Independent Verification And Validation

Comprehensive and up-to-date, it covers the most vital part of software development, independent verification and validation. Presents a variety of methods that will ensure better quality, performance, cost and reliability of technical products and systems. Features numerous hints, tips and instructions for better interaction between verification and validation personnel, development engineers and managers. Includes 8 case histories ranging from major engineering systems through information systems. Many of the principles involved also apply to computer hardware as well as the fields of science and engineering.

Independent verification and validation of software .

Effective software is essential to the success and safety of the Space Shuttle, including its crew and its payloads. The on-board software continually monitors and controls critical systems throughout a Space Shuttle flight. At NASA's request, the committee convened to review the agency's flight software development processes and to recommend a number of ways those processes could be improved. This book, the result of the committee's study, evaluates the safety, oversight, and management functions that are implemented currently in the Space Shuttle program to ensure that the software is of the highest quality possible. Numerous recommendations are made regarding safety and management procedures, and a rationale is offered for continuing the Independent Verification and Validation effort that was instituted after the Challenger Accident.

This book presents an innovative approach to verifying and validating rule-based expert systems. It features a complete set of techniques and tools that provide a more formal, objective, and automated means of carrying out verification and validation procedures. Many of the concepts behind these procedures have been adapted from conventional software, while others have required that new techniques or tools be created because of the uniqueness of rule-based expert systems. Verification and Validation of Rule-Based Expert Systems is a valuable reference for electrical engineers, software engineers, artificial intelligence experts, and computer scientists involved with object-oriented development, expert systems, and programming languages.

Advances in scientific computing have made modelling and simulation an important part of the decision-making process in engineering, science, and public policy. This book provides a comprehensive and systematic development of the basic concepts, principles, and procedures for verification and validation of models and simulations. The emphasis is placed on models that are described by partial differential and integral equations and the simulations that result from their numerical solution. The methods described can be applied to a wide range of technical fields, from the physical sciences, engineering and technology and industry, through to environmental regulations and safety, product and plant safety, financial investing, and governmental regulations. This book will be genuinely welcomed by researchers, practitioners, and decision makers in a broad range of fields, who seek to improve the credibility and reliability of simulation results. It will also be appropriate either for university courses or for independent study.

Neural networks are members of a class of software that have the potential to enable intelligent computational systems capable of simulating characteristics of biological thinking and learning. This volume introduces some of the methods and techniques used for the verification and validation of neural networks and adaptive systems.

Despite its increasing importance, the verification and validation of the human-machine interface is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of system development. Although much has been written about the design and developmentprocess, very little organized information is available on how to verifyand validate highly complex and highly coupled dynamic systems. Inability toevaluate such systems adequately may become the limiting factor in our ability to employ systems that our technology and knowledge allow us to design. This volume, based on a NATO Advanced Science Institute held in 1992, is designed to provide guidance for the verification and validation of all highly complex and coupled systems. Air traffic control isused an an example to ensure that the theory is described in terms that will allow its implementation, but the results can be applied to all complex and coupled systems. The volume presents the knowledge and theory ina format that will allow readers from a wide variety of backgrounds to apply it to the systems for which they are responsible. The emphasis is on domains where significant advances have been made in the methods of identifying potential problems and in new testing methods and tools. Also emphasized are techniques to identify the assumptions on which a system is built and to spot their weaknesses.