Investigating Effective Inspection of Object-Oriented Code

Since the development of software inspection over twenty-five years ago it has become established as an effective means of detecting defects. Inspections were originally developed at a time when the procedural paradigm was dominant but, with the Object- Oriented (OO) paradigm growing in influence and use, there now exists a lack of guidance on how to apply inspections to OO systems. Object-oriented and procedural languages differ not only in their syntax but also in a number of more profound ways - the encapsulation of data and associated functionality, the common use of inheritance, and the concepts of polymorphism and dynamic binding. These factors influence the way that modules (classes) are created in OO systems, which in turn influences the way that OO systems are structured and execute. Failure to take this into account may hinder the application of inspections to OO code. This thesis shows that the way in which the objectoriented paradigm distributes related functionality can have a serious impact on code inspection and, to address this problem, it develops and empirically evaluates three code reading techniques

Peer Review Report 2006

This document is reporting findings from the research peer reviews held February 7-9, 2006 for PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Research and Development Program. The findings and recommendations in this report derive from the scoring and comments collected from the peer review panelists. Department of Transportation (DOT) Operating Agencies (OA) are required to begin a systematic process for peer review planning for all influential and highly influential information that the OA plans to disseminate in the “foreseeable” future. Through the Information Quality Act, Congress directed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.” A resulting OMB Bulletin entitled, “Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review” was issued prescribing required procedures for Federal programs. The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) produced procedures governing modal implementation of this OMB Bulletin. These procedures as well as the OMB Bulletin serve as the basis and justification for the PHMSA Pipeline Safety R&D Program peer reviews. Peer reviews are intended to uncover any technical problems or unsolved issues in a scientific work product through the use of technically competent and independent (objective) experts. Peer review of a major scientific work product that will have the imprimatur of the Federal Government needs to be incorporated into the upfront planning of any action based in the work product. This includes obtaining the proper resources commitments (reviewers and funds) then establishing realistic schedules

Peer Review Report 2006

This document is reporting findings from the research peer reviews held February 7-9, 2006 for PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Research and Development Program. The findings and recommendations in this report derive from the scoring and comments collected from the peer review panelists. Department of Transportation (DOT) Operating Agencies (OA) are required to begin a systematic process for peer review planning for all influential and highly influential information that the OA plans to disseminate in the “foreseeable” future. Through the Information Quality Act, Congress directed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.” A resulting OMB Bulletin entitled, “Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review” was issued prescribing required procedures for Federal programs. The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) produced procedures governing modal implementation of this OMB Bulletin. These procedures as well as the OMB Bulletin serve as the basis and justification for the PHMSA Pipeline Safety R&D Program peer reviews. Peer reviews are intended to uncover any technical problems or unsolved issues in a scientific work product through the use of technically competent and independent (objective) experts. Peer review of a major scientific work product that will have the imprimatur of the Federal Government needs to be incorporated into the upfront planning of any action based in the work product. This includes obtaining the proper resources commitments (reviewers and funds) then establishing realistic schedules

Towards a self-evolving software defect detection process

Software defect detection research typically focuses on individual inspection and testing techniques. However, to be effective in applying defect detection techniques, it is important to recognize when to use inspection techniques and when to use testing techniques. In addition, it is important to know when to deliver a product and use maintenance activities, such as trouble shooting and bug fixing, to address the remaining defects in the software.To be more effective detecting software defects, not only should defect detection techniques be studied and compared, but the entire software defect detection process should be studied to give us a better idea of how it can be conducted, controlled, evaluated and improved.This thesis presents a self-evolving software defect detection process (SEDD) that provides a systematic approach to software defect detection and guides us as to when inspection, testing or maintenance activities are best performed. The approach is self-evolving in that it is continuously improved by assessing the outcome of the defect detection techniques in comparison with historical data.A software architecture and prototype implementation of the approach is also presented along with a case study that was conducted to validate the approach. Initial results of using the self-evolving defect detection approach are promising

Developing a catalogue of errors and evaluating its impact on software development

The development of quality software is of paramount importance, yet this has been and continues to be an elusive goal for software engineers. Delivered software often fails due to errors that are injected during its development. Correcting these errors early in the development or preventing them altogether can, therefore, be considered as one way to improve software quality. In this thesis, the development of a Catalogue of Errors is described. Field studies with senior software engineering students are used to confirm that developers using the Catalogue of Errors commit fewer errors in their development artifacts. The impact of the Catalogue of Errors on productivity is also examined

Evaluating Distributed Inspection through Controlled Experiments

Inspection methods can be classified according to their discipline and flexibility. The discipline concerns the formal aspect of an inspection method, whereas the flexibility is strongly related to the simplicity of organising and conducting a meeting. The majority of the available distributed inspection methods have a high level of discipline and flexibility as they are based on a well-defined process and the discussion among team members is easily organised and conducted. In this study the authors present two controlled experiments to evaluate the effectiveness and the efficacy of a distributed inspection process to discover defects within source code. In particular, the first experiment compares the distributed inspection method proposed to a disciplined but not flexible method (i.e. the Fagan's inspection process). In the second experiment the authors investigate differences between the same distributed inspection method and a flexible but not disciplined method (i.e. the pair inspection method). Data analysis reveals that more flexible methods require less time to inspect a software artefact, while the discipline level does not affect the inspection quality

Knowledge-based support in Non-Destructive Testing for health monitoring of aircraft structures

Maintenance manuals include general methods and procedures for industrial maintenance and they contain information about principles of maintenance methods. Particularly, Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) methods are important for the detection of aeronautical defects and they can be used for various kinds of material and in different environments. Conventional non-destructive evaluation inspections are done at periodic maintenance checks. Usually, the list of tools used in a maintenance program is simply located in the introduction of manuals, without any precision as regards to their characteristics, except for a short description of the manufacturer and tasks in which they are employed. Improving the identification concepts of the maintenance tools is needed to manage the set of equipments and establish a system of equivalence: it is necessary to have a consistent maintenance conceptualization, flexible enough to fit all current equipment, but also all those likely to be added/used in the future. Our contribution is related to the formal specification of the system of functional equivalences that can facilitate the maintenance activities with means to determine whether a tool can be substituted for another by observing their key parameters in the identified characteristics. Reasoning mechanisms of conceptual graphs constitute the baseline elements to measure the fit or unfit between an equipment model and a maintenance activity model. Graph operations are used for processing answers to a query and this graph-based approach to the search method is in-line with the logical view of information retrieval. The methodology described supports knowledge formalization and capitalization of experienced NDT practitioners. As a result, it enables the selection of a NDT technique and outlines its capabilities with acceptable alternatives