A quality system database (QSD), and software to administer the database, were developed to support recording of administrative nonconformance activities that involve requirements for documentation of corrective and/or preventive actions, which can include ISO 9000 internal quality audits and customer complaints

Gifford, Luther

Snell, William H.

Stites, William

Turner, Anne M.

NASA Technical Reports Server

NASA Tech Briefs, April 2010 27
Software
Natural-Language Parser for
PBEM
A computer program called “Hunter”
accepts, as input, a colloquial-English de-
scription of a set of policy-based-manage-
ment rules, and parses that description
into a form useable by policy-based enter-
prise management (PBEM) software.
PBEM is a rules-based approach suitable
for automating some management tasks.
PBEM simplifies the management of a
given enterprise through establishment of
policies addressing situations that are
likely to occur. PBEM provides a way of
managing configurations of network ele-
ments, applications, and processes via a set
of high-level rules or business policies
rather than managing individual ele-
ments. Thus, PBEM enables abstraction of
the capabilities of the individual elements
and switching of control to higher levels.
Development of a system that under-
stands colloquial English is an extremely
difficult problem. Because most people
do not write perfect English, such a sys-
tem must be very robust in order to un-
derstand what has been written. Hunter is
such a system. Recognizing that all possi-
ble dialects and variants thereof cannot
be anticipated in advance, Hunter was de-
veloped to have a unique capability to ex-
tract the intended meaning instead of fo-
cusing on parsing the exact ways in which
individual words are used.
This program was written by Mark James
of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labora-
tory. Further information is contained in a
TSP (see page 1).
In accordance with Public Law 96-517,
the contractor has elected to retain title to this
invention. Inquiries concerning rights for its
commercial use should be addressed to:
Innovative Technology Assets Management
JPL
Mail Stop 202-233
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109-8099
E-mail: iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov
Refer to NPO-45791, volume and number
of this NASA Tech Briefs issue, and the
page number.
Policy Process Editor for
P3BM Software
A computer program enables genera-
tion, in the form of graphical representa-
tions of process flows with embedded natu-
ral-language policy statements, input to a
suite of policy-, process-, and performance-
based management (P3BM) software devel-
oped at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Like the program described in the immedi-
ately preceding article, this program (1)
serves as an interface between users and the
Hunter software, which translates the input
into machine-readable form; and (2) en-
ables users to initialize and monitor the pol-
icy-implementation process.
This program provides an intuitive
graphical interface for incorporating
natural-language policy statements into
business-process flow diagrams. Thus,
the program enables users who dictate
policies to intuitively embed their in-
tended process flows as they state the
policies, reducing the likelihood of er-
rors and reducing the time between dec-
laration and execution of policy.
This program was written by Mark James,
Hsin-Ping Chang, Edward T. Chow, and
Gerald A. Crichton of Caltech for NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. Further information is
contained in a TSP (see page 1).
In accordance with Public Law 96-517,
the contractor has elected to retain title to this
invention. Inquiries concerning rights for its
commercial use should be addressed to:
Innovative Technology Assets Management
JPL
Mail Stop 202-233
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109-8099
E-mail: iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov
Refer to NPO-45821, volume and number
of this NASA Tech Briefs issue, and the
page number.
A Quality System Database
A quality system database (QSD), and
software to administer the database, were
developed to support recording of admin-
istrative nonconformance activities that
involve requirements for documentation
of corrective and/or preventive actions,
which can include ISO 9000 internal qual-
ity audits and customer complaints. [“ISO
9000” denotes a series of standards, pub-
lished by the International Organization
for Standardization (ISO), for implemen-
tation of quality systems to be used in con-
tractual situations.] The software provides
for recording and storage of data, enables
tracking, and provides status information. 
The current version of this QSD soft-
ware was written in the Microsoft Access
software system and is server-based. Be-
cause of an increase in the number of
users and the need for data security and
reduction in response time, conversion
to a Web-based version supported by Or-
acle software was investigated. As a result,
a prototype Web-based version was devel-
oped and found to satisfy the aforemen-
tioned needs. Efforts are being made to
determine the modifications necessary to
serve the expanded user base. In addi-
tion, the Johnson Space Center ISO au-
diting group has expressed an interest in
adopting this software.
This program was written by William H.
Snell, Anne M. Turner, Luther Gifford, and
William Stites of United Space Alliance for
Johnson Space Center. Further information is
contained in a TSP (see page 1). MSC-
23447-1
Trajectory Optimization:
OTIS 4
The latest release of the Optimal Tra-
jectories by Implicit Simulation (OTIS4)
allows users to simulate and optimize
aerospace vehicle trajectories. With
OTIS4, one can seamlessly generate opti-
mal trajectories and parametric vehicle
designs simultaneously. New features also
allow OTIS4 to solve non-aerospace con-
tinuous time optimal control problems.
The inputs and outputs of OTIS4 have
been updated extensively from previous
versions. Inputs now make use of object-
oriented constructs, including one called a
metastring. Metastrings use a greatly im-
proved calculator and common nomencla-
ture to reduce the user’s workload. They
allow for more flexibility in specifying vehi-
cle physical models, boundary conditions,
and path constraints. The OTIS4 calcula-
tor supports common mathematical func-
tions, Boolean operations, and conditional
statements. This allows users to define
their own variables for use as outputs, con-
straints, or objective functions.
The user-defined outputs can directly
interface with other programs, such as
spreadsheets, plotting packages, and vi-
sualization programs.
Internally, OTIS4 has more explicit and
implicit integration procedures, including
high-order collocation methods, the
pseudo-spectral method, and several varia-
tions of multiple shooting. Users may
switch easily between the various methods.
Several unique numerical techniques,
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A Quality System Database

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