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Understanding of software costs is important because of the overall magnitude of these costs (in 1985, roughly $70 billion per year in the U.S. and over $140 billion per year worldwide) and the fundamental impact software will have on our future quality of life. Section I of this paper discusses these issues. Section II, the main portion of the paper, discusses the two primary ways of understanding software costs. The "black-box" or influence-function approach provides useful experimental and observational in- sights oh the relative software productivity and quality leverage of various management, technical, environmental, and personnel options. The "glass-box" or cost distribution approach helps identify strategies for integrated software productivity and quality improvement programs, via such structures as the value chain and the software productivity opportunity tree. The individual strategies for improving software productivity identified in Section II are: • writing less code; • getting the best from people; • avoiding rework; • developing and using integrated project support environments. Section It provides overall surveys of early and recent progress along these and other lines identified by the opportunity tree. Better understanding of software costs leads to better methods of controlling software project costs, and vice versa. Section III discusses these issues. It points out that a good framework of techniques exists for controlling software budgets, schedules, and work completed, but that a great deal of further progress is needed to provide an overall set of planning and control techniques covering software product qualities and end-user system objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method for decomposing process-control systems. This decomposition method is automated, meaning that a series of principles that can be evolved to support automated tools are given to help a designer decompose complex systems into a collection of simpler components. Each component resulting from the decomposition process can be designed and implemented independently of the other components. Also, these components can be tested or verified by the end-user independently of each other. Moreover, the system properties, such as safety, stability, and reliability, can be mathematically inferred from the properties of the individual components. These components are referred to as IDEAL (lndependently Developable End-user Assessable Logical) components. This decomposition method is applied to a case study specified by the High-Integrity Systems group at Sandia National Labs, which involves the control of a future version of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents an application of the finite state model checker SPIN to formally analyze a multithreaded plan execution module. the plan execution module is one component of NASA's New Millennium Remote Agent, an artificial intelligence-based space-craft control system architecture which launched in October of 1998 as part of the DEEP SPACE 1 mission. the bottom layer of the plan execution module architecture is a domain specific language, named ESL (Executive Support Language), implemented as an extension to multithreaded COMMON LISP. ESL supports the construction of reactive control mechanisms for autonomous robots and space-craft. For this case study, we translated the ESL services for managing interacting parallel, goal-and-event driven processes into the PROMELA input language of SPIN. A total of five previously undiscovered concurrency errors were identified within the implementation of ESL. According to the Remote Agent programming team, the effort has had a major impact, locating errors that would not have been located otherwise and, in one case, identifying a major design flaw. In fact, in a different part of the system, a concurrency bug identical to one discovered by this escaped testing and caused a deadlock during an in-flight experiment 96 million kilometers from earth. The work additionally motivated the introduction of procedural abstraction in terms of inline procedures into SPIN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special collection of papers had its genesis at the IEEE Computer Society Workshop on Software Testing and Test Documentation held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida during December 18-20, 1978. This collection is devoted to selected papers on program testing that were presented at the Workshop. The thrust is towards approaches that can support the heuristic components of testing. There is increasing recognition that it is unlikely there will be a grand theory of testing which will lead to fully automated testing systems. Instead the tester will be called upon to use his intuition and problem-dependent knowledge in a discipline manner to test for a variety of specified error types. But it is crucial that this less ambitious, heuristic activity be nevertheless firmly embedded in an underlying framework which is logical, rigorous and well-understood.

This paper describes methods for automatically analyzing formal, state-based requirements specifications for some aspects of completeness and consistency. The approach uses a low-level functional formalism, simplifying the analysis process. State-space explosion problems are eliminated by applying the analysis at a high level of abstraction; i.e., instead of generating a reachability graph for analysis, the analysis is performed directly on the model. The method scales up to large systems by decomposing the specification into smaller, analyzable parts and then using functional composition rules to ensure that verified properties hold for the entire specification. The analysis algorithms and tools have been validated on TCAS II, a complex, airborne, collision-avoidance system required on all commercial aircraft with more than 30 passengers that fly in U.S. airspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method for estimating software development effort in the early phases of a large software-intensive project and a "front-end" process incorporating the method. We describe the application of this methodology to the domestic U.S. 5ESS Switch project—a very large multiyear continuing effort, with new features incorporated into yearly releases. For each feature to be estimated, a "feature team" generates a detailed feature definition with high-level functionality requirements and a high-level design proposal. These are used in the estimeeting, a formal working meeting of estimators from affected parts of the project. The meeting produces a development estimate for use in deciding which features to include in the next release. The benefits of this methodology include well-defined milestones (high-level feature requirements, high-level designs, and estimates), and less tangible benefits like better working relationships between parts of the project, interorganizational synergy, and increased confidence in the front-end process. Further, once development begins, the estimates are sufficient to begin staffing and budgeting. However, market conditions may change during the project implementation; this could require changing some feature definitions, and even adding and deleting large features. Therefore it may be difficult to reconcile the original estimates with resources required as the product approaches delivery. At this writing the methodology has been used for three releases for the 5ESS Switch, and preliminary indications of the accuracy of its estimates are promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SDD-1, A System for Distributed Databases, is a distributed database system being developed by Computer Corporation of America (CCA), Cambridge, MA. SDD-1 permits data to be stored redundantly at several database sites in order to enhance the reliability and responsiveness of the system and to facilitate upward scaling of system capacity. This paper describes the method used by SDD-1 for updating data that are stored redundantly. Redundant updating can be costly because it may potentially involve extensive intercomputer communication overhead in order to lock all copies of data being updated. The method described here avoids this overhead by identifying cases in which it is not necessary to perform this global database locking. The identification of transactions that do not require global locking is based on a predefinition of transaction classes performed by the database administrator using an analysis technique described herein. The classes defined are used at run time to decide what level of synchronization is needed for a given transaction. It is important to note that this predefinition activity in no way limits the transactions that the system can accept; it merely permits more efficient execution of those types of transactions that were anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2003 held in Portland, Oregon. The article discusses three papers that were selected for representing the best of ICSE 2003. The first paper "Scaling Step Wise Refinement," by D. Batory, J.N. Sarvela and A. Rauschmayer, is about development of computer software. The second paper is "Fragment Class Analysis for Testing of Polymorphism in Java Software" by A. Rountev, A. Milanova and B.C. Ryder, and the third paper is "Modular Verification of Software Components in C," by S. Chaki, F. Clarke, A. Groce, S. Jha and H. Veith. These two papers concern validation of software. The article also names some persons who devoted their time and energy in organizing ICSE 2003. The author suggests that managing the complexity of modern software systems is a grand challenge. Throughout the conference, there were exhibits, posters and informal research demonstrations as well as an onsite newsletter describing memorable moments, humor and fascinating facts.

Software pervades the growing web of computers and communications systems providing diverse services, personal, commercial, financial, public, and entertainment services. Providing timely, cost-effective, high-quality software for these diverse services requires the best possible technology and practice that the software engineering community can provide. The 1999 International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) was held in Los Angeles, California. Following the lead of previous ICSE conferences, the aim of ICSE held in the year 1999 was to bring together software engineering practitioners and researchers to present and discuss the most promising approaches for meeting the software challenges of the next century. The February 2001, issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering presents a special section with some of the best papers of the conference held in the year 1999. These papers were selected through an additional review process conducted after the conference. The ICSE '99 program committee selected a number of the best quality papers. The authors of these papers were invited to submit extended versions of their papers for consideration for journal publication.

Focuses on the agenda for the 1999 International Conference of Software Engineering in Los Angeles, California. Enhancement of the industrial presentation programs; List of participating research papers; Topics and writers for the research papers.

This article provides information about extended versions of four of the best papers presented at the Eleventh Annual Conference on Computer Assurance, with the theme of "Industrial Strength Research," held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in June 1996. These papers address the issue of how to apply the theory of high assurance computing to system and software development. The first paper, "An Industrial-Strength Theorem Prover for a Logic Based on Common Lisp" describes a computational logic for Applicative Common Lisp (ACL2), a reimplemented, extended version of the Boyer-Moore theorem prover. In the second paper, titled, "Comparing Verification Systems: Interactive Consistency in ACL2," researchers have developed a multitude of formal techniques for specifying and verifying computer systems. The benchmark problem exists in this type of specification is the Oral Messages algorithm, a generalization of the Byzantine Generals problem. The third paper, "Using a Protean Language to Enhance Expressiveness in Specification," introduces a Protean specification language, a generalization of process algebras that allows the user to invent his own domain-specific operators to improve abstraction and readability.

The article presents an introduction to the special section related to International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE'97), published in the August 1998 issue of the journal "IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering." Authors say that ICSE was held in Boston Massachusetts, in the week of May 17-23, 1997. The main goal of the conference was to meet needs and expectations of a large variety of attendees. The program committee of the conference was involved in a comprehensive reviewing process of papers submitted. At the end of this process, three papers were selected for publication. In the first paper, "Evaluating Testing Methods by Delivered Reliability," researchers discuss a method for evaluating the effectiveness of testing, based on a measure of the program reliability after testing. The second paper "Analyzing Partially Implemented Real-Time System," presents a technique for analyzing partially-implemented real-time systems. The third paper "Communication Metrics for Software Development," discusses results of comprehensive experiment whose goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of a set of communication metrics.

The Symposium on Foundations in Software Engineering is an annual conference sponsored by Association for Computing Machinery, a computer portal and dedicated to the presentation of innovative research results contributing to an engineering discipline for software systems. This special section of the July 1998 issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering features three of the best papers from the fourth symposium, held in October 1996 in San Francisco, California. During its first half-decade, research results presented at this conference have covered engineering research topics. However, a number of distinguishing properties tend to characterize the best of the papers and have helped set the standards for high-quality software engineering research. The three papers in this special section illustrate these properties. One of the critical challenges for software engineering research is to find practical tools that help system builder restructure existing systems. Mark Moriconi was general chair for the symposium and deserves considerable credit for its success.

The papers appearing in this special issue of the "IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering" periodical are based on papers that originally appeared in the proceedings of the First International Conference on Data Engineering which was held in Los Angeles, California, on April 25-27, 1984. The paper by Braegger, Dudler, Rebsamen and Zehnder was selected as the best paper at the conference by the awards committee, and concerns a database tool called Gambit. This design tool is based on an extended relational/entity relationship model and assists the designer with a wide variety of subtools. The paper by Farmer, King, and Myers is also about a design tool which is called the Semantic Database Constructor (Sedaco). It is based on a semantic data model which buffers the designer from most low level data structuring issues.

The Third International Conference on Data Engineering was held in Los Angeles, California on February 2 to 6, 1987. The conference was designed as an international forum for bringing together researchers, developers, managers, strategic planners and other users with an interest in the research, design and development of data engineering methodologies, strategies and systems. Its scope includes computer science, artificial intelligence, electrical engineering, and computer engineering. It featured papers from all major areas of data engineering, including database design and modeling, performance evaluation, algorithms, integrity, security, fault tolerance, query language, artificial intelligence approaches, knowledge bases, database machines, distributed databases and data engineering applications.