FMEA and Fault Tree based Software Safety Analysis of a Railroad Crossing Critical System

Software for safety-critical systems must deal with the hazards identified by safety analysis in order to make the system safe, risk-free and fail-safe. Certain faults in critical systems can result in catastrophic consequences such as death, injury or environmental harm. The focus of this paper is an approach to software safety analysis based on a combination of two existing fault removal techniques. A comprehensive software safety analysis involving a combination of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) is conducted on the software functions of the critical system to identify potentially hazardous software faults. A prototype safety-critical system - Railroad Crossing Control System (RCCS), incorporating a microcontroller and software to operate the train on a track circuit is described

Validação de uma escala de mensuração de atitude em STEM em um contexto brasileiro na Universidade de Pernambuco utilizando análise fatorial confirmatória

O ensino de Ciência, Tecnologia, Engenharia e Matemática (STEM) dentro de todos os níveis educacionais está se tornando de grande importância em escala mundial, mas no Brasil os números indicam um déficit. Neste contexto, o objetivo deste artigo consiste em validar a aplicação de uma escala de atitude em relação a STEM dentro do contexto brasileiro. A amostra é composta por um grupo alunos ingressantes nos cursos de engenharia. A validação da escala foi feita com a utilização de análise fatorial confirmatória, na qual os resultados apontaram que 67% dos itens da escala eram compatíveis a realidade brasileira. Os outros itens foram alterados, gerando uma nova escala, adaptada ao cenário educacional STEM no Brasil

Gender Differences in Attitudes toward Science & Technology among Majors

In the USA, women have consistently been proportionally underrepresented in science and technology (S&T). In these disciplines, as students move from high schools to colleges to graduate programs, qualified women drop out at higher rates than do men, resulting in a striking loss of talented students. Attitude toward a discipline is one of the major factors in students’ choice of majors. As a result, attitudes toward S&T are issues with longstanding attention and interest in education research. Retention of female students in S&T majors remains a major concern. The purpose of the study was to investigate attitudes toward S&T including attitudes toward female participation in S&T, among S&T majors, and examine differences by gender and class standing. Such an investigation would provide deeper insights to help devise strategies to retain women in S&T majors