Extending Failure Modes and Effects Analysis Approach for Reliability Analysis at the Software Architecture Design Level

Several reliability engineering approaches have been proposed to identify and recover from failures. A well-known and mature approach is the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) method that is usually utilized together with Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) to analyze and diagnose the causes of failures. Unfortunately, both approaches seem to have primarily focused on failures of hardware components and less on software components. Moreover, for utilizing FMEA and FTA very often an existing implementation of the system is required to perform the reliability analysis. We propose extensions to FMEA and FTA to utilize them for the reliability analysis of software at the architecture design level. We present the software architecture reliability analysis approach (SARAH) that incorporates the extended FMEA and FTA. The approach is illustrated using an industrial case for analyzing reliability of the software architecture of a Digital TV

Detecting Mode Inconsistencies in Component-Based Embedded Software

To deal with increasing size and complexity, componentbased software development has been employed in embedded systems. These systems comprise a set of components each of which implements a particular functionality. The system utilizes the components to provide the functionalities that are required in a set of working modes. Components can also be considered to have a set of working modes. They should work in harmony and consistent with the working mode of the system. Due to several errors that remain undetected during the design and implementation phases, components can make wrong assumptions about the working mode of the system and the working modes of the other components. These errors may lead to severe failures. Fault tolerance is required to prevent these failures at runtime. The first step to achieve fault tolerance is error detection. To detect mode inconsistencies at run-time, we propose a "lightweight" error detection mechanism, which can be integrated with component-based embedded systems. We define three dependent levels of abstractions: the run-time behavior of components, the working mode specifications of components and the specification of the working modes of the system. We define explicit links among these levels by specifying a mutual consistency condition. This allows us to detect the user observable run-time errors. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated by implementing a software monitor integrated into a TV system

Availability analysis of software architecture decomposition alternatives for local recovery

We present an efficient and easy-to-use methodology to predict—at design time—the availability of systems that support local recovery. Our analysis techniques work at the architectural level, where the software designer simply inputs the software modules’ decomposition annotated with failure and repair rates. From this decomposition, we automatically generate an analytical model (a continuous-time Markov chain), from which an availability measure is then computed, in a completely automated way. A crucial step is the use of intermediate models in the input/output interactive Markov chain formalism, which makes our techniques efficient, mathematically rigorous, and easy to adapt. In particular, we use aggressive minimization techniques to keep the size of the generated state spaces small. We have applied our methodology on a realistic case study, namely the MPlayer open-source software. We have investigated four different decomposition alternatives and compared our analytical results with the measured availability on a running MPlayer. We found that our predicted results closely match the measured ones

The DESARC method: an effective approach for university-industry cooperation

Achieving excellence in software development techniques is an important issue for the organizations that develop advanced software-intensive products. Within this context, software excellence is defined as the adoption of advanced software techniques and methods to cope with the complexity and the needs of modern software systems. However, this is not trivial due to the rapidly changing software technology, continuously increasing existence of large and complex software systems and difficulty in following the developments of the state-of-the-art in computer science. This paper focuses on the last aspect. To overcome this problem, it is necessary to define new ways for efficient university-software industry cooperation since advancements in computer science are largely carried out by universities. The existing university-industry cooperation methods are usually triggered after writing grant proposals to financing organizations and passing through strict selection processes. This is, in general, a very inefficient and tedious process to undertake. Even in a perfect review process, many good ideas may not go through simply because they do not fulfill the necessary procedural requirements. Moreover, industrial people may not be familiar with the methods and jargon used in the selection processes. Even if a project is approved, many times it does not result in a technology transfer to industry since accomplishing academic results is the main objective of such projects. This paper presents an overview of a pilot implementation of our approach termed as “Describe, Search and Acquire the Required Capability” (DESARC), which aims at establishing a more effective identification of research projects, allocation of these research projects to research groups and the cooperation between universities and industry. We discuss the results of the application of the method to two large IT companies in Turkey

Učinci liječenja fenetil esterom kavene kiseline na reumatološke pokazatelje i metabolizam željeza u štakorica s izazvanom šećernom bolešću.

Diabetology and rheumatology have much in common, including many biochemical features. Diabetic cases suffer excessively from common musculoskeletal conditions. The present study aimed to explore the association between the caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) treatment and the standard parameters of diabetic and rheumatologic controls. Serum anti-streptolysin-O (ASO), C-reactive protein (CRP), rheumatoid factor (RF) titers and glucose (GLU), cholesterol (CHOL), triglyceride (TG), high density lipoprotein (HDL), very low density lipoprotein (VLDL), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), sodium (Na), potassium (K), chloride (Cl), calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), uric acid (UA), iron (Fe), iron-binding capacity (IBC), total iron-binding capacity (TIBC) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) levels were measured in 22 female Wistar-Albino rats. The animals were divided into three groups: group 1: non-diabetic rats as control; group 2: streptozotocin (STZ)-induced, untreated diabetic rats; and group 3: STZ-induced, CAPE-treated diabetic rats. Levels of GLU were increased in group 2. ASO values were decreased in group 3. TG and VLDL levels were increased in group 3 compared with the group 1. Higher UA levels were detected in group 3 compared with group 2. The levels of Fe and TIBC were decreased in group 3. The results of the present study indicate the reducing effect of CAPE on the serum levels of diabetic and rheumatologic parameters in diabetic rats.Dijabetologija i reumatologija imaju mnoge sličnosti, uključujući biokemijske procese. Oboljeli od dijabetesa pate od teških stanja mišićno-koštanog sustava. U ovom radu istražena je povezanost između liječenja fenetil esterom kavene kiseline i standardnih pokazatelja koji se kontroliraju pri dijabetičnim i reumatoidnim bolestima. Kod 22 Wistar-Albino štakorice mjereni su: serumski anti-streptolizin-O (ASO), C-reaktivni protein (CRP), titar reumatoidnog faktora (RF), zatim razina glukoze (GLU), kolesterola (CHOL), triglicerida (TG), lipoproteina visoke gustoće (HDL), lipoproteina vrlo niske gustoće (VLDL), alkalne fosfataze (ALP), gamaglutamil transferaze (GGT), natrija (Na), kalija (K), klorida (Cl), kalcija (Ca), fosfora (P), mokraćne kiseline (UA), željeza (Fe), kapaciteta vezanja željeza (IBC), ukupnog kapaciteta vezanja željeza (TIBC) i superoksid dismutaze (SOD). Životinje su bile podijeljene u tri skupine: 1. štakorice bez dijabetesa (kontrolna skupina), 2. neliječene štakorice s dijabetesom izazvanim streptozotocinom (STZ) i 3. štakorice sa streptozotocin (STZ) - izazvanim dijabetesom liječenim fenetil esterom kavene kiseline. Razine GLU bile su povećane u skupini 2. ASO vrijednosti bile su snižene u skupini 3. Razine TG i VLDL bile su povišene u skupini 3 u usporedbi s razinama u skupini 1. Više razine UA utvrđene su u skupini 3 u usporedbi sa skupinom 2. Razine Fe i TIBC bile su snižene u skupini 3. Rezultati pokazuju reducirajuće učinke fenetil estera kavene kiseline na razinu dijabetičnih i reumatoloških pokazatelja u serumu štakorica sa šećernom bolešću izazvanom streptozotocinom

Detection of Brucella among Voluntary Blood Donors in Turkey by Using a New Real Time PCR Method

Bnicellosis is a worldwide zoonosis also the incidence of which has decreased in developed countries it is still effective in Asia, Africa, Central America and the Mediterranean basin (Turkey inside) that have insufficient public health and domestic animal health programs. There are many reports about Brucella endemics in Turkey. Although, human to human transmission is not frequently, it has been reported in association with blood transfusion, bone marrow transplantation and transplacental transmission in worldwide and Turkey. Human brucellosis is diagnosed based on clinical findings and laboratory studies that include bacteriological and serological tests. The conventional serological tests are insufficiently sensitive and specific to be used individually and often leading to difficulty in interpreting the results. In this study, researchers aimed the detection of possible Brucella carriers without manifest chnHcal finding among voluntary blood donors by using new real time PCR Method. Total 632 voluntary donor blood samples for four month were investigated for Brucella. The samples were subjected to both Wright and ELISA tests for Brucella. In the second step, leucocytes were separated from all samples and performed real time PCR based on BioRad I-Cycler. Although, the region is not high risk epidemiologic area for Brucellosis in. Turkey 4 out of total 632 samples were detected by Wright agglutination and Brucella IgG, IgM ELISA while 2 positive samples were found by I-Cycler based real time PCR detection. All of positive samples were collected from rural area donors. Even it is not in high prevalence, this results and earlier studies were shown brucellosis could be a risk for blood transfusion. Researchers advice especially donors from coming rural area must be performed a questionnaire for brucellosis findings and Brucella screening tests must be performed for blood donors in endemic areas

Guiding architects in selecting architectural evolution alternatives

Due to copyright restrictions, the access to the full text of this article is only available via subscription.Although there exist methods and tools to support architecture evolution, the derivation and evaluation of alternative evolution paths are realized manually. In this paper, we introduce an approach, where architecture specification is converted to a graph representation. Based on this representation, we automatically generate possible evolution paths, evaluate quality attributes for different architectural configurations, and optimize the selection of a particular path accordingly. We illustrate our approach by modeling the software architecture evolution of a crisis management system

Software Architecture Reliability Analysis using Failure Scenarios

We propose a Software Architecture Reliability Analysis (SARA) approach that benefits from both reliability engineering and scenario-based software architecture analysis to provide an early reliability analysis of the software architecture. SARA makes use of failure scenarios that are prioritized with respect to the user-perception in order to provide a severity analysis for the software architecture and the individual components

FLORA: A framework for decomposing software architecture to introduce local recovery

The decomposition of software architecture into modular units is usually driven by the required quality concerns. In this paper we focus on the impact of local recovery concern on the decomposition of the software system. For achieving local recovery, the system needs to be decomposed into separate units that can be recovered in isolation. However, it appears that this required decomposition for recovery is usually not aligned with the decomposition based on functional concerns. Moreover, introducing local recovery to a software system, while preserving the existing decomposition, is not trivial and requires substantial development and maintenance effort. To reduce this effort we propose a framework that supports the decomposition and implementation of software architecture for local recovery. The framework provides reusable abstractions for defining recoverable units and the necessary coordination and communication protocols for recovery. We discuss our experiences in the application and evaluation of the framework for introducing local recovery to the open-source media player called MPlayer