rincon, C.; Ramos Pacho, J. A.; Verde Velasco, J. M.; Delgado Aparacio, J. M.; Perez Alvarez, M. e.; Gomez Gonzalez, N.; Cons Perez, V.; Saez Beltran, M.

2013-01-01

The large amount of data and information that is managed in units of external radiotherapy quality control tests makes necessary the use of tools that facilitate, on the one hand, the management of measures and results in real time, and on other tasks of management, file, query and reporting of stored data. This paper presents an application of software of own development which is used for the integral management of the helical TomoTherapy unit in the aspects related to the roles and responsibilities of the hospital Radiophysics. (Author)

Northwestern University Schizophrenia Data and Software Tool (NUSDAST

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lei eWang

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The schizophrenia research community has invested substantial resources on collecting, managing and sharing large neuroimaging datasets. As part of this effort, our group has collected high resolution magnetic resonance (MR datasets from individuals with schizophrenia, their non-psychotic siblings, healthy controls and their siblings. This effort has resulted in a growing resource, the Northwestern University Schizophrenia Data and Software Tool (NUSDAST, an NIH-funded data sharing project to stimulate new research. This resource resides on XNAT Central, and it contains neuroimaging (MR scans, landmarks and surface maps for deep subcortical structures, and FreeSurfer cortical parcellation and measurement data, cognitive (cognitive domain scores for crystallized intelligence, working memory, episodic memory, and executive function, clinical (demographic, sibling relationship, SAPS and SANS psychopathology, and genetic (20 polymorphisms data, collected from more than 450 subjects, most with 2-year longitudinal follow-up. A neuroimaging mapping, analysis and visualization software tool, CAWorks, is also part of this resource. Moreover, in making our existing neuroimaging data along with the associated meta-data and computational tools publically accessible, we have established a web-based information retrieval portal that allows the user to efficiently search the collection. This research-ready dataset meaningfully combines neuroimaging data with other relevant information, and it can be used to help facilitate advancing neuroimaging research. It is our hope that this effort will help to overcome some of the commonly recognized technical barriers in advancing neuroimaging research such as lack of local organization and standard descriptions.

iTools: a framework for classification, categorization and integration of computational biology resources.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivo D Dinov

2008-05-01

Full Text Available The advancement of the computational biology field hinges on progress in three fundamental directions--the development of new computational algorithms, the availability of informatics resource management infrastructures and the capability of tools to interoperate and synergize. There is an explosion in algorithms and tools for computational biology, which makes it difficult for biologists to find, compare and integrate such resources. We describe a new infrastructure, iTools, for managing the query, traversal and comparison of diverse computational biology resources. Specifically, iTools stores information about three types of resources--data, software tools and web-services. The iTools design, implementation and resource meta-data content reflect the broad research, computational, applied and scientific expertise available at the seven National Centers for Biomedical Computing. iTools provides a system for classification, categorization and integration of different computational biology resources across space-and-time scales, biomedical problems, computational infrastructures and mathematical foundations. A large number of resources are already iTools-accessible to the community and this infrastructure is rapidly growing. iTools includes human and machine interfaces to its resource meta-data repository. Investigators or computer programs may utilize these interfaces to search, compare, expand, revise and mine meta-data descriptions of existent computational biology resources. We propose two ways to browse and display the iTools dynamic collection of resources. The first one is based on an ontology of computational biology resources, and the second one is derived from hyperbolic projections of manifolds or complex structures onto planar discs. iTools is an open source project both in terms of the source code development as well as its meta-data content. iTools employs a decentralized, portable, scalable and lightweight framework for long

Software tool for horizontal-axis wind turbine simulation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vitale, A.J. [Instituto Argentino de Oceanografia, Camino La Carrindanga Km. 7, 5 CC 804, B8000FWB Bahia Blanca (Argentina); Universidad Tecnologica Nacional Facultad Regional Bahia Blanca, GESE, 11 de Abril 461, B8000LMI Bahia Blanca (Argentina); Dpto. de Ing. Electrica y de Computadoras, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Av. Alem 1253, 8000 Bahia Blanca (Argentina); Rossi, A.P. [Universidad Tecnologica Nacional Facultad Regional Bahia Blanca, GESE, 11 de Abril 461, B8000LMI Bahia Blanca (Argentina); Dpto. de Ing. Electrica y de Computadoras, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Av. Alem 1253, 8000 Bahia Blanca (Argentina)

2008-07-15

The main problem of a wind turbine generator design project is the design of the right blades capable of satisfying the specific energy requirement of an electric system with optimum performance. Once the blade has been designed for optimum operation at a particular rotor angular speed, it is necessary to determine the overall performance of the rotor under the range of wind speed that it will encounter. A software tool that simulates low-power, horizontal-axis wind turbines was developed for this purpose. With this program, the user can calculate the rotor power output for any combination of wind and rotor speeds, with definite blade shape and airfoil characteristics. The software also provides information about distribution of forces along the blade span, for different operational conditions. (author)

About new software and hardware tools in the education of 'Semiconductor Devices'

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Taneva, Ljudmila; Basheva, Bistra

2009-01-01

This paper describes the new tools, used in the education of ”Semiconductor Devices”, developed at the Technological School “Electronic Systems”, Department of the Technical University, Sofia. The software and hardware tools give the opportunity to achieve the right balance between theory and practice, and the students are given the chance to accumulate valuable “hands-on” skills. The main purpose of the developed lab exercises is to demonstrate the use of some electronic components and practice with them. Keywords: semiconductors, media software tool, hardware, education

Open Software Tools Applied to Jordan's National Multi-Agent Water Management Model

Science.gov (United States)

Knox, Stephen; Meier, Philipp; Harou, Julien; Yoon, Jim; Selby, Philip; Lachaut, Thibaut; Klassert, Christian; Avisse, Nicolas; Khadem, Majed; Tilmant, Amaury; Gorelick, Steven

2016-04-01

Jordan is the fourth most water scarce country in the world, where demand exceeds supply in a politically and demographically unstable context. The Jordan Water Project (JWP) aims to perform policy evaluation by modelling the hydrology, economics, and governance of Jordan's water resource system. The multidisciplinary nature of the project requires a modelling software system capable of integrating submodels from multiple disciplines into a single decision making process and communicating results to stakeholders. This requires a tool for building an integrated model and a system where diverse data sets can be managed and visualised. The integrated Jordan model is built using Pynsim, an open-source multi-agent simulation framework implemented in Python. Pynsim operates on network structures of nodes and links and supports institutional hierarchies, where an institution represents a grouping of nodes, links or other institutions. At each time step, code within each node, link and institution can executed independently, allowing for their fully autonomous behaviour. Additionally, engines (sub-models) perform actions over the entire network or on a subset of the network, such as taking a decision on a set of nodes. Pynsim is modular in design, allowing distinct modules to be modified easily without affecting others. Data management and visualisation is performed using Hydra (www.hydraplatform.org), an open software platform allowing users to manage network structure and data. The Hydra data manager connects to Pynsim, providing necessary input parameters for the integrated model. By providing a high-level portal to the model, Hydra removes a barrier between the users of the model (researchers, stakeholders, planners etc) and the model itself, allowing them to manage data, run the model and visualise results all through a single user interface. Pynsim's ability to represent institutional hierarchies, inter-network communication and the separation of node, link and

Integrating data from the Investigational Medicinal Product Dossier/investigator's brochure. A new tool for translational integration of preclinical effects.

Science.gov (United States)

van Gerven, Joop; Cohen, Adam

2018-01-30

The first administration of a new compound in humans is an important milestone. A major source of information for the researcher is the investigator's brochure (IB). Such a document, has a size of several hundred pages. The IB should enable investigators or regulators to independently assess the risk-benefit of the proposed trial but the size and complexity makes this difficult. This article offers a practical tool for the integration and subsequent communication of the complex information from the IB or other relevant data sources. This paper is accompanied by an accessible software tool to construct a single page colour-coded overview of preclinical and clinical data. © 2018 The British Pharmacological Society.

An Integrated Software Suite for Surface-based Analyses of Cerebral Cortex

Science.gov (United States)

Van Essen, David C.; Drury, Heather A.; Dickson, James; Harwell, John; Hanlon, Donna; Anderson, Charles H.

2001-01-01

The authors describe and illustrate an integrated trio of software programs for carrying out surface-based analyses of cerebral cortex. The first component of this trio, SureFit (Surface Reconstruction by Filtering and Intensity Transformations), is used primarily for cortical segmentation, volume visualization, surface generation, and the mapping of functional neuroimaging data onto surfaces. The second component, Caret (Computerized Anatomical Reconstruction and Editing Tool Kit), provides a wide range of surface visualization and analysis options as well as capabilities for surface flattening, surface-based deformation, and other surface manipulations. The third component, SuMS (Surface Management System), is a database and associated user interface for surface-related data. It provides for efficient insertion, searching, and extraction of surface and volume data from the database. PMID:11522765

An integrated software suite for surface-based analyses of cerebral cortex

Science.gov (United States)

Van Essen, D. C.; Drury, H. A.; Dickson, J.; Harwell, J.; Hanlon, D.; Anderson, C. H.

2001-01-01

The authors describe and illustrate an integrated trio of software programs for carrying out surface-based analyses of cerebral cortex. The first component of this trio, SureFit (Surface Reconstruction by Filtering and Intensity Transformations), is used primarily for cortical segmentation, volume visualization, surface generation, and the mapping of functional neuroimaging data onto surfaces. The second component, Caret (Computerized Anatomical Reconstruction and Editing Tool Kit), provides a wide range of surface visualization and analysis options as well as capabilities for surface flattening, surface-based deformation, and other surface manipulations. The third component, SuMS (Surface Management System), is a database and associated user interface for surface-related data. It provides for efficient insertion, searching, and extraction of surface and volume data from the database.

COMPUTER TOOLS OF DYNAMIC MATHEMATIC SOFTWARE AND METHODICAL PROBLEMS OF THEIR USE

OpenAIRE

Olena V. Semenikhina; Maryna H. Drushliak

2014-01-01

The article presents results of analyses of standard computer tools of dynamic mathematic software which are used in solving tasks, and tools on which the teacher can support in the teaching of mathematics. Possibility of the organization of experimental investigating of mathematical objects on the basis of these tools and the wording of new tasks on the basis of the limited number of tools, fast automated check are specified. Some methodological comments on application of computer tools and ...

Techniques and tools for measuring energy efficiency of scientific software applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abdurachmanov, David; Elmer, Peter; Eulisse, Giulio; Knight, Robert; Niemi, Tapio; Pestana, Gonçalo; Khan, Kashif; Nurminen, Jukka K; Nyback, Filip; Ou, Zhonghong

2015-01-01

The scale of scientific High Performance Computing (HPC) and High Throughput Computing (HTC) has increased significantly in recent years, and is becoming sensitive to total energy use and cost. Energy-efficiency has thus become an important concern in scientific fields such as High Energy Physics (HEP). There has been a growing interest in utilizing alternate architectures, such as low power ARM processors, to replace traditional Intel x86 architectures. Nevertheless, even though such solutions have been successfully used in mobile applications with low I/O and memory demands, it is unclear if they are suitable and more energy-efficient in the scientific computing environment. Furthermore, there is a lack of tools and experience to derive and compare power consumption between the architectures for various workloads, and eventually to support software optimizations for energy efficiency. To that end, we have performed several physical and software-based measurements of workloads from HEP applications running on ARM and Intel architectures, and compare their power consumption and performance. We leverage several profiling tools (both in hardware and software) to extract different characteristics of the power use. We report the results of these measurements and the experience gained in developing a set of measurement techniques and profiling tools to accurately assess the power consumption for scientific workloads. (paper)

The use of software agents and distributed objects to integrate enterprises: Compatible or competing technologies?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pancerella, C.M.

1998-04-01

Distributed object and software agent technologies are two integration methods for connecting enterprises. The two technologies have overlapping goals--interoperability and architectural support for integrating software components--though to date little or no integration of the two technologies has been made at the enterprise level. The primary difference between these two technologies is that distributed object technologies focus on the problems inherent in connecting distributed heterogeneous systems whereas software agent technologies focus on the problems involved with coordination and knowledge exchange across domain boundaries. This paper addresses the integration of these technologies in support of enterprise integration across organizational and geographic boundaries. The authors discuss enterprise integration issues, review their experiences with both technologies, and make recommendations for future work. Neither technology is a panacea. Good software engineering techniques must be applied to integrate an enterprise because scalability and a distributed software development team are realities.

Tool Support for Parametric Analysis of Large Software Simulation Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, Johann; Gundy-Burlet, Karen; Pasareanu, Corina; Menzies, Tim; Barrett, Tony

2008-01-01

The analysis of large and complex parameterized software systems, e.g., systems simulation in aerospace, is very complicated and time-consuming due to the large parameter space, and the complex, highly coupled nonlinear nature of the different system components. Thus, such systems are generally validated only in regions local to anticipated operating points rather than through characterization of the entire feasible operational envelope of the system. We have addressed the factors deterring such an analysis with a tool to support envelope assessment: we utilize a combination of advanced Monte Carlo generation with n-factor combinatorial parameter variations to limit the number of cases, but still explore important interactions in the parameter space in a systematic fashion. Additional test-cases, automatically generated from models (e.g., UML, Simulink, Stateflow) improve the coverage. The distributed test runs of the software system produce vast amounts of data, making manual analysis impossible. Our tool automatically analyzes the generated data through a combination of unsupervised Bayesian clustering techniques (AutoBayes) and supervised learning of critical parameter ranges using the treatment learner TAR3. The tool has been developed around the Trick simulation environment, which is widely used within NASA. We will present this tool with a GN&C (Guidance, Navigation and Control) simulation of a small satellite system.

Software Tools for Electrical Quality Assurance in the LHC

CERN Document Server

Bednarek, Mateusz

2011-01-01

There are over 1600 superconducting magnet circuits in the LHC machine. Many of them consist of a large number of components electrically connected in series. This enhances the sensitivity of the whole circuits to electrical faults of individual components. Furthermore, circuits are equipped with a large number of instrumentation wires, which are exposed to accidental damage or swapping. In order to ensure safe operation, an Electrical Quality Assurance (ELQA) campaign is needed after each thermal cycle. Due to the complexity of the circuits, as well as their distant geographical distribution (tunnel of 27km circumference divided in 8 sectors), suitable software and hardware platforms had to be developed. The software combines an Oracle database, LabView data acquisition applications and PHP-based web follow-up tools. This paper describes the software used for the ELQA of the LHC.

Software tools for electrical quality assurance in the LHC

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bednarek, M.; Ludwin, J.

2012-01-01

There are over 1600 superconducting magnet circuits in the LHC machine. Many of them consist of a large number of components electrically connected in series. This enhances the sensitivity of the whole circuits to electrical faults of individual components. Furthermore, circuits are equipped with a large number of instrumentation wires, which are exposed to accidental damage or swapping. In order to ensure safe operation, an Electrical Quality Assurance (ELQA) campaign is needed after each thermal cycle. Due to the complexity of the circuits, as well as their distant geographical distribution (tunnel of 27 km circumference divided in 8 sectors), suitable software and hardware platforms had to be developed. The software combines an Oracle database, LabView data acquisition applications and PHP-based web follow-up tools. This paper describes the software used for the ELQA of the LHC. (authors)

NuFTA: A CASE Tool for Automatic Software Fault Tree Analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yun, Sang Hyun; Lee, Dong Ah; Yoo, Jun Beom

2010-01-01

Software fault tree analysis (SFTA) is widely used for analyzing software requiring high-reliability. In SFTA, experts predict failures of system through HA-ZOP (Hazard and Operability study) or FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) and draw software fault trees about the failures. Quality and cost of the software fault tree, therefore, depend on knowledge and experience of the experts. This paper proposes a CASE tool NuFTA in order to assist experts of safety analysis. The NuFTA automatically generate software fault trees from NuSCR formal requirements specification. NuSCR is a formal specification language used for specifying software requirements of KNICS RPS (Reactor Protection System) in Korea. We used the SFTA templates proposed by in order to generate SFTA automatically. The NuFTA also generates logical formulae summarizing the failure's cause, and we have a plan to use the formulae usefully through formal verification techniques

IM (Integrity Management) software must show flexibility to local codes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brors, Markus [ROSEN Technology and Research Center GmbH (Germany); Diggory, Ian [Macaw Engineering Ltd., Northumberland (United Kingdom)

2009-07-01

There are many internationally recognized codes and standards, such as API 1160 and ASME B31.8S, which help pipeline operators to manage and maintain the integrity of their pipeline networks. However, operators in many countries still use local codes that often reflect the history of pipeline developments in their region and are based on direct experience and research on their pipelines. As pipeline companies come under increasing regulatory and financial pressures to maintain the integrity of their networks, it is important that operators using regional codes are able to benchmark their integrity management schemes against these international standards. Any comprehensive Pipeline Integrity Management System (PIMS) software package should therefore not only incorporate industry standards for pipeline integrity assessment but also be capable of implementing regional codes for comparison purposes. This paper describes the challenges and benefits of incorporating one such set of regional pipeline standards into ROSEN Asset Integrity Management Software (ROAIMS). (author)

Software Tools: A One-Semester Secondary School Computer Course.

Science.gov (United States)

Bromley, John; Lakatos, John

1985-01-01

Provides a course outline, describes equipment and teacher requirements, discusses student evaluation and course outcomes, and details the computer programs used in a high school course. The course is designed to teach students use of the microcomputer as a tool through hands-on experience with a variety of commercial software programs. (MBR)

An effective technique for the software requirements analysis of NPP safety-critical systems, based on software inspection, requirements traceability, and formal specification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koo, Seo Ryong; Seong, Poong Hyun; Yoo, Junbeom; Cha, Sung Deok; Yoo, Yeong Jae

2005-01-01

A thorough requirements analysis is indispensable for developing and implementing safety-critical software systems such as nuclear power plant (NPP) software systems because a single error in the requirements can generate serious software faults. However, it is very difficult to completely analyze system requirements. In this paper, an effective technique for the software requirements analysis is suggested. For requirements verification and validation (V and V) tasks, our technique uses software inspection, requirement traceability, and formal specification with structural decomposition. Software inspection and requirements traceability analysis are widely considered the most effective software V and V methods. Although formal methods are also considered an effective V and V activity, they are difficult to use properly in the nuclear fields as well as in other fields because of their mathematical nature. In this work, we propose an integrated environment (IE) approach for requirements, which is an integrated approach that enables easy inspection by combining requirement traceability and effective use of a formal method. The paper also introduces computer-aided tools for supporting IE approach for requirements. Called the nuclear software inspection support and requirements traceability (NuSISRT), the tool incorporates software inspection, requirement traceability, and formal specification capabilities. We designed the NuSISRT to partially automate software inspection and analysis of requirement traceability. In addition, for the formal specification and analysis, we used the formal requirements specification and analysis tool for nuclear engineering (NuSRS)

PyElph - a software tool for gel images analysis and phylogenetics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pavel Ana Brânduşa

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background This paper presents PyElph, a software tool which automatically extracts data from gel images, computes the molecular weights of the analyzed molecules or fragments, compares DNA patterns which result from experiments with molecular genetic markers and, also, generates phylogenetic trees computed by five clustering methods, using the information extracted from the analyzed gel image. The software can be successfully used for population genetics, phylogenetics, taxonomic studies and other applications which require gel image analysis. Researchers and students working in molecular biology and genetics would benefit greatly from the proposed software because it is free, open source, easy to use, has a friendly Graphical User Interface and does not depend on specific image acquisition devices like other commercial programs with similar functionalities do. Results PyElph software tool is entirely implemented in Python which is a very popular programming language among the bioinformatics community. It provides a very friendly Graphical User Interface which was designed in six steps that gradually lead to the results. The user is guided through the following steps: image loading and preparation, lane detection, band detection, molecular weights computation based on a molecular weight marker, band matching and finally, the computation and visualization of phylogenetic trees. A strong point of the software is the visualization component for the processed data. The Graphical User Interface provides operations for image manipulation and highlights lanes, bands and band matching in the analyzed gel image. All the data and images generated in each step can be saved. The software has been tested on several DNA patterns obtained from experiments with different genetic markers. Examples of genetic markers which can be analyzed using PyElph are RFLP (Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism, AFLP (Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism, RAPD

SU-F-J-72: A Clinical Usable Integrated Contouring Quality Evaluation Software for Radiotherapy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jiang, S; Dolly, S; Cai, B; Mutic, S; Li, H [Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO (United States)

2016-06-15

Purpose: To introduce the Auto Contour Evaluation (ACE) software, which is the clinical usable, user friendly, efficient and all-in-one toolbox for automatically identify common contouring errors in radiotherapy treatment planning using supervised machine learning techniques. Methods: ACE is developed with C# using Microsoft .Net framework and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) for elegant GUI design and smooth GUI transition animations through the integration of graphics engines and high dots per inch (DPI) settings on modern high resolution monitors. The industrial standard software design pattern, Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern, is chosen to be the major architecture of ACE for neat coding structure, deep modularization, easy maintainability and seamless communication with other clinical software. ACE consists of 1) a patient data importing module integrated with clinical patient database server, 2) a 2D DICOM image and RT structure simultaneously displaying module, 3) a 3D RT structure visualization module using Visualization Toolkit or VTK library and 4) a contour evaluation module using supervised pattern recognition algorithms to detect contouring errors and display detection results. ACE relies on supervised learning algorithms to handle all image processing and data processing jobs. Implementations of related algorithms are powered by Accord.Net scientific computing library for better efficiency and effectiveness. Results: ACE can take patient’s CT images and RT structures from commercial treatment planning software via direct user input or from patients’ database. All functionalities including 2D and 3D image visualization and RT contours error detection have been demonstrated with real clinical patient cases. Conclusion: ACE implements supervised learning algorithms and combines image processing and graphical visualization modules for RT contours verification. ACE has great potential for automated radiotherapy contouring quality verification

SU-F-J-72: A Clinical Usable Integrated Contouring Quality Evaluation Software for Radiotherapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jiang, S; Dolly, S; Cai, B; Mutic, S; Li, H

2016-01-01

Purpose: To introduce the Auto Contour Evaluation (ACE) software, which is the clinical usable, user friendly, efficient and all-in-one toolbox for automatically identify common contouring errors in radiotherapy treatment planning using supervised machine learning techniques. Methods: ACE is developed with C# using Microsoft .Net framework and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) for elegant GUI design and smooth GUI transition animations through the integration of graphics engines and high dots per inch (DPI) settings on modern high resolution monitors. The industrial standard software design pattern, Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern, is chosen to be the major architecture of ACE for neat coding structure, deep modularization, easy maintainability and seamless communication with other clinical software. ACE consists of 1) a patient data importing module integrated with clinical patient database server, 2) a 2D DICOM image and RT structure simultaneously displaying module, 3) a 3D RT structure visualization module using Visualization Toolkit or VTK library and 4) a contour evaluation module using supervised pattern recognition algorithms to detect contouring errors and display detection results. ACE relies on supervised learning algorithms to handle all image processing and data processing jobs. Implementations of related algorithms are powered by Accord.Net scientific computing library for better efficiency and effectiveness. Results: ACE can take patient’s CT images and RT structures from commercial treatment planning software via direct user input or from patients’ database. All functionalities including 2D and 3D image visualization and RT contours error detection have been demonstrated with real clinical patient cases. Conclusion: ACE implements supervised learning algorithms and combines image processing and graphical visualization modules for RT contours verification. ACE has great potential for automated radiotherapy contouring quality verification

Knowledge Architect : A Tool Suite for Managing Software Architecture Knowledge

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liang, Peng; Jansen, Anton; Avgeriou, Paris

2009-01-01

Management of software architecture knowledge (AK) is vital for improving an organization’s architectural capabilities. To support the architecting process within our industrial partner: Astron, the Dutch radio astronomy institute, we implemented the Knowledge Architect (KA): a tool suite for

Variation of densitometry on computed tomography in COPD--influence of different software tools.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark O Wielpütz

Full Text Available Quantitative multidetector computed tomography (MDCT as a potential biomarker is increasingly used for severity assessment of emphysema in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD. Aim of this study was to evaluate the user-independent measurement variability between five different fully-automatic densitometry software tools.MDCT and full-body plethysmography incl. forced expiratory volume in 1s and total lung capacity were available for 49 patients with advanced COPD (age = 64±9 years, forced expiratory volume in 1 s = 31±6% predicted. Measurement variation regarding lung volume, emphysema volume, emphysema index, and mean lung density was evaluated for two scientific and three commercially available lung densitometry software tools designed to analyze MDCT from different scanner types.One scientific tool and one commercial tool failed to process most or all datasets, respectively, and were excluded. One scientific and another commercial tool analyzed 49, the remaining commercial tool 30 datasets. Lung volume, emphysema volume, emphysema index and mean lung density were significantly different amongst these three tools (p<0.001. Limits of agreement for lung volume were [-0.195, -0.052 l], [-0.305, -0.131 l], and [-0.123, -0.052 l] with correlation coefficients of r = 1.00 each. Limits of agreement for emphysema index were [-6.2, 2.9%], [-27.0, 16.9%], and [-25.5, 18.8%], with r = 0.79 to 0.98. Correlation of lung volume with total lung capacity was good to excellent (r = 0.77 to 0.91, p<0.001, but segmented lung volume (6.7±1.3-6.8±1.3 l were significantly lower than total lung capacity (7.7±1.7 l, p<0.001.Technical incompatibilities hindered evaluation of two of five tools. The remaining three showed significant measurement variation for emphysema, hampering quantitative MDCT as a biomarker in COPD. Follow-up studies should currently use identical software, and standardization efforts should encompass software as

Oxygen octahedra picker: A software tool to extract quantitative information from STEM images

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Yi, E-mail: y.wang@fkf.mpg.de; Salzberger, Ute; Sigle, Wilfried; Eren Suyolcu, Y.; Aken, Peter A. van

2016-09-15

In perovskite oxide based materials and hetero-structures there are often strong correlations between oxygen octahedral distortions and functionality. Thus, atomistic understanding of the octahedral distortion, which requires accurate measurements of atomic column positions, will greatly help to engineer their properties. Here, we report the development of a software tool to extract quantitative information of the lattice and of BO{sub 6} octahedral distortions from STEM images. Center-of-mass and 2D Gaussian fitting methods are implemented to locate positions of individual atom columns. The precision of atomic column distance measurements is evaluated on both simulated and experimental images. The application of the software tool is demonstrated using practical examples. - Highlights: • We report a software tool for mapping atomic positions from HAADF and ABF images. • It enables quantification of both crystal lattice and oxygen octahedral distortions. • We test the measurement accuracy and precision on simulated and experimental images. • It works well for different orientations of perovskite structures and interfaces.

Bond graphs : an integrating tool for design of mechatronic systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ould Bouamama, B.

2011-01-01

Bond graph is a powerful tool well known for dynamic modelling of multi physical systems: This is the only modelling technique to generate automatically state space or non-linear models using dedicated software tools (CAMP-G, 20-Sim, Symbols, Dymola...). Recently several fundamental theories have been developed for using a bond graph model not only for modeling but also as a real integrated tool from conceptual ideas to optimal practical realization of mechatronic system. This keynote presents a synthesis of those new theories which exploit some particular properties (such as causal, structural and behavioral) of this graphical methodology. Based on a pedagogical example, it will be shown how from a physical system (not a transfer function or state equation) and using only one representation (Bond graph), the following results can be performed: modeling (formal state equations generation), Control analysis (observability, controllability, Structural I/O decouplability, dynamic decoupling,...) diagnosis analysis (automatic generation of robust fault indicators, sensor placement, structural diagnosability) and finally sizing of actuators. The presentation will be illustrated by real industrial applications. Limits and perspectives of bond graph theory conclude the keynote.

An Accurate FFPA-PSR Estimator Algorithm and Tool for Software Effort Estimation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Senthil Kumar Murugesan

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Software companies are now keen to provide secure software with respect to accuracy and reliability of their products especially related to the software effort estimation. Therefore, there is a need to develop a hybrid tool which provides all the necessary features. This paper attempts to propose a hybrid estimator algorithm and model which incorporates quality metrics, reliability factor, and the security factor with a fuzzy-based function point analysis. Initially, this method utilizes a fuzzy-based estimate to control the uncertainty in the software size with the help of a triangular fuzzy set at the early development stage. Secondly, the function point analysis is extended by the security and reliability factors in the calculation. Finally, the performance metrics are added with the effort estimation for accuracy. The experimentation is done with different project data sets on the hybrid tool, and the results are compared with the existing models. It shows that the proposed method not only improves the accuracy but also increases the reliability, as well as the security, of the product.

A SOFTWARE TOOL TO COMPARE MEASURED AND SIMULATED BUILDING ENERGY PERFORMANCE DATA

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Maile, Tobias; Bazjanac, Vladimir; O' Donnell, James; Garr, Matthew

2011-11-01

Building energy performance is often inadequate when compared to design goals. To link design goals to actual operation one can compare measured with simulated energy performance data. Our previously developed comparison approach is the Energy Performance Comparison Methodology (EPCM), which enables the identification of performance problems based on a comparison of measured and simulated performance data. In context of this method, we developed a software tool that provides graphing and data processing capabilities of the two performance data sets. The software tool called SEE IT (Stanford Energy Efficiency Information Tool) eliminates the need for manual generation of data plots and data reformatting. SEE IT makes the generation of time series, scatter and carpet plots independent of the source of data (measured or simulated) and provides a valuable tool for comparing measurements with simulation results. SEE IT also allows assigning data points on a predefined building object hierarchy and supports different versions of simulated performance data. This paper briefly introduces the EPCM, describes the SEE IT tool and illustrates its use in the context of a building case study.

Distortion Analysis Toolkit—A Software Tool for Easy Analysis of Nonlinear Audio Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jyri Pakarinen

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Several audio effects devices deliberately add nonlinear distortion to the processed signal in order to create a desired sound. When creating virtual analog models of nonlinearly distorting devices, it would be very useful to carefully analyze the type of distortion, so that the model could be made as realistic as possible. While traditional system analysis tools such as the frequency response give detailed information on the operation of linear and time-invariant systems, they are less useful for analyzing nonlinear devices. Furthermore, although there do exist separate algorithms for nonlinear distortion analysis, there is currently no unified, easy-to-use tool for rapid analysis of distorting audio systems. This paper offers a remedy by introducing a new software tool for easy analysis of distorting effects. A comparison between a well-known guitar tube amplifier and two commercial software simulations is presented as a case study. This freely available software is written in Matlab language, but the analysis tool can also run as a standalone program, so the user does not need to have Matlab installed in order to perform the analysis.

Streamlining the Design-to-Build Transition with Build-Optimization Software Tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Oberortner, Ernst; Cheng, Jan-Fang; Hillson, Nathan J; Deutsch, Samuel

2017-03-17

Scaling-up capabilities for the design, build, and test of synthetic biology constructs holds great promise for the development of new applications in fuels, chemical production, or cellular-behavior engineering. Construct design is an essential component in this process; however, not every designed DNA sequence can be readily manufactured, even using state-of-the-art DNA synthesis methods. Current biological computer-aided design and manufacture tools (bioCAD/CAM) do not adequately consider the limitations of DNA synthesis technologies when generating their outputs. Designed sequences that violate DNA synthesis constraints may require substantial sequence redesign or lead to price-premiums and temporal delays, which adversely impact the efficiency of the DNA manufacturing process. We have developed a suite of build-optimization software tools (BOOST) to streamline the design-build transition in synthetic biology engineering workflows. BOOST incorporates knowledge of DNA synthesis success determinants into the design process to output ready-to-build sequences, preempting the need for sequence redesign. The BOOST web application is available at https://boost.jgi.doe.gov and its Application Program Interfaces (API) enable integration into automated, customized DNA design processes. The herein presented results highlight the effectiveness of BOOST in reducing DNA synthesis costs and timelines.

Three Software Tools for Viewing Sectional Planes, Volume Models, and Surface Models of a Cadaver Hand.

Science.gov (United States)

Chung, Beom Sun; Chung, Min Suk; Shin, Byeong Seok; Kwon, Koojoo

2018-02-19

The hand anatomy, including the complicated hand muscles, can be grasped by using computer-assisted learning tools with high quality two-dimensional images and three-dimensional models. The purpose of this study was to present up-to-date software tools that promote learning of stereoscopic morphology of the hand. On the basis of horizontal sectioned images and outlined images of a male cadaver, vertical planes, volume models, and surface models were elaborated. Software to browse pairs of the sectioned and outlined images in orthogonal planes and software to peel and rotate the volume models, as well as a portable document format (PDF) file to select and rotate the surface models, were produced. All of the software tools were downloadable free of charge and usable off-line. The three types of tools for viewing multiple aspects of the hand could be adequately employed according to individual needs. These new tools involving the realistic images of a cadaver and the diverse functions are expected to improve comprehensive knowledge of the hand shape. © 2018 The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences.

D-VASim: A Software Tool to Simulate and Analyze Genetic Logic Circuits

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Baig, Hasan; Madsen, Jan

2016-01-01

-stage researchers with limited experience in the field of biology. The Solution: Using LabVIEW to develop a user-friendly simulation tool named Dynamic Virtual Analyzer and Simulator (D-VASim), which is the first software tool in the domain of synthetic biology that provides a virtual laboratory environment...

GRO/EGRET data analysis software: An integrated system of custom and commercial software using standard interfaces

Science.gov (United States)

Laubenthal, N. A.; Bertsch, D.; Lal, N.; Etienne, A.; Mcdonald, L.; Mattox, J.; Sreekumar, P.; Nolan, P.; Fierro, J.

1992-01-01

The Energetic Gamma Ray Telescope Experiment (EGRET) on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory has been in orbit for more than a year and is being used to map the full sky for gamma rays in a wide energy range from 30 to 20,000 MeV. Already these measurements have resulted in a wide range of exciting new information on quasars, pulsars, galactic sources, and diffuse gamma ray emission. The central part of the analysis is done with sky maps that typically cover an 80 x 80 degree section of the sky for an exposure time of several days. Specific software developed for this program generates the counts, exposure, and intensity maps. The analysis is done on a network of UNIX based workstations and takes full advantage of a custom-built user interface called X-dialog. The maps that are generated are stored in the FITS format for a collection of energies. These, along with similar diffuse emission background maps generated from a model calculation, serve as input to a maximum likelihood program that produces maps of likelihood with optional contours that are used to evaluate regions for sources. Likelihood also evaluates the background corrected intensity at each location for each energy interval from which spectra can be generated. Being in a standard FITS format permits all of the maps to be easily accessed by the full complement of tools available in several commercial astronomical analysis systems. In the EGRET case, IDL is used to produce graphics plots in two and three dimensions and to quickly implement any special evaluation that might be desired. Other custom-built software, such as the spectral and pulsar analyses, take advantage of the XView toolkit for display and Postscript output for the color hard copy. This poster paper outlines the data flow and provides examples of the user interfaces and output products. It stresses the advantages that are derived from the integration of the specific instrument-unique software and powerful commercial tools for graphics and

Bringing your tools to CyVerse Discovery Environment using Docker.

Science.gov (United States)

Devisetty, Upendra Kumar; Kennedy, Kathleen; Sarando, Paul; Merchant, Nirav; Lyons, Eric

2016-01-01

Docker has become a very popular container-based virtualization platform for software distribution that has revolutionized the way in which scientific software and software dependencies (software stacks) can be packaged, distributed, and deployed. Docker makes the complex and time-consuming installation procedures needed for scientific software a one-time process. Because it enables platform-independent installation, versioning of software environments, and easy redeployment and reproducibility, Docker is an ideal candidate for the deployment of identical software stacks on different compute environments such as XSEDE and Amazon AWS. CyVerse's Discovery Environment also uses Docker for integrating its powerful, community-recommended software tools into CyVerse's production environment for public use. This paper will help users bring their tools into CyVerse Discovery Environment (DE) which will not only allows users to integrate their tools with relative ease compared to the earlier method of tool deployment in DE but will also help users to share their apps with collaborators and release them for public use.

Digital Aquifer - Integrating modeling, technical, software and policy aspects to develop a groundwater management tool

Science.gov (United States)

Tirupathi, S.; McKenna, S. A.; Fleming, K.; Wambua, M.; Waweru, P.; Ondula, E.

2016-12-01

Groundwater management has traditionally been observed as a study for long term policy measures to ensure that the water resource is sustainable. IBM Research, in association with the World Bank, extended this traditional analysis to include realtime groundwater management by building a context-aware, water rights management and permitting system. As part of this effort, one of the primary objectives was to develop a groundwater flow model that can help the policy makers with a visual overview of the current groundwater distribution. In addition, the system helps the policy makers simulate a range of scenarios and check the sustainability of the groundwater resource in a given region. The system also enables a license provider to check the effect of the introduction of a new well on the existing wells in the domain as well as the groundwater resource in general. This process simplifies how an engineer will determine if a new well should be approved. Distance to the nearest well neighbors and the maximum decreases in water levels of nearby wells are continually assessed and presented as evidence for an engineer to make the final judgment on approving the permit. The system also facilitates updated insights on the amount of groundwater left in an area and provides advice on how water fees should be structured to balance conservation and economic development goals. In this talk, we will discuss the concept of Digital Aquifer, the challenges in integrating modeling, technical and software aspects to develop a management system that helps policy makers and license providers with a robust decision making tool. We will concentrate on the groundwater model developed using the analytic element method that plays a very important role in the decision making aspects. Finally, the efficiency of this system and methodology is shown through a case study in Laguna Province, Philippines, which was done in collaboration with the National Water Resource Board, Philippines and World

Corganiser: a web-based software tool for planning time-sensitive sampling of whole rounds during scientific drilling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Marshall, Ian

2014-01-01

with a wide range of core and section configurations and can thus be used in future drilling projects. Corganiser is written in the Python programming language and is implemented both as a graphical web interface and command-line interface. It can be accessed online at http://130.226.247.137/.......Corganiser is a software tool developed to simplify the process of preparing whole-round sampling plans for time-sensitive microbiology and geochemistry sampling during scientific drilling. It was developed during the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 347, but is designed to work...

Programming heterogeneous MPSoCs tool flows to close the software productivity gap

CERN Document Server

Castrillón Mazo, Jerónimo

2014-01-01

This book provides embedded software developers with techniques for programmingheterogeneous Multi-Processor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoCs), capable of executing multiple applications simultaneously. It describes a set of algorithms and methodologies to narrow the software productivity gap, as well as an in-depth description of the underlying problems and challenges of today’s programming practices. The authors present four different tool flows: A parallelism extraction flow for applications writtenusing the C programming language, a mapping and scheduling flow for parallel applications, a special mapping flow for baseband applications in the context of Software Defined Radio (SDR) and a final flow for analyzing multiple applications at design time. The tool flows are evaluated on Virtual Platforms (VPs), which mimic different characteristics of state-of-the-art heterogeneous MPSoCs.   • Provides a novel set of algorithms and methodologies for programming heterogeneous Multi-Processor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoCs)...

Semi-automated software service integration in virtual organisations

Science.gov (United States)

Afsarmanesh, Hamideh; Sargolzaei, Mahdi; Shadi, Mahdieh

2015-08-01

To enhance their business opportunities, organisations involved in many service industries are increasingly active in pursuit of both online provision of their business services (BSs) and collaborating with others. Collaborative Networks (CNs) in service industry sector, however, face many challenges related to sharing and integration of their collection of provided BSs and their corresponding software services. Therefore, the topic of service interoperability for which this article introduces a framework is gaining momentum in research for supporting CNs. It contributes to generation of formal machine readable specification for business processes, aimed at providing their unambiguous definitions, as needed for developing their equivalent software services. The framework provides a model and implementation architecture for discovery and composition of shared services, to support the semi-automated development of integrated value-added services. In support of service discovery, a main contribution of this research is the formal representation of services' behaviour and applying desired service behaviour specified by users for automated matchmaking with other existing services. Furthermore, to support service integration, mechanisms are developed for automated selection of the most suitable service(s) according to a number of service quality aspects. Two scenario cases are presented, which exemplify several specific features related to service discovery and service integration aspects.

Workflow-Based Software Development Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Izygon, Michel E.

2013-01-01

The Software Developer's Assistant (SDA) helps software teams more efficiently and accurately conduct or execute software processes associated with NASA mission-critical software. SDA is a process enactment platform that guides software teams through project-specific standards, processes, and procedures. Software projects are decomposed into all of their required process steps or tasks, and each task is assigned to project personnel. SDA orchestrates the performance of work required to complete all process tasks in the correct sequence. The software then notifies team members when they may begin work on their assigned tasks and provides the tools, instructions, reference materials, and supportive artifacts that allow users to compliantly perform the work. A combination of technology components captures and enacts any software process use to support the software lifecycle. It creates an adaptive workflow environment that can be modified as needed. SDA achieves software process automation through a Business Process Management (BPM) approach to managing the software lifecycle for mission-critical projects. It contains five main parts: TieFlow (workflow engine), Business Rules (rules to alter process flow), Common Repository (storage for project artifacts, versions, history, schedules, etc.), SOA (interface to allow internal, GFE, or COTS tools integration), and the Web Portal Interface (collaborative web environment

STEM - software test and evaluation methods: fault detection using static analysis techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bishop, P.G.; Esp, D.G.

1988-08-01

STEM is a software reliability project with the objective of evaluating a number of fault detection and fault estimation methods which can be applied to high integrity software. This Report gives some interim results of applying both manual and computer-based static analysis techniques, in particular SPADE, to an early CERL version of the PODS software containing known faults. The main results of this study are that: The scope for thorough verification is determined by the quality of the design documentation; documentation defects become especially apparent when verification is attempted. For well-defined software, the thoroughness of SPADE-assisted verification for detecting a large class of faults was successfully demonstrated. For imprecisely-defined software (not recommended for high-integrity systems) the use of tools such as SPADE is difficult and inappropriate. Analysis and verification tools are helpful, through their reliability and thoroughness. However, they are designed to assist, not replace, a human in validating software. Manual inspection can still reveal errors (such as errors in specification and errors of transcription of systems constants) which current tools cannot detect. There is a need for tools to automatically detect typographical errors in system constants, for example by reporting outliers to patterns. To obtain the maximum benefit from advanced tools, they should be applied during software development (when verification problems can be detected and corrected) rather than retrospectively. (author)

Commissioning software tools at the Advanced Photon Source

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Emery, L.

1995-01-01

A software tool-oriented approach has been adopted in the commissioning of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory, particularly in the commissioning of the Positron Accumulator Ring (PAR). The general philosophy is to decompose a complicated procedure involving measurement, data processing, and control into a series of simpler steps, each accomplished by a generic toolkit program. The implementation is greatly facilitated by adopting the SDDS (self-describing data set protocol), which comes with its own toolkit. The combined toolkit has made accelerator physics measurements easier. For instance, the measurement of the optical functions of the PAR and the beamlines connected to it have been largely automated. Complicated measurements are feasible with a combination of tools running independently

Software Tools for In-Situ Documentation of Built Heritage

Science.gov (United States)

Smars, P.

2013-07-01

The paper presents open source software tools developed by the author to facilitate in-situ documentation of architectural and archæological heritage. The design choices are exposed and related to a general issue in conservation and documentation: taking decisions about a valuable object under threat . The questions of level of objectivity is central to the three steps of this process. It is our belief that in-situ documentation has to be favoured in this demanding context, full of potential discoveries. The very powerful surveying techniques in rapid development nowadays enhance our vision but often tend to bring back a critical part of the documentation process to the office. The software presented facilitate a direct treatment of the data on the site. Emphasis is given to flexibility, interoperability and simplicity. Key features of the software are listed and illustrated with examples (3D model of Gothic vaults, analysis of the shape of a column, deformation of a wall, direct interaction with AutoCAD).

Integration testing through reusing representative unit test cases for high-confidence medical software.

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Youngsul; Choi, Yunja; Lee, Woo Jin

2013-06-01

As medical software is getting larger-sized, complex, and connected with other devices, finding faults in integrated software modules gets more difficult and time consuming. Existing integration testing typically takes a black-box approach, which treats the target software as a black box and selects test cases without considering internal behavior of each software module. Though it could be cost-effective, this black-box approach cannot thoroughly test interaction behavior among integrated modules and might leave critical faults undetected, which should not happen in safety-critical systems such as medical software. This work anticipates that information on internal behavior is necessary even for integration testing to define thorough test cases for critical software and proposes a new integration testing method by reusing test cases used for unit testing. The goal is to provide a cost-effective method to detect subtle interaction faults at the integration testing phase by reusing the knowledge obtained from unit testing phase. The suggested approach notes that the test cases for the unit testing include knowledge on internal behavior of each unit and extracts test cases for the integration testing from the test cases for the unit testing for a given test criteria. The extracted representative test cases are connected with functions under test using the state domain and a single test sequence to cover the test cases is produced. By means of reusing unit test cases, the tester has effective test cases to examine diverse execution paths and find interaction faults without analyzing complex modules. The produced test sequence can have test coverage as high as the unit testing coverage and its length is close to the length of optimal test sequences. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

HITCal: a software tool for analysis of video head impulse test responses.

Science.gov (United States)

Rey-Martinez, Jorge; Batuecas-Caletrio, Angel; Matiño, Eusebi; Perez Fernandez, Nicolás

2015-09-01

The developed software (HITCal) may be a useful tool in the analysis and measurement of the saccadic video head impulse test (vHIT) responses and with the experience obtained during its use the authors suggest that HITCal is an excellent method for enhanced exploration of vHIT outputs. To develop a (software) method to analyze and explore the vHIT responses, mainly saccades. HITCal was written using a computational development program; the function to access a vHIT file was programmed; extended head impulse exploration and measurement tools were created and an automated saccade analysis was developed using an experimental algorithm. For pre-release HITCal laboratory tests, a database of head impulse tests (HITs) was created with the data collected retrospectively in three reference centers. This HITs database was evaluated by humans and was also computed with HITCal. The authors have successfully built HITCal and it has been released as open source software; the developed software was fully operative and all the proposed characteristics were incorporated in the released version. The automated saccades algorithm implemented in HITCal has good concordance with the assessment by human observers (Cohen's kappa coefficient = 0.7).

Software extension and integration with type classes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lämmel, Ralf; Ostermann, Klaus

2006-01-01

expressiveness, by using the language concept of \\emph{type classes}, as it is available in the functional programming language Haskell. A detailed comparison with related work shows that type classes provide a powerful framework in which solutions to known software extension and integration problems can...... be provided. We also pinpoint several limitations of type classes in this context....

DAISY: a new software tool to test global identifiability of biological and physiological systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Bellu, Giuseppina; Saccomani, Maria Pia; Audoly, Stefania; D'Angiò, Leontina

2007-10-01

A priori global identifiability is a structural property of biological and physiological models. It is considered a prerequisite for well-posed estimation, since it concerns the possibility of recovering uniquely the unknown model parameters from measured input-output data, under ideal conditions (noise-free observations and error-free model structure). Of course, determining if the parameters can be uniquely recovered from observed data is essential before investing resources, time and effort in performing actual biomedical experiments. Many interesting biological models are nonlinear but identifiability analysis for nonlinear system turns out to be a difficult mathematical problem. Different methods have been proposed in the literature to test identifiability of nonlinear models but, to the best of our knowledge, so far no software tools have been proposed for automatically checking identifiability of nonlinear models. In this paper, we describe a software tool implementing a differential algebra algorithm to perform parameter identifiability analysis for (linear and) nonlinear dynamic models described by polynomial or rational equations. Our goal is to provide the biological investigator a completely automatized software, requiring minimum prior knowledge of mathematical modelling and no in-depth understanding of the mathematical tools. The DAISY (Differential Algebra for Identifiability of SYstems) software will potentially be useful in biological modelling studies, especially in physiology and clinical medicine, where research experiments are particularly expensive and/or difficult to perform. Practical examples of use of the software tool DAISY are presented. DAISY is available at the web site http://www.dei.unipd.it/~pia/.

Integrating New Technologies and Existing Tools to Promote Programming Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Álvaro Santos

2010-04-01

Full Text Available In recent years, many tools have been proposed to reduce programming learning difficulties felt by many students. Our group has contributed to this effort through the development of several tools, such as VIP, SICAS, OOP-Anim, SICAS-COL and H-SICAS. Even though we had some positive results, the utilization of these tools doesn’t seem to significantly reduce weaker student’s difficulties. These students need stronger support to motivate them to get engaged in learning activities, inside and outside classroom. Nowadays, many technologies are available to create contexts that may help to accomplish this goal. We consider that a promising path goes through the integration of solutions. In this paper we analyze the features, strengths and weaknesses of the tools developed by our group. Based on these considerations we present a new environment, integrating different types of pedagogical approaches, resources, tools and technologies for programming learning support. With this environment, currently under development, it will be possible to review contents and lessons, based on video and screen captures. The support for collaborative tasks is another key point to improve and stimulate different models of teamwork. The platform will also allow the creation of various alternative models (learning objects for the same subject, enabling personalized learning paths adapted to each student knowledge level, needs and preferential learning styles. The learning sequences will work as a study organizer, following a suitable taxonomy, according to student’s cognitive skills. Although the main goal of this environment is to support students with more difficulties, it will provide a set of resources supporting the learning of more advanced topics. Software engineering techniques and representations, object orientation and event programming are features that will be available in order to promote the learning progress of students.

Software Engineering for Human Spaceflight

Science.gov (United States)

Fredrickson, Steven E.

2014-01-01

The Spacecraft Software Engineering Branch of NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) provides world-class products, leadership, and technical expertise in software engineering, processes, technology, and systems management for human spaceflight. The branch contributes to major NASA programs (e.g. ISS, MPCV/Orion) with in-house software development and prime contractor oversight, and maintains the JSC Engineering Directorate CMMI rating for flight software development. Software engineering teams work with hardware developers, mission planners, and system operators to integrate flight vehicles, habitats, robotics, and other spacecraft elements. They seek to infuse automation and autonomy into missions, and apply new technologies to flight processor and computational architectures. This presentation will provide an overview of key software-related projects, software methodologies and tools, and technology pursuits of interest to the JSC Spacecraft Software Engineering Branch.

Framework Programmable Platform for the advanced software development workstation: Framework processor design document

Science.gov (United States)

Mayer, Richard J.; Blinn, Thomas M.; Mayer, Paula S. D.; Ackley, Keith A.; Crump, Wes; Sanders, Les

1991-01-01

The design of the Framework Processor (FP) component of the Framework Programmable Software Development Platform (FFP) is described. The FFP is a project aimed at combining effective tool and data integration mechanisms with a model of the software development process in an intelligent integrated software development environment. Guided by the model, this Framework Processor will take advantage of an integrated operating environment to provide automated support for the management and control of the software development process so that costly mistakes during the development phase can be eliminated.

Software tools for manipulating fe mesh, virtual surgery and post-processing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Milašinović Danko Z.

2009-01-01

Full Text Available This paper describes a set of software tools which we developed for the calculation of fluid flow through cardiovascular organs. Our tools work with medical data from a CT scanner, but could be used with any other 3D input data. For meshing we used a Tetgen tetrahedral mesh generator, as well as a mesh re-generator that we have developed for conversion of tetrahedral elements into bricks. After adequate meshing we used our PAKF solver for calculation of fluid flow. For human-friendly presentation of results we developed a set of post-processing software tools. With modification of 2D mesh (boundary of cardiovascular organ it is possible to do virtual surgery, so in a case of an aorta with aneurism, which we had received from University Clinical center in Heidelberg from a multi-slice 64-CT scanner, we removed the aneurism and ran calculations on both geometrical models afterwards. The main idea of this methodology is creating a system that could be used in clinics.

Hardware and software and machine-tool simulation with parallel structures mechanisms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Keba P.V.

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The usage spectrum of mechanisms with parallel structure is spreading all the time. The mechanisms of machine-tools and manipulators become more complicated and it is necessary to improve the program-controlled modules. Closed circuit mechanisms are mostly spread in robotic complexes, where manipulator performs complicated spatial movements by the given trajectory. The usage spectrum is very wide and the most popular are sorting, welding, assembling and others. However, the problem of designing the operating programs is still present even today. It is just because the developed post-processors are created for the equipment that we have for now. But new machine tool constructions appear every day and there is a necessity to control them. The problems associated with using of hardware and software of mechanisms with parallel structure in computer-aided simulation are considered. The program for inverse problem kinematics solving is designed. New method of designing the control programs is found. The kinematic analysis methods options and calculated data obtained by computer mathematics systems are shown with «Tools Glide» software taken as an example.

A Business Analytics Software Tool for Monitoring and Predicting Radiology Throughput Performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Stephen; Cournane, Seán; Sheehy, Niall; Hederman, Lucy

2016-12-01

Business analytics (BA) is increasingly being utilised by radiology departments to analyse and present data. It encompasses statistical analysis, forecasting and predictive modelling and is used as an umbrella term for decision support and business intelligence systems. The primary aim of this study was to determine whether utilising BA technologies could contribute towards improved decision support and resource management within radiology departments. A set of information technology requirements were identified with key stakeholders, and a prototype BA software tool was designed, developed and implemented. A qualitative evaluation of the tool was carried out through a series of semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders. Feedback was collated, and emergent themes were identified. The results indicated that BA software applications can provide visibility of radiology performance data across all time horizons. The study demonstrated that the tool could potentially assist with improving operational efficiencies and management of radiology resources.

Featureous: A Tool for Feature-Centric Analysis of Java Software

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Olszak, Andrzej; Jørgensen, Bo Nørregaard

2010-01-01

Feature-centric comprehension of source code is necessary for incorporating user-requested modifications during software evolution and maintenance. However, such comprehension is difficult to achieve in case of large object-oriented programs due to the size, complexity, and implicit character...... of mappings between features and source code. To support programmers in overcoming these difficulties, we present a feature-centric analysis tool, Featureous. Our tool extends the NetBeans IDE with mechanisms for efficient location of feature implementations in legacy source code, and an extensive analysis...

ATLAS software configuration and build tool optimisation

Science.gov (United States)

Rybkin, Grigory; Atlas Collaboration

2014-06-01

ATLAS software code base is over 6 million lines organised in about 2000 packages. It makes use of some 100 external software packages, is developed by more than 400 developers and used by more than 2500 physicists from over 200 universities and laboratories in 6 continents. To meet the challenge of configuration and building of this software, the Configuration Management Tool (CMT) is used. CMT expects each package to describe its build targets, build and environment setup parameters, dependencies on other packages in a text file called requirements, and each project (group of packages) to describe its policies and dependencies on other projects in a text project file. Based on the effective set of configuration parameters read from the requirements files of dependent packages and project files, CMT commands build the packages, generate the environment for their use, or query the packages. The main focus was on build time performance that was optimised within several approaches: reduction of the number of reads of requirements files that are now read once per package by a CMT build command that generates cached requirements files for subsequent CMT build commands; introduction of more fine-grained build parallelism at package task level, i.e., dependent applications and libraries are compiled in parallel; code optimisation of CMT commands used for build; introduction of package level build parallelism, i. e., parallelise the build of independent packages. By default, CMT launches NUMBER-OF-PROCESSORS build commands in parallel. The other focus was on CMT commands optimisation in general that made them approximately 2 times faster. CMT can generate a cached requirements file for the environment setup command, which is especially useful for deployment on distributed file systems like AFS or CERN VMFS. The use of parallelism, caching and code optimisation significantly-by several times-reduced software build time, environment setup time, increased the efficiency of

Application software profiles 2010

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Anon.

2010-04-15

This article presented information on new software applications designed to facilitate petroleum exploration, drilling and production activities. Computer modelling and analysis enables oil and gas producers to characterize reservoirs, estimate reserves forecast production, plan operations and manage assets. Seven Calgary-based organizations were highlighted along with their sophisticated software tools, the applications and the new features available in each product. The geoSCOUT version 7.7 by GeoLOGIC Systems Ltd. integrates public and proprietary data on wells, well logs, reserves, pipelines, production, ownership and seismic location data. The Value Navigator and AFE Navigator by Energy Navigator provides control over reserves, production and cash flow forecasting. FAST Harmony, FAST Evolution, FAST CBM, FAST FieldNotes, Fast Piper, FAST RTA, FAST VirtuWell and FAST WellTest by Fekete Associates Inc. provide reserve evaluations for reservoir engineering projects and production data analysis. The esi.manage software program by 3esi improves business results for upstream oil and gas companies through enhanced decision making and workforce effectiveness. WELLFLO, PIPEFLO, FORGAS, OLGA, Drillbench, and MEPO wellbore solutions by Neotec provide unique platforms for flow simulation to optimize oil and gas production systems. Petrel, ECLIPSE, Avocet, PipeSim and Merak software tools by Schlumberger Information Solutions are petroleum systems modelling tools for geologic mapping, visualization modelling and reservoir engineering. StudioSL by Streamsim Technologies Inc. is a modelling tool for optimizing flood management. figs.

Software for the Integration of Multiomics Experiments in Bioconductor.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramos, Marcel; Schiffer, Lucas; Re, Angela; Azhar, Rimsha; Basunia, Azfar; Rodriguez, Carmen; Chan, Tiffany; Chapman, Phil; Davis, Sean R; Gomez-Cabrero, David; Culhane, Aedin C; Haibe-Kains, Benjamin; Hansen, Kasper D; Kodali, Hanish; Louis, Marie S; Mer, Arvind S; Riester, Markus; Morgan, Martin; Carey, Vince; Waldron, Levi

2017-11-01

Multiomics experiments are increasingly commonplace in biomedical research and add layers of complexity to experimental design, data integration, and analysis. R and Bioconductor provide a generic framework for statistical analysis and visualization, as well as specialized data classes for a variety of high-throughput data types, but methods are lacking for integrative analysis of multiomics experiments. The MultiAssayExperiment software package, implemented in R and leveraging Bioconductor software and design principles, provides for the coordinated representation of, storage of, and operation on multiple diverse genomics data. We provide the unrestricted multiple 'omics data for each cancer tissue in The Cancer Genome Atlas as ready-to-analyze MultiAssayExperiment objects and demonstrate in these and other datasets how the software simplifies data representation, statistical analysis, and visualization. The MultiAssayExperiment Bioconductor package reduces major obstacles to efficient, scalable, and reproducible statistical analysis of multiomics data and enhances data science applications of multiple omics datasets. Cancer Res; 77(21); e39-42. ©2017 AACR . ©2017 American Association for Cancer Research.

A software tool for simulation of surfaces generated by ball nose end milling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bissacco, Giuliano

2004-01-01

, for prediction of surface topography of ball nose end milled surfaces, was developed. Such software tool is based on a simplified model of the ideal tool motion and neglects the effects due to run-out, static and dynamic deflections and error motions, but has the merit of generating in output a file in a format...... readable by a surface processor software (SPIP [2]), for calculation of a number of surface roughness parameters. In the next paragraph a description of the basic features of ball nose end milled surfaces is given, while in paragraph 3 the model is described....

Climate tools in mainstream Linux distributions

Science.gov (United States)

McKinstry, Alastair

2015-04-01

Debian/meterology is a project to integrate climate tools and analysis software into the mainstream Debian/Ubuntu Linux distributions. This work describes lessons learnt, and recommends practices for scientific software to be adopted and maintained in OS distributions. In addition to standard analysis tools (cdo,, grads, ferret, metview, ncl, etc.), software used by the Earth System Grid Federation was chosen for integraion, to enable ESGF portals to be built on this base; however exposing scientific codes via web APIs enables security weaknesses, normally ignorable, to be exposed. How tools are hardened, and what changes are required to handle security upgrades, are described. Secondly, to enable libraries and components (e.g. Python modules) to be integrated requires planning by writers: it is not sufficient to assume users can upgrade their code when you make incompatible changes. Here, practices are recommended to enable upgrades and co-installability of C, C++, Fortran and Python codes. Finally, software packages such as NetCDF and HDF5 can be built in multiple configurations. Tools may then expect incompatible versions of these libraries (e.g. serial and parallel) to be simultaneously available; how this was solved in Debian using "pkg-config" and shared library interfaces is described, and best practices for software writers to enable this are summarised.

A Layered Software Architecture for the Management of a Manufacturing Company

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Domenico CONSOLI

2011-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper we describe a layered software architecture in the management of a manufactur-ing company that intensively uses computer technology. Application tools, new and legacy, after the updating, operate in a context of an open web oriented architecture. The software architecture enables the integration and interoperability among all tools that support business processes. Manufacturing Executive System and Text Mining tools are excellent interfaces, the former both for internal production and management processes and the latter for external processes coming from the market. In this way, it is possible to implement, a computer integrated factory, flexible and agile, that immediately responds to customer requirements.

[Development of integrated support software for clinical nutrition].

Science.gov (United States)

Siquier Homar, Pedro; Pinteño Blanco, Manel; Calleja Hernández, Miguel Ángel; Fernández Cortés, Francisco; Martínez Sotelo, Jesús

2015-09-01

to develop an integrated computer software application for specialized nutritional support, integrated in the electronic clinical record, which detects automatically and early those undernourished patients or at risk of developing undernourishment, determining points of opportunity for improvement and evaluation of the results. the quality standards published by the Nutrition Work Group of the Spanish Society of Hospital Pharmacy (SEFH) and the recommendations by the Pharmacy Group of the Spanish Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (SENPE) have been taken into account. According to these quality standards, the nutritional support has to include the following healthcare stages or sub-processes: nutritional screening, nutritional assessment, plan for nutritional care, prescription, preparation and administration. this software allows to conduct, in an automated way, a specific nutritional assessment for those patients with nutritional risk, implementing, if necessary, a nutritional treatment plan, conducting follow-up and traceability of outcomes derived from the implementation of improvement actions, and quantifying to what extent our practice is close to the established standard. this software allows to standardize the specialized nutritional support from a multidisciplinary point of view, introducing the concept of quality control per processes, and including patient as the main customer. Copyright AULA MEDICA EDICIONES 2014. Published by AULA MEDICA. All rights reserved.

Development of integrated support software for clinical nutrition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pedro Siquier Homar

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Objectives: to develop an integrated computer software application for specialized nutritional support, integrated in the electronic clinical record, which detects automatically and early those undernourished patients or at risk of developing undernourishment, determining points of opportunity for improvement and evaluation of the results. Methods: the quality standards published by the Nutrition Work Group of the Spanish Society of Hospital Pharmacy (SEFH and the recommendations by the Pharmacy Group of the Spanish Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (SENPE have been taken into account. According to these quality standards, the nutritional support has to include the following healthcare stages or sub-processes: nutritional screening, nutritional assessment, plan for nutritional care, prescription, preparation and administration. Results: this software allows to conduct, in an automated way, a specific nutritional assessment for those patients with nutritional risk, implementing, if necessary, a nutritional treatment plan, conducting follow-up and traceability of outcomes derived from the implementation of improvement actions, and quantifying to what extent our practice is close to the established standard. Conclusions: this software allows to standardize the specialized nutritional support from a multidisciplinary point of view, introducing the concept of quality control per processes, and including patient as the main customer

Optimal integration and test plans for software releases of lithographic systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boumen, R.; Jong, de I.S.M.; Mortel - Fronczak, van de J.M.; Rooda, J.E.

2007-01-01

This paper describes a method to determine the optimal integration and test plan for embedded systems software releases. The method consists of four steps: 1)describe the integration and test problem in an integration and test model which is introduced in this paper, 2) determine possible test

A MODEL FOR INTEGRATED SOFTWARE TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION POLICY IN DENTAL TECHNICAL LABS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Minko M. Milev

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Integrated marketing communications (IMC are all kinds of communications between organisations and customers, partners, other organisations and society. Aim: To develop and present an integrated software model, which can improve the effectiveness of communications in dental technical services. Material and Methods: The model of integrated software is based on recommendations of a total of 700 respondents (students of dental technology, dental physicians, dental technicians and patients of dental technical laboratories in Northeastern Bulgaria. Results and Discussion: We present the benefits of future integrated software to improve the communication policy in the dental technical laboratory that meets the needs of fast cooperation and well-built communicative network between dental physicians, dental technicians, patients and students. Conclusion: The use of integrated communications could be a powerful unified approach to improving the communication policy between all players at the market of dental technical services.

Global search tool for the Advanced Photon Source Integrated Relational Model of Installed Systems (IRMIS) database

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Quock, D.E.R.; Cianciarulo, M.B.

2007-01-01

The Integrated Relational Model of Installed Systems (IRMIS) is a relational database tool that has been implemented at the Advanced Photon Source to maintain an updated account of approximately 600 control system software applications, 400,000 process variables, and 30,000 control system hardware components. To effectively display this large amount of control system information to operators and engineers, IRMIS was initially built with nine Web-based viewers: Applications Organizing Index, IOC, PLC, Component Type, Installed Components, Network, Controls Spares, Process Variables, and Cables. However, since each viewer is designed to provide details from only one major category of the control system, the necessity for a one-stop global search tool for the entire database became apparent. The user requirements for extremely fast database search time and ease of navigation through search results led to the choice of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) technology in the implementation of the IRMIS global search tool. Unique features of the global search tool include a two-tier level of displayed search results, and a database data integrity validation and reporting mechanism.

A Common Software-Configuration Management System for CERN SPS and LEP Accelerators and Technical Services

CERN Document Server

Hatziangeli, Eugenia; Bragg, A E; Ninin, P; Patino, J; Sobczak, H

2000-01-01

Software-configuration management activities are crucial to ensure the integrity of current operational software and the quality of new software either being developed at CERN or outsourced. The functionality of the present management system became insufficient with large maintenance overheads. In order to improve our situation, a new software-configuration management system has been set up. It is based on Razor R, a commercial tool, which supports the management of file versions and operational software releases, along with integrated problem-reporting capabilities. In addition to the basic tool functionality, automated procedures were custom-made for the installation and distribution of operational software. The system ensures that, at all times, the status and location of all deliverable versions are known, the state of shared objects is carefully controlled and unauthorized changes prevented. This paper outlines the reasons for selecting the chosen tool, the implementation of the system and the final goal...

Continuous integration and quality control for scientific software

Science.gov (United States)

Neidhardt, A.; Ettl, M.; Brisken, W.; Dassing, R.

2013-08-01

Modern software has to be stable, portable, fast and reliable. This is going to be also more and more important for scientific software. But this requires a sophisticated way to inspect, check and evaluate the quality of source code with a suitable, automated infrastructure. A centralized server with a software repository and a version control system is one essential part, to manage the code basis and to control the different development versions. While each project can be compiled separately, the whole code basis can also be compiled with one central “Makefile”. This is used to create automated, nightly builds. Additionally all sources are inspected automatically with static code analysis and inspection tools, which check well-none error situations, memory and resource leaks, performance issues, or style issues. In combination with an automatic documentation generator it is possible to create the developer documentation directly from the code and the inline comments. All reports and generated information are presented as HTML page on a Web server. Because this environment increased the stability and quality of the software of the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell tremendously, it is now also available for scientific communities. One regular customer is already the developer group of the DiFX software correlator project.

Evaluation and selection of CASE tool for SMART OTS development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, K. O; Seo, S. M.; Seo, Y. S.; Koo, I. S.; Jang, M. H.

1999-01-01

CASE(Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tool is a software that aids in software engineering activities such as requirement analysis, design, testing, configuration management, and project management. The evaluation and selection of commercial CASE tools for the specific software development project is not a easy work because the technical ability of an evaluator and the maturity of a software development organization are required. In this paper, we discuss selection strategies, characteristic survey, evaluation criteria, and the result of CASE tool selection for the development of SMART(System-integrated Modular Advanced ReacTor) OTS(Operator Training Simulator)

Integration of the MUSE Software Pipeline into the Astro-WISE System

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pizagno, J.; Streicher, O.; Vriend, W.-J.; Ballester, P.; Egret, D.; Lorente, N.P.F.

We discuss the current state of integrating the Mutli Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (hereafter: MUSE) software pipeline (Weilbacher et al. 2006) into the Astro-WISE system (Valentijn et al. 2007a; Vriend et al. 2012). MUSE is a future integral-field spectrograph for the VLT, consisting of 24 Integral

Using Case Study Videos as an Effective Active Learning Tool to Teach Software Development Best Practices (Invited Paper

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sushil Acharya

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The fundamental challenge to a solution to improve software quality is in the people and processes that develop software products. Imparting real world experiences in software development best practices to undergraduate students is often a challenge due to the lack of effective learning tools. This pedagogical requirement is important because graduates are expected to develop software that meets rigorous quality standards. Certain best practices are difficult to comprehend by course lectures alone and are enhanced with supplemental learning tools. Realizing the necessity of such teaching tools, we designed and developed six (6 delivery hours of case study videos for use in courses that impart knowledge on Software Verification & Validation (SV&V topics viz. requirements engineering, and software reviews. We see case study videos as an effective active learning tool in our flipped classroom approach. We present our design of the case study video in its generic components envisioning how it may be used in general. To evaluate our active learning tools we mapped the learning objectives of the case Study videos to the expected learning outcomes for ABET accreditation of an undergraduate engineering program. Our implementation has been disseminated to partner institutions. Results of delivery in a faculty workshop and in two different university courses are shared.

SafetyAnalyst : software tools for safety management of specific highway sites

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

SafetyAnalyst provides a set of software tools for use by state and local highway agencies for highway safety management. SafetyAnalyst can be used by highway agencies to improve their programming of site-specific highway safety improvements. SafetyA...

Software ``Best'' Practices: Agile Deconstructed

Science.gov (United States)

Fraser, Steven

Software “best” practices depend entirely on context - in terms of the problem domain, the system constructed, the software designers, and the “customers” ultimately deriving value from the system. Agile practices no longer have the luxury of “choosing” small non-mission critical projects with co-located teams. Project stakeholders are selecting and adapting practices based on a combina tion of interest, need and staffing. For example, growing product portfolios through a merger or the acquisition of a company exposes legacy systems to new staff, new software integration challenges, and new ideas. Innovation in communications (tools and processes) to span the growth and contraction of both information and organizations, while managing the adoption of changing software practices, is imperative for success. Traditional web-based tools such as web pages, document libraries, and forums are not suf ficient. A blend of tweeting, blogs, wikis, instant messaging, web-based confer encing, and telepresence creates a new dimension of communication “best” practices.

Experiences from the formal specification of the integration platform and the synthesis of SDT with the software bus

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thunem, Harald; Mohn, Peter; Sandmark, Haakon; Stoelen, Ketil

1999-04-01

The three year programme 1997-1999 for the OECD Halden Reactor Project (HRP) identifies the need to gain experience from applying formal techniques in real-life system developments. This motivated the initiation of the HRP research activity Integration of Formal Specification in the Development of HAMMLAB 2000 (INT-FS). The principal objective was to experiment with formal techniques in system developments at the HRP; in particular, system developments connected to HAMMLAB 2000 - the computerised laboratory for man-machine-interaction experiments currently under construction. It was hoped that this experimentation with formal techniques should result in a better understanding of how such techniques should be utilised in a more industrial setting. To obtain more knowledge with respect to the practical effects and consequences of an increased level of formalization was another objective. This report summarises experiences, results and conclusions from a pre-study addressing INT-FS related issues connected to the development of the HAMMLAB 2000 Integration Platform (IP). The report starts by giving a brief overview of the IP. Then it describes and summarises experiences from the formalization of a top-level requirements specification for the IP. Finally, it discusses various approaches for the integration of applications generated automatically through the CASE-tool SDT and the Software Bus on which the communication within HAMMLAB 2000 will be based. The report concludes that the selected formalisms and tools are well-suited to describe IP-like systems. The report also concludes that the integration of SDT applications with the Software Bus will not be a major obstacle, and finally that a monitoring component for the IP is well-suited for development within INT-FS (author) (ml)

Exploiting Software Tool Towards Easier Use And Higher Efficiency

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, G. H.; Su, J. T.; Deng, Y. Y.

2006-08-01

In developing countries, using data based on instrument made by themselves in maximum extent is very important. It is not only related to maximizing science returns upon prophase investment -- deep accumulations in every aspects but also science output. Based on the idea, we are exploiting a software (called THDP: Tool of Huairou Data Processing). It is used for processing a series of issues, which is met necessary in processing data. This paper discusses its designed purpose, functions, method and specialities. The primary vehicle for general data interpretation is through various techniques of data visualization, techniques of interactive. In the software, we employed Object Oriented approach. It is appropriate to the vehicle. it is imperative that the approach provide not only function, but do so in as convenient a fashion as possible. As result of the software exploiting, it is not only easier to learn data processing for beginner and more convenienter to need further improvement for senior but also increase greatly efficiency in every phrases include analyse, parameter adjusting, result display. Under frame of virtual observatory, for developing countries, we should study more and newer related technologies, which can advance ability and efficiency in science research, like the software we are developing

SACA: Software Assisted Call Analysis--an interactive tool supporting content exploration, online guidance and quality improvement of counseling dialogues.

Science.gov (United States)

Trinkaus, Hans L; Gaisser, Andrea E

2010-09-01

Nearly 30,000 individual inquiries are answered annually by the telephone cancer information service (CIS, KID) of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). The aim was to develop a tool for evaluating these calls, and to support the complete counseling process interactively. A novel software tool is introduced, based on a structure similar to a music score. Treating the interaction as a "duet", guided by the CIS counselor, the essential contents of the dialogue are extracted automatically. For this, "trained speech recognition" is applied to the (known) counselor's part, and "keyword spotting" is used on the (unknown) client's part to pick out specific items from the "word streams". The outcomes fill an abstract score representing the dialogue. Pilot tests performed on a prototype of SACA (Software Assisted Call Analysis) resulted in a basic proof of concept: Demographic data as well as information regarding the situation of the caller could be identified. The study encourages following up on the vision of an integrated SACA tool for supporting calls online and performing statistics on its knowledge database offline. Further research perspectives are to check SACA's potential in comparison with established interaction analysis systems like RIAS. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Program Management Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Gawadiak, Yuri; Wong, Alan; Maluf, David; Bell, David; Gurram, Mohana; Tran, Khai Peter; Hsu, Jennifer; Yagi, Kenji; Patel, Hemil

2007-01-01

The Program Management Tool (PMT) is a comprehensive, Web-enabled business intelligence software tool for assisting program and project managers within NASA enterprises in gathering, comprehending, and disseminating information on the progress of their programs and projects. The PMT provides planning and management support for implementing NASA programmatic and project management processes and requirements. It provides an online environment for program and line management to develop, communicate, and manage their programs, projects, and tasks in a comprehensive tool suite. The information managed by use of the PMT can include monthly reports as well as data on goals, deliverables, milestones, business processes, personnel, task plans, monthly reports, and budgetary allocations. The PMT provides an intuitive and enhanced Web interface to automate the tedious process of gathering and sharing monthly progress reports, task plans, financial data, and other information on project resources based on technical, schedule, budget, and management criteria and merits. The PMT is consistent with the latest Web standards and software practices, including the use of Extensible Markup Language (XML) for exchanging data and the WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) protocol for collaborative management of documents. The PMT provides graphical displays of resource allocations in the form of bar and pie charts using Microsoft Excel Visual Basic for Application (VBA) libraries. The PMT has an extensible architecture that enables integration of PMT with other strategic-information software systems, including, for example, the Erasmus reporting system, now part of the NASA Integrated Enterprise Management Program (IEMP) tool suite, at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The PMT data architecture provides automated and extensive software interfaces and reports to various strategic information systems to eliminate duplicative human entries and minimize data integrity

Learning Photogrammetry with Interactive Software Tool PhoX

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Luhmann

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Photogrammetry is a complex topic in high-level university teaching, especially in the fields of geodesy, geoinformatics and metrology where high quality results are demanded. In addition, more and more black-box solutions for 3D image processing and point cloud generation are available that generate nice results easily, e.g. by structure-from-motion approaches. Within this context, the classical approach of teaching photogrammetry (e.g. focusing on aerial stereophotogrammetry has to be reformed in order to educate students and professionals with new topics and provide them with more information behind the scene. Since around 20 years photogrammetry courses at the Jade University of Applied Sciences in Oldenburg, Germany, include the use of digital photogrammetry software that provide individual exercises, deep analysis of calculation results and a wide range of visualization tools for almost all standard tasks in photogrammetry. During the last years the software package PhoX has been developed that is part of a new didactic concept in photogrammetry and related subjects. It also serves as analysis tool in recent research projects. PhoX consists of a project-oriented data structure for images, image data, measured points and features and 3D objects. It allows for almost all basic photogrammetric measurement tools, image processing, calculation methods, graphical analysis functions, simulations and much more. Students use the program in order to conduct predefined exercises where they have the opportunity to analyse results in a high level of detail. This includes the analysis of statistical quality parameters but also the meaning of transformation parameters, rotation matrices, calibration and orientation data. As one specific advantage, PhoX allows for the interactive modification of single parameters and the direct view of the resulting effect in image or object space.

Learning Photogrammetry with Interactive Software Tool PhoX

Science.gov (United States)

Luhmann, T.

2016-06-01

Photogrammetry is a complex topic in high-level university teaching, especially in the fields of geodesy, geoinformatics and metrology where high quality results are demanded. In addition, more and more black-box solutions for 3D image processing and point cloud generation are available that generate nice results easily, e.g. by structure-from-motion approaches. Within this context, the classical approach of teaching photogrammetry (e.g. focusing on aerial stereophotogrammetry) has to be reformed in order to educate students and professionals with new topics and provide them with more information behind the scene. Since around 20 years photogrammetry courses at the Jade University of Applied Sciences in Oldenburg, Germany, include the use of digital photogrammetry software that provide individual exercises, deep analysis of calculation results and a wide range of visualization tools for almost all standard tasks in photogrammetry. During the last years the software package PhoX has been developed that is part of a new didactic concept in photogrammetry and related subjects. It also serves as analysis tool in recent research projects. PhoX consists of a project-oriented data structure for images, image data, measured points and features and 3D objects. It allows for almost all basic photogrammetric measurement tools, image processing, calculation methods, graphical analysis functions, simulations and much more. Students use the program in order to conduct predefined exercises where they have the opportunity to analyse results in a high level of detail. This includes the analysis of statistical quality parameters but also the meaning of transformation parameters, rotation matrices, calibration and orientation data. As one specific advantage, PhoX allows for the interactive modification of single parameters and the direct view of the resulting effect in image or object space.

Integrated management software files action in case of fire; Software de gestion integral de fichas de actuacion en caso de incendio

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Moreno-Ventas Garcia, V.; Gimeno Serrano, F.

2010-07-01

The proper management of emergencies, is a challenge for which it is essential to be prepared. Integrated Software Performance Chips In case of fire and rapid access to information, make this application a must to effectively drive any emergency due to fire at any nuclear facility.

Automated prototyping tool-kit (APT)

OpenAIRE

Nada, Nader; Shing, M.; Berzins, V.; Luqi

2002-01-01

Automated prototyping tool-kit (APT) is an integrated set of software tools that generate source programs directly from real-time requirements. The APT system uses a fifth-generation prototyping language to model the communication structure, timing constraints, 1/0 control, and data buffering that comprise the requirements for an embedded software system. The language supports the specification of hard real-time systems with reusable components from domain specific component libraries. APT ha...

Software Construction and Composition Tools for Petascale Computing SCW0837 Progress Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Epperly, T W; Hochstein, L

2011-09-12

The majority of scientific software is distributed as source code. As the number of library dependencies and supported platforms increases, so does the complexity of describing the rules for configuring and building software. In this project, we have performed an empirical study of the magnitude of the build problem by examining the development history of two DOE-funded scientific software projects. We have developed MixDown, a meta-build tool, to simplify the task of building applications that depend on multiple third-party libraries. The results of this research indicate that the effort that scientific programmers spend takes a significant fraction of the total development effort and that the use of MixDown can significantly simplify the task of building software with multiple dependencies.

NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites: Tools for Software Based Validation and Verification of Small Satellites

Science.gov (United States)

Grubb, Matt

2016-01-01

The NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites (NOS3) is a suite of tools to aid in areas such as software development, integration test (IT), mission operations training, verification and validation (VV), and software systems check-out. NOS3 provides a software development environment, a multi-target build system, an operator interface-ground station, dynamics and environment simulations, and software-based hardware models. NOS3 enables the development of flight software (FSW) early in the project life cycle, when access to hardware is typically not available. For small satellites there are extensive lead times on many of the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components as well as limited funding for engineering test units (ETU). Considering the difficulty of providing a hardware test-bed to each developer tester, hardware models are modeled based upon characteristic data or manufacturers data sheets for each individual component. The fidelity of each hardware models is such that FSW executes unaware that physical hardware is not present. This allows binaries to be compiled for both the simulation environment, and the flight computer, without changing the FSW source code. For hardware models that provide data dependent on the environment, such as a GPS receiver or magnetometer, an open-source tool from NASA GSFC (42 Spacecraft Simulation) is used to provide the necessary data. The underlying infrastructure used to transfer messages between FSW and the hardware models can also be used to monitor, intercept, and inject messages, which has proven to be beneficial for VV of larger missions such as James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). As hardware is procured, drivers can be added to the environment to enable hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) testing. When strict time synchronization is not vital, any number of combinations of hardware components and software-based models can be tested. The open-source operator interface used in NOS3 is COSMOS from Ball Aerospace. For

LCSoft – the Life Cycle Assessment Software: New developments and status

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chavewanmas, Yodsathorn; Malakul, Pomthong; Gani, Rafiqul

2017-01-01

developed with ability to integrate with other process design tools such as process simulation software, economic analysis tool, and sustainable process design tool. In addition, several optional interpretation features are available, such as, sensitivity analysis, alternative comparison, and eco-efficiency...

Integration and validation of a data grid software

Science.gov (United States)

Carenton-Madiec, Nicolas; Berger, Katharina; Cofino, Antonio

2014-05-01

The Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is a software infrastructure for the management, dissemination, and analysis of model output and observational data. The ESGF grid is composed with several types of nodes which have different roles. About 40 data nodes host model outputs and datasets using thredds catalogs. About 25 compute nodes offer remote visualization and analysis tools. About 15 index nodes crawl data nodes catalogs and implement faceted and federated search in a web interface. About 15 Identity providers nodes manage accounts, authentication and authorization. Here we will present an actual size test federation spread across different institutes in different countries and a python test suite that were started in December 2013. The first objective of the test suite is to provide a simple tool that helps to test and validate a single data node and its closest index, compute and identity provider peer. The next objective will be to run this test suite on every data node of the federation and therefore test and validate every single node of the whole federation. The suite already implements nosetests, requests, myproxy-logon, subprocess, selenium and fabric python libraries in order to test both web front ends, back ends and security services. The goal of this project is to improve the quality of deliverable in a small developers team context. Developers are widely spread around the world working collaboratively and without hierarchy. This kind of working organization context en-lighted the need of a federated integration test and validation process.

Transformation as a Design Process and Runtime Architecture for High Integrity Software

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bespalko, S.J.; Winter, V.L.

1999-04-05

We have discussed two aspects of creating high integrity software that greatly benefit from the availability of transformation technology, which in this case is manifest by the requirement for a sophisticated backtracking parser. First, because of the potential for correctly manipulating programs via small changes, an automated non-procedural transformation system can be a valuable tool for constructing high assurance software. Second, modeling the processing of translating data into information as a, perhaps, context-dependent grammar leads to an efficient, compact implementation. From a practical perspective, the transformation process should begin in the domain language in which a problem is initially expressed. Thus in order for a transformation system to be practical it must be flexible with respect to domain-specific languages. We have argued that transformation applied to specification results in a highly reliable system. We also attempted to briefly demonstrate that transformation technology applied to the runtime environment will result in a safe and secure system. We thus believe that the sophisticated multi-lookahead backtracking parsing technology is central to the task of being in a position to demonstrate the existence of HIS.

Case Studies in Environment Integration

Science.gov (United States)

1991-12-01

such as CADRE Teamwork and Frame Technology FrameMaker , are integrated. Future plans include integrating additional software development tools into...Pictures, Sabre C, and Interleaf or FrameMaker . Cad- re Technologies has announced integration agreements with Saber C and Pansophic, as well as offering...access to the Interleaf and FrameMaker documentation tools. While some of the current agreements between vendors to create tool coalitions are

The Application of Intentional Subjective Properties and Mediated Communication Tools to Software Agents in Online Disputes Resolution Environments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Renzo Gobbin

2004-11-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the use of subjective properties in modeling an architecture for cooperative agents using Agent Communication Language (ACL that is used as a mediating tool for cooperative communication activities between and within software agents. The role that subjective and objective properties have in explaining and modeling agent internalization and externalization of ACL messages is investigated and related to Vygotsky’s developmental learning theories such as Mediated Activity Theory. A novel agent architecture ALMA (Agent Language Mediated Activity based on the integration of agents’ subjective and objective properties within an agent communication activity framework will be presented. The relevance of software agents subjective properties in modeling applications such as e-Law Online Dispute Resolution for e-business contractual arrangements using natural language subject/object relation in their communication patterns will be discussed.

Improvements to Integrated Tradespace Analysis of Communications Architectures (ITACA) Network Loading Analysis Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Nathaniel; Welch, Bryan W.

2018-01-01

NASA's SCENIC project aims to simplify and reduce the cost of space mission planning by replicating the analysis capabilities of commercially licensed software which are integrated with relevant analysis parameters specific to SCaN assets and SCaN supported user missions. SCENIC differs from current tools that perform similar analyses in that it 1) does not require any licensing fees, 2) will provide an all-in-one package for various analysis capabilities that normally requires add-ons or multiple tools to complete. As part of SCENIC's capabilities, the ITACA network loading analysis tool will be responsible for assessing the loading on a given network architecture and generating a network service schedule. ITACA will allow users to evaluate the quality of service of a given network architecture and determine whether or not the architecture will satisfy the mission's requirements. ITACA is currently under development, and the following improvements were made during the fall of 2017: optimization of runtime, augmentation of network asset pre-service configuration time, augmentation of Brent's method of root finding, augmentation of network asset FOV restrictions, augmentation of mission lifetimes, and the integration of a SCaN link budget calculation tool. The improvements resulted in (a) 25% reduction in runtime, (b) more accurate contact window predictions when compared to STK(Registered Trademark) contact window predictions, and (c) increased fidelity through the use of specific SCaN asset parameters.

Security System Software

Science.gov (United States)

1993-01-01

C Language Integration Production System (CLIPS), a NASA-developed expert systems program, has enabled a security systems manufacturer to design a new generation of hardware. C.CURESystem 1 Plus, manufactured by Software House, is a software based system that is used with a variety of access control hardware at installations around the world. Users can manage large amounts of information, solve unique security problems and control entry and time scheduling. CLIPS acts as an information management tool when accessed by C.CURESystem 1 Plus. It asks questions about the hardware and when given the answer, recommends possible quick solutions by non-expert persons.

GMATA: An Integrated Software Package for Genome-Scale SSR Mining, Marker Development and Viewing.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xuewen; Wang, Le

2016-01-01

Simple sequence repeats (SSRs), also referred to as microsatellites, are highly variable tandem DNAs that are widely used as genetic markers. The increasing availability of whole-genome and transcript sequences provides information resources for SSR marker development. However, efficient software is required to efficiently identify and display SSR information along with other gene features at a genome scale. We developed novel software package Genome-wide Microsatellite Analyzing Tool Package (GMATA) integrating SSR mining, statistical analysis and plotting, marker design, polymorphism screening and marker transferability, and enabled simultaneously display SSR markers with other genome features. GMATA applies novel strategies for SSR analysis and primer design in large genomes, which allows GMATA to perform faster calculation and provides more accurate results than existing tools. Our package is also capable of processing DNA sequences of any size on a standard computer. GMATA is user friendly, only requires mouse clicks or types inputs on the command line, and is executable in multiple computing platforms. We demonstrated the application of GMATA in plants genomes and reveal a novel distribution pattern of SSRs in 15 grass genomes. The most abundant motifs are dimer GA/TC, the A/T monomer and the GCG/CGC trimer, rather than the rich G/C content in DNA sequence. We also revealed that SSR count is a linear to the chromosome length in fully assembled grass genomes. GMATA represents a powerful application tool that facilitates genomic sequence analyses. GAMTA is freely available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gmata/?source=navbar.

SOFTWARE SUPPORT FOR RICH PICTURES

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Valente, Andrea; Marchetti, Emanuela

2010-01-01

Rich pictures (RP) are common in object-oriented analysis and design courses, but students seem to have problems in integrating them in their projects' workflow. A new software tool is being developed, specific for RP authoring. To better understand students' issues and working practice with RP...

APMS: An Integrated Suite of Tools for Measuring Performance and Safety

Science.gov (United States)

Statler, Irving C.; Lynch, Robert E.; Connors, Mary M. (Technical Monitor)

1997-01-01

This is a report of work in progress. In it, I summarize the status of the research and development of the Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS) for managing, processing, and analyzing digital flight-recorded data. The objectives of the NASA-FAA APMS research project are to establish a sound scientific and technological basis for flight-data analysis, to define an open and flexible architecture for flight-data-analysis systems, and to articulate guidelines for a standardized database structure on which to continue to build future flight-data-analysis extensions. APMS will offer to the air transport community an open, voluntary standard for flight-data-analysis software, a standard that will help to ensure suitable functionality, and data interchangeability, among competing software programs. APMS will develop and document the methodologies, algorithms, and procedures for data management and analyses to enable users to easily interpret the implications regarding safety and efficiency of operations. APMS does not entail the implementation of a nationwide flight-data-collection system. It is intended to provide technical tools to ease the large-scale implementation of flight-data analyses at both the air-carrier and the national-airspace levels in support of their Flight Operations and Quality Assurance (FOQA) Programs and Advanced Qualifications Programs (AQP). APMS cannot meet its objectives unless it develops tools that go substantially beyond the capabilities of the current commercially available software and supporting analytic methods that are mainly designed to count special events. These existing capabilities, while of proven value, were created primarily with the needs of air crews in mind. APMS tools must serve the needs of the government and air carriers, as well as air crews, to fully support the FOQA and AQP programs. They must be able to derive knowledge not only through the analysis of single flights (special-event detection), but through

Integrating Design Decision Management with Model-based Software Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Könemann, Patrick

Design decisions are continuously made during the development of software systems and are important artifacts for design documentation. Dedicated decision management systems are often used to capture such design knowledge. Most such systems are, however, separated from the design artifacts...... of the system. In model-based software development, where design models are used to develop a software system, outcomes of many design decisions have big impact on design models. The realization of design decisions is often manual and tedious work on design models. Moreover, keeping design models consistent......, or by ignoring the causes. This substitutes manual reviews to some extent. The concepts, implemented in a tool, have been validated with design patterns, refactorings, and domain level tests that comprise a replay of a real project. This proves the applicability of the solution to realistic examples...

Power, Avionics and Software - Phase 1.0:. [Subsystem Integration Test Report

Science.gov (United States)

Ivancic, William D.; Sands, Obed S.; Bakula, Casey J.; Oldham, Daniel R.; Wright, Ted; Bradish, Martin A.; Klebau, Joseph M.

2014-01-01

This report describes Power, Avionics and Software (PAS) 1.0 subsystem integration testing and test results that occurred in August and September of 2013. This report covers the capabilities of each PAS assembly to meet integration test objectives for non-safety critical, non-flight, non-human-rated hardware and software development. This test report is the outcome of the first integration of the PAS subsystem and is meant to provide data for subsequent designs, development and testing of the future PAS subsystems. The two main objectives were to assess the ability of the PAS assemblies to exchange messages and to perform audio testing of both inbound and outbound channels. This report describes each test performed, defines the test, the data, and provides conclusions and recommendations.

Visualization of scientific data for high energy physics: PAW, a general-purpose portable software tool for data analysis and presentation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brun, R.; Couet, O.; Vandoni, C.E.; Zanarini, P.

1990-01-01

Visualization of scientific data although a fashionable word in the world of computer graphics, is not a new invention, but it is hundreds years old. With the advent of computer graphics the visualization of Scientific Data has now become a well understood and widely used technology, with hundreds of applications in the most different fields, ranging from media applications to real scientific ones. In the present paper, we shall discuss the design concepts of the Visualization of Scientific Data systems in particular in the specific field of High Energy Physics. During the last twenty years, CERN has played a leading role as the focus for development of packages and software libraries to solve problems related to High Energy Physics (HEP). The results of the integration of resources from many different Laboratories can be expressed in several million lines of code written at CERN during this period of time, used at CERN and distributed to collaborating laboratories. Nowadays, this role of software developer is considered very important by the entire HEP community. In this paper a large software package, where man-machine interaction and graphics play a key role (PAW-Physics Analysis Workstation), is described. PAW is essentially an interactive system which includes many different software tools, strongly oriented towards data analysis and data presentation. Some of these tools have been available in different forms and with different human interfaces for several years. 6 figs

A tool to include gamma analysis software into a quality assurance program.

Science.gov (United States)

Agnew, Christina E; McGarry, Conor K

2016-03-01

To provide a tool to enable gamma analysis software algorithms to be included in a quality assurance (QA) program. Four image sets were created comprising two geometric images to independently test the distance to agreement (DTA) and dose difference (DD) elements of the gamma algorithm, a clinical step and shoot IMRT field and a clinical VMAT arc. The images were analysed using global and local gamma analysis with 2 in-house and 8 commercially available software encompassing 15 software versions. The effect of image resolution on gamma pass rates was also investigated. All but one software accurately calculated the gamma passing rate for the geometric images. Variation in global gamma passing rates of 1% at 3%/3mm and over 2% at 1%/1mm was measured between software and software versions with analysis of appropriately sampled images. This study provides a suite of test images and the gamma pass rates achieved for a selection of commercially available software. This image suite will enable validation of gamma analysis software within a QA program and provide a frame of reference by which to compare results reported in the literature from various manufacturers and software versions. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Mixed-Dimensionality VLSI-Type Configurable Tools for Virtual Prototyping of Biomicrofluidic Devices and Integrated Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Makhijani, Vinod B.; Przekwas, Andrzej J.

2002-10-01

This report presents results of a DARPA/MTO Composite CAD Project aimed to develop a comprehensive microsystem CAD environment, CFD-ACE+ Multiphysics, for bio and microfluidic devices and complete microsystems. The project began in July 1998, and was a three-year team effort between CFD Research Corporation, California Institute of Technology (CalTech), University of California, Berkeley (UCB), and Tanner Research, with Mr. Don Verlee from Abbott Labs participating as a consultant on the project. The overall objective of this project was to develop, validate and demonstrate several applications of a user-configurable VLSI-type mixed-dimensionality software tool for design of biomicrofluidics devices and integrated systems. The developed tool would provide high fidelity 3-D multiphysics modeling capability, l-D fluidic circuits modeling, and SPICE interface for system level simulations, and mixed-dimensionality design. It would combine tools for layouts and process fabrication, geometric modeling, and automated grid generation, and interfaces to EDA tools (e.g. Cadence) and MCAD tools (e.g. ProE).

A review of electronic engineering design free software tools

OpenAIRE

Medrano Sánchez, Carlos; Plaza García, Inmaculada; Castro Gil, Manuel Alonso; García Sevilla, Francisco; Martínez Calero, J.D.; Pou Félix, Josep; Corbalán Fuertes, Montserrat

2010-01-01

In this paper, we review electronic design free software tools. We have searched open source programs that help with several tasks of the electronic design flow: analog and digital simulation, schematic capture, printed circuit board design and hardware description language compilation and simulation. Using some rapid criteria for verifying their availability, we have selected some of them which are worth working with. This work intends to perform a deeper analysis of fre...

New software tool for dynamic radiological characterisation and monitoring in nuclear sites

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Szoeke, Istvan; Louka, Michael N.; Mark, Niels K.; Bryntesen, Tom R.; Bratteli, Joachim; Edvardsen, Svein T.; Gustavsen, Morten A.; Toppe, Aleksander L.; Johnsen, Terje; Rindahl, Grete

2012-01-01

The Halden Reactor Project (HRP) is a jointly sponsored international cooperation, under the aegis of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - Nuclear Energy Agency. Extensive and valuable guidance and tools, connected to safe and reliable operation of nuclear facilities, has been elaborated throughout the years within the frame of this programme. The HRP has particularly high level results in virtual-reality based tools for real-time areal and personal monitoring. The techniques, developed earlier, are now being supplemented to enhance the planning and monitoring capabilities, and support general radiological characterisation connected to nuclear sites and facilities. Due to the complexity and abundance of the input information required, software tools, dedicated to the radiological characterization of contaminated materials, buildings, land and groundwater, are applied to review, evaluate and visualize the data. Characterisation of the radiation situation in a realistic environment can be very complex, and efficient visualisation of the data to the user is not straight forward. The monitoring and planning tools elaborated in the frame of the HRP feature very sophisticated three-dimensional (3D) high definition visualisation and user interfaces to promote easy interpretation of the input data. The visualisation tools permit dynamic visualisation of radiation fields in virtual or augmented reality by various techniques and real-time personal monitoring of humanoid models. In addition new techniques are being elaborated to visualise the 3D distribution of activities in structures and materials. The dosimetric algorithms, feeding information to the visualisation and user interface of these planning tools, include deterministic radiation transport techniques suitable for fast photon dose estimates, in case physical and radio- and spectrometric characteristics of the gamma sources are known. The basic deterministic model, implemented in earlier

The CMS Data Quality Monitoring software experience and future improvements

CERN Document Server

Batinkov, Atanas Ivanov

2013-01-01

The Data Quality Monitoring Software proved to be a central tool in the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment. Its flexibility allowed its integration in several environments: online, for real-time detector monitoring; offline, for the final, fine-grained data certification. The usage of the Data Quality Monitoring software in the different environments and its integration in the Compact Muon Solenoid reconstruction software framework and in all production workflows are presented. The main technical challenges and the adopted solutions to them will be also discussed with emphasis on functionality, long-term robustness and performance.

Ignominy: a tool for software dependency and metric analysis with examples from large HEP packages

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tuura, L.A.; Taylor, L.

2001-01-01

Ignominy is a tool developed in the CMS IGUANA project to analyse the structure of software systems. Its primary component is a dependency scanner that distills information into human-usable forms. It also includes several tools to visualise the collected data in the form of graphical views and numerical metrics. Ignominy was designed to adapt to almost any reasonable structure, and it has been used to analyse several large projects. The original purpose of Ignominy was to help us better ensure the quality of our own software, and in particular warn us about possible structural problems early on. As a part of this activity it is now used as a standard part of our release procedure. The authors also use it to evaluate and study the quality of external packages they plan to make use of. The authors describe what Ignominy can find out, and how it can be used to visualise and assess a software structure. The authors also discuss the inherent problems of the analysis as well as the different approaches to modularity the tool makes quite evident. The focus is the illustration of these issues through the analysis results for several sizable HEP software projects

Business Intelligence Applied to the ALMA Software Integration Process

Science.gov (United States)

Zambrano, M.; Recabarren, C.; González, V.; Hoffstadt, A.; Soto, R.; Shen, T.-C.

2012-09-01

Software quality assurance and planning of an astronomy project is a complex task, specially if it is a distributed collaborative project such as ALMA, where the development centers are spread across the globe. When you execute a software project there is much valuable information about this process itself that you might be able to collect. One of the ways you can receive this input is via an issue tracking system that will gather the problem reports relative to software bugs captured during the testing of the software, during the integration of the different components or even worst, problems occurred during production time. Usually, there is little time spent on analyzing them but with some multidimensional processing you can extract valuable information from them and it might help you on the long term planning and resources allocation. We present an analysis of the information collected at ALMA from a collection of key unbiased indicators. We describe here the extraction, transformation and load process and how the data was processed. The main goal is to assess a software process and get insights from this information.

Evaluation of Oracle Big Data Integration Tools

OpenAIRE

Urhan, Harun; Baranowski, Zbigniew

2015-01-01

Abstract The project’s objective is evaluating Oracle’s Big Data Integration Tools. The project covers evaluation of two of Oracle’s tools, Oracle Data Integrator: Application Adapters for Hadoop to load data from Oracle Database to Hadoop and Oracle SQL Connectors for HDFS to query data stored on a Hadoop file system by using SQL statements executed on an Oracle Database.

Reverse Engineering in Data Integration Software

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vlad DIACONITA

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Integrated applications are complex solutions that help build better consolidated and standardized systems from existing (usually transactional systems. Integrated applications are complex solutions, whose complexity are determined by the economic processes they implement, the amount of data employed (millions of records grouped in hundreds of tables, databases, hundreds of GB and the number of users [11]. Oracle, once mainly known for his database and e-business solutions has been constantly expanding its product portfolio, providing solutions for SOA, BPA, Warehousing, Big Data and Cloud Computing. In this article I will review the facilities and the power of using a dedicated integration tool in an environment with multiple data sources and a target data mart.

VLM Tool for IDS Integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cǎtǎlin NAE

2010-03-01

Full Text Available This paper is dedicated to a very specific type of analysis tool (VLM - Vortex Lattice Method to be integrated in a IDS - Integrated Design System, tailored for the usage of small aircraft industry. The major interest is to have the possibility to simulate at very low computational costs a preliminary set of aerodynamic characteristics for basic aerodynamic global characteristics (Lift, Drag, Pitching Moment and aerodynamic derivatives for longitudinal and lateral-directional stability analysis. This work enables fast investigations of the influence of configuration changes in a very efficient computational environment. Using experimental data and/or CFD information for a specific calibration of VLM method, reliability of the analysis may me increased so that a first type (iteration zero aerodynamic evaluation of the preliminary 3D configuration is possible. The output of this tool is basic state aerodynamic and associated stability and control derivatives, as well as a complete set of information on specific loads on major airframe components.The major interest in using and validating this type of methods is coming from the possibility to integrate it as a tool in an IDS system for conceptual design phase, as considered for development for CESAR project (IP, UE FP6.

Integrated Decision Tools for Sustainable Watershed/Ground Water and Crop Health using Predictive Weather, Remote Sensing, and Irrigation Decision Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, A. S.; Andales, A.; McGovern, C.; Smith, G. E. B.; David, O.; Fletcher, S. J.

2017-12-01

US agricultural and Govt. lands have a unique co-dependent relationship, particularly in the Western US. More than 30% of all irrigated US agricultural output comes from lands sustained by the Ogallala Aquifer in the western Great Plains. Six US Forest Service National Grasslands reside within the aquifer region, consisting of over 375,000 ha (3,759 km2) of USFS managed lands. Likewise, National Forest lands are the headwaters to many intensive agricultural regions. Our Ogallala Aquifer team is enhancing crop irrigation decision tools with predictive weather and remote sensing data to better manage water for irrigated crops within these regions. An integrated multi-model software framework is used to link irrigation decision tools, resulting in positive management benefits on natural water resources. Teams and teams-of-teams can build upon these multi-disciplinary multi-faceted modeling capabilities. For example, the CSU Catalyst for Innovative Partnerships program has formed a new multidisciplinary team that will address "Rural Wealth Creation" focusing on the many integrated links between economic, agricultural production and management, natural resource availabilities, and key social aspects of govt. policy recommendations. By enhancing tools like these with predictive weather and other related data (like in situ measurements, hydrologic models, remotely sensed data sets, and (in the near future) linking to agro-economic and life cycle assessment models) this work demonstrates an integrated data-driven future vision of inter-meshed dynamic systems that can address challenging multi-system problems. We will present the present state of the work and opportunities for future involvement.

The present status of software engineering

CERN Document Server

Pressman, Roger S

1991-01-01

In this seminar, we will discuss the present status and future directions of software engeneering and CASE. Key topics to be discussed include: new paradigms for software engineering; software metrics; process assessment; the current state of analysis and design methods; reusability and re-engineering; formal methods. Among the questions to be answered are: How will software engineering change as the 1990s progress? What are the "technology drivers"? What will analysis, design, coding, testing, quality assurance and software management look like in the year 2000? How will CASE tools evolve in the 1990s and will they be as "integrated" as many people believe? How can you position your Organization to accommodate the coming changes?

RAGE Reusable Game Software Components and Their Integration into Serious Game Engines

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van der Vegt, Wim; Nyamsuren, Enkhbold; Westera, Wim

2016-01-01

This paper presents and validates a methodology for integrating reusable software components in diverse game engines. While conforming to the RAGE com-ponent-based architecture described elsewhere, the paper explains how the interac-tions and data exchange processes between a reusable software

An open-source software tool for the generation of relaxation time maps in magnetic resonance imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Messroghli, Daniel R; Rudolph, Andre; Abdel-Aty, Hassan; Wassmuth, Ralf; Kühne, Titus; Dietz, Rainer; Schulz-Menger, Jeanette

2010-01-01

In magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, T1, T2 and T2* relaxation times represent characteristic tissue properties that can be quantified with the help of specific imaging strategies. While there are basic software tools for specific pulse sequences, until now there is no universal software program available to automate pixel-wise mapping of relaxation times from various types of images or MR systems. Such a software program would allow researchers to test and compare new imaging strategies and thus would significantly facilitate research in the area of quantitative tissue characterization. After defining requirements for a universal MR mapping tool, a software program named MRmap was created using a high-level graphics language. Additional features include a manual registration tool for source images with motion artifacts and a tabular DICOM viewer to examine pulse sequence parameters. MRmap was successfully tested on three different computer platforms with image data from three different MR system manufacturers and five different sorts of pulse sequences: multi-image inversion recovery T1; Look-Locker/TOMROP T1; modified Look-Locker (MOLLI) T1; single-echo T2/T2*; and multi-echo T2/T2*. Computing times varied between 2 and 113 seconds. Estimates of relaxation times compared favorably to those obtained from non-automated curve fitting. Completed maps were exported in DICOM format and could be read in standard software packages used for analysis of clinical and research MR data. MRmap is a flexible cross-platform research tool that enables accurate mapping of relaxation times from various pulse sequences. The software allows researchers to optimize quantitative MR strategies in a manufacturer-independent fashion. The program and its source code were made available as open-source software on the internet

An open-source software tool for the generation of relaxation time maps in magnetic resonance imaging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kühne Titus

2010-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In magnetic resonance (MR imaging, T1, T2 and T2* relaxation times represent characteristic tissue properties that can be quantified with the help of specific imaging strategies. While there are basic software tools for specific pulse sequences, until now there is no universal software program available to automate pixel-wise mapping of relaxation times from various types of images or MR systems. Such a software program would allow researchers to test and compare new imaging strategies and thus would significantly facilitate research in the area of quantitative tissue characterization. Results After defining requirements for a universal MR mapping tool, a software program named MRmap was created using a high-level graphics language. Additional features include a manual registration tool for source images with motion artifacts and a tabular DICOM viewer to examine pulse sequence parameters. MRmap was successfully tested on three different computer platforms with image data from three different MR system manufacturers and five different sorts of pulse sequences: multi-image inversion recovery T1; Look-Locker/TOMROP T1; modified Look-Locker (MOLLI T1; single-echo T2/T2*; and multi-echo T2/T2*. Computing times varied between 2 and 113 seconds. Estimates of relaxation times compared favorably to those obtained from non-automated curve fitting. Completed maps were exported in DICOM format and could be read in standard software packages used for analysis of clinical and research MR data. Conclusions MRmap is a flexible cross-platform research tool that enables accurate mapping of relaxation times from various pulse sequences. The software allows researchers to optimize quantitative MR strategies in a manufacturer-independent fashion. The program and its source code were made available as open-source software on the internet.

On integrating modeling software for application to total-system performance assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lewis, L.C.; Wilson, M.L.

1994-05-01

We examine the processes and methods used to facilitate collaboration in software development between two organizations at separate locations -- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) in New Mexico. Our software development process integrated the efforts of these two laboratories. Software developed at LLNL to model corrosion and failure of waste packages and subsequent releases of radionuclides was incorporated as a source term into SNLs computer models for fluid flow and radionuclide transport through the geosphere

Aging and Plant Life Management with the Software Tool COMSY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nopper, Helmut; Rossner, Roland; Zander, Andre

2006-01-01

Within the scope of PLEX, a systematic and efficient ageing and plant life management system is becoming more and more important to ensure a safe and economical power plant operation in spite of continuous plant ageing. For the methodical implementation of PLIM and PLEX strategies, AREVA NP has developed the software tool COMSY. This knowledge-based program integrates degradation analysis tools with an inspection data management system. COMSY provides the capability to establish a program guided technical documentation by utilizing a virtual plant model which includes information regarding thermal hydraulic operation, water chemical conditions and materials applied for mechanical components. It provides the option to perform a plant-wide screening for identifying system areas, which are sensitive for degradation mechanisms typically experienced in nuclear power plants (FAC, corrosion fatigue, IGSCC, Pitting, etc.). If a system area is identified as being susceptible to degradation, a detailed analysis function enables the condition-oriented service life evaluation of vessels and piping systems in order to localize and conservatively quantify the effect of degradation. Based on these forecasts with COMSY, specific strategies can be developed to mitigate the effect of degradation and inspection activities can be focused on degradation sensitive areas. In addition, a risk-informed assessment tool serves to optimize inspection activities in respect to degradation potential and the associated damage consequence. After an in-service inspection is performed for a distinct location, the inspection data is to be evaluated according to generally accepted procedures. For this purpose an integrated inspection data management system module provides standardized, interactively operated evaluation functions. The key inspection results are transmitted as feedback in respect to the as-is condition of the component. Subsequently, all further life evaluations of the associated